In the Blood (Sonja Blue)

by Nancy A. Collins

  “No! I mean, of course not!” Palmer replied anxiously. “What would I be doing with a baby? You must be smelling the Joneses down the hall. They’ve got plenty of babies—at least three or four! Nice big, fat juicy babies. But there are no babies in here though!”

  The ogre narrowed his eyes further, unconvinced. “Baby smell strong.” He snuffled again, casting for scent like a bloodhound. “Real strong!”

  And then Lethe began to cry.

  The ogre grinned in triumph. “You do got baby!”

  “Leave her alone, damn you!” Palmer shouted.

  But it was too late. Kief was already turning towards the dresser, attracted by the infant’s thin, kitten-like wail. Palmer pulled himself to his feet and launched himself after the ogre, trying to ignore the pain in his head. To his horror, he saw the ogre pick up the crying baby, dangling her by her ankles like a live chicken.

  “I’ll go peacefully if you just leave her alone!” he promised, but the ogre didn’t seem to hear him.

  “Yum-yum! Babies good eatin’!” Kief intoned as he tilted back his head and dropped his jaw, lowering the frightened infant into his gaping maw.

  Suddenly Palmer smells copal burning and he is back in the jungle. He is walking along the narrow path that runs from his people’s village to the natural spring that provides them with their drinking and cooking water. His young son, Tohil, is several lengths ahead of him. Tohil laughs and tosses rocks and sticks at the monkeys and birds in the nearby trees. He turns to wave at Palmer with his small six-fingered hand. Palmer envies the boy his spirit and energy. He has no doubt that Tohil will grow up to be a fine ballplayer some day. Before he finishes the thought, the green parts and jaguar leaps from its hiding place and grabs the boy. Palmer sees the big cat’s sharp fangs sink into his son’s shoulder, the blood leap from his son’s skin. Palmer hurls his spear at the great cat, but it is deflected by a branch. Tohil screams his father’s name as he is pulled from the path into the jungle. Palmer runs to where the jaguar ambushed his only son, but all he finds are bloodstains, bright as rubies, splashed across the broad leaves. The men from the village search for Tohil the rest of the day, but the boy is never seen again.

  “No!” Palmer screamed as he seized the grief and rage pulsing through his psyche and channeled it outward. It was as if he’d suddenly discovered a third arm, invisible to him until that moment, that allowed him to reach out and squeeze the ogre’s skull moments before he dropped Lethe, headfirst, into his razor-toothed mouth.

  Kief grunted as if stricken by a bad attack of gas, and then staggered drunkenly, thick black blood trickling from its nostrils and ears. The ogre gave a bullfrog-like croak and let go of the squalling baby, dropping it onto the nearby bed. Kief pointed a trembling, accusatory finger at Palmer and took an unsteady step in the detective’s direction.

  “You...”

  Palmer squeezed again, and this time pink fluid seeped from around the ogre’s eyes and a froth of blood and mucus began to drip from his mouth. Palmer took a step away from the advancing child-eater.

  “Did... this...”

  Jesus, what does it take to kill one of these bastards, he grimaced to himself, a direct nuclear strike?

  Just then Kief finally collapsed onto the floor, his brains, reduced to a jellied consommé, seeping from his eyes and ears.

  Palmer stepped over the fallen giant and scooped up the crying child. The minute he picked her up, her wails died down to whimpers.

  “There, there, bad monster’s gone now,” he said soothingly.

  However, he knew better than to believe his own reassurances. If Pangloss was still looking to claim him for his own, the old vampire was sure to send other operatives once Kief didn’t return with the goods. They couldn’t remain at the motel, that much was certain. Even if the management was willing to overlook the baby they returned with after their trip to wine country, he doubted they were willing to ignore gunshots and undeniably dead giant motherfucker.

  Palmer reclaimed his Luger, wrapped Lethe as warmly as he could and put on his coat. He had no other choice now but to take a cab out to the airport, sans baggage, and wait things out there.

  With Lethe tucked hidden from sight inside is raincoat, Palmer hurried to the stairwell just as the elevator down the hall pinged open. He didn’t look to see who—or what—got out. Four flights later, he strolled through the lobby, trying his best to look nonchalant while gasping for breath like a landed trout. The aged clerk manning the registration desk glanced up from a Cantonese newspaper, shrugged, and resumed his reading.

  Once outside, the panic Palmer hurried through the shadowy streets in search of a taxi, only to find them deserted. Without realizing it, he turned a corner and found himself standing in a narrow alley papered with peeling movie posters. His heart was beating way too fast and his breathing sounded ragged. He wanted a smoke real bad, but he’d left his cigarettes back at the hotel room. Behind him, a bottle skittered across pavement and broke.

  He turned to find several figures blocking the entrance to the alley, huddled together like mounds of ambulatory garbage. Palmer’s fear drained as he realized he was simply looking at street people and not Pangloss’s hirelings. Lethe stirred against him and gave out a kittenish mew.

  A man dressed in filthy castoffs with newspapers swaddling his feet shuffled forward. To Palmer’s surprise, the vagrant responded to Lethe’s call with a slightly deeper mewl of his own. The others grouped behind him grew excited and muttered amongst themselves. Palmer took a tentative step forward.

  “Uh, look, I know this sounds weird, but can anyone here tell me where I am?”

  An old woman, her hair the color and consistency of a dirty string mop, sidled towards him. She wore several layers of sweaters over a dingy, printed housedress. She smiled, displaying bare gums and golden pupil-less eyes that glowed in the dark.

  Palmer jumped back in alarm from the old woman, his skin tingling as if he’d just received a mild electric shock. Although he’d never really seen them, he knew these creatures were what Sonja had called seraphim.

  The seraph with its feet wrapped in newspapers made a reassuring hand gesture, then spoke in a rushed mixture of crystal chimes, bird song, silver bells and crashing surf. The beauty of its language brought tears to Palmer’s eyes. And even though he could not make out a single word, he understood perfectly.

  Nodding his assent, he held Lethe so the assembled seraphim could see her. They once again grew excited and crowded in closer so that they could touch her tender baby flesh with their callused, dirty hands. Lethe did not seem to mind and responded to their strange, ethereal language with her own, babyish version.

  The sweater woman made a sound like a dolphin and began spinning in place, like a bedraggled whirling dervish. Within seconds the others joined in her dance. Palmer watched in dumb fascination as blue-white sparks leapt from the twirling seraphim, streaming from their outstretched hands and hair. Within seconds the ragged street people had been transformed into luminous dust devils. Palmer was so dazzled by the beauty of what was happening he was unprepared when one of the light-beings danced forward and plucked Lethe from his hands.

  “Hey! Give me back my baby!” he shouted.

  Lethe giggled joyously as she was lifted high into the air on a pillow of colored lights, surrounded by a cadre of rainbow-colored whirlwinds. One of the seraphim paused long enough to twine itself about his shoulders, whispering to Palmer in its strange non-language. He need not fear for the child. She would be returned to him when it was safe to do so. Palmer tried to snare the bright intelligence with his own mind, but it was like trying to trap quicksilver in his bare hands. The seraph eeled its way free of his grasp, more amused than insulted by such a clumsy attempt at interrogation.

  Lethe bobbed in the night air, smiling down at Palmer like an infant saint taken up by angels. Within moments she had drifted away from view, like a balloon caught in a jet stream. Palmer knew he had nothing to fear from the seraphim. If
anything, Lethe was far safer with them than she ever could be with him.

  Now he was free to follow Sonja. Provided he could find ready transportation. As he exited the alley he scooped up a loose brick, hefting it experimentally. He hadn’t boosted a car without his tools since Nirvana’s final tour.

  The Tiger’s Cage

  Thou who, abruptly as a knife,

  Didst come into my heart; thou who

  A demon horde into my life

  Didst enter, wildly dancing, through

  The doorways of my sense unlatched

  To make my spirit thy domain.

  —Baudelaire, The Vampire

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fell sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the countryside racing by as they sped back towards the Sonoma Valley. In his tattered denims and loose-fitting shirt, he could almost pass for a college boy, provided you ignored the dried blood and his missing ear.

  “I’m sorry I had to fuck you up like that, kid,” Sonja said.

  Fell blinked, started from wherever his thoughts had taken him. “Don’t worry about it. I understand what you were trying to do.” His hand strayed to where his ear had been. “Besides, it’ll all grow back, won’t it?”

  “In time,” she replied. “Your regenerative powers at this stage are still fairly weak, though. Give it a couple of days, maybe a week, and you’ll be good as new.”

  Fell grunted and glanced at his warped reflection in the windshield. “What about my eyes? When will my eyes end up like yours?”

  Sonja shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “Hard to say. It took several years for mine to mutate. Perhaps yours never will. Maybe it’s different with different people. Who knows?” Sonja cleared her throat. “Both Anise and one of the Renfields mentioned someone called Dr. Howell. Who is he? Another vampire?”

  Fell balled his fists. “No, he’s human.”

  “Is he a Renfield?”

  “Hell, no! Howell openly loathes the Renfields,” he said with a snort. “I guess you could call him a ‘normal’ human. He’s Morgan’s pet mad scientist, although they don’t seem to get along too well. I think I remember him saying something about having been kidnapped.”

  “If he’s not a Renfield, and he’s working under duress, what kind of hold does Morgan have over him to make him do his bidding? Is he holding his family hostage?”

  “Doc’s a stone junkie,” Fell smirked, holding up an arm and pantomiming sinking a hypodermic needle into his bent elbow. “He gets all the heroin he can handle. And then some.”

  “And this guy’s a scientist?”

  “That’s what he keeps saying. He claims he’s some kind of hotshot geneticist. Occasionally he would get hopped up and start ranting about how he was our true father. I always thought it was just crazy talk, like we got from the Renfields.”

  “How many Renfields does Morgan have at Ghost Trap?”

  “There were six, plus Nasakenai,” Fell replied. “They avoided us as much as possible.”

  “Is that the Japanese guy I saw at the club?”

  “Yeah, that’s him; he’s Morgan’s top Renfield—the only one he ever called by name.”

  “Well, I took out one at Ghost Trap this afternoon and one at the bar,” Sonja mused, ticking off the kills on the fingers of her right hand. “Anise said she was forced to dispose of one while escaping. That depletes his stables by half. Does he have any mercs on staff?”

  “What?”

  “Mercenaries,” she explained. “You know, muscle for hire. A lot of different Pretender species make their way nowadays by hiring themselves out to vampires like Morgan. I already know he’s got a pyrotic on the payroll. Did you see any ogres? Vargr?”

  “Whozits?” Fell frowned in bafflement.

  “Boy, he really did keep you isolated,” Sonja said, shaking her head,

  Fell’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment. “Anise and I were restricted to a suite of rooms on the ground floor for most of what you would call our ‘lives’. The first month or two we were kept in a sterile environment, with only Morgan and Doc Howell allowed around us. After that, we stayed in our suite, save for when the Renfields escorted us to and from Doc’s laboratory on the second floor.

  “We were only allowed outside once—it was during the day, and we were under heavy supervision by the Renfields. Dr. Howell was there, too—taking notes and doing things like measuring our core body temperature. I guess he was trying to find out if we’d die when exposed to the sun.”

  “Weren’t you even a little bit curious as to what was really going on?”

  Fell’s face reddened even further. “Not really. That’s a horrible thing to admit to, but it’s the truth. Anise was a little more inquisitive than I was, and that didn’t become part of her behavior until after she became pregnant. Until yesterday afternoon, it had never occurred to me that the life I was living was in anyway...unusual. After all, I didn’t have anything to compare it to, did I?” Fell shook his head, amazed at his own naiveté. “But what really makes me sick is that a part of me, deep down, liked not having to think. I was never any good at sports back when I was Tim Sorrell, Super-Geek. I never did real well with the girls. I was a gold-plated wimp if ever there was one. Even though I couldn’t consciously access those memories, I realize now it was still buried deep inside me.

  “There’s a fully outfitted gymnasium on the second floor we were expected to use. I can bench-press eight hundred pounds. Me! Scrawny little ‘Dracula Weirdo’ Sorrell!” He flexed his biceps, parodying a Charles Atlas-style bodybuilder. For a fleeting moment, he was what he had once been—a bright, sensitive nineteen- year-old boy, standing on the threshold of manhood. Then the smile disappeared and he was staring back out the window again. “Morgan used to talk about ‘the cattle’ and how easy it is to control them. Once he brought in some humans from outside... I don’t know who they were. And he let me...” He closed his eyes, trying to blot the image from his memory. “I played with them.” His voice shook, the words burning his tongue. “There was sex—man, woman—it didn’t matter. And then after that...”

  “Fell, you don’t have to tell me this.”

  “But I have to! I have to tell someone!” His voice was high and tight, like a frightened girl’s. “My god, Sonja, if I can’t tell you, who can I tell?”

  She pursed her mouth into a thin line and nodded. “Go on.”

  Fell took a shuddering breath, anxiously knotting and unknotting his fingers in his lap. “After the sex, I kissed them on their arms, legs, groin—everywhere the blood was close to the surface, calling to me—but instead of moaning in pleasure they screamed. It was like my nightmares, only I wasn’t frightened by the things I was doing anymore. I drank, even though I wasn’t hungry. I did it because... because it felt good! Better than sex or drugs or anything else I could compare it to. “Father’ stayed in the room the whole time and watched me do these things, and praised me as his son. I pray to God he was controlling me, compelling me do those horrible things. Because if he wasn’t, I did them of my own free will.”

  “What happened in the past stays there,” Sonja said firmly. “Whatever you did while under Morgan’s influence is over and done with now. You have regained your memories of your human self and with them your autonomy. It’s good that you hate Morgan, but be careful with that. Nobles feed on powerful negative emotions like hate and rage. It makes them stronger. You’ve got to shield yourself from Morgan, as it will be your will against his. You have to be strong in here.” She thumped her chest with her fist. “Stronger than the one who Made you, Timothy.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m not Tim anymore, not where it really counts. I don’t know who—or what—I am now, but it’s not Timothy Sorrell. But when I think of the things I did before I regained my sense of self, it makes me want to puke. So I guess I’m not what Morgan tried to turn me into, either. I guess that makes me Fell more than I am anyone-or anything-else. Ju
st like you’re more Sonja Blue than Denise Thorne.”

  “How did you know about that—?” she asked in surprise.

  “When you were working me over at the Shadow Box, I kept getting, I dunno, flashes, I guess. I saw you and Morgan. I saw what he did to make you... what you are.”

  A muscle twitched in Sonja’s cheek as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “You’re right. I don’t really think of myself as Denise anymore. She’s more someone I used to know.”

  “Did you like her?” he asked.

  Sonja reflected on the question for a moment. “Yeah,” she said with a laugh, “I guess I do.”

  “Good. I like Tim, too,” Fell replied with a smile, “now that it’s too late to do him any good.”

  “What do you mean you can’t find him?” Morgan bellowed, hurling an ivory music box at the cowering Renfield, who dodged at the last moment, leaving the antique to smash against the teak paneling.

  “The doctor is not in his laboratory, nor is he in his assigned room.”

  “Are you saying he’s managed to escape?”

  “No, of course not,” the nervous Renfield, a balding older man with thick glasses, assured his master. He’s definitely somewhere in the house.”

  “If that is the case, why haven’t you located him and brought him before me?”

  “He’s not in the nucleus, milord. He’s... somewhere in the in the Ghost Trap itself.” Having delivered this news, the Renfield pulled his neck in between his shoulders like a turtle in anticipation of his master’s wrath.

  “Damn his junkie soul to a thousand drug-free hells!” Morgan shrieked, knocking books and rare antiques from a nearby shelf with an angry sweep of his arm. “He did this to me! He deliberately set out to ruin my plans!” The vampire spun back around to face the trembling Renfield, pointing a trembling finger at the whey-faced psychic. “I want the Ghost Trap searched, is that clear? Take the others with you!”