Books 1–4

by Nancy A. Collins

  She closed around him like a velvet fist, her arms and legs wrapped about his own, holding him fast. Although he knew there was no way he could break free of her embrace, he felt no urge to escape it. Her mind reached out and touched his, teasing it from its cage of bone. She laughed, a telepathic bird song echoing inside his head, as she urged him to surrender both body and mind to his passion.

  As he shucked his skin, the jungle surged behind his eyelids. He saw a beautiful woman with intricate ritual designs scratched into her cheeks and brow smiling at him. The smell of burning copal filled his nostrils. Then he was free of his flesh, their minds twining together like mating snakes. He could not see her, but he knew Sonja was there, both within and outside him. It was a delicious feeling, one that transcended the human physical vocabulary. It went beyond any sensations he’d ever derived from sex or drugs or any form of carnal gratification. He experienced the raw essence of orgasm, cut free of biological imperative, the promised reward of the faithful: the thousand-year climax.

  Suddenly he was back in his body, to find himself rutting like a bull in heat. Sonja convulsed under him, thrusting her pelvis against his with bruising urgency. His shoulders stung and something warm trickled over his bare skin. The sight and smell of his blood dripping from her fingernails stoked his lust even higher. She arched her back, her muscles as taut as bowstrings, and hissed like a cat, her lips pulled back in a rictus grin as she bared her fangs. Palmer groaned as her contractions milked him dry.

  He lay atop her, sweat and blood drying on his back, and smoothed the hair away from her face. There were no words. None were needed. He studied the tilt of her cheekbones and the shape of her nose in the failing daylight that filtered through the drawn curtains. As he drifted into sleep, it occurred to him that this was the first time in decades he hadn’t needed a smoke after sex.

  The next thing he knew the room was in deep shadow and someone was knocking at the door. Sonja moved with the speed and agility of an animal, untangling herself from their lover’s embrace. She moved so fast he didn’t even see her slip her glasses back on.

  Palmer quickly yanked on his pants and moved to answer the door, minus his shirt and shoes. He saw Sonja out of the corner of his eye, moving along the baseboard like a tiger preparing to pounce. The sight of her muscles coiling and uncoiling underneath her moon-pale skin sparked a brief rush of lust in his loins.

  He opened the door the width of the safety chain and peered out at the small-boned African-American woman who stood shivering in the chill mountain air.

  “Whattayawant?” he grunted.

  The woman tossed back her cornrowed braids, revealing eyes that gleamed like polished rubies. “I need to see Sonja.”

  “It’s okay. Let her in.”

  Palmer opened the door and Anise hurried inside the room. She wore a loose cotton dress with dark, tulip-shaped stains on its front.

  “Where’s Fell?” Sonja asked, motioning for Palmer to keep watch at the window as she finished getting dressed.

  “It went bad,” Anise replied, her voice trembling on the edge of tears. “Worse than I thought it ever would. I’m lucky I got away.”

  “What happened?”

  “I went back and tried to talk to him, like I said I would. But it was impossible! It was like his ears were sealed with wax. I told him that I didn’t love him—that I wasn’t going to be Morgan’s brood bitch anymore. He tried to keep me from leaving. I ended up hitting him with one of the fire tools. There was a lot of blood. I tied him up and stuffed him in one of the closets. While I was busy doing that, I was surprised by another Renfield. I had no choice,” she said, grimacing in distaste. “I killed him with my bare hands.”

  “How did it feel?” Sonja asked.

  Anise stopped her pacing and scowled. Easy. Too easy.”

  “And…?” Sonja prodded.

  “It felt good,” she admitted with a shudder. “Sweet Jesus, what am I turning into? What did that bastard do to me?”

  Sonja did not answer because there was nothing she could say that would make the situation better. It had been so long since she had last believed herself human, but she could remember the horror that had accompanied the realization that she was forever beyond mortal ken. She imagined how it must have been for Anise to come to her senses and find herself not only married to a man she didn’t love and pregnant against her will, but no longer human. She was humbled by her sister’s underlying strength that her mind had not crumbled under the weight of it all. Still, she could not help but wonder how long it would be before Anise’s own version of the Other made itself known.

  “Think you’re up to a three-hour drive to San Francisco?” she asked.

  “We sure as hell can’t stay here,” Anise grunted. “Father probably has his prize Renfield out looking for me. I’m ready to go whenever you are—uh-oh.” Anise suddenly grimaced in pain. “I think I spoke too soon.”

  Palmer looked like he’d just swallowed a lemon. “Does she mean what I think she means?”

  As if in answer, Anise’s water broke onto the dirty pink shag carpet.

  “I’m afraid so,” Sonja sighed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first contraction doubled Palmer over. He was coming from the bathroom when it hit, crashing against him like a wave. The phantom pain radiating from his pelvis caused him to stagger and nearly drop the armload of towels he was carrying.

  “Screen yourself! She’s broadcasting!” Sonja barked.

  “Now you tell me,” Palmer groaned as he struggled to erect a mental barrier between him and the laboring vampire.

  Anise gave a strangled cry and dug her fingers deep into the mattress, shredding the bedclothes like rotten silk. Palmer felt the pain press against his shield like a heavy, insistent hand, but, remarkably, the barricade held.

  “This is not good. Not good at all,” Sonja said as she brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, leaving a smear of Anise’s blood on her brow. “She’s broadcasting like a damn satellite! Of all the times for her psychic powers to kick in! The Renfields will be zeroing in on our location soon, if they aren’t already.”

  “Is there any way we could get her in the car and back to San Francisco?” Palmer asked. “At least we stand a chance there. If nothing else, we could get Pangloss to help us.”

  Sonja shook her head. “She’s already crowning. Besides, Pangloss would kill her and the baby.”

  Palmer glanced over at Anise, who lay on her back, gripping the bedstead with bloodless hands. A lamp situated on the dresser, its light muted by a towel thrown over the shade, provided the room’s only illumination. The way she lay there sweating and grunting, with her dress pushed up and her knees open, was so primeval that all that was missing was a shaman shaking a rattle to complete the scene.

  “How long before the baby comes?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard enough to tell with a normal pregnancy, much less something like this. But it’s going to be soon.”

  “Great,” he grunted, rolling his eyes.

  “Better put your gun back on,” Sonja said, nodding to holstered .38 hanging from the back of a chair. “We may need it to get out of here, if Morgan’s hounds show up soon.”

  “Sonja?” Anise called out. “Where are you?”

  “I’m here, sis. I’m not going anywhere,” Sonja replied as she returned to Anise’s bedside, mopping the sweat from her face with a damp washcloth. “How you doing, kid?”

  “It hurts, Sonja,” she said from between gritted teeth. “A lot.”

  “So the Bible tells me,” Sonja sighed. “That’s only natural, Anise.”

  “No, that’s not it—not all of it, anyway. There’s something else going on.” She grimaced as another spasm racked her body. “It’s like passing a broken bottle. I—” She gave a brief cry and slammed her head against the pillows, squeezing her eyes shut. “Sweet Mother of Christ, what did I ever do to be punished like this? What?”

  “Sonja! The baby’s coming!”
Palmer cried, doubling over in phantom pain, no longer able to screen himself from Anise’s agony.

  Sonja positioned herself at the foot of the bed in time to see the baby’s head emerge from between Anise’s thighs. She moved to help the infant free itself from the birth canal, only to recoil in horror. Its head was bulbous, with eyes as black and flat as those of an insect. It had a flat, upturned nose like that of a bat, and a tube-like mouth made of gristle and lined with tiny lamprey-like teeth. As Sonja stared in disbelief, the infant creature whipped its tiny yet powerful shoulders back and forth until it finally freed one arm, revealing five tiny fingers capped by curving talons. With a weird, gurgling cry, it hooked its claws into the gore-stained bedclothes in order to drag itself the rest of the way out. Once free of its mother, the newborn vampire lay there like a maggot, glistening with birth fluids.

  Palmer muttered a curse under his breath as he stared at the thing on the bed. As Sonja moved to cut its umbilical cord with her switchblade, the creature lifted its oversized head on a surprisingly steady neck, regarding her warily with its flat black eyes.

  “Easy... easy, now...” she whispered, as if addressing a skittish, potentially dangerous animal.

  “Sonja? What’s wrong with the baby?” Anise’s voice both anxious and weak. “Why isn’t it crying, Sonja?”

  Sonja quickly severed the umbilical cord, quickly tying off the end. As she wrapped it in a clean towel, she could not help but notice that the infant was completely smooth between the legs, lacking even an anus.

  “Why don’t you answer me?” Anise asked as she struggled into a sitting position. “What’s wrong? Is it dead?”

  “No, it’s not dead,” Sonja replied, placing herself between mother and child. “But I’m not sure if it’s a baby or not.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure?”Anise said angrily. “Woman, let me see my child!”

  Sonja sighed and turned around to pick the thing and hand it over to its mother—only to find it had disappeared.

  “Shit, Palmer!” she yelped. “I thought you were keeping an eye on it!”

  “Why should I?” he replied nervously. “Hell, the thing just got born!”

  “Where’d the damn thing go?” Sonja muttered, stepping away from the bed as she scanned the shadows along the baseboards.

  Suddenly Palmer caught a blur of motion at the corner of his eye. He contemplated taking his gun out of its holster, but quickly discarded the idea.

  It’s just a baby, for Chrissakes! He told himself. A really seriously ugly, mutant vampire baby.

  Just then something small darted out from under the bureau and latched onto his right calf. He screeched as a ring of lamprey-like teeth began chewing its way to the meat inside his pants leg. Swearing and hopping on one foot, Palmer tried his best to shake the baby loose without losing his balance. On his second kick, he succeeded in sending the creature sailing halfway across the room, where it landed on its back and squealed like a suckling pig pulled from its mother’s nipple. The baby vampire flailed at the air with its chubby arms and legs like a tipped turtle desperate to right itself

  “That’s quite enough of that!” Sonja said sternly, snatching the shrieking infant off the floor. She frowned at Palmer’s leg. “You better see to that before infection sets in.”

  Palmer risked a glance at his calf and saw that his pants leg was now shredded and that blood was oozing from dozens of tiny punctures in his skin, but was otherwise unharmed.

  “What about that—that—thing?” he retorted, jabbing a finger at the struggling mutant Sonja held like a live rattlesnake, her fingers clamped behind the holes where its ears should have been

  “That’s Anise’s decision,” she reminded him. She then turned and presented the squirming monster to its mother. “I can take care of it, if it’s what you want.” Her voice was flat and without emotion, as if offering to take out the garbage.

  “No,” Anise said sadly as she stretched out her arms to accept the wriggling infant. “It’s my child. It’s my responsibility.”

  The mutant stopped its angry thrashing the moment Anise touched it, regarding her with unreadable, bottomless eyes. The gristle that formed its mouth puckered and unpuckered rapidly. It wanted to nurse.

  “It’s not its fault,” she said softly. “This was how it was born. It can’t be anything else.” She gave a hollow laugh. “You know, I actually was considering having a child before all this happened. Not anytime soon—maybe in a year or two, after I found a nice girl to settle down with. Maybe make a trip to the friendly neighborhood artificial inseminator.” Her lips twisted themselves into a bitter parody of a smile. “I never thought I’d end up with... with...” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “Like I said—it’s my responsibility.” She snapped the baby’s neck like a green twig. It didn’t even have time to cry or scratch her with its claws. She stared at the motionless body cradled in her arm and ran a trembling hand over its bulging brow. “Poor thing. It didn’t ask for any of this—ahhh!” Anise abruptly grimaced as a new wave of pain washed over her. The mutant’s corpse slipped from her arms and landed on the floor with a dull thud.

  “The contractions. They’ve started again! I—Oh Lord, not again!” Anise grabbed Sonja’s shoulder as she pushed down, her fingernails digging in deep. “Ah! Oh, Jesus! Make it stop!” She drew a shaky breath through her teeth. “Whatever the first one did trying to get out—it screwed me up bad, Sonja! I don’t know if I can—” The next contraction turned her words into an incoherent scream.

  “Don’t worry, Anise,” Sonja said as she pried herself free of Anise’s grip. “Everything will be all right. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, understand?”

  Anise’s second child came into the world wrapped in a caul, looking more like a caterpillar in a cocoon than a human child. As Sonja split the thick membrane shrouding the infant, she was relieved to see what looked to be a normal face. She gave its tiny flanks a brief pinch and was rewarded with a healthy, indignant wail from fully-formed lungs. She swiftly severed the umbilical cord and wrapped the newborn in a clean towel, then held it out to its mother.

  Anise turned her head away, pressing her face into the pillow. “I don’t want to see it.”

  “It’s all right,” Sonja smiled. “You can look.”

  As Anise cautiously lifted her head, Sonja was alarmed by how drawn and pale she looked. Anise peered cautiously at the child wrapped inside the impromptu swaddling. It was still as red as a piece of raw meat, squalled like a Siamese cat in heat and had the face of a miniature prizefighter.

  “She’s beautiful!” Anise exclaimed in relief.

  “Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Sonja whispered, placing the tiny bundle in her mother’s arms.

  While Anise was preoccupied with her baby, Sonja quietly scooped its dead twin off the floor and wrapped it in a discarded, blood-caked towel. They would have to take the thing with them and dispose of it later on. It wouldn’t do to leave something like that for the housekeeping staff to find after they checked out.

  Sonja stared absently at the gore smearing her hands, fighting the urge to lick her fingers. She knew she was pushing her own tolerance dangerously close to the edge. She needed to feed, and her surroundings weren’t helping much. The room reeked of blood.

  Palmer limped out of the bathroom. He’d ripped open his right pants leg from the knee down and wrapped his calf with strips torn from his undershirt.

  “How’s the leg?” she asked

  “It’s been better.”

  Sonja found herself staring at the crimson seeping through the makeshift bandage and wondering what his blood might taste like. She grimaced in disgust and quickly looked away.

  “How do you like Lethe?” Anise asked.

  “Lee-Thee what?” Sonja frowned, distracted by the Other’s laughter in her head.

  “As a name,” Anise explained. “It’s from Baudelaire. A name is the least I can give her before I die.”

  “Anise, list
en to me. I know you’re hurt, but you’re not going to die. You can regenerate, but you’re going to need blood. If you don’t feed soon, your body will start cannibalizing itself. Do you know what that means?”

  “You’re saying I have to kill someone if I want to stay alive. I can’t do that, Sonja! I don’t care what that bastard did to me—I refuse to be a monster.”

  “You won’t have to do it,” Sonja offered. “I’ll hunt for you. There are plenty of transients, people no one will ever miss. Drunks, hitchhikers, bums...”

  “My God, Sonja!” Anise gasped. “You sound just like him!”

  “I’m not going to let you die!” Sonja was surprised to hear herself shouting. “I won’t let you!”

  The baby started at the noise and began to cry again. Anise did not look at Sonja as she spoke, but instead addressed her words to the newborn at her side, smoothing the few wispy strands of hair on her daughter’s brow. “I can’t do it. I can’t take that step beyond. I don’t have your courage. I had enough strength to break free of Morgan, but not enough to deal with continuing my life by killing others.”

  “I felt the same way, myself, years ago,” Sonja argued. “But once you get used to it, you’ll see things differently.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of! Please, Sonja. Don’t try to talk me out of this. I know what I’m doing.”

  “But what about Lethe? What about your daughter?”

  Anise smiled and kissed her child on the forehead. “I hope she can forgive me for not being there while she grows up. But she needs more than a mother right now. She needs a champion. I promised no child of mine would be born a slave. I’m trusting you to protect her, Sonja.”

  “I’m the last person on earth you should put your faith in. I’m a murderer a hundred times over. Every day I fight to keep the demon inside me from taking over, and a lot of times I lose. You might as well hire Typhoid Mary as a baby sitter!”