“Sonja’s different—she’s not like the others.” He knew what he was saying sounded stupid, even deluded, but it was the truth. How could he hope to explain it to someone like Howell?
“You love her.” The scientist’s voice was flat, almost dead, reminding Palmer of Chaz’s equally lifeless pronouncement.
“Yes. Yes, I do.” He was surprised to hear himself admitting it out loud.
“Renfields always love their masters,” Howell said, his head beginning to nod. “That’s what makes them so loyal.” The scientist frowned and sniffed the air. “Is it my imagination, or do you smell barbecue?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sonja followed the trail of blood down the hallway, to where she knew Morgan was patiently awaiting her arrival. Although she could not see or hear him, she could feel him the same way a conjoined twin senses its sibling’s moods and health. It was a dreadful, unwanted intimacy, and it made her want to retch.
As she approached the library, the door swung open of its own volition, and a strange, flickering light the color of a ripe bruise spilled out into the corridor.
“Welcome, my child.” The voice was familiar, although it lacked the upper-class British accent it had possessed when she’d first heard it, decades ago. She took a hesitant step into the purple-black light, shielding herself as best as she could from the siren song of his personality
Morgan stood in front of a mammoth fireplace, dressed in bespoke evening wear. dinner jacket and matching pants and immaculately groomed. He flashed her a welcoming smile, as if he was genuinely glad to see her.
“Come forward, child, so I may look at you,” he said, studying her over the top of his tinted aviator glasses.
Don’t be fooled by what you see of him on the surface, the Other hissed from its place coiled within her. Look beyond the illusion. See him for what he truly is!
Sonja’s vision flickered as she shifted into the Pretender spectrum. The Morgan standing before her warped and twisted like a piece of cellophane held too close to a light bulb, his flesh losing its sun worshipper’s glow until it resembled tallow. His fingernails grew long and curled, like those of an ancient Mandarin, while cellular decay bloated his features. The smell that radiated from him reminded her of the dead mouse she’d once found lodged in an old sofa bed. The very thought of this putrescent monstrosity thrusting his rancid member into her was enough to make her gorge rise.
As much as she longed to gouge out Morgan’s eyes and use his head as a bowling ball, she had to control the rage boiling inside her. Although she had made her hate for the monster that raped and tortured her all those years ago a part of her day-to-day existence, this was not the time to indulge her loathing. She knew all too well the immensity of her rage, as well as what it could do once unleashed. She swore she would never allow herself to lose control again, like she did when she confronted Catherine Wheele; the lives she’d destroyed and the souls she’d shattered that night would haunt her to the grave and beyond.
“Should I say ‘so, we meet at last,’ and get the clichés out of the way?” Morgan suggested his handsome, debonair visage once more securely in place.
“Do you recognize me” She had to fight to keep the tremor from her voice as she asked the question.
Morgan’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Do you have any idea how many hapless, silly girls I have seduced over the last six hundred years, my dear? Do you truly expect me to remember one out of that multitude?”
“Denise Thorne. London. 1969.”
“Ah, yes! The heiress! You were actually missed, if I recall. That was careless of me. Though not as careless as not making sure I snapped your neck before tossing you out of the car. It was such a happy-go-lucky, irresponsible era! I blame the zeitgeist for my sloppiness.”
“I’ve been hunting for you for a very long time, Morgan.”
The vampire lord sighed and studied his fingernails. “I suppose you want to kill me, or something equally tedious. Tell me, child, what exactly would my demise prove?”
“That I’m not like you.”
“Indeed?” Morgan smirked, raising an eyebrow in amusement. “If you are different from me, how have you managed to survive these past few decades, little one? How have you kept yourself fed?”
“I have my ways.”
“Black market bottled blood no doubt. But that can not be all you’ve dined on. I know how bland prepackaged blood can be. Have you killed? Answer me true, child—I’ll know if you lie. I can feel your pulse racing even now.”
“Yes,” she replied grudgingly. “I have killed.”
Morgan’s smile was slow and sly. “How many have you taken down? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?”
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “And it doesn’t matter.”
“Ha!” Morgan sneered. “And you claim you’re nothing like me!”
“I am not one of you!” Sonja snapped.
“That is true,” he conceded. “You’re not a vampire, as the human like to call us. But neither are you the same as your dear, departed siblings. If only Fell and Anise had turned out half as well as you! But, perhaps, that is what I get for choosing such flawed vessels to begin with. Still, it’s a shame to destroy something as... unique as yourself. But some things simply can’t be helped. ”
He was inside her head, fast as a striking cobra, his will crashing against her own, like a wave breaking on a high cliff. With a concentrated shove, she ejected him from her mind like she would spit out a broken tooth.
“Very impressive. Your will is very strong for one so young,” Morgan asked as he watched her from behind his tinted shades. “We are more alike than you would like to believe. There are better ways for a father and daughter to resolve their differences.”
“You’re not my father!” Sonja snarled as she wiped at the blood trickling from her nose.
“Ah, but I Made you in my image, child! You are bonded far tighter to me than any parent. Although you fight it, you have more in common with me than either Anise or Fell. They were weak, flawed vessels, unworthy of the gift I gave them. In the end, they could not surrender their humanity, and it cost them everything.” Morgan held up his left hand, dragging the nail of his right thumb across his palm. A black, polluted liquid gushed forth. “Honor thy father, Sonja! Look into yourself and find me there—in the blood!”
She felt the relentless pressure of his will bearing down on her as if she’d been suddenly transported to the bottom of the ocean floor. She dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around her abdomen. Blackish-purple solar systems went nova behind her eyes. The temptation to capitulate was intense. It would be so easy to simply surrender and allow him to fill the void inside her.
Morgan moved closer, his voice that of a punishing parent. “Believe me, I don’t enjoy doing this. You are beautiful. I like beautiful things.” His handsome, male model features shivered, revealing worm-eaten ruin. “You are also very, very dangerous. I like that, too. I see elements of my younger self in you: angry, volatile, defiant. I find this similarity... arousing.” He leered at her, gesturing with a corpse-like hand to the knot in his pants. “Humans are always prattling on about love. I know nothing of that. But I do know of hunger…need…want. And you have awakened a dark fascination in me, Sonja. It is the same allure that draws a moth to the flame. I cannot allow this hunger to grow, for it imperils my continuance.” He lifted a hand smelling of graveyard mold and touched her cheek. His skin felt dead and cold against her own. “But, still, I can not help but be attracted to you.”
Sonja closed her eyes and saw a young girl, naked and bleeding, struggling to wriggle free of the red-eyed demon pinning her to the back seat of a car. She heard the girl’s screams as he emptied himself into her, and how he laughed as her pulse fluttered and dimmed beneath his cold, cold hands.
You’ve been living just to kill this bastard for decades for what he did to you! The Other’s dark voice snarled inside her head. And look at you! Cringing like a whip
ped dog offering up its throat! Let me out! Let me out, woman, before he kills us all!
“You’re trembling...” Morgan’s voice was close to her ear, his breath billowing forth in a mildewed cloud. “Are you as excited as I am?”
“Don’t touch me!” Suddenly she was free and the switchblade was in her hand. She swiped blindly in his direction, only to have Morgan kick the weapon out of her hand.
“How dare you use silver against me?” he snarled, clearly unnerved by her ability to break free of his control.
“I’m not one of your pedigreed lap dogs, Morgan,” Sonja replied defiantly. “I’m not to roll over and die simply because you tell me to! I was born in the gutter and raised on the street—and this bitch ain’t afraid to bite!”
“I was toying with the idea of breaking your will and allowing you to continue as one of my harem,” Morgan hissed angrily. “But I see now you’re too dangerous to keep, even as a pet!” His voice dropped, becoming an inhuman growl as he threw wide his arms, his eyes rolling back in its socket.
Sonja recognized the ritual stance used by Nobles in psychic combat, and followed suit, falling inside herself in time to meet Morgan on a field of battle known only as the Place Between Places.
There was darkness and light. There was up and down in all directions. Morgan’s imago hung suspended in the nothingness, its features unmarred, dressed in the silk and samite of a medieval prince. His eyes burned like polished garnet and flames licked from between his lips. His hands cupped balls of black energy that smoldered like a malignant St. Elmo’s Fire.
“Is that the best you can do, rogue?” he sneered contemptuously, motioning to his opponent’s self-image.
Sonja looked down at herself. Save for her leather jacket looking brand-new, there was no appreciable difference between her imago and her physical self.
“What difference does it make?” she replied with a shrug. “We’re all naked inside our heads.”
In reply, a tiger with three heads and the tail of a scorpion jumped out of Morgan’s chest. Sparks flew from its gnashing teeth as its heads roared in unison. It pounced, knocking Sonja onto her back. As the chimera’s fangs closed on its victim’s face, the Other began to laugh.
Howell and Palmer stared at the lock on the door to the secret laboratory began to glow, quickly going from bright red to white-hot within a matter of seconds. The odor of roasting flesh was overpowering.
“Is there another way out of here?” Palmer asked anxiously.
The scientist nodded. “There’s a trapdoor that leads directly to the nucleus.” He pointed to floor under the dissection table.
“What are we waiting for?” Palmer yelped, grabbing Dr. Howell by the arm. “If that’s what I think it is on the other side of that door, you don’t want to be here to tell it hello!”
To his surprise, Howell yanked his arm free of his grip. “I already told you I’m a dead man, Mr. Palmer!” he explained. “I’m better off dying at the hands of Morgan’s servants than falling back into his clutches.”
Before Palmer could argue any further, the door flew open, its lock and handle reduced to warm taffy. The pyrotic stepped into the room, sizzling in its own fat. Palmer dove under the dissection table and peered down the trapdoor. All he could see was a rickety ladder disappearing into the darkness below. Hardly the stairway to heaven, but it would do. If the scientist wanted to purge his sins in a one-sided battle with the burning man sent to fetch him, more power to him.
“So, the Renfields sent you in their stead, eh, Hot Stuff?” Howell said with a humorless laugh as he picked up a large, wickedly curved knife from the tray of instruments next to the dissecting table. “Well, I’m not going back! You’re going to have to kill me!”
As the blind pyrotic moved toward Howell, smoke rising from its ears and nostrils like steam from a kettle, its arm struck jar containing the unborn changeling. There was the sound of glass breaking, followed by Howell screaming unintelligible obscenities.
The monstrous fetus struck the floor of the attic, mewling piteously as it flopped about helplessly like a landed baby shark. As Palmer disappeared down the trapdoor, the last thing he saw was Dr. Howell drive the blade he was holding into the pyrotic’s stomach, slitting it from crotch to throat as easily as he might carve a roasted turkey. The pyrotic opened its mouth to scream, but all that came out was the hiss of live steam a sinuous serpent-shape made of smoke and fire, like the bearded dragons wrapped about Chinatown’s luck gate, uncoiled from the its slit gullet, consuming the hapless scientist in a wall of living flame.
The chimera squatted atop her chest, its stinger dripping poison as its triple set of jaws gnashed and snarled. Suddenly its threatening roars quickly turned into yelps of confusion and fear as the beast began to sink into its would-be victim, as if sucked into quicksand. As she got to her feet, the chimera’s oversized scorpion’s tail was still whipping madly about as it was absorbed into her torso. Her eyelids fluttered as she consumed the avatar, making its dark energy her own.
She lashed out at her attacker in retaliation, striking out with her will as if it was a bullwhip. There was a sound like the sonic boom of a low-flying jet, as pearls of blood began to appear on Morgan’s brow in place of sweat. In response, something that looked like an ape with long, spidery arms and fungus-gray fur, pulled itself free of his torso. With a high-pitched squeal, the avatar launched itself at her, sinking its claws into her face, only to emit an ultrasonic shriek as first its wrist, then its elbow, disappeared into her imago.
Realizing it was in danger of being absorbed, the avatar screeched and jettisoned its right arm before leaping free. Clutching the stump of its right shoulder, the beast loped back to Morgan, where it cowered at his feet.
“I knew you were powerful, but I had no idea you possessed such will!” Morgan scowled as he gathered the wounded avatar back into himself. “It has been a long time since I’ve been challenged this way. I’m still going to kill you, of course. But I appreciate the exercise.”
A tentacle burst from Morgan’s chest, whipping about his head like a rodeo star’s trick lariat. Two more emerged from his sides, quickly wrapping themselves around Sonja’s arms and legs, binding them to her body. Morgan laughed as the final tentacle dropped about her neck like a hangman’s noose. She hissed as the coils tightened, only to have it grow into a yowl of agony as thousands of tiny needle-filled mouths began working at her dream-flesh…
And suddenly she was no longer in the Place Between Places, but back in the waking world. She was lying on the Persian rug on the library floor, curled into a fetal ball at Morgan’s feet. Or was she? She was unsure if she was truly awake or merely dreaming that she was, as she could still feel the hideous mouths lining the tentacles that bound her imago tearing at her psyche. She looked up and saw Morgan squatting over her like a gargoyle perched on the cornice of a cathedral. His eyes were rolled so far back in his head he looked like a marble statue.
The Other’s voice abruptly sounded in her inner ear, seeming far more frightened than she’d ever heard it before. Don’t just lay there snorting dust bunnies! Kill him! Kill him before he realizes he’s fighting me instead of you!
Sonja blinked in surprise as she realized what the Other meant. She had to move fast and strike at Morgan’s physical body before he realized he was being tag-teamed. Her fingers were cold and numb as she fumbled in her pockets for her switchblade, only to find them empty. Then she remembered the vampire lord had kicked it out of her hand. But where had it landed—?
As she frantically searched the room, she finally spied the switchblade lying in the hearth, inches from the roaring fire. Marshaling all her strength, she forced herself to crawl in the direction of the fireplace. Although Morgan’s control over her physical self had disappeared, it still felt as if the marrow in her bones had been replaced with lead as she slowly, painfully, inched her way toward the knife.
In the Place Between Places, Morgan tightened his grip on his enemy’s imago. Althou
gh the flesh and bone he was grinding into paste was illusory, the pain it generated was very, very real.
“Do you know what happens to a body once its imago is destroyed, little one?” he asked as he lifted her over his head. “It’s like performing a lobotomy on the soul.”
“Like I have one to destroy!” she snarled, spitting a streamer of blood into his right eye. Suddenly pain the color of an exploding sun filled her senses as the mouths lining the tentacles began to feed in earnest. The more she struggled, the tighter the coils grew, but it was not in her nature to surrender, so the agony continued to escalate.
Morgan drew this captive enemy toward him, tilting her so that she dangled inches from his face. “You are so exquisitely lethal, my dear! I know you do not believe me, but I will mourn you, in my way. Had things been different between us, I would have made you my queen. We could have spent the coming centuries happily grinding our enemies beneath our heels. But there is no point regretting something that can never be. I promise I will make it quick if you tell me where you’ve hidden the breeder’s get.”
“Screw you.”
The tentacles knotted themselves even tighter, grinding her internal organs to jelly paste. Blood began to ooze from her nostrils, tear ducts, and ears.
“Tell me where the child is! It belongs to me! I am entitled to the fruit of my endeavor!”
“Why? So you can build a race of living vampires?” she sneered. “You don’t even know what you’ve created, do you? Anise’s child isn’t a vampire, you stupid fucker!”
“What is it, then?” he snapped.
“It’s a seraph!”
“You lie!” Morgan thundered, slamming her against a nothingness that was somehow as hard as concrete.
“You should see your face!” she laughed between fits of choking on her own blood. “What’s the matter, dead boy? Soil your pants?”
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