In the blood, p.22
In the Blood, page 22
part #2 of Sonja Blue Series
Morgan kissed Fell's sweaty brow gently, like a father bidding his young son good night. "You should have stayed in the cage, Fell," he murmured. "You are no longer of use to me. Pity. You showed such promise in therapy."
Morgan picked up the letter opener Fell had dropped, turning it about between his agile fingers. He ran his thumb down the length of the obsidian blade, watching his blood boil forth like brackish water. His thumb sealed itself before the thick, foul-smelling liquid had time to stain the carpet.
"Give me your hand."
The command was quiet, almost gentle. Fell gritted his teeth and tried to keep his right arm from unfolding. Although his muscles groaned like rotten mooring ropes, there was no escaping the vampire lord's will.
Morgan placed the letter opener in Fell's rigid, trembling hand, wrapping the youth's fingers around the hilt.
"You know what to do," whispered Morgan as he stood, his eyes fixed on the boy stretched out at his feet.
Fell ground his teeth together even harder, heedless of the blood filling his mouth as his fangs shredded what was left of his lower lip. He tried to twist his head away from the slowly approaching knifepoint, but it was no use. His body was no longer his to control. He ordered his left hand to claw at his right hand, to try and knock the letter opener from its grasp, but it remained paralyzed. He screamed, but all that escaped his constricted larynx was a tight, doglike whine.
When the point of the blade punctured his right eye like an overripe grape, he managed a short, muffled shout of pain. Then, to his horror, his left hand rose of its own volition and took the obsidian letter opener from his bloodstained right hand. The left hand was faster than the right, piercing his remaining eye within a few seconds.
The darkness was total, the pain beyond anything Fell had ever known in any life. Then he felt the sharp edge of the blade as his left hand began rhythmically sawing away at his neck. He continued trying to scream long after he'd severed his own larynx.
Anise, I failed you. I failed Sonja. I failed Lethe. Forgive me, please. Forgive—
"What is this! There is a child?"
In his agony, Fell had forgotten that Morgan was in his mind as well as his body.
Morgan straddled the dying man's body, slapping the letter opener from Fell's grip. Morgan grabbed Fell by his bloodied shirt front, making sure not to shake him so hard his head would fall off.
"It was a trick, wasn't it? The child didn't die! It's still alive somewhere! Tell me where, breeder! Tell me!"
Fell opened his mouth, but all that came out was a large, black bubble of blood. His head tilted to the right at a sharp angle, the spinal cord nearly severed. He could feel Morgan rooting inside his dying brain, searching for the memories concerning Lethe's whereabouts. Blind and partially paralyzed, it was like being alone in a dark house with a rabid, hungry animal.
"Tell me where it is, breeder, and I'll kill you fast!"
Fell raised his right hand, the fingers closing on his long, blonde hair. He'd fucked up big time, and now he was paying for being a stupid jerk. He'd waltzed into Morgan's trap like the world's biggest fool. He'd gotten a taste of being superhuman and it had made him foolhardy. He was dying, but he'd be doubly damned if he'd betray his own daughter to this monster. But Morgan was stronger, both physically and mentally, and accustomed to getting what he wanted.
"Tell me, breeder!"
Fell wanted to say "fuck you," but since his larynx was severed, the best he could do was grab a fistful of his own hair and give it one good, final yank.
Morgan yowled in rage as Fell's head dropped to the floor, coming to rest on the stained Persian carpet. He let go of the body, kicking it a few times in frustration. The sound of ribs snapping did little to assuage his anger. Wretched Fly watched his master nervously.
"Send the pyrotic after Howell. Unplug its television and tell it there will be no more Gilligan's Island or S.W.A. T. until it brings the good doctor back to me! When I'm through, it can use his corpse for a host."
"Very well, milord. And the rogue?"
"She's mine."
* * *
Sonja sat up, rubbing the back of her head. Her fingers came away sticky with blood. She grunted and wiped her hand on her jacket. The kid was stronger than she'd suspected.
She got to her feet, leaning heavily on the banister. Blue-black fireworks bouquets exploded behind her eyelids. Had she been human, the fall she'd taken would have killed her. As it was, she'd suffered an insult to the brain that was far from problematic. But that could wait. She had to find Fell. Make sure he was all right. What did the young fool think he was doing, running off like that?
"Fell!" Her voice sounded weak in her ears, like that of an old woman. "Fell, where are you?"
Her answer came in the form of a footfall at the top of the landing.
"Fell? Kid, are you okay?"
Fell lurched into sight, his tread heavy and unsteady.
Sonja shook her head, as if somehow denying what stood before her would change it.
Fell's clothes were so black with blood they looked like someone had doused him with a five-gallon can of paint at point-blank range. The corpse lifted its stiffening right arm to display Fell's head, dangling by its long, yellow hair. The eyes had been gouged out and the nose sliced off.
Dead fingers spasmed as the body went limp, collapsing on the landing. The head bounced and rolled its way to the foot of the stairs, staring up at Sonja with its ruined sockets.
Sonja's grief was so deep, so painful, it numbed her. Alone again. After so many years of loneliness, she'd finally found others to share her life, her knowledge with, only to have them snatched away from her within the span of a day. It wasn't fair.
From the darkness on the second floor came the sound of laughter.
She knew that laugh. She'd last heard it in London, over twenty years ago.
"I'm coming for you, bastard!" she whispered under her breath, her fingers closing on the folded switchblade in her pocket. "And I'm gonna make you pay!"
* * *
She comes. And my hands shake in anticipation. Her aura precedes her, lighting her way like foxfire. Did I create this magnificent creature? That I could have succeeded by accident where my carefully laid plans failed so horribly is both fascinating and humbling.
I must destroy her. Her very existence is a threat to my continuance. Yet I cannot help but stand in awe of her—worship her.
She comes. And my hands burn when I think of her blood.
* * *
Palmer pressed his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the things eeling in and out of his field of vision. They looked something like centipedes, except that they were transparent and swam about in midair. If Howell saw them, he didn't seem to mind; he was too busy checking his syringe for air bubbles to worry about extra-dimensional creatures in the rafters.
"Uh, look, Doc—If you're worried about getting away from Morgan, I'm sure Sonja will be more than happy to help you in that area…"
"My dear Mr. Palmer," Howell sighed, slapping the inside of his elbow with his index and middle fingers as he tried to raise a vein. "I have spent over five years in the grip of one vampire. What makes you think I'd want to hand myself over to yet another one?"
"Sonja's not like Morgan."
"And rattlesnakes are nothing like Gila monsters." Howell deftly jabbed the loaded hypo into his arm.
Watching Howell shoot up made Palmer want a cigarette. He winced and averted his gaze.
Howell smiled wryly. "Go ahead and look away. I don't mind. Mainlining . isn't a pretty sight, not even to junkies. You could jump me right now. Why don't you?"
Palmer shrugged. "I don't know." It was the truth.
Howell quickly untied the rubber tubing and flexed his elbow a few times. He turned to face Palmer, his eyes dilating as the heroin rushed through his bloodstream. It suddenly occurred to Palmer that, despite his appearance, Howell was only a couple of years older than himself.
Howell removed the Luger from his pocket. Palmer tensed. The guy was a loon and, as if that wasn't enough, a junkie to boot. There was no telling what he might decide to do.
"I'm not proud of the things I have done in Morgan's service. But it's too late to pretend they didn't happen or that I had no choice in the matter. I must admit that the work challenged me, unlike anything else I've ever done in the private sector." Howell handed the Luger back to Palmer, butt first. The detective muttered his thanks and quickly returned it to his shoulder holster.
"I dug my grave years ago, Mr. Palmer. I am a dead man. The only question is when my heart will stop beating. I do not expect to live terribly much longer. In fact, I'd be surprised if I survive to see the dawn. But I warn you, do not trust your champion simply because she is a woman. The females are even worse than the males."
"Sonja's different—she's not like the others." He frowned as he listened to himself. What he was saying sounded stupid, even deluded, but it was the truth. How could he explain it to someone like Howell?
"You love her." The scientist's voice was flat, almost dead sounding, reminding Palmer of Chaz's equally lifeless pronouncement.
"Yes. Yes, I do." He was surprised to hear himself admitting it out loud.
"They always love their masters. That's what makes them so loyal." Howell paused, sniffing the air. "Is it my imagination, or do I smell barbecue?"
21
Sonja followed the trail of blood to the library, where Morgan was waiting for her. She felt him as a Siamese twin senses its sibling's moods and health. It was a dreadful, unwanted intimacy, and it made her want to retch.
"My child."
The library door opened of its own volition. A strange, flickering light the color of a ripe bruise spilled into the hallway.
"Come forward, child. So I may look at you."
The voice was familiar, although it lacked the upper-class British accent it had possessed when she'd first heard it in 1969.
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 a neatly tailored dinner jacket and matching pants. His hair was bound in a ponytail by a black velvet cord. His smile was brilliant as he studied her over the top of his aviator glasses.
The Other's voice hissed a warning from its place inside her head: Don't be fooled by the surface. You 're no longer a sixteen-year-old debutante. Look beyond the illusion. See him for what he truly is!
Sonja's vision flickered as she shifted spectrums. Morgan's image warped and twisted like a piece of cellophane held too close to a light bulb. His flesh lost its sun worshipper's glow, fading until it resembled a mushroom coated with tallow. His fingernails were long and curled, like those of a mandarin, and the gases of cellular decay bloated his features. The smell that emanated 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 its rancid member into her was enough to make her gorge rise, twenty years after the fact.
The Other thought that it would be a really good idea to pluck Morgan's eyes out and use his head for a bowling ball. Sonja agreed but continued to fight the rage boiling inside her. She hated the leering monster who'd raped and tortured her so many years ago—in truth, she'd cultivated that hate in order to face her day-to-day existence—but this was not the time to indulge her loathing.
Sonja knew the immensity of her hate, knew what it could do once unleashed. She had sworn she'd never allow herself to lose control again. Not like last year. She could never forget the lives she'd destroyed and the souls she'd shattered that night.
"Should I say 'so, we meet at last,' and get the cliches out of the way?" suggested Morgan, his handsome, debonair visage once more securely in place.
"Do you know who I am?" She had to fight to keep the tremor from her voice.
"I know that you call yourself Sonja Blue. Or perhaps you mean, do I recognize you?" Morgan's lips curled into a cruel smile. "Do you have any idea how many hapless, silly human girls I have seduced in the last six hundred years, my dear? And you expect me to remember one out of that multitude?"
"My… her name was Denise Thorne. London, 1969."
The vampire nodded, as if this answered something. "Ah, yes! The heiress! You were actually missed. Careless of me. Even more careless that I didn't make sure you were truly dead when I disposed of you. I blame the sixties for that. It was such a happy-go-lucky, irresponsible era! I found it quite contagious. Didn't you?"
"Cut the routine, dead boy! You know why I'm here."
Morgan sighed and studied his fingernails. "I know! I know! You're here to kill me. How tedious. Tell me, child, what exactly would my demise prove?"
"That I'm not like you."
"Indeed? If you are not like me, how have you survived these past few decades, little one? How have you kept yourself fed?"
"I—I have my ways."
"Caches of bottled plasma, no doubt. But that is hardly enough, is it? You can't lie to me, child. I know how bland prepackaged blood can be. Have you killed, my pet?"
"I—"
"Answer me true, child."
"Yes."
Morgan smiled a slow, sly smile. Sonja fought the urge to rip it off his face. "How many have you taken down? Dozens? Scores? Hundreds? Thousands?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Ha!" Morgan laughed, the smile widening into a smirk. "And you say you aren't like me!"
"I am not one of your kind!"
"That is true. You aren't like us. Nor are you, in many ways, like your dear, departed siblings. If only Fell and Anise had turned out half as well as you. But perhaps that's what I get for choosing flawed templates. Still, it's a shame to destroy something so… unique. You remind me of something I once saw in a vision, fifty years ago—"
"—in a Gestapo torture-house in occupied Amsterdam."
Morgan's look of smug self-assurance faltered. "How do you know of that?"
Sonja smiled mockingly, pleased by the look of confusion on his face. "There are places where the future and the past blur, provided one has the eyes to see.
The window worked both ways, Morgan. I saw you, dressed in your SS colonel's uniform. And you saw your death, separated from you by time and space."
He was inside her head, fast as a striking" cobra. Sonja tensed as Morgan's will crashed against her own, like a wave breaking against a high cliff. As the pressure inside her skull increased, she was dimly aware of something warm and sticky flowing from her nostrils. Impressed by her show of strength, Morgan withdrew with a low, bemused chuckle. He tilted his head to one side, studying her closely from behind his aviator shades.
"Why are we fighting, child? Is this how father and daughter greet one another?"
Sonja wiped at the blood oozing from her nose and mouth. "You're not my father!" she spat.
"I made you, child! You are shaped in my image! We are bonded! There is no denying me! We are much alike, you and I. You have more in common with me than you ever did with Anise and Fell. They were weak. Flawed. Unworthy vessels. They could not surrender the illusion of humanity."
He 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 you'll find me there—it's in the blood!"
She felt it then, the relentless pressure of his will bearing down on her like a leaden weight. It was as if she'd been suddenly transported to the bottom of the ocean floor. The temptation to capitulate was intense. It would be so easy to surrender and allow him to fill the void inside her. She dropped to her knees, her arms wrapped around her abdomen. Blackish-purple solar systems went nova behind her eyes.
Breathe! Breathe, damn you! shrieked the Other.
Morgan moved closer, smiling down at her like a punishing parent. "You are beautiful. I like beautiful things." His handsome, male model features shivered, ran, turned into a worm-eaten ruin. "You are also very, very dangerous. I like that, too. In you I see elements of my younger self-angry, volatile, scheming, defiant. I find this similarity… arousing." He gestured with one corpselike hand to the knot in his pants.
"Humans are always prattling on about love. I know nothing of that. I do know of hunger, need, want. You have awakened a hunger in me, my beauty. The hunger of a moth for a flame, the mongoose for the cobra. I have spent centuries exploiting the weaknesses of others, only to discover a frailty in myself. I cannot allow this. It imperils my continuance. But, still, I can not help but be fascinated—"
The vampire lifted a hand smelling of graveyard mold and touched her cheek. His skin was dead and cold against her own. 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 the car. She heard her screams as he emptied burning semen into her battered womb. She heard him laugh as the girl's pulse fluttered and dimmed under his cold, cold hands.
The Other's sibilant voice snarled in her inner ear:
Twenty years! You've been hunting this bastard for twenty yeas, living just to kill him! To pay him back for what he did to you! And what are you doing? You're cringing like a damned whipped dog offering up its throat! You came all this way to die at his hands? Let me out! Let me out, woman, before he kills us all!
"You're trembling…" His voice was a husky whisper, close to her ear. His breath billowed out in a mildewed cloud.
"Don't touch me!" The switchblade was in her hand as she struck him, slicing air and decayed flesh in a single, powerful arc.
Morgan shrieked and recoiled from her, clutching the left side of his face. A thick, yellowish fluid welled between his fingers. "Silver! Silver!" His voice cracked, climbing the register. "You hurt me!" He sounded like a petulant toddler.
