"Retaliation against the Bot Fun Guey for muscling in on their territory."
The owner nodded his head, his voice sounding as if it was coming from miles away. Tong war. Such things happen all the time." He blinked and shook his head to clear it. Horrible.
So horrible. He hurried back into the kitchen to check on his wife and his cooks, who were hiding near the freezer unit. He needed to call 911 and report what had happened, but first he had to calm down his wife, who was babbling about a demon woman with mirrors for eyes. His wife was not used to the ways of the Americans yet. It wouldn"t do to have her babbling about demons while the police were investigating a gang hit.
Jen sat astride one of the lions guarding the central branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, grinning like a demented bareback rider. It was close to midnight and the library had long since closed its doors.
"I got your message, Jen. What do you want?"
"I heard about Wretched Fly. Impressive, milady. Truly impressive."
"So?"
Jen mock-pouted and leaned forward, resting his chin atop the lion"s chiseled mane. "My, you are unsociable. You really must brush up on your small talk, milady. A little chitchat now and again never hurts. Besides, I meant what I said.
I"m genuinely impressed. I always found Wretched Fly a particularly loathsome specimen - always pretending he was better than the other renfields because he could control his telepathy without the benefit of drugs."
"Is there some point to this? Or did you summon me here simply to praise my disposal of a one-eyed psychic?"
Jen sighed and reached into his overcoat and pulled out a single, long-stemmed black rose and a sealed envelope and tossed them at her feet. "I was told to deliver these to you."
"Is this Luxor"s doing?"
"I have more than one employer - when it suits my needs," Jen replied, and without further comment jumped off the back of the lion and into the surrounding night.
Sonja bent down to retrieve the rose and the envelope. On closer inspection, she saw that the stem of the rose was made from braided strands of barbed wire, and that the petals were fashioned of black velvet. The wax seal on the envelope bore the symbol of Fenris swallowing the moon. Inside was a folded piece of parchment on which was written in a spidery hand: "Meet me at the Cherub Room."
The Cherub Room was a trendy nightspot just off Columbus Circle that catered to the bridge and tunnel crowd that poured into the city each weekend in hopes of rubbing elbows with the rich and famous or, failing that, experiencing what would pa.s.s for decadence in Hackensack.
The overall decor was that of leopard skin, pink vinyl, gold paint, and winged babies. And lots of "em. Pudgy little dead babies everywhere: shouldering cornucopia with speakers hidden inside them, cuddling bunnies, holding aloft mirrors, peeing champagne into silver basins. Gilded baby dolls outfitted with cardboard wings hung from the ceiling.
The overall feeling was not unlike that of being sealed alive inside a box of Valentine"s Day chocolates.
The club was crowded and the music cranked up loud enough to render normal conversation impossible. Suspended over the dance floor were a couple of dancer cages, where young women and men dressed in silver lame thongs and tinfoil halos gyrated to the techno beat.
Sonja was uncertain why Morgan would have chosen this place, of all the clubs in Manhattan, for their rendezvous.
Unless he was afraid of what she might do to him without witnesses.
She felt him the minute he entered the room. It was a strange sensation, as if someone had thrown a switch and completed a circuit, bringing long-dormant machinery humming to life. The hair on the back of her neck p.r.i.c.kled and her lungs felt suddenly heavy, as if the oxygen in the room had been miraculously transformed into mercury. The s.p.a.ce between them was charged with the energy that exists between Maker and Made, Creator and Creation. It was as if they were two powerful magnets, both pulling and pushing against one another. Sonja scanned the room and found him standing in the far corner beside an oversized papier-mache Cupid armed with an actual bow and arrow.
Although she knew she had marked him during their last confrontation, her mental image of Morgan was still that of the smiling, debonair bon vivant who had first swept Denise Thorne off her feet, twenty-five years earlier. She was shocked to see the full extent of his wounding. The left side of his face was pulled into a permanent sneer, the eye as gray and sightless as a baked fish"s. Where once his hair had been dark, now there was a shock of white starting from his left temple. He wore an expensive and exquisitely tailored suit, which somehow glamorized his scars, turning mutilation into a fashion statement.
She waited for the expected surge of hate to fill her, but in its place was something else. She had hurt him. Humbled him. The snip of a girl he had tossed away like so much trash had left her mark on him, repaying him for dismissing her so callously. There was no rage inside her, only a grim sense of satisfaction and something that felt almost like - pity?
The thumping of the disco and the flashing of the lights, the smell of sickly sweet mixed drinks reminded her of the night she"d first met him. The night a naive young heiress made the mistake of getting a little too drunk and allowing herself to be separated from her friends, then made the mistake of getting into a car with a strange man. She"d gone to the bar for a taste of the forbidden fruit -of adulthood, only to find herself swept away on the wings of storybook romance.
She"d known the clumsy kisses of school friends, but Morgan was something else entirely. What he promised was true romance, the kind every woman dreams of. She was the ash-pail princess and he the n.o.ble knight. When Morgan looked at her she felt so beautiful, so special. And it had nothing to do with her daddy"s millions, since he was rich himself. He loved her. Just her, and nothing else.
When he promised to treat her to a night unlike any other, she"d eagerly accompanied him into the back of his chauffeured Rolls. Where he raped her and drank her blood and threw her, naked and dying, onto the streets of London.
Sonja began moving in his direction, wondering with each step when the hate that had been her constant companion, her motivating force, for the entirety of her existence, would boil forth, filling her guts with its familiar heat.
Morgan stiffened as she drew near, his leer belying the caution in his remaining eye. He nodded slightly, acknowledging her presence.
"I"m glad you"re here."
Sonja felt the chimera - the part of Morgan"s self she had absorbed years ago - shift inside her head. It sensed its old master. It was as if there were thousands of ants crawling over her skin. She had to fight to keep from twitching and shaking like a junkie in need of a fix. Being so close to Morgan made her muscles vibrate like the cables on a suspension bridge in a high wind.
As if in response to this threat, the hate finally made its appearance, circling her brow like a crown of thorns, the weight of it digging through her skull and into her brain.
Kill him, whispered the Other, its voice urgent. Kill him now and get it over with.
Sonja was amazed to feel the fear surging through her vampiric half. She wiped at the cold sweat beading her upper lip. "I"m going to kill you, Morgan."
"You"ll try. But not here." He gestured to the dance floor.
"It"s far too crowded to be discreet."
Screw discreet, nail him now. Nail him before he tries to call the chimera back.
"Why do you insist on fighting me, child?" Morgan"s voice was mellifluous, the tone as soothing as a cool hand on a fevered brow.
"You know d.a.m.n well why."
"You still consider your condition a curse? I gave you immortality, freedom from the ravages of old age and disease!"
"I didn"t ask to be made into one of you. I didn"t ask for any of this--"
Morgan arched an upswept brow. "Didn"t you? There are those humans our kind hunt down as prey - and there are those who seek us out You know that as well as I do, child. You responded eagerly to your seduction. I used no beguilement, no mind control."
"You can"t blame me! You can"t blame me for what happened!" she hissed.
Morgan"s smile tried to be charming, but the scars twisted it into something else. "I"m not blaming you, child. After all, you are not the girl who followed me into the London night, are you? You are not Denise Thorne, but a creature of my seed, shaped in my image, born within her dead flesh."
"She never died."
"Then where is she now?"
Sonja blinked, uncertain of how to answer. That was a question she herself had been at a loss to understand.
Stop playing word games and M him! The Other"s voice was close to hysterical. He"s playing with you, trying to lull you off guard! He"s trying to throw a glamour over you!
Morgan reached into his breast pocket and produced a small jeweler"s case. "I realize now that what I did was wrong, horribly wrong. I don"t mean turning you. That I do not regret. However, I was a fool to throw such an exquisite thing as you away. I must have been indeed deluded not to recognize you for what you are--" He held the case out to her, flicking it open with his thumb. Lying on the red velvet interior was a crucifix made of sterling silver, fashioned to look like thorns.
"Please, I want you to take this as a token of my shame - of my idiocy. What I did in London was a cruel and thoughtless thing - I tossed you aside. I left you to find your way in a cold and trackless waste, where there are no paths and no road signs. I was your sire and I turned my back on you. You have every right to hate me for bringing you into the world without pity. But I want to try and change that, my child." Sonja stared at the crucifix and the length of black velvet ribbon that held it. Morgan"s voice was thick and sweet in her ears, like honey dripping from the comb.
"What happened between Denise Thorne and myself does not concern us, my pet. Let us begin our time together anew.
You have avenged your outrage by marking me. Our scores are settled, wouldn"t you agree?"
Sonja reached out as if in a trance, her fingertips brushing the outside of the case.
Don"t take it! Don"t take anything he offers you!
She blinked rapidly, as if coming out of a trance, and drew back her hand. There was a look of displeasure on Morgan"s face that he could not hide.
"What are you trying to pull?"
"Pull? I don"t understand what you"re getting at." Morgan"s good eye suddenly dropped its pretense at civility and began darting about. His shoulders tensed and he stood a little straighten, his body language that of a man who has suddenly realized he"s in trouble.
"We have company, I fear."
Sonja followed his stare, scanning the room as she did To her surprise, she spotted half a dozen undead making their way across the dance floor towards them. To the eyes of the humans nightclubbing it up, the intruders looked perfectly normal. No one seemed to notice their rotting flesh and decaying features, in any case.
"They"re Luxor"s brats," Morgan snarled. "That accursed half-b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Pangloss"s must have told him I"d be here, but I never thought the hermaphrodite so bold!"
Sonja found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with Morgan, facing the approaching vampires. Part of her still wanted to slay Morgan and get it over with, but this sudden change in her game plan was forcing her to rethink her priorities.
"Maybe he thinks we"ve formed a truce, that we"re teaming up against him?" she muttered.
Morgan nodded. "That makes sense. Luxor is nothing if not insecure."
The a.s.sembled vampires seemed to shudder, as if the air surrounding them had winked. They were shifting into overdrive.
Sonja shifted as well, preparing to meet her attackers on their level. Fighting in high gear used up a lot of energy, but it was the only way she could hope to get out of the situation with her head still attached to her shoulders.
The frantically dancing nightclubbers seemed to freeze in mid-step, like the images on a videotape placed on pause.
The strobes ceased their stutter, becoming spotlights, as the thumping ba.s.s of the disco transformed itself into a m.u.f.fled heartbeat.
Luxor"s brood surged forward, yowling like banshees.
Sonja met the first one head on, driving her switchblade into its chest. She glimpsed a moment of pain and confusion in the vampire"s features before it folded around her fist like a punctured pool-toy. Before she could pull the blade free, a vampiress in seventies retro bell-bottoms and a macrame tube-top slammed into her, knocking her off her feet. Sonja rammed her palm into the vampiress"s chin as she made to rip out her throat, snapping her lower jaw like a piece of celery.
The vampiress shrieked her displeasure and tried to plunge a hooked thumbnail into Sonja"s right eye. Sonja dodged the attack, biting off the vampiress"s thumb and spitting it back into her face.
A vampire dressed in black leather pants joined the fray, kicking Sonja in the side of the head with a steel-toed Doc Marten. As he drew back his foot to deliver a second blow, Sonja snagged his bootlaces and yanked, jerking his feet out from under him. She scrambled back up, driving her elbow into the vampiress"s gut. The hilt of the switchblade jutted from the dead vampire"s rapidly decomposing chest and it came away with a sucking sound. The retro vampiress landed on Sonja"s back, clawing at her face with three-inch-long fingernails. Swearing under her breath, Sonja reversed her grip on the knife, ramming it into the creature"s left eye. She yowled once and let go, dropping onto the floor to spasm like a hooked fish at her enemy"s feet.
Morgan seemed to be holding his own ground with a lot less sweat. As Sonja watched, he plucked one of his attackers out of midair and, with a practised turn of his hand, twisted the vampire"s head completely around, so that it was looking at Sonja from between its shoulders. The vampire"s eyes blinked, more surprised than pained, then went gray. Morgan tossed the dead thing aside as casually as he would discard a broken toy.
Before Sonja could decide whether to aid him or join with his attackers, the leather-pants vampire was back on his feet, slamming his head into her gut like a billy goat. The force of his blow drove her into the wall, cracking the plaster.
Sonja rammed the silver blade into the back of his neck, between the third and fourth vertebrae. The vampire dropped, his body twitching and jerking as the silver toxins swept through his central nervous system.
Sonja looked up in time to see Morgan twist the head off the final member of Luxor"s suicide party and hurl it in the direction of the packed dance floor. Despite everything, she really had to admire the guy"s style.
Kill him.
She was tired. The battle had taken a lot out of her and it was more and more of a struggle to remain in high gear.
a.s.sessing her condition, she could tell she"d sustained a skull fracture and four broken ribs, possibly a ruptured spleen.
Nothing she couldn"t handle, really. But there was no way she could take down a vampire of Morgan"s power. Part of her was even relieved that she would not be forced to act on what had, only minutes before, seemed the only sane thing to do.
Kill him.
She stood there, nursing her splintered ribs, and it suddenly occurred to her that it was the Other"s voice, and not her own - nor that of the vanished Denise - that was the most strident when it came to her obsession with Morgan. At first the three voices had been united, equally strong in their hatred, in their desire for revenge. But, over the years, Denise"s voice had flagged, and now she discovered her own pa.s.sion fading as well, leaving only the Other"s disembodied voice the strongest and most vehement.
Kill him or die, the Other growled. Kill him or we"re all Doomed.
"Shut up," she whispered. "I"ll do it when I"m good and ready."
When she looked up again, Morgan was gone. But the jeweler"s case he"d presented to her was lying on the ground at her feet, the th.o.r.n.y crucifix glinting up at her.
Silver. It was really silver. Considering the horror vampires held for the metal, it must have taken a great deal of courage on his part to even touch the case, much less carry it on his person. She found herself oddly moved by this show of bravery. She bent down and picked up the crucifix, dangling from its velvet choker.
He might be a murdering inhuman monster, but at least the guy had taste.
She grimaced as something deep inside her (the spleen ?) began hemorrhaging. She had to get out of the club and drop back into human time if she wanted to keep out of the morgue. She hated waking up to find some coroner splitting her open like a Christmas goose.
She waited until she was out of the fire exit before slipping out of overdrive. There was a chorus of shrill screams as the vampire"s head landed amidst the dancers. The owners of the Cherub Room would no doubt have a hard time explaining to the cops where the h.e.l.l six horribly mutilated - not to mention inexplicably decayed - corpses were doing in their club.
Screw "em. That"s what they get for letting just anyone in.
Why didn"t I kill him?
He was standing right there. I could have killed him. It wouldn"t have been easy, it wouldn"t have been clean, but I could have done it. I could have at least tried.
But I didn"t And the funny thing is, I didn"t even want to.
This wasn"t like the first time I saw him after my transformation.
Back then I"d wanted to kill his a.s.s but good. But something in me short-circuited. There is a dominant-submissive switch that gets thrown whenever a broodling wants to destroy Its sire. But it"s not infallible. It takes willpower and determination to overcome it but It can be done. But that"s not what happened to me tonight It"s not like I couldn"t move against him. I just looked at him and whatever it was eating my belly simply disappeared.
Maybe it"s because he doesn"t look like Morgan anymore. He doesn"t look like the Morgan of my nightmares. He doesn"t look like the Morgan who killed my friends. He"s ... changed, I never believed such a thing was possible for vampires, but seeing Pangloss in his final hours has made me unsure. There"s so much I still don"t know about my kind,"about the world we exist in ...
The only part of me that seems to be certain about Morgan is the Other. It wants him dead with lilies on his chest But I can"t figure out why. Morgan is a vampire. The Other is his creation. So why does it want to kill him? The Other is the part always eager to wreak havoc on those weaker than itself.
The part that revels in hurting people. So why does it want to destroy Morgan, a creature that shares the same interests? I"ve spent my existence fighting the Other, trying to ignore its needs and desires. What should I do now?
Perhaps Morgan is right, perhaps it"s time for me to put my vendetta aside. It no longer really concerns me. Do I want to turn into a pathetic, vengeful moron like Luxor or Pangloss? For immortals, the n.o.bles seem to be a particularly petty group, constantly warring with one another over perceived slights.
With everything that"s happened lately - Judd, Palmer, Lethe, Pangloss - maybe I need to take some time out and rea.s.sess what"s going on. I ...
Shut up. Shut up.
I"m not going soft I"m not. It"s just that I"m tired. I"m so d.a.m.n tired.