Why are you doing this? Is it Palmer? Is it Lethe? Is this how you"re trying to punish us for killing Judd? By letting Morgan turn you into one of his f.u.c.kin" gets? If you think I"m gonna sit on the sidelines and let you do that, sister, you"ve got another thing coming!
Morgan worked to hide his smile as Sonja spun away from his grasp, clawing at her temples and snarling like a wounded thing. A quick check of her aura revealed a spiky nimbus pulsing about her skull, alternating strokes of red and black. Morgan was reminded of sea snails battling one another. The only thing he"d ever seen like it was back in old Bedlam, when the gentry paid the Master of Lunacy to watch the madmen "at play". In any case, his little game had paid off. He"d succeeded in pitting the divided elements of Sonja"s unstable personality against one another.
Sonja doubled over and vomited a gout of blackish blood onto her boots. Morgan wrinkled his nose in distaste. The bottled stuff.
Inside Sonja"s head the scene was hardly as prosaic as what was going on outside it. Sonja found herself floating in a great blue-black void. Although she was in her own mind, her imago - her self-image - was that of her physical body in every detail. She hung in midair, uncertain which was up or down. Not that it mattered. The blue-black nothingness folded in on itself, Like a piece of paper being wadded up by a child, and just as rapidly unfolded.
She was standing on a vast, empty ice field. The wind howled like an angry thing in her ears. A huge, pockmarked moon climbed the starless sky, barely clearing the glaciers on the horizon. The ice gleamed darkly, like the sh.e.l.l of an insect.
Where are you, d.a.m.n it? she thought, honing her mind until it was a tight, hot beam, scouring the ice floe"s surface like a laser sight. Answer me - where are you? You can"t hide from me!
The ice beneath her feet pushed upward and outward, sending her flying. She stared in amazement as the Other climbed forth. Although they had shared the same body, the same consciousness for twenty-five years, Sonja had no idea what her vampiric self looked like. She hadn"t wanted to know.
The Other looked like one of the hag queens medieval parents had used to frighten their children into good behavior.
Her skin was blue and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s hung flat and empty against her ribs. Her hands were like the grasping feet of a bird of prey and her talons were as long and sharp as knives.
Although her appearance was more in line with that of a corpse, her lips were obscenely full and seemed to writhe with a life of their own, exposing blackened gums and teeth better suited to an attack dog. She moved like an ape, her red eyes burning with an endless rage.
I"m here.
Sonja got to her feet and pressed the eye of her switchblade.
The silver blade leapt out, glinting in the moonlight Then let"s dance, b.i.t.c.h.
The Other dropped onto all fours and scuttled forward like a great scorpion, her joints bending at impossible angles. Sonja tracked as she circled her, shifting to keep the Other in front of her at all times. Part of her wondered if this was what the few humans capable of perceiving the Real World saw whenever they looked at her and shuddered in revulsion.
The Other used this momentary distraction to launch itself, its claws tearing at her midsection as its fangs strained for her throat. And then all conscious thought dissolved and there was only the need for survival.
Morgan stepped back as Sonja dropped onto the floor of the observation deck, spasming in the grips of what looked to be a grand mal seizure. Foam flecked her lips and herf limbs twitched as if someone was running powerful bursts of electric current through them. Morgan did not dare get any closer because she still held her switchblade tightly in one fist - and the blade was exposed.
The surges of psychic energy he"d seen earlier were stronger than before. Now there was sound as well as a light show. Squeals of psionic static ripped through his head like the scream of a dentist"s drill. Morgan grimaced and placed his hands over his ears, even though he knew it would do no good.
He had almost decided against killing her at the last minute, but this was definitely changing his mind. Anything capable of such anarchic energy release was far too dangerous for him to allow its continuance. He glanced up at the 222-foot television tower that jutted from the very top of the Empire State, stabbing the sky like a hypodermic needle. The very air around its tip was beginning to boil. Morgan licked his lips in antic.i.p.ation. This was going to be good.
The psychic membrane that binds the eight million minds that comprise New York City shudders and flexes in response to the psychic disturbance, triggering minor ripples in the gestalt. Or, to follow Morgan"s metaphor, the herd looks up and sees the lightning tearing holes in the sky and begins to grow agitated without really knowing why. Something bad is coming.
Times Square: Edgar Tremouille is pacing his tiny studio apartment overlooking Times Square. He chews his left thumbnail to the quick and continues gnawing until the blood comes.
Lenox Avenue: The baby won"t stop crying. Normally it doesn"t bother Yolanda that much, but tonight it"s really getting on her nerves. She wishes her mother would come home from work so she can go out and hang with her friends. She thought having the baby would make her happy. She liked the idea of having something that had no choice but to love her. But now she wishes she was still back in the eighth grade and able to go out when she felt like it. Little Rodrigo stands in his playpen and screams as he rattles its bars. Yolanda turns the TV up as loud as it can go and pulls the kitchen chair so close her nose almost touches the screen. She puts her hands over her ears and tries to shut out the sound of Rodrigo"s angry, demanding cries.
Irving Place: Normally, Sam"s fun to be around. More than fun. He"s Cindy"s one true love. They met at a friend"s wedding nine months ago.
She was the bridesmaid and he was working the bar. One thing led to another, and now they"re sharing an apartment on the Upper East Side. All their friends envy them their relationship.
"You two are so perfect for one another."
"We"ve never seen a couple so happy together." Even strangers comment on the perfection of their romance.
Sam is always understanding and supportive and affectionate towards her. But tonight is proving to be a major exception.
He"s in a really foul mood for no real reason, sitting in front of the TV and slamming down beers and not talking to her at all except to make hurtful comments about her weight and her taste in friends and clothes and her intelligence.
Once or twice she caught him looking at her with this really weird look on his face. She stands in front of the kitchen sink, washing the dishes, she begins to think about their relationship. Sam is a struggling actor. Cindy works for an investment firm. Cindy is seven years older than Sam. They actually live on her salary, since Sam waits tables in order to keep himself free for any work that might come in from his agent. Although they both work eight-hour days, somehow she seems to be the one to find the time to wash the dishes, handle the laundry, and clean the apartment. The more Cindy thinks about it, the more unfair it seems. The more deliberate it becomes. She wonders if he isn"t planning on dumping her for some cute young thing the moment he gets a serious break in his career. She is fuming hard enough to blow smoke from her ears as she dumps the silverware into the soapy water.
The Church of Our Father the Redeemer: Father Ignatius closes his eyes and prays for the visions to go away. Holy men are supposed to have visions, or so the Bible claims. But the visions that afflict Father Ignatius are far from spiritual. In his vision his mother is sitting in her chair near the window, fanning herself and looking down through the chintz curtains at the street below where they once lived in h.e.l.l"s Kitchen. She"s sweating and fanning. Sweating and fanning. Her dress is open, exposing her ma.s.sive b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Sweating and fanning. Sweating and fanning. She stares out the window like he"s not in the room. His mother hitches up her skirt over her hips and, without taking her eyes off the street outside her window, begins ma.s.saging the thing between her legs. The room smells of animals. She twitches a bit and moans, as if she"s hurt herself. Then she looks directly at Father Ignatius and smiles, exposing bare gums. She"s missing her upper plate. His mother is seventy-two years old.
Sonja was straddling the Other, hammering its head into the black ice. The wind that blew across the frozen void shrieked wordlessly in her ears. She had never been so happy before in her life. Never before had she been able to truly let go of herself, to fight without restraint It felt good. The same way that a long-distance runner feels good once her body has gone beyond simple exhaustion. It was a feeling of freedom, of being severed from time and place and ident.i.ty.
There was only the now of the act.
The Other snarled and slashed at her with its razored claws, ripping Sonja open from throat to crotch. It chuckled darkly as Sonja scrambled to shove her intestines back into her body. He"s planning to kill you. You realize that, don"t you?
Sonja"s body bowed upward, the muscles straining until she was balanced on the top of her skull and the heels of her boots. The psychic feedback grew louder, causing Morgan to grit his teeth in pain. He had not expected such a dramatic reaction to his tampering. With a squeal of psionic reverb, dark energy leapt from Sonja"s midsection, hitting the television aerial like a reverse lightning strike. The wound in the sky began to swell even further, as if filling with pus.
The wind was picking up, growing even stronger than Before. Morgan moved closer to Sonja"s prostrate form. As he reached out for her throat, there was a loud crackle, the smell of ozone, and a burst of black electricity. He drew back his hand, snarling in pain. The fingers of his right hand smelled like roasted pork. He"d forgotten about the d.a.m.ned silver crucifix he"d given her! He cursed under his breath and pulled the gun from the interior pocket of his opera cape. Normally he had no use for such crude weapons of destruction. He either killed with his mind or with the hands of others. But Sonja was a very special case.
He sighted down the barrel, aiming at her head.
Too bad it had to be this way. She might have provided him with centuries, perhaps millennia, of interesting duels. But she was too dangerous. He"d told her so himself. She refused to play by the rules. To her, vengeance was more than a game to while away the decades. She was sworn to destroy him and, sooner or later, she would do just that But, worst of all, she tempted him. Tempted him to love. And to love is to be weak and to be weak is to be a slave. And that was something Morgan could never allow to happen. Ever.
"Farewell, my perfect love," he whispered, and pulled the trigger.
Sonja reeled her guts back in and snapped her body cavity closed behind them, careful not to cut off her spleen or her liver. She kicked the Other square in the mouth, sending teeth flying like Chiclets.
I"ve had all of you I can stand! I"m sick of hearing your f.u.c.kin" voice screeching inside my ear every d.a.m.n day! You"ve ruined everything for me! Everything! And now it"s time you paid!
The Other wiped the blood from her mouth and grinned crookedly. You"re a real a.s.s, you know that? How about me - you think I"ve enjoyed being cooped up with a f.u.c.kin" goody two-shoes all this time? Always rolling around in self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself because you"re a big bad monster? Go ahead, beat on me all you want! Kick me! Punch me! It won"t make a d.a.m.n bit of difference! You"ve already tried starving me out, but that didn"t work either, did it? Face it, sweetmeat, I"m here and there"s nothing you can do to get rid of me!
The entire ice field shuddered, as if shaken by a ma.s.sive earthquake. Both Sonja and the Other looked at one another.
Did you do that?
f.u.c.k no!
There was a cracking sound, as if the world"s largest piece of celery was being snapped in two, and a fissure opened up between them. There was a roaring sound and the moon overhead shattered into a thousand silvery fragments. There was another, larger shudder and the chasm widened even further, hurling the Other into darkness.
The sky directly above the Empire State Building looks strange even to casual pa.s.sersby. The clouds churning about its tip resemble blossoms of ink jetted forth by a frightened octopus.
However, none of the nearby weather services pick up signs of a disturbance on their radar screens. So everyone is at a loss to explain the thunderclap that shakes every window in the city at ten minutes after midnight. But the mysterious thunder does far more than rattle windowpanes. It splits the thin membrane of sanity that keeps New York from chewing its own leg off like a coyote in a trap. And then, to put it politely, all h.e.l.l breaks loose.
Cindy comes out of the kitchen trailing soapy water behind her. In one hand she clutches a carving knife. Sam is still watching the TV, his back to her. The nape of his neck is the only thing she can see. It"s like the rest of him doesn"t even exist. If she squints her eyes a little, she can see the dotted line going across it.
Edgar Tremouille hears the screams coming from outside his window and goes to look. Screaming on the streets surrounding Times Square isn"t particularly rare, but the sheer volume - and the sounds of crunching b.u.mpers and smashing gla.s.s - hints at something besides the usual territorial dispute between hookers. As he leans out his window, a cab jumps the curb and plows into pedestrians on the sidewalk. The driver is hunched over his steering wheel and grinning like a fiend as the cab scatters drug dealers, hookers, drag queens, and tourists in every direction. A second cab slams into a car with Jersey plates. The drivers get out and begin kicking and punching each other in the head and the groin, shrieking like wild animals. A crowd gathers, their eyes too wide and their faces too empty to be human. The cabby grabs the guy from Jersey and rams his head through the windshield.
As the cabby staggers back, blood and busted safety gla.s.s dripping from his hands, a Molotov c.o.c.ktail sails through the air, smashing against the front of the Papaya King stand across the street, spraying the crowd with burning gasoline.
There are screams and shouts of anger and the smell of burning hair and roasting flesh. Edgar Tremouille has seen enough. He goes to the closet where he keeps his rifle. The End Times have arrived. The Tribulations have begun. And it is time for the Chosen to make their stand. He starts out by sniping at the drag queens. They are the ones who disturb him the most. He tracks one in particular with his scope - the one he"d given twenty dollars to let him suck its d.i.c.k a couple of months ago. Edgar regretted the act the moment it was done.
And it especially bothered him that the drag queen recognized him and called his name whenever he walked by after that.
He screams as he shoots the drag queen. He screams as he shoots each and every one. He doesn"t know why. He"s killing sinners, but it feels like he"s shooting part of himself. When there are no more drag queens, he starts in on the blacks.
Rodrigo isn"t crying anymore. The TVs still turned up real loud, but Yolanda doesn"t hear it. There is a lot of noise next door - sounds like a domestic argument. A real knockdown and-drag-out. Not that such things are rare where she lives.
Yolanda decides it"s time to take the garbage to the dumpster.
She tosses an empty can of Raviolios and a dirty diaper into the bag. She rams her foot down on the refuse to make some more room. Rodrigo"s hand pops up, the fingers already starting to stiffen. Yolanda tells herself it"s just a doll. Just a doll.
Father Ignatius counts his rosary and thanks G.o.d for taking away the visions. However, the prayer beads are wrapped around the neck of an elderly parishioner who reminds him of his mother. The smell of animals fills the confessional.
The streets of the city seethe with madness long contained and left to fester for years, even generations. Pedestrians knock the coffee cups from the hands of beggars, kicking them in the kidneys as they scramble on their hands and knees to recover their scattered change. Firemen armed with axes battle any who try to put out the blazing fire stations.
Policemen fire tear-gas canisters point-blank at the heads of the rioters filling the street, while other officers wade into the crowd with nightsticks and drawn guns. After a few minutes the line between rioter and police dissolves, as the baton-wielding policemen start beating each other as well as the unruly populace.
The carriage horses at Central Park scream and rear back on their hind legs, desperate to jump their traces, as swarms of hungry people boil from the park"s surrounding greenery, armed with rocks and sticks and appet.i.te.
Windows smash as looters climb into Fifth Avenue storefronts to liberate merchandise. Waiters and busboys douse the patrons of five-star restaurants with alcohol and set them alight, turning them into living cherries jubilee and banana fosters. Nurses in neonatal wards go from incubator to incubator, disconnecting the life-support systems. Wild-eyed Hasidic men and women cry out to Mosiach and hurl cinder blocks from the roofs of their housing developments. Thousands of undoc.u.mented immigrants pour into the narrow streets of Chinatown, torching the sweatshops .
Gunfire is everywhere. Burning buildings dot the city like candles on a cake. The screams of the hunted and the hunters fill the night. Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs are tearing at themselves, locked in a blind, claustrophobic frenxy, like the berserkers of old who whirled themselves into a killing fury by slashing themselves with their own knives. Those unaffected by the insanity huddle in fear and wonder if it is the end of the world - or just the >end of New York? For some, there is no difference.
Sonja struggled to get back on her feet. The ice field was bucking and shaking like a wild animal, sending pillars of ice shooting upward. The sky overhead had given way from perpetual night to a pulsing aurora borealis. She had to get out of this rapidly disintegrating limbo and back into her physical body. Whatever was happening to her material self was obviously pretty major. But every time she tried to concentrate and take herself back into the materialworld, another shelf of ice shot upward, blocking her path.
She had to She had to get hold of herself. None of this was real. Not in the physical sense, anyway. She was inside her head, not trapped on an antarctic glacier. All she had to do was open her eyes and she"d be free...
There was a sound like a cannon going off and the ground beneath her exploded in a shower of ice. Stunned, Sonja stared in mute horror as the Other emerged from its icy womb. It was huge, its head and shoulders blocking out the sky. The Other smiled and reached for her with a claw the size of a Buick.
Sissster, it growled. We can never be safe until he who Made us is destroyed. As long as he exists, we will be weak. Join us, sister. Join us so that we might be reborn yet again.
Morgan"s ears were still ringing as he picked himself off the floor of the observation deck. There had been a flash and something like a clap of thunder the second after he fired the gun. He was lucky the force of the concussion hadn"t sent him flying over the edge.
He got to his feet and staggered over to where Sonja"s body lay sprawled. Curls of steam rose from her like a turkey fresh from the oven. He wanted to rejoice over the fall of an enemy who had cost him so dearly, but the laughter refused to come.
Then Sonja sat up.
Curse the instruments of man"s dominion! His aim had not been true! Instead of blowing her skull apart like an overripe cantaloupe, the bullet had grazed the right side of her head. Although she was missing her right ear and a fist-sized patch of her skull now gleamed wetly for all to see, she was still very much alive.
"Morgan?"
He quickly returned the gun to his pocket and knelt beside her.
"I"m here, child. Are you all right? You fell into a seizure."
Sonja seemed dazed, as if waking from a drugged sleep.
"You were right, milord," she whispered. The lenses of her sungla.s.ses were cracked and she removed them with trembling hands. "I have allowed myself to be led astray by misplaced hatred. Your enemies have worked to turn me against you for their own ends. I would see them suffer in your name."
As Morgan helped her to her feet, she allowed her forehead to drop against his shoulder. Morgan struggled to keep his face from pulling into a triumphant sneer. All was not lost.
If he could actually break her to his will, her death could still be avoided. But if the fire in her belly was extinguished, if she became just another of his adoring brides, then there would be no reason to love her. What provoked his pa.s.sion was her deadliness, her ferocity, her threat. Part of him found the prospect of crushing her will and keeping the physical sh.e.l.l as a reminder of his victory appealing. Yet another side of him hesitated.
Sonja"s arms slid about his waist, pulling him closer. She looked up into his scarred face with eyes the color of blood.
Eyes so very much like his own. "Hold me," she sighed. "I"m so very tired, milord. Please hold me."
"I will do so gladly, but only after you put aside your weapon."
Sonja glanced down at the switchblade she still clutched in her hand. Her fingernails had dug so deeply into the flesh of her palm that blood dripped from her fingers. Her face contorting in disgust, Sonja hurled the silver knife away from her, sending it sailing over the edge of the observation deck into the night.
Morgan tightened his grip on her. She felt so soft, so vulnerable; it would be so easy to slide into her mind and crack her ego open like a rotten nut. He lowered his face and their lips brushed. She reached out hungrily for him, pulling him into a full embrace, her tongue searching for and finding his own. And their minds met and were one.
They were standing beside a meditation pool in a j.a.panese rock garden. Dappled koi swam just below the jade-green surface, mouthing crumbs of bread. Morgan"s imago wore the costume of a shogun of the Edo period. Sonja"s imago was dressed as Sonja always was. Her black leather jacket creaked as she pinched off another handful of breadcrumbs and tossed them into the pool.
Sonja looked up at Morgan and smiled. Her eyes were once more hidden behind slivers of mirrored gla.s.s, only now the lenses seemed to grow directly from her brow ridge and merge into her cheekbones. "Are you going to try and kill me now? Is that why you picked such a comforting mindscape? So I would be lulled into trusting you?
Morgan shifted uncomfortably, the corner of his mouth jerking fitfully. The features belonging to his imago were whole but he had grown accustomed to smiling with only half his face. "I don"t know what you mean, my love. You are my queen - why should I kill you?"
Sonja shrugged and resumed feeding the goldfish. "I dunno.
Because I"m dangerous? Because I"m a threat to your continuance? Because I trashed your plans for world domination? Because I f.u.c.ked up your face? Because I killed your most trustworthy servant? Because I scare you? How about just because?"
"What if I was going to kill you? What would you do to stop me?
"Nothing."
"I don"t believe you."
Sonja shrugged again. The piece of bread in her hands had yet to dwindle. "Believe what you like. But I won"t stop you.
I"ll even give back your chimera. a.s.suming you still want it, that is."
"Are you serious?"
"I"m not laughing, am I?" Sonja unzipped her jacket and reached inside the breast pocket, removing a small ivory statue. She dropped it onto the ground and the statue began to twitch and writhe, growing larger. Within seconds the three-headed tiger with the scorpion tail was standing beside her, lashing its barbed tail and growling.
Morgan reached out with one hand and the chimera began to melt and warp, like a chalk drawing caught in the rain. The chimera became a yazuka-style tattoo on his bared chest.
There. You have your chimera back. I hope you"re happy.
You can kill me now, if you like. I won"t stop you."
He could tell she wasn"t lying. He stepped back and drew his samurai sword from its scabbard. Instead of being forged from steel, the blade was made of black volcanic gla.s.s. He drew back the sword as if he was readying to tee off. Sonja watched him placidly for a moment, then resumed feeding the fish. The sword cut through her neck as easily as it did the air, sending her severed head arcing into the meditation pond.The body stood for a few seconds more, blood gouting from the stump like a fountain, before collapsing.
Morgan wiped her blood from the blade, marveling over the ease of it all, yet concerned by her failure to defend herself.
After all, this was the woman who had wrested a part of his very self from him in combat and made it her own. He had expected something resembling a fight.