Chapter Eleven
"Sonja? You awake?"
Palmer glanced into the rearview mirror as Sonja sat up in the back seat of the rental car. In the bright sunshine she looked pale and unhealthy, out of her element. She grimaced and smacked her lips as if trying to rid her palate of an offensive aftertaste.
"Daylight. Phooey."
"I thought you said you weren't allergic to sunlight."
"I'm not. But I am nocturnal. Being awake during the day is... unnatural. Believe me, if I was allergic, you'd know it! Vampires exposed to direct sunlight develop a speedy case of skin cancer bordering on leprosy - noses falling off every which way, ears dropping like leaves. Hardly a sight for the weak of heart - or stomach."
"Sounds like it."
"What is it you wanted? Or did you disturb my beauty sleep just to see if I'd dissolve a la Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula?"
Palmer blushed and returned his attention to the highway. "No, it's just - well, I wanted to see the charm Li Lijing gave you."
Sonja sighed. "You heard what he said about humans handling it."
"Look, I'm not interested in using the damn thing, I just want to look at it. Is that okay?"
"I can't see what harm it could do. Besides, it might do you good to realize what kind of explosive we're playing with here."
"It's that powerful?"
"You'll see. Why don't you pull over at the next rest station? The last thing I need is to have you plow the car into the back of a semi by mistake."
"I never slam into the back of trucks by mistake!"
A few minutes later, Palmer pulled the car into a roadside rest area thoughtfully provided by the California Highway Commission. He killed the engine and turned around in the front seat, facing Sonja.
"Okay, let's see this powerful juju."
Sonja pulled a package wrapped in blue tissue paper out from under the seat and handed it to the detective. "Remember, you asked for it!"
Palmer wrinkled his nose at the strong spices. The tissue paper crackled under his fingers. Frowning, he unwrapped the talisman.
When he saw what it was, he instinctively tossed the thing away from him as if it was a poisonous spider. He felt a bitter surge of vomit scald the back of his throat, but he could not look away from the withered, severed hand nestled in the blue tissue paper like a perverse corsage.
"It's horrible!"
"It's a Hand of Glory. Lijing assures me that it is especially potent."
"It's got six fingers!"
"Yes, that's the secret of its power. It once belonged to one of the hereditary Mayan priest-kings. There was one particular royal family that was so inbred they all had six fingers and toes. They were known as Chan Balam, the Jaguar Lords. It was considered a sign of divinity."
Palmer swallowed the burning knot in his throat and watched an elderly man in tan slacks and a cream-colored windbreaker lead a miniature schnauzer toward a grassy stretch marked "Pet Path." He suppressed the urge to get out of the car and sprint for the nearest parked car. Unfortunately, he knew he was more likely to get another hole in his chest from his fellow motorists than a free ride back to normalcy, so he remained seated.
"For crying out loud, are you going to leave it lying out where everyone can see it? Why don't you just mount it on the dashboard?"
The idea of touching the Hand of Glory was repugnant beyond belief, but she was right. If anyone got a good look at what was on the front seat, they'd have every CHIPS officer north of Los Angeles breathing down their necks. Grimacing in distaste, Palmer picked up the severed hand.
He was somewhere warmer, where the screeching of macaws and the screams of howler monkeys echoed from the lush green canopy outside his door. A naked brown child sat framed in the doorway, playing with a baby spider monkey on a leash. The child's forehead was oddly shaped, sloping backward. At first Palmer thought the boy was retarded, then the child smiled and turned his face toward him. The child's eyes were dark and sparkled with a natural wit. Confused, Palmer scanned the room he found himself in, frowning at the detailed charcoal renderings of Mayan dignitaries offering sacrifices to the gods decorating the whitewashed stone walls. Above his head handwoven nets full of museum-quality Pre-Columbian pottery hung from brightly painted, ornate wooden rafters.
The naked child laughed at his pet's antics, lifting a six-fingered hand to his mouth. Palmer glanced down at his own nude body and saw he was seated, cross-legged, on a stone bench carved in the likeness of a jaguar. His breath was coming heavier now, but it had nothing to do with the oppressive humidity. Palmer stood up and walked to the doorway.
He was wobbly on his feet and had to steady himself by placing one hand against the wall. His hand had six fingers. He brought his other hand to his face and felt the stingray barb piercing his lower lip and the ritual scars on his cheeks. His gaze dropped to his borrowed body's exposed genitals. He knew he should be alarmed by the sight of a second stingray barb skewering his penis, but Palmer felt strangely disconnected from the mutilations done to his flesh.
The child looked up at Palmer from his place on the stoop and smiled. The baby spider monkey squatted on the boy's shoulder, chattering to itself as it searched its master's hair for vermin. Suddenly William Palmer, never married and an avowed enemy of small children, knew how it felt to be a husband and a father.
Somewhere in the jungle, a jaguar screamed.
"Palmer! Palmer, are you all right? Answer me, damn it!" Sonja was in the front seat of the rental car, shaking him by the shoulders. She actually looked scared. Palmer wondered if he should feel honored or worried. "Damn it, Palmer! Say something! Don't make me come in there and get you!"
"Sonja?"
"You're back. Good. I don't like dream-walking under these circumstances. What happened?"
"I don't know - one minute I was here in the car with you, the next I was in a jungle in Central America. What's that awful taste in my mouth?"
"Blood." Sonja pulled a linen handkerchief from her pants pocket and offered it to the dazed detective. "You had some kind of seizure. Blood started running out of your nose. You also probably bit the side of your mouth, if not your tongue. Now, what's this about you being in Central America?"
Palmer shook his head in disbelief as he dabbed at the corner of his mouth. "It was weird. It wasn't like a dream. It was more like being there. Or remembering being there. I was sitting in a stone house and I could hear the birds and monkeys outside, just like in the Tarzan movies. There was a boy..." Palmer frowned as he tried to recall more of his vision, but it was already fading.
"Palmer, do you believe in reincarnation?"
"I never really gave it much thought, to tell you the truth. Just like I never gave much thought to vampires and werewolves." His smile wavered and Sonja saw the fear in his eyes. "It's true, then?"
"To a point. There is such a thing as reincarnation. But not every human being is reincarnated. I don't know how it works - nobody does for sure, unless it's the seraphim, and they're not talking. But there are a number of humans who are preborn. The Pretenders call them old souls. Most never know who-or what-they were before, and that's as it should be. But every now and again, they get a glimpse of their previous incarnations. Various random incidents can cue a buried memory. Or, as in your case, you can accidentally make contact with the physical remains of your previous self."
Palmer hunched forward, resting his forehead against the steering wheel. "Holy - !"
"You spoke while you were - away. Are you aware of that?"
"No. What did I say?"
"You said the word 'Tohil.' Does that mean anything to you?"
He closed his eyes and the sound of macaws calling to one another from jungle perches filled his ears. "Yes. Yes, it does. It was my son's name."
"So that's Ghost Trap. The guy who built it really was crazy!"
Palmer was perched atop a nearby hill overlooking the infamous manor house, squinting through binoculars at the valley below. Not that he needed them to see Creighton Seward's fevered brainchild - the rambling mansion filled the small dell to overflowing.
Sonja pointed to the center of the grandiose concoction of towers, turrets and flying buttresses. "You can still make out the original house in the middle. It looks like a spider squatting in the middle of a web. See anything?"
Palmer shook his head and lowered the binoculars. "Sealed up like a fuckin' drum. All the shutters are closed. I spotted what looks like an old stable off to one side - Morgan's sports car's in it. Our boy's here. No doubt about it."
"I never thought he wasn't. I can feel him."
"Looking at that house is making my head hurt." Palmer massaged the bridge of his nose. "I can't imagine anyone actually living in that monstrosity!"
Sonja scowled down at Ghost Trap. Morgan could be anywhere inside its labyrinth-like belly. She glanced up at the afternoon sky, careful not to look directly at the sun. It had taken them three hours, following narrow asphalt roads that twisted through the hills surrounding the SonomaValley like black snakes, before they located the isolated area that separated Ghost Trap from the rest of the world. There were still several hours to go before it got dark and Morgan would stir from his daily coma.
Still, in a place like Ghost Trap, where daylight rarely pierced its heart, Morgan might possibly be up and about. She was loath to mention it to Palmer, but she was in bad need of recharging. It kind of scared her. She used to be able to function perfectly well during the day, but right now she felt like she'd just come off a week-long drunk. The temptation to crawl in the trunk of the car and enjoy a quick nap was strong.
"Put a sock in it," she muttered to the Other as it whined for the seven hundredth and fifty-second time that the sunlight was making it sick.
"Huh?" Palmer looked up from his binoculars.
"I wasn't talking to you."
"Whatever you say."
"I'm going down there."
"When?"
"Now."
Palmer sucked on his lower lip. "You figure it's safe?"
She barked a humorless laugh. "It's never going to be safe! Still, I think I stand a better chance during the day. Hopefully, he won't be expecting anything. And if Lijing's talisman does what it's supposed to" - she hefted the Hand of Glory before stuffing it into her leather jacket - "he won't know I've breached his defense until it's too late to do him any good. What about you? You packing?"
Palmer pulled a loaded .38 special out of his waistband and held it up so she could see. "Figure this'll do the job?"
"Honey, you shoot anything in the brain - human or not - with that damn thing, you'll kill it!" He nodded and returned her smile. Sonja gave him a thumbs-up signal and began walking. Palmer watched as she moved into the trees and made her way down the rugged hillside. When he could no longer see her, he focused his binoculars back on Ghost Trap.
He quickly scanned the windows and turrets for signs of movement, having already learned that if he let his eyes linger too long on any particular architectural detail it made his eyes water and his head hurt.
His attention was caught by a fleeting glimpse of a pale, moonlike face glowering from a fifth-floor window. Swearing as he fiddled with the binoculars' field of focus for a closer view, Palmer's heart thumped a 4/4 beat. But by the time he could refocus, the face was gone, the window once more shuttered. Or had it ever been open in the first place? Perhaps it had been an illusion created from staring too long at the weird house. And if not, whose face had he seen at the window? It sure wasn't Morgan's. He contemplated hurrying after Sonja and telling her what he'd seen.
Before he could get to his feet, he saw a shadow emerge from the tree line just beyond the east side of the mansion's ruined gardens and flit through the tangled rosebushes. He watched, awed by the woman's supernatural grace as she deftly avoided empty goldfish ponds and crumbling statuary and made her way to what had once been the coal cellar.
He smiled when he saw her yank the heavy-duty padlock off the cellar doors. He whispered under his breath, "That's m'girl!"
Then she was gone, swallowed by Ghost Trap. Whatever dangers lay hidden within the mansion's sprawl, she would have to face them alone. And maybe, if he was lucky, she would never come out.