Chapter Five
Palmer sat on the penthouse patio, a glass of bourbon in his hand, while everything he'd assumed was real disintegrated.
Palmer prided himself on his ability to adapt to adverse conditions. He'd learned how to cope when his family kicked him out of the house at the age of seventeen. He'd survived three hellish months on an Alabama work gang, back when having long hair was a criminal offense. He'd watched friends unwilling to admit they were no longer as young and invulnerable as they used to be succumb to overdoses and disease. There was no percentage in denying change. Evolve or die. He should have had it tattooed on his forehead.
He took another swallow of his drink, glancing over the rim at his savior. She sat on the edge of the parapet, scanning the surrounding rooftops. Palmer was uncertain as to whether he trusted the mirror-eyed woman, but did not see he had any choice.
"Is Pangloss really your grandfather?"
She shrugged but did not turn to face him. "Some would say so. But if you mean is he my biological grandfather, no, he is not."
"I didn't think so. He's nowhere near old enough to have a grandchild your age."
"Pangloss is at least fifteen hundred years old, Mr. Palmer."
"So I'm lousy at guessing ages."
"You seem rather... calm, considering what's just happened."
"After talking to the dead, discovering I possess psychic powers and being brain-raped by a crazed telepath, being told my employer is a vampire is rather anticlimactic."
Sonja glanced at him. "You spoke with the dead?"
"Actually, it was more the other way around. It was your old boyfriend."
"Chaz?"
He nodded, watching her face for a reaction. If the news affected her in any way, it did not show.
"And what did he have to say?"
"That I should avoid you like the plague and get the hell out of Dodge."
"Death has given him some smarts."
"He said you killed him."
"The dead don't lie. But they don't speak the truth, either. Yes, I killed him. Does it matter?"
"It did to him."
"Chaz was my... partner. He was like you - a sensitive. He was a smalltime hustler when I met him. We clicked. It was good - for a while. Then there was trouble. Chaz ended up selling me out. He betrayed me with a kiss. He always did have a flair for irony. I spent six months in a madhouse because of him. I do not expect loyalty from humans, but I do not countenance treachery. His death was not just, but it was fair. I have been a murderer for a very long time, Mr. Palmer. Killing is a habit of mine. It is only proper that I tell you this."
"There was a boy..." He felt his throat tighten at the taste of Jimmy Eichorn's blood, but continued anyway. "A boy with blue hair you did something to."
"The Blue Monkeys? Yes, I remember. I take it the boy is still alive?"
"If you want to call it that."
She shrugged. "He possessed information. And I was in need of... well, let us say I was in need and leave it at that."
"He was only fifteen - "
- and already guilty of gang rape, hit-and-run driving and second-degree murder. Do not waste your sympathy on him, Mr. Palmer. Like I said, what I do is not just, but it is fair."
Sonja Blue showed Palmer to a small attic room. A narrow bed was placed where the slope of the roof met the wall.
"It's not much. Then again, I normally don't entertain guests. You'll be safe here. It's another four hours until dawn. I'll be outside guarding the door. Once the sun comes up you shouldn't have to worry about Pangloss's pet ogre."
"Ogre?"
"What do you think the lunk chowing down on dear departed Renfield was? The tooth fairy? They're big and dumb and have some seriously nasty habits, as you might have guessed, but they're pretty much helpless without a handler. Left to themselves, they'll spend their time eating children and wandering around raping and looting villages. They could get away with shit like that back during the Dark Ages, but it tends to attract notice nowadays. So most of them end up signing on as muscle with various vampire or vargr big shots. That way their employers can dispose of the empties without calling too much attention to themselves. That's what Renfield had planned for you, if you haven't figured it out by now."
"But why did he do what he did?"
A flicker of sympathy softened her features. "There's no shame in admitting what happened to you. Renfield may not have raped you physically, but the result was the same."
"Yeah, well - " Palmer looked away. He did not know what to say. He doubted he ever would.
"As to why Renfield hurt you - he was trying to twist you."
"Come again?"
"In order for you to be of any use to Pangloss, or any vampire, for that matter, he has to make sure you're twisted to suit his needs. That involves a complete and utter destruction of superego and restructuring of the ego. The sensitive's needs and desires must revolve around his master. He must be willing to live-and die-for his master. Sometimes this emotional dependence is reinforced with drugs or sex. Inclinations to evil are fostered while any vestige of human emotion, except those required by the master, are systematically destroyed. While this may take some time, the initial programming is usually done within a matter of minutes, assuming the attacker is a skilled psionic. If the programming is pushed too hard, too fast, death occurs.
"Obviously, Renfield had orders to twist you, to add you to Pangloss's stable, so to speak. But he was jealous and rebelled. You're lucky he wanted to kill you, or you'd be Pangloss's slave right now."
"Yeah. Lucky."
Sonja Blue squatted on her haunches, listening to Palmer's breathing with half an ear. She doubted the ogre had the brains to come looking for them, but she'd learned the hard way never to underestimate the good doctor. She plucked Pangloss's letter from inside her jacket, flattening the paper against the attic floorboards.
There is much I must tell you, my dear, and it concerns one whom I know you are interested in.
Morgan.
Her hands balled themselves into tight fists. She exhaled a nervous, shaky breath. She had spent the better part of twenty years - her entire unlife - searching for the vampire that had raped a teenaged girl, tainted her blood, and turned her into something that called itself Sonja Blue. Now Pangloss, the vampire responsible for Morgan's own creation, was tempting her with information concerning his whereabouts. It wasn't the first time he'd tried it. The last time had been under the streets of Rome, in a catacomb held sacred to the shadow races that manipulated mankind. She had been too proud to agree to Pangloss's "business proposition." She was lucky to have escaped.
What was Pangloss planning this time? It was not in his nature to volunteer information. He wanted - or needed - something from her, that much was certain.
You can contact me through the human, Palmer.
It was obvious that Pangloss meant to lure her closer by using the human investigator, then putting him into thrall once his usefulness was at an end. Pangloss was astute enough to realize she would never allow a twisted sensitive or a Pretender within sniffing distance and allow it to live to tell about it. So what was she to do with Palmer? Part of her, that which she thought of as the Other, knew what it wanted to do with him, but she refused to listen to its counsel.
Palmer moaned in his sleep, shifting uneasily on the narrow bed. Renfield's pasty face, as wide and pale as the moon, filled his dreams. The dead man's eyes were as flat and black as buttons, his lips thin and blue. Palmer could hear Renfield's voice, even though the satellite-sized face's mouth remained caught in a rictus grin.
Like me. Like me. She's going to make you like me. Lap dog. Lap dog. Lap, dog, lap!
Palmer sat up suddenly, the sweat running into his eyes. His mouth was dry, his head aching as if the lobes of his brain were dividing like amoebas. He stared at the circular window set near the peak of the roof. He got up and swiveled the window open on its pivot, inhaling a deep breath of Mississippi River-saturated air. Somewhere on the river, a barge sounded a long, mournful note.
"Will - yummmm ? "
No. It couldn't be. He leaned his forehead against the windowsill, trying to find some comfort in the peeling paint pressing against his skin. He was awake. He knew it.
"William? Why won't you look at me, baby? Aren't you glad to see me, honey?"
Palmer bit his lip as the familiar burning tore at his chest. His scar throbbed and pulsed as if he'd been branded with a red-hot coat hanger. He wouldn't look at her. She wasn't real. She was a dream. He was awake. He opened his eyes, scanning the world outside the window for proof.
New Orleans was on fire.
The city was wrapped in sheets of flame, yet no one seemed to notice. Burning children ran up and down the streets, smoke and laughter billowing from their lobster-red mouths. Women dressed in crackling aprons swept their stoops clean of ash. Business executives dressed in smoldering Brooks Brothers suits paused to check the melted slag strapped to their wrists before hurrying on their way, smoking attache cases clenched in their roasted hands. On the balcony opposite Palmer's window two lovers embraced, oblivious to the blisters rising on their naked flesh, while the wrought iron bower softened and dripped like licorice left in the sun.
The pain spasmed through his chest, forcing an involuntary cry from his lips. There was no use in denying her. She was going to have her way, no matter how hard he tried to stop her. Groaning, Palmer turned to face Loli.
The smell of the marui roused Sonja from her brooding. She'd scented it before, but had been uncertain then as to its intentions. The reek of ectoplasm was strong. Then she heard Palmer's stifled cry.
She kicked the door open, growling at the sight of the ill-formed creature crouched atop the sleeping man, its claws buried in his chest. The marui screeched in alarm and spread its membranous wings. Sonja's fingers closed on its slippery flanks and the creature's high-pitched squealing became ultrasonic.
"Holy shit!"
Palmer was awake, staring in confusion at the combatants wrestling beside his bed.
"Don't just sit there gawking! Help me!"
"How?"
"Grab its neck!"
Palmer took one look at the marui's barbed teeth and shook his head. "Like hell I will!"
"Just do it, damn you!"
Palmer grimaced as his hands closed on the marui's telescoped neck. Its flesh was chill and rubbery, as if the wildly struggling beast was composed of phlegm. With its biting end under control, Sonja was able to pin the creature to the floor.
"What in the name of hell is this thing?"
"This, Mr. Palmer, is your nightmare."
The beast, weakened by the scuffle, no longer tried to escape. It lay crumpled like a damaged kite, mewling to itself. Palmer stared at the marui's twisted, almost human musculature and tattered, batlike wings. The nightmare creature's neck looked like a loop of umbilical cord, its bald, old man's head dominated by large, foxlike ears and bristling barbed teeth. Just looking at the thing made his scar tighten.
"They're called marui, "she explained, resting her foot on the brute's neck. "They're also called night-elves, maere, and le rudge-pula, depending on the part of the world you happen to be in. They batten onto sleepers, manipulating dreams in order to feed on the fear and anxiety born of nightmares. Judging by its size, this one's been feasting on you for some time. They only take on corporeal form while they feed."
"You mean this thing's a nightmare?"
"Bad dreams exist for their own reasons; marui simply benefit from the negative energy released by nightmares. But they're not what you'd call smart." She applied pressure on the marui's neck, smiling as it wailed in distress. "My guess is that Pangloss sicced this little darling on you, hoping to make Renfield's job easier when the time came. Isn't that so, Rover?" She applied more pressure to the marui's throat. The creature squealed.
"Will - yummm, help meee."
Palmer brought his heel down on the marui's skull, grinding it into a sticky paste. The marui shuddered once and began to dissolve, the ectoplasm evaporating like dry ice.
"I trust you slept well."
Palmer put down his mug of chicory coffee and turned to stare at the vampire standing in the kitchen door. She was dressed in a green silk kimono embroidered with tiny butterflies the color of smoke. Her hair was hidden by a clean white towel piled atop her head turban-style. She was still wearing mirrored sunglasses. It had never occurred to Palmer that the undead took showers.
"Never slept better." It was the truth. For the first time in weeks, Palmer's sleep was free of the recurring nightmares. When he awoke late that afternoon, he felt genuinely refreshed and rejuvenated.
"I trust you kept yourself entertained while I was... indisposed." Sonja opened the refrigerator and removed one of the bottles of dark red liquid. Palmer had stumbled across them earlier and guessed their significance. "I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of houseguests." She cracked the seal and brought the bottle to her lips, then caught sight of Palmer's face. "Oh, I'm sorry - I've forgotten my manners." She put the blood aside, apologetically.
"There's nothing you have to apologize for. After all, it's your house. I'm just a guest. I have no right to judge."
Sonja tilted her head to one side, regarding him with her one-way gaze. "You're quite adaptable... for a human."
Palmer coughed into his fist. "There's something I need to say. Look, it's pretty obvious that I'm at something of a disadvantage right now. Discovering everything I've ever known is wrong is unnerving enough, but to also find out everything I've ever been paranoid about is true..." He spread his hands in an expressive shrug. "I need help. Big time."
So?
"Well, I'd like to make a business proposition. Call it a modest proposal. I need help with this ham radio set in my skull, right? You need help with Pangloss, right? How about we team up - just for a little while?
You could teach me how to use what I got, and I could... do whatever it is you need me to do."
"Mr. Palmer, do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into?" "No. I'll admit that up front. But I know that if I don't get help, I'm going to go nuts. I can't handle walking around with other people's thoughts and fears and craziness going through my head." He could feel his hands tremble as he spoke, but he refused to look at them. "Look, I can't lie to you. You scare me, lady. But it's like my Uncle Willy used to say - better the devil you know."
When she laughed he saw her fangs. Even though he knew it was going to be okay, it still frightened him.
Compared to the day before, the French Quarter was practically deserted.
Bourbon Street
was open for business, as usual, but the barkers were, for once, uninterested in luring the handful of tourists wandering the neon and garbage-strewn strip into their dens of iniquity.
Local merchants swept the remaining debris of plastic cups and busted liquor bottles outside their shops into the gutter with powerful pistol-grip hoses. The overall mood was a mixture of exhaustion and relief, as if the city was recovering from a malaria attack.
Palmer trailed after his new employer, trying to ignore the stares that followed them down the narrow streets. Sonja Blue moved swiftly and purposefully through the clustered shadows, her hands jammed into the pockets of her leather jacket. She seemed preoccupied, but Palmer had no doubt that she was very much aware of the looks aimed at her.
The fear and loathing that radiated from the hustlers, pushers and other Quarter habitues was strong enough to make Palmer's skin crawl. It felt as if someone had liberated an ant farm in his underwear. He ran through the mental exercises for blocking ambient emotions Sonja had taught him before they left the house that evening, and the horde of invisible ants disappeared.
"It appears you're not well liked around here."
She shot him a glance over her shoulder. "Get used to it. Most humans have an instinctual dislike of Pretenders - and sensitives, for that matter."
Palmer recalled his own immediate, gut-level reaction to Renfield and winced.
"You've used that word before: Pretenders. What does it mean?"
"Ever read Lovecraft?"
"Back in high school. Why?"
"Remember that stuff about Cthulhu, the Elder Gods and the Old Ones? How mankind is only a recent development, as far as the earth is concerned, and that hideous giant outer space monsters used to rule the world back before the dinosaurs, and how giant ugly nameless horrors are just sitting around on their tentacles, waiting for when the time is ripe to take over the world?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it's kind of like that."
"I don't think I want to know any more."
"Too late for that. But showing's easier than telling. I can tell you anything I want. Whether it's true or not - well, that's up to you to decide. But when you see something, can actually smell its breath and body odor, well, that's a different thing entirely. Those who know call it witnessing."
"Where are we going?" Palmer was starting to feel itchy again, but it had nothing to do with telepathic intrusion.
"Do you believe in hell?"
Palmer blinked, taken aback by the change in subject matter. "If you mean the Christian hell, where people are tortured by guys with pitchforks and pointy ears - no, I don't believe in that."
"Me neither. But I do believe in demons. And that's where we're going - to make a deal with a devil."
"You mean Satan?"
"Are you kidding? He's way too expensive. Doesn't deal for anything less than souls. No, the guy I go to is reasonably priced."
Palmer decided it might be better if he stopped asking questions.
The Monastery was a small, dark bar that had, in a fit of perversity, decided on an ecclesiastical decor. The booths lining the wall had once been pews. Fragments of stained glass, salvaged from various desanctified churches, had been soldered together to create a disjointed jigsaw collage on display in the skylight. Plaster saints and icons in varying states of decay were scattered about. A black Madonna and Child, whether darkened by exposure to too many votive candles or Vatican II's attempt at "modernizing" its appeal, stared at the Monastery's denizen's with flat, robin's egg blue eyes from its perch over the liquor supply. A battered Rockola jukebox played scratchy Rolling Stones records.
With its cheap prices, slovenly service and haphazard attitude toward hygiene, it was obvious that the Monastery did not cater to the hordes of Visa-packing tourists the Quarter thrived on. A prostitute sat at the bar, sipping a sloe gin fizz while the bartender cleaned a highball glass with a grimy rag. Both watched Palmer and Sonja Blue intently as they entered.
"What if the guy you're looking for isn't here?" Palmer whispered hopefully.
"He's here, all right. He's always here."
Sonja's connection was seated in the back booth, where the shadows were the deepest. Sonja's lips curled into a thin, cold smile. "Hello, Malfeis."
The demon returned her smile, licking his lips with a forked tongue. "Ah, Sonja! Please, call me Mai! There is no need to stand on formalities."
Palmer frowned. Whatever he'd been expecting, it definitely wasn't a teenaged boy dressed in faded denims and a Surf or Die T-shirt. A skateboard, its belly painted to depict an eyeball wreathed in Day-Glo flames, leaned against the converted pew.
"Kid, are you old enough to be in this place?"
Malfeis lifted an upswept eyebrow in amusement. "Who's the renfield, Sonja?"
"My name's not Renfield." Palmer fought the urge to grab the snot-nosed little skatepunk by his rat-tail. "What'd you mean by that?"
Sonja waved Palmer silent. "I'll explain later. After I get through with business. Wait for me at the bar."
"But - "
"I said wait at the bar." Her voice was as hard and cold as steel, and as unyielding. She waited until Palmer left before sliding into the booth.
"Quite a change from the last time, Mai." Six months ago Malfeis had worn the body of a young black male wreathed in coils of gold chain.
The demon shrugged, smiling slyly. "I like to keep up to date. I've always been something of a fashion plate. So, what brings you back into my clutches, sweet thing?"
"I think you know that already."
"Do I?"
"Don't play cute with me, Mai. I don't have the time or the patience right now. I need to know what Pangloss has up his sleeve." She pulled the letter Palmer had delivered to her out of her jacket, sliding it across the table.
Mai tapped the folded paper with an overly long fingernail and grunted. "Easy enough. What's in it for me?"
Sonja produced a black ceramic vessel the size of an unguent jar from her pocket and held it up so the demon could get a good look.
"Got it in from Katmandu just last week. The powdered skull of a man who killed six Tibetan holy men, then murdered and raped three missionaries. It's good shit, man, as pure as you'll find it."
Mai's catlike eyes filled with a strange fire. His fingers drummed nervously against the tabletop. "Gimme a taste."
Sonja carefully unscrewed the lid and dispensed a pinch of a fine, chalky yellow powder into Mai's outstretched palm. The demon daubed a forefinger in the pulverized skull and popped it his mouth.
"So? What's the verdict?"
Mai nodded, appreciatively. "Yow! Mama, buy me some of that!"
"Deal?"
"Done."
Sonja pushed the jar over to Malfeis's side of the table. The demon brought out a gold-plated razor blade and a flat piece of volcanic glass, quickly arranging himself a generous line of powdered skull. Oblivious to his surroundings, Malfeis lowered his head to the table and inhaled the line with both nostrils, snuffling like a bloodhound. He jerked his head up when he was finished, blowing out his cheeks and shaking himself like a winded stallion. His eyes were too big and the pupils slitted unnaturally, but otherwise he still looked human.
"Cold-blooded! True righteous shit!" He grinned, showing a mouthful of shark teeth.
"Glad it meets your approval. Now, about Pangloss..."
"No problem!" Mai picked up the letter and tapped one edge between his eyebrows. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, exposing green-tinged whites. A strange, basso profundo gargle rumbled from deep inside his narrow, hairless chest, but no one in the bar seemed to notice. After a second or two Mai reconnected, his eyes dropping back down like the symbols on a slot machine.
"There's not much available information concerning Pangloss, outside of his recent attempts to make contact with you. That much seems up front. There does seem to be a bit of a buzz concerning Morgan, though."
"Really? Were you able to find out what?"
"Sorry, that requires First Hierarchy clearance. I don't have the necessary power to access that information for you, at least not in detail. I can tell that whatever it is Morgan is doing, it's generating a great deal of speculation among the First and Second Hierarchies. Whether that means they approve of what he's doing is impossible to say."
"Don't you have some connections? I thought your uncle was a Second Hierarch."
"Uncle Oeillet? Yeah, but he's not exactly what you'd call a big wheel. I mean, he's in charge of tempting people to break their vows of poverty, for crying out loud! His star's been on the decline since the Reformation. In fact, most of the Second Hierarchs are pretty redundant, since they were originally conscripted to tempt holy men back during the Dark Ages. Still, a direct hookup with any of them rates a blood sacrifice. At least three quarts. I wish I could cut you a better deal on that, babe, but them's the rules."
Palmer glowered first at the highball in his hand then back at Sonja, still talking with the fresh-faced punk with the funny-looking eyes. The Black Madonna stared down at him from her place above the half empty liquor bottles. The Black Baby Jesus looked like a doll someone had dropped down a coal chute, its chubby uplifted arms ending in misshapen fists since the fingers had rotted off.
"Hey, mister. You looking for someone?"
It was the prostitute at the end of the bar, the one he'd noticed when they entered. He shook his head without looking up from his drink. "Thanks, but no thanks."
"Are you sure you aren't looking for someone?"
There was something in her voice that made him look up, and what he saw was enough to push him to the brink.
He could feel insanity yawning like a snake eager to swallow him whole, right down to his Shermans and public library card. All he had to do was let go of the bar and let it suck him deep into its guts, never to be seen or heard from again.
The woman seated at the end of the bar was Loli. And this time he knew he wasn't dreaming. She smiled seductively and moved closer to him. She smelled of sloe gin fizzes and something Palmer recognized but could not name. Her fingers were cold and dry against his exposed flesh, but Palmer was beyond shivering. At her touch, his penis became erect. It was so hard it hurt, forcing tears from the corners of his eyes.
"I've been waiting for a man like you," she cooed into his ear. "I've waited such a long time!"
Palmer wanted to cry out, but his mouth had been sealed from the inside. His dick throbbed as if someone had slipped a piano wire tourniquet around its base and was slowly cutting off the circulation.
"Come on, baby. I got a place we can go and be alone." Loli hooked her arm in Palmer's, pulling him free of the bar. She was at least a head shorter than him, but she was strong. Too strong. "When we're alone, I'll fuck your brains out!" The way she laughed made it sound as if the joke was on him.
Palmer didn't want to go with her, but it was as if he was being pulled along by a wire fastened to the end of his dick. Every time he tried to fight it, the invisible tourniquet tightened its hold on his member. They were almost out the door before Palmer felt a second, equally female hand close on his right elbow.
"He's mine, you skaggy hell-bitch!" Sonja Blue yanked Palmer in her direction, but the succubus still held firmly to his left arm. The demon-whore hissed like a cat, digging her nails into Palmer's upper arm. He tried to scream, but his mouth was still pasted shut.
Palmer pictured himself being ripped apart like a wishbone as the vampire and the succubus fought over him. Then Sonja produced a switchblade and neatly severed the demon-Loli's hand at the wrist. Momentarily confused by this new development, Loli's grip on Palmer weakened enough for Sonja to wrench him free. Once away from the succubus's physical control, his overinflated sex organ rapidly shrank. It was the first time in his life he'd been relieved at losing an erection.
He stared as Loli picked up her severed hand and tried to stick it back on. To his surprise, the graft took.
"Loli... ?" It was the first time he'd had the power to speak since the trouble started.
"She's not Loli, Palmer. Take my hand. See as I see." Before Palmer could protest, she grabbed his right hand and squeezed.
The thing that had bewitched and tried to kidnap him had three pairs of floppy tits, arms as long and hairy as an ape's, crooked legs and a six-inch-long sheathed clitoris dangling between her shanks. Tiny horns grew from the creature's sloping forehead. The succubus hissed, her lipless mouth hinged like a piranha's. She stepped forward, growling a challenge to the mirror-eyed intruder that had dared steal her evening's repast.
"Jamara!"
The voice was as loud as thunder and so deep the speaker sounded as if he was at the bottom of a well. The succubus cringed, automatically turning her flank in submission.
Palmer turned and saw the boy called Malfeis rise from his booth in the back. But now he was no longer a boy. The demon stood well over six feet tall, although the curvature of his spine made him stoop. The demon was covered in coarse, brick red hair, like that of an orangutan, except for his twin-pronged penis. His features were porcine, complete with curving boar's tusks. His feet were cloven.
Malfeis shouldered Sonja and Palmer aside, jabbering in a language that consisted largely of squeals and grunts. He reached behind Jamara and grabbed the succubus's tail, twisting it viciously. Jamara yelped and tried to break free of the demon's grip. Mai propelled the protesting succubus out the door and onto the street. When Malfeis turned back around he was a skatepunk again.
"I'm sorry about that. New girl. Actually, she's family. I promised one of my sisters I'd break her in, but I'm afraid it's just not working out."