chapter 10
Despite the city being a sprawling metropolis, the smell of honeysuckle still somehow perfumed the warm night air. From her spot on the hotel balcony, Sonja saw fireflies clustered like fairy lights in the trees of a nearby park. Normally she didn't get to enjoy such views while she was working, since she usually hunkered down in abandoned warehouses in the less desirable parts of town.
She reached inside her jacket and removed the bottle V?V? had given her, holding it between thumb and forefinger. Although it glowed like a blacklight bulb, it remained cool to the touch. The sight of Judd's captive soul burning with such fierce purity triggered despair within her as deep and profound as first love.
She brought the bottle to her ear and heard an almost imperceptible buzzing, like that of bees sealed in a mason jar. She strained to decipher what, if anything, the sound might mean. Did he know she was there?
Did he know he was free of Malfeis? Did he know he was dead? Did he know anything at all? Or did he exist in a place beyond words; beyond even the thoughts that words represent?
She had loved Judd as she had loved no one else in her existence. Unlike Chaz and Palmer, Judd was neither a psychic nor one of the death groupies drawn to vampires. He was simply a handsome young man who found her attractive and enjoyed her company. Of course, it being around someone like Sonja was not a good thing for someone like Judd. She had tried to warn him off, but part of her enjoyed being mistaken for normal; she had not been able to bring herself to tell him the truth about the things she was capable of, and the Other had turned that weakness against her.
Judd had cared for her, and the Other had repaid his affection by breaking his mind and using his body to sate its base lusts. The Other raped both his body and his soul, and when it was through, his mind was like a broken toy hastily glued back together. For all their physical adaptability, humans have psyches as delicate as Christmas ornaments. It was impossible for them to glimpse the Real World without it warping them in some way. In Judd's case, his ordeal twisted him so that he craved the psychic domination of the Other. So she killed him, dismembered his body and fed it to alligators. It was the only humane thing to do.
For years she had carried the guilt of Judd's fall from grace locked within me. She had believed that the Other's ravaging of his psyche and his flesh was responsible for the damage to his soul. But now it was clear to her that that Judd had gone to Malfeis, seeking her whereabouts. And, in asking the demon where he could find her, he had, innocently and unknowingly, bartered away his soul. The thing she had killed was just a husk. Everything that truly made Judd who he was, his kindness, his empathy, his sense of humor, now lay in the palm of her hand.
She stared at the glow trapped within the tiny bottle and wondered what would happen if she removed the stopper. Would Judd's soul shoot out like a bottle rocket, or ooze out like dry-ice fog? Maybe it wouldn't even realize there was a difference between inside and out, like a tiger raised in captivity that continues to sit in its cage after the door has been thrown wide. Her fingers closed on the stopper, then fell away. She lacked the courage to set him free - at least for now.
Sonja could hear Estes bumping around inside the room. She retired from the balcony to find the door to the honor bar sitting wide open. Miniature bourbon, tequila, whiskey and gin bottles littered the tabletop.
"How do they expect a man to get drunk with these damned things?" Estes snarled, shaking the last few drops of Johnny Walker into a tumbler filled with half-melted ice and Coca-Cola.
"You seem to be making a go of it," she replied. "Oh, and for your information, I don't intend to hold your head while you blow chunks."
Estes fixed her with a drunken glare. "I expect nothing from you - except what we agreed upon."
"That's cool. It's your death trip, man. I'm just along for the ride." She dropped onto the settee and picked up the remote control, pointing it at the color TV nested in the faux armoire. The screen blinked on like a giant's eye, revealing the black and white figure of a man dressed in a baggy suit with a little cloth heart pinned to its breast. The man's face was painted like a clown's, with twists of hair sticking up through a bald wig like a crown of thorns.
"What's this?" Estes asked, his voice slurred.
"He Who Gets Slapped."
Estes frowned at the screen, his brow knitting. "Why isn't there any sound?"
"This was made before films had soundtracks. You know about the old silent movies, don't you?"
"No," he replied flatly, dropping onto the settee beside Sonja. "I've never even been to a real movie theater. I've only watched them on TV and video players."
"That's right - I keep forgetting you were - "
"Raised in an insane asylum?"
"I was going to say `catatonic for ten years,' but, yeah, that's what I meant."
"My knowledge is full of gaps. Blind spots, I guess you could call them. I was taught how to read and write, I was tutored in American history, basic math, biology... but I never went to school. And once I was released from the Institute, well, I was only interested in learning those things that would help me track down vampires. I never experienced growing up, not the way I saw it on television. I didn't go to the movies, didn't hang out after school, didn't read comic books or play video games. I know I should have been doing all those things, because I saw kids my age doing them on TV, but I never got the chance.
How about you? Did you ever get to be a kid?"
"Yeah, I guess so. But I wasn't me back then, I was someone else."
"But you can remember being her, can't you?"
"Enough to hurt."
"Did you play video games?"
"They weren't invented yet." She turned to search his face. "You honestly don't remember anything from before that night?"
Estes shook his head sadly. "Just blurs. They're more like dreams than genuine memories. Every time I try to examine one, it dissolves. It's like trying to catch soap bubbles with your bare hands."
"You resent your childhood being taken away from you."
He took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. "Yeah, I do. Funny, I couldn't bring myself to admit that to myself before now. It always sounded kind of selfish. Avenging my parents seemed so much more noble."
"I understand where you're coming from - I was angry for a very long time. For years I thought I wanted to kill the bastard who made me a vampire because he raped me. But it was more than that. I was angry because my life had been stolen. I'll never get to grow old, have children, or even truly die. All of that was taken away from me. I know there are people out there who would gladly sacrifice everything they own and are to be like me. And all I want is to be able to age, die, and stay dead. And it makes me angry that such simple things have been denied me. I've tried to get a handle on that anger, tried to make myself its master, not the other way around."
"Have you succeeded?"
"I'm getting better. But I still have my bad nights. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching myself from a great distance, as if everything I say or do is happening to someone else. Other times it feels like I've been dropped down a mineshaft. I can't see, hear or feel anything but the darkness surrounding me. I tear at it and rage against it, just to make sure I'm still there. Then there's the times when everything in the world is going on all at once inside my mind: babies crying, women screaming, men cursing. It's like having a short-wave radio in your head that you can't turn off; all you can do is adjust the volume up or down.
When it's real bad, everything I look at, every sound I hear, every thought that churns inside my head hurts like hell. If it gets too loud, the only way I can have some bloody peace and quiet is to kill every living thing within striking distance."
"Jesus..." Estes' face contorted in genuine pity. "I had no idea..."
"But, you want to know why it hurts so much? Because I haven't surrendered yet. No matter how good succumbing to the darkness might feel - and it does feel good, that's the terrible thing about it - I refuse to give in. Still, every so often I weaken and allow the Other to escape. That's why I know how good it feels to surrender in the first place.
"Giving in to the Other is better than sex, better than drugs, better than liquor - because it makes the pain stop. But every time I give in, I lose a little bit more of my self, my humanity, if you will, to the vampire inside me. You see, I died on the operating table. Just a little bit, mind you - only for a minute or so. But when I died, I became a bridge between the land of the living and that of the dead. The Other is mine, yet not of me. We're like Siamese twins joined at the medulla oblongata. It roams at will inside my mind, like a wild animal pacing its cage. It's always with me, no matter what."
"Is it with you now?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what it wants?"
"Yes," she replied matter-of-factly. "It wants to kill you."
Estes nodded his understanding. There was no fear in his eyes. "Is there any way of getting rid of it?"
Sonja shrugged her shoulders. "How can I escape when there is no place to run from? When my rage overwhelms me, it's like the whole world is bathed in blood and fire. Sometime I know what's going on but am unable to stop it, as if I'm riding in the backseat of a car, unable to grab the wheel. But most of the time I black out, like a drunk on a bender. I never know what it's done... what I've done... until I come back to my senses. But I do know the fucker likes to hurt people who are close to me, and because of that, I'm dangerous to be around. I've learned to keep my contact with others to a bare minimum."
"What about, you know, blood?" Estes asked, his cheeks burning as if he'd just questioned her about her sex life.
"I feed myself with black market plasma. The only time I allow myself a fresh drink is in self-defense, if you will."
"What does it taste like?" There was an excited tremor in the back of his voice Sonja decided to ignore.
"It tastes like blood. But I will admit there is a difference between fresh and bagged. The bagged stuff is cold and stale. The hot red straight from the vein is fresh, vivid, and alive. And it's good - no, what am I saying? It's fucking great! In that regard, I'm no different from any of the suckers I hunt. Believe me, no junkie has hurt for a fix the way a vampire lusts for fresh blood.
"Blood enables vampires to ignore the pain of being an unnatural thing in a natural world, and they will do whatever it takes to sate their need; whether it means luring their grieving widow into a blizzard, snatching a baby from a stroller, or trawling for johns in subway stations. But no matter how much they feed, it's never enough. That's what makes the bloodlust so terrible. It isn't a hunger for food, but for something else: something that isn't there and never can truly be replaced. Where I'm different from the others is that there's one other thing that feels as good as blood - and that's killing vampires."
****
Frank was the night auditor of the Peachtree Park Hotel. He liked the graveyard shift, since he could work in relative solitude and catch up on his light reading. The hotel's bar closed at midnight, which normally left the lobby deserted.
"Excuse me - sir?"
Frank glanced up from his copy of GQ at the attractive, dark-haired young woman standing on the other side of the reception desk.
"Yes, ma'am?" he said, automatically. "May I help you?" As he got to his feet, he couldn't help noticing that the woman was very pregnant, her belly riding low on her hips.
"I need the room number of a guest who is staying here. His name is Estes."
Frank frowned. Someone had called ten minutes before, asking whether or not there was a guest by that name registered at the hotel. When he offered to put the call through to the room, the caller had hung up without another word. However, Frank distinctly remembered the caller as being male.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we're not allowed to give out the room numbers of our guests."
"But he's my husband," the pregnant woman said quickly, a look of distress crossing her face.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I still can't help you. I can place a call to his room, though, and he can tell you his room number..." He pushed the house phone resting atop the desk towards her.
The pregnant woman laced her hands protectively across her belly and grimaced as if she was going into labor on the spot. "No, you don't understand. He - he's here with another woman. He promised me he wouldn't see her again. He promised on the life of our baby." Her voice cracked and she began to cry, her belly trembling like a bowl of Jell-O with each sob.
Frank cringed. He hadn't felt this guilty since he'd accidentally backed over the neighbor's cat with his Toyota.
"Ma'am... please don't cry. Please..." He sighed and rolled his eyes in surrender as her slender shoulders began to shake even harder. "Okay! Okay! I'll check the register." He turned to the computer and tapped on the keys. Within a half-second, the name and room number of Jack Estes flashed onto the screen. "Mr.
Estes is in Suite 1432. But, please, don't tell anyone I told you. It would mean my job."
The woman he assumed to be Mrs. Estes dried her tears and favored him with a wan smile. "Thank you, sir. And my child thanks you, too."
Frank's gaze inadvertently dropped to the woman's midsection. And for the briefest second he could have sworn the child inside her had maneuvered itself so it could press its ear against the inside of her stomach.
"You know, Sonja...You're the only person I've ever met who understands," Estes motioned with one hand to include not just the room and its furnishings, but the world itself. "You see what I see. You see even more than I do. You don't think I'm crazy, do you?"
"Just a little," she said with a shrug. "But not in a bad way."
"When I first came to my senses, back at the Institute ... Dr. Morrissey was my lifeline. He was my father and my mother rolled into one, you know? He was the man who unlocked my mind and set me free. I thought I could tell him everything. But when I talked about Blackheart, he didn't believe me. Oh, he said he believed I believed I was telling the truth. But he didn't believe. He kept insisting I was creating false memories to hide the truth from myself. He said I created Blackheart to take my father's place.
"When I insisted I was the one who was right and he was wrong, that I wasn't lying to myself or anyone else, Dr. Morrissey's attitude toward me changed. When he scheduled me for electroshock, that's when I discovered I was truly on my own.
"Up until the day they wheeled me into the electrotherapy room and stuck that rubber stopper in my mouth, I still trusted others as a child does. But my ability to trust was burned out of me with the first surge of electricity.
"It was a bitter lesson, but I quickly learned that no one was going to believe me, no one was going to help me, and no one was going to plead my case. If my family was to be avenged, it would have to be by my hand, and no other's. From then on I learned to hide what I really thought and lie to others about what I knew to be true.
"I was robbed of everything - my parents, my childhood, my place in the world. I could never be like the people I see on the streets, the ones who are happy and simply going about their business. I told myself that I didn't miss those things, because I had never known them. But that's not true. Maybe some needs must be satisfied if we are to live as human beings."
His hand dropped onto Sonja's knee, its warmth and weight oddly comforting. She knew she should remove it, but it had been so long since she had last been touched by anyone in something besides anger, she allowed it to stay.
Estes leaned in closer, his breath redolent of alcohol. She had feared this might happen, but now that it had, she was actually relieved. She hated worrying about things that had yet to happen.
"You scare me, Sonja," Estes whispered, his voice as raspy as a file. "I look at you and I see something I should kill. But I can't, because I also see someone who has been where I've been, who has seen what I've seen. I never thought I would ever be able to relate to anyone else, or find anyone capable of understanding what I've gone through - until I met you."
His lips grazed Sonja's cheek, sending an electric shiver down her spine, while his warm, masculine smell generated a pulsing ache between her legs. If Estes noticed how cool her flesh was against his own, he didn't show it. Sonja closed her eyes, trying to block the sight of the carotid artery pulsing inches from her mouth. It would be so easy to pin him to the sofa and sink her fangs into his exposed throat....
As he cupped the pale weight of her right breast in his palm, she gasped aloud, opening wide her mouth.
Her fangs ache to be unsheathed from their hiding place in her gums. The urge to plunge her canines into his throat and make the sweet, hot red that pulsed within his veins her own was unbearable. She quickly turned her head away from his and growled a warning.
Estes made a strangled noise and jumped off the sofa as if it was on fire, Sonja's sunglasses caught in his numbed fingers. Sonja raised a hand to her eyes, shielding them as best she could. Although the only light in the room was from the television, it might as well have been the high beams from a car shining directly in her face. Estes went white around the lips and nearly fell over his own legs as he hurried for the john, a hand clamped over his mouth. The door slammed behind him just as his strangled groans exploded into violent retching. The scene was bad and headed for worse if she stayed around. She snatched her sunglasses from where Estes had dropped them on the floor. She needed to put some distance between them before things got completely out of hand.
As she turned to close the door of the hotel room, she glanced at the television one last time. Parades of clowns were marching by Lon Chaney, each slapping him viciously in turn. The last clown in line snatched the silk heart pinned to Chaney's costume and hurled it to the sawdust of the center ring, then gleefully jumped up and down on it. Although Chaney's painted face was fixed in a rictus of pained hilarity, his eyes shone with tears of madness.
"Idiot," she whispered, to no one who could hear.