In the Blood (Sonja Blue)

by Nancy A. Collins

  Pangloss strode across the room and removed a green silk dressing gown from a peg near the door. “You still cling to certain human conceits, such as the ludicrous idea that time is valuable. You’re far too impatient, my dear! When will you realize that time is the one thing you have plenty of? Then again, I forget how young you truly are. While you are indeed a prodigy, my dear, in many ways you much like a backward child. Come; let us retire to more amenable surroundings.”

  As they left the gymnasium, Palmer glanced over his shoulder and saw the ogre, Kief, pick up the severed head of the ill-fated Herr Grunewald from its resting place on the floor. The ogre peeled off the fencing mask and grinned as it lifted the dead man’s head to its slavering mouth. Palmer looked away, but he could still hear. It sounded just like someone biting into a big, crisp apple.

  Marble art deco nymphs flanked the hearth while a panther carved from a single piece of obsidian crouched on the mantelpiece. There was a fire burning behind the ornate iron screen, but Palmer couldn’t feel it. Perhaps it was just the notorious San Francisco Bay damp getting to him, but he doubted it.

  Pangloss stood at the picture window, his back to his guests. The fog was heavy, obscuring what little view was available at four in the morning. The swirling gray mist reminded Palmer a little too much of the tobacco demons he’d seen earlier, so he returned his gaze to the fireplace.

  “You said you know something important about Morgan,” Sonja prodded. “Is that true?”

  Pangloss glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Oh, it’s true alright. But I would rather speak to you in private. Shall we retire to the patio?” he suggested, gesturing to the sliding glass door that opened onto a rooftop garden.

  Sonja glanced at Palmer, and then followed the elder vampire onto the fog-enshrouded terrace. The sea air was sharp in her nostrils, reminding her of blood. The Other’s voice stirred inside her head, admonishing her for having subsisted for so long on nothing but bottled plasma. She tried her best to tune it out: this was neither the time nor the place for the Other’s yammering to put her off guard. Despite his effete manner, Pangloss was dangerous; something she had learned the hard way years ago.

  “You’ve changed, my dear,” Pangloss said, hands clasped behind his back as he stared into the fog bank. “You’ve matured. I noticed it the moment I laid eyes on you. You’re not as angry as you used to be.”

  “Let’s just say I’ve discovered how to work within the system since the last time we met. I’ve learned to... focus myself. Now, about Morgan..?”

  Pangloss turned to face her, and for a brief moment she was looking at an unwrapped mummy with red coals banked deep in its empty orbits. The vampire reached into the voluminous pockets of his dressing gown and retrieved an ivory cigarette holder with dry, twig-like fingers. The first time she’d glimpsed Pangloss’s true self she’d come close to screaming. But now, decades later, his desiccated appearance seemed almost normal.

  “Ah, yes... Morgan. It always comes back to him, doesn’t it?” he said in a melancholy voice. “He was my greatest mistake, just as you are his. But at least I knew I created him.” Pangloss frowned and suddenly his features were once more those of a handsome middle-aged man. “It can be lonely for beings such as you and I, as you’ve no doubt discovered by now. Alliances with humans are, by their very nature, destined to be brief.

  “Speaking of which, I congratulate you on claiming Palmer as your new Renfield. He’s much better spoken than that piece of trash you picked up in London. Tell me, does he still imagine himself the captain of his own will?”

  “I told you he’s not aRenfield!”

  Pangloss held up a hand in supplication. “You’re quite right, my dear! That was rude of me! Now, where was I? When I was younger—at least younger than I am now, anyway—I longed for companionship. At the time, I fancied myself quite ancient. I was what? Seven or eight hundred years old at the time, which means it must have been either the Eleventh or Twelfth century.

  “I yearned to have an equal as a companion. But since I was forced to recruit my brood from serfs and peasants, with the occasional yeoman thrown in, most were unsuited for any intellectual pursuits beyond hunting down their next meal. Then I met Morgan.

  “I was working for the Church as a barber surgeon at the time, gelding their most promising sopranos in order to create castrati. I was famous for having a low mortality rate, at least by the standards of the day. It was a good cover, as it allowed me to feed off the jealousies and infighting created whenever human sexuality is subverted. I fed well at the Vatican’s expense for the better part of two decades in that capacity. But Morgan’s arrival in my life changed all that.

  “He was fourteen when I first saw him, but I instantly knew I had found what I had been searching for. He was the fifth son of a minor Frankish nobleman, who had donated the boy to the Church with the intention of him becoming a priest, but his excellent singing voice had drawn the attention of the choirmaster. Instead of gelding the boy, I chose to abandon my identity and leave Rome, taking him with me.

  “We traveled Europe in the guise of uncle and nephew for several years as I schooled him in the ways of our kind. Morgan’s intellect was astounding, and he proved himself an apt pupil. He begged me any times over to be transfigured, but I withheld my benediction until he was thirty years old.

  “My faith in his innate superiority was justified. For two centuries he was my constant companion. I was his Maker, but I never abused my status. I allowed him far more liberty than I’ve granted any of my brood, before or since. In the end it cost me dearly. On the two-hundred and twenty-fifth year after I re-made him in my image, Morgan turned against me. I’d underestimated the strength of his will—and his guile. He came close to killing me, just as you did.” Pangloss opened his robe and pointed to a long, ragged scar in the middle of his chest. “I nearly died from that silver blade of yours. It still hurts, even now.”

  “If you’re expecting me to feel guilty, forget it.”

  “I know better than to expect pity from you, or from any of our ilk.”

  “So why are you telling me this?”

  Pangloss’s smile was bitter. “When you love someone as much as I loved Morgan, and find that emotion betrayed...it becomes hate. You see, my dear, I loath him as much as you do. Also, it is in my interest that Morgan’s plan be foiled.”

  “Plan?” Sonja’s ears pricked up, recalling Malfeis’ account of Morgan dabbling in something that had the Dukes of Hell gossiping.

  The elder vampire chuckled. “His ambition is boundless, if nothing else. I’ve heard rumors his trying to create a brood of silver-immune vampires. If he succeeds, then he will change the Real World forever.”

  “Do you know anything else?”

  Pangloss shook his head. “He’s managed to screen his activities quite well. It took me five years to trace him to this city.”

  “You mean he’s here? In San Francisco?” Sonja felt her stomach knot. She’d been hunting for so long, traveling the world in search of him, that to be told that she was in the same city with him was enough to make her head swim.

  “I have no idea what name he’s going by, but I know he has dealings with a human realtor named Russell Howard. I suggest you start your inquiry with him.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Pangloss grimaced as if he’d sipped tainted blood. “The Ruling Class is too preoccupied with their own blood feuds and atrocity exhibitions, and refuses to take action against him. They think he’s gone mad and his plans will come to nothing. But they don’t know Morgan the way I do, what he’s capable of. The situation requires a wild card. And what better weapon to turn against Morgan than one of his own making?”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Herr Doktor. What makes you think I can stop Morgan?”

  “Because you scare me, my dear,” the vampire replied. “You have from the moment I first saw you.”

  “Why is that, Pangloss?” Sonja asked as she removed her mir
rored glasses. “What is it you see when you look at me?”

  There was fear and loathing in the old vampire’s wine-red eyes, but he did not avert his gaze from her own. “I don’t know. And that’s what frightens me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Their hotel was a few blocks from the famed dragon gates of Chinatown and catered largely to tourists and Asian businessmen. As they approached the revolving door that lead to the lobby, a homeless person shuffled forward, gesturing and muttering unintelligibly. He—at least Palmer assumed it was male—was dressed in several layers of cast-off clothing, his feet wrapped in old newspaper like dead fish, and smelled of piss and cheap wine. For some reason Palmer found himself reminded of his Uncle Willy. Upon seeing the homeless man, Sonja appeared startled and quickly pushed past him. Perplexed by this uncharacteristic display of fear, Palmer glanced back at the ragged figure as it returned to the fog-shrouded doorway it had shambled from. In the diffused light from the street lamp, the old man’s eyes glowed like burnished gold.

  By the time Palmer reached the front desk, Sonja seemed once more in control of herself. The night auditor, an elderly Chinese gentleman who moved with the grace of a tai chi master, did not seem terribly surprised by their unconventional physical appearances. After all, it was San Francisco.

  They received connecting single rooms, although Palmer would have been more comfortable with separate floors. After he’d stowed his meager luggage in the shallow closet behind the door, there came a light rapping on the door that connected his room to Sonja’s. He opened it halfway and found himself staring into twin reflections of his own weary face.

  “What do you want?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

  “We need to talk.”

  Palmer glanced at his wristwatch. It was just after five in the morning. “What about? That Morgan asshole?”

  “Yes, and what Pangloss told me.”

  Palmer grunted. “Okay. Just let me get a quick shower first, okay? I feel like a pile of dirty laundry.”

  “You got a point there.”

  “I know; that’s why my mama made me wear a hat.”

  Sonja laughed, and Palmer was both surprised and disturbed to find he liked how it sounded.

  Twenty minutes later, after a hop in the shower and a change of clothes, Palmer knocked on the connecting door. “Sonja?” No answer. He knocked a little louder, and this time the door swung open. He stepped into the room, squinting into the darkness, only to jar his hip against the dresser opposite the bed. Cursing under his breath, Palmer glanced up into what he thought was the mirror, only to find himself staring at a blanket that had been tossed over it.

  Vampires cast no reflection, he thought to himself. It was one of the few rules he remembered from the movies he had consumed as a child with such an uncritical eagerness and a sense of wonder so sincere it bordered on epiphany. For a brief moment he was back in his old room in all its preadolescent glory. He could smell the chemical stink of airplane glue as the Aurora models of Hollywood monsters dried on his desk; he could see the stacks of Famous Monsters of Filmland and well-thumbed Dr. Strange comic books stashed in the back of his closet. The flashback was so sharp, so immediate; he had to steady himself to keep from being lost inside it. His hand dropped to the top of the dresser and touched something smooth and cold, his fingers closing about it before he realized he had picked up her sunglasses.

  It felt weird, holding them; as if he’d stumbled across her eyes sitting alone by themselves atop the bureau.

  “Don’t turn around.”

  Her voice was at his shoulder. She’d come up right behind him without his being aware of it. Sweat broke out on his brow and upper lip. He wondered what her eyes looked like. He recalled Pangloss’s reptilian pupils, and fought to repress a shudder.

  Sonja’s arm reached around and plucked the glasses from his hand. He could hear the quick rustle of material as she pulled on her robe.

  “Okay, it’s safe to look now.”

  Palmer turned around just as she switched on the lamp next to the bed. She sat with her back against the headboard, her legs curled up under her like a cat. She was wearing the same kimono he’d seen in New Orleans. Her hair, still damp from the shower, was plastered against her milk-pale forehead like wet feathers. She was beautiful and she scared him more than anything he’d ever known.

  “Sorry I walked in on you like that. I knocked . . .”

  “Forget about it.” She motioned for him to be seated in the room’s only chair.

  Unsure of what else he could do, he lit a cigarette and alternated blowing smoke rings and frowning while she related what Pangloss had said about Morgan being somewhere in the city and his connection with the real-estate agent.

  “So, do you think we can trust him?”

  “No, but I believe him, nonetheless.”

  “What did he mean about the Real World?”

  “I think you already have some idea as to that.”

  “Yeah, well, sure-but I’m new to this. I don’t know the rules or even if there are any.”

  Sonja sighed and looked into the far corner, as if watching something. “Humans think they know what reality is, what life’s about. They think ‘I’m at the top of the food chain, so I get to decide what’s real and what’s not.’ What they don’t want to be real therefore doesn’t exist, except, perhaps, in their dreams. Or nightmares. So they end up watching the shadows on the wall of the cave, thinking that’s how the world really is, without ever looking at the things throwing the shadows. Most humans are both separated from and yet a part of the Real World. They can look right at the vampires, ogres, succubi, and vargr without seeing them for what they truly are. And then there are the seraphim, like the old man on the curb…”

  Palmer remembered the way the homeless person’s eyes seemed to burn like newly minted gold coins. “Are these Sara Lees, or what have you, dangerous?”

  “It’s hard to say exactly what they are,” Sonja said with a shrug. “But one saved my life once. Take that for what you will.”

  As the conversation fell into a lull, Palmer was suddenly aware he was sitting in a hotel room with a good-looking, half-naked woman. Although he wanted nothing more than to slam the door between his room and hers and barricade it with furniture, part of him also wanted to stay.

  “It’s late and I’m exhausted,” he said with an awkward cough. “And I’m not used to being this nocturnal…”

  As he moved to leave, Sonja reached out and grabbed his hand. He looked down at her and saw his embarrassed, nervous face reflected in her shades.

  “I’m sorry if I frighten you,” she said. “I don’t mean to. But sometimes it’s so hard to control what I am.” She smiled then; it was as sad and delicate a gesture as he’d ever seen.”It’s just that sometimes I need to be reminded what it’s like...” She looked away and dropped his hand.

  She didn’t have to finish the sentence because Palmer could hear it in his head: And sometimes I need to be reminded what it’s like to be human. He wasn’t sure if it was telepathy or simple empathy.

  “Look, Sonja, it’s not that I don’t find you attract—”

  “Just go to bed,” she said sharply, refusing to look at him.

  Palmer did as she said, uncertain as whether it was his decision or. Within five minutes he was sound asleep. He didn’t hear her leave.

  Sonja struck out toward Chinatown, scaling the steep hill with strong, purposeful strides. It would be another hour or so before sun rise. She still had plenty of time for hunting, although soon the narrow sidewalks would be crowded with cardboard boxes filled with exotic vegetables. Chinatown awoke early, which meant she was taking a huge risk. But she was keyed up and she needed to hunt, for fear of her frustrated energy turning itself on Palmer.

  You should have made him fuck you. He owes you his life, after all.

  She grimaced and tried to ignore the Other’s words. She knew all too well what would happen if she weakened and let it have its way. She paused,
sniffing the chill morning air. She could hear the distant thrumming of the cable car track and, fainter still, the ringing of church bells.

  She knew what she hunted was attracted to the homeless, as they made easy targets, and there were certainly enough to be found on the surrounding streets. She strode past a weary-looking couple—a woman and a man—squatting on the lower steps of a recessed doorway, keeping guard while their child slept on a pallet of folded cardboard behind. The woman watched her pass with tired, fearful eyes.

  Sonja paused and sniffed the air. The scent was strong. She was close. Very close. She ducked into a narrow alley lined with aluminum trash cans filled with garbage. The odor was nearly overpowering enough to mask the scent she’d been following. But not quite.

  The vargr rose from its hiding place among the jumbled garbage containers, growling a warning at the intruder who had dared to interrupt its meal. The werewolf stood almost six feet tall, despite its crooked legs. The pointed, vulpine snout curled into a menacing snarl, exposing sharp teeth stained with fresh blood and flecked with flesh and gristle. The savaged remains of a bag lady at its taloned feet. The beast’s russet pelt bristled, raising hackles along its curved back as its thin, pointed penis slid from its furred pouch in ritual challenge.

  Sonja hissed, unsheathing her fangs, causing the werewolf to blink in confusion. It apparently had not figured her to be a fellow Pretender.

  “Whassamatter, fur ball?” she snarled. “You too lap dog to take on someone who can fight back?”

  She realized she was being foolhardy. Although vargr lacked psychic powers, they were as dangerous as vampires, since they were incredibly strong and damn near immortal. She wondered what the hell she was trying to prove to herself.

  The werewolf stepped forward, tossing aside the fifty-gallon garbage cans as if they were ninepins. The beast reeked like a wet dog. Sonja took out her switchblade and pressed the ruby stud in the eye of the dragon decorating its handle.