In the Blood (Sonja Blue)

by Nancy A. Collins

  “It hurts, Sonja,” she said from between gritted teeth. “A lot.”

  “So the Bible tells me,” Sonja sighed. “That’s only natural, Anise.”

  “No, that’s not it—not all of it, anyway. There’s something else going on.” She grimaced as another spasm racked her body. “It’s like passing a broken bottle. I—” She gave a brief cry and slammed her head against the pillows, squeezing her eyes shut. “Sweet Mother of Christ, what did I ever do to be punished like this? What?”

  “Sonja! The baby’s coming!” Palmer cried, doubling over in phantom pain, no longer able to screen himself from Anise’s agony.

  Sonja positioned herself at the foot of the bed in time to see the baby’s head emerge from between Anise’s thighs. She moved to help the infant free itself from the birth canal, only to recoil in horror. Its head was bulbous, with eyes as black and flat as those of an insect. It had a flat, upturned nose like that of a bat, and a tube-like mouth made of gristle and lined with tiny lamprey-like teeth. As Sonja stared in disbelief, the infant creature whipped its tiny yet powerful shoulders back and forth until it finally freed one arm, revealing five tiny fingers capped by curving talons. With a weird, gurgling cry, it hooked its claws into the gore-stained bedclothes in order to drag itself the rest of the way out. Once free of its mother, the newborn vampire lay there like a maggot, glistening with birth fluids.

  Palmer muttered a curse under his breath as he stared at the thing on the bed. As Sonja moved to cut its umbilical cord with her switchblade, the creature lifted its oversized head on a surprisingly steady neck, regarding her warily with its flat black eyes.

  “Easy... easy, now...” she whispered, as if addressing a skittish, potentially dangerous animal.

  “Sonja? What’s wrong with the baby?” Anise’s voice both anxious and weak. “Why isn’t it crying, Sonja?”

  Sonja quickly severed the umbilical cord, quickly tying off the end. As she wrapped it in a clean towel, she could not help but notice that the infant was completely smooth between the legs, lacking even an anus.

  “Why don’t you answer me?” Anise asked as she struggled into a sitting position. “What’s wrong? Is it dead?”

  “No, it’s not dead,” Sonja replied, placing herself between mother and child. “But I’m not sure if it’s a baby or not.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure?”Anise said angrily. “Woman, let me see my child!”

  Sonja sighed and turned around to pick the thing and hand it over to its mother—only to find it had disappeared.

  “Shit, Palmer!” she yelped. “I thought you were keeping an eye on it!”

  “Why should I?” he replied nervously. “Hell, the thing just got born!”

  “Where’d the damn thing go?” Sonja muttered, stepping away from the bed as she scanned the shadows along the baseboards.

  Suddenly Palmer caught a blur of motion at the corner of his eye. He contemplated taking his gun out of its holster, but quickly discarded the idea.

  It’s just a baby, for Chrissakes! He told himself. A really seriously ugly, mutant vampire baby.

  Just then something small darted out from under the bureau and latched onto his right calf. He screeched as a ring of lamprey-like teeth began chewing its way to the meat inside his pants leg. Swearing and hopping on one foot, Palmer tried his best to shake the baby loose without losing his balance. On his second kick, he succeeded in sending the creature sailing halfway across the room, where it landed on its back and squealed like a suckling pig pulled from its mother’s nipple. The baby vampire flailed at the air with its chubby arms and legs like a tipped turtle desperate to right itself

  “That’s quite enough of that!” Sonja said sternly, snatching the shrieking infant off the floor. She frowned at Palmer’s leg. “You better see to that before infection sets in.”

  Palmer risked a glance at his calf and saw that his pants leg was now shredded and that blood was oozing from dozens of tiny punctures in his skin, but was otherwise unharmed.

  “What about that—that—thing?” he retorted, jabbing a finger at the struggling mutant Sonja held like a live rattlesnake, her fingers clamped behind the holes where its ears should have been

  “That’s Anise’s decision,” she reminded him. She then turned and presented the squirming monster to its mother. “I can take care of it, if it’s what you want.” Her voice was flat and without emotion, as if offering to take out the garbage.

  “No,” Anise said sadly as she stretched out her arms to accept the wriggling infant. “It’s my child. It’s my responsibility.”

  The mutant stopped its angry thrashing the moment Anise touched it, regarding her with unreadable, bottomless eyes. The gristle that formed its mouth puckered and unpuckered rapidly. It wanted to nurse.

  “It’s not its fault,” she said softly. “This was how it was born. It can’t be anything else.” She gave a hollow laugh. “You know, I actually was considering having a child before all this happened. Not anytime soon—maybe in a year or two, after I found a nice girl to settle down with. Maybe make a trip to the friendly neighborhood artificial inseminator.” Her lips twisted themselves into a bitter parody of a smile. “I never thought I’d end up with... with...” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “Like I said—it’s my responsibility.” She snapped the baby’s neck like a green twig. It didn’t even have time to cry or scratch her with its claws. She stared at the motionless body cradled in her arm and ran a trembling hand over its bulging brow. “Poor thing. It didn’t ask for any of this—ahhh!” Anise abruptly grimaced as a new wave of pain washed over her. The mutant’s corpse slipped from her arms and landed on the floor with a dull thud.

  “The contractions. They’ve started again! I—Oh Lord, not again!” Anise grabbed Sonja’s shoulder as she pushed down, her fingernails digging in deep. “Ah! Oh, Jesus! Make it stop!” She drew a shaky breath through her teeth. “Whatever the first one did trying to get out—it screwed me up bad, Sonja! I don’t know if I can—” The next contraction turned her words into an incoherent scream.

  “Don’t worry, Anise,” Sonja said as she pried herself free of Anise’s grip. “Everything will be all right. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, understand?”

  Anise’s second child came into the world wrapped in a caul, looking more like a caterpillar in a cocoon than a human child. As Sonja split the thick membrane shrouding the infant, she was relieved to see what looked to be a normal face. She gave its tiny flanks a brief pinch and was rewarded with a healthy, indignant wail from fully-formed lungs. She swiftly severed the umbilical cord and wrapped the newborn in a clean towel, then held it out to its mother.

  Anise turned her head away, pressing her face into the pillow. “I don’t want to see it.”

  “It’s all right,” Sonja smiled. “You can look.”

  As Anise cautiously lifted her head, Sonja was alarmed by how drawn and pale she looked. Anise peered cautiously at the child wrapped inside the impromptu swaddling. It was still as red as a piece of raw meat, squalled like a Siamese cat in heat and had the face of a miniature prizefighter.

  “She’s beautiful!” Anise exclaimed in relief.

  “Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Sonja whispered, placing the tiny bundle in her mother’s arms.

  While Anise was preoccupied with her baby, Sonja quietly scooped its dead twin off the floor and wrapped it in a discarded, blood-caked towel. They would have to take the thing with them and dispose of it later on. It wouldn’t do to leave something like that for the housekeeping staff to find after they checked out.

  Sonja stared absently at the gore smearing her hands, fighting the urge to lick her fingers. She knew she was pushing her own tolerance dangerously close to the edge. She needed to feed, and her surroundings weren’t helping much. The room reeked of blood.

  Palmer limped out of the bathroom. He’d ripped open his right pants leg from the knee down and wrapped his calf with strips torn from his undershirt.


  “How’s the leg?” she asked

  “It’s been better.”

  Sonja found herself staring at the crimson seeping through the makeshift bandage and wondering what his blood might taste like. She grimaced in disgust and quickly looked away.

  “How do you like Lethe?” Anise asked.

  “Lee-Thee what?” Sonja frowned, distracted by the Other’s laughter in her head.

  “As a name,” Anise explained. “It’s from Baudelaire. A name is the least I can give her before I die.”

  “Anise, listen to me. I know you’re hurt, but you’re not going to die. You can regenerate, but you’re going to need blood. If you don’t feed soon, your body will start cannibalizing itself. Do you know what that means?”

  “You’re saying I have to kill someone if I want to stay alive. I can’t do that, Sonja! I don’t care what that bastard did to me—I refuse to be a monster.”

  “You won’t have to do it,” Sonja offered. “I’ll hunt for you. There are plenty of transients, people no one will ever miss. Drunks, hitchhikers, bums...”

  “My God, Sonja!” Anise gasped. “You sound just like him!”

  “I’m not going to let you die!” Sonja was surprised to hear herself shouting. “I won’t let you!”

  The baby started at the noise and began to cry again. Anise did not look at Sonja as she spoke, but instead addressed her words to the newborn at her side, smoothing the few wispy strands of hair on her daughter’s brow. “I can’t do it. I can’t take that step beyond. I don’t have your courage. I had enough strength to break free of Morgan, but not enough to deal with continuing my life by killing others.”

  “I felt the same way, myself, years ago,” Sonja argued. “But once you get used to it, you’ll see things differently.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of! Please, Sonja. Don’t try to talk me out of this. I know what I’m doing.”

  “But what about Lethe? What about your daughter?”

  Anise smiled and kissed her child on the forehead. “I hope she can forgive me for not being there while she grows up. But she needs more than a mother right now. She needs a champion. I promised no child of mine would be born a slave. I’m trusting you to protect her, Sonja.”

  “I’m the last person on earth you should put your faith in. I’m a murderer a hundred times over. Every day I fight to keep the demon inside me from taking over, and a lot of times I lose. You might as well hire Typhoid Mary as a baby sitter!”

  “You judge yourself too harshly, sister,” Anise smiled, the light in her ruby eyes already starting to fade. “Here, take Lethe. Morgan will be here soon. I can feel him calling to me.”

  Sonja cocked her head to one side. She could hear a faint tone, like the reverberation of a plucked chord, only instead of growing fainter it was becoming louder. She could take him. She was sure of it. But she was equally certain Morgan was not alone. There was also Palmer to take into consideration. He might be able to handle himself in a firefight, but she had her doubts when it came to a full-frontal psychic assault. And if they succumbed to Morgan’s forces, where would that leave Anise’s baby?

  Sonja bent and kissed her sister on the cheek. “Good-bye, Anise,” she whispered.

  “My name is Lakisha,” she replied hoarsely. “Anise was just a dream. And not even my own.” She hesitated for a moment, staring at her daughter as if she was committing every detail of her face to memory before thrusting the infant into Sonja’s arms. “Take her before I change my mind!”

  “Is there anything you want before we go?”

  She nodded her head. “Leave me the gun.”

  Palmer and Sonja exchanged looks, and then he sighed and removed the .38 from its holster and handed it to Anise, who smiled weakly. It wasn’t much of a tradeoff, her child for the gun, but it would have to do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “There’s the car, milord. She must be inside the motel room,” said the chauffeur.

  “A brilliant deduction, as usual, Renfield,” Morgan sighed from the back seat of the Rolls. He peered over the top of his tinted aviator glasses at the Ferrari parked outside Room 20 of the Parakeet Motel. The automobile was his, although the paperwork and owner’s registration in the glove compartment was in the name of one Dr. Henry Caron. But as Lord Morgan and the good doctor were one and the same, whatever belonged to Henry Caron belonged to him, as well. Including his patients.

  Morgan glanced at the Renfield seated beside him. He was the descendant of a long line of ninja assassins deliberately interbred to cultivate powerful psychic abilities, and possessed a reputation for sanity and stability that was considered rare amongst sensitives. Morgan acknowledged his servant’s unique status by addressing him by his given name.

  “Nasakenai: Scan.”

  The sensitive nodded silently, tilting his head to one side, like a robin listening for worms. “She’s there. Alone.”

  Morgan scowled. “Are you sure? I don’t like to be caught unawares. Something this Sonja creature seems quite adept at.”

  “She is alone,” Nasakenai assured him. “And in great pain.”

  Morgan weighed the information carefully. It was possible Anise’s would-be savior had abandoned her after all, although he was curious as to why she would leave the breeder alive. Then again, all he knew of his newest enemy was what Fell had learned from Anise before she hit him with the ash shovel from the fireplace. The speed with which Anise had turned against him bothered Morgan a great deal. He’d picked her as a potential breeder because of her deep-seated psychological need to be assimilated by the dominant class structure. His programming should have held fast. That a rogue operative could penetrate Ghost Trap’s defenses and undo so much hard work in so short a period of time was troubling. That the intruder enemy had claimed to be one of his own broodlings disturbed even more alarming.

  He had heard rumors circulating amongst the Nobility of something called the Blue Woman stalking the Ruling Class and their minions, but had always dismissed them as the fantasy of decaying minds made paranoid by centuries of intrigue and counterplots. According to the brood-masters who claimed to have had dealings with the maverick, the Blue Woman was neither human nor vampire, but a mixture of both, and possessed immense strength, the ability to walk in daylight and an immunity to silver. Morgan had been amused by the need these pathetic, senile ancients, Pangloss amongst them, seemed to have to create a bogeyman to fear.

  It was from these stories, however, that the idea to create a race of hybrid vampires first arose. With his custom-designed Homo Desmodus under his control, he would soon have the likes of Baron Luxor, the Contessa and Dr. Pangloss kowtowing before him, pledging fealty for all eternity—or however long he saw fit for to allow them to continue. But now his dreams of glory were collapsing, undermined by a creature of his own creation. Morgan savored irony, but not at his own expense.

  “Signal the others,” he said, straightening the cuffs of his Savile Row suit.

  Nasakenai nodded, silently relaying his master’s commands to the occupants of the second car. The doors of the accompanying Mercedes popped open and two figures climbed out.

  One was a Renfield, the other had once been a particularly obnoxious Scientologist who had accused Dr. Caron of being an antisocial enemy of the people. Which he was, of course, but not because he was a psychiatrist. Now his body was home to a fire elemental. The Renfield gave the pyrotic a wide berth to avoid the intense heat it radiated.

  Morgan climbed out of the Rolls, followed closely by Nasakenai. The gravel crunched under his designer Italian shoes as he crossed the parking lot. The door to the motel room was unlocked.

  Anise lay curled atop sheets befouled with the fluids of childbirth. Her pallor was grayish and her eyes deeply sunken in their orbits. She clutched a bloodstained bundle to her breast. She cringed at the sight of her Maker standing in the doorway, flanked by his most trusted and powerful minions.

  “You disappoint me, child,” he said by way of greeting.
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br />   “I’m not your child!” She tried to make her voice hard, but the words came out sounding more petulant than angry. She closed her eyes, trying to subvert the conditioned submissive response his physical presence triggered in her. But simply shutting off the visual cue wasn’t enough. He was all over her—in her mind, her senses, her breath. He was everywhere and everything, unavoidable and undeniable.

  Morgan’s lips pulled into a cruel smile. “If I am not your Father, who is? God? Satan? Some honky from Watsonville out for cheap pussy? I chose you, Anise, to be the mother of a new race, because I something in you. I raised you up from nothing and Made you in my image, so that you could be the Blood Madonna. Only to have you show your gratitude by killing my servants and running away. Is this how a daughter repays her father for all the things he’s done for her?”

  “Done to her, you mean!” Anise retorted. While her lower lip trembled, the hate in her eyes remained undimmed.

  “Come now!” he chided. “This isn’t how I want things to be between us! You’re mixed up and confused. I understand that. You’re still young in the ways of the Real World, and easily impressed by those around you. Like your new friend—Sonja, is it? She abandoned you, didn’t she? She left you alone and helpless, rather than face me. She filled your head with a lot of talk about freedom and free will. Those are very nice, pretty-sounding words, aren’t they? But they’re just words, Anise; simple-minded phrases that deluded humans use to coerce themselves into believing that they are the masters of their fate. The only true freedom is in the blood, Anise; the blood that you and I share. For we are family bound far tighter than any born of human seed.” He opened his arms wide, as if to welcome her home. “Return with me, Anise, and all things will be forgiven and everything will go back to the way it was before.”

  Anise felt her defenses start to melt. Although she still hated Morgan with a white-hot intensity, part of her also wanted to surrender to the protection of his embrace. Thinking for herself was exhausting, even frightening. Things would be so much better if she simply allowed Father to resume control. It would be so easy to say yes and to return to Ghost Trap and Fell and…