“Lethe?” he called out drunkenly, his head swiveling about. “Where are you?” He struggled to get to his feet, trying not to black out as he did so. The adrenaline in his system was now battling the tequila for mastery, but he was too wasted to sober up quickly.
Suddenly a light came on just above his head as if a tiny sun had abruptly come into existence. He cringed and lifted a hand to shield his eyes, convinced that the military was hovering over the house in a helicopter, pointing surveillance lights down at him. Then he realized that the sound of rotors chopping the air was actually his own pulse hammering away inside his ears. It was then that the light spoke to him.
Daddy.
The light lowered its wattage, revealing what dwelt at its heart. The form hovering above him was that of a naked young woman with dusky skin and shining golden eyes without pupil or iris, her breasts full and hips wide, with long hair floating free like a mantle buffeted by gentle winds. She was as beautiful and unearthly as a vision of Venus.
“Lethe?” Palmer gasped. “Is that you?”
The glowing woman smiled and when she spoke her lips did not move. Her voice was smooth as velvet, as comforting as a cool hand on a fevered brow. Yes, I was Lethe. But my childhood is over. It is time for me to begin my work. I owe you much for keeping me safe and showing me what it is like to be human. That is why I shall make you the First.
“First what?” he frowned.
Father of the coming race.
Before he could ask her what she meant, the glowing woman swooped down and caught him up in her arms. Within seconds they were streaking through the night sky, the tree-tops inches below his wildly kicking feet.
“Lethe! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Suddenly her mouth was on his, her tongue darting between his lips. For a moment Palmer felt himself begin to respond, and then he retched and pushed himself away.
“Stop that!” he shouted. “I’m your father, Lethe! Put me down on solid ground right this minute!”
A look of confusion crossed the glowing woman’s face as her eyes shone forth like twin harvest moons. Palmer looked for some sign of the child he nurtured and raised for the better part of three years, but she was nowhere to be found in the goddess before him.
“I merely wish to honor you by making you the First of my Bridegrooms. There is nothing to fear from me, William Palmer.”
“I said no, young lady,” he repeated, in his sternest voice, and for the briefest moment the Lethe he once knew was looking back at him.
As you wish.
She left him in the middle of an orchard, ten miles due east of the house. He stood there, trembling, still dressed in nothing but his shorts as he watched the glowing goddess he had once called daughter soar into the night, streaking across the night sky like a meteorite returning to the heavens. It was only then that he realized that he would never see Lethe again. The sob that escaped him was so powerful it brought him to his knees as surely as a blow. As the tears rolled down his face, he began tearing at the grass as if digging a grave with his bare hands before finally throwing up.
He froze upon hearing the sound of a twig snapping and looked up to find a native woman staring at him from the edge of the clearing. He could tell by her diminutive stature and the shape of her eyes and cheekbones that she was one of the Lacandon, the descendants of the ancient Mayan kings who once ruled the land before the arrival of the conquistadores. The young woman regarded him curiously, but did not seem to be alarmed by his strange behavior.
“Are you well, señor?” She asked.
Palmer began to laugh hysterically. “No. I am not well at all,” he was finally able to reply, before collapsing into even more laughter, followed by unconsciousness.
Chapter Fourteen
She arrived at the graveside just as Shirley Thorne’s casket was lowered to its final rest. It was made of mahogany and shone like a burnished shield in the late afternoon sun. A large floral spray rested atop it, clutching the casket like a spider. After each of the mourners tossed a handful of sod into the yawning grave, they shook the hand of the bereaved husband, now a widower and muttered their sympathies, then quickly returned to their waiting limos.
Sonja stood at a distance, screened from view by a weeping angel headstone. She scanned the milling crowd, trying to spot familiar faces from Denise’s past, but the only one she recognized belonged to Jacob Thorne, who looked considerably older than the last time she’d seen him. The iron will and steely resolve that had made him a titan of industry was succumbing to rust.
Thorne did not move to join the mourners in their exodus from the cemetery, but, instead, stood by his wife’s grave, hands clasped before him, peering down into the hole as if he could see the future in its depths.
Sonja moved from her hiding place, gliding between the gravestones as if maneuvering across a dance floor. Jacob Thorne was not her father. She knew this as surely as she knew when the sun rises and sets. And yet, when she called out to him came out of her mouth was: “Daddy?”
Jacob Thorne wearily raised his head and glanced in her direction. He did not seem surprised to see her, but neither was he pleased. “Somehow I knew you’d show up.” “Sir? Is everything okay?” Thorne’s chauffeur asked, moving to place himself between his employer and the young woman dressed in a leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses. He was a big man with an obvious holster bulge inside his jacket.
It's okay, Carl,” Thorne said, dismissing his bodyguard with a wave of his liver-spotted hand. “I know the young lady.”
The chauffeur grunted and stepped aside, but did not take his eyes off Sonja as she joined the old man. She peered down into the dark and lonely grave.
“Did she suffer?”
Thorne shrugged, his once-broad shoulders now thin and narrow in his suit. “That was always Shirley’s prerogative— suffering. Agonizing over Denise was the only thing that kept her going. Whatever you did to her mind that night—the night she finally accepted that Denise was dead— that was the beginning of the end for her. She just gave up after that.”
“I never intended to harm her,” Sonja said earnestly. “I only wanted to deliver her from the torment she was putting herself through. I never meant to hurt her. She was my mother…”
Thorne’s pale features abruptly reddened as he pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket with a trembling hand. “The hell she was! I don’t know who or what you truly are, but you are not Denise!”
“No,” Sonja agreed quietly. “Not anymore. But once, in another lifetime...” She knelt and gathered up a handful of dirt and tossed it onto the lid of Shirley Thorne’s casket. “You have to understand, Mr. Thorne, I did not ask to come into this world, just as Denise did not ask to leave it. I did not choose to be what I am.”
Thorne’s shoulders dropped as he gave her a second, longer look, the hardness fading from his eyes. “No, I suppose you didn’t,” he grunted.
“Sometimes Denise’s memories will resurface,” she said. “Most are somewhat vague, but sometimes they’re quite vivid. Recently I experienced a memory of a birthday party. There were other children there, as well as clown and a man giving pony rides...”
“You couldn’t possibly remember that!” Thorne said with a surprised laugh. “You were only three years old…” He trailed off, fisting the handkerchief into a ball.
“Your wife was wearing a dress with a Peter Pan collar, and she was so pretty and happy. And the birthday cake was vanilla with pink icing.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Thorne demanded, his voice wavering on the verge of breaking down. “Isn’t it enough I’ve lost my wife? Do you have to make me relive the loss of my daughter as well?”
“Mr. Thorne,” Sonja replied gently, “there is another place beyond this world. Several, in fact. There are as many different paradises as there are living things, as well as innumerable varieties of damnation. And the truth is that everyone holds the keys to heaven and hell within them. I just wanted
to let you know your wife is finally happy now.”
“That’s what the minister said,” Thorne growled. “‘She’s in a better place, Jacob. She’s beyond the pain of this world.’ Bullshit.”
“I understand your skepticism,” she replied. “But wouldn’t you agree that I might be something of an authority on the supernatural?”
Thorne frowned as if it had never occurred to him before that her existence was evidence of something beyond the worm and the tomb and the winding sheet.
“As I said, heaven is different for everyone. And, for your wife, it is a sunny afternoon in 1956, celebrating her daughter’s third birthday. I know this because I glimpsed it the moment she died. Mr. Thorne, your wife is at peace now.”
Tears began to run down Jacob Thorne’s cheeks. His sobs were so loud powerful they threatened to topple him headlong into the open grave. “Oh, God…Denise,” he moaned, reaching for her with a trembling, old man’s hand.
But she was already gone.
By the time she got back to Merida, everything had turned to shit. She could smell it the moment she got off the plane. The psychic stench a dead relationship gives off is a lot like that of rotten fish, liberally mixed with vomit, with a dollop of dirty diapers on the side. The closer she got to the hacienda, the more powerful the reek became. She had no idea what had happened during her absence, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
When she arrived, she found the front door of the ranch-house unlocked. The kitchen table was covered with unpaid bills, unopened mail, and empty tequila bottles. She went out onto the patio, searching for signs of Lethe’s cocoon, but all she found was something that looked like a snake molt, made brittle and black from exposure to the sun.
She called out Lethe’s name, hoping against hope that her god-daughter would come rushing out from some hiding place, giggling in delight at having tricked Auntie Blue. But there was no answer.
She went back into the house and headed for the nursery. She stared at the plush stuffed animals and coyly smiling dolls that filled every corner of the room. Something behind her eyes began to pulse and ache , and she thought she heard Shirley Thorne’s voice singing “Happy Birthday to You”.
Sonja waded into the sea of stuffed toys, tossing them aside as she continued her search for Lethe. Panic and confusion and self-loathing rose in her gut. How could she have been so stupid? Why did she have walk off and leave her? Was this how Shirley Thorne felt when she got the news her only child had disappeared without a trace from the streets of London? If so, no wonder the poor woman retreated into madness.
“Lethe, this isn’t funny anymore!” Sonja shouted at the empty house. “Come out where I can see you!”
“Lethe doesn’t live here anymore.”
She spun around to see Palmer standing slumped in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. He’d come up from behind without her picking him up on radar. Which meant either he was screening him self from her. Although he looked pretty rough, he was at least wearing clean clothes and freshly shaven. Nor did he appear to be drunk.
Bill?
As she stepped towards him he drew back, hugging his elbows as if he was afraid she might touch him. “Talk with your mouth,” he rasped, the odor of dead love coming off him in waves. “I don’t want you in my head.”
“What do you mean she doesn’t live here anymore?” Sonja asked. “She’s not even three years old! Where the hell else could she be?”
Palmer gave a humorless laugh that sounded more like a hiccup. “I don’t know where she is. And I don’t want to know.”
“What the hell—?” Sonja scowled. “This is Lethe we’re talking about! Palmer, damn it, what’s wrong with you? Where is she? Don’t tell me she just up and flew away!”
Palmer began to laugh so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. Sonja moved to grab him, to try and shake a proper answer out of him, only to have him snarl and lash out at her with his mind. Had she been human, he might have very well killed her or, at the very least, given her a stroke.
Before she realized it, she had him pinned him to the floor with her own mind, his muscles twitching and jerking as he tried, in vain, to regain control of his body.
“I don’t want to play rough, Palmer, but you’re leaving me no choice,” she warned him. The look in his eyes as he stared up at her was black and ugly. She dropped her gaze, but could not shield herself from his hate, which bubbled forth like boiling tar.
“Tell me what happened to Lethe.”
“She came out of the cocoon a couple of days after you left,” he said grudgingly. “I was too drunk to know exactly when.”
“What did she look like?”
Palmer’s gaze became distant. “She was beautiful. She was no longer a child, but a woman…and she was glowing.”
Sonja frowned. “You mean like a pyrotic?”
Palmer shook his head. “No, she wasn’t burning. She was more like a firefly…or a goddess.”
“What did she do?”
“She... she thanked me for taking care of her, for protecting her, and then she said would honor me by making me her first bridegroom.” Palmer’s lower lip began to tremble, and as he looked up at her, Sonja saw the same anger, confusion and hurt in his eyes that she’d seen in Jacob Thorne’s.
“What did she mean by that, Palmer?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that she tried to kiss me, but I made her stop. You know I would never have done something like that, don’t you?”
Sonja scowled as she tried to make sense of what she had been told. No wonder Palmer was in such a state. The human animal comes with a lot of behavioral hard-wiring—some of it biological, some of it societal. But the incest taboo was one of the few that might be both. He might not have sired Lethe, but he had been a father to her in every other way. She withdrew her psychic control over Palmer’s body and walked to the window and stared out at the jungle-covered hills, uncertain as to what to do next.
Palmer’s useless to you now, the Other whispered, its inner-voice as sibilant as a snake's hiss. Just look at him, if you don’t believe me. His circuits are blown. You knew it would come to this, sooner or later. All Renfields eventually lose their minds at some point. Better you put him out of his misery, like you did Judd.
Sonja closed her eyes and dug her fingernails into her palms until the blood came, driving the Other back into whatever hole it lived in within the mind they shared. She sighed and turned back to face Palmer. He had regained control of his body and was sitting on the floor, staring forlornly at one of Lethe’s old dolls as he held it in his hands.
“You’re going to go to sleep for a little while, Bill,” she said gently. “And when you wake up, you’re not going to remember Lethe. It will be as if she never existed.”
“But I don’t want to forget her,” Palmer frowned. “I just want her back the way she was.” “Go to sleep, Bill,” she said firmly.
Chapter Fifteen
Later that night she went out hunting, tracking a wild pig through the dense jungle undergrowth. When she brought it down it squealed angrily and tried to slash her with its tusks. It struggled hard, like all things do when they know their lives are at stake. Just before she sank her fangs into its jugular, the pig released twin streams of shit and piss in a last-ditch bid for freedom. It didn’t work.
It was well past midnight by the time she returned to the ranch-house. She climbed in through the bedroom window, expecting to find Palmer sprawled across the bed. But the bed was empty, and so was the rest of the house. She stepped outside and cast her mind into the darkness, searching for the familiar hum and buzz of his thoughts, but she picked up nothing. Frowning, she intensified her scan until she was able to pick up a tracery of internal monologue she recognized as his, but even that was incredibly vague. Palmer was once more using his telepathic ability to stay off her ‘radar’. But why?
She followed the faint psychic echo to a path at the bottom of the hacienda’s property, leading into the jungle. Sh
e recognized it as the one that led to a nearby Mayan ruin. She’d only been there once or twice, but she knew Palmer visited it quite often. She followed the trail to the top of a hill, where a vine-covered jumble of stone that had once been an ancient observatory sat lumped against the night sky. Palmer was seated on a mammoth block of limestone carved to resemble a snarling jaguar. He was not alone.
The woman with him was from one of the native tribes, with long black hair that hung down between her shoulders like a curtain. They sat side by side, turned towards one another. Palmer held her hand in his and they spoke in a language Sonja did not recognize. Not that she needed to understand the words to know they spoke as lovers.
As she watched, Palmer lowered his head as he prepared to kiss the other woman. Sonja could imagine the heat of his breath on her cheek, the smell of him filling her senses, the taste of his lips…
See? The Other’s voice was sharp, sweet, and nasty, like honeyed razor blades jammed in her inner ear. This is what happens when you let your Renfields run free. It happened with Chaz, and now Palmer. In the end, they betray you. They’ll always betray you.
Sonja clenched her fists as the anger inside her bubbled like boiling wax. Her head buzzed as if then was a horde of angry wasps loose within her skull, stinging her brain.
You have to put them on a short leash, the Other continued, its voice suddenly louder and more authoritative than before. That’s how Pangloss, Morgan and all the others keep their Renfields in line. You’ve got to scrape away every vestige of Free Will and hollow them out like jack-o’-lanterns. And not only do they deserve it, they even come to like it. Just ask Judd. Oh. That’s right. You can’t.
“Shut up,” Sonja growled to herself.
She emerged from the darkness like blood from a wound. She paused, leaning against the pockmarked limestone of the ruin like a tough lounging under a street lamp, the jungle moonlight reflecting off her leather jacket.
“How cozy.”
Palmer jumped up, automatically putting himself between Sonja and the woman he was with, who gasped and crossed herself.
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