Darkest Heart (23 page)

Estes' cheeks colored and he averted his eyes as best he could, but was helpless to look away.

Lady Madonna began to pant loudly, her breath coming in short, precise gasps, punctuated by grunts of pain, as she labored to expel the thing inside her. Instead of the hours it would normally take, the top of the baby's head crowned between her legs within a matter of minutes. As he watched, Estes realized the reason the delivery was so rapid was because the infant was actively participating in its own birth.

With a sudden burst of frenzied wriggling, its head and shoulders popped free of the birth canal, its tiny, ferret-like nails scraping against the floor. The scrawny creature that emerged, red and slick, from Lady Madonna's womb more closely resembled a skinned rabbit than a human child. It lay motionless for a long moment, then raised its oversized head and opened its mouth, giving voice to a weird, thin cry, like that of a kitten, exposing a pair of tiny fangs in otherwise naked gums.

It wasn't a baby so much as it was a fetus: an unfinished thing, with spongy, pinkish tissue in place of skin and dark-adapted eyes. It flopped about like a landed fish for a few moments, squirming on its back, the garnet-colored eyes open and closing like those of a baby owl in the unaccustomed light. After a few seconds it seemed to orient itself and flipped onto its belly, lifting its upper torso off the ground with its surprisingly well-developed forearms, like an iguana sunning itself on a rock. The fetus's hairless head was unnaturally large in comparison to its stick-like legs and starved-dog ribcage, causing it to wobble and bob like a balloon on a stick. It sniffed the air with a stunted, upturned nose, hissing like a basket of snakes.

"Dear God," Estes whispered in open horror.

The fetus snapped its head in the direction of his voice and made an eager gurgling cooing sound, like a baby who has spotted its favorite toy. Pulling itself along with its clawed hands, it crawled forward, an obscene mechanical doll dragging the umbilical cord behind it like a lap of gut.

"What's the matter, Jack?" Lady Madonna said with a laugh. "Don't you like children?"

The sun is hanging on the horizon by the time I reach Dolly Dagger's. Within a few minutes it will be gone completely. I curse myself for the fool I am; I should never have taken blood from the driver.

Although the rush that comes from tapping live victims is immediate, the effects of any impurities in their systems is delayed by digestion, and even then the drugs often don't have the same effect on me that they would on the original user. As late as it may be for Estes and myself, it is still early for the club's clientele, and my rental car is the only vehicle in the lot.

I know the game Noir's playing. These goddamn Nobles always make things far more complicated and dramatic than they need to be. If he wanted me dead, it would have been simple enough for his minions to slaughter me in the hotel. No, he wants to recruit me, so he draws me onto his turf, assuming Estes is my renfield, and I'll come to reclaim him. Well, he's half right about that. The front door of the club is shut and bolted from the inside. I unlock it with my right boot. Fuck stealth. They know I'm coming, and I know they know I'm coming.

The lights lining the runway are off and the chairs are stacked atop the tables, legs jutting towards the ceiling. My footsteps echo hollowly as I move across the room. I know they're here. I can feel their eyes on me. Underneath the reek of stale cigarette smoke and industrial-strength floor cleanser is another stench, like forgotten gardens left to rot in their own fecundity. It's the smell of the female of species. The silence is broken by a shrill, tittering laugh, like that of a schoolgirl giggling at a dirty joke. I turn to face the runway. There are four of them: the first is a tall, well-built African-American woman with elaborately corn-rowed hair; the second is a slender Korean girl; the third is a redhead sporting EE-cup silicon implants; and the fourth is the dancer I recognize as Gloria Estes. All four are dressed in halter-tops, hot pants and white vinyl go-go boots. They stand in a semi-circle, glaring at me with fevered eyes that shine in the darkness like those of cats. Where the Dagger's unwitting clientele would see four sexy women, I see a quartet of harpies, their features warped out of human semblance by the hatred, greed and despair trapped within them.

"She's the one he wants, Foxy," Gloria says, pointing a crimson fingernail in my direction, her voice

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) dripping with envy.

The African-American dead girl nods her head, causing her ceramic beads to rattle like hail on a tin roof.

"Lord Noir is eager to have you join him," she said. "But we are not."

"He has too many brides already," the Korean dead girl says petulantly.

"Kim is right," Foxy says in agreement. "Isn't that so, Ginger?"

"There ain't enough of him to go 'round as is," the redhead with the scary tit job drawls. "It's bad enough we gotta share him with that Abomination, now he wants to take you in too!"

"Go away, oddling," Kim growls, showing her fangs. "We don't want you here!"

"You ladies have nothing to worry about," I reply. "I have no interest in joining your master's stable. I just want to kill him, that's all."

The foursome fall upon me with howls of outrage, leaping from the stage with their fangs extended and fingers hooked into claws. I throw Estes' silvered Bowie knife dagger-fashion, sending it right through the Korean's ribs and into her heart. She drops to the floor, her limbs drawing in on themselves, like those of a dying spider.

The remaining dead girls freeze, staring at the body of their fellow bride in mute amazement. They lift their heads in unison and gaze at me, bafflement in their inhuman eyes.

"Silver," Foxy whispers in fearful awe. "She can touch silver."

"So fuckin' what?" Ginger growls. "I'm still going to tear her heart out and eat it raw!"

The dead girl lunges at me, talons extended, shrieking like a band saw on sheet metal. I sidestep her charge like a matador caping a bull, and my open switchblade catches her in the back, severing her spine.

The exaggerated weight of her implants causes Ginger's upper torso to swing away from its lower half like a garden gate on a busted hinge.

Foxy and Gloria exchange glances and move to circle me, their eyes narrowed to slits of calculation. They hiss and spit at me like angry panthers, occasionally feinting an attack, but careful to keep outside my reach.

Gloria suddenly leaps onto my back, wrapping her dancer's legs around my waist, raking my face and head with razor-sharp talons. Foxy rushes forward, fangs bared. I turn at the last moment, allowing the vampiress to impale herself on my knife. My fist rises violently, and I pull back the blade in an eruption of viscera.

Gloria's jumps free of my back and bounds back towards the runway as her sister-bride drops to the ground. Blood streams down my back from the numerous gouges and cuts made across my scalp and shoulders. Gloria is crouched in the light rigging, glowering down at me like a treed panther.

"It's not fair," she growls. "He was willing to sacrifice me to make you his, and you don't even want him!"

"Ain't that just like a man? Now where's Jack?"

Gloria tilts her head to one side. "Who?"

"Your son. Where is he?"

"The Abomination has him." She thrusts her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. "I wanted to be the one to Make him, but Lord Noir said no. He said it didn't really matter who did it, as long as it was done.

That's true. Now my sweet little boy and I will be together again; and nothing will keep us apart!"

"Oh, yeah?"

I throw back my jacket, drawing Estes' gun from the waistband of my jeans. Gloria hisses like a frightened cat and turns to flee. I fire once and she drops onto the runway below like a cut sandbag, a silver bullet lodged in her shoulder.

I hop onto the stage and stand over the thing that had once been Estes' mother. I watch as she writhes and yowls in pain, tears of blood welling in her eyes and spilling onto her painted cheeks.

Gloria claws at her right arm with her left hand, helpless to reverse the necrosis spreading through her system, reducing her stricken limb to a mass of rotting tissue. It is only a matter of minutes before the silver contaminating her blood reaches her heart and brain, reducing them to so much bubbling sludge. I lift the gun a second time, aiming it point-blank at the dead girl's head. She turns her face to me and bares her fangs in futile rage. Blood and cerebral fluid are already leaking from her nostrils.

"My master will kill you for this, oddling!"

"He can try," I reply, as I pull the trigger. "They always try."

A piece of Gloria Estes' head splashes onto my left boot. I grimace in distaste and wipe it clean on the back of my right calf.

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"I was right about you. You're good. You're very good."

I look in the direction of the voice and see only darkness pooled in the middle of the stage.

"Show yourself!"

There's a low, throaty laugh as the coagulated shadows slide away like oil, revealing a tall man with a coffee-colored complexion. Dressed in an impeccably tailored silk suit, with thick, heavy dreadlocks, a decorative walking stick fashioned from a single piece of ivory, and circular wire-rims the color of a billiard shade, his demeanor is one of alert, malevolent elegance.

"Lord Noir."

"You honor me," he says with a slight bow, placing one hand over his heart. "And I trust I have the pleasure of speaking with none other that the infamous Blue Woman?"

I nod cautiously but say nothing.

Noir smiles and leans on his cane, and for a second I almost expect him to break into a little soft shoe.

"Our mutual friend, the young Mr. Estes, told me very little of you, but his mind spoke volumes. You occupy his thoughts a great deal, my dear. I can see why. You are truly extraordinary!"

Noir nudges Gloria's carcass with the toe of his expensive Italian boot, and the body collapses on itself like a rapidly deflating pool toy.

"Such fatal style! Such lethal panache! You have made the extermination of your own kind into an art!"

"She was not of my own kind." Even as I say the words I realize by the way he smiles that he's caught the scent of blood in the water. It isn't good to reveal a weakness, no matter how minute, to a predator like Noir.

"Do not misunderstand me; I have no love for the undead! Those silly women you so ably destroyed were excellent examples of the breed; tiny, narrow minds occupied with the pettiest of jealousies. Their wills were mine to command, but their IQs proved so low it lead them into mischief every time my back was turned. That is why I allowed you to slaughter the silly bitches. Their idiocy resulted in their defying my will, and the penalty for such a transgression is death everlasting. I thank you for disposing of them for me."

"I didn't come here to help out with your domestic situation. Where's Estes?"

Noir grimaced as if he had just bitten into a sour persimmon.

"Frankly, I do not understand why you are interested in that young psychopath. You have far more in common with me than you do with that lout. Granted, we are as different from one other as each of us are from the common undead.

"I have a great fondness for variants such as yourself. In the old days, oddlings were usually the result of magic, but nowadays it is science that interferes with the unnatural order of things. No doubt you were given a full transfusion after being attacked - ?"

Noir leaves the question hanging, eyebrow raised, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

"I died on the operating table, but they were able to revive me."

"The miracles of modern medicine!" Noir smirks. "The monsters it breeds! If it weren't for autopsies, the world would be hip deep in the undead!"

"What about Estes? Is he okay?"

"Lady Madonna is with him."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Fear not. Your friend is in very... capable hands. But enough about Estes! I would much rather talk about what we share in common. Like yourself, I never asked to be this way - "

"Bullshit!" It is all I can do to keep from spitting when I speak. "Everyone knows strega use sorcery to turn themselves into vampires!"

Noir shakes "While that is true of the likes of Medea and the Bluebeard, I assure you I had no hand in my Making. As I lay dying, my mother fed me a potion brewed from the heart of a vampire, hoping it would save me. But, instead, she damned me.

"Although I did not ask for this existence, I have made the best of it, even though I have been shunned by the Ruling Class of the enkidu, who fear me because I am strega, and ignored by the Synod because I never underwent the Ritual of Making as the other strega have. Like yourself, I am an outsider, struggling to maintain my individuality."

"You're nothing like me!" I snort in derision. "You prey on humans to keep your harems fed."

"Come now! I believe you are judging me far too harshly! I do not send my children forth into the night to

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) hunt down victims. Nor do I lure the men who come to this place, or to any of my other clubs, under false pretenses. They flock to these places on their own, like moths drawn to a flame. I do not have to cloud their minds to make them fools. It is my nature to take advantage of the weaknesses of others. Am I to be faulted for doing as I would? And what about you? Do you not prey on humans as well?"

"Only when I can't avoid it - and only with those who deserve it."

"You delude yourself, my dear, if you think you and I are so different! We both serve as judge, jury and executioner for those hapless enough to fall into our grasp. You and I are well suited for business together; I could tell it from the moment I saw you on the surveillance tapes.