Darkest Heart (27 page)

As she pressed the blade against the bloodless skin, the back of her scalp began to rise, as if a frigid wind had blown across her spine. The light bulb hanging overhead brightened from sixty to one hundred watts before bursting with a sudden pop, plunging the cellar into darkness deeper than a bad dream. VéVé gasped in alarm, her prayer forgotten.

There was a crystalline chiming sound, as if all the bottles on the mojo tree were being rattled in unison, and a pale, coruscating light, like that reflected off a pool of water, crawled its way across the cellar walls, stopping at the foot of Estes' makeshift bier.

"Sonja, what's goin' on?" VéVé whispered fearfully.

"I'm not sure... but maybe my trip to the city wasn't a waste of time, after all."

A man with long tangles of greasy hair and sunken cheeks, dressed in a baggy gray raincoat and mismatched high-top tennis shoes, a filthy wool watch cap pulled down about his ears, materialized before them. He shuffled nervously, moving from one foot to the other, and swung his head from side to side with the rhythmic constancy of the autistic. Although the features were radically altered, there was something about how the seraph held himself that reminded Sonja of someone she used to know.

Levon lurched forward, placing himself between his mistress and the mysterious intruder, causing lights to fly from the seraph's eyes like sparks from a blacksmith's forge.

"It's okay, VéVé," Sonja said, holding up a hand to stay the zombie's attack. "This creature is known to me."

VéVé took in the seraph's unkempt appearance, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Is this the one you told me about? The one y'all called `Fido'?"

Sonja shook her head. "No. It is another. Once, not so long ago, this was the Noble who sired the vampire who created me."

VéVé frowned. "What exactly does that mean?"

Sonja turned and favored her friend with a twisted smile. "This is my grandfather."

The seraph's rocking to-and-fro became more pronounced, his head turned so that it looked at Sonja from

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) the corners of its eyes, as if frightened of making full contact.

"Pangloss." Sonja whispered the name, but the seraph flinched as if she had shouted it at the top of her lungs.

She received a mental image of herself, a blazing halo the color of blood crowning her head, carrying a frail old man through dark and winding catacombs deep below the streets of New York City.

"Yes," she replied gently. "I remember. I helped you reach the necropolis. I was with you when you died."

The seraph shook his head so violently it looked like it was in danger of flying off his shoulders. Sonja's mind filled with a jumble of images, most of them too painful to recall.

"You're right," she replied quickly. "You did not die. You transmuted." Sonja saw a vast sea of faces, some human, some not. Some of the faces shone like lanterns, while others were cast in shadows as black as oil. The majority of the faces were neither alight nor in eclipse, but somewhere in between. One of these faces, she realized with a start, was her own.

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I don't understand what you're trying to show me. Did you come here to help me?"

Pangloss's head halted its extreme side-to-side movement. The seraph stepped forward, peering intently at Estes' body, his nostrils flaring like those of a hound as he sniffed the moldy air. The seraph's eyes shone like jars of honey held before a fire. A pale and diffuse light surrounded Pangloss's right hand like a halo around the moon. Sonja stepped back, motioning for VéVé to do the same.

The seraph's fingers pushed against Estes' brow, passing through skin, muscle and bone without the aid of a scalpel or the shedding of a single drop of blood. As she watched his hand disappear into the dead man's cranium, Sonja was reminded of an old shaman she once knew who would stand motionless in a mountain creek, patiently waiting for a fish to swim by so he could snatch it from the water.

The thing Pangloss pulled from Estes' skull, however, looked like no fish spawned of any ocean known to man. Its skin was black and shiny as wet latex, and it had a large, wedge-shaped head, like that of a pit viper. It opened a sucker-like mouth, exposing concentric rings of sharp fangs, and gave voice to an ultrasonic shriek, like that of a bat. Its tiny red eyes gleamed with malevolent intelligence as it lashed its long, whip-like body in a desperate attempt to escape. It lacked legs and arms, but possessed what looked like vestigial wings jutting from what might have been stunted shoulder blades. The seraph held the thing at arm's length, gripping it tightly behind the hinge of its jaws, as it hissed like an angry bushmaster.

Sonja stared in sick fascination at the thing. So this was what vampires really looked like, once stripped of their human hosts. No wonder they were obsessed with personal appearance and worked so hard to surround themselves with beautiful people and nice things. The realization that such a creature was burrowed deep inside her own psyche made her stomach tighten.

Pangloss studied the enkidu for a long moment, a look of visible disgust on his face. Then the seraph opened his mouth, displaying teeth as strong and white as a tiger's, and without a moment's hesitation, bit the struggling vampire's head off and spat it onto the floor. Its body jerked in his hand like a garden hose, squirting foul-smelling black goo like rancid jism.

Sonja grimaced like an African mask and looked away, disgusted by the display. Although she had no idea how seraphim disposed of enkidu and other possessing demons, she certainly hadn't expected a geek act. But now it was very clear to her why the Other was always nervous in the presence of seraphim.

Pangloss tossed aside the rapidly decomposing carcass of the enkidu and turned to face Sonja. The Other was scrambling around inside her skull, frantic as a trapped mouse, but she was helpless to flee, even if she had wanted to. The seraph's golden gaze nailed her to the spot as surely as a fakir's flute holds a cobra in its sway.

Pangloss lifted his crooked, befouled fingers and tapped his chest, then pointed to her own heart, a quizzical look on his seamed face. Sonja received a vision of herself glowing like a Japanese lantern.

"No, grandfather," she said, shaking her head. "I've existed this way far too long to go back now. Chances are I could not stay human, no matter how hard I tried. I know too much about the Real World. While I cannot return to what I once was, neither am I ready to go forward. Not yet, anyway. I thank you for the offer, though."

Pangloss regarded her for a long moment, as if deciding whether to accept her words, then nodded his shaggy head. The glow behind his smoked-honey eyes grew as strong as headlights, becoming brilliant enough that Sonja had to avert her gaze. Then the light was gone, and with it Pangloss, plunging the cellar back into crypt-like darkness.

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) VéVé reached into her apron pocket and produced a book of paper matches and a small white votive candle. The light from the candle cast distorted shadows that flickered across the faces of the vampire standing to the left of her, the zombie standing to her right, and the corpse on the table before her.

"That's some family you got there, girl," the voodoo priestess said, shaking her head.

Sonja stared down at the tiny blue bottle glowing in her fist. "Yeah," she said, her voice tight with unshed tears. "I know."

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

The nurse manning the visitor's reception desk looked up from her charts at the slightly built man, dressed in an Armani suit and sporting elaborately braided gray hair. She had seen many strange things working at the Wexler Memorial Institute, so the visitor's choice in coiffure didn't rate so much as a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, sir?" she replied, without missing a beat. "May I help you?"

"I have an appointment with Mrs. Hawley."

When the visitor spoke, the nurse detected a distinct British accent. She checked the appointment book that lay open before her. "You must be Mr. Jennet. Mrs. Hawley will be with you directly."

Jennet nodded solemnly and stepped aside to study a sofa-sized batik painting of seagulls in flight that hung on a nearby wall. A couple of minutes passed before he was joined by a middle-aged woman dressed in a sensible pantsuit and a waist-length white coat with the Wexler Memorial Institute emblem stitched on the right breast. She held a clipboard and a manila file under one arm.

"Mr. Jennet?" She extended a hand in greeting, flashing the high-wattage smile of a professional administrator. "I'm Joanna Hawley. I spoke with you over the phone."

Jennet bowed slightly at the waist as he took her hand. "Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule, Mrs. Hawley."

"Nonsense! I always have time for the family and friends of our residents. Would you like to see the ward for yourself?"

She did not wait for his answer, but began walking down the hall with a brisk, measured stride.

"Of course," Jennet said, falling in beside her.

"As you can see," Mrs. Hawley said, motioning to the well-lit corridors and pastel-colored walls, "we here at the Wexler Memorial Institute believe in maintaining a pleasant atmosphere; one conducive to the comfort, and eventual recovery of our residents." An elderly man, seated in a wheelchair parked outside the door of his room, flashed a toothless smile and nodded a greeting as they passed.

"That's Mr. Doherty," Mrs. Hawley explained, without breaking stride. "He's here to recover from a stroke. The majority of our residents are seniors, but we have more than adequate facilities for younger residents, such as Mr. Lazarus. Ah, here we are: MIW. That stands for Memory Impairment Ward."

They paused before a large metal security gate that separated the ward from the rest of the building. Mrs.

Hawley produced a specially coded plastic card and swiped it through the computerized locking mechanism on the door.

"Please don't mind the security, Mr. Jennet," she said as she pushed open the heavy metal door. "None of the residents in MIW are violent. This is done simply as a precaution against any of them becoming lost.

Most of the residents suffer from Alzheimer's, and they have a tendency to wander off if you're not looking."

"Of course. I understand perfectly," Jennet said, smiling politely.

"Mr. Lazarus should be in here with the others," Mrs. Hawley said, pushing open the swinging double doors that lead to the communal day room.

A dozen or more "residents" were seated in a large room with narrow gunslit windows that allowed slices of sunlight to travel across its brightly painted walls. While most looked to be in their seventies, there were a handful of younger men and women scattered about, watching television, reading magazines, playing Ping-Pong, and assembling jigsaw puzzles.

"Ah, there's Mr. Lazarus," Mrs. Hawley pointed to a man with shoulderlength white hair seated alone at a table nearest the windows. Lazarus was dressed in peppermint-striped flannel pajamas, with matching

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) terrycloth robe, and diligently making his way through Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, brow furrowed in concentration.

"He's been making remarkable progress," she stage-whispered. "As you well know, when he first came here, he was incapable of walking or talking, much less feeding or cleaning himself. Now, less than six months later, he's doing so well we're giving serious consideration to graduating him from the Memory Impairment Ward into the Assisted Living Wing. Yes, we're quite proud of Laz.

"Beg pardon?" Jennet said, raising an eyebrow. "What did you call him?"

"That's the staff's pet name for Mr. Lazarus. It's just that, well, we've never been informed as to his Christian name..."

"That is the only name he needs," Jennet replied. "I'm sorry, my good woman, I did not mean to sound so... harsh. It's just that, well, Mr. Lazarus's parents are no longer living and his only remaining relative -

the one who sees that his bills here are paid - is his grandmother. The sad condition your staff originally found him in was the result of illicit drug use, and she is desperate to keep the family name out of the papers. That's why he was sent here. The family knew of your facility, back when it was called Elysian Fields, and is keenly aware of its reputation for discreteness."

"Who, exactly, is Mr. Lazarus' grandmother?"

"I'm not at liberty to tell you that right now. I'm sure you appreciate the situation," Jennet replied curtly, the temperature of his voice dropping noticeably.

"Oh. I, um, see..." Mrs. Hawley nervously glanced down at her clipboard, aware that she had crossed into hazardous territory with her visitor.

Jennet's calculated smile returned to his lips as he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small black-and-white photograph. "However, perhaps this picture of Mr. Lazarus' beloved Nana will help jog his memory..."

"Thank you, Mr. Jennet," Mrs. Hawley said, carefully sliding the snapshot into the manila file folder.

"Would you like to speak to Mr. Lazarus yourself? He has been tested recently and found to possess the verbal acuity of a five year-old. He can answer most questions put to him now, provided they are about his life here at the Institute."

"No. That won't be necessary. It would just confuse him. Mr. Lazarus and I never had any dealings with one another. I merely represent his grandmother's business interests. Speaking of which," he smiled crookedly, handing her a stiff white business envelope, "is a cashier's check acceptable?"

Mrs. Hawley's smile regained its previous wattage. "It will do most nicely, Mr. Jennet."

Jen slid behind the wheel of the ebony Lexus, sighing with relief as the car door closed solidly behind him.

"How is he?"

Sonja sat in the back of the car, the collar of her leather jacket turned up as far as it could go, her shoulders hunched against what sunlight made its way through the darkly tinted windows.