In the Blood (11 page)

There were
things
sitting on the wing of the airplane.

At first he mistook them for children, although he had no idea what kids would be
doing clinging to the aluminum skin of a DC-10, fifty thousand feet in the air. Then
one of the frail figures stood up, unfurling its batlike wings as it embraced the jet
stream, and shot up and away.

No, not children. At least not human ones.

There were at least six of the grayish-white creatures crawling up and down the
length of the wing, their arms twice as long as their bodies. Their skulls were long
and bullet-shaped, the bodies devoid of hair. As Palmer watched the things scuttle
along, bellies pressed against the plane's vibrating skin, one by one they surrendered
themselves to the winds. He was reminded of children taking turns on a tire swing.

One of the winged things caught some turbulence and struck the side of the plane
near Palmer's window. He grimaced, expecting to hear a juicy thump as the
creature hit, but there was no sound and no one else seemed to notice, not even
Sonja. The thing peeled itself from the fuselage, peering through the window at
Palmer.

The eyes were huge, lidless orbs the color of rancid butter that hovered over a
tubelike proboscis that hung from the middle of its face. Along, worm-like tongue
whipped out of the thing's snout, tasting the reinforced Plexiglas that separated it
from Palmer. Satisfied that it couldn't get in, the creature began climbing back to
the wing.

Palmer could feel cold sweat running down his brow. He tugged on Sonja's sleeve,
gesturing to the window. "Am I seeing things?"

Sonja looked up from her magazine and leaned forward, peering into the dark on
the other side of the window.

"There's nothing to worry about. They're real."

"Great." He pulled the plastic shade down with trembling fingers. "That's all I need
right now."

Sonja shrugged. "They're just
afreeti,
that's all. Nothing to get upset about. They're
a form of elemental. They like hitching rides on airplanes. They're harmless, unless
you get a couple of warring tribes arguing over who gets to go first. The few humans
who've seen them-or had the misfortune to be in a disputed plane-usually mistake
them for gremlins."

Palmer wished he could light up. It was a lot easier to tell himself that this was all
part of the rich and varied pageant of life if he could soothe his jangling nerves with
a double lungful of nicotine.

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Sonja was watching him from behind her reflective lenses. She leaned toward him,
resting her hand atop his.

"Look, I know what you're going through is tough right now. But, believe me, you
get used to it. I remember the first time I started 'seeing things.' I thought I was
going nuts! And I didn't have someone to walk me through it, not at first. I didn't
know when I saw something if it was real or if I was hallucinating. You've got to
watch out for that. The seeing things that
aren't
there bit, I mean. It's some kind of
defense mechanism the human brain sets up to protect itself. Most real psychics end
up schizophrenic. Only two percent of all active sensitives manage to stay out of the
funny farm."

Palmer found himself staring at her hand as it lay atop his own. This was the first
time she'd touched him, outside of savin? his bewitched butt from the succubus,
since their initial, accidental contact two nights ago. He was expecting her touch to
be cold and clammy, like that of a corpse, but it wasn't. Actually, it was kind of nice.

Suddenly the taste of Jimmy Eichorn's blood flooded his mouth.

He jerked his hand away from hers and stood up stiffly, trying to control the
tightness in his throat. "Uh, yeah. Excuse me a minute, would you? I gotta go to the
John."

Palmer screwed his mouth into a bitter grin as he made his way toward the first-class cabin's toilet.
Christ, as if my world isn't complicated enough, I got a goddamned

punkette vampire putting the moves on me!
He shook his head in amazement.
Well, I

guess it could be worse. I could have the IRS after me.

Palmer tried the toilet door, found it locked, then noticed the OCCUPIED sign.

Sighing, he folded his arms and glanced back down the aisle, idly scanning the
handful of passengers who could afford to fly first-class domestic flights.

His gaze momentarily settled on a heavyset man in a rumpled business suit rooting
through the contents of an attache case. Wisps of smoke wreathed the businessman's
frowning face.

What the rack? I thought this was a nonsmoking flight! How come none of these tight-

assed little bimbos haven't ragged his ass ? This guy on the board of directors
? As
Palmer stared harder at the florid-faced man, the smoke surrounding his head
shifted and roiled, as if coming into sharper definition. Palmer's heart beat faster as
he saw the shape crouched on the businessman's right shoulder. It looked like a
squirrel monkey sketched by a skywriter and left to the mercies of a strong breeze.

Palmer quickly looked away, uncertain as to what it meant but certain a cigarette
would help him deal with it, whatever it was. The restroom door opened and Palmer
dived into its solitude without waiting for the previous occupant to completely clear
the threshold. His hands were shaking as he slammed the bolt home and pressed his
back against the door. Inches from his knees stood the undersized, uncomfortable
airline toilet, its stainless steel bowl beaded with droplets of sky-blue disinfectant.

The equally tiny hand basin bruised his hip as he searched his pockets for a lighter.

He glanced up at the smoke detector above his head and scowled.

They make such a big deal about how we shouldn't tamper with these damn things, so

that probably means they 're pretty easy to fuck up. Still, the last thing I need is to have

the bloody thing go off while I'm messing with it. Then all I get for my trouble is a

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snoot full of CO2 and a five-hundred-dollar fine slapped on me.

Palmer looked at the packet of Shermans liberated from his breast pocket, then
backup at the plastic disc dangling over his head like an electronic Sword of
Damocles.

Fuck it.

He stuck the cigarettello in his mouth and reached up to disconnect the smoke
detector, giving himself a leg up on the edge of the toilet seat. As he did so, he found
himself staring into the shatterproof mirror mounted over the sink.

Palmer snorted in self-derision. It was just like trying to cop a smoke in the boy's
room at Mater Delarosa Junior High back in Akron. His hair was threaded with
gray and he wore a tailored black trench coat instead of a school jacket, but
essentially there wasn't that much difference between the fourteen-year-old Palmer
who'd been suspended for smoking behind the gym and the thirty-nine-year-old
preparing to hamstring the smoke detector. Except for the smoke-monkey perched
on the adult Palmer's shoulder like Long John Silver's parrot.

"Yaaah!"

Palmer screamed the moment he saw the apparition, losing his balance and
plunging one foot into the toilet. The fear he'd experienced at the sight of the
smudged gray thing crouched on his shoulder was replaced by the far more
practical terror of accidentally being sucked out through the toilet's little trapdoor.

Swearing viciously, Palmer yanked himself free, falling against the door with a
thump.

"Sir? Sir! Are you all right? Are you hurt? Can you hear me?" It was one of the
stewardesses, sounding both solicitous and suspicious.

"I'm all right! Just had an... accident, that's all!" Palmer glowered at the dye
staining his lower leg. Luckily, his pants and shoes were dark enough to hide the
discoloration. He avoided looking in the mirror as he exited the cramped confines of
the toilet, smiling sheepishly at the flight attendants grouped outside.

"Please take your seat, sir. We're preparing to make our approach to San Francisco
International."

"What in the name of hell is wrong with you?"

"Huh! What?!" Palmer flinched as Sonja snapped at him. He'd paused to light his
cigarette the moment they were free of the jet's confines, only to find himself staring
at a grotesquely thin woman-with a huge smoke-monkey the size of a gorilla riding
her back-dragging her luggage through the terminal.

The woman seemed oblivious to the Gargantua straddling her narrow shoulders. A
filtered Pall Mall was clamped between her cranberry-red lips.

I've heard of Gorillas
in the Mist, but
this is the first time I've seen a gorilla
made
of

mist!
Palmer bit back a laugh he knew would sound too high-pitched and brittle to
be mistaken for sane. He dropped the match cupped in one hand before it had a
chance to burn him.

Sonja shook her head in disgust. "Come on, damn it! You'd think you'd never seen
a tobacco demon before!"

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Pangloss's chauffeur was waiting for them at the exit gate, holding a neatly printed
cardboard placard that read S. blue. They were shown to a stretch limo with tinted
glass and a fully stocked bar in the back. Sonja hesitated a moment before climbing
into the back seat.

"Something wrong, ma'am?" The driver's voice was as smooth and cold as glass.

"No, I was just remembering a limousine drive I took a long time ago."

The moment the door slammed shut behind them, Palmer popped one of his foul-smelling cigarettes into his mouth and opened the liquor cabinet. His hands were
shaking.

"What's wrong?"

Palmer snorted, expelling a cloud of smoke. "What's
right? That
bastard tried to
turn my brains into guacamole dip, and here we are riding in the back of his
fuckin" limo! We're walking into a
trap,
for Christ's sake! It might as well have TR-A-P spelled out in flashing neon letters!"

Sonja sighed and looked out the window. "Don't worry about Pangloss. I can handle
him. He's not going to bother you. He got what he wanted. Adding you to his stable
was a bonus-a little
lagniappe."

"You sound real sure of yourself."

"Pangloss is crafty. I don't doubt he's got his own reasons for bringing me into this.

But I don't care what they are. The only thing I'm interested in is Morgan."

"That's another thing-who is this guy Morgan, and why do you want his head on a
spike?"

She glanced at him, the corner of her mouth lifting into a bitter smile.

"Ever hear of Thorne Industrials?"

"Old Jacob Thorne's one of the last 'bootstrap' millionaires, like Getty and
Carnegie."

"Do you recall a kidnapping involving Thome's daughter? Her name was Denise."

Palmer frowned and nodded. "Now that you mention it-didn't she disappear
sometime during the sixties?"

"No ransom demands were ever made and she was listed as missing. It was a long
time back. Over twenty years. Long before they started putting pictures on the back
of milk cartons- " Her voice was wistful.

"But what does that have to do with you?"

"In 1969 > while on a vacation to London, Denise Thorne met a man who went by
the name of Morgan. Lore/Morgan. The title turned out to be real enough, but
Morgan wasn't a man. He coerced Denise Thorne into taking a moonlight drive in
his chauffeured limousine. It was all very romantic. Once they were alone, he raped
her and drank her blood. He then threw her from the back of the moving car,
leaving her for dead. By sheer luck, she was found and taken to the hospital, where
she remained in a coma for nine months. Then I woke up."

"You're Denise Thorne." Palmer stared at her, cigarette smoldering, forgotten,
between his fingers.

Sonja shrugged. "That is open to debate. But something in me
used to
be Denise
Thorne. Perhaps still is." She returned her gaze to the window, staring at the dim
outline of Candlestick Park as the limo sped along Highway 101. "There are a lot of

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things I do not know. But I
do
know one thing: I will send Morgan to hell, even if I
have to take him there myself."

Pangloss's hideaway was in one of the older downtown skyscrapers. Dwarfed by
Bauhaus-spawned megaliths like the Transamerica Pyramid, the Dobbs Building
dwelt in perpetual shadow.