In the Blood (9 page)

What was Pangloss planning this time? It was not in his nature to volunteer
information. He wanted-or needed-something from her, that much was certain.

You can contact me through the human, Palmer.

It was obvious that Pangloss meant to lure her closer by using the human
investigator, then putting him into thrall once his usefulness was at an end. Pangloss
was astute enough to realize she would never allow a twisted sensitive or a Pretender
within sniffing distance and allow it to live to tell about it. So what was she to do
with Palmer? Part of her, that which she thought of as the Other,
knew
what
it
wanted to do with him, but she refused to listen to its counsel.

Palmer moaned in his sleep, shifting uneasily on the narrow bed. Renfield's pasty
face, as wide and pale as the moon, filled his dreams. The dead man's eyes were as
flat and black as buttons, his lips thin and blue. Palmer could hear Renfield's voice,
even though the satellite-sized face's mouth remained caught in a rictus grin.

Like me. Like me. She's going to make you like me. Lap dog. Lap dog. Lap, dog, lap!

Palmer sat up suddenly, the sweat running into his eyes. His mouth was dry, his
head aching as if the lobes of his brain were dividing like amoebas. He stared at the
circular window set near the peak of the roof. He got up and swiveled the window
open on its pivot, inhaling a deep breath of Mississippi River-saturated air.

Somewhere on the river, a barge sounded a long, mournful note.

"Will-yummmm ? "

No. It couldn't be. He leaned his forehead against the windowsill, trying to find
some comfort in the peeling paint pressing against his skin. He was awake. He knew
it.

"William? Why won't you look at me, baby? Aren't you glad to see me, honey?"

Palmer bit his lip as the familiar burning tore at his chest. His scar throbbed and
pulsed as if he'd been branded with a red-hot coat hanger. He wouldn't look at her.

She wasn't real. She was a dream. He was awake. He opened his eyes, scanning the
world outside the window for proof.

New Orleans was on fire.

The city was wrapped in sheets of flame, yet no one seemed to notice. Burning
children ran up and down the streets, smoke and laughter billowing from their
lobster-red mouths. Women dressed in crackling aprons swept their stoops clean of
ash. Business executives dressed in smoldering Brooks Brothers suits paused to
check the melted slag strapped to their wrists before hurrying on their way, smoking
attache cases clenched in their roasted hands. On the balcony opposite Palmer's

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window two lovers embraced, oblivious to the blisters rising on their naked flesh,
while the wrought iron bower softened and dripped like licorice left in the sun.

The pain spasmed through his chest, forcing an involuntary cry from his lips. There
was no use in denying her. She was going to have her way, no matter how hard he
tried to stop her. Groaning, Palmer turned to face Loli.

The smell of the
marui
roused Sonja from her brooding. She'd scented it before, but
had been uncertain then as to its intentions. The reek of ectoplasm was strong. Then
she heard Palmer's stifled cry.

She kicked the door open, growling at the sight of the ill-formed creature crouched
atop the sleeping man, its claws buried in his chest. The
marui
screeched in alarm
and spread its membranous wings. Sonja's fingers closed on its slippery flanks and
the creature's high-pitched squealing became ultrasonic.

"Holy shit!"

Palmer was awake, staring in confusion at the combatants wrestling beside his bed.

"Don't just sit there gawking! Help me!"

"How?"

"Grab its neck!"

Palmer took one look at the
marui's
barbed teeth and shook his head. "Like hell I
will!"

"Just do it, damn you!"

Palmer grimaced as his hands closed on the
marui's
telescoped neck. Its flesh was
chill and rubbery, as if the wildly struggling beast was composed of phlegm. With its
biting end under control, Sonja was able to pin the creature to the floor.

"What in the name of hell is this thing?"

"This, Mr. Palmer, is your nightmare."

The beast, weakened by the scuffle, no longer tried to escape. It lay crumpled like a
damaged kite, mewling to itself. Palmer stared at the
marui's
twisted, almost human
musculature and tattered, batlike wings. The nightmare creature's neck looked like
a loop of umbilical cord, its bald, old man's head dominated by large, foxlike ears
and bristling barbed teeth. Just looking at the thing made his scar tighten.

"They're called
marui,
"she explained, resting her foot on the brute's neck. "They're
also called night-elves, maere, and
le rudge-pula,
depending on the part of the world
you happen to be in. They batten onto sleepers, manipulating dreams in order to
feed on the fear and anxiety born of nightmares. Judging by its size, this one's been
feasting on you for some time. They only take on corporeal form while they feed."

"You mean this thing's a nightmare?"

"Bad dreams exist for their own reasons;
marui
simply benefit from the negative
energy released by nightmares. But they're not what you'd call smart." She applied
pressure on the
marui's
neck, smiling as it wailed in distress. "My guess is that
Pangloss sicced this little darling on you, hoping to make Renfield's job easier when
the time came. Isn't that so, Rover?" She applied more pressure to the marui's
throat. The creature squealed.

"Will-yummm, help meee."

Palmer brought his heel down on the
marui's
skull, grinding it into a sticky paste.

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The
marui
shuddered once and began to dissolve, the ectoplasm evaporating like dry
ice.

"I trust you slept well."

Palmer put down his mug of chicory coffee and turned to stare at the vampire
standing in the kitchen door. She was dressed in a green silk kimono embroidered
with tiny butterflies the color of smoke. Her hair was hidden by a clean white towel
piled atop her head turban-style. She was still wearing mirrored sunglasses. It had
never occurred to Palmer that the undead took showers.

"Never slept better." It was the truth. For the first time in weeks, Palmer's sleep was
free of the recurring nightmares. When he awoke late that afternoon, he felt
genuinely refreshed and rejuvenated.

"I trust you kept yourself entertained while I was... indisposed." Sonja opened the
refrigerator and removed one of the bottles of dark red liquid. Palmer had stumbled
across them earlier and guessed their significance. "I'm afraid I don't have much in
the way of houseguests." She cracked the seal and brought the bottle to her lips,
then caught sight of Palmer's face. "Oh, I'm sorry-I've forgotten my manners." She
put the blood aside, apologetically.

"There's nothing you have to apologize for. After all, it's your house. I'm just a
guest. I have no right to judge."

Sonja tilted her head to one side, regarding him with her one-way gaze. "You're
quite adaptable... for a human."

Palmer coughed into his fist. "There's something I need to say. Look, it's pretty
obvious that I'm at something of a disadvantage right now. Discovering everything
I've ever known is wrong is unnerving enough, but to also find out everything I've
ever been paranoid about is true..." He spread his hands in an expressive shrug. "I
need help. Big time."

So?

"Well, I'd like to make a business proposition. Call it a modest proposal. I need help
with this ham radio set in my skull, right? You need help with Pangloss, right? How
about we team up-just for a little while?

You could teach me how to use what I got, and I could... do whatever it is you need
me to do."

"Mr. Palmer, do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into?" "No. I'll
admit that up front. But I know that if I don't get help, I'm going to go nuts. I can't
handle walking around with other people's thoughts and fears and craziness going
through my head." He could feel his hands tremble as he spoke, but he refused to
look at them. "Look, I can't lie to you. You scare me, lady. But it's like my Uncle
Willy used to say-better the devil you know."

When she laughed he saw her fangs. Even though he knew it was going to be okay,
it still frightened him.

Compared to the day before, the French Quarter was practically deserted. Bourbon
Street was open for business, as usual, but the barkers were, for once, uninterested
in luring the handful of tourists wandering the neon and garbage-strewn strip into

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their dens of iniquity.

Local merchants swept the remaining debris of plastic cups and busted liquor
bottles outside their shops into the gutter with powerful pistol-grip hoses. The
overall mood was a mixture of exhaustion and relief, as if the city was recovering
from a malaria attack.

Palmer trailed after his new employer, trying to ignore the stares that followed them
down the narrow streets. Sonja Blue moved swiftly and purposefully through the
clustered shadows, her hands jammed into the pockets of her leather jacket. She
seemed preoccupied, but Palmer had no doubt that she was very much aware of the
looks aimed at her.

The fear and loathing that radiated from the hustlers, pushers and other Quarter
habitues was strong enough to make Palmer's skin crawl. It felt as if someone had
liberated an ant farm in his underwear. He ran through the mental exercises for
blocking ambient emotions Sonja had taught him before they left the house that
evening, and the horde of invisible ants disappeared.

"It appears you're not well liked around here."

She shot him a glance over her shoulder. "Get used to it. Most humans have an
instinctual dislike of Pretenders-and sensitives, for that matter."

Palmer recalled his own immediate, gut-level reaction to Renfield and winced.

"You've used that word before: Pretenders. What does it mean?"

"Ever read Lovecraft?"

"Back in high school. Why?"

"Remember that stuff about Cthulhu, the Elder Gods and the Old Ones? How
mankind is only a recent development, as far as the earth is concerned, and that
hideous giant outer space monsters used to rule the world back before the dinosaurs,
and how giant ugly nameless horrors are just sitting around on their tentacles,
waiting for when the time is ripe to take over the world?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's kind of like that."

"I don't think I want to know any more."

"Too late for that. But showing's easier than telling. I can tell you anything I want.

Whether it's true or not-well, that's up to you to decide. But when you see
something, can actually smell its breath and body odor, well, that's a different thing
entirely. Those who know call it witnessing."

"Where are we going?" Palmer was starting to feel itchy again, but it had nothing
to do with telepathic intrusion.

"Do you believe in hell?"

Palmer blinked, taken aback by the change in subject matter. "If you mean the
Christian hell, where people are tortured by guys with pitchforks and pointy ears-no, I don't believe in that."

"Me neither. But I
do
believe in demons. And that's where we're going-to make a
deal with a devil."

"You mean Satan?"

"Are you kidding? He's way too expensive. Doesn't deal for anything less than souls.

No, the guy I go to is reasonably priced."

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Palmer decided it might be better if he stopped asking questions.

The Monastery was a small, dark bar that had, in a fit of perversity, decided on an
ecclesiastical decor. The booths lining the wall had once been pews. Fragments of
stained glass, salvaged from various desanctified churches, had been soldered
together to create a disjointed jigsaw collage on display in the skylight. Plaster saints
and icons in varying states of decay were scattered about. A black Madonna and
Child, whether darkened by exposure to too many votive candles or Vatican II's
attempt at "modernizing" its appeal, stared at the Monastery's denizen's with flat,
robin's egg blue eyes from its perch over the liquor supply. A battered Rockola
jukebox played scratchy Rolling Stones records.