Sonja Blue - Paint It Black Part 15

A golden light filled the front windows of the Wu house and the door opened inward, as if unlatched by a phantom hand.

Standing on the threshold was a naked woman with long hair that fluttered about as if blown by gentle winds. In her arms was a baby boy with dark hair and Oriental eyes. The stranger hovered beside the sleeping woman for a moment, then took the body of little Qui En from the cradle, leaving the living baby in its place. Then, as quickly and silently as she arrived, the glowing woman floated out the door.

Mei Li awoke with a start, blinking in confusion. She must have fallen asleep. She looked into the cradle to check on Qui En and was both surprised and relieved to find that whatever had been bothering her son had pa.s.sed. Qui En gurgled happily, waving his little hands at her as if in greeting.

New York City: Two voices on a telephone line: 'She's here.'

'Are you sure it's her?'

'I'm positive. It's her, of that you can be certain.'

'Good. I knew she'd come once she got the clippings. But be careful. She's deadlier by far than any other you've ever crossed, my boy.'

'I know. That's why she fascinates me so.'

Something's in the room.

It wasn't even a thought. More a feeling. A sensation picked up by slumbering sensory apparatus and fed into an unconscious mind. Is it the real thing or merely a dream of intrusion?

Wake up, you stupid b.i.t.c.h! the Other shrieked, answering the reality-dream issue once and for all. We've got company!

Sonja came off the loft bed in three seconds flat, fangs extended, hair bristling like a cat's back. There was no time for her to wonder how they managed to find her. No time to try and figure out how they got past the b.o.o.by traps. She hit the ground in a low crouch, hissing a warning at the intruder seated in the leather easy chair.

'No need for such theatrics, milady,'Jen purred. There was no fear in his eyes. Caution, yes - but no fear. 'I intend you no harm.'

'If that's the case, what are you doing here?'

'My employers wanted to know where you're keeping your nest. They told me to a.s.sign a shadow to you. I'm sure you remember him. However, you needn't fear me. I won't tell them that I know where you spend your daylight hours.'

'What are you getting at, renfield?'

Jen's spine stiffened and indignation flickered in his eyes.

'I am not a renfield.'

'You couldn't prove it by me. You're a human working for vampires - that makes you a renfield in my book. Theirs, too, I'd say.'

This seemed to make him bridle even more. 'I am my own man, d.a.m.n you! I work for Luxor and Nuit because it suits my needs, not because they've got a slave collar snapped around my mind!'

'All the more reason for me not to trust you. At least renfields don't have much control in what they do. After all, they're addicts. You... you, on the other hand... you're one of their bellwethers. You lure your fellow humans to their doom to benefit your vampiric partners and line your own pockets!'

The pale blue of Jen's eyes seemed to intensify as he glowered at Sonja. 'I am not a renfield, nor am I a bellwether.

I am like you.'

'You are nothing like me!'

'Perhaps. Perhaps not. But you're wrong about my species.

I am not human. I am dhampire.'

Sonja turned to stare at him. 'Dhampire? I've heard rumours of such things - the supposed by-product of vampire-human matings.'

Jen smoothed his braided coils like Medusa calming her snakes. 'There are very few of my kind in this world. As I said, I am dhampire. My mother was human--'

'And your father a vampire? Impossible! Vampires are dead things, their sperm inert. They may very well be capable of erection, even e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, but they are incapable of reproducing.'

'I am very well aware of the procreative failings of the living dead,' Jen sniffed. 'If you would allow me to continue, I'll explain. My biological father was human enough, although I have no clue as to his ident.i.ty. Not that it matters.

My mother was a streetwalker. Whitechapel, in fact. No doubt my father was a drunken sot with tuppence in his pocket and a hard-on in his pants. She was only fourteen when she had me, mind you. However, shortly after becoming pregnant, my mother fell in with a certain gentleman of n.o.ble mien, if you understand me.

'She was his favorite for a couple of months, until she began to show her condition. Such things are anathema to vampires - they are forever frozen in time, changeless and unchanging. The withering and dying of their human consorts is one thing - entropy, after all, is the vampire's handmaiden - but the creation of new life! Ah, that reminds them that they are, indeed, outside the chain of nature. They pretend to have disdain for how humans reproduce, but they are secretly envious and jealous to the point of mania.

'As I said, my mother's lover may have cast her aside, but it was too late. I was already affected by the venom he released into her each time he fed from her. When I was born my mother placed me in a foundling home and went in search of similar lovers. I was always... strange. Underweight, anemic, and of a morbid turn, my life was made a living h.e.l.l by my warders and fellow inmates. Then, when I was eight years old, my mother reappeared and took me to live with her.

'Over the years my mother developed into a courtesan for those of n.o.ble make.' She'd become quite wealthy and bought a fashionable house in London, which she turned into a salon of sorts, where she entertained her clients. She even had a few lovers outside the vampire race - the occasional vargr prince, kitsune diplomat, or ogre businessman. Compared to the brutality and indifference of the foundling home, it seemed perfectly normal to me.

'It wasn't until I was twelve years old that I realized that I was far from human. While I lay curled deep within my mother's womb, her lover's tainted seed had worked its way into my system. While I was hardly a vampire, I could walk the streets of London and actually see the Pretenders for what they were. I also benefited from heightened senses and an intuition for what those around me truly desired.

In no time I was serving as my mother's pimp, searching the streets and back alleys for eager clients.

'But, by far, my surrogate father's most lasting contribution was in the realm of longevity. How old do you think I am?'

'I don't know.' Sonja shrugged. 'Forty? Forty-five?'

'I'll be one hundred and twenty-seven come next June!' he cackled, clapping his hands. 'Bet you didn't guess that, milady.'

'You're right on that count. But it still doesn't answer why you're here, and why I shouldn't kill you where you sit.'

Jen held up one hand, begging her indulgence. 'My employers are just that - employers. They are not my liege and lady. I came of age in the very breast of monstrosity, if you will. I feel no kinship for humans - yet, nor do I consider myself a vampire. I am a nation unto myself. A member of a solitary race. I serve many masters, yet I am slave to none. And I am not here to see Luxor's petty blood vendetta carried out. I am here on behalf of one known to you, one who considers himself more friend than foe.'

'Pangloss.'

Jen grunted as he pushed himself out of the easy chair. 'Most astute. He sent me instead of one of his servitors because of your predilection for slaying vampires on sight. I am to bring you to him.'

Sonja shook her head and folded her arms over her chest.

'I have no interest in seeing Pangloss again. I've had my fill of his mind games and trickery. You can tell him what I told Luxor - if he wants Morgan dead, tough. I don't subcontract.'

'You misunderstand. Pangloss doesn't give a rat's a.s.s about Morgan. Not anymore, that is. He wants to see you for other, more personal reasons.'

'Such as?'

'He's dying.'

Pangloss's lair was located on the top three floors of a tony apartment building in Gramercy Park. The doorman scowled at Sonja when they first entered the building. However, when he saw Jen his eyes glazed and his face went slack.

'Pangloss has him conditioned,' Jen stage-whispered into her ear as they hurried into the elevators. 'Whenever he sees me or one of the doctor's servants, he goes into a fugue state.

Doesn't remember who came in or when. Otherwise, he's a tough doorman to sneak by unannounced.'

The elevator let them out at the penthouse. A renfield dressed in pale green surgeon's scrubs, his hair under a sterile disposable paper cap, greeted them.

'Thank goodness you brought her! We were afraid you weren't going to make it in time! He's getting worse!'

'The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d's managed to continue for over fifteen hundred years,' Jen sneered. 'I'm sure he can hold out for another hour or two.'

The renfield's eyes hardened and Sonja could tell he wanted to say - or do - something to Jen, but was afraid to. If Pangloss was, indeed, dying, then his renfields would soon find themselves stuck for a fix - and protection.

Jen watched the indignant servant storm off, then whispered behind his hand: 'Renfields! They're all such drama queens!'

Sonja was led into a large, handsomely appointed living room. A sliding gla.s.s door opened onto a patio that boasted a killer view of the city. The Chrysler Building glowed in the night like an art deco syringe. There was an old man seated in a wheelchair in front of a large television, watching a program with the volume turned down. The old man turned his head toward them and smiled, revealing blackened gums and fangs the color of antique ivory.

'h.e.l.lo, my child. So good of you to come.'

Sonja was shocked by Pangloss's debilitation. The last time she'd seen him - three years ago - he'd looked as when she first met him, back in 1975. He'd seemed a healthy, vigorous, and virile man in his early fifties, with only a touch of gray in his hair. The creature that sat in the wheelchair, however, looked more like late-era Howard Hughes than cla.s.sic Cary Grant.

Although he was rapidly going bald, what little hair Pangloss still possessed was the color of a soiled sheet and hung almost to the middle of his back. His frame was wasted and his limbs twisted and infirm. She noticed he had the persistent wobble of a Parkinson's patient. His hands and feet were wrinkled and looked more like the claws of a vulture. He was swaddled in a white terry-cloth bathrobe and an adult diaper. When Luxor had referred to Pangloss as 'the old man' she'd been puzzled by his choice of words. Now she understood.

'How have the mighty fallen, eh?' gasped the old vampire.

'I can tell you're surprised - I don't need to use telepathy to know that.'

'Jen said you were dying, but I really didn't believe him.' Sonja moved closer, circling the thing in the wheelchair, trying to find the flaw in the disguise that would tell her it was all a trick. She couldn't find one.

Pangloss smirked and nodded his head. Sonja couldn't tell if it was in understanding or from a body tremor. 'Jen is a terrible liar. And he always tells the truth. You'd be wise to remember that, my dear.' He fixed his eyes on the dhampire and for a fleeting second some of the old, self-a.s.sured Pangloss came back. 'You've done what was asked of you, boy. My renfields have your pay voucher ready. Go now. I would speak with my granddaughter alone.'

Jen sauntered out of the room, pausing long enough to give Sonja a wink before closing the door.

'You must forgive the boy,' Pangloss wheezed. 'His mother indulged him overmuch out of guilt for placing him amongst strangers the first few years of his life. He fancies himself a dhampire. He is more than a little mad because of it, but is better at handling it than the renfields. He rents himself out to humans as well as vampires, did he tell you that? His pain threshold is immense, and he can withstand tremendous amounts of physical punishment without undue side effects. He rents himself out to humans with a taste for others' pain.'

'I've been there,' Sonja muttered.

'But enough about my half-b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' Pangloss grimaced.

'Oh, yes, I am the one responsible for his being like he is.

Did he not tell you? The two of you are related, as our kind understand such things. I suspect you want to know why I sent you those news clippings.'

'I know why you sent them - you wanted me to know where Morgan is so I can kill him and you can claim the glory and come off looking big with your bloodsuckin' buddies.'

Pangloss's laughter was somewhere between a chuckle and a choke that made him double over. For a second she was afraid he was going to cough up a lung. 'My dear child, you have every reason to be suspicious of me; I've certainly done nothing to earn your trust in the past. But I am a changed man - or should I say vampire? The Pangloss you see before you is as different on the inside as he is on the outside.'

He motioned feebly with one hand in the direction of the window. 'Could you do me a favor, my dear? Could you push me over to the window? I would look at the night one last time.'

Sonja grasped the handles of the wheelchair and pushed him towards the sliding gla.s.s door. She was surprised at how little he seemed to weigh.

'I know this is going to sound stupid,' she said. 'But how can you be dying? I mean, you're already dead.'

'A good question. And not at all foolish. There are those who think that vampires - we who were first known as the enkidu - are immortal things. And, by human lights, we are. There are vampires who have continued for thousands of years. I myself have walked this earth since the fifth century AD, before Clovis embraced the Christian G.o.d. But all things have their spans, even the living dead.

'Oh, the dead can be destroyed - of that you're well aware.

We can be killed by damaging our brains or spinal cords; we can be burned to death; decapitated; or die from exposure to the sun or silver. However, we are impervious to the host of illnesses that thin the human herds, and age no longer affects us once we are resurrected. We are immune to all diseases except one - the Ennui.'

'You mean you're dying from boredom?'

'Wretched, isn't it? But then, this is the fate that awaits all vampires, once they have ama.s.sed the power and knowledge to move beyond the night-to-night concerns of keeping oneself fed. What are brood wars but games of chess using animated game p.a.w.ns? Why do we tamper in human affairs, if not to keep things interesting? Once we have indulged our appet.i.te, what is left for us? We have spent so much time and energy maintaining the semblance of life, we are loath to admit that there is no reason behind any of it, beyond our inborn need to continue our existence.

'In each vampire's span there comes a time when the ceaseless scheming, plotting, and manipulation loses its attraction. When that happens, we begin to question our motives; we begin to doubt whether our needs truly are as important as we once imagined them to be. That is when the Ennui sets in and we begin to die. That is what happened to me. I can trace the beginning of my fall to Rome, when you marked me with your knife. The wound you dealt me never truly healed...'

He opened his robe and pointed to the long, jagged scar in the middle of his chest. There were dozens, even hundreds of pale, almost invisible scars covering his body, ghostly souvenirs of past battles. Although Sonja knew the wound he pointed to was nearly twenty years old, it still looked fresh. It was also the only part of him that looked genuinely alive.

'I have suffered far more grievous injuries in my existence.

However, unlike the others, this one has refused to be dismissed.

When I look at it I am reminded of how close I came to dying at your hand - and for what? I found myself musing over mortality and what, if anything, I have done in fifteen hundred years of walking this planet.

'I have known great men, both in the field of power and in the arts. I sat in the court of Charlemagne and watched it fall apart upon his death. I kept council with popes and bishops and cardinals of every stripe. I watched the plagues sweep through the cities of Europe. I saw London burn three times. I saw countries rise, kings fall, religions be born. Da Vinci, Botticelli, Bosch, Voltaire, Defoe, Moliere - they all knew me, in my various guises. Yet, I had no real hand in anything that happened. I can claim no influence, except for when I used my manipulative powers to destroy a marriage or weaken a-friendship. My role has never been creative, only that of a parasite, feeding off human society's veins.'

Pangloss's head was trembling so violently she was afraid it was going to snap off and land in his lap. 'They dismiss me, you know. The other n.o.bles. They always have. Because I never took a t.i.tle like "baron" or "count" or "duke". I called myself Doctor. I knew better than to lay claim to royalty. Once you do, they're on you like leeches, trying to bring you down. I didn't continue for fifteen hundred years out of dumb luck. They also think me a fool for not feeding on the stronger emotions - I preferred the petty jealousies and intrigues of artistic cliches and intellectual movements to the horror of concentration camps and reeducation centers.

'That idiot Luxor even had the audacity to insult me last time we met! No doubt he was hoping to provoke me into declaring a brood war, seeing how weak I had become. Luxor is such a coward! And Nuit's no better! I've grown so weary of it all, Sonja. What is the point of continuing if I must spend the remainder of my days dealing with jackanapes such as Luxor? I am so tired of it all... so very tired.'

'But, I still don't understand. If you have, as you say, lost interest in playing the game, then why did you send for me?'

Pangloss's lower lip trembled and Sonja was shocked to realize how much, at that moment, he reminded her of Jacob Thorne.

'Because I'm scared, Sonja. I'm scared of dying by myself.

I want you to be with me when it happens.'

She didn't know why she did it, but Sonja agreed to escort Pangloss to the necropolis.

There were several necropoli scattered throughout the great cities - and several of the once great. They were sacred ground to all Pretenders, no matter their breed. Sonja knew New York possessed one such place, although she had no idea where it was located.

'It's accessible only through tunnels connected to the old subway system,' Pangloss explained. 'There is an access point in the bas.e.m.e.nt of this apartment building. We start from there.'

It was clear from the way Pangloss's servants behaved that none of them liked the idea of their master heading for the Elephant's Graveyard. They were all very agitated and kept talking amongst themselves, eyeing Sonja cautiously.

Sonja had never liked renfields. While they served a purpose, she'd never understood why vampires elected to surround themselves with servants who were nothing more than junkies.

Renfields were addicted to vampires. They had an uncanny knack for tracking down the undead. Not to mention a taste for their own destruction. Almost all of them were sensitives of one sort or another, and all were heavily dependent on their masters for whatever it was that kept them going, be it drugs, s.e.x, pain - or the semblance of sanity.

But now, watching them flutter about their dying master like moths around a fading light, Sonja finally began to understand.

Vampires spent their existence doing nothing but taking from others - be it blood or the psychic energies of the living.