Darkest Heart (20 page)

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) Was I afraid of getting too close? Was I scared of weakening my control over the whole situation? Over Estes? Or was I afraid it would change things between us, and not for the better?

No. Although all of those are good answers, none of them are true. My reason for leaving had nothing to do with the fear of intimacy. I left because I knew I was about to kill him.

Still, there's no denying I wanted him to hold me; that I needed to be held. After a while, I hunger for the heat of intimacy. When you're isolated from others, even the most fleeting of physical contact takes on great meaning. Humans are social beasts; they aren't meant to exist in a vacuum. The need to belong, to be part of something other than yourself is strong. That's why vampires take human lovers and create broods. After all, enkidu society is simply human nature viewed through a dark mirror with a crack down its middle.

I'm lonely. Horribly, painfully lonely. Damn, I miss Palmer sometimes. For all his moodiness, he at least had a funny bone. Estes' sense of humor is sorely underdeveloped. Still, there's something about him that resonates with me, and has done so from the moment I first laid eyes on him. Perhaps what attracts me to him is a different human need, one nearly as basic as feeding one's belly and replicating the species: the need to be understood.

An Atlanta Police Department cruiser turns a corner two blocks ahead of me, and I reflexively head down the next side street. I'm halfway down the block before I realize it is a dead end, cut off by one of the numerous creeks that lace the city like the veins of a leaf.

However, the red taillights glowing in the turnaround tell me I'm far from alone. I recognize the parked vehicle as the limousine with the john and his companion for the night. Judging from the way the limo is bouncing on its suspension, the party is well under way.

As I turn to leave, the rear driver's-side door flies open and the party doll tumbles out onto the street, accompanied by a stream of curses. She gives a frightened cry as she hits the pavement. I watch as she struggles to pick herself up off the ground, but the best she can manage is crawling on her hands and knees.

The john climbs out of the limo after her, his pudgy face contorted in rage. The crotch of his expensive suit is covered in vomit.

"Goddamn fuckin' whore! You puked all the fuck over me!" He grabs her by the hair like a pony, yanking her head up and back.

"Please, mister... I didn't mean it... I'm feelin' sick..."

"I didn't lay down two balloons of smack for you to give me a fuckin' Roman shower, bitch!" the john snaps, shaking the party doll like a maraca. This is none of my business. I should simply turn and walk away. But the malevolence radiating from this man draws me closer. Being in the presence of human cruelty is... enticing. It's like walking past a bakery and catching the aroma of freshly baked bread. I feel something stirring in the back of my head, like a shark lured to the surface by chum. Although I know I should leave, I move even closer, surrendering my hiding place in the shadows.

The john turns and glowers in my direction. "What are you lookin' at?" He squints for a second and his scowl becomes a lewd grin. "Hey, mama! So you decided you wanna party after all, huh?"

The driver's door of the limo opens and a large man with a neck for a head climbs out. He is almost big and ugly enough to pass for an ogre.

"Get lost, bitch," he growls. "This ain't no business of yours."

He's right. There's no reason I should care about what happens to some fucked up party doll. What difference does it make to me that she's overdosed on smack, Special K, meth and whatever the hell else she's managed to shoot, snort, drop, drink and smoke in the last couple of hours? Why should I give a shit what happens to her, when it's clear she doesn't care what she does to herself?

There's no reason I should give one tenth of one percent of a rat's ass about this woman....

Except for the fact I can hear her dying in my head.

Her death sounds like a short-wave radio being moved randomly up and down the dial, dragging in a distorted jumble of words and music, growing weaker with each passing moment.

The party doll's turning blue, her pupils reduced to pinpricks. I turn my attention to the driver, trying my best to sound non-threatening. "She's of no use to you. Leave her here and I'll call 911."

"And give them my license number? I don't fuckin' think so," the driver replies tersely. As I look into his thick, brutal face, I think how easy it would be for me to kill him.

The john lets go of the party doll and nervously wipes the back of his hand across his lips. "Shit. I think

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) she's dying." He turns to the driver, his voice rising in panic. "Nobody can know about this!"

The driver looks first at the john, then at the dying party doll, and finally at me. I can see the thoughts forming in his head as if it was made of glass. The john is a wealthy executive. If the driver helps get rid of the hooker, plus any witnesses, he'll be sitting sweet. He motions for the john to get back in the limo.

"But what about her - ?" The john points at the party doll sprawled in the gutter.

"What about her? Just get in the fuckin' car!" The driver stabs a thick finger at me. "You, too, bitch!"

I look down at the party doll. The signal coming from her is weak, but distinct. There are no more voices in her head, just a melancholy tune, like a music box playing unheard in a deserted attic. She turns her face to me and I see a flash of the girl she should have been in her eyes, like a ghost glimpsed at a dusty window. And then the music stops.

As I stare at the dead girl sprawled at my feet, I'm reminded of another young woman who had been tossed into the gutter from the back of a stranger's car. That girl's name was Denise Thorne, and she died in the streets of London's East End over thirty years ago, after being violated in every way possible. As the life drained from her torn veins, Denise had watched the world turn from Technicolor to sepia as a terrible sea change overtook her, body and soul, transforming her from a human girl into... me.

As the memories of Denise's last breath echo within my skull, I feel a cold, hard rage flowing up my spine, raising the hair along the nape of my neck. "I said get in the car, bitch!"

I move so fast the driver doesn't realize he's been hurt. His right hand clutches the lapel of my jacket, but he can't seem to tighten his grip. He frowns at the thin red line that has appeared about his wrist, like a bracelet made of crimson string. His fingers suddenly spasm and jerk, like the legs of a dying spider, as his hand bends back at an impossible angle, then falls off his wrist. The driver's eyes bug out like a squeezed bullfrog's as he clutches his wrist with his remaining hand, the blood shooting out between his fingers like water from a hose. The smell is ripe and red, thick with terror-born adrenaline, and it's more than I can resist. I leap onto the driver like a child greeting her father from work, bearing him down to the pavement with such force that spinal fluid sprays out his ears as his head makes contact with the pavement. Although he's technically dead, the driver's blood still bears the heat of a living heart. His stolen vitality rushes through my system, restoring my energy and heightening my senses to the brink of rapture. As I drink, I experience a deep satisfaction accompanied by a dire trembling, as if breaking a week-long fast while riding a roller coaster. I get to my feet while wiping my mouth on the back on my hand. I feel much better now that the blood lust has been fed. It's easier for me to think. I stare down at the driver's thuggish face, rendered impotent by death. A glimmer of amazement can be seen in his cooling eyes, as if still surprised by his inability to escape the fate dealt him.

The john is still cowering in the back of the limo, his Mack Daddy, bitchslappin' fantasies long since dissolved into pants-wetting terror.

"Hey, stud - y'wanna party?" I purr, sliding across the seat.

The john opens his mouth but all that comes out in a strangled noise. His face contorts painfully as he clutches his chest with hands as gnarled as tree roots.

"What's the matter, tiger?" I sneer. "Am I too much woman for you?" The john gasps and flails at the upholstery. He kicks the wet bar, sending a bottle of tequila and a couple of crack pipes flying. Judging from the open bottle of Viagra lying on the floor of the limo, I'm probably not the only reason for his throwing a thrombo. I watch the john struggle against the inevitable for a few more moments, before growing bored and leaving in mid-infarction.

I step out of the limo and carefully remove the party doll's body from the gutter, propping her up next to the dying john. I smooth out her skirt and make sure her hair is out of her face.

I return the driver to his place behind the wheel, propping his left hand on the steering wheel while placing the right one in his lap, palm-up, like a dead white spider.

I glance one final time into the back seat. The john has stopped making noise and his lips are blue. If I wanted, I could dial into his mind to read his last, few dying thoughts, but I have no interest in sullying myself like that. My gaze, instead, lingers on the body of the party doll; except for the dried vomit crusting her lips, she could almost pass for living.

How strange that a woman so hardened by life that she allowed herself to be treated like so much meat could become, upon her death, as delicate as the rarest of orchids. It reminds me of just how fragile humans truly are, and that triggers a twinge of concern for Estes' well being.

I sigh and turn away from the tableau before me, heading back in the direction of the hotel. As much as I

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) would like to run away, Estes is far safer when I am around than on his own.

Man, responsibility's a bitch.

Estes stared at the thin gruel of partially digested food and stomach acid sprayed across the bathroom's sink, toilet tank, and guest towels, his eyes stinging as if they'd been rolled in margarita salt. Although there hadn't been that much in his stomach, he still managed to paint half the room with it.

Normally he didn't drink. It dulled the mind, lowered the reflexes, and made him susceptible to depression. Alcohol helped him forget, but sometimes forgetting wasn't a good thing. Take Sonja, for example. Even though she understood where he was coming from better than anyone in the world, the truth of the matter was that she was not a human being. He had almost succeeded in forgetting that little fact - until he saw her eyes. The whites had been filled with blood, as if the eyeball itself had ruptured, and the pupils resembled something dragged from the bottom of the sea.

The very memory was enough to make Estes' body convulse. It felt like his stomach was caught on a fishhook and someone was trying to reel it out through his mouth.

He leaned forward, peering into the puke-spattered mirror, watching his own eyes, as if he could somehow see into the mind of his reflection. A feeling of panic combined with deep despair came over him, wrapping his heart in layers of regret twenty times heavier than lead. The part of him in denial kept insisting things could be as they had been before; that nothing had changed between him and Sonja. And as much as he wanted to believe that, he knew it was a lie.

Estes looked at the face of the fool in the mirror and saw the devastation in his eyes. This is what he got for letting his emotions get the better of him. In a moment of weakness, he had placed the entire mission in jeopardy. Everything he had worked for since leaving the Institute was on the verge of being undone, leaving nothing but blasted stumps and shifting sand. Without Sonja, his chances of successfully infiltrating Noir's stronghold were slim to none. And he had no one to blame but himself. But what cut him deeper than a surgeon's knife was the knowledge he had made an idiot of himself in front of her.

Sonja's opinion had always mattered to him, but until that moment he did not realize just how much.

Stupid. Estes smashed a fist into his head hard enough to make himself stagger. Stupid, stupid bastard.

The second blow was hard enough to split his lower lip. Fresh blood filled his mouth, replacing the bitter taste of bile.

Moaning in disgust, Estes pushed open the bathroom door and peered out into the darkened hotel room.

The only light was that cast by the flickering television. "Sonja?"

He knew there would be no answer, even as he called her name. His mouth now ached as badly as his head, each throbbing to its own beat. Estes rubbed the back of his hand across his lower lip; it came away crimson.

Despite its size, the room seemed close and cramped, as if the walls were closing in on him. He staggered over to the sliding glass door that opened onto the balcony and pushed it open. The curtains billowed inward, lifted by a gust of night air, wrapping him in a gauzy embrace. His claustrophobia abated, Estes unceremoniously crawled into bed.

All he wanted was the room to stop spinning. And, after he passed out, it did.

Estes didn't know how long he had been asleep or what woke him up. One moment he was unconscious, the next he was lying on his back, straining to catch the sound of a muted footfall on the carpeted floor.

He raised himself on one elbow, scanning the darkened room for signs of movement. His free hand automatically felt under the pillow beside him, seeking the Bowie knife he kept there.

"Sonja - ?"

As if prompted by his whisper, a figure emerged from the shadows clotted at the foot of the bed. Estes, his thoughts still fogged from alcohol and sleep, could not make out much detail, save that his visitor was female, then he saw the glimmer of light reflecting from mirrored sunglasses. He relaxed his grip on the knife's hilt.

"L-look," he stammered, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "About what happened earlier... I'm really sorry - I was drunk..."