In the Blood (23 page)

He could not see her, but he knew Sonja was there, both within and outside him. It
was a delicious feeling, one that transcended the human physical vocabulary. It
went beyond any sensations he'd ever derived from sex or drugs or any form of
carnal gratification. He experienced the raw essence of orgasm, cut free of biological
imperative-the promised reward of the faithful of Islam: the thousand-year climax.

Or at least ten minutes' worth.

Suddenly he was back in his body, rutting like a bull in heat. Sonja convulsed under
him, thrusting her pelvis against his with bruising urgency. His shoulders stung and
something warm trickled over his bare skin. The sight and smell of his blood
dripping from her fingernails stoked his lust even higher. Sonja arched her back,
her muscles as taut as bowstrings, and yowled like a cat. Her lips pulled back in a
rictus grin as she bared her fangs. Palmer groaned as her contractions milked him
dry.

He lay atop her, sweat and blood drying on his back, and smoothed the hair away
from her face. There were no words. None were needed. He studied the tilt of her
cheekbones and the shape of her nose in the failing daylight filtering through the
rose-colored curtains.
As
he drifted into sleep, it occurred to him that this was the
first time he hadn't needed a smoke after sex.

The room was in deep shadow and someone was banging on the door. Sonja moved
with the speed and agility of an animal, untangling herself from their lover's
embrace. She moved so fast he didn't even see her slip her glasses back on.

Palmer yanked on his pants and moved to answer the door, minus his shirt and
shoes. He glimpsed Sonja out of the corner of his eye, moving along the baseboard
like a tiger preparing to pounce. The sight of her muscles coiling and uncoiling
underneath her moon-pale skin inspired a brief rush of lust.

He opened the door the width of the safety chain and peered out at a small-boned
African-American woman shivering in the dark. Now that the sun was down, the air
had a bite to it.

"Whattayawant ? "

The woman tossed back her braids and looked him directly in the face. Her pupils
were inhumanly large. The eyes of a hybrid. "I need to see Sonja."

"It's okay, Palmer. Let her in." Sonja was standing at his elbow. She'd moved so
quietly he wasn't aware she was behind him until she spoke.

Palmer opened the door and Anise hurried in. She wore the same loose cotton dress
she'd had on earlier that afternoon, only now there were dark, tulip-shaped stains
on its front.

Sonja motioned for Palmer to keep watch at the window before pulling on her Circle
Jerks T-shirt. "Where's Fell?"

Anise shook her head, causing her braids to sway. "It went bad. Real bad! Worse
than I thought it would. I'm lucky I got away at all." She started pacing back and
forth. The way she waddled and wrung her hands while she spoke made Sonja think

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of a worried penguin.

"What happened?"

"I went back and tried to talk to him, like I said I would. It was impossible! It was
like his ears were sealed with wax. I told him that I didn't love him-that it was
impossible for me to care for him. I wasn't going to be Morgan's brood bitch
anymore! He tried to keep me from leaving. I ended up hitting him with one of the
fire tools. There was a lot of blood. I tied him up and stuffed him in one of the
closets. While I was busy doing that, I was surprised by one of Morgan's renfields.

I..." She grimaced in distaste. "I killed him with my bare hands."

"How do you feel about that?"

Anise stopped her pacing and took a deep breath. "It was easy. Too easy."

"And?"

"It felt good." She shuddered. "Sweet Jesus, what am I turning into? What did that
bastard do to me?"

Sonja did not answer. She looted at Anise's face and wondered what she could
possibly say to make the fear go away. She was also curious as to how long it would
be before Anise's version of the Other would make itself known. Or was it already
active, ready for more murder and mayhem?

It had been so long since Sonja had last imagined herself truly human. Sometimes
her life as Denise Thorne seemed little more than a pleasant, if vivid, dream. She
imagined how it must have been for Anise to wake up and find herself not only
married to a man she didn't love and pregnant against her will, but no longer
human. Sonja was humbled by her sister's underlying strength.

"Think you're up to a three-hour drive to San Francisco?"

"What choice do I have? We sure as hell can't stay here. Morgan no doubt already
has his dogs out looking for me. I'm ready when you-uh-oh."

"What do you mean 'uh-oh'?"

Anise grimaced. "I think I spoke too soon."

Palmer turned away from the window. He looked like he'd just swallowed a lemon.

"Does she mean what I think she means?"

Anise emitted a groan as her water broke.

"I'm afraid so," sighed Sonja.

15

The first contraction doubled Palmer over.

He was coming from the bathroom with an armload of towels when it hit, crashing
against him like a wave. The phantom pain radiating from his pelvis caused him to
stagger and nearly drop what he was carrying.

"Screen yourself! She's broadcasting!" hissed Sonja, snatching the towels from his
numb fingers.

"Now you tell me." Palmer groaned as he tried to force the pain back long enough
to erect a mental barrier.

Anise gave a strangled cry and dug her fingers deep into the mattress, shredding the
bedclothes like rotten silk. Palmer felt her pain press against his shield like a heavy,
insistent hand, but, remarkably, the barricade held.

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"This is not good. Not good at all." Sonja brushed a stray lock of hair from her face,
leaving a smear of Anise's blood on her brow. "She's broadcasting like a damn
communications satellite! Of all the times for her psychic powers to decide to kick
in! Morgan's renfields will be able to zero in on our location soon, if they haven't
already."

"Is there any way we could get her in the car and back to San Francisco?" "What
do
you
think?"

Anise lay on her back, gripping the metal bedstead with bloodless hands. A lamp
situated on the dresser, its light muted by a towel thrown over the shade, provided
the room's only illumination.

There was something primeval in the way Anise lay, sweating and grunting, with
her dress pushed up and her legs spread open. All they needed was a shaman
shaking a medicine rattle and dancing around the room in a ceremonial headdress
to complete the scene.

"How long until the baby comes?"

"I don't know. Minutes. Hours. It's hard enough to tell with a normal pregnancy,
much less something like this."

"Great."

"You got the gun?"

Palmer nodded to the .38, still in its holster, hanging from the back of a chair.

"Better put it back on."

"Sonja? Sonja, where are you?"

"I'm here, babe. I'm not going anywhere." Sonja moved back to the bed, mopping
the sweat from Anise's face with a damp washcloth. "How you doing, kid?" Sonja
took Anise's hand and clasped it in her own.

"It hurts, Sonja. A lot."

"So the Bible tells me. That's only natural, Anise."

"No, that's not it-not all of it, anyway. There's something else." She grimaced as
another spasm racked her body. "It's like passing a broken bottle. I-" She gave a
brief cry and slammed her head against the pillows, squeezing her eyes shut. "Sweet
Mother of Christ, what did I ever do to be punished like this? What?"

It was as if an invisible fist were squeezing her stomach. Just as she thought the pain
would continue into infinity, the baby's head emerged from between her thighs.

Sonja moved to help the infant free itself, then stopped. The baby's head was
bulbous, its eyes as black and flat as those of an insect. It had a flat nose with slits
instead of nostrils and a tubelike mouth made of gristle, lined with tiny lampreylike
teeth. It whipped its tiny, powerful shoulders back and forth until it finally freed one
arm.

Five tiny fingers, complete with curved talons, hooked into the gore-stained
bedclothes, giving it the leverage to drag the rest of it free of the birth canal. The
newborn vampire child lay exhausted on the filthy sheet like a large maggot,
glistening with birth fluids.

Palmer stared at the thing on the bed and wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand. Sonja moved to cut the umbilical cord with her switchblade. The creature
lifted its oversized head on a surprisingly steady neck, regarding her warily with its

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flat black eyes.

"Easy... easy, now..." she muttered under her breath, as if addressing a skittish,
potentially dangerous animal.

"Sonja? Sonja? What's wrong with the baby? Why can't I hear it crying? Why isn't
it crying, Sonja?"

Swallowing her reluctance at touching the thing, Sonja severed the umbilical cord,
quickly tying off the end. As she worked, she noticed that the infant was completely
smooth between the legs, lacking even an anus.

"Sonja? Why don't you answer me?" Anise struggled into a sitting position. Sonja
maneuvered herself between mother and child.

"You don't want to see it, Anise! Please, believe me!"

"What's wrong? Is it dead?"

"No, it's not dead. It's-well, it's not a baby."

"What do, you mean it's not a baby?"

"Anise-"

"Woman, let me see my child!"

Sonja sighed and turned to pick up the creature and hand it over to its mother. But
it wasn't there anymore.

"Shit, Palmer! I thought you were watching it!"

"You didn't tell me to! Hell, the thing just got born! How was I to know it'd go walk
about?"

"Where'd the little bastard go?" Sonja stepped away from the bed, scanning the
shadows along the baseboard.

There was a blur of motion at the corner of Palmer's eye. He contemplated taking
his gun out of its holster but quickly discarded the idea.

It's just a baby, for Chrissakes! A really seriously ugly, mutant vampire baby, yeah.

But it still wouldn't be cool to blow it away. It's just a baby.

Something small darted out from under the bureau and latched onto Palmer's right
calf. He screeched as its ring of lamprey teeth began chewing its way to the meat
beneath his pants leg.

Swearing and hopping on his free leg to keep his balance, Palmer tried to shake the
baby loose. On his second kick, he sent the creature sailing halfway across the room.

The infant landed on its back and squealed like a suckling pig pulled from its
mother's nipple.

Palmer risked a glance at his calf-his pants leg was shredded and blood oozed from
dozens of tiny punctures in his skin. He looked like he'd been attacked with a
needle-studded Ping-Pong paddle but was otherwise unharmed.

The baby flailed at the air with its chubby arms and legs like a tipped turtle
desperate to right itself.

"That's quite enough of that!" Sonja said sternly, snatching the shrieking infant off
the dirty floor. She frowned at Palmer's leg. "You better see to that before infection
sets in."

"What about
that?" he
retorted, jabbing a finger at the baby.

"Don't worry. I'll handle it." She held the tiny struggling mutant like a live
rattlesnake, her fingers clamped behind the holes where its ears should have been,

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and presented it to its mother.

"I can take care of it, if it's what you want." Sonja's voice was flat and without
emotion. She could have been offering to take out the garbage.

"No. It's my child. It's my responsibility."

Anise stretched out her arms to accept the wriggling infant. She fought to keep the
repugnance she felt toward her own flesh and blood from showing on her face, but it
was difficult. The mutant stopped its angry thrashing the moment Anise touched it,
regarding its mother with unreadable, bottomless eyes. The gristle that formed its
mouth puckered and unpuckered rapidly. It wanted to nurse.

"It's not its fault," she said sadly. "This was how it was born. It can't be anything
else." She laughed. It was a hollow sound. "You know, I actually was considering
having a child before all this happened. Not anytime soon-but sometime, when I
could afford it. Maybe make a trip to the friendly neighborhood artificial
inseminator." Her lips twisted themselves into a bitter parody of a smile. "I never
thought I'd end up with... with..." She swallowed and took a deep breath. "Like I
said-it's my responsibility."