Paint It Black (3 page)

The whore is confused, perhaps even a little

frightened, but she is unwilling to forfeit the money I promised her. She puts on the glasses.

She is dirty and smells of rank jism and vaginal secretions. Her hair is too long and oily. Her motions lack grace and suppleness. But there is a resemblance, tenuous as it may be, and that is enough.

She is not the one I want, but she will do for now.

I move closer to the whore, my arousal growing acute as the image of the one I want shimmers behind my eyes. The one this pathetic piece of human waste is standing in for.

'Show me the knife.' It is all I can do to keep the shiver out of my voice.

'What?'

' The knife! Show me the blade?'

'Huh?'

'Just do it!' I snap, grabbing the girl by her shoulders. Not too tightly, but roughly enough to spark the fear again.

The blade leaps from its hilt, like a minnow

darting through shallow water. The whore holds the knife cautiously, but not without some familiarity, I notice. Perhaps she and the object of my desire are not so disparate, after all.

'Now what?'

' Stab me.'

'What? Are you fuckin' crazy?' The fear recedes, to be replaced by indignation. This is kinkier than she had bargained for. She'd figured me for some deformed pervert, one who wanted to be pissed on or made to roll around in her shit. But this is too much. Even Allen Street whores, apparently, have their limits.

' Stab me!'

I have lost all patience with this trollop. If she will not give me what I want, then I shall use force.

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) I grab her by the throat and her eyes bug out as she realizes I mean business.

She raises her hand. I catch a glimpse of metal as her fist smashes into my chest. There is a cold sharpness as the blade enters me. I continue to squeeze her throat. Again she stabs me. And again.

Blood sprays from my wound, spattering both her face and mine. I close my eyes in order to savor the illusion that it is not she, but my beloved who is ramming the knife into my heart again and again.

The fear that radiates from her as I slowly choke the life from her is amongst the best I have known in recent years. I groan in ecstasy as I hold her death cry in the palm of my hand.

I open my eyes, half expecting to see my beloved's face before me, contorted in death. Instead, all there is is a dead whore, her blackened, swollen tongue protruding lewdly between painted lips. The sunglasses have come loose during her struggle, and are dangling from one ear. The dead whore's eyes, filled with burst blood vessels, start from their sockets like those of a grotesque insect. Disgusted, I let the corpse drop.

I realize that the switchblade is still lodged in my chest. I stare down at the hilt protruding between my ribs. My white silk shirt is now the color of port wine. Chuckling to myself, I pull the knife free.

I close my eyes again and see my love moving like a panther tracking its prey, her eyes burning in the darkness. She wants me. Her passion radiates from her like a dark halo. But what she lusts after is not my touch, my kiss, my seed. No, what she desires is my death.

When I look into her mirrored eyes I know fear and joy. So beautiful. So deadly. I stand in awe of her; my lovely, lethal masterpiece.

Is this how Pygmalion felt when his Galatea stepped from her pedestal? Granted, he did not have to worry about his creation chasing him about the studio, armed with a hammer and chisel, bent on his murder. And she came close, so very close, to killing me the last time we were together.

I have suffered countless- mutilations during my seven centuries of existence, including amputation, but I shall carry the wounds she dealt

me forever.

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) She split my face open with a silver knife. And I loved it.

I touch the scar that pulls the right side of my face into a rictus grin and think of my fatal beauty.

I close my remaining eye and I see her standing there, naked except for the mantle of power that crackles about her like fox fire, and the scar over my heart puckers.

Gods of the Outer Dark, help me.

I love her.

And that is why I must destroy her. Again. And again. And again. Until I am certain I can bring myself to do the deed for real.

From the journals of Sir Morgan,

Lord of the Morning Star.

2.

William Palmer woke the same way a swimmer emerges from the sea, gasping for air. He lay flat on the bed, staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling for a long moment before really seeing it, the last of the dream bleeding away from the corners of his eyes.

Dream. Thank God. Just a dream.

He'd been dreaming of the house again. The house called Ghost Trap. It had been built earlier in the century by a gifted, if demented, architect who had designed it to keep him safe from the vengeful spirits of his slaughtered family.

The mansion was a crazed conglomeration of rooms without windows, blind stairways, secret passageways, and other mad fancies, using non-Euclidian geometric principles that not only confused the restless dead, but disoriented the living as well.

For someone such as Palmer, possessing psionic abilities beyond those of normal humans, Ghost Trap was the psychic equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits. .

Nearly three years ago, Palmer had found himself lost in Ghost Trap, at the mercy of the dead that roamed its empty halls. He'd entered in search of his friend and lover, Sonja Blue; the woman who had helped him learn to deal with psychic powers - and had dragged him into her battle with the master vampire, Morgan.

He'd survived that night in Ghost Trap, but just barely. He'd lived to see the horror house consumed by flames, releasing its damned occupants once and for all. Ghost Trap was no more. Yet it still lived within his mind, playing host to his nightmares.

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) Palmer stared up at the ceiling fan mounted over the bed, watching the rotors beat the heavy, humid air in near-silence.

No doubt the stickiness and heat had contributed to his bad dream. It was too uncomfortable to be sleeping inside, but the mosquitoes were too fierce this season for him to try using the hammock on the front porch.

He sat up, pushing aside the sweat-drenched sheets. He wasn't going to get back to sleep, at least not for a while, anyway. He swung his feet onto the floor and stood up with a groan, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror opposite the bed. He ran one hand across the ritual tattoo that covered his entire chest. It was of Mayan design, as were the jade plugs that stretched his earlobes. It depicted the symbol of the House of the Jaguar Lords.

Palmer didn't hold with past-life regression therapy, channeling, Space Brothers, or any of the other New Age crap.

It just happened that he was the reincarnation of a pre Columbian Mayan. He had once been one of the six-fingered wizard-kings of the Chan Balam, who saw their deformity as a sign of godhood. He was also an ex-private investigator, a pardoned felon, a telepath, and proprieter of a successful specialty export business.

Palmer moved towards the hallway, only to freeze when something the size and shape of a large tarantula skittered out from behind the door. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw what it really was - a mummified six-fingered hand, amputated at the wrist.

'Damn it, Lefty! You nearly gave me a heart attack!' Palmer chided, nudging the thing with his foot. He'd grown fond of the gruesome relic over the months. It really wasn't so surprising that he should develop an attachment to it. After all, it had once belonged to his previous incarnation.

Palmer padded down the hallway, naked except for a pair of boxers, Lefty skittering after him like a faithful pet. He paused at the nursery, quietly opening the door so as not to wake Lethe.

I really should stop calling it the nursery, he thought to himself, not for the first time. She's really too old for that.

It took him a second or two to locate her amidst all the stuffed animals and dolls she had in bed with her, then he spotted her hair, as dark and sleek as a sable's pelt, peeking out from between a Raggedy Ann and a Paddington Bear.

As he watched, she mumbled something in her sleep.

He was going to have to get her some new clothes pretty soon. She'd already outgrown the ones he bought less than

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) a month ago, having shot up another three inches, literally overnight. Palmer's eyes wandered to the closet door he used as Lethe's official growth chart and the series of overlapping pencil marks with crabbed notations as to date and age. As of her last measuring, she stood close to five foot one. Not bad for a child who had yet to reach her third birthday.

One of the shadows near the foot of Lethe's bed detached itself and moved towards Palmer. Two points of golden light, set about the height of a man's eyes, suddenly blinked on.

'Don't worry, Fido. Nothing's wrong. I was just checkin' in,'

Palmer whispered.

The hulking apparition, looking more like a mound of dirty laundry sculpted into the form of a human being, nodded dumbly and returned to its silent vigil. During the two and a half years Palmer had spent in the company of the seraphim, he still had no idea what the creature thought - or if it thought at all. While it was obviously appointed to guard Lethe, it had never once attempted to communicate with him - at least on a level that he could understand.

Satisfied everything was under control, Palmer continued on his nocturnal perimeter check. He paused at the door that led to the patio, with its expensive Spanish tile and a small three-tiered fountain that constantly burbled to itself.

Palmer stepped outside; the humid Yucatan night was no relief. It felt as if the world's largest dog was breathing on him. Palmer wiped at the sweat on his brow and upper lip as he peered up at the moonlit sky.

Where are you? his mind whispered into the night The sound of a radio scanning through a thousand different competing signals filled his head. Some were fairly strong, others weak. Some were in languages he understood, most were not. Some were angry, some were sad, some were happy, but most were confused. The signals blurred and clashed, waxed and waned.

Where are you? He boosted his own signal, hoping to cut through the drift of muted voices that filled the ether. This time he was rewarded with a response - a voice made faint and blurry by distance, but still recognizable.

I'm here. In New Orleans.

He smiled at the sound of her voice in his head; even though she was not there to see it, he knew she felt it.

When are you coming home?

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) Soon. But I still have work to attend to here.

I miss you.

I miss you, too. She smiled then. He could feel it.

Any luck?

No sign of him yet, but I have a few hunches as to where he might be hiding. How is Lethe?

fine. I guess.

Glad to hear everything's okay. I have to go now--

Sonja? Sonja, we need to talk... Sonja?

There was no reply, only the squawk and squelch of the minds of a million strangers babbling into the void.

3.

I have to give the dead boy credit; he has the trick of appearing human nailed down tight. He's learned just what gestures and inflections to use in his conversation to hide the fact that his surface glitz is not there to disguise shallowness, but an utter lack of humanity.

I've seen enough of the kind he imitates: pallid, self-important intellectuals who pride themselves on their sophistication and knowledge of what's 'hip', sharpening their wit at the expense of others. Like the vampiric mimic in their midst they produce nothing while thriving on the vitality of others. The only difference is that the vampire is more honest about it

I work my way to the bar, careful to keep myself shielded from the dead boy's view, both physically and psychically. It wouldn't do for my quarry to catch scent of me just yet. I hear the vampire's nasal intonations as it holds forth on the demerits of various artists.

'Frankly, I consider his use of photomontage to be inexcusably banal. I've seen better at Olan Mills's!'

I wonder who the vampire stole that particular drollery from.

A dead boy of his wattage doesn't come up with bons mots and witty remarks spontaneously. When you have to spend a lot of conscious energy remembering to breathe and blink, there is no such thing as top-of-your-head snappy patter. It is all protective coloration, right down to the last double entendre and Monty Python impersonation.

It will be another decade or two before the vampire dressed

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) in black silk and leather with the stainless-steel ankh dangling from one ear and a crystal embedded in his left nostril can divert his energies to something besides the full-time task of ensuring his continuance. And i doubt this dead boy has much of a chance of realizing that future.

I wave down the bartender and order a beer. As I await its arrival, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror backing the bar.

To the casual observer I look to be no more than twenty-five.

Tricked out in a battered leather jacket, a stained Circle Jerks T-shirt, patched jeans, mirrored sunglasses, and with dark hair twisted into a tortured cockatoo's crest I look like just another member of Generation X checking out the scene. No one would ever guess I'm actually forty years old.

I suck the cold suds down, participating in my own form of protective coloration. I can drink a case or three of the stuff without effect. Beer doesn't do it for me anymore. Neither does hard liquor. Or cocaine. Or heroin. Or crack, I've tried them all, in dosages that would put the US Olympic Team in the morgue; but no luck There is only one drug that plunks my magic twanger nowadays. Only one thing that can get me off.