Dead Roses for a Blue Lady (7 page)

Judd, unlike Palmer, was not a sensitive. He was human, blind and dumb to the miracles and terrors of the Real World, just like poor, doomed Claude Hagerty. Rapid exposure could do immense damage.

To his credit, Judd had not pressed the sex issue much. He was not happy with the arrangement, but honored her request that they "take it slow."

This, however did not sit well with the Other. It constantly taunted her, goading her with obscene fantasies and suggestions concerning Judd. Or, failing to elicit a response using those tactics, it would chastise her for being untrue to Palmer. Sonja tried to ignore its gibes as best she could, but she knew that something, somewhere was bound to snap.

Kitty wiped at the tears oozing from the corner of her eye, smearing mascara all over her cheek and the back of her hand. It made the words on the paper swim and crawl like insects, but she didn't care.

She loved him. She really, truly loved him. And maybe now, after she did what she had to do to save him, he'd finally believe her. Proof. He needed proof of her love. And what better proof than to rescue him from the clutches of a monster.

Dearest Judd,

I tried to warn you about That woman. But you are blind to what she Really Is. She is
Evil Itself, a demon sent from hell to claim your soul! I knew her for what she truly is
the
moment I first saw her, and she knew I knew Her hands and mouth drip blood! Her eyes
burn with the fires of Hell! She if surrounded by a cloud of red energy. Red as blood. She
means to drag you to Hell, Judd. But I won't
let her. I Love you too much
to let that
happen. I'll take care of this horrible monster, don't you worry. I've been talking to God a
lot Lately, and He told me how to deal with demons like her. I Love you so very, very
much
.
I
want you to Love me too. I'm doing this all for you. Please Love me.

Kitty

Judd woke up at two in the afternoon, as usual. He worked six-to-midnight four days a week and had long since shifted over to a nocturnal lifestyle. After he got off work he normally headed down to the Quarter to chill with his buddies or, more recently, hang with Sonja until four or five in the morning before heading home.

He yawned as he dumped a couple of heaping tablespoons of Guatemalan into the hopper of his Mr. Coffee.

Sonja. Now there was a weird chick. Weird, but not in a schizzy, death-obsessed art school freshman way like Kitty. Her strangeness issued from somewhere far deeper than bourgeois neurosis. Sonja was genuinely
out there,
wherever that might be. There was

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) something about the way she moved, the way she handled herself, that suggested she was plugged into something Real. And as frustrating as her fits of mood might be, he could not bring himself to turn his back on her and walk away.

Still, it bothered him that none of his friends—not even Arlo, who he'd known since high school—liked her. In fact, some even seemed to be
scared of
her. Funny. How could anyone
be frightened of
Sonja?

As he shuffled in the direction of the bathroom, he noticed an envelope shoved under his front door. He stooped to retrieve it, scowling at the all-too-familiar handwriting.

Kitty.

Probably another one of her damn fool love letters, alternately threatening him with castration and begging him to take her back. Lately she'd taken to leaving rambling, wigged-out messages on his answering machine, ranting about Sonja being some kind of vampire or succubus out to steal his soul. Crazy bitch. Sonja was crazy, too, but hardly predictable.

Judd tossed the envelope, unopened, into the trash can and staggered off to the bathroom to take a shower.

Sonja Blue greeted the night from atop the roof of the warehouse where she made her nest. She stretched her arms wide as if to embrace the rising moon, listening with half an ear to the sound of the baying dogs along the riverbanks. Some, she knew, were not dogs.

But the
vargr
were not her concern. She tangled with a few over the years, but she preferred hunting her own kind. She found it vastly more satisfying.

The warehouse's exterior fire escape was badly rusted and groaned noisily with the slightest movement, so Sonja avoided it altogether. She crawled, head-first, down the side of the building, moving like a lizard on a garden wall. Once she reached the bottom, she routinely pat-checked her jacket pockets to make sure nothing had fallen out during her descent.

There was a hissing sound in her head, as if someone had abruptly pumped up the volume on a radio tuned to a dead channel, as something heavy caught her between the shoulderblades, lifting her off her feet and knocking her into a row of garbage cans.

She barely had time to roll out of the way before something big and silvery smashed down where her head had been a second before. She coughed and black blood flew from her lips; a rib had broken off and pierced her lung again.

Kitty stood over her, clutching a three-foot long solid silver crucifix like a baseball bat.

While her madness gave her strength, it was obvious the damn thing was
heavy.
Sonja wondered which church she'd stolen it from.

The dead channel-crackling in Sonja's head grew louder. It was the sound of homicidal rage. Shrieking incoherently, Kitty swung at her rival a third time. While crosses and crucifixes had no effect on her— or any vampire, for that matter—if Kitty succeeded in landing a lucky blow and snapped her spine or cracked open her skull, she was dead no matter what.

Sonja rolled clear and got to her feet in one swift, fluid motion. Kitty swung at her again, but this time Sonja stepped inside her reach and grabbed the crucifix, wresting it from the other woman's hands.

Kitty staggered back, staring in disbelief as Sonja hefted the heavy silver cross. It was at

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) least three inches thick, the beams as wide as a man's hand, and at its center hung a miniature Christ fashioned of gold and platinum. Kitty watched expectantly obviously waiting for Sonja's hand to burst into flames.

"What the hell did you think you were going to solve, clobbering me with this piece of junk?" she snarled.

Kitty's eyes were huge, the pupils swimming in madness. "You can't have him! I won't let you take his soul!"

"Who said anything about me stealing—"

"Monster!" Kitty launched herself at Sonja, her fingers clawing at her face. "Monster!"

Sonja hit her with the crucifix.

Kitty dropped to the alley floor, the top of her skull resting on her left shoulder. The only thing still holding her head onto her body were the muscles of her neck.

Way to go, kiddo! You just killed lover-boys bug-shit ex-girlfriend! You're batting a
thousand!

"Shit."

She tossed the crucifix aside and squatted next to the body. No need to check for vital signs. The girl was d-e-a-d.

What to do? She couldn't toss the corpse in the dumpster. Someone was bound to find it, and once the body was identified New Orleans Homicide would take Judd in for questioning. Which meant they'd be looking for
her,
sooner or later. And she couldn't have
that.

I've got an idea,
crooned the Other.
Just let me handle it.

Stealing the car was easy. It was a 76 Ford LTD with a muffler held in place with baling wire and a
Duke for Governor
sticker on the sagging rear bumper. Just the thing to unobtrusively dispose of a murder victim in the swamps surrounding New Orleans during the dead of night.

She took an exit off the Interstate leading out of New Orleans East. Originally it was to have connected a cookie-cutter housing development built on the very fringes of the marshlands to the outside world. The contractors got as far as pouring the concrete slab foundations before the oil slump hit. The condos were never built, but the access road remained, although there was nothing at its end but an overgrown tangle of briars and vines that had become a breeding ground for snakes and alligators.

Sonja drove without lights. Not that she needed them. She could see just fine in the dark.

Having reached her destination, she cut the engine and rolled to a stop. Except for the chirring of frogs and the grunting of gators, everything was quiet.

Sonja climbed out of the car and opened the trunk with a length of bent coat hanger. She stood for a second, silently inventorying the collection of plastic trash bags. There were six, total: one for the head, one for the torso, and one apiece for each limb. She'd already burned Kitty's clothing in the warehouse's furnace and disposed of her jewelry and teeth by tossing them into the river.

She gathered up the bags and left the road, heading in the direction of the swamp. She could hear things splashing in the water, some of them quite large.

She paused for a second on the bank of the bayou. Something nearby hissed. She tossed the bag containing Kitty's head into the murky water.

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"Come and get it 'fore I slop it to the hogs!" she called.

The assembled gators splashed and wrestled amongst themselves for the tender morsels like ducks fighting for scraps of stale bread.

Sonja was tired. Very tired. After this was over she still had to drive the car she'd stolen to a suitably disreputable urban area and set it on fire. She looked down at her hands. They were streaked with blood. She absently licked them clean.

When she was finished the Other looked through her eyes and smiled.

The Other wasn't tired. Not in the least.

It hadn't been a very good night, as far as Judd was concerned. He'd gotten chewed out concerning his attitude at work, Arlo and the others had treated him like he had a championship case of halitosis, and, to cap the evening, Sonja pulled a no-show. Time to pack it in. It was four o'clock when he got home. He was in such a piss-poor mood, he didn't even bother to turn on the lights.

His answering machine, for once, didn't have one of Kitty's bizarro messages on it.

Nothing from Sonja, either. He grunted as he removed his shirt. Was she mad at him? Had he said or done something the last time they were together that ticked her off?

It was damn hard to figure out her moods, since she refused to take off those damn mirrored sunglasses. Judd wondered how she could navigate in the dark so well while wearing those fuckers.

Something moved at the corner of his eye. It was the curtain covering the window that faced the alley. Funny, he didn't remember leaving that open...

Someone stepped out of the shadows, greeting him with a smile that displayed teeth that were too sharp. Judd felt his heart jerk into overdrive as the adrenaline surged into his system. He was ready to yell for help, then he recognized her.

"S-Sonja"

"Did I scare you?" Her voice sounded like something out of
The Exorcist.
She sniffed the air and her smile grew even sharper. "Yes. Yes, I
did
scare you, didn't I?" She moved toward him, her hands making slow, hypnotic passes as she spoke. "I
love
the smell of fear in the morning."

"Sonja, what's wrong with your voice?"

"Wrong?" The Other chuckled as she unzipped her leather jacket. "I
always
sound like this!"

She was on him so fast he didn't even see her move, lifting him by his belt buckle and flinging him onto the bed so hard he bounced. She grabbed his jaw in one hand, angling it back so the jugular was exposed. Judd heard the
snikt!
of a switchblade and felt a cold, sharp pressure against his throat.

"Sonja
—?"

"Do not struggle. Do not cry out. Do as I command, and maybe I'll let you live. Maybe."

"What do you want?"

"Why, my dear, I just want to get to know you better." The Other removed the sunglasses protecting her eyes with her free hand. "And vice versa."

Judd had often wondered what Sonja's eyes looked like. Were they almond-shaped or round? Blue or brown or green? He'd always imagined them as looking human, though.

He'd never once pictured them as blood-red with pupils so hugely dilated they resembled

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) shoebuttons.

The Other smirked, savoring the look of disgust on Judd's face. She pressed her lips against his, thrusting his teeth apart with her tongue, and penetrated his will with one quick shove of her mind.

Judd's limbs twitched convulsively as she took control of his nervous system, then went still. The Other disengaged, physically, and stared down at him. He couldn't move, his body locked into partial paralysis. Satisfied her control was secure, she moved the switchblade from Judd's throat.

"I can see why she finds you attractive. You're a pretty thing...
very
pretty." The Other reached out and pinched one of his nipples. Judd didn't flinch. "But she's much too old-fashioned when it comes to sex, don't you agree? She's afraid to let herself go and walk the wild side. She's so
repressed."
The Other shrugged out of her leather jacket, allowing it to fall to the floor.

"I will explain this to you once, and once only. I
own
you. If you do as I tell you, and you please me, then you shall be rewarded. Like
this."

She reached into his cortex and tweaked its pleasure center. Judd shuddered as the wave of ecstasy swept over him, his hips involuntarily humping empty air.

"But if you fight me, or displease me in
anyway
—then I will punish you. Like
so."

Judd emitted a strangled cry of pain as he was speared through the pain receptor in his head. It felt as if the top of his skull had been removed and someone had dumped the contents of an ant farm on his exposed brain. His back arched until he thought his spine would snap. Then the pain stopped as it it'd never been there at all.