In the Blood (29 page)

Fell smirked and held up his left arm and pantomimed sinking a hypodermic needle
into his bent elbow with his right hand. "Doc's a stone junkie. Morgan provides him
with all the heroin, morphine and opium he can handle. And then some."

"And this guy's a scientist?"

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"That's what he keeps saying. He's some kind of hotshot geneticist. Occasionally
he'd get hopped up and start ranting about how he was our true father, not
Morgan! I always thought it was just crazy talk. We got a lot of that from the
renfields, whenever they'd bother to talk to us at all."

"How many servants does Morgan have at Ghost Trap?"

Fell frowned. "I'm not sure. I never saw them together at one time. They avoided us
as much as possible. There might be as many as six. Plus Wretched Fly."

"Wretched Fly?"

"Yeah, Morgan's top renfield. He was at the disco."

"The Asian?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"Well, I took out one at Ghost Trap this afternoon and one at the bar, and Anise
said she'd killed one while escaping. That depletes his backup by half," mused
Sonja, ticking off the kills on the fingers of her right hand. "Does he have any
meres?"

"What?"

"Muscle for hire. Various species of Pretender make their way by hiring themselves
out to vampires as powerful and well connected as Morgan. I know he's got a
pyrotic on the payroll. Did you see any ogres?
Vargr?
Skindancers?"

"Whozits?"

"Boy, he sure did his best to keep you ignorant, didn't he?"

Fell flushed. "Anise and I were restricted to a suite of rooms on the ground floor for
most of our lives. The first few months we were kept in a sterile environment, and
only Morgan and Doc Howell were allowed in. Most of the time we stayed in our
rooms, except for when we were escorted to and from Doc's laboratory on the
second floor.

"We were only allowed outside once-it was during the day, and we were under
heavy supervision by the renfields. Dr. Howell was there, too-taking notes. I guess
they wanted to see if we'd turn into crispy critters when exposed to the sun."

"Weren't you even a little bit curious as to what was really going on?"

Fell's face reddened even deeper. "No, not really. I know that's a horrible thing to
admit to, but it's the truth. Anise was a little more inquisitive than I was, and that
didn't become part of her behavior until after she became pregnant. Until yesterday
afternoon, it had never occurred to me that the life I was living was in anyway...

unusual. After all, I didn't have anything to compare it to, did I?" Fell shook his
head, amazed at his own naivete.

"But what really makes me sick is that a part of me, deep down, liked Morgan
running my life for me. And what's worse, I enjoyed what I had become! I was
never any good at sports back when I was Tim Sorrell, Super-Geek. I never did real
well with the girls. I was a gold-plated wimp if ever there was one. Although I didn't
consciously remember any of that stuff, it was still buried inside me.

"There's a fully outfitted gymnasium on the second floor we were allowed to use. I
can bench-press eight hundred pounds. Me! Scrawny little 'Dracula Weirdo'

Sorrell!" He flexed his biceps, parodying a Charles Atlas-style bodybuilder.

For a fleeting moment, he was what he had once been-a bright, sensitive nineteen-

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year-old boy, standing on the threshold of manhood. Then the smile disappeared
and he was staring at his hands again.

"Morgan used to talk about 'the cattle' and how easy it is to control them.

Sometimes he'd bring in humans from outside... I don't know who they were.

Transients, I guess. And he'd let me..." He closed his eyes, trying to blot the image
from his memory. "I'd play with them." His voice shook, the words burning his
tongue. "Sometimes there was sex. Man. Woman. It didn't matter. And then
after..."

"Fell, you don't have to tell me this."

"But I have to! I have to tell someone!" His voice was high and tight, like a
frightened girl's. "My god, Sonja, if I can't tell you, who can I tell?"

She pursed her mouth into a thin line and nodded. "Go on."

Fell took a shuddering breath, anxiously knotting and unknotting his fingers in his
lap. "After the sex was over, I'd bite them on their arms and legs and groin, like I
was kissing them, only they were screaming and bleeding instead of moaning with
pleasure. And it wasn't because I was hungry, either! Morgan provided us with all
the bottled blood we could ever need. I did it because... because it felt good! It was
better than sex or drugs or anything else. It made me feel alive! It was like my
nightmares, only I wasn't scared of the things I was doing anymore.

"Morgan would stay in the room and watch me do these things. I pray to God he
was controlling me, making me do those horrible things. Because if he wasn't, I did
them!"

"What happened was in the past. You've regained your conscience and with it
autonomy. Whatever you may have done while under Morgan's influence, it's over
and done with. It's up to you to realize that and accept it, Tim."

"Don't call me that. I'm not Tim anymore, not where it really counts. I don't know
who-or what-I am. Part of me remembers what it was like to be Tim Sorrell. I can
still recall all the times the bigger, more popular kids made fun of him, called him
names. I can remember the hatred he felt for them. I can remember his parents, and
how he felt about them, but it's not the same as when I was Tim. But I'm not what
Morgan wanted me to be, either. When I think of things I did before I regained my
sense of self, it makes me want to puke. I guess I'm Fell more than I am anything-or
anyone-else. Just like you're more Sonja Blue than Denise Thorne."

"How did-?"

"The skull-peeping works both ways. When you were working me over at the disco I
kept getting, I dunno, flashes. Of you and Morgan. What he did to make you... what
you are."

A muscle twitched in Sonja's cheek as she tightened her grip on the steeringwheel.

"You're right. I don't really think of myself as Denise anymore. She's more someone
I used to know."

"Do you like her?"

She reflected on that for a moment before answering. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"I like Tim, too. Now that it's too late to do him any good."

"What do you mean you can't find him?" Morgan bellowed, hurling an antique

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ivory music box at the cowering renfield.

The renfield dodged at the last moment, wincing as the music box smashed against
the teak paneling next to his head.

"J-just that, milord. The doctor is not in his laboratory, nor is he in his room."

"Are you saying he's managed to escape?"

"No. Not exactly. He's... he's somewhere in the house."

"How astute! Then if he's still in the house, why haven't you brought him before
me?"

"He's not in the nucleus, milord. He's... somewhere in the outer house. He's in the
Ghost Trap." Having delivered this news, the renfield pulled his neck in between his
shoulders like a turtle.

"Damn him! Damn his junkie soul to a thousand drug-free hells!" Morgan shrieked,
knocking books and rare antiques from a nearby bookshelf with an angry sweep of
his arm. "He did this to me! He deliberately set out to ruin my plans!" The vampire
spun back around to face the trembling renfield, pointing a finger at the whey-faced
psychic.

"You! I want the outer house searched, is that clear? Take the others with you!"

"But-but, milord!"

"Doit!"

The renfield fled the library, leaving Morgan to fume in silence.

He should never have trusted Howell. Never! The scientist had been unstable long
before the drugs became a factor. But Howell's erratic behavior was what had
allowed Morgan access to him to begin with. As much as it galled the vampire lord
to admit it, the mistake was his own. He'd been intimidated by the scientist's facility
with technology, allowing him far more autonomy than was prudent. And now
Morgan was paying the price for not keeping his pet biogeneticist on a tighter leash.

If news of his humiliation at the hands of a mere human ever got out, he'd be the
laughingstock of the Nobility! Worse, he would be perceived as weak, and that
would endanger his alliances and encourage another round of brood wars against
him. He might even be forced to surrender his title of Lord! It would no doubt
please snapping jackals like Pangloss and Verité to see him brought low.

This was what his reliance on technology and science, humankind's sorcery, had
brought him to. He should never have relied so heavily on something of human
manufacture! These things were always confusing and somewhat frightening to
Pretenders, and Morgan was no different. Yet its inherent power had been too
lucrative to leave to mere humans to exploit.

While Howell might be a necromancer of unparalleled power in his postnuclear
wizard's workshop, it would do him little good once he was strapped to a chair.

Morgan had all kinds of interesting things planned for the good Dr. Howell.

Depriving him of his precious white powder was only the first of many cruelties to
be inflicted on the thankless swine. Perhaps a few judiciously applied medical
probes would make him more appreciative of his betters. Of course, the good doctor
would be forced to personally oversee his own flaying and subsequent vivisection.

Morgan had long since evolved beyond the need to soil his hands with the blood of
his victims.

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But first the conniving bastard had to be caught. Morgan struck his desk with a
balled fist, cracking its imported Italian marble. While Brainard Howell might be
devious, vainglorious and ungrateful, he definitely was not stupid.

The bastard knew that the outer layer surrounding Ghost Trap's nucleus was
dangerous, especially to Pretenders and humans with psychic abilities. While this
had worked in Morgan's favor in the past, Howell's escape had turned that
advantage against him.

There were things roaming Ghost Trap that did not like outsiders, and Morgan was
in no hurry to meet them face-to-face.

"Milord?"

Morgan glanced up from his reverie and glowered at Wretched Fly. The renfield
stood in the doorway to the library, the right side of his head wrapped in sterile
gauze.

. "Are they dead?"

"Milord-there were difficulties. "

"Explain yourself."

"The woman, the one called Blue, uncovered our presence. My companion was
killed outright. I was momentarily... incapacitated." He touched the bandage
shrouding his right eye gingerly.

"Then what of Fell?"

"I don't know, milord. The rogue had the upper hand the last I saw her. Milord, she
was tapping him!"

Morgan frowned. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive, milord! The nimbus configuration was quite distinct. She was
absorbing and metabolizing the negative energy generated by the breeder."

Morgan fell silent. He hadn't been expecting that. Perhaps it was better that his
plans had collapsed, after all. His schemes had revolved around a race of vampires
incapable of living on anything but blood. Feeding on emotions was something only
the more advanced species were capable of. Fell had shown no signs of battening
onto his terror-stricken prey for anything but plasma during the "tests" Morgan
had arranged.

"Are you certain this rogue isn't a true vampire?" he hissed.

"I am sure of it, milord. Her aural configurations were identical to those of the
breeders, although much stronger."

Morgan cursed under his breath. This was turning out the way he'd hoped.

"Milord-"

"What is it, Wretched Fly?"

The renfield cleared his throat. "Milord, I have failed you. And since I have done so,
I offer now my life to you, for you to destroy as you see fit."

Morgan suppressed a smile. "I can do that any time I want, Wretched Fly. But I
appreciate the offer. No, you are too valuable to me, my friend. The eye-it is gone?"

"Yes, milord."

"Then that is payment enough for your failure."

"As you wish, milord."

Morgan watched as his maimed lieutenant left the room. It had been centuries since

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Morgan had last known the treachery of mortal flesh. The mere thought that he had
once been restrained by the limits of bone and muscle, fearful of disease and
pestilence, was enough to make his skin tighten.