In the Blood (35 page)

Palmer slammed the trapdoor shut behind him and quickly descended the ladder.

Whatever dangers Ghost Trap might hold below, they were preferable to being
turned into a human cherries jubilee.

Sonja calmly studied the chimera squatting atop her chest, with its poison -laden

stinger and triple set of jaws. The chimera thrashed, roaring its confusion, as it began

to sink into its erstwhile victim's chest. She got to her feet, the chimera's oversized

scorpion's tail still whipping madly about in the middle of her stomach. Her eyelids

fluttered as she was transfixed by a surge of intense pleasure.

Morgan's unmarked face began to drip pearls of blood as something that looked like

an ape with long, spidery arms pulled itself free of his torso. The ape-thing had

fungus-gray fur, compound eyes and a red, lampreylike maw. With a high-pitched

squeal, the avatar launched itself at its master's foe, sinking a claw into her face.

The ape-thing emitted an ultrasonic shriek as first its wrist, then its elbow, was

absorbed. The avatar jettisoned its right arm and leapt free, screeching like a bat.

Clutching the stump of its right shoulder, the beast loped back to Morgan and cowered

at his feet. Scowling, the vampire quickly gathered the avatar back into himself.

"You surprise me, changeling! I knew you were powerful, but I had not dreamed you

possessed such will! It's been a long time since I've been challenged this way! It's

almost enough to make me doubt my superiority. Almost. "

A tentacle burst from Morgan's chest, whipping about his head like a lariat. Two more

emerged from his sides, quickly wrapping themselves around Sonja's
waist, arms and

legs. She hissed as the coils tightened, the hiss becoming a yowl as thousands of tiny

needle-filled mouths began working at her dream-flesh.

And she was back in the physical world, curled into a fetal ball on the library floor.

Or was she? She was still aware of herself, trapped in the Place Between Places, but
at the same time she could feel the nap of the rug against her cheek. Morgan's shell
squatted over her, hunched forward like a gargoyle perched on the cornice of a
cathedral. His remaining eye was rolled so far back in his head it looked like a
marble.

Damn it, don't just lay there snorting dust bunnies! Kill him! Kill him before he

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realizes he's only trapped part of us!
The Other's voice sounded weaker, somehow.

Part of us? What did it mean?

Stop worrying about the duality of nature and stab the motherfucker!

Sonja's fingers were numb as she fumbled in her pockets for her switchblade. Where
was it? Where?

Morgan tightened his grip on his enemy's imago, grinding the illusion of bone and
flesh together to generate very real pain.

"Do you know what happens to a body once its imago is destroyed, little one? It's
not unlike performing a lobotomy on one's soul."

The Other spat a streamer of blood into Morgan's face.

"Choke on it!"

Sonja spied the switchblade lying where she'd dropped it during her first seizure.

Morgan's control over her body had lessened, but her arms still felt as if the marrow
in her bones had been replaced with lead. She forced her right fist to unclench and
slowly, painfully, inch its way toward the open switchblade.

Pain the color of an exploding sun filled the Other's eyes and ears. The more it

struggled, the tighter the coils became, but the Other refused to lie still. It was not in its

nature to surrender.

Morgan drew his appendages in, tilting his captive so that she dangled inches from his

reconstituted face. In the real world, the jagged knife wound she had dealt him earlier

would permanently render his smile into a joker's leer. But here, in the Place Between

Places, such inconveniences could be ignored.

"You
are beautiful and so sweetly lethal, my dear! It has been amusing, and I will

bear a reminder of your murderous affliction for centuries to come. " He touched his

cheek as if savoring a parting kiss. "I really must end our little affair... but not before

you tell me where you've hidden the breeder's get. "

"Get bent."

It was no good. She couldn't uncramp her fingers enough to reach the blade. They
were going to die. So close. She'd come so close.

Something the size of a man's hand separated itself from the shadows and scuttled
toward the switchblade lying just outside of Sonja's reach. As it drew nearer, she
realized it
was
a man's hand, albeit six fingered.

"That's funny, I don't remember you falling out of my pocket..." Sonja murmured.

The Hand of Glory nudged the switchblade with its fingers, pushing it in the
direction of her own outstretched hand.

"Good girl, Lassie!"

"Tell me where the child is, changeling! Tell me!"

Blood oozed from the Other's nostrils, tear ducts, mouth and eardrums. The
tentacles knotted themselves even tighter, grinding its internal organs into paste.

"I don't know." It wasn't exactly a lie.

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"Come now, prodigal daughter! You can do better than that!"

"Why do you want the baby?"

"Because it is mine. It was my idea to create the thing-a man is entitled to the fruit
of his endeavor. I intend to use the breeders' young to build a new society of living
vampires."

The Other laughed, spraying Morgan's face with blood. "You stupid fuck! You
don't even know what you created!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"The baby isn't a vampire, you dolt! It's a seraph!"

"You lie!"

The Other started laughing again, only harder. "You should have gotten a load of
your face when I said that! What's the matter, dead boy? You soil your pants?"

"Shut up! Shut up, damn you! Stop laughing at me!"

"Make me!"

"Damn your eyes, Sonja Blue! I was willing to show you mercy, but now I won't be
sated until you're flayed to the bone!

The Other's blood-smeared face split into a sharp white grin. "What makes you
think I'm Sonja?"

Wretched Fly dashed into the library, wringing his hands in agitation. "Milord!

Milord!"

Lord Morgan remained hunched, immobile and silent, over the rogue's body.

Wretched Fly reached out and shook his master's shoulder. Morgan's right eye
rolled back down, fixing Wretched Fly with a hard, angry stare.

"What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Milord, the pyrotic's disembodied! It's set the house afire!"

"What?!"

"It's spreading everywhere! The south wing's sixth and fifth floors have already
collapsed! Milord, the sun's rising! We have to abandon the premises before the
entire building goes up!"

"What about Howell?"

"I can only assume the doctor and the others are dead, milord. I can not find any
trace of them on wide scan."

"Very well, go and prepare the Rolls. I'll be there momentarily, after I tend to my...

daughter."

"Like hell you will, dead boy!" Sonja spat, thrusting her weapon's silver blade into
Morgan's unprotected chest.

Morgan screamed like an old woman as he leapt to his feet, tearing at his expensive
clothes. The edges of his wound were already turning black and withering away
from contact with the silver. "Poison! Poison! You horrible, nasty creature!"

Morgan wept as he ripped the rotting tissue from his chest with his bare hands,
desperately trying to keep the taint from spreading to the rest of his body.

"Unclean! Unclean!"

Sonja staggered to her feet, her muscles shrieking as circulation was restored. She
made another swipe at Morgan, but the smoke filling the room blurred her aim.

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Wretched Fly grabbed his master and hurried him from the room.

Sonja tried to follow him, but her head was hurting real bad. She took a few steps
and dropped to her knees, gagging on smoke. Morgan was escaping. She had to stop
him. Kill him. Get it over with, once and for all. If she died under tons of flaming
timber, what difference did it make? Who would be left to mourn-or even notice-her
passing?

As
her body was wracked by a coughing fit, it suddenly occurred to her how quiet it
was inside her head. The Other's needling voice, her constant companion for nearly
two decades, was strangely silent.

She moved cautiously, searching for signs of the Other as if probing a sore tooth
with her tongue. Could it be that Morgan had somehow managed to kill it, while
sparing her?

You're
not rid of me, yet.

No, the Other was not dead. But it was hurt. It seemed weaker than it'd been in
over a decade.

You owe me one.

She was back in the burning house, struggling to pull oxygen from the smoke-filled
room. She glimpsed the Hand of Glory lying on its back, fingers curled in on
themselves like the legs of a dead spider. The hand suddenly twitched and righted
itself, scurrying across the antique Persian carpet and out the door into the hall.

Sonja dragged herself to her feet, coughing violently as she inhaled a lung full of
dense white smoke. She staggered into the hallway, now almost obscured by
billowing smoke. She could hear the roar of fire and the laughter of children.

The house shook as Ghost Trap's west wing collapsed into its cellar, knocking Sonja
to the floor. She lay there, dazed, and wondered whether she was going to suffocate
or burn to death first. The sound of laughing children grew louder.

A boy and girl, dressed in clothing fashionable before Mary Pickford was America's
sweetheart, emerged from the swirling smoke. Sonja recognized the little girl as the
ghost-child she'd met earlier. The children grabbed her hands and lifted her from
the floor. Sonja decided she was too weak to fight them. Besides, they seemed to
know where they were going.

The Seward children led her through smoke-obscured rooms into a dark passage.

Sonja heard their long-dead, insectile voices buzzing in her ear but could not make
out what they were saying. Soon they were back within the tortured architecture of
Ghost Trap's outer house. As the Seward children continued to escort her, Sonja
dimly realized her feet were no longer touching the floor.

Suddenly there was a desperate banshee wail, and their way was blocked by a
hulking grotesque with two heads. The ghost-children deftly yanked their dazed
charge out of the path of the large, blood-spattered ax the two-headed apparition
swung in their direction. Sonja tried to break free of the dead children's grasp, but
they refused to let go.

The gibbering, two-headed ax-murderer wrenched its weapon free from the
splintered floorboards and prepared to lift it a second time. Then came the sound of
a woman's laughter-light, merry, free-echoing through the empty rooms.

The creature paused to listen, its twisted, bat-snouted face grimacing.

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Mrs. Seward's ghost materialized beside that of her killer. She suddenly grabbed her
husband's head by its hair and began to pull. The ax-murderer squealed like a
frightened piglet and flailed ineffectively at Mrs. Seward with its ax-hand. There
was a muffled sucking sound, like someone pulling their foot free of thick mud, and
the shoulders and torso of the late Creighton Seward emerged from the ax-murderer's leprous skin.

The ax-murderer shrieked even louder than before, its clawed feet drumming
against the bare boards like those of a petulant child throwing a tantrum, but Mrs.

Seward was not to be denied the reclamation of her husband. With a final, mighty
tug, she freed Seward's naked body of its demonic twin. Robbed of its unwilling
host, the parasitic demon collapsed like a gutted scarecrow, its corpus returning to
formless ectoplasm.

The dead man shivered like a newborn foal and threw his arms around his
murdered wife, his face pressed against her bosom. Sonja stared dully at the
embracing couple, reunited for the first time since that horrible night in 1907, when
Creighton Seward, in a moment of weakness, made an unwise bargain in a bid for
artistic genius.