Paint It Black (10 page)

'Sonja?'

She turned like a startled cat, hissing a warning. The hairs on his testicles stood on end as he realized he was looking into the face of the Other.

The Other spoke in a gravelly, slurred baritone, sounding like a cleverly remixed version of Sonja's normal voice.

'So, lover boy's still up! Why does she keep you around, Palmer? It can't be the way you fuck!'

The Other laughed as Palmer flinched, licking the blood smearing the back of its hand like a cat cleaning itself.

It enjoyed making him twitch. Palmer was still uncertain whether Sonja's vampiric alter ego was a genuinely separate identity or simply an elaborate self-delusion; her id given voice. Was his lover possessed or mad? Either way, Palmer had to be careful when dealing with the Other. It definitely lacked Sonja's patience - marginal as that might be at times

- and made it clear more than once that it suffered Palmer's presence only as a 'favor' to its host.

'I want to talk to Sonja.'

Tough titty, asshole,' the Other growled, dropping onto the bed. 'She ain't here.'

'Then I'll wait until she gets back,' Palmer said, folding his arms.

'Back off, renfield!' the Other snapped, showing its fangs in ritual display. 'I'm not in the mood!'

There was a sound from the direction of the door and the Other fell silent, something resembling fear flickering across its face. Palmer glanced over his shoulder and saw Fido standing on the threshold, his eyes glowing in the dark.

When Palmer turned his attention back to the Other, Sonja was sitting there, looking puzzled.

'Bill?' She frowned at the blood drying on her belly. She wiped her finger along the smear and tasted it, grimacing slightly. 'Don't worry, it's not human--' She glanced back up at him. 'Why are you looking at me that way?'

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'You went out hunting and the Other came back.'

She shifted uncomfortably. 'Did ... did it say anything?'

'About what?'

Her eyes flashed angrily and for a heart-stopping moment Palmer was afraid the Other had returned. 'Did it taK?'

'Yeah, but it didn't say much. Told me I was a lousy lay, if that's what you mean.'

'That's not true, you know that'

'Do I?' Palmer knelt beside her on the bed, taking her hands into his. 'Sonja, what's wrong? What happened in New Orleans that you're not'telling me?'

She looked at him, her dark-adapted pupils so dilated they filled her eyes. The sadness inside her pressed against him, wrapping him in stifling grayness. Her depression filled his lungs, crushing the breath from him. His heart seemed to swell then wither as the misery inside her sought to pull him down into its depths. Palmer knew that if he succumbed to the vortex, he would be lost. Marshaling all his strength, both physical and mental; he drew back and punched her as hard as he could, right in the face.

He told himself it wasn't cruelty. It was self-preservation.

The gray pain retreated from his mind. In its place was a red-hot coal of anger, betrayal - arousal.

He hit her again.

And again.

And again.

His orgasm took him by surprise. He looked down at his wilting penis, blinking in confusion. He hadn't even touched himself. Sonja lay facedown on the bed, her body twisted in sheets smeared with her blood and sweat and Palmer's spent seed. She didn't seem to be breathing.

'Sonja?'

No response. His fists ached from the pounding they'd administered. His body was still trembling like a plucked guitar string.

'Sonja?'

He rolled her over. Her body was so heavy, so limp. Her face was a mess of blood, pulped cartilage and shattered bone. The

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) walls looked as if someone had tried to clean a dirty paintbrush by flicking it dry. She still wasn't breathing. Her brain sounded like a radio tuned to an empty channel.

Bile rising in his throat, Palmer lurched to his feet and headed for the bathroom. He locked the door behind him and splashed water on his face. When he looked up, he found his reflection, haggard and drawn, staring out at him from the mirror. There was a mad gleam in the eyes - a gleam he recognized. He'd seen its like in the eyes of the humans in the service of the vampires Pangloss and Morgan.

Renfields. They called them renfields.

The Other had called him a renfield.

Palmer pressed his bruised and bleeding hands against his eyes. The screech and squall of the mind-world pushed against his head, threatening to breach his barriers and inundate him with other people's fears, hopes, dreams, secrets, and sins until his individuality, his consciousness was erased

'Stop it!' he yelled at an old lady in Poughkeepsie, who couldn't decide whether to put her cancer-ridden poodle down or not. 'Get out of my head!' he screeched at an aging businessman in Taipei, who was worried about his waning potency.

'Leave me alone!' he bellowed at a Nazi war criminal in Paraguay, who was certain he was being followed by an Israeli task force.

'Bill?'

He jerked open the bathroom door. Sonja was standing on the other side, her cheekbones already restructuring themselves, her lips deflating, the bruises covering her eyes fading from black to blue to yellow.

'You all right in there?'

He had failed her. He would always fail her. She was insatiable. How could he hope to satisfy a woman who healed within minutes? Palmer wondered if he would ever be able to fuck a woman again without trying to kill her.

As he lay beside her on the bloodstained bed, watching the dawn chase the shadows across the walls of their room, he wondered which was worse: thinking that he'd killed her, or being disappointed she was alive.

Later that day, while Palmer was building yet another shipping crate - this time for obscene pull-toys: terracotta figurines sporting enormous penises with wheels affixed to the glans Lethe came out onto the patio to watch him. She was carrying the black mask he'd kept from the previous shipment.

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'Where's Auntie Boo?'

'Auntie Boo's sleeping. You know she sleeps during the day, Lethe.'

'Not all the time.'

'You're right. Sometimes she's awake during the day. But only under special circumstances.'

Lethe held up the mask so that it covered her face. Her eyes, golden and pupil-less, shone in the empty sockets. For some reason it made Palmer's flesh creep.

'Put that thing away!'

Lethe flinched at the sharpness in his voice and Palmer inwardly cursed himself. His problems with Sonja were beginning to reflect in his attitude toward others. He opened his mouth to tell Lethe he was sorry, that he hadn't meant to bark at her like that, but she was already back inside the house.

Lefty crawled out from under a pile of excelsior and began playing with one of the pull-toys, rolling it back and forth on its wobbly hand-carved wheels. Palmer set aside his tools and massaged the back of his neck, grimacing down at his former incarnation's left hand

'Well, I screwed the pooch that time, didn't I, Lefty? Just like last night. I should have toughed it out, ridden out the depression until I got to the heart of what's been bugging Sonja, but I was weak. I freaked and took the easy way out, because I was afraid of being alone with the Other again. It's not that I don't want to help her, it's just that she's making it so damned hard.' Palmer shook his head and grimaced in disgust. 'Jesus! I must be crazier than I thought! I'm telling a disembodied hand about my woman trouble!'

Lethe stood in the house and looked out the window facing the courtyard. Daddy was squatting down, talking to Lefty and looking sad. Lethe knew Daddy didn't want to be mean to her. She knew he was having problems - something to do with Auntie Blue. Still, Lethe's feelings were hurt. She looked down at the black mask she still held in her hands. It was turned towards her, the empty eyes and mouth staring up at her, as if awaiting an answer.

Sighing to herself, Lethe placed the mask on her stepfather's worktable, where she'd first found it. She wondered what she would do to pass the day. She was tired of playing by herself and she'd read all her books so many times she'd lost interest in them. Daddy tried hard to keep up with her needs, but at

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) thirty months she'd long outgrown Laura Ingals, Frank L

Baum, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Even David Copperfield and Huckleberry Finn were no longer challenging.

She wished Daddy would let her go into town with him.

She really wanted to see other children, other people, other places. There was the video player and its monitor, but seeing pictures of things wasn't the same thing as experiencing them.

All her life, for as far back as she could remember, she had been kept away from what Daddy called 'normal people'.

Daddy and Auntie Blue agreed that 'normal people' would not understand her. She was different, and 'normal people'

didn't like things that were different. They would look at her eyes and get scared. They'd want to take her away from Daddy and Auntie Blue and put her in some horrible place where they would experiment on her. The other reason Daddy refused to take her anywhere was fear of the Bad Man finding her. Lethe knew the Bad Man's real name was Morgan, and that he'd done something to hurt Auntie Blue a long time ago. She also knew that he was somehow related to her. Like a grandfather. Auntie Blue said the Bad Man killed Lethe's real mommy and daddy, back when Lethe was a little baby.

Lethe couldn't remember much of what happened back then.

What memories she did have were of being hungry or cold or wet - baby stuff. If she thought about it really hard, she could dredge up a memory of someone warm and dark, who smelled like milk. When Lethe told Auntie Blue about it, she told her she was remembering her real mother, Anise. When Lethe asked if Anise was Auntie Blue's sister, she said they'd had the same father. So did Lethe's real daddy, Fell. Lethe couldn't remember him at all. The first time she'd been told that Daddy wasn't really her flesh-and-blood father she'd burst into tears and clutched his pant legs, terrified that she was going to be taken away. But that was back when she was a little kid and didn't know any better - twenty months ago.

But now she was growing up - faster than Daddy or even Auntie Blue could possibly realize. The only one who knew that her childhood was nearing its end was Fido. Fido talked to her at night while she was asleep. Well, he didn't real talk. Not with his mouth, anyway. But he didn't talk with his head,

the way Daddy and Auntie Blue did at times, either. It was more like he felt things to her.

Fido was as important a part of her life as Daddy, even though he never did things like fix her peanut-butter and banana sandwiches or buy her toys or read Dr Seuss to her before going to bed. Fido made sure she was safe. It was his presence, more than anything else, that ensured that the Bad Man would never be able to find her. It was his job - or

'destiny', as he called it - to make sure she grew up, so she could fulfill her destiny. (Fido used the word 'destiny' a

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) lot whenever he talked to her.)

Even now, as she thought of him, Fido lumbered into view.

He was big and bulky and shaggy, like a Saint Bernard given human form, wrapped in filthy cast-off sweaters with newspapers stuffed in his boots. Daddy said Fido looked like a homeless person, which confused Lethe somewhat, because Fido had always lived in their house. She knew it took a lot of energy for Fido to maintain his physical form, and that he would be a lot happier if he could go around without his body slowing him down, but it was important for him to remain manifested on the physical plane, at least for as long as she required protection. Which wouldn't be much longer.

Fido was kind of excited about the prospect of being able to rejoin his brother-sisters, but part of him was sad, too, because this meant Lethe was growing up and wouldn't need him anymore. Lethe tried to cheer him up and told him she'd always need him, but they both knew it wasn't true.

Growing up was scary, but then everything really important is kind of scary, once you think about it. Soon she wouldn't be able to turn to Daddy for help, or rely on Fido for protection.

Her success or failure was totally up to her, and nobody else.

Part of her cringed at the thought of so much responsibility.

But, at the same time, growing up meant she would finally be free to see the world and everything in it firsthand. She could go to town, if she wanted - or anywhere else on the face of the planet. Thinking about growing up made her scared and excited all at once, mixing her up inside.

Lethe padded down the hall to the bedroom Daddy shared with Auntie Blue whenever she was home. The door was shut but not locked, so Lethe was able to get in. The room was very dark and stiflingly hot. No one human could possibly sleep in such a sweatbox, but Auntie Blue lay on the bed, covered by a sheet.

Lethe moved to the bed while Fido hung back. Auntie Blue didn't like Fido. She said he made her nervous. What she meant was that the Other was scared of him. Lethe sent Fido to go and scare the Other away the other night because she could tell it wanted to hurt Daddy. Lethe knew Auntie Blue loved Daddy,

but she sometimes had a hard time controlling the Other.

Auntie Blue lay cold, white, and silent on the bed. She wasn't wearing any clothes under the sheet. She wasn't breathing and she wasn't sweating, although the room's temperature must have been over ninety degrees. There was what looked like blood smeared on the pillowcases and sheets and the room smelled like stinky socks. Lethe looked back at Fido, who shuffled back and forth at the threshold.