Chapter Fifteen
The first contraction doubled Palmer over.
He was coming from the bathroom with an armload of towels when it hit, crashing against him like a wave. The phantom pain radiating from his pelvis caused him to stagger and nearly drop what he was carrying.
"Screen yourself! She's broadcasting!" hissed Sonja, snatching the towels from his numb fingers.
"Now you tell me." Palmer groaned as he tried to force the pain back long enough to erect a mental barrier.
Anise gave a strangled cry and dug her fingers deep into the mattress, shredding the bedclothes like rotten silk. Palmer felt her pain press against his shield like a heavy, insistent hand, but, remarkably, the barricade held.
"This is not good. Not good at all." Sonja brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, leaving a smear of Anise's blood on her brow. "She's broadcasting like a damn communications satellite! Of all the times for her psychic powers to decide to kick in! Morgan's renfields will be able to zero in on our location soon, if they haven't already."
"Is there any way we could get her in the car and back to San Francisco?" "What do you think?"
Anise lay on her back, gripping the metal bedstead with bloodless hands. A lamp situated on the dresser, its light muted by a towel thrown over the shade, provided the room's only illumination.
There was something primeval in the way Anise lay, sweating and grunting, with her dress pushed up and her legs spread open. All they needed was a shaman shaking a medicine rattle and dancing around the room in a ceremonial headdress to complete the scene.
"How long until the baby comes?"
"I don't know. Minutes. Hours. It's hard enough to tell with a normal pregnancy, much less something like this."
"Great."
"You got the gun?"
Palmer nodded to the .38, still in its holster, hanging from the back of a chair.
"Better put it back on."
"Sonja? Sonja, where are you?"
"I'm here, babe. I'm not going anywhere." Sonja moved back to the bed, mopping the sweat from Anise's face with a damp washcloth. "How you doing, kid?" Sonja took Anise's hand and clasped it in her own.
"It hurts, Sonja. A lot."
"So the Bible tells me. That's only natural, Anise."
"No, that's not it - not all of it, anyway. There's something else." She grimaced as another spasm racked her body. "It's like passing a broken bottle. I - " She gave a brief cry and slammed her head against the pillows, squeezing her eyes shut. "Sweet Mother of Christ, what did I ever do to be punished like this? What?"
It was as if an invisible fist were squeezing her stomach. Just as she thought the pain would continue into infinity, the baby's head emerged from between her thighs.
Sonja moved to help the infant free itself, then stopped. The baby's head was bulbous, its eyes as black and flat as those of an insect. It had a flat nose with slits instead of nostrils and a tubelike mouth made of gristle, lined with tiny lampreylike teeth. It whipped its tiny, powerful shoulders back and forth until it finally freed one arm.
Five tiny fingers, complete with curved talons, hooked into the gore-stained bedclothes, giving it the leverage to drag the rest of it free of the birth canal. The newborn vampire child lay exhausted on the filthy sheet like a large maggot, glistening with birth fluids.
Palmer stared at the thing on the bed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Sonja moved to cut the umbilical cord with her switchblade. The creature lifted its oversized head on a surprisingly steady neck, regarding her warily with its flat black eyes.
"Easy... easy, now..." she muttered under her breath, as if addressing a skittish, potentially dangerous animal.
"Sonja? Sonja? What's wrong with the baby? Why can't I hear it crying? Why isn't it crying, Sonja?"
Swallowing her reluctance at touching the thing, Sonja severed the umbilical cord, quickly tying off the end. As she worked, she noticed that the infant was completely smooth between the legs, lacking even an anus.
"Sonja? Why don't you answer me?" Anise struggled into a sitting position. Sonja maneuvered herself between mother and child.
"You don't want to see it, Anise! Please, believe me!"
"What's wrong? Is it dead?"
"No, it's not dead. It's - well, it's not a baby."
"What do, you mean it's not a baby?"
"Anise - "
"Woman, let me see my child!"
Sonja sighed and turned to pick up the creature and hand it over to its mother. But it wasn't there anymore.
"Shit, Palmer! I thought you were watching it!"
"You didn't tell me to! Hell, the thing just got born! How was I to know it'd go walk about?"
"Where'd the little bastard go?" Sonja stepped away from the bed, scanning the shadows along the baseboard.
There was a blur of motion at the corner of Palmer's eye. He contemplated taking his gun out of its holster but quickly discarded the idea.
It's just a baby, for Chrissakes! A really seriously ugly, mutant vampire baby, yeah. But it still wouldn't be cool to blow it away. It's just a baby.
Something small darted out from under the bureau and latched onto Palmer's right calf. He screeched as its ring of lamprey teeth began chewing its way to the meat beneath his pants leg.
Swearing and hopping on his free leg to keep his balance, Palmer tried to shake the baby loose. On his second kick, he sent the creature sailing halfway across the room. The infant landed on its back and squealed like a suckling pig pulled from its mother's nipple.
Palmer risked a glance at his calf - his pants leg was shredded and blood oozed from dozens of tiny punctures in his skin. He looked like he'd been attacked with a needle-studded Ping-Pong paddle but was otherwise unharmed.
The baby flailed at the air with its chubby arms and legs like a tipped turtle desperate to right itself.
"That's quite enough of that!" Sonja said sternly, snatching the shrieking infant off the dirty floor. She frowned at Palmer's leg. "You better see to that before infection sets in."
"What about that?" he retorted, jabbing a finger at the baby.
"Don't worry. I'll handle it." She held the tiny struggling mutant like a live rattlesnake, her fingers clamped behind the holes where its ears should have been, and presented it to its mother.
"I can take care of it, if it's what you want." Sonja's voice was flat and without emotion. She could have been offering to take out the garbage.
"No. It's my child. It's my responsibility."
Anise stretched out her arms to accept the wriggling infant. She fought to keep the repugnance she felt toward her own flesh and blood from showing on her face, but it was difficult. The mutant stopped its angry thrashing the moment Anise touched it, regarding its mother with unreadable, bottomless eyes. The gristle that formed its mouth puckered and unpuckered rapidly. It wanted to nurse.
"It's not its fault," she said sadly. "This was how it was born. It can't be anything else." She laughed. It was a hollow sound. "You know, I actually was considering having a child before all this happened. Not anytime soon - but sometime, when I could afford it. Maybe make a trip to the friendly neighborhood artificial inseminator." Her lips twisted themselves into a bitter parody of a smile. "I never thought I'd end up with... with..." She swallowed and took a deep breath. "Like I said - it's my responsibility."
She snapped the baby's neck like a green twig. It didn't even have time to cry. Anise stared at its tiny, motionless body and ran a trembling hand over its bulging brow.
"Poor little thing. It didn't ask for any of this." She suddenly grimaced and the mutant baby's corpse slipped from her arms and landed on the floor with a dull thud.
"Anise, what's wrong?"
"The contractions. They've started again. I - Oh Lord, not again! I can't go through this again!" Anise grabbed Sonja's shoulder as she pushed, digging her fingernails deep into the other woman's skin. "Ah! Oh, Jesus! Make it stop!" She drew a shaky breath through her teeth. "Whatever the first one did trying to get out - it screwed me up real bad, Sonja! I mean it! I don't know if I can - " A third contraction turned her words into a swallowed scream.
"Don't worry, Anise. Everything will be all right. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, understand?" Sonja untangled herself from Anise's grip and resumed her place at the foot of the bed.
Anise's second child came into the world wrapped in a caul. Sonja split the thick membrane shrouding the infant, relieved to see what looked to be a normal, human baby face underneath. She gave its tiny flanks a small pinch and was rewarded with a healthy, indignant wail. She swiftly severed the umbilical cord and wrapped the newborn in a clean towel. She smiled and held it out to its mother.
Anise turned her head away, pressing her face into the pillow. "I don't want to see it."
"It's all right - you can look."
Anise hesitated for a second, then cautiously lifted her head. Sonja was frightened by how drawn and sick she looked. She peered cautiously at the child wrapped inside the impromptu swaddling.
It was still as red as a piece of raw meat, but she could tell the child shared her coloration. It squalled like a Siamese cat in heat and had the face of a miniature prizefighter.
"She's beautiful!"
"Yes, she is, isn't she?" Sonja whispered, placing the tiny bundle in her mother's arms.
While Anise was preoccupied with the baby, Sonja scooped its dead twin off the floor and wrapped it in one of the discarded, blood-caked towels. It would have to be burned later on. It wouldn't do to leave something like that for the housekeeping staff to find the next day.
Sonja stared absently at the blood smearing her hands, then licked her fingers. She knew she was pushing her own tolerance dangerously far. She needed to feed, and her surroundings weren't helping much. The room reeked of blood.
Palmer limped out of the bathroom. He'd ripped open his right pants leg from the knee down and wrapped his calf with strips torn from his undershirt.
"How's the leg?"
"It's been better."
Sonja found herself staring at the crimson seeping through the makeshift bandage and quickly looked away.
What was I thinking? This is a man I think I might actually love! And I was imagining what his blood would taste like! I was actually picturing slicing open the artery in his leg and drinking from it! Sick! Sick! Sick! Can't you let me have any happiness ?
The Other laughed, but no one else heard.
"Sonja?" Anise was looking at her funny.
"Uh, sorry. I guess I was busy - thinking."
"I said, how do you like Lethe?"
"Lethe?"
"I think that's what I'll name her. I like the way it sounds, don't you? It's from Baudelaire. A name is the least I can give her before I die."
"Anise, listen to me. I know you've experienced massive internal damage, but you're not going to die. I know this, because I've suffered a hell of a lot worse in the past. You'll regenerate, but you're gonna need blood. If you don't feed soon, your body will start cannibalizing itself. Do you know what that means?"
"You're saying I'm going to have to kill someone if I want to stay alive."
"Basically."
"I can't do that, Sonja! I don't care what that bastard did to me - I refuse to be a monster."
"Look, you won't have to do anything. I'll hunt for you. There are plenty of transients, people no one will ever miss. Drunks, hitchhikers, bums..."
"My God, Sonja! You sound just like him!"
"I'm not going to let you die!" Sonja was surprised she was shouting. "I won't let you!"
Lethe started at the noise and began to cry again. Anise did not look at Sonja as she spoke, but instead addressed her words to the newborn baby at her side, smoothing the few wispy strands of hair on her daughter's brow.
"I can't do it, Sonja. I can't take the step beyond. I don't have your... courage. I had enough to break free of Morgan, but not enough to deal with continuing my life by killing others. Not that I'm condemning you for it. But I can't live knowing I'm responsible for another human's death, no matter how worthless that person may be."
"That's what you're saying now! I felt the same way, myself, years ago. But later, once you get used to it, you'll see things differently."
"I know. That's what I'm afraid of! Please, Sonja. Don't try to talk me out of this. I know what I'm doing."
"But what about Lethe? What about her?"
Anise smiled sadly and kissed her daughter on the forehead. "I hope she can forgive me for not being there while she grows up. But if there's one thing she needs more than anything else right now, it's protection. I promised myself no child of mine would be born a slave, and I mean to keep that promise! That's why I'm trusting you to protect her, Sonja. You and poor Mr. Palmer over there."
"Anise, I'm the last person on earth you should put your faith in. I'm a murderer and worse a hundred times over. Every day I fight to keep the demon inside me from taking over, and a lot of times I can't! You might as well hire Typhoid Mary as a baby sitter!"
"You judge yourself too harshly, sister. Here, take the child. Leave now. Morgan will be here soon. I can feel him calling to me."
Sonja cocked her head as if listening to distant music. She could feel him too. She could take him. She was sure of it. But she was equally sure Morgan had at least two renfields with him. What about Palmer? He could handle himself in a firefight, but what about his ability to handle a combined psychic assault? And should either one of them fall to Morgan's forces, where would that leave Anise's baby? She couldn't protect them both at the same time.
Sonja bent and kissed her on the cheek.
"Good-bye, Anise."
"My name is Lakisha. Anise was just a dream. And not even mine."
"You better give me the baby now."
Anise hesitated for a moment, staring at her daughter as if committing to memory every detail of her face. She suddenly closed her eyes and thrust the infant away from her. "Here! Take her! Take her before I change my mind!"
"Is there anything you want before we go?"
"Leave me the gun."
Palmer looked sharply at Sonja.
"Give it to her."
Lakisha smiled weakly as she accepted the .38. It wasn't much of a tradeoff, her child for the gun, but it would do.
Sonja paused on the threshold, cradling Lethe against her worn leather jacket.
"Look after my baby, Sonja."
"Like she was my own."