Dead Roses for a Blue Lady (8 page)

"Hold me."

Judd did as he was told, dragging himself upright and wrapping his arms around her waist.

The Other knotted her fingers in his hair, pulling his head back so she could look into his eyes.

"Am I hurting you? Say yes."

Yes.

"Good."

She smiled, exposing her fangs, and he realized that it was just beginning.

They fucked for three hours, the Other skillfully manipulating his pleasure centers so that he remained perpetually erect, despite his exhaustion. She randomly induced orgasms, numbering in the dozens.

After the seventh or eighth climax, he was shooting air. She seemed to enjoy his wails each time he spasmed.

As dawn began to make its way into the room, she severed her control of Judd's body. He fell away from her in mid-thrust, his eyes rolled back behind flickering lids. The Other dressed quickly, her attention fixed on the rising sun. Judd lay curled in a fetal position amongst the soiled and tangled bedclothes, his naked body shuddering and jerking as his nervous system reasserted its control.

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"Parting is such sweet sorrow," purred the Other, caressing his shivering flank. Judd gasped at her touch but did not pull away. "You pleased me. This time. So I will let you live. This time."

She lowered her head to his neck, brushing his jugular lightly with her lips. Judd squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of the bite. But all she did was whisper; "Get used to it, loverboy."

When he opened his eyes again, she was gone.

The Other took a great deal of pleasure in telling Sonja what it had done to Judd, making sure not to leave out a single, tasty detail as it re-ran that morning's exploits inside her skull.

Sonja's response to the news was to scream and run head-first into the nearest wall. Then to continue pounding her skull against the floorboards until her glasses shattered and blood streamed down her face and matted her hair. She succeeded in breaking her nose and shattering both cheekbones before collapsing.

"Girly-girl! Long time no see! What brings you into my little den of iniquity this time?"

The demon Malfeis sported the exterior of a flabby white male in late middle-age, dressed in a loud plaid polyester leisure suit with white buck loafers. A collection of gold medallions dangled under his chins and he held a racing form in one hand.

Sonja slid into the booth opposite the demon. "I need magick, Mai."

"Don't we all? Say, what's that with the face? You can reconstruct better than that...!"

She shrugged, one hand straying to her swollen left cheek. The bone squelched under her fingertips and slid slightly askew. Heavy-duty facial reconstruction required feeding in order for it to be done right, and she'd deliberately skipped her waking meal.

"You tangle with an ogre? One of those
vargr
punks?"

"Leave it be, Mai."

Malfeis shrugged. "Just trying to be friendly, that's all. Now, what kind of magick are you in the market for?"

"Binding and containment."

The demon grunted and fished out a pocket calculator, his exterior flickering for a moment to reveal a hulking creature that resembled an orangutan with a boar's snout.

"What kind of demon are you looking to lock down?"

"I wish to have myself bound and contained."

"Sonja..."

"Name your price, damn you."

"Don't be redundant, girlchick."

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) Sonja sighed and hefted a knapsack onto the tabletop. "I brought some of my finest acquisitions. I've got hair shaved from Ted Bundy's head just before he went to the chair, dried blood scraped from the walls of the Labianco home, a spent rifle casing from the grassy knoll, and a cedar cigar box with what's left of Rasputin's penis in it. Quality shit. 1

swear by its authenticity. And its all yours, if you do this for me."

Malfeis fidgeted, drumming his talons against the table. Such close proximity to so much human suffering and evil was bringing on a Jones. "Okay, I'll do it. But I'm not going to take responsibility for anything that happens to you."

"Did I ask you to?"

"Are you
sure
you want to go through with this, Sonja?" "Your concern touches me, Mai.

It really does." The demon shook his head in disbelief. "You really mean to go through with this, don't you?" "I've already said so, haven't I?"

"Sonja, you realize once you're in there, there's no way you'll be able to get out, unless someone breaks the seal."

"Maybe."

"There's no
maybe
to it!" he retorted.

"The spell you're using is for binding and containment of vampiric energies, right?"

"Of course. You're a vampire."

She shrugged. "Part of me is. And I'm not letting it out to hurt anyone ever again. I'm going to kill it or die trying."

"You're going to
starve
in there!"

"That's the whole point."

"Whatever you say, girly-girl."

Sonja hugged herself as she stared into the open doorway of the meat locker. It was cold and dark inside, just like her heart. "Let's get this show on the road."

Malfeis nodded and produced a number of candles, bottles of oil, pieces of black chalk, and bags of white powder from the gladstone bag he carried. Sonja swallowed and stepped inside the meat locker, drawing the heavy door closed behind her with a muffled thump.

Malfeis lit the candles and began to chant in a deep, sonorous voice, scrawling elaborate designs on the outer walls of the locker with the black chalk. As the chanting grew faster and more impassioned, he smeared oil on the hinges and handle of the door. There was an electric crackle and the door glowed with blue fire.

Malfeis' incantation lost all semblance of human speech as it reached its climax. He carefully poured a line of white powder, made from equal parts salt, sand, and the crushed bones of human babies, across the threshold. Then he stepped back to assess his handiwork.

To human eyes it looked like someone had scrawled graphitti all over the face of the stainless steel locker, nothing more. But to Pretender eyes, eyes adjusted to the Real World, the door to the locker was barred by a tangle of darkly pulsing
veve,
the semi-

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) sentient protective symbols of the
voudou
powers. As long as the tableau remained undisturbed, the entity known as Sonja Blue would remain trapped within the darkness of the meat locker.

Malfeis replaced the tools of his trade in the gladstone bag. He paused as he left the warehouse, glancing over his shoulder.

"Goodbye, girly-girl. It was nice knowing you."

"I'm looking for Mai."

The bartender looked up from his racing form and frowned at Judd. After taking in his unwashed hair and four days' growth of beard, he nodded in the direction of the back booth.

Judd had never been inside the Monastery before. It had a reputation as being one of the more sleazier — and unsavory — French Quarter dives, and he could see why. The booths lining the wall had once been church pews. Plaster saints in various stages of decay were scattered about on display. A madonna with skin blackened and made leprous by age regarded him from above the bar with flat, faded blue eyes. She held in her arms an equally scabrous Baby Jesus, its uplifted chubby arms ending in misshapen stumps. Hardly a place to party down big time.

He walked to the back of the bar and looked into the last booth. All he saw was a paunchy middle-aged man dressed in a bad suit smoking a cigar and reading a racing form.

"Excuse me...?"

The man in the bad suit looked up at him, arching a bushy, upswept eyebrow.

"Uh, excuse me — but I'm looking for Mai."

"You found him."

Judd blinked, confused. "No, I'm afraid there's been some kind of mistake. The guy I'm looking for is black, with dreadlocks..."

The man in the bad suit smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. "Sit down, kid. He'll be with you in just a moment."

Still uncertain of what he was getting himself into, Judd slid into the opposite pew.

The older man lowered his head, exposing male pattern baldness, and hunched his shoulders. His fingers and arms began vibrating, the skin growing darker as if his entire body had suddenly become bruised. There was a sound of dry grass rustling under a high wind and thick, black dreadlocks emerged from his scalp, whipping about like a nest of snakes. Judd was too shocked by the transformation to do anything but stare.

Mai lifted his head and grinned at Judd, tugging at the collar of his turtleneck. "Ah, yes. I remember you now. Sonja's renfield."

"My-my name's not Renfield."

Mai shrugged. "So, what brings you here, boychick?"

"I'm looking for Sonja. I can't find her."

"She doesn't want to be found."

"I
have
to find her! I just
have
to! Before she does something stupid. Kills herself, maybe."

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) Mai regarded the young human for a moment. "Tell me more."

"Something—happened between us. She feels responsible for hurting me. She sent me this letter a few days ago." Judd fished a much-folded envelope out of his back pocket and held it out to Mai. "Here, you read it."

The demon took the letter out of its envelope like a gourmet removing an escargot from its shell. He unfolded the paper, noting the lack of signature and the smears of blood.

Judd,

I can never be forgiven for what was done to you. I was not the one who did those things
to you. Please believe that. It was her. She is the one that makes me Mil and hurt people.

Hurt you. I promise I'll never let her hurt anyone, ever again. Especially you. I 'm going
to do something I should have tried years ago, before she became so strong. So
dangerous. So uncontrollable. She's sated right now. Asleep in my head. By the time she
becomes aware of what I'm planning to do, it'll be too late. I'm going to kill her. I might
end up killing myself in the bargain, but that's a chancel 'm willing to take. I won't let her
hurt anyone again, damn her. I love you, Judd. Please believe that. Don't try to find me.

Escape while you can.

"She doesn't understand." Judd was close to tears as he spoke. "I
do
forgive her. I
love
her, damn it! I can't let her
die!"
"You know what she is." It wasn't a question.

Judd nodded. "And I don't
care."

"And why have you come to me?"

"You know where she is, don't you?"

Malfeis shifted in his seat, his eyes developing reptilian slits. "Are you asking me a question?"

Judd hesitated, recalling Sonja's warning that he should
never,
under
any
circumstance, ask Mai a question.

"Uh, yeah."

Mai smiled, displaying shark's teeth. "Before I respond to any questions put to me, you must pay the price of the answer. Is that understood, boychick?"

Judd swallowed and nodded.

"Very well. Tell me your name. All of it."

"Michael Judd Rieser. Is that it? That's all you want? My name?"

"To know a thing's name gives one power over that thing, my sweet. Didn't they teach you that in school? Come to think of it, I guess not."

"What about my question? Do you know where Sonja is?"

"Yes, I
do
know." The demon scrawled an address on the back of the letter Judd had given him. "You'll find her here. She's inside the meat locker on the ground floor."

"Meat locker?"

"I wouldn't open it if I were you."

Judd snatched up the address and slid out of the pew. "But I'm
not
you!"

Malfeis watched Judd hurry out of the bar with an amused grin. "That's
what you
think, boychick." He leaned back and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he had shoulder-length hair pulled back in a ponytail, a ring in his nose, and four days' growth of beard.

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) It was cold. So very, very cold.

Sonja sat huddled in the far corner of the meat locker, her knees drawn up to her chest.

Her breath drifted from her mouth and nostrils in wispy flumes before condensing and turning to frost on her face.

How long? How many days had she been here? Three? Four? Twenty? A hundred? There was no way of telling. She no longer slept. The Other's screams and curses kept her awake.

Let me out! Let me out of this hell-hole! I've got to feed! I'm starving!

"Good."

You stupid cunt! If I starve to death, you go with me! I'm not a damned tapeworm!

"Couldn't prove it by me."

I'm getting out of here! I don't care what you say!

Sonja did not fight the Other as it asserted its ascendancy over her body. The Other forced her stiffened limbs to bend, levering her onto her feet. Her joints cracked like rotton timber as she moved. She staggered in the direction of the door. In her weakened condition she had difficulty seeing in the pitch black of the meat locker. She had abandoned the sunglasses days ago, but as her condition worsened, so did her night-vision.

Her groping hands closed on the door's interior handle. There was a sharp crackle and a flash of blue light as the Other was thrown halfway across the locker. She screamed and writhed like a cat hit by a car, holding her blistered, smoking hands away from her body.

This was the twentieth time she'd tried to open the door and several of her fingers were on the verge of gangrene.

"You're not going anywhere. Not now. Not
ever!"

Fuck you! Fuck you! I'll get you for this, you human-loving cow!