Part 9 (1/2)

There was no way to tell who - or what - had tracked her down. Was it a friend or foe? The only way for her to find out was to open it.

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper. Sonja carefully unfolded it, frowning to herself. It was a photocopy of a news clipping from a national paper. The headline read: 'Wife of Millionaire Industrialist Suffers Stroke.'

'What's it say?' Palmer asked, one eye fixed on her as he tilted back the tequila bottle.

'My mother's in the hospital.'

'You're not really going, are you?'

Palmer watches me from the door of our bedroom as I busy myself with packing my bag. He's drunk Sloppily so. His sense of betrayal wraps itself around me like a damp towel left to mildew in a gym locker for a few weeks. I know it should make me feel bad, but I'm getting angry with him instead. I always get mad when people try to make me feel guilty.

'Of course I'm going! What the h.e.l.l does it look like?' I snap, shoving a pair of leopard-skin bikini briefs, a black lace camisole, and a Revolting c.o.c.ks T-s.h.i.+rt into my flight bag.

I go to the wall safe and retrieve the special strongbox I keep my various pa.s.sports and credit cards in. I dump them onto the bed, rummaging through them for an appropriate alias for my trip to the States. I decide to use Anya Cyan and pocket the corresponding identification.

'But what about Lethe? You can't just leave her like this!'

'Bill, I can't do anything for her while she's like this! What the h.e.l.l difference does it make if I'm here or not?'

'Sonja, please. Don't go. I need you to stay. Please.'

I turn to look at him and I'm shocked to see how quickly he's fallen apart He hasn't shaved since Lethe went into the coc.o.o.n, nor has he bathed - or changed his clothes, for that matter. With his earplugs, tattoos, and nose piercings, he looks like a demented Humphrey Bogart from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. His weakness radiates from him like carbon monoxide fumes from a busted m.u.f.fler, and I turn away for fear he will sense the disgust welling inside me. I know, then, that I cannot stay in that house another hour; for it is in the vampire's nature to exploit - even destroy - those weaker than themselves.

Palmer raises a trembling hand to his face, brus.h.i.+ng drunkenly at his tears. 'Jesus, Sonja, what's happening to us?'

Part of me hears the sorrow and confusion in his voice and wants to reach out and hold him; to pull him into my arms and comfort him as best I can. But another, darker part sees his tears and wants to smash him in the face and grind its boot in his groin. I stuff the last of my gear into the flight bag and zip it shut all the while refusing to look at him eye to eye.

'I doubt if anything is happening. Bill.'

And I leave them behind, just like that.

I'm not proud of what I'm doing. I realize I'm using my mother's illness to escape an uncomfortable situation at home. Things have changed between us, and there is no use in trying to get what we had back I've been trying to figure a way out of the situation since the day I got back Lethe's metamorphosis merely accelerated the process, that's all. I've developed this ability over the years of being able to cut myself off from people I care about Or thought I cared about, It's a survival mechanism, one I've been forced to evolve over the last twenty years. I don't think it's a side effect of my being a vampire.

I'd like to be able to blame it on that but I know better.

Monsters don't have a lock on cruelty.

I catch the first flight for the States, flying first cla.s.s as usual. I always fly first cla.s.s - it guarantees a certain amount of privacy and if the stewardesses notice I don't seem to breathe while I sleep, they keep it to themselves.

I spend most of the flight from Yucatan trying to remember my mother. That's not entirely true. s.h.i.+rley Thorne was never my mother - she was Denise's.

As I sit watching the clouds slide by my window, I try to find a memory from the life before my own. I reach back . . . back . . . back before Palmer . . . back before Chaz . . . back before Ghilardi and Pangloss . . . beyond Morgan and his horrible, blood-red kisses . . .

I am sitting on a picnic bench- Where? Backyard? Which house? The one in Connecticut? There are lots of balloons and brightly colored crepe-paper streamers and other children running around, dressed in party clothes. I'm wearing a pink dress with lots of ruffles and petticoats. I don't like the petticoats because they're itchy and make it hard for me to put my arms down to my sides. There's a man dressed like a clown walking around making Wiener dogs and bunnies out of balloons for all the children. Another man is leading a pony around in a big circle. Some of the older kids cling to its mane and wave to their moms. Or maybe they're their stepmoms.

Or nannies. Everybody's wearing silly cardboard hats and carrying party-favor noisemakers. How old am I? Four? Five? And suddenly everyone's smiling and pointing behind me and I turn around and look. There is my mother, standing in the doorway that leads from the house to the backyard and she's holding a big cake with lots of pink icing and big roses made out of white marzipan. She's smiling and she looks so happy and beautiful and everyone starts singing 'Happy Birthday' and gathering around the picnic table.

Someone says 'Make a wish, Denise' and I have to stand up on the seat to blow out the candles. I don't remember whether I made a wish or if it came true . . .

'Ma'am, are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?'

I look up at the stewardess, still too stunned by the weight of the memory I've unearthed to do more than grunt. 'What?'

'Ma'am your hand.'

I glance down at my left hand. One of the 'perks' of first-cla.s.s service is that your drinks are served in actual gla.s.sware, as opposed to c.r.a.ppy plastic c.o.c.ktail cups. My fist is full of shattered gla.s.s, melting ice, and Seagrams VO.

All I can say is 'Oh.'

'Are you hurt?' the stewardess asks again, and I can tell she's trying to figure out if I'm drunk, stoned, or stupid. She can't see past the sungla.s.ses and it's making her uneasy. I don't want her watching me the rest of the trip so I reach into her skull and plant an explanation.

'There must have been a flaw in the gla.s.s. What with the cabin pressure changes and everything - I'm just lucky I didn't get cut.'

'You're really lucky, ma'am,' she clucks, her head bobbing in agreement as she takes what's left of my drink out of my hand.

'You could have gotten a bad cut'

'Yeah, I'm really lucky,' I'mutter, moving my hand so she does not spot the gaping bloodless slice across my palm.

From the diaries ofSonja Blue.

It was daylight by the time she reached her destination. Her bones ached from spending close to forty-eight hours in a cramped position. The flight from Yucatan took six hours, then she spent six hours in Los Angeles, waiting for the proper domestic carrier. She could stay active during the day, but not without it taking its toll. It made her slower, more vulnerable to the tricks and pitfalls that might come her way. Although her body craved its sleep - or rather, the regenerative coma necessary to repair any physical damage encountered over the course of the night - at least she didn't have to worry about contracting immediate and lethal skin cancer from being exposed to the sun's rays. Not yet, anyway.

She rented a car at the airport and drove into the town that, until 1969, Denise Thorne had called home. Although her first instinct was to unlock the trunk and crawl inside, she climbed in behind the wheel instead. As she drove through the suburbs into the city, she pa.s.sed the Thorne Industrial Complex. It was even bigger than she - that is, Denise remembered.

She had to hand it to the old man, he always knew how to make a buck and a half.

The light poured into the car, making Sonja's skin p.r.i.c.kle a little bit. She told herself that she wasn't used to direct sun anymore, although she kept eyeing her hands, looking for signs of quick-blooming melanomas. She'd seen a couple of vampires die of sunlight poisoning - not a pretty sight.

Their skin burned and was quickly covered in blisters that swelled and swelled until they exploded. Then they simply withered away, like earthworms on a hot sidewalk. It only took a couple of minutes - five, tops - for a dead boy to bust 'n' bake.

Yep, not a pretty sight.

The clipping had said s.h.i.+rley Thorne was staying at St Mary's Hospital, over on the Upper East Side. It was the same hospital where Denise had been born. She parked in the public garage attached to the hospital and made her way to the information desk. An aged nun wearing bifocals looked up at her, frowning quizzically.

'Can I be of some a.s.sistance, young lady?'

'Yes, sister. I'm looking for a relative's room. Thorne? s.h.i.+rley Thorne?'

The nun scribbled down the name on a slip of paper and turned to consult a computer terminal. She clucked her tongue and shook her head and turned back to face Sonja, her bifocals making her eyes look strangely warped. 'I'm so sorry, dear, but I'm afraid Mrs Thorne isn't with us anymore.'

'She's been released?'

'She died yesterday afternoon, according to the computer.'

Sonja stared at the terminal, at the name highlighted in amber against a black screen. The cursor blinked like a stuttering firefly.

'I... Is there any notation on where to send memorials?' 'It says flowers should be sent to the BesterWilliamson Funeral Home.' The nun pursed her lips and offered Sonja a sympathetic smile. 'I'm dreadfully sorry, dear. Was she a close relative?'

'No. Not really.'