"I liked him. I honestly
liked him
and I was going to.. .going to.
Like. Hate. What's the difference? Blood is the life, wherever it comes from.
"Not like that. I never feed off anyone who doesn't deserve it.
Never."
Aren't we special?
"Shut up, bitch."
"Sonja?"
She had him pinned to the wall, one forearm clamped against his windpipe in a choke hold before she recognized him. Judd clawed at her arm, his eyes bugging from their sockets.
"I'm...sorry..." he gasped out.
She let him go. "No, I'm the one who should be sorry. More than you realize."
Judd regarded her apprehensively as he massaged his throat, but there was still no fear in his eyes. "Look, I don't know what it is I said or did back there at the bar that put you off..."
"The problem isn't with you, Judd. Believe me." She turned and began walking away, but
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) he hurried after her.
"I know an all-night coffeehouse near here. Maybe we could go and talk things over there—?"
"Judd, just leave me alone, okay? You'd be a lot better off if you just forgot you ever met me."
"How could I forget someone like you?"
"Easier than you realize."
He was keeping pace alongside her, desperately trying to make eye contact. "C'mon Sonja! Give it a chance! I—damn it, would you just
look
at me?"
Sonja stopped in mid-step to face him, her expression unreadable behind her mirrored sunglasses. "That's the
last
thing you want me to do."
Judd sighed and fished a pen and a piece of paper out of his pocket. "You're one weird chick, that's for sure! But I
like
you, don't ask me why." He scribbled something on the scrap of paper and shoved it into her hand. "Look, here's my phone number.
Call
me, okay?"
Sonja closed her fist around the paper. "Judd—"
He held his hands out, palms facing up. "No strings attached, I promise. Just call me."
Sonja was suprised to find herself smiling. "Okay. I'll call you. Now will you leave me alone?"
When she revived the next evening she found Judd's phone number tucked away in one of the pockets of her leather jacket. She sat cross-legged on the coarse cotton futon that served as her bed and stared at it for a long time.
She'd been careful to make sure Judd hadn't followed her the night before. Her current nest was a drafty loft apartment in the attic of an old warehouse in the district just beyond the French Quarter. Outside of her sleeping pallet, an antique cedar wardrobe, a couple of Salvation Army-issue chairs, a refrigerator, a cordless telephone, and the scattered packing crates containing the esoteric curios she used as barter amongst information and magick brokers, the huge space was practically empty. Except for those occasions when the Dead came to visit. Such as tonight.
At first she didn't recognize the ghost. He'd lost his sense of self in the time since his death, blurring his spectral image somewhat. He swirled up through the floorboards like a gust of blue smoke, gradually taking shape before her eyes. It was only when the phantom produced a smoldering cigarette from his own ectoplasm that she recognized him.
"Hello, Chaz."
The ghost of her former renfield made a noise that sounded like a cat being drowned. The Dead cannot speak clearly — even to Pretenders — except on three days of the year: Fat Tuesday, Halloween, and Candlemas.
"Come to see how your murderer is getting on, I take it?"
Chaz made a sound like a church bell played at half-speed.
"Sorry, I don't have a Ouija board, or we could have a proper conversation. Is there a special occasion for tonight's haunting, or are things just boring over on your side?"
Chaz frowned and pointed at the scrap of paper Sonja held in her hand. The ghost-light radiating from him was the only illumination in the room.
"What? You don't want me to call this number?"
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) Chaz nodded his head, nearly sending it floating from his shoulders.
"You tried warning Palmer away from me last Mardi Gras. Didn't work; but I suppose you know that already. He's living in Central America right now. We're very happy."
The ghost's laughter sounded like fingers raking a chalkboard. Sonja grimaced. "Yeah, big laugh, dead boy. And I'll tell you one thing, Chaz; Palmer's a damn sight better in bed than you ever were!"
Chaz made an obscene gesture that was rendered pointless since he no longer had a body from the waist down. Sonja laughed and clapped her hands, rocking back and forth on her haunches.
"I
knew
that'd burn your ass, dead or not! Now piss off! I've got better things to do than play charades with a dead hustler!"
Chaz yowled like a baby dropped in a vat of boiling oil and disappeared in a swirl of dust and ectoplasm, leaving Sonja alone with Judd's phone number still clenched in one fist.
Hell,
she thought as she reached for the cordless phone beside the futon,
if Chaz doesn't
want me to call the guy, then it must be the right thing to do...
The place where they rendezvoused was a twenty-four hour establishment in the French Quarter that had, over the course of the last fifty years, been a bank, a show-bar, and a porno shop before becoming a coffee house. They sat at a small table in the back and sipped iced coffee.
Judd's hair was freshly washed and he smelled of after shave, but those were the only concessions made to the mating ritual. He still wore his nose and ear rings, as well as a Bongwater t-shirt that had been laundered so often the silkscreened image was starting to flake off.
Judd poked at the iced coffee with a straw. "If I'm not getting too personal — what was last night all about?"
Sonja studied her hands as she spoke. "Look, Judd. There's a lot about me you don't know
— and I'd like to keep it that way. If you insist on poking into my past, I'm afraid I'll have to leave. It's not that I don't like you—I
do
—but I'm a very private person. And it's for a good reason."
"Is—Is there someone else?"
"Yes. Yes, there is."
"A husband?"
She had to think about that one for a few seconds before answering. "In some ways. But, no; I'm not married."
Judd nodded as if this explained something. It was obvious that some of what she said was bothering him, but he was trying to play it cool. Sonja wondered what it was like, living a life where the worst things you had to deal with were jealous lovers and hurt feelings. It seemed almost paradisiacal from where she stood.
After they finished their iced coffees they hit the Quarter. It was after midnight, and the lower section of Decatur Street, the portion located in the French Market, was starting to wake up. The streets outside the bars were decorated with clots of young people dressed in black leather, sequins, and recycled Seventies rags. The scenesters milled about, flashing their tattoos and bumming cigarettes off one another, as they waited for something to happen.
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) Someone called Judd's name and he swerved across the street toward a knot of youths lounging outside a dance bar called Crystal Blue Persuasion. Sonja hesitated before following him.
A young man dressed in a black duster, his shoulder-length hair braided into three pig tails and held in place by Tibetan mala beads carved in the shapes of skulls, moved forward to greet Judd.
Out of habit, Sonja scanned his face for Pretender taint. Human. While the two spoke, she casually examined the rest of the group loitering outside the club. Human. Human.
Human. Hu—
She froze.
The smell of
vargr
was strong, like the stink of a wet dog. It was radiating from a young man with a shaved forehead like that of an ancient samurai. The hair at the back of his head was extremely long and held in a loose ponytail, making him look like a punk mandarin. He wore a leather jacket whose sleeves looked as if they'd been chewed off at the shoulder, trailing streamers of mangled leather and lining like gristle. He had one arm draped over the shoulder of a little punkette, her face made deathly pale by face powder.
The
vargr
met Sonja's gaze and held it, grinning his contempt. Without realizing it, her hand closed around her switchblade.
"I'd like you to meet a friend of mine—"
Judd's hand was on her elbow, drawing her attention away from the teenaged werewolf.
Sonja struggled to keep the disorientation from having her focus broken from showing.
"Huh?"
"Sonja, I'd like you to meet Arlo, he's an old buddy of mine..."
Arlo frowned at Sonja as if she'd just emerged from under a rock, but offered his hand in deference to his friend. "Pleased to meet you," he mumbled.
"Yeah. Sure."
Sonja shot a sideways glance at the
vargr
twelve feet away. He was murmuring something into the punkette's ear. She giggled and nodded her head and the two broke away from the rest of the group, sauntering down the street in the direction of the river. The
vargr
paused to give Sonja one last look over his shoulder, his grin too wide and his teeth too big, before disappearing into the shadows with his victim.
That's right. Pretend you didn't see it. Pretend you don't know what that grinning hell-hound's going to do with that girl. You can't offend loverboy here by running off to do
hand-to-hand combat with a werewolf, can you?
"Shut the fuck up, damn you," she muttered under her breath.
"You say something, Sonja?"
"Just talking to myself."
After leaving Arlo and his friends, they headed farther down into the French Quarter.
As they passed one of the seedy bars that catered to the late-night hardcore alcoholic trade, someone's mind called out Sonja's name.
A black man, his hair plaited into dreadlocks, stepped from the doorway of the Monastery.
He wore a black turtleneck sweater and immaculate designer jeans, a gold peace sign the size of a hood ornament slung around his neck.
"Long time no see, Blue."
"Hello, Mai."
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) The demon Malfeis smiled, exposing teeth that belonged in the mouth of a shark. "No hard feelings, I hope? I didn't want to sell you out like that, girlchick, but I was under orders from Below Stairs."
"We'll talk about it later, Mai..."
The demon noticed Judd. "Got yourself a new renfield, I see."
"Shut up!" Sonja hissed, her aura crackling about her head like an electric halo.
Mai lifted his hands, palms outward. "Whoa! Didn't mean to hit a sore spot there, girly-girl."
"Sonja? Is this guy bothering you?" Judd was hovering at her elbow. He gave Mai a suspicious glare, blind to the demon's true appearance.
"No. Everything's cool." Sonja turned her back on the grinning demon and tried to block out the sound of his laughter echoing in her mind.
"Who was that guy?"
"Judd—"
"I know! I promised I wouldn't pry into your past."
Sonja shrugged. "Mai is a—business associate of mine. That's all you need to know about him, except, no matter what,
never
ask him a question.
Ever.
"
They walked on in silence for a few more minutes, then Judd took her into his arms. His kiss was warm and probing and she felt herself begin to relax. Then he reached for her sunglasses.
She batted his hand away, fighting the urge to snarl. "Don't do that."
"I just want to see your eyes."
"No."
She pulled away from him, her body language rigid.
"I'm sorry—" "I better leave. I had a nice time, Judd. I really did. But I have to go-"
"You'll call me, won't you?" "I'm afraid so."
Why don't you fuck him? He wants it bad. So do you. You can't hide that from me.
The Other's voice was a nettle wedged into the folds of her brain, impossible to dislodge or ignore. Sonja opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of whole blood, cracking its seal open like she would a beer.
Not that bottled crap again! I hate this shit! You might as well go back to drinking cats!
Wouldn't you rather have something nice and fresh? Say a good B negative mugger or an
O positive rapist? There's still plenty of time to go trawling before the sun comes up... Or
you could always pay a visit to lover-boy.
"Shut up! I've had a belly full of you tonight already!"
My-my! Aren't we being a touchy one? Tell me, how long do you think you can keep up
the pretense of being normal? You've almost forgotten what it's like to be human
yourself. Why torture yourself by pretending you're something you're not simply to win
the favor of apiece of beefsteak?
"He likes me, damn it. He actually likes
me."
And what exactly are you?
"I'm not in the mood for your fuckin' mind games!"
Welcome to the fold, my dear. You're finally one of us. You're a Pretender.
Sonja shrieked and hurled the half-finished bottle of blood into the sink. She picked up the cardtable and smashed it to the floor, jumping up and down on the scattered pieces. It was
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) a stupid, pointless gesture, but it made her feel better.
She kept calling him. She knew it was stupid, even dangerous, to socialize with humans, but she couldn't help herself. There was something about him that kept drawing her back, despite her better judgment. The only other time she'd known such compulsion was when the thirst was on her. Was this love? Or was it simply another form of hunger?
Their relationship, while charged with an undercurrent of eroticism, was essentially sexless. She wanted him so badly she did not dare do more than kiss or hold hands. If she should lose control, there was no telling what might happen.