Paint It Black, page 5
part #3 of Sonja Blue Series
"S-Sonja?"
"Did I scare you?" She sounded like Pain given voice. She sniffed the air, and her smile grew even sharper. "Yes. Yes, I did scare you, didn't I?" She moved toward him, her hands making slow, hypnotic passes as she spoke. "I love the smell of fear in the morning."
"Sonja, what's wrong with your voice?"
"Wrong?" She chuckled as she unzipped her leather jacket. "I always sound like this!"
She was on him so fast he didn't even see her move, lifting him by his belt buckle and flinging him onto the bed so hard he bounced. She grabbed his jaw in one hand, angling it back so the jugular was exposed. Judd heard the snikt! of a switchblade and felt a cold, sharp pressure against his throat.
"Sonja-?"
"Do not struggle. Do not cry out. Do as I command, and maybe I'll let you live. Maybe."
"What do you want?"
"Why, my dear, I just want to get to know you better." She removed the sunglasses protecting her eve,,. "And vice versa."
Judd had often begged Sonja to let him took at her eyes. Were they almond-shaped or round? Blue or brown or green? No doubt he'd always imagined them as looking human, though. Certainly he'd never pictured them as blood-red with pupils so hugely dilated they resembled shoe buttons.
She smirked, savoring the look of disgust on Judd's face. She pressed her lips against his, thrusting his teeth apart with her tongue, and penetrated his will with one quick shove of her mind.
Judd's limbs twitched convulsively as she took control of his nervous system, then went still. She disengaged, physically, and stared down at him. He did not move. She had made sure of that. His body was locked into partial paralysis. Satisfied her control was secure, she moved the switchblade away from Judd's throat. '
"I can see why she finds you attractive. You're a pretty thing... very pretty." She reached out and pinched one of his nipples. Judd didn't flinch. Of course not. She did not give him permission to.
"But she's much too old-fashioned when it comes to sex, don't you agree? She's afraid to let herself go and walk the wild side. She's so repressed." She shrugged out of her leather jacket, allowing it to fall to the floor.
"I will explain this to you once, and once only. I own you. If you do as I tell you, and you please me, then you shall be rewarded. Like this."
She reached into his cortex and tweaked its pleasure center. Judd shuddered as the wave of ecstasy swept over him, his hips involuntarily humping empty air.
"But if you fight me, or displease me in any way - then I will punish you. Like so."
Judd emitted a strangled cry of pain as he was speared through the pain receptor in his head. It felt as if the top of his skull had been removed and someone had dumped the contents of an ant farm on his exposed brain. His back arched until the muscles creaked. Then the pain stopped as if it had never been there at all.
"Hold me."
Judd did as he was told, dragging himself upright and wrapping his arms around her waist. She knotted her fingers in his hair, pulling his head back so she could look into his eyes. There was fear there. Fear - and something more. She liked that.
"Am I hurting you? Say yes."
"Yes."
She smiled, exposing her fangs, and he realized then that it was just beginning. The fear in Judd's eyes gave way to terror. And she liked that even more.
* * * * *
They fucked for three solid hours. She skillfully manipulated Judd's pleasure centers so he remained perpetually erect despite exhaustion. She randomly induced orgasms, often one right after another, until they numbered in the dozens. After the seventh or eighth orgasm, Judd was shooting air. She enjoyed how he wailed in pain 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 midthrust, his eyes rolled back behind flickering lids. She dressed quickly, her attention fixed on the rising sun. Judd lay curled in a fetal position on the soiled and tangled bedclothes, his naked body shuddering and jerking as his nervous system reasserted its control. "Parting is such sweet sorrow," she purred, 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, brushing his jugular lightly with her tips. 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 takes a great deal of pleasure in telling me what it did to Judd, making sure not to leave out a single, nasty detail as it reruns the morning's exploits inside my skull.
My response to the news is to scream and run headfirst into the nearest wall. Then to continue pounding my skull against the floorboards until my glasses shatter and blood streams down my face and mats my hair. I succeed in breaking my nose and shattering both cheekbones before collapsing.
It's not enough.
* * * * *
"Girly-girl! Long time no see! What brings you into my little den of iniquity this time?"
The demon Malfeis sports 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 dangles under his chins, and he holds a racing form in one hand.
I slide into the booth opposite the demon. "I need magic, Mal."
"Don't we all? Say, what's with the face? You can reconstruct better than that! "
I shrug, one hand straying to my swollen left cheek. The bone squelches under my fingertips and slides slightly askew. Heavy-duty facial reconstruction requires feeding in order far it to be done right, and I deliberately skipped my waking meal.
"You tangle with an ogre? One of those vargr punks?"
"Leave it be, Mal."
Malfeis shrugs. "Just trying to be friendly, that's all. Now, what kind of magic are you in the market for?"
"Binding and containment."
The demon grunts and fishes out a pocket calculator. "What are you looking to bind? Ghost? Elemental? Demon? Muse? There's a difference in the prices, you know...."
"Myself."
"Huh?" Mal halts in midcomputation, his exterior flickering for a moment to reveal a hulking creature that resembles an orangutan with a boar's snout.
"You heard me. I wish to have myself bound and contained."
"Sonja. . . "
"Name your price, damn you."
"Don't be redundant, girlchick."
I sigh and heft 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 LaBianca 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. I swear by its authenticity. And it's all yours, if you do this for me."
Malfeis fidgets, drumming his talons against the table. Such close proximity to so much human suffering and evil is 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, Mal. It really does."
The demon shakes 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 retorts.
"The spell you're using is for the binding and containing of vampiric energies, right?"
"Of course. You're a vampire."
I shrug. "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."
I hug myself as I stare into the open doorway of the meat locker. It is cold and dark inside, just like my heart. "Let's get this show on the road."
Malfeis nods and produces a number of candles, bottles of oil, pieces of black chalk, and vials of white powder from the black gladstone bag he carries.
I swallow and step inside the meat locker, drawing the heavy door closed behind me with a muffled thump.
-from the diaries of Sonja Blue
* * * * *
Malfeis lit the candles and began to chant in a deep, sonorous voice, scrawling elaborate chalk designs on the outer walls of the locker. 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's 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 unbaptized babies, across the threshold. Then he stepped back to assess his handiwork.
To human eyes it looked as if someone had scrawled graffiti 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 shut by a tangle of darkly pulsing vévé, the semisentient protective symbols of the voudou powers. So long as the tableau remained undisturbed, the entity known as Sonja Blue would remain trapped within the chill darkness of the meat locker.
Malfeis replaced the tools of his trade in his 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 Mal."
The bartender looked up from his racing form and frowned at Judd. After taking in his unwashed hair and four-day 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 sleazy - 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, staring with flat, faded blue eyes. In her arms lay 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 had 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 Mal."
"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 a balding pate, and hunched his shoulders. His fingers and arms began to vibrate, and his skin grew darker, as if his entire body had become suddenly bruised. There was the 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.
Mal lifted his head and grinned at Judd, tugging at the collar of his turtleneck. "Ah, yes. I remember you now. Sonja's renfield."
"M-my name's not Renfield."
Mal shrugged his indifference. "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!"
Mal regarded the young human for a long 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 folded envelope out of his back pocket and held it out to Mal. "Here - you read it."
The demon plucked 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 on its edges.
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 kill 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 chance I'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 now close to tears. "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 circumstances, ask Mal a question.
"Uh, yeah."
Mat 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!"
As Malfeis watched Judd hurry out of the bar, an amused grin bisected his face. "That's what you think, boychick." He leaned back and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he had shoulder-length hair pulled up in a ponytail, a ring in his nose, and a four-day growth of beard.
* * * * *
It is cold. So very, very cold.
I huddle in the far corner of the meat locker, knees drawn up to my chest. My breath drifts from my mouth and nostrils in wispy fumes before condensing and turning to frost on my face.
How long? How many days have I been in here? Three? Four? Twenty? A hundred? There is no way of telling. I no longer sleep. The Other's screams and curses keep me awake.
Let me out! Let me out of this hellhole! 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!
I do not fight the Other as it asserts its ascendancy over my body. The Other forces stiffened limbs to bend, levering me onto my feet. My joints crack like rotten timber as I move. The Other staggers in the direction of the door. In my weakened condition I have difficulty seeing in the pitch-black meat locker. I abandoned the sunglasses days ago, but as my condition worsened, so did my night vision.
The Other's groping hands close on the door's interior handle. There is a sharp crackle and a flash of blue light as the Other is thrown halfway across the locker. It screams and writhes like a cat hit by a car, holding its blistered, smoking hands away from its body. This was the twentieth time it's tried to open the door, and several fingers are 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!
"What? Are you gonna kill me?"
I crawl back to my place in the corner. The effort starts me coughing again, bringing up black, clotted blood. I wipe at my mouth with the sleeve of my jacket, nearly dislocating my jaw in the process.
You're falling apart. You're too weak to regenerate properly....
"If you hadn't pounded your head against the fuckin' wall trying to get out in the first place-"
You're the one who got us locked up in here! Don't blame me!
"I am blaming you. But not for that."
It's that fucking stupid human again! You think you can punish me for that? I didn't do anything that you hadn't already fantasized about!
"You raped him, damn you! You almost killed him!"
I didn't, though. I could have. But I didn't.
"I love him!" My voice cracks, becomes a sob.
You don't love him. You love being mistaken for human. That's what you're mad about: not that I molested your precious loverboy, but that I ruined your little game of Let's Pretend!
"Shut up."
Make me.
-from the diaries of Sonja Blue
* * * * *
Judd checked the street number of the warehouse against the address that Mal had given him. It was one of the few remaining warehouses in the district that had not been turned into trendy yuppie condo-apartments. There was a small sign posted on the front door that read "Indigo Imports," but nothing else. A heavy chain and double padlock secured the entrance, and all the ground-floor windows had burglar bars. But there had to be some way of getting in and out. He rounded the side of the building and spotted the loading dock. After a few minutes of determined tugging, he succeeded in wrenching one of the sliding corrugated metal doors sufficiently ajar to slip through.
