Dark War

THREE

"Quit pacing, Matt. You're making me nervous."

I stopped and turned to look at her. " I'm making you nervous? You're the one lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a bunch of machines."

Devona smiled and patted the edge of the bed. "Come sit with me."

If there's one thing I can't stand to do when something's wrong, it's nothing. And pacing, useless as it might be, was still something. But I didn't want to make things any worse for Devona than they already were, so I went over to the bed and sat. She took my hand and gave it a strong squeeze, and I squeezed back.

"Everything's going to be all right," she said.

I nodded noncommittally. Even before I died, I knew things didn't always work out for the best, and being a zombie working in a city full of monsters hadn't done anything to change my mind about that. But I wisely kept my mouth shut – for a change.

The hospital room was small and sterile: white walls and ceiling, white-tiled floor, white curtains over the windows, white sheets on the bed. Devona wore a white hospital gown, and even the furniture – a stool on rolling casters and a couple uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs – was white. The medical scanners were encased in white plastic, and the wires that stretched between Devona and the machines were also white. The IV bag hanging on a metal stand next to the bed made a startling contrast to the room's color scheme. It contained a dark red liquid that flowed slowly through a tube into Devona's left wrist. If this had been a hospital back on Earth, I might've thought she was getting a transfusion, but for a vampire – even a half-vampire like Devona – blood was more effective than the usual intravenous fluids.

A Mind's Eye set was mounted in the corner of the ceiling, and it was one of the healthiest I'd ever seen, certainly in better condition than the old rheumy-eyed set in the apartment I shared with Devona. The skin wasn't discolored, the iris was light blue with tiny gold flecks, the lashes were long and clean, the white of the eye was pure ivory, and its capillaries few and unswollen. Mind's Eyes telepathically broadcast their programs directly into your mind when you gaze upon them, and this one was currently showing an image of a reporter who looked human but had tiny black spiders crawling over every inch of her exposed skin. She was standing on a Sprawl street corner in front of a large building I didn't recognize, a serious expression on her face, mouth moving silently.

Mind's Eyes don't come with remote controls; they're not necessary. All you need to do to change the channel or control the volume is think about it. And since the information is transferred directly into your brain, two people can look at the same set and "hear" different volumes, even view separate programs if they wish. So I concentrated, putting a little extra effort into it, since Mind's Eyes have trouble transmitting to my zombie brain, and after a moment I could hear the sound.

"… at Magewrights' Manor refuse to comment on the reports that magic-users have been disappearing throughout the city over the last several weeks. The Darklord Talaith has also declined to make a statement on the matter."

It was hard watching the woman talk as spiders scuttled in and out of her mouth every time she opened it. It looked damned uncomfortable to me – wouldn't those little spiderlegs tickle her tongue? But she didn't seem to notice, let alone care.

"The official word from the Nightspire on the situation came to us today from First Adjudicator Quillion."

The picture changed to display the sharp-featured face of a man in his seventies who was completely hairless – not only was he bald, he had no eyebrows or eyelashes. He wore a crimson robe as sign of his office and projected an aura of haughty disdain. He gave a cold, thin-lipped smile before speaking.

"While it is true that certain members of the thaumaturgical community have gone missing recently, there's no reason to suspect their disappearances are connected. As we all know, magic is a high-risk profession, and there are any number of ways its practitioners can come to unfortunate and untimely ends – ones that don't always leave physical evidence behind." His smile widened a touch at that. "And not to put too fine a point on it, there is no shortage of predators in the city. At this time, there is simply no evidence to link the disappearances. If such evidence ever does come to light, I assure you my office will conduct a complete and thorough investigation, but until then I consider the matter closed."

I scowled. To say I'm not Quillion's biggest fan would be a huge understatement, considering that not long ago the sonofabitch sentenced me to Tenebrus, Nekropolis' subterranean prison. I'd escaped and later been pardoned, but Quillion still had it in for me, and I felt just as much antipathy toward him.

The image switched back to the spider-covered reporter who continued talking, but I concentrated on tuning her out and both the picture and sound faded from my mind. I wondered if there was something to the rumors about magic-users disappearing. I dismissed Quillion's disavowal of the story. He might be an Adjudicator, but he was just as much a politician as he was a combination of judge and jury. Of course he'd say the disappearances weren't linked. I hadn't heard any rumors on the street about the disappearances, but then I'd been too busy lately to visit my usual – you'll pardon the expression – haunts. Between helping Devona with the Midnight Watch and looking for a new place to live (because Devona didn't want to raise our child in a squalid little apartment that, despite all her best efforts, still looked too much like a bachelor's home) I hadn't been making the rounds and touching base with my network of contacts and informants. There'd been a time when I'd have known about the disappearances long before the media did. Now I was finding out the news the same time as any other average citizen, and the realization disturbed me for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"Did you hear me, Matt?"

I turned to Devona, feeling bad for having taken my attention off her, even momentarily. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"No. I said I'm feeling better, and I am." When she saw the doubtful look on my face, she added. "Really."

I restricted my comment to a muffled hmpf. What I wanted to say was that I'd known Devona shouldn't have come with me to that other Nekropolis, and that if anything happened to her or the baby, it would be my fault for not making her stay behind. But saying all that wouldn't make her feel any better, so there was no point in it. Keeping quiet twice in one day? It was a new personal record for me.

When Darius returned us to our Nekropolis, we appeared in Bennie's lounge. Bennie – our Bennie – had been waiting for us, eager to learn whether or not we'd been able to help his/her other-dimensional counterpart. When Bennie saw Devona was in pain, he/she made a hand vox call to the Fever House and ordered an ambulance. I told Bennie to skip the ambulance but to let them know we'd be coming. Then I helped Devona outside where Lazlo was waiting for us. I have no idea how the demon cabbie always knows when I need a ride, but he's never let me down. I helped Devona into the backseat of Lazlo's nightmarish conglomeration of a vehicle, and he rocketed through the streets of the Sprawl toward Gothtown, where the Fever House was located. Lazlo got us to the hospital so fast that I suspected he may have broken a few laws of space and time to do so. He was sitting in his cab in the parking lot now, waiting for me to call him with news of Devona's condition, not that I had any to give him yet. Beyond a quick examination from the nurse who'd hooked Devona up to the medical equipment when we first got to the room, we hadn't seen anyone.

A soft knock sounded at the door then, and I thought our wait was finally over.

"Come in," I said, feeling a strange mixture of relief and tension. I wanted to get this show on the road, but at the same time, I was afraid of what a doctor's examination might ultimately reveal. But I needn't have worried. The person who opened the door and poked his head into the room wasn't a doctor.

"Is it all right if I come in?"

He was medium height, thin, with long brown hair tied in a pony tail and a neatly trimmed beard. A tie-dyed T-shirt, jeans, and sandals completed his bohemian look, and his pale skin and elongated canines marked him a vampire. Most Bloodborn – especially the older ones – tend to disdain technology, especially when it's used in body modification. Vampires are more than a little fanatical about maintaining the purity of their blood, and they view cybernetic enhancements as a corruption of the body. Not so the younger Bloodborn, though. Varney appeared to be in his mid-twenties, and while I had no idea how old he truly was, the fact that he possessed a pair of cybernetic implants told me he was relatively young as vampires went. Both his left eye and left ear had been removed and replaced with electronic devices: a camera lens and a miniature directional microphone, respectively.

I got off the bed and started walking toward Varney, making sure to keep myself between him and Devona.

"You'd better not be recording right now," I said in what I hoped was a threatening voice.

Not threatening enough, evidently, for Varney slid the rest of the way into the room, though he did raise his hands in a placating gesture. "It's cool, man. My camera's off. I totally respect you and your lady's privacy. Besides, this isn't the kind of footage my producer's looking for." He glanced at Devona. "No offense." He turned back to me. "Now if it was you lying injured in that bed, Matt…"

It took all the self-restraint I had not to let out a series of extremely offensive words. Not long ago, I'd had a run-in with a gorgon named Acantha, host of a live interview program called On the Scene. She'd tried to interview me while I was working and I was, shall we say, less than gracious about it. Since then Acantha had done her best to go out of her way to give me bad publicity whenever she could – and not just me: she made sure to include Devona and the Midnight Watch in her petty vendetta. So for Devona's sake, I'd gone to the Eidolon Building where the city's major media outlets – Mind's Eye Theatre, the Tome, Bedlam 66.6, and the Daily Atrocity – are housed and tried to make peace with Acantha. She responded to my overtures about as well as you might expect (gorgons can carry grudges for centuries), but her boss, a demon named Murdock, overheard our conversation and pulled me into his office.

You want Acantha to lay off you and your woman? he'd said. I can arrange that. And then he'd smiled that smile demons give you when they're about to make you an offer you know you really should refuse. And when I heard his proposal, I turned him down at first. Until I spoke with Devona later.

I think it's flattering that Murdock wants to make a documentary about you, she'd said. You have to admit, you've become something of a celebrity over the last few months, and it's only natural people would want to know more about you. And if people get to know you – the city's only self-willed zombie – a little better, it might change their attitude toward the reanimated dead. And then she'd added the kicker. Besides, the publicity would be good for business.

So I called Murdock and told him I'd be honored to let him make a documentary about me, which is how I got saddled with Varney, the one-man – or maybe I should say one-vampire – film crew. With his cybernetic enhancements, all he had to do was follow me around and anything he saw and heard would be recorded. Every night he transmitted the day's footage to the Mind's Eye studio via the Aethernet, where it was reviewed and edited by his producer. Varney had been tailing me for five days now, and my patience with him was wearing more than a little thin. Despite the fact that he'd told me when we met that he'd "be as invisible as Casper, man," while I worked, Varney had a tendency to get in the way, and I'd begun looking for opportunities to ditch him whenever I could.

Varney went on. "I don't mean to intrude, but I just wanted to check in with you guys and see how things went in the other Nekropolis."

Varney had been waiting for us in Bennie's lounge when Darius brought us back, but I'd rushed Devona out of there so fast that he hadn't had a chance to talk to us – or get in Lazlo's cab and ride along to the hospital – which is just the way I'd wanted it. I figured he'd catch up to us sooner or later. Unfortunately, it hadn't been later enough for me.

"This really isn't a good time," I told him. "How about you go back to the Eidolon Building, and I'll give you a call later?"

"Matt…" Devona said in that tone she uses when she thinks I'm being unreasonable. But the last thing I cared about right then was helping Varney with the stupid documentary. All that mattered to me was Devona and the baby's health.

Varney smiled. "Don't sweat it, man. I got it covered." He held out his hand and a small silver object about the size of a thumbnail crawled out from beneath my jacket lapel. It looked a little like a mechanical ant, except it had a miniature camera lens in place of a head. As I watched, wings slid out of tiny panels in the artificial insect's back, and the creature took wing. It buzzed over to Varney, and the vampire opened his mouth, and the bug flew inside. Varney then closed his mouth and grinned.

"That's icky," Devona said.

"When I couldn't go with you to the other Nekropolis, I snuck a portable camera onto you when you weren't looking. The quality of its recording isn't quite as good as what I can do, but it'll serve in a pinch. Just let me start downloading…" He paused and his expression went blank. "Yeah… yeah, that's some good stuff." He looked at me and grinned. "My producer is gonna love it!"

I sighed. It seemed I couldn't get away from Varney no matter what I did. "Do me a favor: don't put any more of those damned things on me without my permission, OK? We dead folk have a thing about bugs."

While that was true enough, the real reason I disliked carrying around an insect – even a machine that resembled an insect – was because of an experience I'd had several months back with a friend of mine named Gregor. At least, I thought he'd been a friend. As it turned out, he'd been something far different. He was gone now, but I still didn't like bugs, and I especially didn't like them riding around concealed on me.

"Sure thing," Varney said. "Whatever you say, Matt."

What I wanted to say next was less than polite and would've earned me another disapproving Matt from Devona, but a second knock sounded at the door before I could speak, this one sharp and businesslike. The door opened and a woman wearing a white doctor's coat walked in. She was a tall, thin Bloodborn woman, with short black hair and porcelain-white skin. Her lips were full and red, and I knew that she'd recently dined. But considering this was a hospital, I figured the staff had ready access to fresh blood. She appeared young – barely out of her teens – but she moved with the preternatural stillness that only very old vampires were capable of.

She crossed to Devona's bed with brisk strides, ignoring Varney as she passed, but when she saw me her brow furrowed and her lips pursed in distaste.

"What is this thing doing here?" she demanded in an icy tone. "This is a hospital room, not the morgue."

Devona scowled. "This thing is my husband, and I want him here."

It didn't surprise me that Devona stuck up for me. It wasn't the first time she'd done so. While Nekropolitans could be quite liberal-minded about some things, the idea of anyone having a zombie for a romantic partner was, to put it mildly, out of the ordinary, and people tended to have varying reactions when they saw us together. What surprised me was hearing Devona refer to me as her husband. We weren't married, not in any legal sense of the word. Before relocating to Nekropolis to escape the always-increasing human population, the Darkfolk had tended to live in isolated pockets and out-of-the-way places. They hadn't really had anything like a centralized government, so there was no need for formal laws. If one Darkfolk wanted to have a long-term romantic relationship with another, they just did so without worrying about any kind of legally binding agreement. Besides, the concept of holy matrimony didn't sit well with the more diabolical members of the Darkfolk. And so there were no priests or justices of the peace to marry people in Nekropolis – at least as far as I knew – and the issue had never come up between Devona and me, despite the fact that we'd been living together for a while now and she was carrying my child.

I'd been married once before, back on Earth when I was alive, but it hadn't lasted long. I'd been a cliche – the cop who was more dedicated to his career than his marriage – and eventually my wife got tired of trying and gave up. And I don't blame her one bit. But that had been years ago, and I'd long since moved on. I wasn't averse to the idea of getting married again; it just didn't seem like something that was even possible in Nekropolis, let alone necessary.

So why did it bother me to hear Devona refer to me as her husband?

The doctor looked at me like I was something nasty she'd found in a patient's bedpan. "Be that as it may, we maintain the strictest standards of cleanliness at the Fever House, and it's unacceptable for there to be a… person present in the room who's experiencing active – if delayed – decay. The germs…"

"I was thoroughly, and rather humiliatingly, decontaminated when we arrived," I said. "And a nurse gave me this." I removed a gem-encrusted amulet from my jacket pocket and showed it to the doctor. "She told me that as long as I kept it on my person, I wouldn't be in danger of germifying anyone."

The doctor frowned. "Such magic isn't one hundred percent efficacious – it's the main reason we prefer to use technology whenever possible in our treatment plans – but I suppose it'll be sufficient in this case." She turned one again to Devona. "Especially since you so strongly desire your… husband to remain. Though I will have to ask him to please step away from the bed so that I might conduct my examination without hindrance."

The doctor was long past the point of getting on my nerves, but I reminded myself that she was here to help Devona, and I kept my mouth shut as I stood and stepped away from the bed.

The doctor introduced herself as she checked the readouts on the various monitors.

"I'm Dr Servia, director of emergency medicine. I realize that your past appointments have been with one of my colleagues in obstetrics, but as of now, I'll be taking charge of your care. Tell me what happened."

So Devona gave the doctor a condensed version of our adventure in the parallel dimension Darius had transported us to, while Servia continued examining her.

Fever House was an old-fashioned name for hospital, and the first time I'd heard the term, I'd imagined something like an asylum filled with shrieking straitjacketed patients confined in cell-like rooms with stone floors and walls. But vampires have been practicing the art of medicine since before humanity had developed a written language, and there's nothing primitive about the facilities at the Fever House. They're easily as sophisticated as any Earth hospital, if not more so. You might wonder why vampires bother with medicine – after all, as long as they have access to a steady diet of human blood, they're immortal and rapidly heal all injuries (with the exception of wooden stakes to the heart and severe sunburn). But the Bloodborn's interest in medicine has nothing to do with them. Rather, it's all about maintaining a healthy food supply. The healthier humanity is, the purer their blood. So throughout the centuries vampires developed and passed on their medical knowledge to human physicians so that the health of the herd might be maintained. Most human beings are unaware of this, of course, and good thing. Who would want to know that the cough syrup they'd just given their sick child was developed by a predator species that views humans as a tasty snack?

Over the course of the four centuries since Nekropolis was founded, the physicians at the Fever House have expanded the scope of their medical knowledge to encompass treating Darkfolk of all kinds, and while many Nekropolitans have healing powers equal to those of vampires, there are still any number of illnesses and injuries – mundane and magical – that they need help recovering from, and the Fever House does a brisk trade. I knew Devona was in good hands medically speaking, the best the city had to offer, but I was still nervous. Our situation wasn't exactly a common one, and I doubted they covered half-vampire/zombie matings in vampire medical school.

As I was thinking, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye – something small and dark scuttling across the floor. Without a functioning nervous system, I couldn't feel a physical chill, but I experienced the psychic equivalent. The last time I'd seen something like that… I turned to get a clearer look, and I saw a black shape the size of a large insect zip past my feet and disappear beneath Devona's bed. Or thought I did. It moved so fast, I couldn't tell if it was real or maybe just a trick of the light combined with my anxiety over Devona's condition. I may not be the most imaginative guy, but living in Nekropolis will make anyone a bit jumpy. Here, monsters under the bed aren't just a childhood fantasy.

I didn't want to say anything, not only because I wanted to avoid worrying Devona but I also to avoid looking like a fool in case the bug was nothing more than my imagination. So I concentrated, and the thin flesh tendrils keeping my right hand attached to my wrist released their grip. I allowed my hand to fall to the floor, and I followed up the soft plap of its dead meat hitting the tiled floor with a muttered, "Damn it!" Then I bent down to retrieve my hand and took the opportunity to sneak a quick peek under the bed. There was nothing there, not even dust. It seemed the hospital staff's fanatical devotion to keeping their institution germ-free extended to the finer points of housekeeping as well. Which made the likelihood that there were insects scuttling around the rooms seem all the more impossible.

I decided the bug had been nothing but my imagination after all. I held my wrist stump near my hand, and it obligingly backed up like a tiny vehicle in reverse and reattached itself. I flexed my fingers to make sure everything was working, and then I stood once more.

"You really should have someone sew that back on while we're here," Devona said.

"Sorry," Dr Servia said, sounding anything but, "we don't perform medical procedures on your kind."

The subtle added stress on those last two words got my hackles up, but I kept myself from responding – one more step on my way to becoming a paragon of self-restraint. Devona's scowl told me she was going to say something, but I reached out to her through our link and projected a wave of calm to let her know that I didn't think the doctor's comment was worth commenting on. Devona gave me a look that said, All right, if you say so, but I could feel that she wasn't happy about it. As a half-vampire she'd spent her whole life dealing with the racism and classism of full-blooded vampires, and she had little tolerance for it.

Servia continued with her examination with brisk professionalism. When she was finished, she stepped back and regarded Devona with unblinking eyes. Vampires don't need to blink, but the younger ones still do, either to appear more lifelike or simply out of habit. Older vampires like Servia didn't bother with such mundane trivialities – if they even remembered them at all.

"Everything appears…" Her full red lips parted in a cold approximation of a smile. "Well, I can't say normal. But it seems that neither you nor your baby suffered any permanent ill effects from your interdimensional trip. But I advise you to refrain from any unnecessary exposure to magic during the remainder of your pregnancy. Half-vampires like you are typically sterile, and zombies…" she trailed off. "As I understand it, a significant amount of magical assistance was required in order for the two of you to conceive. While the spells were no doubt powerful ones, such magic is, in its own way, quite delicate. Other magic – especially the kind required for a dimensional crossing – may have a deleterious effect on the spells associated with your pregnancy. My advice is that you avoid both magic use and exposure until after your baby is born."

Though the doctor had just given us good news, you couldn't have told it from Devona's crestfallen expression.

"But Doctor, I'm a specialist in wardspells! I use magic in my business all the time!"

"Yes, the Midnight Watch. I've seen your commercials on Mind's Eye. Given your current situation, I suggest you take a leave of absence from work," Servia said. "And if that's not possible, then I advise you at least take a step back and assume a more supervisory role." She paused, and then added in a businesslike tone, "That is, if you wish to carry your child to term. Please see the receptionist at Admitting on your way out to schedule a follow-up appointment for next week."

And then without waiting for more questions – and without giving me another glance – Servia started toward the door. Varney hadn't said a word the entire time the doctor had been present, but he watched her go, his camera eye tracking her progress, and I wondered if despite his earlier pledge not to do any filming in here he'd been recording the entire time. I was just about to say something to him when the door opened and a male Bloodborn stepped into the room.

Both Servia and Varney immediately dropped to one knee and bowed their heads.

The newcomer was a huge, well-muscled barbarian of a man, wearing only a loincloth, boots, and a black fur cape. His skin was bone white, and his flesh appeared hard as marble. He had long brown hair, and a thick full beard which spilled down to his chest. His eyes were cold as arctic ice, and they gazed upon the world with the merciless calculation of an apex predator. This was Galm, Darklord and ruler of the Bloodborn, one of the most powerful and fearsome monsters that had ever existed. And he was one thing more…

Devona's father.