Dead Streets

FOURTEEN

I turned off the lawnmower and ran the back of my hand across my forehead to wipe away sweat, though all I managed to do was smear it around. God, it was hot out today.

I turned toward the pair of children running toward me across the half mown lawn, one boy, one girl, both eleven, both blond-haired like their mother. They came up to me in a flurry of child energy, skin tanned from being outside all summer, their hair bleached almost white from all the sun they'd gotten. They both wore T-shirts and shorts and both were barefoot. I always had a hell of a time getting them to wear shoes when it was warm out, and my first thought was that one of them had stepped on something sharp, a nail or a piece of broken glass. But the guilty expressions on their faces told me neither was injured and I relaxed a bit.

"What's up, kiddos?" I asked. My lower back gave a twinge and I winced. Devona had been after me to get a riding mower for a while now, but I insisted on using a push mower for the exercise. But this season my back had been putting in its vote for a riding mower too and I was seriously considering breaking down and getting one. After all, I wasn't getting any younger.

"It's not our fault!" Lily said.

"You mean it's not my fault," Toby said, giving his sister a sideways glance.

Lily shot him a dark look that accused him of betraying her before turning her attention back to me. "Not our fault," she insisted.

I sighed. You know how twins are supposed to be inseparably close? Maybe that was true for identical twins, but for fraternal ones – at least for my twins – that wasn't always the case. Maybe they didn't fight anymore than other siblings, but sometimes it sure seemed like it.

"What happened? And don't both of you talk at the same time. Lily first."

Toby pursed his lips in irritation. "Why does she get to go first?"

Because she doesn't let her emotions get the better of her, I thought. Out loud I said, "We're going in alphabetical order."

Lily gave her brother a triumphant smirk before launching into her story.

"We were playing catch in the backyard near Mom's garden…" she began.

I already didn't like the sound of this.

"… when Toby threw the baseball too hard-"

"I did not!" Toby's hands curled into fists and his cheeks flushed with a mix of anger and embarrassment.

"… and it flew right by me. I tried to catch it, Daddy, really I did!" She lowered her gaze. "But I missed."

"What happened?" I had a basic idea by that point, but I wanted them to tell me on their own.

Lily didn't answer and Toby looked at her. When he saw how upset she was, the anger drained out of him. he sighed – sounding too much like me – and said, "You know the Buddha statue Mom has in the garden?"

"Yes…"

"The ball hit the statue pretty hard -" he glanced at Lily but she was still looking at the ground – "and, well, the head got knocked off."

I imagined Buddha's decapitated head lying on the ground amidst Devona's petunias and sunflowers. Something about the image of a headless body struck a strange chord in me, but I didn't know why. I decided to put it out of my mind and I laid a hand on each of my children's shoulders and gave them what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

"It was an accident, guys. Don't worry about it."

Some of the tension left them then and Lily's head snapped up, her expression suddenly hopeful. "Do you think maybe we can glue the head back on?" she asked.

" Before Mom gets back?" Toby added.

I started to answer, but another image flashed through my mind then: I was lying on a table, a nightmarish machine hanging above me, arms protruding from it, each gripping a stainless steel surgical instrument in its hand. The image faded as quickly as it had come, but it was so disturbing that for a moment all I could do was stand there and stare at my children. Eventually, I gave my head a shake to clear it – and for some odd reason I was reassured that it remained solidly attached to my neck.

I forced a smile.

"We can give it a try," I said, "but I think we'll need a lot of glue."

My smile, weak though it was, seemed to reassure the twins further and they smiled back. Before any of us could say anything else, though, we heard the sound of a car approaching and we turned to see Devona driving down the road in her Prius. She honked the horn in greeting as she slowed and then pulled into the driveway. The twins left me and raced across the lawn to greet their mother – and no doubt shower her with love in the hope of ameliorating her reaction when she learned about the fate of her Buddha statue.

Devona got out of the car. She'd gone out to play tennis with a friend, and she wore a sleeveless white blouse and athletic shorts, and she looked damned good to me. She hadn't returned empty-handed, though. She held a cardboard drink carrier with four cups on it. The twins squealed in delight when she held the carrier out for them to select a pair of drinks, all thoughts of the decapitated Buddha forgotten. They grabbed two, along with a pair of straws, stuck them through the plastic lids, and sipped.

"Milkshakes!" Toby said.

"I got chocolate," Lily said, making a face.

"Mine's strawberry."

The twins switched cups, took another sip, and were both much happier.

Devona and I laughed and I started walking over to the car.

"Why don't you two go play in the backyard some more while I break the news to your mom." I paused. "And I do mean break."

The twins looked worried again, but I gave them a wink and a smile to let them know everything would be all right. Their own smiles returned and they ran around the side of the house, carrying their milkshakes with them.

"I decided to run through a drive-thru on my way home," Devona said. She held the drink carrier out to me. "What's your pleasure, Mr. Richter? Chocolate or strawberry?"

" You're my pleasure, Mrs. Richter."

I leaned forward and kissed her with a bit more passion than was perhaps decorous for suburbia on a Saturday afternoon out in the open, but what the hell?

When we parted, I took a chocolate shake, popped a straw in it, and took a long sip.

"That's good. Doesn't quite hit the spot like a cold beer would right now, but it's an acceptable substitute."

She grinned as she took a sip of her shake – strawberry, her favorite flavor. Which was of course why I'd taken the chocolate.

"They didn't have any beer-flavored shakes," she smiled. "Sorry."

She took another sip and a little spilled out of the corner of her mouth. But instead of being a light pink color, the liquid was a deep crimson.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

I realized then that I was staring at the thick red substance trailing down her chin. I touched my own chin to signal her what was wrong, and she reached up and caught some of the liquid with her finger. She frowned as she examined it.

"That's weird. Maybe they didn't mix it properly and there's a pocket of strawberry syrup at the bottom."

"Maybe." But that explanation didn't feel right and the substance on Devona's chin didn't look like strawberry syrup so much as it looked like… like… The word refused to come and I found my thoughts drifting back to the yard work that still lay before me.

Our home was a ranch house sitting at the end of a cul-de-sac bordering a small park. The kids loved the park's playground equipment and the small woods with a stream running through it. Devona loved the large oak trees and weeping willows. Me? I loved living next to a giant yard I didn't have to mow and trees whose leaves I didn't have to rake every autumn. Dealing with my own yard was enough work for me.

It wasn't quite lunchtime yet and I'd managed to get half the front yard done, but I still had to finish up here and then do the back before I could call it quits for the day. I glanced up at the blazing sun hanging in the summer sky. That is, if I could take the heat for that long. Then again, the Browns were playing this afternoon. Maybe I could finish the front now and put off doing the back until tomorrow.

Devona reached out with her tongue to lap up the crimson liquid on her chin then and I found the action to be at once both arousing and disturbing. She frowned.

"Funny. It doesn't taste like strawberry. It tastes different. Better." She smacked her lips thoughtfully. "Sweet, but it has a kick to it, almost like it contains caffeine. Just a little bit gave me a jolt of energy." She looked at me then. "Wait a minute, what were you saying a minute ago about having bad news to tell me?"

"The kids were messing around in the backyard and accidentally broke the head off your Buddha statue."

"Really? Oh, well. It's not like we can't get it fixed, right? We'll just run on over to the Foundry and…" She trailed off. "Why did I say that? What's the Foundry?"

"I don't know." But the truth was I did know. At least, it felt like I did, somewhere deep down inside me. Only I couldn't quite remember. I decided not to worry about it, realized I seemed to be deciding that a lot lately, then decided not to worry about that.

I took another sip of my shake and my mouth was filled with a taste so foul that I turned to spit the muck out on the grass.

"What's wrong?" Devona asked.

"Damned if I know. It suddenly tastes like shit. Literally. Like the kind of swill they serve at Hem-" I frowned, unable to finish the word, though for the life of me I didn't know why I couldn't finish.

An unusually cool breeze blew across the yard then, causing both Devona and I to shiver.

"Something's not right," she said, a note of fear in her voice.

I knew just how she felt but once more, I decided not to worry about it. No, not decided. I couldn't worry about it.

Devona held her shake in one hand and the empty drink carrier in the other, so I couldn't take hold of her. Instead I stepped forward and put my arm around her waist.

"Tell you what, Mrs. Richter. The kids are busy making more mischief in the backyard and you and I are both hot and sweaty – me from my Herculean efforts to tame this lawn, you from exercising your athletic prowess on the tennis court. Would you like to join me in a cool, soothing shower?"

Devona eyed the half-finished lawn. "It's not like you to leave a job undone."

I kissed her gently on the neck. Her sweat coated skin had the tang of salt. I found it to be erotic and I felt my body responding.

"Some sacrifices are worth making."

I leaned in to kiss her lips this time – trying not to think about how she'd lapped up the crimson liquid a moment ago – but before we could kiss, the sun dimmed as if suddenly blocked by clouds. The sky had been clear only a moment ago.

We both looked up and saw that there were no clouds. Instead, the sun had taken on a shadowy cast, and it now gave off a purple-tinted light, painting the world in strange dark hues. A word popped into my mind then, one I'd never heard before but which at the same time seemed so familiar. Umbriel.

The breeze returned then, even colder than before, and this time it didn't pass but continued blowing.

Devona dropped the drink carrier and her shake and put her arms around me. I slipped my own arms around her shoulders, noticing that the lid had sprung off her shake cup when it hit the ground. Thick red liquid that looked nothing like strawberry was soaking into the grass.

"Matt, I'm scared. What's happening?"

It's breaking down, I thought, though I wasn't sure what that meant.

Yes, Devona said. It's our link. Or maybe it's Papa Chatha's necklace. Hell, maybe it's a combination of the two. Whichever the case, something is preventing the illusion from taking full hold of our minds.

I realized then that Devona wasn't speaking. I'd felt her reply more than heard it, as if she were somehow speaking in my head.

"Illusion?" I said aloud. I had no idea what she was talking about. And yet… I did.

She frowned. "I don't know." She'd returned to speaking her words instead of thinking them to me. "It made sense a second ago, but my thoughts keep slipping away. I can't seem to hold on to them for very long."

I gripped her tighter as the world continued to darken around us. "I know what you mean. It almost feels like we're fighting on some level… resisting. But I don't know exactly what we're fighting."

Devona started to say something, but her reply was cut off by the sound of our children crying out in alarm from the backyard. Without thinking I dropped my shake and Devona and I started running. When we reached the backyard we saw the twins near their sandbox. They lay on the ground, bodies covered with long tendrils of some kind of strange weed growing out of the ground.

Leech vine, I thought. I didn't know what that was, but I instinctively knew it was something very bad.

The vine had burrowed into the children's skin at various place – face, neck, hands, back, belly – and it was pulsing rhythmically as if it was pumping something into them. No, I realized with horror. The plant was pumping something out of them: blood.

Devona and I stood there in shock for several seconds and during that time we watched the twins' suntanned skin begin to pale as the leech vine rapidly drained the life out of them.

Devona and I started forward. I didn't know if I would make things worse by tearing the vines away from the twins' flesh. I only knew I couldn't stand by and watch as my children succumbed to some sort of parasitic plant. But before either Devona or I could reach the twins, Lily held her hand out in a stay back gesture.

"Don't!" she said. Her voice was so much weaker than it had been only a few minutes ago in the front yard and hearing it broke my heart. I started forward again, but Toby repeated his sister's gesture.

"Listen to her!" he said, his voice just as weak as his twin's. "We know what's happening." His hand dropped then, as if it were too weak to hold it up any longer, and Lily's did the same.

"None of this is real," my daughter said, her voice now little more than a whisper. "We're not real, Toby and I, we're… pretend. This whole place is pretend."

Toby's head gave the slightest of nods, all that he could manage. His skin, like his sister's, was almost ivory-white now, eyes sunken in, lips blue-tinged.

"You and Mom are fighting. Trying… to break free. That's why all this is happening. Why we're…" He trailed off.

"Dying," Lily finished for him. "But it's OK, because we were never really…"

"Alive," Toby said.

I turned to Devona, and I saw she now possessed overlong incisors jutting down from her upper jaw. I looked at my hands and saw they were gray-tinged, the flesh dry and flaking.

"Pretend," Lily said. "Just… pretend."

Sorrow welled up strong inside me, along with anger. This family, my house, my life wasn't pretend. It couldn't be! I wouldn't let it be!"

A shimmering passed through the air, like ripples in a pond, and when it cleared, the sunshine had returned in full force and my children stood there, free of the leech vine, strong and healthy once more. Devona no longer had fangs, and my hands looked normal again. Everything was as it should be.

I was so relieved that I started toward the twins, wanting nothing more than to wrap my arms around the two of them and never let go. But the expressions on their faces – sadness, disappointment, regret – made me pause.

"Don't, Daddy," Lily said. "Don't use us as an excuse to hide."

"You've always faced the truth, no matter how hard it was," Toby said. He smiled then. "That's your job, right? To find out the truth."

"Find it now," Lily said. "For us, if for no other reason."

I turned to Devona, and I didn't know I was crying until she reached up and gently brushed the tears from my face. She was crying too, but her tears were tinged with red, and while that should've seemed strange to me, I somehow knew it was perfectly normal for her.

"It tears me up to say this, Matt, but they're right. I can feel it. And I know you can too."

I wanted to tell her that I didn't feel anything, that this was real, and I didn't want to hear another word about it. But instead I nodded. I took her in my arms and held her as tight as I could.

"This really sucks," I said softly.

"I know. Ready?"

I wanted to look at the kids one last time, but I knew I couldn't bear it. So I closed my eyes and said, "Ready."

I felt Devona's mind reaching for mine and I reached back. Vertigo took hold of me then and when the world stopped spinning I opened my eyes and found myself standing amidst dozens of bizarre displays – and I remembered.

I was no longer physically capable of crying, but if I had been I'd have broken down and sobbed right then.

It's all right, love, Devona thought. It's over. We're back.

I tried to move, but I still couldn't. Orlock's stasis field was still in effect and I knew that it had remained so the entire time.

What he said about time passing pleasantly… He created an illusory life for us to live while we were trapped here. Like filling an aquarium full of plastic plants and ceramic undersea ruins for the fish to swim around.

Yes, Devona thought. But he didn't count on your neck lace and our telepathic link. They reinforced what was real and fought against what wasn't. Because of that, the illusion couldn't sustain itself.

I thought of all the other beings trapped within Orlock's stasis domes, all of them living virtual lives deep within their minds while their bodies remained frozen as the long years passed. It was like being trapped in a kind of hell, only one that you weren't aware of. Somehow that made it all the worse.

Then again, maybe it was worse to come out of the dream. I missed my children and grieved for their deaths, even though I knew they'd never been real. And now Devona and I faced the prospect of spending our time in stasis without the comfort of Orlock's illusion to distract us. I wished my necklace had nullified the stasis field too, but either it was completely technological or its magic was too powerful for the necklace to handle on its own without the added help of Devona's and my telepathic link. For whatever reasons we'd broken the illusion but the stasis field remained intact.

Are you all right? I asked her.

Devona didn't answer right away. Finally she said, Honestly, no. You?

Working on it, I said, tying to sound braver than I felt at that moment. I'll tell you one thing, though. When we get out of this damned bubble, I'm going to find Orlock and… My thoughts trailed off as I realized something. The lights are on. They were off when the illusion took hold of our minds.

You're right, Devona thought. Maybe Orlock's coming back. Maybe he wants to ask us more questions about Osseal, since he'd love to get his talons on it.

Since Orlock's a vampire, he can see in the dark, I reminded her. He said he uses the lights only for his guests.

We heard footsteps coming toward us then and I could tell right away that they didn't belong to Orlock. The pace was too measured, the rhythm too steady for the crablike way he walked. My surmise turned out to be correct when a few moments later a woman approached our dome and stood regarding us, hands planted on her hips, head cocked at an angle, grin plastered on her face.

"Hello, Matt," Overkill said. "You're a damned hard man to find, you know that?"

My first impulse was to tell Overkill that she was a sight for sore eyes, but since I wasn't able to speak, I couldn't. Besides, I wasn't entirely sure her arrival was a good thing.

She was dressed the same way she was when I saw her last, only now she was better armed, with a P-90 submachine gun slung over her shoulder by a strap, and a weapons belt around her waist with a holster for a 9mm, sheaths for several lengths and types of knives – including, I was disturbed to see, a dire blade – and storage pouches that presumably held whatever the well-accessorized mercenary was carrying these days. Considering how often I have to root around in my pockets for my own toys, I wondered if I should invest in a belt like that, but I decided against it. I don't like my adversaries to know how well armed I am. I prefer to let them underestimate me. Besides, a belt like that would just look silly on me.

"First things first," Overkill said. "Let's get you two out of there."

She reached into one of her belt pouches and removed a small glass vial. She took a deep breath and held it before prying out the stopper and splashing the liquid contents onto the area of the dome directly in front of where Devona and I stood immobile. As we watched, the place where the liquid – which was a foul yellow color – had struck began to sizzle and steam. Within moments the liquid had eaten a lopsided hold through the dome and once the structure's integrity had been compromised it shuddered violently and then popped out of existence as if it were nothing more than a giant soap bubble. Once the dome had vanished the stasis field ceased functioning and Devona and I were able to move and talk again.

"Whatever that stuff was, it's pretty handy," I said. "I may need to pick up a few gallons myself."

"It's demon piss," Overkill said as she replaced the stopper and put the empty vial back into its pouch. "Once it's exposed to air, it'll eat through anything – and you don't want to know what I had to do to get it."

"You got that right," I said.

From her belt pouch she next removed an amulet stamped with the image of a winding serpent. "This is a charm I picked up from an Obeah woman I know. It allows me to command any zombie to do my bidding." She grinned. "Including you, Matt. You're going to accompany me to the Nightspire so I can collect the bounty Quillion is offering for you."

I looked at her charm. It appeared genuine enough, but I felt no compulsion to do as she ordered.

"Sorry, but I don't think so," I said.

Overkill frowned at the charm and gave it a couple shakes, as if she might be able to force it to work. Little did she know that Papa Chatha's necklace was protecting me from the charm.

"Cheap piece of crap," she muttered. "Guess we'll do this the old-fashioned way." She dropped the charm to the ground, took hold of her P-90, racked the slide, and aimed it at me. "Don't try anything," she warned, gaze cold and expression deadly serious. "You don't need legs for me to take you to the Nightspire and it'll only take a few well aimed rounds from my weapon to cut them off."

She looked to Devona. "And my ammo has silver blended into it, so it's effective against both your human and Bloodborn halves."

"Let me guess what happened," I said. "Orlock called to tell you we were out of action and to urge you to go after Scream Queen's voice again. But you figured you'd rather collect the reward on me, and in the bargain get back at me for stopping you at Sinsation."

"That is, unless you organized all this in the first place," Devona said.

Overkill frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"After you left Sinsation, someone cut off my head, stole my body, and somehow used it to steal a magic object called Osseal from Lord Edrigu," I explained. "I managed to get my body back, and Victor Baron made me whole, but then I was arrested and sentenced to Tenebrus for the theft – which I didn't commit."

"Orlock told me as much," Overkill said. "But you don't really think I had anything to do with it, do you? I mean, I'm not big on elaborate planning. I'm more of a shoot first and never ask questions kind of gal. And if I had an object of power like Osseal, I could sell it for a whole lot more than five hundred thousand darkgems. And then I'd just let you stay frozen down here for eternity. I almost did anyway, but since I don't have Osseal and you did piss me off at Sinsation, I figured, what the hell?"

She could have been lying, but my instincts told me she was telling the truth. But I didn't have to rely on my instincts alone.

Devona?

I don't sense any subterfuge on her part, but she could be shielding her mind from me. She's certainly strong-willed enough on her own, and she could also be using some kind of magic object to help conceal her thoughts.

So Overkill might've moved to the bottom of my suspects lists, but she wasn't officially off it yet.

"How did you manage to get past Orlock?" I asked. "He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who willingly give up something once he's collected it."

"He's not, but I have my ways." Overkill smiled grimly. "I'm carrying a magic object that temporarily traps Bloodborn in their travel forms. Right now Orlock is stuck as a dozen or so shadow rats scurrying around his bookstore, unable to put themselves back together."

I had to admit, the woman was good.

"He's not going to be too pleased with you once the spells wears off," Devona said.

"Maybe, but he's nothing if not pragmatic. Once I collect the reward on Matt, I'm going to start looking for Osseal. If I can find it and bring it to him, there's a good chance he'll forgive me for freeing you two. And if not…" She shrugged. "There are plenty of other people in the city willing to pay for my services."

"I don't suppose it matters to you that I'm innocent," I said.

"Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Orlock seemed to think you are and he's usually right about things like that. But I don't care. Guilty or innocent, you're still worth five hundred thousand darkgems to me."

I was racking my brain, trying to come up with a way to convince Overkill to let us go or, failing that, a way that we could escape her, when Devona decided to take matters into her own hands.

She bared her fangs and hissed as she sprang toward Overkill. Devona is only half-vampire, but she's still fast as hell and she was almost on top of the mercenary before the woman could tighten her finger on the trigger of her P-90 and release a burst of gunfire. Devona managed to avoid being struck by any of the bullets, and they flew on, hitting various displays around us, taking chunks out of rare and valuable objects. Orlock would have a fit once he finally managed to pull himself together and come down here and saw the damage.

Devona wasn't fooling around. She fastened her teeth on Overkill's neck and bit down. The momentum of Devona's leap sent both women falling to the floor, and the impact caused Overkill to lose her grip on the P-90, and the strap slipped over her shoulder. The weapon skittered away from her, coming to stop over by the Frankenstein experiment display. I started toward it, doing the half-shuffle, half-run which is the fastest way I can make my dead body move.

As I went for the gun, Overkill hit Devona in the temple with a solid left cross, dislodging her teeth from Overkill's neck in a spray of blood. But Devona had a firm grip on Overkill's shoulders and she managed to hold on. Devona tried to bite Overkill again, but the mercenary brought up a forearm to block her. I saw Overkill reaching for her dire blade and I knew I had only seconds to reach the P-90. A single strike from a dire blade is fatal, as I'd demonstrated to Lycanthropus Rex in Tenebrus, and if Overkill managed to draw her blade, Devona was as good as dead.

I reached the P-90 and was bending down to pick it up when I became aware of movement. I looked at the metal framework containing the severed limbs of Dr. Frankenstein's early work and saw that every one of them had become fully animated and was thrashing about wildly. I glanced at the hand crank generator. No one had touched the crank and the machine wasn't active. No electricity was reaching the limbs, so how were they moving? What could make a bunch of dead arms and legs suddenly -

Then it hit me.

I turned to Devona and Overkill, who were still fighting on the floor. Devona had straddled the mercenary who'd managed to draw her dire blade. Devona had hold of the other woman's wrist, preventing her from using the dagger, and from the look of fury on Devona's face, I figured Overkill had only a few seconds before her wrist snapped like kindling.

"Ladies!" I shouted. Then again, louder. "Ladies!"

That time I got their attention. They stopped fighting, though Devona kept hold of Overkill's wrist. They focused their gazes on me and I pointed to the rack of thrashing limbs behind me.

"We've got a problem," I said. "I think someone just started playing Edrigu's flute."