Dead Streets

TWO

I didn't get there first, though. Devona had telepathically broadcast her warning about the ghoul to the entire team and all of us were beginning to converge upon her. Scorch was faster than any of us with the exception of Tavi, but she was closer to the ghoul than the shapeshifter was. She became a blur as she wove swiftly through the crowd and she intercepted the ghoul before the creature was halfway across the dance floor.

Scorch said something to the ghoul, but I couldn't hear what. Even though Kakophonie wasn't playing right then, the confused audience were talking loudly amongst themselves, and even though I had a good view of Scorch and the ghoul, I couldn't read lips. Inwardly I was raging at Scorch for approaching the ghoul directly. We knew how dangerous Scream Queen's would-be abductor was and confronting her head-on was more than reckless – it was downright suicidal. And unlike Scream Queen's former bodyguards, Scorch only had one head to lose. But that was Scorch: she lived for fun and as far as she was concerned danger was just another flavor of fun.

The ghoul was taller than Scorch by a good head and a half and when she raised her right hand and displayed her claws she looked like a most formidable figure, one against whom a mere teenage girl wouldn't stand a chance. But in Nekropolis judging by appearances is never a good idea.

The ghoul pulled back her hand, no doubt intending to slash out with her claws and lay open Scorch's throat, but before she could move Scorch decided to show her opponent how she'd gotten her name. Bright orange flames erupted all across Scorch's body and the ghoul – not to mention those audience members in the immediate vicinity – took a startled step backward. Scorch's fire burned hotter and brighter, the flames completely obscuring her form, but she didn't scream, didn't so much as move a muscle. The fire expanded, the flames stretching outward, rising upward, and then just as suddenly as they'd ignited, they extinguished, and where a moment before a teenage girl had been standing, now stood a seven-foot-tall, powerfully muscled, red-scaled demon. Scorch's true form was that of an infernal monster from the old school: pointed ears, baleful yellow eyes, mouthful of wicked-looking fangs, curling ram's horns, a row of serrated scales trailing along her spine, and a sinuous reptilian tail complete with an almost delicate little arrowhead shape at the tip.

The ghoul, who no longer had the advantage of height over Scorch, quickly recovered and lashed out with her claws anyway. Only now instead of having a throat covered with tender girl flesh, Scorch's throat was covered with shiny hard scales, and the ghoul's claws skittered off them without doing any damage. In response Scorch gave the ghoul a truly disturbing fangfilled grin and slapped her own clawed hands onto the ghoul's bony shoulders. As soon as the demon's flesh came in contact with the ghoul's Scorch released her flame and fire spread out from her palms to engulf the ghoul.

"No, dammit!" I shouted, not that I figured Scorch would hear me. Too many people were doing their best to get the hell away from Scorch and the ghoul and they weren't being particularly quiet about it. I knew that Scorch could control the intensity of her flame – as a fire demon that was her specialty – and she wouldn't kill the ghoul unless she had to. But I wasn't worried about our suspect getting fried; I was worried about the autograph book she still carried. We'd been assuming that the ghoul's plan had been to abduct Scream Queen, but now it looked as if she'd only been interested in stealing part of the singer: namely, her voice. I wasn't exactly sure how the ghoul had accomplished it, but it seemed clear that Scream Queen's signature in the autograph book had been an integral part of the spell. And if Scorch's flames reached the autograph book and turned Scream Queen's signature to ash, maybe the spell would be broken and the singer's voice would be restored to her – or if the signature was destroyed maybe Scream Queen's voice would be lost forever. While the latter prospect didn't strike me as much of a loss to Nekropolis's music scene, Scream Queen was my client – well, technically she was Devona's client – and I was determined to protect the banshee's voice by whatever means I could. Unfortunately it looked like there was nothing I could do to keep Scorch from incinerating the autograph book.

However, the ghoul – or whoever was masquerading as the ghoul – was prepared. As demonflame spread across her ivory-colored skin she appeared to reach into her side, sliding her long clawed fingers bloodlessly into her flesh and withdrawing a tiny figurine resembling a white ape. The ghoul spoke a single activating word and the ape's mouth opened, unleashing a torrent of frigid air at Scorch. Yeti's Breath was a powerful spell – with an accompanying stench so rank that it would make a carrion imp retch – and within seconds Scorch's flame had been extinguished and the demon was encased in a thick shell of ice. As strong as she was Scorch couldn't break free of her frozen prison and all she could do was stand there, literally frozen in place, as the ghoul grinned and started running toward the exit, the autograph book – which was singed around the edges a bit but otherwise undamaged – clutched in her hand.

I saw a blur of movement on my left and heard more than felt a rush of wind as something moved past me at a high rate of speed. Tavi was a mixblood, a shapeshifter who'd chosen to have his natural abilities augmented by genetic engineering at Doctor M's House of Pain. In his case the enhancement was rather clever: the lyke was a hybrid of mongoose and cobra, though he steadfastly refused to tell anyone which wereform he'd been born with originally. Tavi still wore his Nehru jacket and pants, but his limbs had become lean and sinuous and his hands and face were covered with a mixture of mammal fur and reptilian scale. His head was shaped like that of a mongoose with a cobra's hood and fangs. The overall effect worked surprisingly well, far better than many mixbloods who look like something out of Darwin's worst nightmares. In his wereform Tavi moved with a liquid grace that was beautiful to see and which had no doubt served him extremely well in his former career as a thief.

Though much of the crowd had managed to get away from Scorch and the ghoul there were still enough audience members in the way that Tavi was forced to detour around them and while he did so with great velocity it slowed him down just enough to give the ghoul time to prepare for his attack. Once again she plunged her hand into her side, only this time she brought out a small black sphere and dashed it to the floor. The sphere was glass and shattered on impact, releasing a black liquid substance that rapidly spread into a thin coating about two feet wide and three feet long. Tavi was moving too fast to avoid the black liquid and he ran right into it. The instant Tavi's feet came in contact with the tar-like goo they stuck fast; unfortunately momentum carried the rest of his body forward. The sound of breaking bone cut through the air as Tavi's ankles snapped and the lyke screamed in agony as he pitched forward and slammed face-first into the floor. Lykes are tough and they heal damn fast, but they still feel pain and Tavi was suffering quite a bit of it then. Still, he raised his head, opened his mouth wide, and spat a stream of venom directly into the ghoul's eyes. I expected to hear the ghoul scream then, but all she did was reach up to wipe the venom from her eyes and then continued running toward the exit. Tavi tried to pull free of the black substance that had hold of him, but it was no use. He was stuck fast.

Two of our team were down and the ghoul – or whoever it was hiding behind a ghoul's guise – hadn't broken a sweat. The Midnight Watch hadn't exactly covered itself in glory so far.

I hadn't stopped moving toward the ghoul, but running isn't something my zombie body is good at. The best I can manage is a sprightly shuffle that, while more than a little embarrassing, manages to get me from point A to point B faster than walking. But the ghoul was running full out and she was running at an angle away from me. Devona was heading for her as well, but the ghoul was moving away from her too. Fortunately for our team the direction the ghoul had chosen led her directly toward Bogdan. The warlock's specialty was the materialization of physical objects and not just any object but precisely what he needed most at any given moment. When he'd first joined the Midnight Watch I asked him how he knew what objects he might need – and for that matter, where they came from – and with a smile and a wink he give me the same answer for both questions. "I don't know. I simply work my magic and trust in Providence."

Have you ever heard such crap?

Bogdan lost no time in appealing to Providence then. He gestured with his right hand and a metallic fan appeared in his fingers, each gleaming section sharp as a razor. With an unnecessarily theatrical flick of his hand Bogdan spread the fan out and then flung it toward the rapidly approaching ghoul. The sections of the fan separated as they flew toward the ghoul, becoming a dozen deadly missiles.

It was a neat trick and I might have applauded if the ghoul hadn't simply ducked and rolled beneath the blades. The ghoul came up onto her feet and continued running without breaking stride, leaving Bogdan's fan blades flying toward innocent bystanders. One of the blades flew in my general direction and I intended to ignore it until I saw that it was heading toward the verman server who'd spoken to me earlier, the one who was missing half of his left ear. Without thinking about it I flung myself forward and intercepted the blade. It thunked into my side just below my right armpit, slid neatly between a couple of ribs and stayed there. I felt nothing beyond a slight pressure – one of the advantages of being dead – and I managed to keep my balance and avoid falling, which was good. If I break any bones, it doesn't hurt, but it can impair my mobility and I needed to remain ambulatory if we were going to have any chance at stopping the ghoul from getting away with Scream Queen's voice.

The verman looked at me with an expression that seemed thoughtful, almost appraising in a way, but I didn't have time to deal with him right then. I had a ghoul to catch.

Bogdan had been thrown off by his miss and he'd stood gaping with horror as his fan blades struck several audience members. Given the fact that none of those wounded were human, the damage wasn't anything they couldn't heal sooner or later, so Bogdan was able to forget about them and refocus his attention on the ghoul. Unfortunately he wasn't able to do so in time to stop her from reaching him and delivering a solid punch to his throat. The warlock's eyes bulged, his face turned red, and his mouth opened wide but he wasn't able to breathe in. The blow had crushed his trachea. Gasping ineffectively, his red face already starting to shade toward purple, Bogdan fell to his knees and slapped his hands to his throat. He closed his eyes and his lips began to move soundlessly as he worked a healing spell. His specialty might be the conjuring of useful objects, but he knew enough basic magic to heal himself. But doing so meant he wasn't going to be anymore help in stopping the ghoul – not that he'd been much help as it was.

Sinsation's bouncer decided to enter the fray then and the monster surged through the crowd toward the ghoul, moving with a speed and grace that was shocking given his enormous size. His face sported a savage grin and there was cold delight in his eyes. He'd literally been born to bust heads and now he had another chance to fulfill his life's purpose. For one of the repurposed dead it didn't get any better than this.

I'm not territorial. If Frankie Jr could get the job done, more power to him. All I cared about was making sure that the ghoul didn't get away with Scream Queen's voice.

The ghoul noted the monster's approach – no big feat; considering his size, he was damned hard to miss – and she reached into her body and pulled out a tiny metal disk. With a quick flick of her wrist she sent the object sailing toward the bouncer. The disk struck him on the forehead, right on the scar line, and stuck to the flesh as if covered with glue. Crackling tendrils of electricity shot forth from the disk's metal surface, spreading outward to surround the monster's head in a cage of miniature lightning.

The bouncer stopped running toward the ghoul, his body spasmed several times, and then lines of smoke curled forth from his nostrils. His eyes rolled over white and for an instant the monster stood there, white-eyed and stiff-legged, and then the giant collapsed to the floor with a sound like a dozen bags of cement dropped from a half-mile up.

Frankenstein monsters are born of electricity and if you can overload the energy matrices of their central nervous system it's like flipping their off switch, a fact the ghoul was obviously all too aware of.

Four down and – since she's far faster than I am – it was Devona's turn at the ghoul.

Half-vampires aren't as swift as their full-blooded relatives, but they're a damn sight faster than humans, let alone a shuffle-gaited zombie, and Devona managed to reach the ghoul when she was within a dozen feet of the exit. Devona's stronger than a human, but she's not trained in hand-to-hand combat, and physical confrontation doesn't suit her personality. What she is trained in, however, is security magic. And that meant she'd taken the precaution of having a special enchantment placed on all of Sinsation's exits earlier that day, an enchantment she now activated by speaking a phrase in a language I didn't understand, but which I recognized as the ancient tongue of the Bloodborn. The edges of the main entrance began to glow and a red mist rose from the floor in curling crimson tendrils, rapidly rising upward to completely block the doorway. The spell was simple: the red mist would prevent Scream Queen from passing through. To anyone else, the mist would be nothing more than that, easily passable, but to the banshee singer – or to anyone trying to force her physically through the doorway – the mist would feel solid as rock. How do you keep someone from abducting your client? Make sure she's physically incapable of leaving the premises. Of course, the ghoul wasn't carrying Scream Queen, just her voice, but I assumed the principle would be the same.

Evidently the ghoul made the same assumption – or maybe she simply assumed the red mist would do something nasty to her if she tried to go through it – for she came to a stop and spun around to face Devona.

Devona might prefer to fight with her mind instead of her fists, but that doesn't mean she can't brawl when she needs to. She continued running toward the ghoul, fangs bared, eyes wild and blazing with a feral yellow glow. I felt a wave of psychic pressure and I knew she was using her telepathic abilities to broadcast negative emotions at the ghoul, more in an effort to intimidate her and keep her off balance than to actually harm her. The ghoul, however, appeared to be completely calm as she once more reached into her side, this time drawing forth a small metal object. I recognized the object the instant I saw it and I started to shout a warning to Devona, but the ghoul moved too fast. With a flick of her wrist she sent the small silver cross flying toward Devona. The four tips of the cross were sharp as needles and the holy shuriken struck Devona in the left shoulder, biting through her leather outfit and sinking deep into her flesh.

Devona gasped in pain, stumbled, and fell to the floor. She clutched at her wounded shoulder, trying to grab hold of the cross and pull it free, but it had already sunk too deep. Holy objects and silver don't affect halfvampires as strongly as they do full-blooded vampires, but that just means their poisonous and corrosive effects are slower. Devona wasn't in danger of suffering any long-term damage from the cross, provided she could get it removed within the next half-hour or so, but the pain was excruciating and there was no way she would be able to continue battling the ghoul. It was all she could do to hold on to consciousness. This also meant there was no way she could concentrate effectively to use her telepathic powers against her assailant.

But wounding Devona wasn't enough for the ghoul. She plunged her hand into her side – right in the spot where I estimated a shoulder holster would be – and pulled out a 9mm handgun. She stepped forward, her ghoul disguise wavering as she did so and, by the time she knelt next to Devona and placed the gun barrel against her forehead, the ghoul illusion was completely gone. The voicenapper was revealed to be a humanoid of indeterminate gender and species encased in black body armor, just as had been reported.

"You have five seconds to remove the spell on the exit. If you don't, I'll put a blessed silver-jacketed bullet through your skull. You'll have a hell of a time healing from that."

The kidnapper wore a hooded mask and black goggles, but the muffled voice that came through was unmistakably that of a woman. And that gave me an idea of who we might be dealing with.

I'd finally reached Devona and I stopped a couple yards away so as not to make the kidnapper too nervous. There's a reason someone coined the phrase "itchy trigger finger" and I didn't want to put the kidnapper's combat cool to the test.

"You might as well give it up, Overkill. There's no way you're leaving with Scream Queen's voice."

The woman turned to look at me, but she didn't remove the gun from Devona's head. She was a consummate professional.

"What are you going to do, zombie? Drop flakes of dead skin on me?"

"So you are Overkill."

A slight hesitation. "I didn't say that."

"But you didn't deny it, either. No one would be stupid enough to pretend to be Overkill or even allow anyone to think she's Overkill. If the real Overkill ever found out, she'd hunt them down and make them pay for using her name in vain."

The woman seemed to consider that for a moment. "True." She tucked the autograph book under her arm and then, with her free hand reached up, pulled off her goggles and face mask and tossed them to the floor. She was an attractive woman in her twenties, with brown hair, brown eyes, who stood five-eight and weighed around a hundred and forty pounds. She looked normal enough, but everyone in Nekropolis knows that looks are deceiving. If something appears dangerous it's probably ten times worse and if something appears harmless you'd best turn and run screaming in the other direction as fast as your feet will carry you. I'd never met this woman before, but despite her appearance, I knew I was standing face to face with one of the most feared mercenaries in the city.

"You gave it your best shot, but you're not going to get away with the voice, Overkill. You know that. The best thing for you to do is put the autograph book down, take the gun away from Devona's head, and leave."

She smiled. "I don't know anything of the sort. I'm the one holding the gun against your girlfriend's forehead. You know I'm not bluffing when I say I'll fire if she doesn't dispel the enchantment on the doorway."

I did know it. Overkill was one of the deadliest fighters in the city. She was a human who wanted to show the monsters that ruled Nekropolis that not only could she be their equal, she could surpass them, becoming a bigger, badder monster than any of them could ever hope to be. To this end she employed weapons both mundane and mystical in her work, usually to quite deadly effect, but she accepted no enhancements to her body, magical, cybernetic, or genetic. She was one hundred percent homo sapiens and two hundred percent bugfuck crazy. She took on only the most difficult of jobs – the more suicidal, the better – and while rumor had it that she was obscenely well paid for what she did, money meant nothing to her. As Dr. Scott says in Rocky Horror, Overkill lives solely for "ze thrills".

"So you have a gun. I do too." I slowly opened my jacket to show her the 9mm resting in my shoulder holster, a souvenir from my days as a human cop.

Her smile took on a mocking edge. "Even if you were alive, there's no way you could move fast enough to draw your weapon before I pulled the trigger on mine. And as a zombie, your reflexes are way too slow to even think about it."

I didn't take any offense at what she said, mostly because she was right. "You're not the only one who carries magical toys. I have all kinds of surprises I can pull out of my bag of tricks."

"Maybe so, but that doesn't change anything. The second your hand so much as twitches in the direction of one of your pockets, my gun goes off and your lady love's half-undead brains will exit the back of her head suddenly, violently, and quite messily. There's no way she'll be able to repair that kind of damage on her own, and even a top-flight healer won't be able to help her. She won't have enough brains left to be resurrected as a zombie – not that she'd be intelligent like you. I suppose you can always hope she'll return as a ghost, but you can't ever predict who'll come back and who'll cross over to the next life, whatever that may be. So if you want her to live, you'll back off and let her remove the spell on the door for me."

So far I'd managed to keep Overkill talking, but I had no illusions that I might be able to make some sort of deal with her. She was verbally sparring with me only because it amused her. It wouldn't take her long to get tired of our little tete-a-tete and then she'd make good on her threat to kill Devona – an outcome I'd prefer to avoid, as you might imagine. Death isn't necessarily the end in Nekropolis, but it does seriously cut down on your options.

"There are a lot of heavy hitters in here," I pointed out, "and any number of them could give you a serious run for your money. If they teamed up…"

"Nice try, but if any of them were going to interfere, they'd have done so by now." Her smile turned into a leer. "Maybe they're having too much fun watching."

Unfortunately she was probably right. Most Nekropolitans aren't big on altruism, mostly because sticking your nose into other people's business in this city is an excellent way to get yourself killed – and that's just for starters. There are worse things than death in this town and they're usually standing a few inches behind you, ready to reach out and grab you when you least expect it.

"What about this?" I raised my hand and showed her the scar-tissue E on my palm. "Do you really want to defy the agent of a Darklord?"

That seemed to give her pause. Her smile fell away and she seemed to consider the matter. Meanwhile, tears of blood streamed down Devona's face and her breathing was becoming more labored. I knew the cross's silver – not to mention the holy power of the blessing that had been laid upon it – was causing her system to break down. She needed to get that cross out of her as soon as possible.

"I'd heard rumors that you'd been marked by Edrigu," Overkill said, "but that doesn't make you one of his agents. Maybe it's simply a sign that you're in his debt."

I kept my face composed – a task easily accomplished for a dead man – but I swore inwardly. Overkill wouldn't have survived in her profession as long as she has if she was stupid, but I'd hoped my bluff would work. Since it hadn't, that left me with only one other option: bluff bigger.

I took a half step forward. Overkill didn't take her gaze off me, but her finger tightened on the trigger.

"You said you'd heard rumors about me," I began. "What have you heard about what happened last Descension Day?"

Overkill's eyes narrowed and she took a moment before answering. "Word on the street is that someone tried to interfere with the recharging of Umbriel and the city was almost destroyed. You prevented that from happening."

Umbriel the shadowsun is what provides the perpetual dusky half-light that illuminates Nekropolis, but it does much more than that. It also keeps the city stabilized in the dark dimension where it's located and what's more – and I'd only recently learned this – its power keeps the city safe from the native inhabitants of this dimension, who view the Nekropolitans as colonizing invaders.

I took another half step forward. "Anything else?"

Her eyes narrowed another fraction. "They say that your body decayed to dust in the battle to preserve Umbriel and that Father Dis himself restored your physical form."

Dis was once worshipped by the ancient Romans as a god of death, and he's the ultimate ruler of the city. It was Dis who several centuries ago led the Darkfolk to leave Earth and establish their own city in another dimension, where they'd be safe from a humanity grown too numerous and technologically advanced. There are other godlike beings in Nekropolis – most notably the five Darklords that rule the city's separate Dominions – but none are as powerful as Dis… or as feared.

"It's true," I said. "I'm not going to stand here and tell you I saved the city single-handedly, and I'm not going to claim that Dis and I are best buddies and I can ring him up whenever I feel like it. But if Dis went to all the trouble of putting me back together when all the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't, I'd say that means we have more than a casual relationship. How do you think he'll react when I tell him the love of my life was killed by a certain mercenary who's too stubborn to know when she's lost? You're tough, Overkill, one of the toughest in town. But do you really think you can stand up against Father Dis?"

Her brow furrowed and for a moment I thought she was actually calculating her chances.

"You're bullshitting me." She said the words forcefully enough, but there was a slight hint of doubt in her voice.

"Probably," I admitted, "but you have no way of knowing for sure. Look at it this way: if you find out for certain that I'm bluffing, think how much satisfaction you'll get hunting me down and making me pay for lying to you."

Overkill looked at me for a long moment before slowly breaking into a grin.

"Good point." She hesitated a second longer before removing the gun from Devona's forehead and replacing the weapon in her shoulder holster. Moving with a warrior's brisk, economical motions, she stood and tossed me the autograph book. "Well played, Matt. Hope to see you soon."

In other words, she couldn't wait for a rematch. If I had a working nervous system, the statement might've caused a chill to ripple down my spine.

She gave me a nod, one professional to another, before turning and striding briskly through the crimson mist still filling the doorway. Now that she no longer carried anything of Scream Queen on her, the spell allowed Overkill to pass without any ill effect. Once she was gone, the mist dissipated, the enchantment no longer needed.

I tucked the autograph book into my jacket and then knelt next to Devona and took her hand. Bloodtears continued to stream down her cheeks and she grimaced in pain.

"I guess I don't need to ask how you're feeling," I said.

Devona spoke through gritted teeth. "You realize you just made an enemy, don't you?"

"I'll add her name to the list."

Devona kept a steel bladed knife in a sheath on her right boot. With my free hand I reached down and pulled the knife free. "This is going to hurt," I warned her.

"It already hurts," she snapped.

"Then this is going to hurt worse. Ready?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, gripped my hand, and nodded.

Though technically I didn't need to I took a deep breath and then I started cutting.