Dead Streets

FOUR

I may have only been a decapitated head, but I still had my brain, so the first thing I did was send out a telepathic SOS to Devona. I'd never tried to communicate with her through our psychic link at such a great distance before, but even if she did receive my message I knew there was no way she could reach me in time to prevent the carrion imps from chowing down on me – both sections of me.

I'd heard my body fall at the same time as my head struck the ground, so presumably my other half was lying close by. I wondered then who'd done this to me, sliced me in two and left me lying on the street for scavengers to snack on. I had any number of enemies, but there was only one person I'd seriously pissed off that evening: Overkill. Devona's words came back to me then.

The only way for her to regain face is to confront the person who forced her to stand down without so much as raising a hand against her.

Well, I certainly couldn't raise a hand now – or any other body part, for that matter. But I had a hard time believing Overkill was responsible for my current state. She was certainly capable of ambushing me and slicing off my head before I could react, no doubt about that. But my attacker hadn't said a single word to me and Overkill would have definitely wanted me to know she was the one who'd taken me out. But I didn't have time to worry about that now. I needed to survive long enough for Devona to reach me – assuming she'd received my psychic call for help and was on her way. If she hadn't… I thrust the thought aside and focused on not becoming imp food.

They approached cautiously, clawed feet scratching against the pavement, breath softly hissing in and out of their nostrils as they scented the air.

"You really don't want to do this." My voice came out as a rough croak, but it seemed I still possessed enough of my throat to speak. How I managed to do so without a pair of lungs to move air over my vocal cords, I'm not sure. I decided to put it down to zombie magic. A severed head is much scarier if it can talk, right?

The scuffling stopped and was replaced by a tense silence. I pictured a crowd of carrion imps gathered around my hooded head, standing frozen, eyes agape as they realized what they'd taken for a hunk of discarded meat was, in fact, alive – or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

A few seconds passed and then one of the braver imps spoke. "Yeah? Why not?"

His words were tough enough, but his voice quavered. Individually carrion imps are cowards. They're only truly dangerous when gathered together in packs. If I could keep them off balance and play on their fearful nature I might be able to prevent them from swarming me. It wasn't much of a plan, I admit, but it was all I had.

"Because I'm lying in wait for prey, and while I'd rather feed on something more tasty than imp, I'll settle for you if I have to."

A few more moments of silence and then the imps began whispering among themselves. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I had a good idea. Eventually the brave one spoke again.

"What sort of creature are you that lies in wait for prey concealed by a piece of cloth?"

Damn good question, I thought. "I'm a… a sharpsting," I said, thinking fast. "I'm waiting for some curious passerby to reach into the hood. When they do, I'll sting them and implant an egg in their body. The egg will carry my consciousness, so I'll leave my current body and take up residence in my new host. Once my egg hatches I'll begin to slowly devour the host from the inside over the course of several months and when the host dies I'll leave the hollowed out corpse in search of a new home."

I was impressed with myself for coming up with such a good bluff on the fly. But then the imps – all of them – began talking.

"You fill up that hood pretty good. Big as you are, you don't seem like you'd be a very effective ambush predator. I think-"

"Would a creature like you need to be sentient at all, let alone possess the power of speech? How does thinking and talking help you find new hosts? It's not-"

"Even if you are what you say you are, why should we be afraid of you?"

"Yeah, you can only lay an egg in one of us."

"That's right. The rest of us will eat the body you leave behind and then kill your new host – and then we'll devour him too."

"Seems like a win-win scenario for us."

"Besides, 'sharpsting' is a stupid name," one of the imps concluded and there were murmurs of agreement all round.

I'd known carrion imps could talk, but because they were scavengers, I'd assumed they weren't too bright. I'd assumed wrong and it looked like it was going to result in my skull being picked clean by the smart little bastards.

I heard claws scratch pavement as the imps started toward me again. I tried to turn my head from side to side in the hope that the movement might frighten them, but I couldn't do it. The most movement I could manage was to open and close my eyes and mouth and wiggle my tongue. Not exactly the most intimidating of actions.

I felt tiny hands grab hold of the hood's cloth and begin searching for an opening, as if I were some kind of treat the imps were trying to unwrap. This would be an excellent time for Devona to get here, I thought, with more than a hint of desperation.

That's when I heard the first imp scream. It was quickly followed by a second scream, then a third, and then dozens of imps were shrieking in terror and I heard them scuttle away en masse as they fled into the alley. I felt a tug on the hood and I allowed myself to hope that help had arrived.

"Devona? Is that you?"

No reply, just another tug on the hood. Then I felt myself being dragged slowly across the pavement away from the alley, which meant I was being dragged toward the street. I wasn't currently connected to my body, so technically I couldn't feel a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, but that's exactly what I did feel when I realized what was happening. The Azure Slime had hold of my head and was pulling me toward the nearest sewer grate. This was worse than being eaten by carrion imps. At least they would've left my skull behind. Once the Azure Slime was done digesting me there'd be nothing left but a memory.

No one knows for certain what the Slime is or where it came from. Some believe it migrated from Earth with the other Darkfolk when they first came to Nekropolis, while others believe Varvara created the amoeba-like monstrosity to keep the streets of her Dominion clean, while still others believe the Slime evolved from all the nasty stuff that's been dumped into the Sprawl's sewer system over the centuries. Whatever the truth is, while the Azure Slime mostly confines itself to feeding on trash left in the Sprawl's streets and gutters, if anything remains on the sidewalks too long, the Slime will try to grab hold of it and drag it down into the sewers where the main mass of its body can begin the digestion process – and that includes pedestrians, which as you might guess, tends to discourage loitering. When the imps had decided to check me out, they'd ventured too close to the mouth of the alley and lingered there too long. They'd drawn the Slime's attention and, from the way it had sounded, a number of them had been snatched by the Slime before the rest had managed to escape. Unfortunately for me the Slime had discovered my head and was now retracting its pseudopod, pulling me hood and all toward the main mass of its body where I would be absorbed and then digested. Since I don't feel pain I wasn't worried that being digested would hurt, but I did wonder how long it would take before enough of my brain was destroyed for me to lose consciousness. If I managed to retain consciousness long enough there was a chance that Devona might be able to find me, even down in the sewers, trapped inside the Slime's viscous blue goo. But that all depended on how fast the Slime took to metabolize the goodies it scavenged and I had no idea how long that was.

Now would be an even more excellent time for Devona to get here, I thought.

I felt a sharp tug on the hood, pulling me in the opposite direction from the street. The Slime tugged back and I heard a soft grunt as someone yanked harder.

"Let go, damn it!"

Swaddled within the hood's darkness, I smiled.

"Your timing is as impeccable as ever, my love."

Devona gave one last tug before the Slime finally gave up and released me. Devona shifted me around in her hands to get a better grip and then pulled the hood off of me. I glanced to the side and caught a glimpse of the Azure Slime's pseudopod illuminated by the greenish glow of a streetlight as it slithered back into the sewer.

"Better luck next time," I muttered. Then I looked up at Devona. "Guess you heard me calling."

"Good thing, too. You were about to become an appetizer for that thing." Devona was working to keep her tone light, but I could hear the worry in her voice. Even in Nekropolis it's more than a bit disconcerting to find yourself having a conversation with your lover's decapitated head. "What happened?" she asked.

I gave Devona a quick rundown.

When I was finished she frowned. "Do you think Overkill's responsible?"

I tried to shrug, but considering I currently lacked shoulders, I settled for answering her verbally. "Maybe. It doesn't seem like her style, though. Not public enough."

"True. But we can worry about whodunnit later. Right now we need to get your head reattached to your body."

"Papa's not going to be happy when we come knocking on his door." Papa Chatha had done a number of various repairs on me over the years – reattaching body parts from ears all the way up to arms. But I'd never asked him to reattach something as complicated as my head before. I feared it might be beyond the houngan's skill, but he was someplace to start. "Do you think you can manage to carry my body by yourself?" Devona may be petite but her half Bloodborn physiology makes her stronger than an ordinary human and I'd learned not to underestimate what she was physically capable of.

"Maybe," she said. "If you'll just tell me where it's at, I'll give it a try."

I blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"Your body. It's not here. Just tell me where to find it and we can…" She broke off. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I thought of the sounds I'd heard after my head had been cut off: shuffling footsteps, rustling cloth, grunts of exertion… There was a good reason my body wasn't anywhere in sight.

It had been stolen.

"I've heard of body snatchers before," Papa Chatha said, "but this is a new one on me."

Papa is a dignified, handsome black man in his early sixties with a tattoo of a blue butterfly spread across his smooth shaven face. At times the edges of the butterfly's wings seem to ripple, but it's probably just a trick of the light. He sat on a simple wooden stool, tapping his bare toes on the wooden floor as he considered my predicament, Devona sitting across from him on a second stool, my head cradled in her lap.

While Papa thought, I scanned the shelves in his workroom, taking in the multitude of materials that a professional voodoo practitioner needs to perform his art: wax-sealed vials filled with ground herbs and dried chemicals, jars containing desiccated bits of animals – rooster claws, lizard tails, raven wings – candles of all sizes and colors, varying lengths of rope tied in complicated patterns of knots, small dolls made of corn shucks and horsehair, books and scrolls piled on tabletops next to rattles and tambourines of various sizes, along with pouches of tobacco, chocolate bars, and bottles of rum. Papa says he uses the latter three substances to make offerings to the Loa, the voodoo spirits, and while I have no reason to doubt him, I've noticed that he tends to run out of rum before anything else.

Papa frowned, smoothed his loose white pants which matched his pullover shirt, and then sighed.

"I suppose the first thing we need to do is find out where your body is," he said. "Assuming that it hasn't been destroyed already. Or eaten." He rose from his stool and walked over to one of his worktables and began rummaging through the bits and pieces of voodoo paraphernalia scattered across its surface.

"You really need to work on your bedside manner, Papa," I said.

He replied without turning around to look at me. "You want a reassuring bedside manner, go visit the Fever House. You want someone who can sling a little goofer dust for you, I'm your man."

"What I don't understand is why someone would want a zombie's body," Devona said. I couldn't turn my head to show her the withering look that was on my face, but she must've realized how her words sounded, because she immediately added, "Sorry, Matt."

"A corpse is a useful ingredient in any number of spells," Papa said. He picked up an object that resembled an inside-out geode covered with chicken beaks, considered it for a moment, then shook his head and put it back down on the table. "A man who's been resurrected from the dead has even more uses, and considering how rare Matt is…" Papa shrugged. "I don't fully understand the magic that animates him, but I understand enough to know that he's one of a kind. And the more unique an object is, the more power it has."

I died destroying something called the Overmind, a psychic weapon created from the combined brains of powerful psychics, and I'd used a magical device called the Death Watch to do it. I died the precise instant the energies of both the Overmind and the Death Watch were released and somehow they'd combined to resurrect me as a fully intelligent, self-willed zombie. I was no drooling mindless thing shambling about on an endless quest for fresh brains to devour, nor was I the undead slave of a sorcerer. I was my own man, albeit a dead one. The Overmind had been, you'll pardon the expression, the brainchild of the Darklord Talaith, ruler of the Arcane, and I'd been on the top of her shit list ever since. And that gave me another suspect to consider in my bodynapping.

"Maybe Talaith is responsible," I ventured, but I immediately realized my mistake. "No. Even if for some reason she wanted to decapitate me, she'd never take my body and leave my head behind. Revenge is personal with her and she'd want my head if for no other reason than to rub my nose in the fact that she's finally gotten even with me."

"Probably," Papa said. "Then again, Talaith's crazy. Who knows what she might do, or why?"

"You know, Papa, you may be a good houngan, but it's your optimistic worldview that keeps me coming back," I said.

Papa grinned as he glanced over his shoulder at Devona and me. "All part of the service." He continued speaking as he turned back to his worktable and resumed rummaging through its junk. "By the way, Matt, I caught your interview with Acantha on the Mind's Eye tonight. You have a real knack for dealing with the media."

"You know me," I said. "Always gracious and cooperative during an interview."

I considered the possibility that Acantha might have been the one who attacked me – or at least arranged for the attack to be carried out. I'd embarrassed her on her own show in front of thousands of viewers and there was no way the gorgon would ever forgive that. But as with Talaith I had a hard time seeing Acantha carrying out her revenge anonymously. Not only would she want me to know she was making me pay for humiliating her on the air, she'd want to broadcast her payback for the whole city to see. The more I thought about it the more unlikely a suspect Acantha seemed. Still, I couldn't rule her out, just as I couldn't rule out Overkill or Talaith or several dozen others who'd I'd managed to piss off since I'd arrived in Nekropolis. You know the old saying about how you can judge a man's success by how many enemies he has? Well, right then I felt like the most successful dead man in Nekropolis.

"Aha! I thought I had one of these lying around somewhere." Papa turned back around to face us once more, holding out his hand to show us the round flat object resting on his palm.

"It's a compass," Devona said.

"Yes, indeed," Papa confirmed. "And when I'm finished with it, it'll lead you to Matt's body."

I gazed doubtfully upon the compass. "It doesn't have a needle," I pointed out. "And even if it did it wouldn't work in Nekropolis, would it?" When the Darkfolk decided to leave Earth they'd chosen to build their new city in a dimension of darkness called the Null Plains. I'm not sure the place is even a planet… not like Earth, anyway. But from what I understood the Null Plains didn't have magnetic poles, so a compass wouldn't function.

"It's not that kind of compass," Papa said. "Instead of magnetism it employs sympathetic magic. In particular, the Law of Contagion."

"What's that?" I asked, but it was Devona who answered.

"'Once connected, always connected,'" she said, sounding as if she were reciting from memory. "It means that once two things have been in contact they're forever after bound on a magical level. The longer they've been in contact the stronger that connection will be."

Papa nodded. "We're lucky. Since your head was left behind we can use it to locate the rest of you."

I glanced at the compass. "I hate to break this to you but my head's too big to fit inside there."

"We don't need your whole head. Just part of it." Papa grinned as he showed me what he held in his other hand: a pair of pliers.

"Head east, Lazlo."

"You got it, Devona." Lazlo hit the gas and his cab swerved alarmingly as he rounded a corner.

"Take it easy on the curves, OK?" My voice was stronger now, louder and clearer, thanks to some of Papa's hocus pocus.

"Relax, Matt," Lazlo said. "No need to lose your head." He guffawed, a sound something like a cross between a shotgun blast and a whoopee cushion's fart.

Lazlo's a demon cabbie who works the Sprawl, though he'll drive you to other Dominions if the fare's right. In my case the ride was always gratis because Lazlo refused to take any darkgems from me after I'd helped him out of a jam not long after I'd first become zombiefied. Whenever I needed a ride Lazlo would appear as if by magic and ferry me to my destination. Once when I'd asked him how he knew whenever I needed a lift, he just shrugged – at least, I think that's what he did. Lazlo looks something like a cross between a mandrill and a ferret, with a little carp around the edges, and with his inhuman physiognomy it's sometimes hard to read his gestures. "I keep a close eye on you, pal," is what he told me.

His answer might be a bit on the stalkerish side but Lazlo's always been there when I needed him, so I did my best to ignore the creepiness factor.

Lazlo's cab is a patchwork monstrosity cobbled together from metal and swaths of what I hope is animal hide and I've seen the vehicle open its hood to reveal a very large mouthful of sharp teeth. I'm careful to avoid walking too near the front of the cab just in case it isn't too picky about what it eats.

Given the bizarre nature of Lazlo's ride I wasn't sure it had anything resembling a suspension but, if it did, it was in dire need of new shock absorbers. I felt every little dip and bump in the road as if they were major seismic events and if Devona hadn't been holding me in her lap and steadying me by keeping her hand on top of my head, I'd have been bouncing around the cab's interior like a giant pinball covered in rotting meat. In her other hand Devona held the compass Papa Chatha had given us. In place of its missing needle it now had one of my back teeth. As we navigated the twisting, winding streets of the Sprawl the tooth spun slowly around as it tried to get a fix on my missing body.

I thought back to Papa's extraction of the tooth. It had taken him several minutes to pry the thing loose from my jaw and the entire time I was giving thanks to whatever deity might be listening that the nerve endings in my mouth were as dead as the rest of me.

We weren't simply relying on the tooth compass to locate my body, though. Papa had also promised to put the word out on the street that someone had stolen my body. I might've made my fair share of enemies over the years but I've made plenty of friends, too, and Papa would make sure they were all keeping their ears to the ground for any word of what might've happened to my body or who might be responsible.

"Magic's all well and good," he'd said. "But sometimes friends are more help than the most powerful spell."

Devona – always security-conscious – had worried that putting the word out about my current condition would let my enemies know that I was vulnerable to attack, but Papa had promised he'd be discreet about who he spoke to and we decided to leave it at that.

Lazlo glanced in the rearview mirror at us, an action which never failed to alarm me. The way Lazlo drives it's never a good idea for him to take his gaze off the road.

"What's the range on that thing?" he asked.

"Papa wasn't definite," I told him. "A couple miles, give or take, was his best guess. We'll just have to drive around until the compass gets a hit."

"No prob. I'm at your service for as long as it takes. We may have to stop and refuel, but maybe we'll get lucky and my cab'll find something to snack on along the way."

"I hope you're joking," I said.

Lazlo burst out with another of his deafening laughs.

"You're a funny guy, Matt!"

Thankfully I was spared from having to learn anything more about his vehicle's dietary needs when Lazlo turned on the radio. A DJ's voice full of exaggerated enthusiasm blared from the tinny speakers.

"You're tuned to Bedlam 66.6, Nekropolis's hit machine! Coming up this hour we'll have tunes from Hard Rock Zombies, The Crypt Kicker Five, and Jude's Hammer, but first here's a blast from the past from Kakophonie, in honor of Scream Queen not losing her voice tonight. Better luck next time, Overkill!"

I groaned as the band's so called music blasted through the cab. Sometimes Nekropolis is more like a gossipy small town than a large city and word about any scandal – the juicier the better – travels more swiftly than a flock of vampire bats equipped with jet packs.

"I hope Overkill didn't hear that," Devona said. "She'll be more determined than ever to get back at you." She paused. "That is, if she isn't the one who stole your body in the first place."

It was true. As pissed off as Overkill undoubtedly was at me, the last thing I needed was for people to start gossiping about how I'd stopped her. The bad publicity would only turn her already fiery fury to a white-hot incandescence.

"I'll worry about that later," I said. "First, I have to find my other half."

"I thought I was your other half," Devona said.

"No, you're my better half."

Devona gently ruffled my hair. "You're sweet. Hopefully we'll be able to locate your body soon. But if we don't… well, things won't change between us. You know that, right?"

"Yes."

As I might have mentioned earlier I'm not anatomically functional in certain areas but, with Devona's ability to create a mindlink between us, I didn't need to be. We're able to join on the astral plane, merging spirits in a way that's more deep and profound than any physical lovemaking could ever be. As long as my mind was intact we'd still be able to bond psychically, although the prospect of Devona carting me around in a hatbox the rest of our lives didn't exactly appeal to me. I forced myself not to think about that. Back on Earth I'd never been the type to borrow trouble and my time in Nekropolis – where living, dead, or somewhere in between, existence is precarious at best and fleeting at worst – had only strengthened that trait.

Instead I turned my thoughts to the conversation Devona and I had before I'd left the Midnight Watch. I'd been telling myself that I kept apart from Devona's business so as not to interfere, but now I wondered if that wasn't just an excuse. Maybe I hadn't gotten to know her employees because I hadn't wanted to bother. Not long after we'd first met Devona told me that I'd died inside a long time before my physical body did. Her observation had hurt at the time, all the more so because she was right. I'd been trying to be more emotionally available – as a therapist might put it – ever since, but I still wasn't very good at it. The next time any of the Midnight Watch team invited me out for a drink after work maybe I should accept, I thought. Unless it was Bogdan.

"Devona, about the things I said earlier…"

I felt her hand atop my head tense.

"Don't worry about that now, Matt," she said, just a little too quickly. "For now, let's concentrate on finding your body."

Her words were delivered in a calm, rational tone, but through our link I could feel how much she was still hurting. As strong and intelligent as she was I still sometimes forgot how much she depended on my support and tonight I'd failed to give it – or at least, it seemed that way to her, and that was all that mattered.

But she didn't want to talk about it right then and I had to respect that. And truthfully, I was grateful to postpone what promised to be an uncomfortable conversation a little while longer. So I tried to send a psychic message through our link, a combination of I'm sorry and I love you. I didn't know if she received it or not, but she patted my head and even though it made me feel a bit like a cute pet sitting on his owner's lap, it reassured me.

Lazlo drove on and Devona and I continued to watch the tooth compass, waiting for it to indicate where my body was.

It was well after midnight but the Sprawl is always open for business. The streets were thick with traffic and Lazlo wove erratically in and out of lanes with disturbing regularity, earning a multitude of raised middle fingers – many with claws on the tip – horn blasts and snarls from the more feral drivers. At one point he nearly sideswiped the Headless Horseman and ended up with splattered pumpkin smeared across his rear window. I was just glad the Horseman hadn't glanced into the cab and seen me or else the specter might've been tempted to replace his missing head with mine. Then again, if he had, at least I'd experienced a smoother ride on the back of his ghostly steed than I would've in the backseat of Lazlo's nightmare conglomeration of a cab.

We crisscrossed the Sprawl, cruising the main drag of Sybarite Street and passing such well-known landmarks as the Freakatorium and the Grotesquerie, as well as the House of Dark Delights and Pandemonia. We even circled the high rise of Demon's Roost, the seat of Varvara's power. But no matter where we went my tooth continued its slow rotation around the compass's face, never once indicating my body might be near.

We drove past the crystalline pyramid that was the Eidolon Building where the city's major media outlets were housed. The Daily Tome, Bedlam 66.6 and Mind's Eye Theatre all have offices there and I wondered if even then Acantha was inside, seething over how I'd humiliated her on the air and planning revenge – assuming she hadn't already taken it by stealing my body, that is. But if she had orchestrated the theft of my body it wasn't located anywhere near the Eidolon Building, according to the compass.

Our drive continued like this for several hours and I'd just about resigned myself to living the rest of my unlife as a talking head when the tooth finally swiveled to point northeast of our current location.

Devona told Lazlo and I followed up by ordering him to step on it.

I immediately regretted my words as the cab shot forward as if suddenly rocket propelled. Devona lost her grip on me and I tumbled to the floor and bounced around a bit before she managed to get hold of me again and settle me back onto her lap. The severed head routine, to use a metaphor that technically didn't apply at that moment, was becoming a real pain in the ass.

Devona kept a close eye on the tooth compass and called out course corrections to Lazlo as he drove. Fifteen minutes and uncountable traffic violations later we found ourselves at the edge of the Sprawl, close to its border with the Wyldwood, the Dominion of the lykes. The businesses there tend to cater toward their shapeshifter neighbors, mostly restaurants that served hunks of raw meat and mugs of blood – few self-respecting lykes would go near a glass of aqua sanguis. They'd rather drink animal blood just as long as it was the real thing. Devona instructed Lazlo to pull up to a rundown shack of a restaurant called Tooth and Claw. He parked in front of the establishment, earning wrinkled noses and low throated growls of disapproval from a group of lykes on the sidewalk. But the cab just growled right back and the lykes suddenly remembered a pressing engagement elsewhere and departed.

"Keep the motor running, Lazlo," Devona said.

"No problem. Holler if you need help, though."

I promised we would, then Devona opened the door and, holding me tucked beneath her arm, climbed out of the cab. In her other hand she held the tooth compass and she kept her gaze fixed on it as she stepped onto the sidewalk.

"You think the restaurant owner stole my body because their scavenger customers have been craving filet of zombie?"

I was joking – mostly. But lykes came in all types, not just the typical werewolf kind. Werehyenas, werevultures… there were any number of lykes who preferred decayed meat to fresh.

"Let's hope not," Devona said, not taking her eyes off the compass. "Otherwise, while we might be able to get the bulk of your body back, we'll have to wait a while, and I don't think you'll appreciate the state it's in once we recover it."

"I didn't realize you possessed a crude streak, Ms. Kanti."

"Must be the bad influence of the company I've been keeping lately, Mr. Richter." She paused. "Bad news. The compass is pointing directly at the restaurant. Should we go in?"

I thought about it. Without my body I didn't have my jacket and that meant I didn't have any of the various toys I carry around for dealing with occasional annoyances, like a restaurant filled with territorial lykes who would be less than thrilled to have a half-vampire carrying a zombie head enter their establishment. Most lykes can't stand the smell of undead flesh, zombies in particular, so neither of us would receive a warm welcome if we went inside.

"Let's go around the back," I suggested. "Maybe we'll find a way to sneak in."

In lyke culture the strongest predators have the highest status and the lower ranking predators, along with the herbivores, serve them. So the kitchen staff would be composed of lower caste lykes, which meant they'd be easier to deal with than the alphas dining at the Tooth and Claw. At least, that's what I hoped.

Devona carried me down an alley alongside the ramshackle building. I had a few bad moments when we passed a group of carrion imps sifting through a pile of trash – I'll never look at the little bastards the same way again – but otherwise we made it to the other side of the alley without any trouble.

The rear of the Tooth and Claw looked like the back of any other restaurant: Dumpster alongside the aisle wall, back entrance lit by a single light overhead, a metal bucket lying on the ground next to the door to collect cigarette butts and gnawed clean bones left by staff during breaks.

I was trying to come up with some kind of story that we could use to tell the kitchen staff to get them to let us in and take a look around when Devona stopped walking.

"Uh, Matt? The tooth isn't pointing to the restaurant any more. It's pointing to the Dumpster."

I wondered then if my earlier joke hadn't proved prophetic, if maybe some lyke chef had carved the dead meat from my bones for his scavenger customers and then tossed my bones into the Dumpster. After all, the tooth compass was designed to locate my body – or what was left of it. There was no guarantee what state my body would be in when we found it.

The Dumpster lid was down, and fearing the worst, I told Devona to open it. She tucked the compass into a back pocket – though considering how tight her leather pants were, I have no idea how she managed to do it – and then reached up with her free hand, gripped the Dumpster lid, and threw it open. As short as she is she couldn't see into the Dumpster, so she gripped my hair and held me up as high as she could so I could take a look. There, lying atop a mound of animal bones and bloody rags, lay my body. The arms and legs were askew but they didn't appear to be broken and aside from the wound on my neck where my head had been attached, my body looked none the worse for our time apart.

My body wasn't the only thing in the Dumpster, though. Standing on my chest was a single carrion imp. The tiny creature ignored me as he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Hey, guys! You're not going to believe what I found!"

"Call Lazlo," I told Devona. "We need to get the rest of me out of there, pronto."

Devona shouted Lazlo's name and at the same time a pack of eager carrion imps came racing out of the alley.

I hoped Lazlo was a fast runner.