Nekropolis

FOURTEEN

The coach neared the border between Glamere and the Boneyard, but instead of heading for the Bridge of Lost Souls, it aimed straight for Phlegethon. Before we could protest, the coach had passed through the wrought iron fence at the side of the road-somehow allowing us to pass through as well-and continued through the air as if the road had never ended, bearing us easily across the river of green fire. I wonder if any Lesk, the giant serpents that plied the flaming waters of the river, were looking up, disappointed we hadn’t fallen in. But I didn’t look out the window to check. Some things are better left a mystery.

Now that we had crossed over into Edrigu’s Dominion, Talaith no longer pursued us. But that didn’t necessarily mean we were safe. Nekropolis doesn’t do safe.

As soon as we reached the other side, the Black Rig glided to a stop on the Obsidian Way.

“It wasn’t as much fun as a car,” Lazlo said, “but I have to admit it was a pretty decent ride.” He tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Hey, it’s locked!” Lazlo gripped the handle tighter and shook it for all he was worth, but despite his demonic strength, the door remained closed. “What gives?”

“I believe it’s time to settle the matter of our fare,” Devona said.

I remembered the rumors about Silent Jack, about how much he liked the ladies. And from the look on Devona’s face, she was thinking the same thing.

“I’ll get this one, Jack,” I said loudly.

The door sprung open.

“Matt, no!” Devona protested. “You shouldn’t pay for all three of us!”

“She’s right,” Lazlo agreed. “We all three rode; we all should pay.”

I shook my head. “I’m the one who requested Lord Edrigu’s assistance, so I’ll be the one to settle the tab. Now go ahead and get out, both of you.”

Devona refused, so I looked to Lazlo. The demon sighed. “All right, Matt; if that’s the way you want it. Let’s go, Devona.” He took her hand and pulled her struggling from the coach. As strong as Devona was, Lazlo was stronger. As soon as they were both out, the door snicked shut once more, and Silent Jack appeared on the seat opposite me. This was the closest I’d ever been to him, but I couldn’t make out any facial features. It was as if he were formed entirely out of shadow, just like his cab and the horses that drew it.

The ghostly coachman held out a gloved hand, but I was fairly certain he wasn’t asking for darkgems.

“Name your price, Jack.”

He put his hand in his lap, held it out again, and then pointed to me. The message was clear-he wanted me to hold out my hand. I extended my left hand palm up. Jack reached out and with the sharp ebon nail of his index finger traced four lines on my palm. When he removed his finger, my flesh puckered and scar tissue formed in the shape of a letter E. E for Edrigu. What did it mean?

I started to pull back my hand, but Jack gripped my wrist, and with his other hand got hold of my pinkie and yanked. There was a snapping, tearing sound, and my finger came loose in his hand. He inserted the finger in his vest pocket, tipped his hat to me, and then vanished.

The door opened.

I climbed out and stood next to Devona and Lazlo. We watched as Silent Jack-who sat once more atop the coach-and his Black Rig faded from sight.

“What was his price?” Devona asked.

I showed them the mark on my palm.

“What do you think it means?” I asked.

“I’m not certain,” Devona said. “Perhaps merely that you are in Lord Edrigu’s debt. Or perhaps that you now have a new master.”

A master. I couldn’t deal with all the implications of what that might mean. I’d always been my own man, even when I was on the force in Cleveland. And now I had a master?

Edrigu was Lord of the Dead-had he perhaps repaired the damage to my body? I took a quick inventory. No, my face was still scratched, my ear still missing, my right arm and left leg still damaged. Edrigu hadn’t bothered to fix me, which meant that I was still in the process of decomposing for the final time. It didn’t make any sense. Why would Edigru have Jack put his mark on me if he wasn’t going to bother preserving me?

And then I felt an echo of a chill run along my dead spine. What if Edrigu wasn’t interested in my undead body? What if he wanted my soul?

Well, if that was the price I had to pay to save my friends, it was worth it. But I wasn’t about to give up on Devona’s case or on trying to find a way to keep my body intact. Lord Edrigu might have a lien on my soul, but that didn’t mean I had to make it easy for him to collect.

Devona noticed my pinkie was missing. I told her what had happened to it.

“I don’t understand,” she said, puzzled. “Why would Jack take your finger if you’d already paid Lord Edrigu’s price?”

“For his tip,” Lazlo said, “what else?”

Bereft of transportation, we had no choice but to hoof it. We left the Obsidian Way and began walking along the Boneyard’s cramped, narrow streets. But foot travel wasn’t a problem in this Dominion, even during the Descension celebration. With the exception of the occasional shade drifting across our path, the streets were deserted. Everything was in a state of arrested decay: the roadways buckled and bulged, bricks cracked and crumbling; the buildings covered with dead, dry ivy, shutters hanging by one hinge, roofs full of holes or collapsed entirely; the trees and bushes lining the streets twisted, gray, and barren. And, according to Devona and Lazlo, the air was still, stagnant, and stale.

We caught glimpses of movement out of the corner of our eyes, flashes of darting wraith-like shapes that disappeared when you tried to look at them directly. I seemed to be more aware of them than either Devona or Lazlo, maybe because I was dead myself. Not for the first time I wondered just how many spirits inhabited the Boneyard. If we could see them clearly, would we find the streets full of people, perhaps celebrating the Descension along with the rest of the city? Were we even now walking among-walking through-throngs of laughing, shouting merrymakers, oblivious to their presence?

The Boneyard isn’t strictly the Dominion of the dead, though. Many living beings-warm ones, as the dead refer to them-also live there. Those who for whatever reasons feel more comfortable living in the presence of death. Some simply like the quiet and solitude, while others go there only for the sake of morbid fashion. And then there are those disturbed individuals who are drawn to death like moths to a cold dark flame, such as the Suicide King and Overkill, who can only truly feel alive when they come as close to death as possible.

Me, I feel more alive around the living. Weird, huh?

Ghosts aren’t the only supernatural inhabitants of the Boneyard. Anything dead falls under the rule of Lord Edrigu: poltergeists, skeletons, liches, mummies, wights, wraiths, and others dwelled within his Dominion. Most of these creatures preferred keeping to the shadows or haunting their lairs, waiting for those curious or foolish enough to seek them out or stumble blindly across them. As the three of us walked, we caught the occasional glimpse of a shambling thing lurking in an alley or dark eyes peering through broken shutters in an abandoned building, but we made sure not to disturb them and they in turn didn’t seek to devour our souls. A good arrangement all the way around, as far as I was concerned.

Unfortunately, there was one type of dead creature more aggressive than all the others, and as we turned a corner, we saw a group of them coming down the street toward us, walking with stiff, spastic movements and groaning softly.

“Are those…zombies?” Devona asked.

There were eight of them-nine if you counted the partially decayed dog carrying a severed hand in its mouth. Three women, five men, aged anywhere from twenty to sixty at the time of their demise. Their clothes were torn and stained with patches of blood, some of it relatively fresh. Their flesh was a mottled grayish-green color, and their bodies displayed various types of damage: cuts, gouges, tears, and bite marks. A couple were missing arms-I couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy toward them-and one was missing a good portion of his scalp. It took the zombie horde, such as it was, a moment to realize we were there, but as soon as they did, they began moaning, “ Braaaaiiiinssss…” and started heading toward us as fast as their dead bodies would permit.

“Idiots,” Lazlo said. “Why are they always obsessed with brains? Don’t they know how hard it is to bite through a skull?”

“I do not want to know how you came by that knowledge,” I said.

As the zombies-dead doggie included-shuffled closer, Devona stepped closer and grabbed hold of my arm, as if seeking my protection. I wanted to put my arm around her and hold her closer, but I didn’t. I told myself this wasn’t the right time, and anyway, it wouldn’t be professional. But in truth, I was afraid if I tried, she might pull away from me in disgust. After all, right then I didn’t look, or smell, any better than the walking corpses slowly coming toward us.

“What’s wrong with them?” Devona asked. “I’ve seen zombies before-normal ones, not self-aware ones like you, Matt-and they don’t act like that. For the most part, they just stand around and wait for someone to give them an order.”

“You’re thinking of voodoo zombies,” I said. “Those are corpses resurrected by a voodoo priest or priestess for the purpose of being a servant. Those zombies-” I nodded toward the moaners-“are a more recent breed.”

“Not to mention more annoying,” Lazlo out in. “They’re always wandering out of the Boneyard and into the other Dominions, staggering around and trying to feast on the flesh of the living. The only good thing about them is that you have to shoot them in the head to kill them. Makes them good target practice.”

“Where did they come from?” Devona asked. “And more to the point, why are we just standing here if they want to crack open our skulls and slurp up our brains?”

The zombies had crossed half the distance to us in the time we’d been talking, and they were becoming more excited the closer they got, moving with more urgency, and all of them were loudly moaning, “ Braaaaiiiinssss…”

I decided to ignore Devona’s second question and answer her first. “No one’s sure where they originated from. Some say they’re the result of voodoo zombies mutating after exposure to some kind of supernatural or science-based power source. Others think that one mad scientist or another got hold of an old Earth flesheating zombie movie on DVD, saw it, and decided to see if he could actually make them.”

The zombies were almost upon us by then.

“Wherever they came from” Lazlo said, “I’d wish they’d go back and stay there.” He glanced at me. “No offense, Matt. You’re in a way different league than these moaners.”

“No offense taken,” I reassured him.

The first of the zombies was just about within arm’s reach now, and she stretched a trembling hand toward us that was more bone than flesh. Her milk-white eyes stared hungrily at us, her leathery lips moving as if she were anticipating the meal to come.

“ Brains…” she whispered softly in an eerie, hollow voice.

Devona was pressed against me so tight now that I feared she might break a few more of my ribs.

“Guys…” She sounded on the verge of panic, but before she could do or say anything else, the zombie woman paused.

Her dead nostrils flared as they took in our scents, and I was jealous. I couldn’t smell, but then I didn’t need to hunt down brains to devour, either. The zom-bie’s features twisted into a mask of pained disgust, and she stuck out a slimy black tongue.

“ Yuck,” she spat, then turned to face her fellow zombies.

She said or did nothing obvious to communicate with the others, but they stopped and gazed at her with their dead eyes. And then as one the entire group, zombiedog included, slowly turned and began shuffling away.

Devona relaxed a bit, but she made no move to step away from me. Not that I was complaining.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“That breed of zombie only feasts on living human flesh,” I explained. “Not demon, not half-vampire, and certainly not another zombie.”

Lazlo shook his head as he watched the zombies slowly depart. “That’s the other thing I hate about them: they’re picky eaters.”

Devona ignored the demon and gave me an irritated look. “You could’ve told me that sooner.”

I smiled. “What, and spoil the surprise?”

She hauled off and punched me in the arm using her full strength. It might have been my imagination, but I thought it actually hurt a little.

We resumed walking and eventually came to an open field containing the bent, broken, and rusted hulks of hundreds of cars, with a faded, weather-beaten sign proclaiming the place to be Riffraff’s Revenants. A junkyard. It made sense, I suppose. After all, this Dominion was reserved for the dead, right? And what was a junkyard other than a cemetery for machines?

Lazlo stopped and stared, a beatific expression on his hideous face. He looked like a demon who had died and, much to his surprise, gone to heaven.

“Look.” He pointed to a crumpled hunk of yellow metal that had once been a taxicab and grinned. “I thought I’d never see it again.”

“Surely you don’t think that’s yours,” Devona said.

“Look at the tires on the passenger side,” I said. “They’ve been melted.”

She shook her head. “It’s not possible.”

“Maybe this is where cars go when they die,” Lazlo said in wonder.

“Or maybe it’s part of the deal I made with Lord Edrigu. Whichever, it sure looks like your cab.”

“I’m going to check it out, see if anything’s salvageable. Maybe, with enough work, I can even get the poor thing running again. You guys go on ahead.” He started forward.

“We can’t just leave you here,” I said.

Lazlo stopped. “Why not? What can happen to me in the Boneyard? Everything’s dead here.”

I thought of the E emblazoned on my palm. “This is Nekropolis, Lazlo. Just because something’s dead doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.”

He chuckled. “You worry too much.”

“We almost died in Glamere,” Devona pointed out.

“We didn’t, though, did we?” Lazlo countered. “But my cab did. Maybe now I have chance to get it back. You two take care, and good luck.” And with that he shufled toward the remains of his pride and joy.

“Let’s go, Devona.”

“But-”

“Lazlo’s cab is his whole life. And you’ve seen him drive. Once he starts, he doesn’t slow down, and he doesn’t listen to anyone telling him to stop. He’s like that about everything. He’ll probably mess around with the cab for a few hours, realize it’s no use, mourn his loss, and then head on back to the Sprawl. Eventually, he’ll either find another cab, or he’ll be forced to go into a new line of work and the pedestrians of Nekropolis will be able to breathe a little easier.”

Devona looked at Lazlo-who was walking around the wreckage of his cab, shaking his head and muttering-one last time, and then together we continued down the street toward Gregor’s.

The streets in the Boneyard had no names, and there were no particular landmarks, just block after block of decay and dissolution, so finding Gregor’s place wasn’t easy. Eventually we passed a large factory that looked something like a medieval castle with three towering smoke stacks pumping black clouds into the already ebon sky. An intricate lattice of metal beams and wires stretched upward from the roof of the building, and electricity sizzled as it swept through the lattice, bolts cracking like thunder as they leaped from one connection point to another. A high wrought-iron fence surrounded the facility, tipped with sharp spear points to prevent any curiosity-seekers from being tempted to climb over.

Devona gazed upon the factory with wonder. “Is that-”

I nodded. “The Foundry. Home, laboratory, and production facility of Victor Baron, otherwise known as Frankenstein’s Monster.”

“It’s bigger than I imagined,” she said.

“Baron lives to create things, and that includes his facility. He’s been expanding it for over two hundred years, and he shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.”

“Do you know him?” she asked.

“Only by reputation. From what I understand, he doesn’t leave the Foundry much.”

For the last two centuries, Victor Baron had been Nekropolis’s prime supplier of what he terms reanimation technology but which most people call meatwork. Baron is responsible for the city’s Mind’s Eye technology, handvoxes, flesh computers, and anything other tech based on resurrecting the dead. Just look for the label, often tattooed into the flesh of your device: Another Victor Baron Creation. From time to time I’d toyed with the idea of making an appointment with Baron to see if he could anything to stabilize my zombie state or, better yet, return me to the living, but Papa Chatha counseled caution.

Magic and science don’t always get along as well as they could, Papa once warned me. Baron’s technology would be as likely to destroy you as help you.

I sometimes wonder if Papa feels more than a little professional jealousy toward Baron, but since my houngan has kept me going for years, I’ve decided to trust his advice.

Devona and I kept walking. Gregor’s place wasn’t far from the Foundry, and I soon recognized a broken beam here and a shattered wall there, and before much longer we stood before the ruins of a stone building: roof collapsed, walls fallen, columns broken and timeworn.

“This is it,” I pronounced. “Good thing Gregor has the columns, or I’d never be able to find this place.”

“Who is Gregor, precisely?”

“Gregor is probably Nekropolis’s best kept secret. He’s an information broker on a par with Waldemar. But where Waldemar specializes in the past, Gregor deals in the present.” I smiled. “If he doesn’t know something, it’s because it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Then why didn’t we come here in the first place?”

“Because to do so we had to go through either Glamere or the Wyldwood. It’s suicide for anyone but a lyke to travel the Wyldwood-and you experienced Talaith’s hospitality. Gregor may be the best source of information in the city, but he’s not exactly the most accessible.”

“I understand.” She surveyed the ruins. “How do we get in?”

I led the way up the cracked and broken steps and we walked carefully through the rubble of Gregor’s building until we came to a shiny black rectangle set into the ground.

“It’s me, Gregor. And I brought a friend.”

Nothing happened for a moment, and then the rectangle parted as the tiny black shapes which comprised it scurried off.

Devona took in a hiss of air. “Insects!”

“Gregor’s little friends-and his informants.”

As the roach-like bugs retreated, they revealed stone stairs leading down into the earth.

“Try not to make any sudden moves,” I told Devona. “Gregor and his friends tend to be on the skittish side.”

I took out a pocket flashlight, thumbed the switch to low, and shined its beam down the steps, sending more insects fleeing, thousands of hair-thin segmented legs whispering across stone. Gregor didn’t keep his underground lair lit, so the flashlight was a necessity for me-one which he tolerated. And even though I had no reason to fear Gregor, none that I could name, anyway, I always felt better visiting him with flashlight in hand.

We started down into the darkness, roaches scuttling away from the steps and walls as we descended. I’d been here only a handful of times since coming to Nekropolis, but I’d never gotten used to seeing so many of Gregor’s friends in one place. My dead nerve endings didn’t work anymore, but I still felt itchy when I visited.

When we reached the bottom of the steps, Devona turned around.

“The insects have closed up behind us.” Her voice was steady, but I detected a hint of nervousness beneath her words.

“They always do that; don’t worry about it.”

We were in a large, empty basement which seemed cloaked in tangible darkness, except for the small circle of gray stone around us illuminated by my flashlight.

“Is this place…filled with them too?” Devona asked me in a whisper.

“Try not to think about it,” I whispered back, and then in a normal voice I said, “Thank you for seeing us, Gregor.”

A faint clicking sound emerged from the darkness where the opposite wall should be.

“Always a pleasure, Matthew.” The voice was soft and the words rustled like insect carapaces sliding against one another. “Ms. Kanti, it’s quite an honor to meet you.”

“The honor is, uh, all mine.” As a half-vampire, Devona’s eyesight was far better than mine, and I was sure she could see through the basement’s gloom to Gregor.

“Please, both of you, come closer. But keep your flashlight pointed downward, if you don’t mind, Matthew.”

“Not at all,” I replied, and we walked forward, the carpet of insects which blanketed the floor flowing out of our path like living oil. We stopped about nine feet from the gigantic insect huddled against the basement wall. He leaned back like a humanoid, though his body wasn’t really built for it: he looked as if he might topple over any second. I wondered, as I had before, whether this was a natural position for him, or if he assumed it to seem more humanlike. If the latter, the attempt was a dismal failure.

Gregor was a gigantic version of the far smaller insects which served as his spies throughout the city. Somewhat like a roach, but his head was too large, his legs too many, and his eyes…they didn’t resemble a human’s, but then they didn’t look all that much like an insect’s, either. They looked more like obsidian gems set into the hard shell of his carapace.

A constant stream of the smaller Gregors ran up his body, over his head, and touched their antennae to the tips of his far larger feelers. They then scuttled back down as another took their place, and then another, and another. The flow of information from his spies never stopped, even when he was involved in a conversation.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I seem a bit distracted today,” Gregor said. “But the Descension celebration is the busiest time of the year for us-so much happens around the city-and the sheer tidal wave of information my children bring me can be a bit overwhelming at times. Please bear with me.”

“No problem,” I said. “So I don’t waste your time or ours, Gregor, why don’t you tell us how much you know about why we’ve come? I assume you at least know a little. After all, I did see one of your children in my apartment when I first spoke with Ms. Kanti, and I saw another in the alley where we found Varma’s body.”

Gregor made a high-pitched chittering sound which I took for laughter. “Very observant, Matthew. Suffice it say I have a fair grasp of your basic situation.”

I knew that was all we would get out of him on the subject. Gregor never gave away more information than he had to.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Of course you do. Why else would you be here?” More chittering. Then he folded his legs across his abdomen-a sign he was preparing to listen closely.

“First off, do you know who stole the Dawnstone?”

“Regrettably, no. My children have a very difficult time penetrating the Darklords’ strongholds. Their protections are too strong, too intricate.”

“Are you aware of anyone trying to fence the Dawnstone?”

“Again, no.”

I was certain Gregor’s children had every fence in town “bugged.” If he didn’t know of anyone trying to sell the Dawnstone, then no one had.

“Do you know who killed Varma?”

“My child happened late upon the scene, but arrived in time to see three members of the Red Tide departing.”

The Red Tide. And three of them. When it came to believing in coincidences, I was an atheist. “Are you aware we had a run-in with some Red Tiders?”

“I am.”

“Were the three who left the alley the same three who attacked us?”

“As I said, my child only saw them leave the alley, but I believe it was them, yes.”

It was beginning to look like our encounter with the gang members in Gothtown hadn’t been just random bad luck after all.

“Do you know where they went?”

“Alas, no. My children lost them in the confusion of the festival.”

“What do you know about veinburn?”

“It’s a relatively new drug, very powerful, created by a fusion of magic and science. It’s effective on all of Nekropolis’s species, with the exception of the completely dead, such as zombies and ghosts.” He paused. “Since you’re the city’s only self-willed zombie, I have no idea whether it would affect you or not. It would be interesting to find out, wouldn’t it?”

“After what happened to Varma, I think I’ll just say no, if you don’t mind. Who’s making the stuff?”

“The Dominari is distributing veinburn. But the drug itself is made by the Arcane.”

Arcane? That meant: “Talaith.”

Gregor’s head bobbled, his version of a nod, I suspect. “And the plants which are used to make veinburn are cultivated in Glamere.”

“That’s surprising,” Devona said. “I wouldn’t expect Talaith to use technology, not after what Matt told me about how she demands her people practice pure, natural magic-and especially with what happened with the Overmind.”

“Times change,” I said. “And the Darklords will do anything to gain an advantage over each other-including abandoning their principles. Assuming they ever had any in the first place.” I suddenly recalled who Devona’s father was. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, you’re right; even Father might be persuaded to set aside his hatred of technology if he thought it was to his advantage.” She thought a moment. “Could the Hidden Light be mixed up in this somehow? After all, they manage to smuggle holy items into Nekropolis. Perhaps they also bring in technology.”

I answered before Gregor could. “Doubtful. The members of the Hidden Light are capable of a lot of things, but working closely with Darkfolk isn’t one of them. They have a deep aversion to associating with those of a supernatural persuasion.”

“Then why do they deal with you?” she asked.

“Because I was killed while foiling one of Talaith’s plots. They view me not as a monster so much as a victim of a Darklord’s evil.” I turned to Gregor. “What do you think? Could the Hidden Light be in on this?”

“I must concur with your assessment, Matthew,” he said. “The Hidden Light has always worked alone in the past.”

That settled, I returned to my original line of questioning. “Do you know where The Dominari have their lab set up?”

“Somewhere in the Sprawl, I believe, but the exact location is unknown to me.” Gregor’s mandibles clicked together once, twice, an action I think was intended to substitute for a smile. “The Dominari may not be Darklords, but their protective spells are still quite formidable.”

“I don’t suppose you know who Varma’s veinburn connection was.”

“Actually, I do, or at least, I have a suspicion. The only veinburn dealer I’m aware of is a demon named Morfran who works out of the Sprawl.”

I frowned. “Only one dealer? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like the Dominari to work on so small a scale.”

“I have the impression they’ve been field-testing veinburn,” Gregor said, “trying to get the formula just right.”

“I suppose.” Still, it didn’t sound like the Dominari’s style. Like the criminal organizations back on Earth, they always went for the money, and they weren’t exactly known for their patience. “Can you think of anyone in particular who would gain from stealing the Dawnstone?”

“You’re asking me to theorize. You know how much I dislike doing so in the absence of facts. But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say someone who wished to harm Lord Galm-or perhaps even Father Dis. And in all likelihood, that would be another Darklord.”

“Talaith,” Devona said. “Relations between my father and Talaith might be cordial at the moment, but they haven’t always been so. And if Talaith is behind the creation of veinburn-”

“She could have gotten Varma hooked on the stuff, and used his addiction as leverage to get him to steal the Dawnstone for her,” I finished. “It certainly seems to fit. No wonder she was ready for us when we tried to cross her domain. Augury, my dead ass. One of her people probably saw us asking around about Varma in the Sprawl and alerted her that we were investigating the Dawnstone’s theft and figured there was a good chance we’d consult Gregor.”

“And the Red Tide?” Devona asked. “They came after us after we’d visited Waldemar-long before anyone could’ve been aware of what we were doing.”

“Maybe Talaith’s got an informant in the Cathedral, someone who saw us there.”

“Why the Red Tide, then? They hardly seem like the type to work for Talaith.”

“Darkgems are darkgems, no matter who pays them to you. And the Red Tide’s tech can’t come cheap, not when it has to be imported from Earth.”

Around us, Gregor’s children began getting restless. A sign, I knew, that Gregor himself was becoming bored and was eager to move on to another topic.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Not that I can think of,” I answered.

“Then on to the matter of payment.” If there’s such a thing as an insect version of a purr, Gregor’s words were it.

Before I could respond, Devona stepped in front of me and said, “I’ll pay.”

“No you won’t,” I said.

She turned to me, her face set in a determined expression. “You paid Waldemar’s price, Lord Edrigu’s, and Silent Jack’s. It’s my turn.”

“I could afford to pay them, Devona. I…Papa Chatha gave me some bad news. My body can no longer be preserved by magic. I’ll be gone in a couple days, maybe less.”

Gregor didn’t react; he’d probably already known. But Devona came forward and took my hand.

“I thought your skin looked a little grayer than when we first met, but I told myself it was just my imagination. It wasn’t, though, was it?”

I shook my head.

“And you’re spending the time you have left helping me.” She sounded bemused, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it.

I felt a need to tell her the truth. “My motives aren’t unselfish. I was hoping that if we recovered the Dawnstone, you would intercede with Lord Galm on my behalf and ask him to help me make Papa a liar.”

“So you haven’t given up.”

I smiled. “It’s not in my nature.”

“Then the prices you paid-a page from your life, bearing Edrigu’s mark, losing your finger-you paid them even though you still intend to continue living. Uh, existing.”

“Yes.”

She nodded, as if in understanding, but of what I had no idea. She released my hand and turned back to face Gregor. “I shall pay this time.”

“Actually,” Gregor said, his antennae quivering as if he could barely contain himself, “since the information I’ve provided may benefit both of you-Devona, by helping recover the Dawnstone, and Matthew, by providing a chance to avoid discorporation-you must both pay.”

“What?” Devona nearly shouted, setting Gregor’s children to rustling nervously. “That isn’t fair!”

Gregor leaned forward, and although nothing else in his attitude changed, I sensed a hint of menace in the motion. “This is my home. Here, I decide what is and isn’t fair.”

From behind us came a soft whispering, like a distant wave breaking on the beach. I turned to see Gregor’s children had left the ceiling and the walls and were massing behind us.

I put a hand on Devona’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Information is the only coin he deals in.”

“Quite so,” Gregor affirmed.

Devona sighed. “Very well, then.”

I looked behind us; the mound of Gregor’s children was growing smaller as they returned to their places.

“Ms. Kanti, you shall pay first.” Gregor settled back once more. “As Matthew told you, all that interests me is information. But as I mentioned earlier, there are some places in Nekropolis-only a few, mind you-where my children have a difficult time venturing. Among these places, as I indicated, is the Cathedral. I want you to escort one of my children into Lord Galm’s stronghold and then, after a period of precisely one month, escort it out again. You need do nothing else to pay your debt to me.”

Devona considered briefly, and then said, “Agreed.”

“Excellent.” Gregor did or said nothing more, but one of his insects detached itself from the others and scurried up Devona’s leg, over her waist and chest, along her neck, across her jawline, and then darted into her ear.

She screamed in pain and clapped her hand to the side of her head. Blood trickled out from between her fingers. She swayed and then fell to her knees.

I went to her and gently pulled her hand away from her ear. I saw no sign of the insect and, thanks to her half-vampire physiology, the wound of its passage was already healing.

“I apologize. I should have made clear what I meant by escort.” Gregor chittered softly.

“If you’ve hurt her-”

“No need for dramatics, Matthew. My child must be hidden inside Ms. Kanti in order to be able to penetrate Lord Galm’s wardspells. Despite the initial…unpleasantness of the process, she will not be harmed by hosting my child, and when a month is over, it shall depart and Ms. Kanti’s body will heal the minor damage caused by its leavetaking.” He rubbed four of his legs together, maybe in anticipation of soon gaining access to a place so long denied him.

“I’m all right, Matt,” Devona said, sounding a bit shaky but otherwise unhurt. I helped her to stand. “It feels…odd,” she said. “But that’s all.”

“All right, Gregor,” I said. “My turn. Let me guess: you want me to carry one of your little spies too, so in case I do rot away to dust, I can ferry it over to the afterlife with me.”

More chittering. “Hardly. You have only to answer one simple question for me, Matthew: how do you feel about being a zombie?”