Nekropolis

FIFTEEN

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come now, Matthew, it’s a simple enough question. How do you feel about being a zombie?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Gregor chittered loudly. “Why do I want to know anything? Because it is there to be known, because I do not already know. Because by knowing, I can perhaps come to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Everything, of course. But to answer your initial question more specifically, I wish to know because you are one of a kind, the only self-willed zombie in Nekropolis, perhaps the only one that has ever existed. And unlike normal zombies, you are aware and can provide valuable insight into your state of existence.”

“I’d like to help you, Gregor, but I don’t experience emotions the way I did when I was alive. I’m not sure I have any feelings about being a zombie.”

Gregor’s mandibles clacked together slowly- tik-tik-tik-tik -a gesture and sound which I’d come to know as a sign that the big bug was losing patience.

“Come now, Matthew. You forget to whom you are speaking. My children have watched you many times since your arrival in Nekropolis. You pretend to help people solely for monetary compensation in order that you might purchase preservative spells. But the lengths you go to in order to help them, the risks you take, indicate a man who is interested in far more than just collecting a paycheck.”

“When I take on a job, I do it to the best of my abilities. That’s how I am.”

“And is that why you chose to help Lyra? She was a spirit, Matthew, and unable to pay you.”

“Not true; I got to keep Honani’s soul.”

“Which you did not know would happen when you decided to aid Lyra. You helped her because you felt sorry for her and because her death filled you with righteous anger and you wanted to make her killer pay. You cannot deny it.”

Gregor was right, I couldn’t. “So?”

“So that proves you still feel, Matthew. Now answer my question and discharge your debt to me.”

I looked at Devona and thought of what she had said to me in the alley where we’d discovered Varma’s body. If you don’t feel anything, perhaps it doesn’t have anything to do with your being a zombie. Perhaps that’s who Matthew Richter really is-a man who was dead inside long before he died on the outside.

Had she been right? Was that really who and what I was?

I heard the soft whisper of Gregor’s children gathering behind.

“Matt-” Devona said warningly.

“How do I feel, Gregor? Even in Nekropolis I’m an oddity-a freak in a city of freaks-the only walking dead man with a mind of his own. And that mind is trapped in a body that’s little more than a numb piece of meat. I can’t feel warm or cold, can’t feel the wind on my face. Can’t smell, can’t taste. I’m cut off from the world around me, on the outside of life, looking in and trying to remember what it was like to be a man, to be Matthew Richter, instead of just a pale memory of him.

“And now my undead body’s preparing to betray me, getting ready to fall apart like so much overcooked chicken slipping off the bone. And despite my hope that Lord Galm might have the power to restore me and that he might deign to do so if I can help Devona recover the Dawnstone before I rot away completely, I’m still scared that none of it’s going to matter, my body will cease to be and my spirit-” I showed the E on my palm to Gregor. “I suppose Lord Edrigu will get that.”

I lowered my hand. “You want to know how it feels to be me, Gregor? Right now, it well and truly sucks. Satisfied?”

Gregor slumped against the wall, legs curled across his abdomen and stroking it slowly with a faint rustling sound as of a mass of dry twigs being rubbed together. His attitude was that of a someone who has just had a very large and very good meal. Or great sex.

“Extremely. Thank you, Matthew. And good luck on your dual quests to locate the Dawnstone and discover a way to avoid your impending dissolution. I truly hope you succeed. Nekropolis is a far more interesting place with you inhabiting it.”

I felt humiliated at having been forced to bare my soul for Gregor’s amusement, and that Devona had been a witness. “I hope your next visitor is a very big can of sentient bug spray.”

I turned to go, and Devona followed. Together, we walked up the temporarily insect-free stairs, Gregor’s chittering laughter following us all the way.

We walked through the dilapidated streets of the Boneyard in silence for a time after that. The wraith images of the domain’s inhabitants seemed to be sharper now, maybe because we’d moved further into the Boneyard, or maybe we were just getting used to them. A few tried to talk with us, but they made no sound, at least none we could hear, and after several moments of attempting to communicate by gesture, they gave up and drifted away.

When Devona finally spoke, she said, “What do we do now?” No mention of my embarrassing little scene back in Gregor’s basement, for which I was quite grateful.

“We have several possible avenues of investigation at this point. We could try to find Morfran, the demon veinburn dealer; we could try to locate the drug lab the Arcane and the Dominari have set up in the Sprawl; or we could try to learn who hired the Red Tide vampires that killed Varma and tried to kill us.”

As if on cue, a crimson mist rolled forth from a nearby sewer grate.

“No need to bust your rotting ass looking for us, zombie,” Narda’s voice drifted forth from the vermilion cloud. “We’re right here.”

The fog dissipated to reveal Narda, Enan, and the Giggler.

Enan raised his right hand. The fingers blurred and shifted, becoming five large hypodermic needles, the points glistening with liquid veinburn. He grinned. “Time to plug and play, Deadboy.”

The vampiric trio looked the worse for wear since last I’d seen them, but not as much as I’d expected. There were still traces of burns on their faces and hands, but the worst injuries had been covered by patches of what appeared to be blue rubber that seemed to have bonded to their skin. Narda’s missing eye hadn’t regenerated; rather, in its place was a camera lens which protruded several inches from the socket. Their tech bodysuits, which had been short-circuiting as they fled from us in Gothtown, had been repaired, but sloppily-exposed wires, mismatched parts, metallic glops from hurried soldering. The suits sparked here and there, and the power hum was overloud and sounded a bit strained. I imagined the air contained the faint hot metal and plastic smell of machinery working too hard.

“The Boneyard isn’t exactly your normal stomping grounds,” I said. “How’d you find us?”

“We want to find someone, they’re good as found,” Narda said.

“You can’t hide from the Tide,” Enan added.

The Giggler giggled. Big surprise.

“What’s with the blue gunk?” I asked. “New fashion statement?”

“Plaskin,” Enan said. “Helps burns heal faster-even for Bloodborn-but they still hurt like a bitch.” He gnashed his fangs, and his eyes blazed with anger. “But not as much as you’re going to hurt before we finish you.”

The Giggler lived up to his nickname once again, and I decided now was not the time to point out that my body was incapable of feeling any sensation, including pain. It would just make them more determined-and inventive.

“I’d have thought you’d be used to burns by now,” I said. “After all, don’t the crosses embedded in your foreheads burn your flesh?”

“Sure they do,” Narda said. “They show the Red Tide’s hardcore, and that we’re not afraid of anything.”

The Giggler let forth another peal of his high-pitched, girlish laughter. I was really getting tired of that sonofabitch. I bent down and picked up a broken brick from the worn and cracked street.

The Red Tide vampires laughed.

“What do you think you’re gonna do with that?” Enan asked.

“This.” Throwing isn’t easy as slow as I am, but I’ve had plenty of practice. With a wind-up and then a halfthrow, half-lurch, I hurled the makeshift missile as hard as I could at the Giggler’s forehead. It struck the cross set into his flesh, driving it inward. The Giggler screamed and clawed at his forehead, but it was no good. The cross’s corrosive effect on vampire flesh and bone, aided by the impact of my brick, had buried the holy object in his brain. Steam curled forth from the wound, and then rays of pure white light shot out of his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. The light winked out and Giggler now had nothing but open ruins where his sensory organs had been. He stiffened and fell forward onto the broken pavement. I was confident he was dead, but I half expected him to start giggling again anyway.

“You worm-eaten motherfucker!” Narda shrieked.

For a moment, all Narda and Enan could do was stared in stunned amazement at the body of their fallen comrade-long enough to allow me to pull out my garlic and holy water squirt gun, which was mostly empty. But before I could start pumping the plastic trigger, Narda pointed and tendrils of wire shot forth to wrap themselves around Devona’s arm.

“Put the gun down, Deadboy, or little Miss Leather here’ll get a few million volts. Enough to fry her up good.”

Vampires, for all their strengths, have a surprising number of weaknesses. Beyond the ones everyone knows about-sunlight, holy objects, wooden stakes- are others such as silver and fire. Vampires aren’t as flammable as zombies by any means, but fire can kill them.

I dropped the squirt gun to the ground with a plastic clatter.

“Kick it away.”

I did.

Enan grinned. “Now we’re going to have ourselves a little fun. Put your hands above your head, zombie, and step toward me slowly. Make any funny moves, and Narda turns your friend into charcoal. Got it?”

I nodded and did as he ordered.

“Stick out your arm,” he commanded.

I did; I knew what was coming. “Veinburn won’t work on me. I’m dead. All the way dead, not like you overgrown mosquitoes.”

“Then you won’t mind if I do this!” Enan plunged his needle fingers into the unfeeling flesh of my forearm. After a few moments, Enan yanked his hand away-tearing five ragged holes in my gray skin in the process-and the needles thickened into fingers once more.

“Well?” he asked. “How’s it feel, deader?”

“I told you, I’m not-” I broke off, my body beginning to shake all over. I collapsed to the pavement not far from the Giggler’s corpse, flipping and flopping like a fish tossed live into a frying pan.

“I’ll be damned again!” Narda crowed. “This shit’s even stronger than they said it is! Look at him go!”

“I bet that’s the best he’s felt in a loooooong time!” Enan laughed.

My exertions became so severe that I rolled over onto my stomach, and when I came around on my back again, I’d drawn my 9mm and leveled it at Narda’s head. If I’d still been a cop, I’d have given her a warning. But I wasn’t a cop anymore.

Two silver bullets apiece later, Narda and Enan had joined the Giggler on the ground. I stood, walked over to the bodies, reloaded, and pumped another couple rounds into their hearts, just to be sure.

Devona had untangled herself from Narda’s wire. “I take it the veinburn didn’t affect you. Nice acting job.”

“What can I say? I was in drama club in high school.” I examined the patches of plaskin on the forms of the dead vampires. I wondered if the substance might help fend off my decay, but I decided it probably wouldn’t. The plaskin likely only worked on living tissue. No loss; I don’t look good in blue anyway.

Devona gazed at the remains of the Red Tide members. “Makes it rather difficult to question them, doesn’t it? Their being dead and all.”

“You complaining?”

She smiled. “Not in the slightest. But it does narrow our options.”

“The Red Tide has to get its technology somewhere, and the only Darklord enamored of technology is Varvara. But none of this strikes me as her style. Varvara’s charming, fun, and she’d betray her best friend in a heartbeat if there was a laugh in it, but the Red Tide are too declasse for her. My money’s on the Dominari. They have the connections to import technology from Earth and supply it to the Red Tide, and from what Gregor told us, the Dominari are involved in the manufacturing and testing of veinburn, which Enan possessed in abundance.”

I put my gun away and shook my arm; it felt heavy and swollen. “Stupid vamps. Not only doesn’t this stuff work on me, you’d think they’d have realized I’d need a functioning circulatory system to distribute it throughout my body.”

“What will happen to the veinburn?”

“It’ll just sit in my arm until I have it removed. Papa Chatha can do it for me. If I’m still around in a few days.” As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. It was one thing to think those kind of morbid thoughts, another to voice them.

“Oh, Matt, I wish you had told me earlier.”

“We only met a few hours ago, Devona. My situation has no bearing on your problem or on our efforts to resolve it.” I paused. “Besides, I didn’t want you worrying about me.”

“That’s sweet.” And then she did something that surprised the hell out of me. She leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I hadn’t been kissed since I’d died, hadn’t even really been touched-in a non-violent way, that is-by a woman.

I didn’t know how to react, so I didn’t. Just stood there and looked at her. Pretty smooth, huh?

“I want you to know something, Matt. No matter whether we find the Dawnstone or not, I intend to ask my father to help you.”

Now I really didn’t know what to say. But Devona didn’t wait for a reply. “I assume we’re off to the Sprawl again?”

I nodded. “To locate either Morfran or the drug lab.” I smiled. “And I promise not to kill anyone else before we’ve had a chance to talk with them.”

You know the old punchline? You can’t get there from here. Nekropolis can be like that sometimes. To get back to the Sprawl, we had to either go through Glamere once more-definitely not an option-or pass through the Wyldwood, Dominion of Lord Amon, King of the Shapeshifters.

When I brought this up to Devona, she said, “Couldn’t we take a shortcut across the grounds of the Nightspire?”

The Nightspire rests on a small island in the middle of the pentagram that is Nekropolis. This island is surrounded by the fiery waters of Phlegethon, the same waters which enclose the city and separate the five Dominions from each other. But in addition to the main bridges, there is a second set of smaller ones which connect each section of the city to the Nightspire. Devona’s suggestion made sense on the surface. It would make our journey to the Sprawl far simpler and less deadly if we could walk from the Boneyard to the Nightspire, pass the bridge leading to the Wyldwood and take the one which led to the Sprawl.

“Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. During my time here, I’ve had occasion to travel a good bit of the city. I had the same idea as you a while back and tried to cross over one of the bridges to the Nightspire.”

“What happened?”

“It didn’t work. Powerful winds buffeted me, nearly knocking me into Phlegethon. When I retreated, the winds ceased. I later learned from Gregor that the wind, which he said was caused by the invisible Furies which guard the Nightspire, repels all who attempt to cross-not including the Darklords, of course-unless they are accompanied by one of Dis’s representatives.”

“So that’s out then,” Devona said. “And we can’t risk another encounter with Lady Talaith.”

“I’d rather not,” I admitted.

“Which leaves only the Wyldwood.”

“Talk about Scylla and Charybdis.”

Her eyebrows rose. “I didn’t realize you were so well read.”

“Yeah, well, when you don’t sleep, eat or go to the bathroom anymore, you have a lot of extra time for reading. Let’s go. And on the way, maybe you can talk me out of it.”