Nekropolis

TWENTY-FIVE

I found Devona standing alone in front of Varvara’s bedroom mirror, looking at the image of a park at nighttime. Fluorescent lights glowed, attracting small clouds of insects, and even with the competition from the lights of the buildings downtown, the stars remained visible in the dark-blue sky.

I looked around, but Varvara was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the unconscious playmate Victor Baron had made for her. Maybe the Demon Queen was being uncharacteristically considerate and decided that Devona and I needed some time alone together. Then again, maybe Varvara had taken Magnus back to the Foundry for some repair work. Whatever the case, I was glad for the chance to be alone with Devona.

“Those are real stars, aren’t they?” Devona asked without taking her eyes off the scene in the mirror. “They look different from the illusion in the Wyldwood. Crisper, brighter.”

“Yes, they do.”

“You know, I’ve never really experienced night before. I thought I had, living in Nekropolis, but what we have here isn’t true night, is it? More like a perpetual gray. Real night seems more peaceful…soothing. And, even though everything is still, it possesses an energy all its own.”

“Maybe that’s your vampire half talking. After all, the night-true night-is a vampire’s natural environment. Still, I know what you mean.”

“I wish there was sound to go with the image,” she said wistfully. “Birds singing…” She turned to me. “Do birds sing at night?”

I smiled. “Sometimes.”

Devona turned back to the mirror. “Good. Birds singing, leaves rustling in the wind…”

Horns honking, brakes squealing, people shouting…but I decided not to mention these things just then. Why spoil the moment for her?

Devona took my hand and we stood silently and drank in the night.

Once the Renewal Ceremony had been completed and Umbriel was recharged for another year, Dis resurrected me-for the second time-and took me to Gregor’s. Varvara offered to take Devona back to Demon’s Roost while Dis and I dealt with the giant insect. Exactly how Dis and I traveled, I couldn’t tell you. One moment we were in the Nightspire, the next we were standing on a street in the Boneyard. I guess when you’re a god you can go wherever you want, whenever you want. When Lazlo later dropped me off at Demon’s Roost, I figured I’d find Devona up in Var-vara’s penthouse. I’d hoped she wouldn’t be standing in front of Varvara’s mirror when I walked in, but I wasn’t surprised to find her there.

After a time, Devona said, “At first it devastated me when Father fired me and cast me out of the Bloodborn. But now I see that Father never cared for me. A creature like him is incapable of feelings like love, tenderness, forgiveness…I failed in my duty, and I had to be punished. It was as simple as that to him. Never mind that I served him for well on thirty years. That’s only the blink of an eye to a being like him.” She turned back to face the mirror. “Thirty years…” She shook her head as if to clear it before going on. “But I’ve decided to view my excommunication as an opportunity. I’ve spent all my life in Nekropolis, most of it cloistered within the Cathedral, tending a collection of someone else’s half-forgotten memories. It’s time I created some memories of my own.”

“I think that would be a very good thing.” I paused and tried to sound nonchalant when I asked, “Any thoughts about how you might start?”

“I’m not sure. While I can’t return to the Cathedral, I’m not entirely banned from Gothtown-though I doubt I’ll ever be very welcome there.” She smiled sadly. “I suppose I could try to find work in one of the museums on the Avenue of Dread Wonders. I have the right experience, though I worry the work might be too much like tending Father’s Collection. I’d just be trading one dusty old cage for another.”

With her free hand, Devona brushed her fingers against the mirror’s glass. She continued to hold onto my hand with the other.

“I suppose I could explore the other half of my heritage…get to know my mother’s world, the world I was born into. I…spoke with Varvara while you were gone. I told her I was thinking about visiting Earth for a while, and she gave me the names of some of her people there who could help me get settled. She even gave me some Earth money.”

If my heart had been beating it would’ve seized up in my chest at Devona’s words.

She turned to face me then. “What do you think, Matt? Do you have any suggestions about what I should do?”

I knew by the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice what she wanted me to say: I love you. Please don’t go. I knew it was crazy-Devona and I had met only yesterday-but the psychic link we’d shared in the Wyldwood had connected us on such a profound level that it was like we’d known each other all our lives. Maybe it shouldn’t have made sense, but this was Nekropolis: nonsensical things happen here every day and twice on Sundays. The truth was that I did love Devona, more deeply and completely than I’d ever loved anyone before.

“I think you should go to Earth,” I said.

A look of shocked disappointment spread across her face. She let go of my hand and took a step away from me. I hurried on before she could speak again.

“Earth is as much your birthright as Nekropolis. Maybe the new life you’re looking for isn’t here-it’s there.” I gestured toward mirror. “There’s only one way you’re ever going to find out, and that’s to step through and see for yourself what’s waiting for you on the other side.”

Devona looked at me for a long moment, searching my eyes, trying to gauge my emotions. But my eyes are as dead as the rest of me, and they won’t reveal anything I don’t want them to.

When she spoke again, her tone was slightly reserved, the way it had been when we first met. “Maybe you’re right.”

Devona leaned forward as if she wanted to kiss me, but I held back. I couldn’t bear the thought of her soft living lips touching my dead ones right then. Besides, no mere physical contact could ever compare to the link we’d experienced in the Wyldwood. After a moment she pulled away.

“You take care of yourself, Matthew Richter.” Crimson tears welled in the corners of her eyes, and she fought to hold them back. If I’d been physically capable of crying…but I wasn’t.

“You too.”

She gave me a last long look before turning and walking toward the mirror.

I almost said it then: Don’t go. Stay with me. But I gritted my teeth and held the words back.

And then she stepped through the glass and was gone. I wanted to watch her walk through the park a while, wanted to see her initial reactions to physically being on Earth for the first time since she’d been a baby. But as soon as she was through, the portal became a simple mirror again, and I was left staring at my graytainted face. I’d expected my expression to be completely emotionless, but the man I saw gazing sadly back at me from the mirror looked as if his undead heart was breaking.

“I thought it best if the portal closed as soon as she passed through.”

I turned to see Varvara sitting on the edge of her bed. The Demon Queen was dressed in a skimpy red silk gown with a Chinese dragon embroidered in gold encircling the waist, its tail-which served as the robe’s belt-clutched in its mouth.

“I should have known you couldn’t pass up spying on us,” I said bitterly. “I hope you enjoyed the show.”

“I just teleported in this very moment, Matthew. I placed a spell on the mirror to let me know when Devona had gone through. I assure you, I know nothing of what occurred between the two of you-but I can guess. Noble idiot that you are, you let her go, didn’t you?”

“She was born on Earth, Varvara. She deserves a chance to get to know her homeworld.”

“You could’ve gone with her.”

“It wouldn’t have worked. I’d still need preservative spells.”

“You could always come back to get them.”

“Magic doesn’t function as reliably on Earth as it does in Nekropolis, you know that. There’s no telling how long a preservative spell would last for me there. I might decompose after only a few hours.”

“Or you might not. You might be just fine. But that’s not the real reason you didn’t go with her, Matt, is it?”

“You may have been away from Earth for a few centuries, Varvara, but I bet you haven’t forgotten what it’s like. It’s so much more than Nekropolis…Devona will have more opportunities, more chances, more choices than she ever could have here-especially since Galm made her an outcast among the Bloodborn. How could I deny her that?”

Varvara rose from her bed, walked over, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. For an instant, I felt her lips on my flesh just as if I’d been a living man, but the sensation quickly faded.

“I still say you’re an idiot, Matt, but alive or not, you’re a good man.” She smiled, and the embroidered dragon around her waist winked. Her manner grew serious. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Of course. I’m a zombie; I don’t have any feelings, remember?”

“Right. I forgot.”

I knew Varvara didn’t believe it, and for the first time in a long time, neither did I.

Lazlo was waiting for me in his cab outside the main lobby of Demon’s Roost. He offered to give me a ride back to my place, but I told him I’d rather walk. If he noticed my mood, he didn’t say anything. I turned away from his cab and started heading in the general direction of my apartment building.

Now that Umbriel had been renewed for another year, the Descension festival was officially over. Most of the partiers had already gone home to recover from the damage they’d done to themselves, but a few stragglers-or perhaps I should say staggerers-remained out, probably because they didn’t possess enough command of their higher brain functions to remember where they lived or how to get there. The streets and sidewalks were covered with trash, most of it fairly innocuous-discarded fast-food wrappers, cigarette butts, Styrofoam cups and the like-but some of the debris was a bit more disturbing in nature and didn’t bear close inspection. Already thick glutinous pseudopods were extruding from the sewer grates and stretching toward the trash, engulfing it, swiftly breaking down its molecular structure, and absorbing its mass. The Azure Slime lives beneath the streets of the Sprawl and functions as the Dominion’s waste removal service. While the Slime feeds well all year, when Descension Day is over and everyone else’s good times have ended, that’s when the Slime’s feast of feasts begins. It’s usually good about not absorbing anything-or anyone-it shouldn’t, but occasionallt it gets so excited by the grand repast laid out before it that it forgets and devours a passed-out drunk or a barely conscious partier who’s hung around on the streets just a bit too long. I was walking fast enough that I wasn’t worried about being absorbed, and the one time a bluish psuedopod did slither too close to my feet, I kicked at it, and the tendril withdrew almost sulkily.

Crimson ambulances from the Fever House slowly patrolled the streets, searching for those who’d been wounded beyond their capacity to heal themselves. When the Bloodwagon medics found someone who needed to be taken to the hospital, they stopped the ambulance, got out, and rushed to put their patient in the back of the vehicle before the Azure Slime got there. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they didn’t, and sometimes they had to pry what was left of a patient out of the Slime’s fluidic clutches and hope enough remained for them to restore to some semblance of health. The Bloodwagon medics had competition, however. Midnight-black hearses from the Foundry also cruised the Sprawl, the Bonegetters looking for dead bodies, severed limbs, or misplaced organs to salvage and return to their master. Victor Baron was always in need of fresh supplies, and the raw material his assistants recovered could keep the Foundry going for another year.

I saw more than a few predators lurking in the shadows, but those who made a move toward me took one look at the expression on my face and decided it might not be a bad idea to go in search of easier prey. Wise choice.

Now that they were no longer needed for the Renewal Ceremony, Sentinels patrolled the streets again-the Azure Slime made damn sure to stay clear of them-and I found it more than a little eerie to see the impassive golems after what had happened at the Nightspire. For a few moments, I’d actually been one of the things, and I knew I’d never look at them the same way again. Still, there was no doubt they were needed. Those Darkfolk who were unconscious but not in need of medical attention would be left to lie where they’d fallen until they managed to sleep off whatever had put them down. In the meantime, they were prime targets for thieves of all sorts, those who wanted darkgems, of course, but also those desiring to steal a victim’s memories, soul, and even his or her potential futures. The Sentinels were the police force of Nekropolis, and they had their beat to walk, and while the impassive creatures made me uncomfortable now, as a former cop myself, I had to respect that.

I don’t know how long I wandered, but eventually I found myself in front of my building. I almost expected crazy Carl to come running up to me with his latest bizarre expose, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was probably exhausted and getting some rest, like everyone else in the city. Sometimes I really miss sleeping. When you sleep, you don’t have to think. Or remember. Or regret.

I climbed the steps to the building, entered the lobby, and walked to my apartment door. As I reached for the knob, I saw the door was open and slightly ajar. My cop instincts kicked into high gear, and I silently drew my 9mm and listened. I heard nothing, so I slowly pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Devona was sitting on the couch. She put down the book she’d been reading and smiled at me. “It’s about time you got home.”

I had no idea what to say, but at least I had the presence of mind to holster my gun.

“By the time I came back through Varvara’s mirror and got down to the street, you were already gone. Lazlo was still there, though, and he gave me a ride here.” She made a face. “Did you see what he’s done to that cab? And I thought it was hideous before! When I got here and discovered you weren’t home, I used the mystical lock-picks Shrike found for us, and I let myself in.”

I walked over to the couch and sat down next to her. “I know Cleveland isn’t exactly the grandest city on Earth, but I have a hard time believing you got tired of it this fast.”

“That’s not why I came back. There I was, standing in the park, drinking in all these wonderful new sights, sounds, and smells, when I realized something: I’d forgotten to pay you for helping me find the Dawnstone. If I remember right, the price we settled on was three hundred darkgems.”

I was surprised, and truthfully, a bit insulted. “You don’t need to pay me. Dis restored my body, and I’m as good as new. Well, good as a new zombie, anyway. Besides, it’s not like I really did anything to help you. We found the Dawnstone, sure, but you ended up losing your job and being cast out from your people.”

“Be that as it may, we made a deal and I intend to honor my part of the bargain. And don’t tell me you can’t use the money. Dis may have repaired your body with his magic, but you’re still a zombie, and you still need preservative spells, right?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve decided to get out of the business of doing favors and start an official private investigation business. A real one, with an office and everything.”

“Good for you! But from what I understand, there are a lot of expenses associated with starting a new business-which is all the more reason to let me pay you. You’re going to need the money.” She paused. “Of course, I don’t have a job at the moment, and I can’t go to Father and ask to borrow some darkgems…so it might be a while before I can scrape up what I owe you.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Tell you what, let’s put it on your tab, and you can get it to me whenever you can, okay?”

She smiled back. “Okay.” She leaned close and laid her head on my shoulder, and I put my arm around her. It felt so natural, so right, and I would’ve been content to sit like that for hours. But after a few moments, Devona said, “There’s something I’ve been thinking about trying ever since we left the Wyldwood, Matt.”

“What?”

“It might be easier if I show you.” She sat up, touched her fingertips to my temples, and then closed her eyes.

I experienced a dizzying lurch, and then I was tumbling through a seemingly endless void. But it did have an end, and when I reached it, the falling sensation ceased and I found myself sitting on the grass by the edge of a pond, with Devona by my side. The sky above was a gentle blue and a light spring breeze was blowing. It was daylight, and for the first time in two years I felt the sun on my face. I looked down at my hands. Instead of gray, the flesh was a healthy pink. I turned to Devona and saw that her skin was no longer pale. We were both dressed the same as we’d been in Nekropolis, except now our clothes were clean and in good repair.

“What’s happening?” I asked. The breeze blew across my skin, and I trembled. “Where are we?”

Devona placed her fingers on my lips and gently stroked them. The sensation was so intense, I couldn’t stop myself from moaning.

“Home,” she said simply.

Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine. And you know something?

She was right.