The Nekropolis Archives (3 page)

  Maera continued. "Kyra's the one who did my…outfit." She gave me a tentative, almost shy smile. "I saw her today, and she told me how you helped her with the cyclops, and I thought…" Her fragile smile fell away and she looked as if she might cry.

  "You're in trouble, and you need help." I didn't need to be a detective to figure this part out.

  Maera nodded.

  "Tell me about it."

  She drew in a trembling breath and started talking.

"They're holding him on the second floor," Maera whispered.

  We were standing close together in an alley across the street from the building in question. So close that, if I hadn't been dead, I could've felt Maera's breath in my ear as she whispered. I was disappointed I couldn't. There are a lot of things about being alive that I miss, and you can probably imagine most of them, but it's the small, unexpected things I miss the most. Like a woman's breath on my skin.

  This was one of the seamier neighborhoods in the Sprawl, and that's saying something. The sidewalks were cracked – when they were paved at all – and the buildings looked like they were made out of crumbling sandstone instead of brick. The windows were boarded or barred, and probably protected by cheap wardspells that were just as likely to backfire and injure the residents as repel intruders. Leech-vine covered walls and roofs, and rat-like vermen skulked through the shadows, fighting over whatever rancid treasures they came across. The few pedestrians that were either brave or foolish enough to walk the street moved with quick, determined strides, expressions coldly neutral, gazes alert for any challenge or threat. None of them appeared to be armed, but I knew they were, some of them heavily so. No one came here without a means of protecting themselves, myself included.

  The building Maera had pointed out looked no different than any of the others on the street, but then, if what she'd told me was true, it was important the occupants didn't draw attention to themselves.

  "How many?" I asked.

  "I only saw two. The rest of the building was deserted."

  
Appeared
deserted, I amended mentally. "How long ago was that?"

  "It was early, before noon. I was too upset to notice the exact time, though."

  According to Maera's story, this morning she and her lover – a male demon named Finn – had been on their way to the SixLegged Café, one of Nekropolis' more specialized eateries, for a breakfast of live cockroaches and blood-fattened tics. But before they could reach the restaurant, a pair of men approached them and drew obsidian daggers with intricate runes carved into the blades. The instant nausea that surged through Maera's gut told her the weapons were Dire Blades, knives created specifically to slay supernatural creatures of all kinds. Of course, as sharp as the daggers were, they were quite capable of killing non-supernatural beings as well. Dire Blades were so lethal to supernaturals that it hurt just to hold them, and there was only one group in the city tough enough to wield them: the Dominari, Nekropolis' version of the Mafia

  The two mobsters – a werewolf with cybernetic implants and a creature that resembled a bipedal lobster with opposable thumbs on its claws – told the demon lovers that they had come to collect the darkgems Finn owed them. Maera had known Finn loved to gamble – after all, they'd met at a tangleclaw table – but she hadn't known that her boyfriend had been dumb enough to borrow money from a Dominari loan shark to finance his hobby. A hobby, as it turned out, that he was spectacularly bad at. Finn had been sure he'd win enough to pay back the darkgems he owed along with the steep interest the Dominari toughs wanted. But Finn had hard luck and even less skill, and he didn't have a single gem to his name, and Maera didn't have much more than what it would take to pay for their buggy breakfast.

  The Dominari sharks were less than pleased, but when they saw how beautiful Maera was, not to mention the striking way she "clothed" herself, they decided to cut Finn a break. They wouldn't kill him on the spot…
if
his gorgeous girlfriend used her unnatural assets to earn the money Finn owed them. Maera started to tell Techwolf and Lobster-Head that she had no intention of prostituting herself for them, but before she could get more than a couple words out, the lycanthrope pricked Finn on the back of the hand with his Dire Blade. That brief touch was enough to cause the demon to scream in agony, and Maera, tears streaming from her kaleidoscope eyes, told them she'd do anything they wanted, just as long as they didn't hurt Finn anymore. After that, the two Dominari toughs escorted the demon lovers to this blighted neighborhood and marched them into the abandoned building across the street. Inside, in one of the upper rooms, they shoved Finn onto the floor and bound him in manacles made from the same enchanted obsidian as their Dire Blades, rendering him helpless. Then Maera received her instructions on just how much money she had to make and how fast she had to make it in order to pay back the debt Finn owed the Dominari and save his life. And she was warned that if she so much as looked in a Sentinel's direction, let alone told her tale of woe to one of the golems, Finn would die for certain, and she'd be next.

  Filled with despair but seeing no other choice, Maera returned to her usual stomping grounds in the Sprawl, picked out a street corner to conduct business on, and prepared to do what she had to do. But before she could attract her first customer, Kyra saw her and came over to talk, specifically, to tell her about what this zombie PI she'd hired had done to a certain greedy cyclops earlier. Maera realized then that she
did
have another choice, and after asking Kyra where I could be found, the demoness abandoned her street corner and hurried off to search for me.

  At least, that's the story Maera told. But she was a demon, and her kind had been known to tell a fib now and again. I was withholding judgment on her tale until I'd had a chance to check it out more thoroughly.

  "You stay here and keep out of sight," I told her. "I'll go see how the land lays."

  Without waiting for her to reply, I left the alley and started across the street. Instead of walking, though, I shuffled, dragging my left leg and allowing my arms to dangle loosely at my sides. I canted my head to the left and let my mouth gape open. If I'd been able to produce any saliva, I'd have drooled. There aren't many benefits to being a zombie, but instant camouflage was one of them. Walking – or rather shuffling – dead are common in Nekropolis, so much so that people pay them little attention. As long as I don't moan "
Braaaaaaaiiiinssssss
…" and try to take a bite out of someone's skull, once I go into my act, I might as well be invisible.

  I made it to the sidewalk in front of the Dominari sharks' hideout without drawing any undue attention to myself. I doubted I'd done so unobserved, though. The sharks would either have sentry wards on the building to warn them of anyone's approach, or if they were too cheap to pay for the spellwork, one of them would be keeping watch on the street through a window, mostly likely one of the two on the second story facing the street. I couldn't simply look up and check without risking blowing my disguise. Regular zombies aren't bright enough to recognize a building for what it is, let alone understand what windows are. But there was a way to make that work for me.

  I continued shuffling toward the building and bumped into the wall, like a goldfish bopping its nose against the glass of its bowl. I was careful to avoid the leech-vine clinging to the front of the building. It couldn't do much to me since I was already dead, but it would snag hold of me nevertheless, and I couldn't fight my way free without ruining my act. I stumbled back from the wall, waving my arms erratically and looking around in confusion: right, left, down, and then up. If anyone was watching, all they would see is another brain-dead zombie perplexed by the seemingly magical appearance of a large solid object in his path. And when that zombie looked up, he saw a dingy, tattered curtain drawn away from the right second-floor window, and then a second later, he saw it fall back into place. I didn't get a look at whoever had been standing at the window. Considering the dark light cast by Umbriel, everyone in Nekropolis is usually standing in shadow of one sort or another. But the movement of the curtain was enough to let me know that someone was indeed on the second floor of the building, and that whoever it was knew a zombie had come calling. I just hoped they bought my act and decided I was a harmless nuisance to be ignored.

  I stumbled around for a moment as if unsure what to do next before finally heading down the sidewalk toward the alley at the side of the building. I was tempted to look back across the street to see if Maera had done as I'd told her, but I didn't want to give her away in case I was still being observed. I shuffled into the alley, did my bump-into-the-wall bit again, and looked up. Leech-vine completely covered this side of the building, so thick that I couldn't tell if there were windows here or not. I decided to take a chance that if there were, the vines would block any view of the alley, and I hurried to the other end at my usual lessthan-breakneck-but-faster-than-a-shuffle speed. I knew the longer I took to reconnoiter the place, the more time whoever was inside would have to get suspicious.

  Behind the building was a cross alley that provided a lovely view of the backsides of another row of vine-covered hovels. Detritus filled the alley, along with rats, cats, dogs, vermen, and other less-identifiable scavengers, all sifting through the open landfill for whatever they could find to eat, including each other. But I hadn't come here to observe the local fauna in action. I'd come in search of a back door, and I'd found one. The problem was, it was wide open and someone was standing in the doorway grinning at me – someone who now possessed a fancy new ocular implant in place of the eye I'd poked out earlier.

  "Hello, Troilus. Whoever your cyber-doc is, he, she, or it did a decent job." In some ways, the technology in Nekropolis is more advanced than Earth's. The physiognomy of supernatural creatures – given their overall strength and healing capacity – lends itself far more easily to biomechanical and genetic enhancement than humans. Troilus' eye implant was a little crooked, it wept pus, and from the way the skin around it had blistered, I knew the machinery was running hot. The image resolution was probably substandard too, but all in all, not bad for what had surely been a rush job completed by a street surgeon.

  The cyclops was bald, though he had a curly black beard. He was heavily muscled, and wore a white tunic, black belt, and sandals. The front of the tunic was stained reddish brown, and it took me a moment to realize that Troilus hadn't changed it since this morning. He'd either been in one hell of a hurry for revenge, or he was a mega slob. Probably both, I decided.

  "I think I actually did you a favor," I said. "Your cyber-eye makes you look twice as intimidating as you did before. Of course, it also makes you look twice as ugly too, and I didn't think that was possible."

  Troilus' large hands curled into equally large fists. "If you got any more jokes, you better tell them fast," he growled. "Because when I get hold of you, the first thing I'm going to do is rip out your tongue so I don't have to listen to you yammer on anymore."

  I contemplated a witty rejoinder, trying to decide between
I don't give tongue on the second date
and
Go to hell, asshole
, when I heard trash rustle behind me. "Hello, Maera. I was wondering when you were going to show up."

  I turned around and, sure enough, there she was, looking beautiful as ever, kaleidoscope eyes glittering, lips stretched into a cold, cruel smile.

  "There's no Finn and no Dominari loan sharks," I said. "Just a pissed-off cyclops and his demon friend."

  "Business associate," Maera corrected. "You didn't think Troilus planned to go into the protection racket by himself, did you?"

  "I suppose he's the brawn and you're the brains."

  Her smile widened, pliable demon flesh stretching farther than a human's could without tearing. I'd seen similar effects before, but it was still disturbing to watch. "Actually, we're both brawn."

  Maera's attention-getting form blurred and shifted, and when she'd finished rearranging herself, instead of a beautiful naked woman with a black body-suit tattoo, standing before me was a hulking reptilian demon with steel talons jutting forth from its thick scaly fingers.

  "This your real shape?" I asked.

  Maera shrugged her massive shoulders. "I'm whatever I choose to be." Her voice had become high-pitched, brittle, and grating, like metal fragments and glass shards rubbing together.

  "That's true of everyone, one way or another," I countered.

  A heavy hand gripped my shoulder, and Troilus turned me back around to face him. "Spare us the philosophy," he said. "I got enough of that from the damned Greeks."

  "Tell me one thing before you start dismembering me." Before Troilus could deny me, I hurried on. "You could've jumped me anytime. Why bring me here, and using such an elaborate cover story to boot?"

  It's hard to read the expression of someone whose only eye looks like a large camera lens, but a smug tone crept into the cyclops' voice. "To humiliate you, of course. You think you're so smart, so tough…" He sneered. "How does it feel to know that you've been outsmarted by a pair of street crooks?"

  "If it ever happens, I'll let you know." While Troilus had been talking, I'd reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a handful of narrow white plastic pouches. I took one between my thumb and forefinger, aimed it at Troilus' new eye, and squeezed. The packet burst under the pressure and thick red liquid splattered his lens. Before he could react, I took hold of the remaining packets, squeezed them in my fist, and smeared the gooey red results onto the cyclops' tunic to join the stains already present.

  "What the – what is this gunk?" Troilus reached toward his ocular implant to clear his lens, but all he succeeded in doing was smearing it around more.