by Tim Waggoner
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.
Maera laughed. "It's ketchup, you moron!" The demon looked at me. "Is this your idea of a secret weapon?"
"That's right." I grabbed hold of Troilus' arm, spun him around once, kicked him in the kneecap to knock him off balance, and then shoved. I'm not any stronger than I was when alive, but I had the advantage of surprise. The cyclops went stumbling backward and landed on his mythological ass in a pile of trash.
Maera laughed even harder, but the demon's laughter quickly died away as the first of the alley's hungry scavengers – attracted by the smell of the ketchup – began to swarm over Troilus, Mostly bugs at first, but larger creatures swiftly followed. Within seconds, Troilus was screaming and thrashing about, trying to shake off his attackers. But his exertions lessened, his screams diminished, and soon he lay still and quiet, and the scavengers were able to continue feeding in peace.
Maera gaped as she watched her partner's remains being swiftly and efficiently disposed of.
"Everything tastes better with ketchup," I said.
Maera turned to me, her kaleidoscope eyes flashing with fury, and thrust her steel talons toward my face.
"I already had that arm reattached once today, and I still haven't paid for it!"
Maera grinned as she tossed the limb in question aside. Her scaly hide was dotted with charred, smoking patches where the holy water had struck, but the wounds weren't enough to incapacitate her.
"Forget the arm," she said. "You're not going to need it anymore. As a matter of fact, when I'm through, you're not going to need your body at all."
The demon continued grinning as she came toward me. I'd dropped the squirt gun when she tore my arm off, and the weapon lay on the ground. I could operate it with my left hand well enough if I could get hold of it, but there was no way I could get past Maera now. I stepped back as Maera advanced, and I felt myself bump into the alley wall. Coils of thirsty leech-vine wrapped around my body, barbs penetrating my clothing and sinking deep into my flesh, pinning me in place.
"Perfect!" Maera said in delight. She stopped in front of me, close enough to reach me but not so close that she was in danger of being attacked by leech-vine. "The way I figure it, you're already dead, so the leech-vine won't hurt you. It'll probably let go of you in a minute once it realizes there's nothing inside your veins for it to feed on. But it should hold you still long enough for me to tear your head off. If you're dead, you can't be killed, and that means you'll stay conscious even after you're decapitated." She leaned in closer, and her grin widened. "I'm going to take you home and make you my pet. I might get a birdcage for you, or maybe I'll just keep you in a box. Who knows? I might start a whole new trend: pet zombie heads!"
She reached out with her steel-taloned hands, but before she could take hold of my head, I spoke.
"You're right: leech-vine can't hurt me, and I can continue to survive as just a head. But you forgot something."
Maera's thick brow wrinkled in a frown. "What?"
"My arm." I nodded toward the ground.
Maera looked down just time to see my arm – which had crawled over to us in the time it had taken the demon to advance – snatch hold of a leech-vine tendril and jam it against it her reptilian foot. The vine, realizing it had something alive to feed on, released me and whipped a dozen tendrils toward Maera. She screamed as the leech-vine covered her body and pulled her tight against the alley wall. The air was filled with soft slurping sounds as the vine began to drain the demon's blood, but I didn't look. Maybe Maera, like Troilus, had deserved what she got, but that didn't mean I had to gloat about it. I understand death better than most, and I know it's never something to celebrate.
With a sigh, I bent down to retrieve my arm for the second time that day. I tucked the limb under my remaining arm and walked out of the alley, headed back to Papa's.
"So when did you first become suspicious of Maera?" Papa asked. For the second time that day, the voodoo priest worked on reattaching my arm, but with one difference: instead of using a needle and thread to hold the skin together, he employed a hot soldering gun. I wondered what burning zombie flesh smelled like, and I was glad my nose was as dead as the rest of me.
"When Maera first approached me, she told me she was a customer of Kyra's. But Kyra specializes in living, animated tattoos that move across the wearer's skin – Maera's full-body tattoo didn't move. That didn't mean that Kyra couldn't have done the work, but it started me thinking."
Papa squinted one eye shut as he worked, and while the smell didn't seem to a
ffect him, I noticed he made sure to breathe through his mouth. "And where did those thoughts lead?" he asked.
"Maera's story sounded good on the surface, and it's exactly the sort of thing the Dominari does, but that was the problem: it sounded too good. Why would Techwolf and Lobster-Head take both Finn and Maera to their hideout? They could've given her their instructions when they first accosted the two demons on the street. Why waste time forcing Maera to accompany them to their pesthole of a neighborhood? The faster she started turning tricks, the faster the Dominari would get their money back."
"Maybe the loan sharks didn't want to conduct their business in the public eye." He gave me an embarrassed smile. "If they'd been real, I mean."
"I'll admit Maera's story wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility. The loan sharks might've wanted to make their demands on her in private, and they might've wanted her to see Finn in manacles, just to drive home the point that they were deadly serious. And despite their warning not to seek help from the Sentinels, Maera might've decided to take a chance on the zombie detective that had helped out her friend Kyra. But that was one too many might'ves for me. I decided her story was bogus, and after that, it was just a matter of playing along until I could figure out what her game was."
"And you nearly ended up as a talking head in a birdcage for your troubles," Papa said. He touched the hot metal tip of the soldering gun to my shoulder one last time, and then leaned back. "Finished. Try to take it easy on the arm for the next few days so the spells have a chance to take hold fully, all right? Same with the ear."
"Sure thing." I reached up with left hand and touched the ear Papa had also reattached. The arm worked and the ear didn't fall off, so all was right with the underworld – at least for the time being. I got up from the stool and slipped on the pullover shirt that Papa had loaned me. My suit jacket and shirt were riddled with holes from where the leech-vine had grabbed me, and while Papa had used his soldering gun to seal the punctures on my dead flesh, he drew the line at tailoring. Considering how bad his sewing was, I didn't mind.
Papa rose from his stool, turned off the soldering gun, and placed it on his workbench to cool.
"There's one last thing," I said. "Since Maera's story was a lie –"
"She didn't pay you," Papa finished. "Which means that not only don't you have the darkgems to cover the balance on your last repair, you can't pay for this one either."
"Afraid not."
Papa grinned. "No worries. You'll pay when you can. You always do." He stuck out his hand and we shook.
I'd told a small lie of my own to Papa just then. There was something more about Maera, something that I'd learned from her and Troilus. Solitude can be all well and good, but sometimes it's nice to have a friend.
"If you have the time, I'm up for a game of rattlebones," I said, then added, "If the offer's still good."
Papa looked at me, and for a moment I thought he might comment on my change of heart, but instead he grinned even wider and clapped me on the back gently, careful not to ruin his latest repair.
"Always, my friend. Always."
BOOK I
NEKROPOLIS
ONE
I was sitting in Skully's, nursing a beer that I couldn't taste, and which I'd have to throw up later, and trying real hard to look like I was minding my own business, when the lyke walked in.
He (I knew it was male only because I'd been told) stood well over seven feet tall. But he didn't have to stoop to enter the bar. Since Skully's is located close to the Wyldwood, a lot of his customers are lykes, who often wear their wildforms, and he'd designed the nine-foot high doorway to accommodate the specialized – and mutable – physiognomy of his clientele.
The lyke, Honani by name, stone-cold killer by rep, was one of the newer shapeshifter breeds, a mixblood: lyke biology tweaked by the hand of genetic engineering. But as far as I was concerned, he was an ugly mess. I could pick out badger, puma, crow and what I thought was a bit of snake around the eyes. He looked almost as ugly as one of Lady Varvara's demon kin. Almost.
Skully's doesn't offer much in the way of décor, but that has more to do with the owner's practicality than any lack of aesthetic sense on his part. The nine-foot high door is solid iron, and there are no windows so customers aren't tempted to throw anything – or anyone – through them. The walls are unpainted brick and the floor smooth concrete so Skully can hose the place down every night and remove the bloodstains. The tables are solid oak and bolted to the floor to make it more difficult to use them as weapons, and the chairs are easily replaceable cheap wood because they have an extremely short life-expectancy. There's no mirror behind the long oak bar – not only because it would be just another damned thing to break, Skully once told me, but because it would annoy the vampires.
Honani stomped across the floor, the concrete shuddering beneath his considerable weight. Even for a lyke, he was massive.
The jukebox in the corner had been singing a fairly decent rendition of "I Ain't Got Nobody," but the three heads bolted to the top of the machine had gone silent when the huge lyke entered, and now they watched him pass by with nervous gazes. The multitude of scars, bruises, welts, and fresh cuts on their flesh testified to how hazardous their job could be, and they knew trouble when they saw it.
Skully stood on the other side of the bar close to me, sizing up the mixblood. "He looks bigger than I expected," he said softly. "Meaner, too."
"You're supposed to be my friend," I replied, just as softly. "Try to be a little more encouraging."
"That was encouraging. What I really wanted to say is he looks like he could tear your head off with just his little finger."
I grimaced. "Thanks." Unfortunately, I couldn't disagree with him.
Skully's is always open, and the man himself is always behind the bar – or at least he is whenever I go there. I'm not sure what he is exactly. He looks like a stocky, broad-shouldered human, at least from the bottoms of his feet up to the top of his fleshy neck. But resting on that neck is a skull. Just a skull: no hair, no skin, no organs. Hence his name, obviously. Skully always wears a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up, a black apron, black pants, and black shoes. To the right of the bar is a second iron door which leads upstairs. I assumed Skully had quarters up there, but he'd never said anything about them, even when I'd pried a bit. There are no other servers in Skully's, and he doesn't bring drinks to your table. He'll mix your drinks when he gets around to it, you have to come to the bar to fetch them, and if you don't like it, you can get the hell out.
As Honani continued heading toward the bar, Skully's other patrons looked up to assess the nightmarish hodgepodge's threat potential. An insectine demon with tangleglow delivery tubes surgically grafted to its chitinous head sat next to me at the bar. The demon glanced at Honani once, and then quickly found an empty corner of the room to turn its attention to. A pair of blackclad vampires – one male, one female – sitting at a nearby table were playing a game of bloodshards, the game pieces appearing in the air between them, projected from the holographic implants where their eyes had once been. Though neither looked in Honani's direction, I could tell by the way the crimson shards momentarily faded that their attention was on the lyke instead of their game. The table next to the holo-vampires was occupied by two men and a woman who were working on finishing off a pitcher of beer. Their clothes were simple – flannel shirts, jeans, boots – and at first glance, they seemed human enough, but each of their eyebrows met in the middle, a sure sign that they were shapeshifters. As Honani passed, the trio growled softly and wrinkled their noses in disgust. From their reactions, I knew the three were un-enhanced lykes who had just made their low opinion of their genetically altered cousin clear. I half-expected Honani to stop and snarl a challenge at the trio, but he just kept on walking. The other lykes continued to glare at his back, but from the way the tension in their bodies eased, I could tell they were relieved he'd kept going.
"He cowed those three lykes without do
ing a thing. Impressive."
"Not helping, Skully," I muttered.
Honani continued toward the bar, passing a table where a lean heavily pierced man with a shaven head and a black T-shirt with an anarchy symbol on the front was sitting. A soft shimmer of argent energy passed over the man's piercings as Honani went by, and I knew the punk was one of the Arcane, a magic user, and that he'd just activated a battery of defensive spells. There was something naggingly familiar about the warlock, but I didn't know what. I figured I'd probably seen him around the Sprawl somewhere before. Sitting at the table next to the warlock was a fluid shadowy mass that sometimes resembled the silhouette of a person, sometimes a formless blob. I had no idea what the thing was, but as Honani walked by, the shadowy thing flowed down to the floor, became a black puddle, and then quickly oozed toward the exit and slipped beneath the closed iron door.
