by Tim Waggoner
“Oh, yeah. Right.” I bent down to retrieve it, more than a little embarrassed, and then continued toward the door. I was half aware of some of the bar-goers watching me as I left, especially the blonde in leather.
However, it wasn’t until later I learned that as soon as I left, she got up and followed.
TWO
Papa Chatha’s shop was on the other side of the Sprawl from Skully’s, and while navigating the maze of cramped streets was never easy, this time of year it was a nightmare, both figuratively and literally. It was the anniversary of the Descension, and the Sprawl, always party central for Nekropolis, had become a mix of Las Vegas and Disneyland (assuming the Haunted Mansion had exploded and taken over the entire park) during both Mardi Gras and New Year’s Eve. Beings of every description-and quite a few who defied description-choked the streets, drinking, shouting, singing, groping, slapping, hitting, dancing, screwing…You name the verb, they were doing it. It was Halloween as scripted by Franz Kafka, with costumes and set design by Salvador Dali.
Umbriel, the shadowsun, hung motionless in the starless sky, fixed in the same position it holds day in, day out, its strange diffuse light maintaining the city’s perpetual dusk. And directly below Umbriel, rising forth from the ground like a gigantic obsidian talon, visible from anywhere in Nekropolis, rested the Nightspire, home to Father Dis, founder of Nekropolis and its absolute ruler. And in many ways, its God.
Over three hundred years ago, the Darkfolk, rather than deal with an increasingly populous, aggressive, and technologically advanced mankind, decided to leave Earth. Led by Father Dis and the five lesser Lords, they traveled to a distant dark dimension where Nekropolis was born. This leavetaking, which the Darkfolk call the Descension, is Nekropolis’s most sacred holiday.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a gigantic pain in the ass.
The Sprawl was crowded at the best of times, but this was madness. Normally, the streets were filled with traffic, vehicles of every type and description-and many that defied description-racing this way and that, drivers searching impatiently for whatever pleasures they’d come to the Sprawl to find. But because of the Descension celebration, the Sprawl was presently closed to vehicular traffic, and masses of partiers thronged the streets, as if determined to take advantage of the one day during the year when Nekropolitans could stand in the middle of the street and not risk getting run down by cars…or devoured by things only pretending to be cars.
The sidewalks weren’t much better, but I shoved my way through the crowds as best I could, past bars, clubs, restaurants, and establishments offering more esoteric-and often stomach-turning-entertainments. I’d have kept one hand on the few darkgems I carried to prevent pickpockets from taking them, but I needed my good arm to carry my detached one.
I was passing by Sawney B’s, a fast-food franchise established by descendents of the infamous Scottish cannibal, when a trio standing outside the restaurant’s cave-entrance façade turned to look at me. A bald man with large spider legs growing out of his head held a container of lady fingers, while his friends-a being who looked like a lobster in a leisure suit and a well-built woman with pythons instead of arms-sipped a marrow shake and nibbled homunculus nuggets, respectively.
The bald man was about to pop a lady finger with cherry-red nail polish into his mouth when he stopped and pointed the finger at me. “Hey, check it out! The guy’s been disarmed!”
The three gourmands laughed. I stopped walking and turned to scowl at them.
“I only need one arm to yank those legs off your head and shove them where Umbriel doesn’t shine.”
The laughter died in their throats and I continued on my way to Papa Chatha’s.
The architecture in the Sprawl is a mad conglomeration of styles-Art Deco, Tudor, Baroque, Victorian, Post-Modern, Frank Lloyd Wright, and buildings which look like structures made from regurgitated insect resin. The whole place is like an M. C. Escher fever dream. But the Sprawl is Lady Varvara’s Dominion, and zoning isn’t exactly high on the Demon Queen’s list of priorities.
After struggling through the drunken, drugged-up throngs for what could only have been an hour or so but which felt more like a handful of eternities, I saw the greenish tint against the sky which told me I was nearing the flaming river Phlegethon and the Bridge of Nine Sorrows. Papa Chatha’s was close by-finally.
And then I felt a hand on my shoulder; or rather, I felt the pressure of a hand on my shoulder, as that was all the sensation my dead nerves were capable of conveying.
“Excuse me.”
The voice was soft, feminine, and nervous. But while I’d been in Nekropolis only a couple years, that was long enough to know that in this place appearances mean jack. So I stepped forward, and whirled about, body tensed, ready to fight, holding my detached arm out before me like a weapon.
The woman-the leather-clad blonde I’d seen at Skully’s-took a step back, startled by my action. But then she regained her composure, or at least a good portion of it, and said, “I watched you handle that lyke in the bar. A most impressive performance, Mister Richter.”
She was barely five feet tall, slim to the point of being model-thin, with pale porcelain skin. Her short hair was bright blonde, almost white. Her eyes were large and red, as if from crying. Or perhaps too much celebrating. “Yeah, well the next show isn’t till midnight. Now if you’ll pardon me, I have to go see a voodoo priest.” I turned to go.
“Wait, please!”
The urgency in her voice, almost panic, made me hesitate. “Look, whatever it is, can’t it wait? I’m no expert, but as I understand these things, if I don’t get my arm reattached soon, I’ll lose it for good.”
“I…it’s just…” She looked around, as if afraid someone might be listening, though how anyone could overhear us talking in the din of celebration, I didn’t know. Hell, I could barely hear us. She leaned forward and mumbled something.
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to speak up.”
She looked around once more and then said, with exaggerated lip movements so I’d be sure not to miss it this time, “I need you.”
I was flattered, and like I said earlier, she was very attractive. Still, I couldn’t take advantage of her offer even if I wanted to. “Sorry, I don’t go in for that kind of thing anymore. I’m dead. And I don’t get off on fulfilling other people’s necrophiliac fantasies. Enjoy the festival.” This time I did go, forging a path through the partiers in the general direction of Papa Chatha’s.
“You don’t understand.” Her words sounded in my ear, and although I couldn’t feel her breath, I was sure it was cold, like a draft from an open grave.
“Vampire, right?” I said without turning around. “That’s why I didn’t hear you come up behind me just now.”
“Please, we prefer the term Bloodborn.”
“And I’d rather be referred to as Previously Living, but at the end of the day I’m still just a damned walking corpse.” I would’ve loved to shake her off my trail, but even if the street hadn’t been so crowded, I probably couldn’t. I’m not as fast as I used to be, and at my fastest, I’m still standing still compared to a vampire…excuse me, one of the Bloodborn.
So I just kept on slogging through the crowd toward Papa Chatha’s, and hoped she’d get bored soon and go find another dead man to put the moves on. I’d used my handvox-Nekropolis’s version of a cell phone-to call Papa earlier. He’d been out celebrating at his favorite hangout, the Bar Sinister, but when I told him I needed some serious repair work, he promised he’d be home when I got there. Papa’s the best houngan a dead man could have.
“They say you’re a detective.”
That’s when I realized the vampire wasn’t warm for my undead form. I felt stupid, but I wasn’t about to show it. “They say wrong. When I was alive, I was a cop, yes. But I’m not alive anymore.” I wiggled my detached arm to emphasize my point.
“But you helped that woman, the one the lyke killed.”
“Sometimes I do favor
s for people-for a fee. Preservative spells don’t come cheap, you know.”
“I am in desperate need of a favor. And I can pay. Please!”
She sounded as if she might burst into tears at any moment. But that wasn’t what made me stop. I knew Papa Chatha would only give me so much for Honani’s soul. And now thanks to that miserable lyke ripping off my arm, I needed more work done than when I’d decided to help Lyra. More work than Honani’s rotten spirit would pay for.
It wasn’t her beauty, and it wasn’t the threat of her tears. It was the money. Really.
I turned around. “All right, Miss…?”
“Devona,” she supplied. “Devona Kanti.”
“You can come along, Devona. We can talk after I see Papa. But I’m not promising anything,” I cautioned.
“Of course.” But she smiled in relief just the same.
I rotated my left arm and then flexed it a couple times.
“How’s it feel?” Papa Chatha asked.
“A bit loose,” I admitted.
Papa ran long, slender black fingers through his short gray hair, and then sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
Papa Chatha was a dignified, handsome black man in his sixties, with a tattoo of a blue butterfly spread across his smooth-shaven face. The edges of the butter-fly’s wings seemed to ripple, but it was probably just my imagination.
I scanned the shelves in Papa’s workroom, taking in the multitude of materials that a professional voodoo practitioner needs to perform his art: wax-sealed vials filled with ground herbs and dried chemicals, jars containing desiccated bits of animals-rooster claws, lizard tails, raven wings-candles of all sizes and colors, varying lengths of rope tied in complicated patterns of knots, small dolls made of corn shucks and horsehair, books and scrolls piled on tabletops next to rattles and tambourines of various sizes, along with pouches of tobacco, chocolate bars, and bottles of rum. Papa said he used the latter three substances to make offerings to the Loa, the voodoo spirits, and while I had no reason to doubt him, I’ve noticed that he tends to run out of rum before anything else.
Papa sat on the only chair in his workroom, a simple wooden stool, and smoothed his loose white pants which matched his pullover shirt. He then tapped his bare toes on the wooden floor.
I had the impression he was stalling.
“You’re a self-willed zombie, Matt. Do you have any idea how rare that is?” He had a deep, resonant voice that was usually full of good humor. But he was somber today.
“From what you’ve told me, pretty damned rare.”
He nodded. “Most zombies are merely reanimated corpses, bereft of souls, linked to the life-force of the sorcerer who raised them from the dead. It’s this link, this sharing of a living being’s life-force, which prevents their dead flesh from withering away. But you have no master.” He frowned. “How did you become a zombie, anyway, Matt? You’ve never told me.”
“Just too stubborn to die, I suppose.”
Papa looked at me a long moment before going on. “Since you have no master-”
“I know,” I interrupted. “I need you and your magic to keep my body in tip-top condition.”
Papa gestured at the collection of odds and ends that cluttered the shelves and benches of his workroom. “My meager arts can only do so much, Matt. And I fear they’ve done all they can for you.”
I don’t feel emotions the same way I did when I was alive, but I felt an echo of fear at Papa Chatha’s words. “What do you mean?”
“That this last application of preservative spells almost didn’t take. And they may not last more than two, three days.”
“You mean-”
“We’ve staved off the inevitable as long as we could, my friend. I’m sorry.”
I felt like a man who’d just been told by his doctor that he only had a short time to live. And I suppose in a way, I was.
“Nothing personal, Papa, but is there anyone else who might be able to help me? After all, Nekropolis is lousy with all sorts of witches and magicians. Maybe one of them-”
Papa shook his head. “I’m afraid not. While it’s true there are others more powerful than I, there is only so much power can do.”
I thought for a moment. “Could my spirit be caught, like Honani’s, and implanted into a second body?”
“Perhaps,” Papa allowed. “If you are willing to steal another’s form.”
So much for that. After what he’d done to Lyra, Honani deserved to be evicted from his body. But I couldn’t do that to someone else just to save my own life. If I did, in effect I’d be a killer, no better than Honani.
I stood there, trying to come to terms with what Papa had told me. I wasn’t going to die. I couldn’t; I was already dead. But my body was going to…what? Collapse into a puddle of putrefaction? Or just flake away to dust? And when it was gone, what would happen to me? Would I end up wandering Nekropolis, a disembodied spirit like Lyra? Or would my soul depart for some manner of afterlife? Assuming, of course, that there was any beyond Nekropolis. Or would I just cease to be, my spirit rotting away to nothing along with my body?
As much as I hated my mockery of a life, it was the only mockery I had, and I didn’t particularly want to lose it. There had to be a way for me to continue existing, a way that wouldn’t result in my having to steal another’s body. I’d just have to find it within the next couple days.
I shook Papa’s hand. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” I reached into my pocket, intending to hand over the soul jar containing Honani’s spirit to pay for Papa’s services.
“Keep it, Matt.” He smiled sadly. “This one’s on the house, okay?”
I didn’t know what I’d do with Honani’s soul, but Papa refused to take it, so in the end I walked out with the jar still in my pocket. I had two souls now, when what I needed was another body. Life-and death-is full of little ironies, isn’t it?
Devona was waiting for me outside, leaning up against the wooden wall of Papa’s shack, arms crossed, surveying the Descension Day celebrants in the street with a wary, nervous gaze. The crowd was thinner this far from the center of the Sprawl, but there were still a lot of loud, drunken monsters about, and they bore watching.
Devona’s leather outfit clung to her like a second skin, and even though I no longer had any libido to speak of, I couldn’t help appreciating how good she looked in it.
I had my own problem now, and no time for hers. But I thought I could at least hear her out. Maybe her problem would turn out to be something simple. And I could use the darkgems; I would need them if I was going to find someone else-someone more powerful than Papa-to extend my unlife.
“All done. I’m ready to talk.” I didn’t feel a need to mention the bad news I’d received. After all, Devona and I had just met.
“Not here. We need someplace private.”
Like I’d told her, I wasn’t a detective, no matter what she’d heard from them, whoever the hell they were, and I didn’t have an office. But my apartment wasn’t far from Papa Chatha’s.
“How about my place?”
She nodded.
A few more blocks of negotiating our way through the chaotic riot of partiers-which for Devona meant slapping more than a few males of various species and states of life and death who decided to grab her shapely leather-clad posterior-and we were there.
My neighborhood is actually one of the more mundane sections of the Sprawl, a street of urban townhouses, which, except for the fact that the bricks appear to be made of gristle, looks perfectly ordinary.
We went up the front steps, inside, and up more steps to my apartment. I had unlocked the door and was just about to grip the knob when a voice behind us said, “Hey, Matt!”
“Hell,” I muttered, and turned around to greet my neighbor. “Hi, Carl,” I said without enthusiasm. “What’s up?”
Carl was a grizzled old fart in a rumpled seersucker suit which had probably once been
white but was now mostly yellow.
He grabbed a sheet of paper from the stack under his arm and thrust it into my hand.
“Just finished printing out the latest edition of the Night Stalker News. I’m breaking a major story this week.”
I glanced at the headline: WATCHERS FROM OUTSIDE PLOT CITY’S DESTRUCTION.
“Sounds ominous, Carl. I’ll be sure to read it.”
I quickly opened the door and gestured for Devona to go in; she did and I hurried after her.
Carl scowled. “Don’t you humor me now, Matt. It’s true! None of the other media will have anything to do with the story. It’s too hot for the Tome, and even that rag the Daily Atrocity won’t touch it. If we don’t do something about it soon, we’ll all be-”
I closed the door in Carl’s rapidly reddening face, cutting him off.
“Just you wait!” came his muffled voice from the other side of the door. “You’ll be singing a different tune when the Watchers come!”
He shouted a bit more before finally moving off, grumbling to himself about idiot zombie cops.
“Who was that?” Devona asked.
“Just some nut who lives upstairs. Used to be some sort of tabloid reporter back on Earth, but he can’t find work on any of the papers in the city. The stories he comes up with are too crazy even for Nekropolis. Don’t worry; he won’t bother us anymore. He’ll no doubt head out into the street to harangue the festival-goers with his latest paranoid expose.” I crumpled Carl’s socalled “paper” into a wad and tossed it into an empty corner while Devona surveyed the room.
“It’s better than a tomb, even if it does have about as much personality,” I said, feeling only a little self-conscious. A threadbare couch, a single wooden chair-with one leg shorter than the others-and a Mind’s Eye set sitting atop a wooden stand comprised the sole contents of the living room. No pictures, no rugs, not even curtains. No toilet facilities, either, but then I don’t need them. One of the perks of being dead.
Nekropolis doesn’t have television. Instead we have Mind’s Eye Theatre. Mind’s Eye is exactly what it sounds like: psychic transmissions are received by your set and then relayed straight into your brain. The process is kind of hit and miss for me, probably because my zombie brain doesn’t get good reception, so I tend not to watch too often. I read instead, hence the reason for the piles of books stacked in the corners of the room. Right now the set was off, the large eye closed, its lashes crusted with yellowish crud, probably because it had been so long since I’d turned it on. I wondered if the set had some kind of infection, and I told myself to remember to call a repairman.
