Dead Streets (20 page)

  There were two separate aspects to his change. First came the standard shift from humanoid to animalistic features and in Rex's case that animal was a wolf. Thick tufts of brown fur sprang forth from his skin, his fingernails darkened and lengthened into ebon claws, his ears became pointed and moved farther up on his skull and his mouth and nose blended into a canine snout. His already intimidating teeth became longer and razor sharp and his eyes – while still blazing with human intelligence – became a feral yellow. But as impressive as that change was, the second part of the transformation was what really made you want to drop a load in your shorts.

  Rex began to grow. And when I say grow, I don't just mean Rex put on a few dozen extra pounds of monster muscle and another foot or two of scary height. This son of a bitch
grew
. He stood about 5'5" in human form but as he assumed werewolf shape he increased in size to seven feet tall, eight, nine, ten – and he kept on growing. His clothes had been loose on him when he'd started changing, but they soon grew tight, then split at the seams and fell away to become nothing more than torn rags lying on the ground.

  Everyone in the vicinity was watching the spectacle of Lycanthropus Rex's transformation – everyone, that is, except Rondo. He was watching me and grinning like it was Christmas morning and Santa Claus had brought him a pair of gold-plated hand exercisers.

  "You liking this, Richter?" he asked, grinning. "Because I'm loving it!"

  Fifteen feet… twenty… twenty-five… and Rex's growth showed no signs of stopping.

  One of the things about monsters is that they're so used to being well, monstrous. Like animals facing off in the wild, they often seek to intimidate one another with displays of size, strength and ferocity before attacking, partly because – like Rex – they enjoyed scaring their victims first. And if, also like Rex, you can scare other monsters… well, it just doesn't get any better than that. So while Rex was busy frightening the piss out of everyone within eyeshot, I had a few precious moments in which to act.

  First I checked my pants pockets to see if I was carrying anything that might prove useful in combating a gargantuan wolfman. I usually carry all my best weapons in my suit jacket, though, and what I had left was even less deadly than the sneezing powder I'd used against Rondo. And even if the Sentinel hadn't taken my jacket and gun from me back at the Nightspire none of my weapons would've had much effect on Lycanthropus Rex. My 9mm was loaded with silver bullets that had been dipped in a solution of holy water and garlic along with a few other herbs and chemicals given to me by Papa Chatha that make them effective on just about any creature I might encounter in Nekropolis. The silver in my bullets might've killed Rex when he was normal sized, but now… But I didn't have my gun, so the matter was academic. What I needed was a weapon powerful enough to slay even a giant werewolf, preferably one I could get my hands on in the next several moments.

  Something like Gnasher's dire blade.

  I glanced at the verman and the She Creature who still held him in a tight grip. I couldn't just run over and try to grab hold of the dire blade, though. For one thing I didn't know where Gnasher kept it. In his jacket, I assumed, but since his pockets seemed bottomless, it was possible there were other enchantments on his frock coat that would prevent anyone else form locating the blade, let alone taking it off his person. But that wasn't what made me hesitate. I may be unique among Nekropolis's zombies, but there's one thing I share with my dead brothers and sisters: I'm slow. If I made a go for Gnasher's blade I'd move so slowly that both Rondo and the She Creature would guess what I was up to and one or both of them would stop me. If I wanted a chance at Gnasher's dire blade I'd have to use my head. Good thing Victor Baron had put it back on for me.

  "You know, Rondo, you didn't have to go to all this trouble," I said. "If you want to destroy me, all you have to do is walk on over and give me a close-up look at your face. The shock would be so intense that I'd probably just collapse into a pile of dust on the spot."

  Rondo's grin gave way to a truly impressive scowl.

  "Laugh it up, Richter," he snarled. "That's the last joke you're ever going to make."

  "No it's not. This is: when you were born, you were so ugly the doctor couldn't tell which end was your ass, so he slapped both ends just to make sure."

  Rondo roared with fury and came racing toward me, ham-hands outstretched and ready to cause some serious damage.

  I had to time this just right. When Rondo was almost upon me I sidestepped and angled my body so that instead of grabbing me his right hand struck me a glancing blow on the shoulder. I didn't feel the blow, of course, and I allowed the impact to spin me around, and I stumbled toward Gnasher and the She Creature, trying my best to make it look like an accident. As ungainly as I was I didn't have to try very hard.

  The verman guessed what I was up to, for as I collided with him, he whispered, "Inside front pocket," and spoke a couple words in a language I was unfamiliar with. Some sort of mystic phrase I figured, designed to deactivate whatever enchantment protected Gnasher's blade. Before the She Creature could react I reached into the jacket and I felt cloth part beneath my fingers as if it were a living thing willingly opening itself to me. I found the hilt of the dire blade, grabbed hold of it and pulled it free of Gnasher's jacket. I'd never touched a dire blade before and I was surprised to feel a sensation of intense cold as my fingers wrapped around the handle. The sudden feeling in my dead flesh was so startling to me that I almost dropped the weapon, but I managed to hold on to it.

  I spun around, ready to wield the dire blade against Rondo with deadly efficiency. But before I could do anything Rondo grabbed my wrist with one of his giant hands and squeezed. I heard bones splinter and my now-useless fingers sprung open and the dire blade tumbled to the ground.

  Rondo's grin was back.

  "Nice try."

  "I have to admit, I'd have preferred to kill the three of you myself," I said, "but I suppose I'll just have to be satisfied with letting Keket's people do it for me."

  I pointed with my left hand and – still holding on to my broken wrist – Rondo turned to look. A half dozen jackalheads were rapidly approaching from different directions, as were a trio of silver skulled Overwatchers.

  "You really didn't think Lycanthropus Rex could transform without drawing the guards' attention, did you?" I asked.

  Rondo said nothing, but he continued to hold my crushed wrist as we both watched the jackal-heads go to work. When they were within twenty feet of Rex – who had by this time reached his full fifty-foot height – they stopped, leveled their golden spears and released blasts of energy at the giant wolfman. Rex roared more in anger than pain and lunged toward one of the guards, snatching him up in one gigantic paw with a single swift swipe. Rex squeezed and the guard let out a scream as the life was crushed out of him. Rex then hurled the body at another guard, taking him out with truly impressive aim.

  One of the Overwatchers glided toward Rex from behind and twin beams of light lanced forth from its silvery sockets to strike the gargantuan wolfman directly between the shoulder blades. From Rex's bellow of agony it was clear that whatever energy the skull emitted it was more effective than that produced by the jackalheads' spears. But however powerful the energy blast was it didn't slow Rex down. He whirled about, snatched hold of the Overwatcher and hurled it to the ground. The metallic skull hit not far from where I was standing and I saw the device break open like a large silvery egg, spilling out electronic components, blood and bits of brain matter. Victor Baron built his creations to last, but even his genius hadn't anticipated the Overwatchers going up against a creature of Lycanthropus Rex's power. A second later the Overwatcher exploded in a spectacular flash of light and fire.

  Seeing an Overwatcher brought down, the prisoners in the area let up a cheer and, emboldened by seeing how easily Rex had dealt with Keket's guards, they began to riot. Inmates turned to whoever happened to be standing close to them and began hitting, clawing and biting – sometimes all three at once. Jackalheads fired energy blasts and Overwatchers unleashed eye beams in all directions, hoping to quell the riot before it could spread too far, but they might as well have been trying to hold back a tsunami with a few sandbags and a whole lot of good intentions. Within moments the fighting had spread throughout the entire general population as near as I could tell from where I stood and the canyon air was filled with the sounds of hundreds of beings beating hell out of each other. On impulse I glanced upward toward the balcony from which Keket had dropped me down to the canyon floor and I saw the mistress of Tenebrus standing there, gripping the railing with cloth wrapped fingers, face hidden behind her golden mask. I remembered what Gnasher had told me about how Keket was entertained by watching the inmates fight. If so, the undead sorceress was undoubtedly ecstatic right then.

  I was used to matters going from bad to worse – it's pretty much standard operating procedure for me – but this was bad even by my standards. I could've tried to slip away from Rondo and Rex in the confusion and lose myself among the rioters, but I didn't want to abandon Gnasher. He might have been Dominari but he'd taken care of me since I'd been tossed into the general population and I owed him. Besides, the thought of running from lowlifes like Rondo and Rex made my dead stomach turn. Still, I had no idea what I could do at this point. If I was faster I might've made a lunge for the dire blade lying on the ground, but if I so much as twitched in the weapon's direction the She Creature would snap Gnasher in half like a white furred twig.

  I felt gentle fingers of thought brush my mind, the sensation both familiar and very welcome.

  
Don't worry, love. I know someone who specializes in fast.

  I saw a blur of motion and felt the pressure of a breeze whip past and suddenly I was holding the dire blade in my left hand – which was good since Rondo still had hold of my broken right wrist and the hand attached to it was useless now.

  Thanks, Tavi, I thought and swung the dire blade toward Rondo's chest. The Creeper's gaze was fixed on Lycanthropus Rex who was still battling jackalheads and Overwatchers and thus didn't see the strike coming. Not that it mattered. My arm swung wild and instead of driving the ebony blade deep into Rondo's chest it swept through empty air.

  
See? You should've let Victor Baron fix that when you had
the chance!

  I didn't respond to Devona, partially because I didn't have any time, but mostly because she was right, and it irritated me.

  Rondo must've caught the motion of my failed strike out of the corner of his eye for he turned to face me and without hesitation rammed a fist into my face. I felt nothing, but given the force with which he struck, if I hadn't been dead already, I'm sure the blow would've killed me. As it was my nose was reduced to pulp and I'm pretty sure my skull was fractured. Rondo had maintained his hold on my right wrist with his other hand and now he yanked me back toward him, intending to hit me again. But there was another blur as something whipped past us and a stream of liquid splashed into Rondo's eyes. Rondo screamed as Tavi's cobra venom did its job and the Creeper released his hold on my wrist so that he could use both hands to frantically try to clear the venom from his eyes.

  With Rondo momentarily out of commission I turned to Gnasher and the She Creature. Seeing Rondo get injured – and more importantly, seeing me standing before her gripping a dire blade – she tightened her hold on Gnasher and the verman shrieked in pain.

  "Stay where you're at, zombie, or the rat-man dies!" she said in a gurgly voice, as if she had a throat full of mouthwash.

  "You know, it's a policy of mine never to listen when someone threatens me, but considering that a friend of mine is walking up behind you as we speak, I think I'll make exception this time."

  The She Creature let out a laugh that sounded like a water balloon bursting. "You don't seriously expect me to fall for that old trick, do you?"

  "It's no trick," I said, "and yes, I do expect you to fall – hard."

  The She Creature frowned, perhaps realizing from my tone that something wasn't quite adding up here. A moment later she realized what it was when a scaly clawed hand clamped down on her shoulder and burst into flame. The She Creature screamed in agony at Scorch's fiery touch, and while the demon might not have been able to suck the moisture out of a water monster with the ruthless efficiency of a dehydra, she was no slouch in that department. The She Creature's armored plates quickly dried and tiny cracks fissured across their surfaces. She released Gnasher and the verman fled, moving with a swiftness that would've done Tavi proud, and disappeared into the crowd.

  Once Gnasher was safely away, Scorch increased the intensity of her flames and the SheCreature became wreathed in fire. She screamed, flung herself to the ground and attempted to put the flames out by rolling, but it was too late. A few seconds later she lay still, while the flames continued to burn.

  Scorch, in full-on scary demon mode, grinned at me.

  "Looks like her fellow prisoners will be dining on fresh cooked lobster tonight," she said.

  It's times like that which make it hard for me to remember that Scorch's normal form is that of a relatively innocent looking young girl.

  "Good to see you again," I told the demon and meant it. "But where's Devona?"

  "Right here."

  Her voice came from right next to me, but when I turned I saw nothing. An instant later the air shimmered and Devona and Bogdan were standing there, the warlock holding on to her arm.