Dead Streets (39 page)

  I started to give Devona my answer, but then I realized something was wrong. She'd stopped moving and her eyes weren't blinking. At first I feared she'd somehow succumbed to some sort of after effect of Orlock's stasis field, but then a worse thought hit me. What if we were still inside the stasis dome and everything we'd experienced since then had been nothing but another illusion?

  "Don't worry," came a soft male voice. "Devona's fine. I just wanted a chance to speak with you in private."

  I turned toward the sound of the voice and saw a man climb out of the fireplace. The flames hadn't touched him since they were illusory, but I knew that even if they'd been the real thing they still wouldn't have harmed him. It was Edrigu, Lord of the Dead.

  I rose to my feet to meet the gray shrouded man as he strode into the room. A violent gust of wind blasted Edrigu and I knew that Rover was preparing to deal with what he saw as an intruder.

  "Down boy," I told the ward spirit. "He's a friend."

  I had no idea if this was a friendly visit or not, but Edrigu was so powerful he could destroy Rover in an eyeblink without exerting himself. It took Rover a few seconds to back down, but the wind died away. Rover didn't retreat, though. I could feel the ward spirit hanging close by in case he was needed.

  "I see you've rejoined the world of the living," I said. "So to speak."

  Edrigu smiled at me. "The events of the last couple days caused quite a disturbance in the city's psychic atmosphere, Enough to penetrate the Darklords' slumber and wake us." His voice was the sound of a breeze wafting through a deserted graveyard in the dead of night.

  "Too bad your alarm didn't go off earlier," I said. "You missed all the fun."

  "I believe that was Dr. Frankenstein's intention," Edrigu said.

  I saw the chain around the Darklord's neck, though Osseal itself was hidden from sight beneath his shroud.

  "Looks like you got your flute back."

  "Yes. Quillion removed Osseal from the Foundry and held it until I awoke, at which time I reclaimed it. I've come to thank you for getting it back for me, and more importantly, for stopping Dr. Frankenstein from misusing it so grievously."

  I'd interacted more with the other four Darklords than I had with Edrigu and I found his lack of megalomaniacal posturing to be refreshing.

  "I have to admit that there was more than a little selfinterest to my motives, but you're welcome. And not that you've come looking for my advice, but if I were you, I'd give some serious thought to revamping the Reliquary's security. All Frankenstein needed to gain entrance to your bedchamber was this mark."

  I held up the hand with the scar tissue E on the palm.

  "That mark is intended for quite a different purpose," Edrigu said. "It took someone of Dr. Frankenstein's uncommon intelligence, not to mention deviousness, to turn it to a criminal purpose. Still, your point is well taken, and I'll make certain my private chambers are secure from all intrusion in the future."

  "Speaking of your mark, Silent Jack gave it to me without explaining its purpose. Which, considering his name, isn't all that surprising. But since you're here…"

  Edrigu nodded. "It's the least I can do to repay you. Jack is one of my best servants and one of his most important tasks is to find the dead wherever they might be in the city and give them my mark. Once they possess it, they are free to enter the Reliquary whenever they wish, allowing them to access my mirror and – should they choose to step through – to what waits for them on the other side."

  This realization stunned me and for a moment all I could do was look at Edrigu.

  "You mean it doesn't mark me as one of your servants?" I asked.

  Edrigu smiled. "No. I already have enough of those. But if you're interested…"

  "Nothing personal, but no thanks." I was still struggling to come to terms with what Edrigu had told me. The mark on my hand would allow me to enter his stronghold and pass through his dark mirror to the afterlife – whatever that might be. "Why give me the mark and not tell me what it means?"

  "Some of the dead instinctively understand what the mark signifies. Others take longer to work it out. It all depends on whether or not they're ready – or interested – in moving on to the next realm of existence. Each must find the way to my mirror in his or her own time, which is as it should be. But now that you know, you are free to pass through whenever you choose."

  I looked at Devona. "I appreciate the free ticket to the afterlife, but I don't have any intention of leaving Nekropolis any time soon."

  "As you wish. My mirror will be waiting for you if you ever change your mind."

  "Tell me one thing, though," I said, curious. "What
is
on the other side of your mirror?"

  Edrigu grinned, displaying small rounded teeth that looked like two rows of ivory gravestones. "Sorry. That would be cheating."

  I thought that the Lord of the Dead would take his leave then, returning to the fireplace like some dark version of Santa Claus going back up the chimney. But instead he said, "I have something I wish to give you. A reward for the service you rendered to me, and indeed, to the entire city. Hold out your hand."

  I did so and an instant later a coin appeared on my palm. I held it up to my face to examine it. The coin was copper, incredibly old, its features worn so smooth that I couldn't make them out.

  I looked at Edrigu. "Don't tell me this is a tip."

  Edrigu smiled. "Of a sort, I suppose. That is one of Charon's coins. In Greek mythology, the dead have to pay Charon the ferryman to take them across the River Styx to the land of the dead. But once the coins have been touched by Charon they can be used to purchase a single day of life. You have but to grip the coin tight, wish it, and you will be become a living, breathing man for a single twenty-four hour time period. But be warned: you can only use the coin once, and afterward, you can never use another."

  I stared at the coin, unable to believe what Edrigu had told me. To be alive again, if only for one day…

  "I will take my leave of you now," Edrigu said. "As you might imagine, many tasks have piled up while I've been asleep that I must attend to, and of course my fellow Lords will undoubtedly soon be returning to their endless intrigues, and I must prepare to deal with them." He started to go, then paused. "One thing more. Just before I appeared, I overheard part of your conversation with Devona. There are many things a man might accomplish with one day of life." He gave me a knowing smile. "Including siring a child."

  The Lord of the Dead gave me a parting nod, turned, and walked back into the fireplace and was gone. I stared at the flickering flames for a moment and then I heard Devona say, "Well? Can you?"

  I remembered the last words she'd spoken before Edrigu had frozen her.

  
A big commitment. Do you think you could handle it?

  I turned to see her frowning.

  "Weren't you just sitting next to me?" she asked.

  I looked at Charon's coin one last time before tucking it into my pocket and rejoining Devona on the couch.

  "To answer your question, my love, I think I can handle it just fine."

  She gave me a look filled with love and we kissed.

  You know something? I have a pretty good life for a dead guy. And thanks to Lord Edrigu – and the coin he'd given me – I had a feeling that it was soon going to get even better.

 
 

 
Tim Waggoner is an American novelist and college professor. His original novels include
Cross County,
Darkness Wakes
,
Pandora Drive
, and
Like Death
. His tiein novels include
The Lady Ruin
series and the
Blade of
the Flame
trilogy, both for Wizards of the Coast. He's also written fiction based on
Stargate: SG-1, Doctor Who,
A Nightmare on Elm Street
, the videogame
Defender, Xena
the Warrior Princess
, and others. He's published over one hundred short stories, some of which are collected in
Broken Shadows
and
All Too Surreal
. His articles on writing have appeared in Wr
iter's Digest, Writers' Journal
and other publications.

  He teaches composition and creative writing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, and is a faculty mentor in Seton Hill University's Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

 

 

A Matt Richter investigation

"You're really thinking about doing this, aren't you?"

  Devona didn't answer me right away, and I took that as a bad sign. I knew she heard me. We'd only been together a couple of months, but in that time I'd learned that not only was her half-vampire hearing sharp as hell, she rarely missed anything that went on around her. So if she wasn't answering me, it could only mean one of two things: I'd asked the wrong question or she was afraid I wasn't going to like her answer. This time, it turned out to be both.

  We were standing on the sidewalk in front of a squat stone building that put me in mind of a giant toad that had looked a gorgon straight in the eye. Thick tendrils of leech vine covered most of the surface, and the stone that we could see was pitted and cracked. I wouldn't have been surprised if the damned vine was the only thing holding the ancient structure together. The building was located in the Sprawl, not all that far from my apartment… make that our apartment. Devona had moved in not long after we met, but I still sometimes had trouble wrapping my undead brain around the concept that I was part of a couple again. I'd been mar ried back on Earth, but that was a while ago. I'd long since divorced and traveled to the other-dimensional city of Nekropolis where I'd died and been resurrected as a self-willed zombie. After that, I figured my dating days were over. I mean, really, would you want to go out with someone who's perpetually decaying? But Devona was a broad-minded woman, even for Nekropolis, and I regularly visited my houngan for periodic applications of the preservative spells that prevented me from completely rotting away to dust.

  I was fairly fresh that day, with only a slight grayishgreen tinge to my flesh. I wore my usual gray suit and my tie displayed images of Dahli's famous melting clocks draped limply over tree branches. If you looked closely, you could see the fabric hands of the clocks move and hear the soft ticking of gears at work. Devona wore a form-fitting black leather outfit, as she often did, and it looked damned good on her. She was a petite blonde who appeared to be in her twenties, but in truth was in her seventies. She might have been only halfvampire, but that was enough to significantly slow down her aging process.

  This was a relatively sedate part of the Sprawl – one of the reasons why I'd chosen to rent an apartment there – but the emphasis was most definitely on relatively. The Sprawl is the Dominion of the Demon Queen, Varvara, and she believes in absolute freedom. It's rumored that the old Beast Alistair Crowley stole his infamous satanic commandant from her: Do as Thou Wilt. I wouldn't be surprised. If the Sprawl doesn't exist in a state of total anarchy, it'll do until the real thing shows up. But like I said, this neighborhood was quiet enough, with pedestrians going about their business searching for prey or trying to avoid becoming prey – often at the same time – and vehicles of various makes, models, and degrees of sentience rolling, crawling, and scuttling down the street. To the right of the stone toad building was a misfortuneteller's establishment, and on the left was a head shop (new and used, all species, original size and shrunken). Not exactly the most glamorous of neighbors, but they seemed… well, not normal, but harmless enough.

  Devona finally decided to respond to my question. "Not thinking…"

  A sinking feeling hit me. "Please tell me you haven't bought the place. Sight unseen, no less."

  She shrugged. "All right, I won't tell you."

  I suppressed a sigh. Devona was the half-human daughter of the Darklord Galm, and she'd spent most of her life living in his stronghold and serving as the caretaker of his collection of rare and powerful artifacts. So while she was chronologically older than me by several decades, in terms of actual life experience, she could be a bit naïve at times. And, as I'd been learning over the last couple months, a trifle impulsive.

  "We talked about how it's not a good idea to buy real estate without a thorough inspection first, remember?"

  Devona turned to me, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. I'd seen that expression before. It meant Stop patronizing me, Matt. "I remember it quite well, and perhaps you'll recall that my main motivation for purchasing the building was to acquire the name of the business associated with it more than the actual structure itself." She smiled. "Of course, now that we're here, I suppose we should go in and take a look around."

  This time I didn't bother to suppress my sigh. I don't need to breathe, but I have to take in air to talk, and while strictly speaking, I don't have to sigh, sometimes a sigh can communicate more than a dozen well-chosen words.

  "Couldn't you have bought the name by itself?" I didn't ask why she wanted it so badly. That was another discussion we'd already had.

  The Midnight Watch was the security firm back in its day, Devona had said. Long before your arrival in Nekropolis, Matt. If you wanted something or someone protected, you hired the Watch. Even the Darklords were known to employ its services from time to time. If I'm going to go into business on my own, that kind of name recognition will help get me established. Besides, I was caretaker of Father's collection for many years. I like things with a little history behind them.