Dead Streets (8 page)

  "Would a creature like you need to be sentient at all, let alone possess the power of speech? How does thinking and talking help you find new hosts? It's not–"

  "Even if you are what you say you are, why should we be afraid of you?"

  "Yeah, you can only lay an egg in
one
of us."

  "That's right. The rest of us will eat the body you leave behind and then kill your new host – and then we'll devour him too."

  "Seems like a win–win scenario for us."

  "Besides, 'sharpsting' is a
stupid
name," one of the imps concluded and there were murmurs of agreement all round.

  I'd known carrion imps could talk, but because they were scavengers, I'd assumed they weren't too bright. I'd assumed wrong and it looked like it was going to result in my skull being picked clean by the smart little bastards.

  I heard claws scratch pavement as the imps started toward me again. I tried to turn my head from side to side in the hope that the movement might frighten them, but I couldn't do it. The most movement I could manage was to open and close my eyes and mouth and wiggle my tongue. Not exactly the most intimidating of actions.

  I felt tiny hands grab hold of the hood's cloth and begin searching for an opening, as if I were some kind of treat the imps were trying to unwrap. This would be an excellent time for Devona to get here, I thought, with more than a hint of desperation.

  That's when I heard the first imp scream. It was quickly followed by a second scream, then a third, and then dozens of imps were shrieking in terror and I heard them scuttle away en masse as they fled into the alley. I felt a tug on the hood and I allowed myself to hope that help had arrived.

  "Devona? Is that you?"

  No reply, just another tug on the hood. Then I felt myself being dragged slowly across the pavement away from the alley, which meant I was being dragged toward the street. I wasn't currently connected to my body, so technically I couldn't feel a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, but that's exactly what I did feel when I realized what was happening. The Azure Slime had hold of my head and was pulling me toward the nearest sewer grate. This was worse than being eaten by carrion imps. At least they would've left my skull behind. Once the Azure Slime was done digesting me there'd be nothing left but a memory.

  No one knows for certain what the Slime is or where it came from. Some believe it migrated from Earth with the other Darkfolk when they first came to Nekropolis, while others believe Varvara created the amoeba-like monstrosity to keep the streets of her Dominion clean, while still others believe the Slime evolved from all the nasty stuff that's been dumped into the Sprawl's sewer system over the centuries. Whatever the truth is, while the Azure Slime mostly confines itself to feeding on trash left in the Sprawl's streets and gutters, if anything remains on the sidewalks too long, the Slime will try to grab hold of it and drag it down into the sewers where the main mass of its body can begin the digestion process – and that includes pedestrians, which as you might guess, tends to discourage loitering. When the imps had decided to check me out, they'd ventured too close to the mouth of the alley and lingered there too long. They'd drawn the Slime's attention and, from the way it had sounded, a number of them had been snatched by the Slime before the rest had managed to escape. Unfortunately for me the Slime had discovered my head and was now retracting its pseudopod, pulling me hood and all toward the main mass of its body where I would be absorbed and then digested. Since I don't feel pain I wasn't worried that being digested would hurt, but I did wonder how long it would take before enough of my brain was destroyed for me to lose consciousness. If I managed to retain consciousness long enough there was a chance that Devona might be able to find me, even down in the sewers, trapped inside the Slime's viscous blue goo. But that all depended on how fast the Slime took to metabolize the goodies it scavenged and I had no idea how long that was.

  Now would be an even more excellent time for Devona to get here, I thought.

  I felt a sharp tug on the hood, pulling me in the opposite direction from the street. The Slime tugged back and I heard a soft grunt as someone yanked harder.

  "Let go, damn it!"

  Swaddled within the hood's darkness, I smiled.

  "Your timing is as impeccable as ever, my love."

  Devona gave one last tug before the Slime finally gave up and released me. Devona shifted me around in her hands to get a better grip and then pulled the hood off of me. I glanced to the side and caught a glimpse of the Azure Slime's pseudopod illuminated by the greenish glow of a streetlight as it slithered back into the sewer.

  "Better luck next time," I muttered. Then I looked up at Devona. "Guess you heard me calling."

  "Good thing, too. You were about to become an appetizer for that thing." Devona was working to keep her tone light, but I could hear the worry in her voice. Even in Nekropolis it's more than a bit disconcerting to find yourself having a conversation with your lover's decapitated head. "What happened?" she asked.

  I gave Devona a quick rundown.

  When I was finished she frowned. "Do you think Overkill's responsible?"

  I tried to shrug, but considering I currently lacked shoulders, I settled for answering her verbally. "Maybe. It doesn't seem like her style, though. Not public enough."

  "True. But we can worry about whodunnit later. Right now we need to get your head reattached to your body."

  "Papa's not going to be happy when we come knocking on his door." Papa Chatha had done a number of various repairs on me over the years – reattaching body parts from ears all the way up to arms. But I'd never asked him to reattach something as complicated as my head before. I feared it might be beyond the houngan's skill, but he was someplace to start. "Do you think you can manage to carry my body by yourself?" Devona may be petite but her half Bloodborn physiology makes her stronger than an ordinary human and I'd learned not to underestimate what she was physically capable of.

  "Maybe," she said. "If you'll just tell me where it's at, I'll give it a try."

  I blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"

  "Your body. It's not here. Just tell me where to find it and we can…" She broke off. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  I thought of the sounds I'd heard after my head had been cut off: shuffling footsteps, rustling cloth, grunts of exertion… There was a good reason my body wasn't anywhere in sight.

  It had been stolen.

 

"I've heard of body snatchers before," Papa Chatha said, "but this is a new one on me."

  Papa is a dignified, handsome black man in his early sixties with a tattoo of a blue butterfly spread across his smooth shaven face. At times the edges of the butterfly's wings seem to ripple, but it's probably just a trick of the light. He sat on a simple wooden stool, tapping his bare toes on the wooden floor as he considered my predicament, Devona sitting across from him on a second stool, my head cradled in her lap.

  While Papa thought, I scanned the shelves in his 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 says he uses the latter three substances to make offerings to the Loa, the voodoo spirits, and while I have no reason to doubt him, I've noticed that he tends to run out of rum before anything else.

  Papa frowned, smoothed his loose white pants which matched his pullover shirt, and then sighed.

  "I suppose the first thing we need to do is find out where your body is," he said. "Assuming that it hasn't been destroyed already. Or eaten." He rose from his stool and walked over to one of his worktables and began rummaging through the bits and pieces of voodoo paraphernalia scattered across its surface.

  "You really need to work on your bedside manner, Papa," I said.

  He replied without turning around to look at me. "You want a reassuring bedside manner, go visit the Fever House. You want someone who can sling a little goofer dust for you, I'm your man."

  "What I don't understand is why someone would want a zombie's body," Devona said. I couldn't turn my head to show her the withering look that was on my face, but she must've realized how her words sounded, because she immediately added, "Sorry, Matt."

  "A corpse is a useful ingredient in any number of spells," Papa said. He picked up an object that resembled an inside-out geode covered with chicken beaks, considered it for a moment, then shook his head and put it back down on the table. "A man who's been resurrected from the dead has even more uses, and considering how rare Matt is…" Papa shrugged. "I don't fully understand the magic that animates him, but I understand enough to know that he's one of a kind. And the more unique an object is, the more power it has."

  I died destroying something called the Overmind, a psychic weapon created from the combined brains of powerful psychics, and I'd used a magical device called the Death Watch to do it. I died the precise instant the energies of both the Overmind and the Death Watch were released and somehow they'd combined to resurrect me as a fully intelligent, self-willed zombie. I was no drooling mindless thing shambling about on an endless quest for fresh brains to devour, nor was I the undead slave of a sorcerer. I was my own man, albeit a dead one. The Overmind had been, you'll pardon the expression, the brainchild of the Darklord Talaith, ruler of the Arcane, and I'd been on the top of her shit list ever since. And that gave me another suspect to consider in my bodynapping.

  "Maybe Talaith is responsible," I ventured, but I immediately realized my mistake. "No. Even if for some reason she wanted to decapitate me, she'd never take my body and leave my head behind. Revenge is personal with her and she'd want my head if for no other reason than to rub my nose in the fact that she's finally gotten even with me."

  "Probably," Papa said. "Then again, Talaith's crazy. Who knows what she might do, or why?"

  "You know, Papa, you may be a good houngan, but it's your optimistic worldview that keeps me coming back," I said.

  Papa grinned as he glanced over his shoulder at Devona and me. "All part of the service." He continued speaking as he turned back to his worktable and resumed rummaging through its junk. "By the way, Matt, I caught your interview with Acantha on the Mind's Eye tonight. You have a real knack for dealing with the media."

  "You know me," I said. "Always gracious and cooperative during an interview."

  I considered the possibility that Acantha might have been the one who attacked me – or at least arranged for the attack to be carried out. I'd embarrassed her on her own show in front of thousands of viewers and there was no way the gorgon would ever forgive that. But as with Talaith I had a hard time seeing Acantha carrying out her revenge anonymously. Not only would she want me to know she was making me pay for humiliating her on the air, she'd want to broadcast her payback for the whole city to see. The more I thought about it the more unlikely a suspect Acantha seemed. Still, I couldn't rule her out, just as I couldn't rule out Overkill or Talaith or several dozen others who'd I'd managed to piss off since I'd arrived in Nekropolis. You know the old saying about how you can judge a man's success by how many enemies he has? Well, right then I felt like the most successful dead man in Nekropolis.

  "Aha! I thought I had one of these lying around somewhere." Papa turned back around to face us once more, holding out his hand to show us the round flat object resting on his palm.

  "It's a compass," Devona said.

  "Yes, indeed," Papa confirmed. "And when I'm finished with it, it'll lead you to Matt's body."

  I gazed doubtfully upon the compass. "It doesn't have a needle," I pointed out. "And even if it did it wouldn't work in Nekropolis, would it?" When the Darkfolk decided to leave Earth they'd chosen to build their new city in a dimension of darkness called the Null Plains. I'm not sure the place is even a planet… not like Earth, anyway. But from what I understood the Null Plains didn't have magnetic poles, so a compass wouldn't function.

  "It's not that kind of compass," Papa said. "Instead of magnetism it employs sympathetic magic. In particular, the Law of Contagion."

  "What's that?" I asked, but it was Devona who answered.

  "'Once connected, always connected,'" she said, sounding as if she were reciting from memory. "It means that once two things have been in contact they're forever after bound on a magical level. The longer they've been in contact the stronger that connection will be."

  Papa nodded. "We're lucky. Since your head was left behind we can use it to locate the rest of you."

  I glanced at the compass. "I hate to break this to you but my head's too big to fit inside there."

  "We don't need your whole head. Just part of it." Papa grinned as he showed me what he held in his other hand: a pair of pliers.

 

"Head east, Lazlo."

  "You got it, Devona." Lazlo hit the gas and his cab swerved alarmingly as he rounded a corner.

  "Take it easy on the curves, OK?" My voice was stronger now, louder and clearer, thanks to some of Papa's hocus pocus.

  "Relax, Matt," Lazlo said. "No need to lose your head." He guffawed, a sound something like a cross between a shotgun blast and a whoopee cushion's fart.

  Lazlo's a demon cabbie who works the Sprawl, though he'll drive you to other Dominions if the fare's right. In my case the ride was always gratis because Lazlo refused to take any darkgems from me after I'd helped him out of a jam not long after I'd first become zombiefied. Whenever I needed a ride Lazlo would appear as if by magic and ferry me to my destination. Once when I'd asked him how he knew whenever I needed a lift, he just shrugged – at least, I think that's what he did. Lazlo looks something like a cross between a mandrill and a ferret, with a little carp around the edges, and with his inhuman physiognomy it's sometimes hard to read his gestures. "I keep a close eye on you, pal," is what he told me.