by Tim Waggoner
"You have five seconds to remove the spell on the exit. If you don't, I'll put a blessed silver-jacketed bullet through your skull. You'll have a hell of a time healing from that."
The kidnapper wore a hooded mask and black goggles, but the muffled voice that came through was unmistakably that of a woman. And that gave me an idea of who we might be dealing with.
I'd finally reached Devona and I stopped a couple yards away so as not to make the kidnapper too nervous. There's a reason someone coined the phrase "itchy trigger finger" and I didn't want to put the kidnapper's combat cool to the test.
"You might as well give it up, Overkill. There's no way you're leaving with Scream Queen's voice."
The woman turned to look at me, but she didn't remove the gun from Devona's head. She was a consummate professional.
"What are you going to do, zombie? Drop flakes of dead skin on me?"
"So you are Overkill."
A slight hesitation. "I didn't say that."
"But you didn't deny it, either. No one would be stupid enough to pretend to be Overkill or even allow anyone to think she's Overkill. If the real Overkill ever found out, she'd hunt them down and make them pay for using her name in vain."
The woman seemed to consider that for a moment. "True." She tucked the autograph book under her arm and then, with her free hand reached up, pulled off her goggles and face mask and tossed them to the floor. She was an attractive woman in her twenties, with brown hair, brown eyes, who stood five-eight and weighed around a hundred and forty pounds. She looked normal enough, but everyone in Nekropolis knows that looks are deceiving. If something appears dangerous it's probably ten times worse and if something appears harmless you'd best turn and run screaming in the other direction as fast as your feet will carry you. I'd never met this woman before, but despite her appearance, I knew I was standing face to face with one of the most feared mercenaries in the city.
"You gave it your best shot, but you're not going to get away with the voice, Overkill. You know that. The best thing for you to do is put the autograph book down, take the gun away from Devona's head, and leave."
She smiled. "I don't know anything of the sort. I'm the one holding the gun against your girlfriend's forehead. You know I'm not bluffing when I say I'll fire if she doesn't dispel the enchantment on the doorway."
I did know it. Overkill was one of the deadliest fighters in the city. She was a human who wanted to show the monsters that ruled Nekropolis that not only could she be their equal, she could surpass them, becoming a bigger, badder monster than any of them could ever hope to be. To this end she employed weapons both mundane and mystical in her work, usually to quite deadly effect, but she accepted no enhancements to her body, magical, cybernetic, or genetic. She was one hundred percent homo sapiens and two hundred percent bugfuck crazy. She took on only the most difficult of jobs – the more suicidal, the better – and while rumor had it that she was obscenely well paid for what she did, money meant nothing to her. As Dr. Scott says in Rocky Horror, Overkill lives solely for "ze thrills".
"So you have a gun. I do too." I slowly opened my jacket to show her the 9mm resting in my shoulder holster, a souvenir from my days as a human cop.
Her smile took on a mocking edge. "Even if you were alive, there's no way you could move fast enough to draw your weapon before I pulled the trigger on mine. And as a zombie, your reflexes are way too slow to even think about it."
I didn't take any offense at what she said, mostly because she was right. "You're not the only one who carries magical toys. I have all kinds of surprises I can pull out of my bag of tricks."
"Maybe so, but that doesn't change anything. The second your hand so much as twitches in the direction of one of your pockets, my gun goes off and your lady love's half-undead brains will exit the back of her head suddenly, violently, and quite messily. There's no way she'll be able to repair that kind of damage on her own, and even a top-flight healer won't be able to help her. She won't have enough brains left to be resurrected as a zombie – not that she'd be intelligent like you. I suppose you can always hope she'll return as a ghost, but you can't ever predict who'll come back and who'll cross over to the next life, whatever that may be. So if you want her to live, you'll back off and let her remove the spell on the door for me."
So far I'd managed to keep Overkill talking, but I had no illusions that I might be able to make some sort of deal with her. She was verbally sparring with me only because it amused her. It wouldn't take her long to get tired of our little tête-à-tête and then she'd make good on her threat to kill Devona – an outcome I'd prefer to avoid, as you might imagine. Death isn't necessarily the end in Nekropolis, but it does seriously cut down on your options.
"There are a lot of heavy hitters in here," I pointed out, "and any number of them could give you a serious run for your money. If they teamed up…"
"Nice try, but if any of them were going to interfere, they'd have done so by now." Her smile turned into a leer. "Maybe they're having too much fun watching."
Unfortunately she was probably right. Most Nekropolitans aren't big on altruism, mostly because sticking your nose into other people's business in this city is an excellent way to get yourself killed – and that's just for starters. There are worse things than death in this town and they're usually standing a few inches behind you, ready to reach out and grab you when you least expect it.
"What about this?" I raised my hand and showed her the scartissue E on my palm. "Do you really want to defy the agent of a Darklord?"
That seemed to give her pause. Her smile fell away and she seemed to consider the matter. Meanwhile, tears of blood streamed down Devona's face and her breathing was becoming more labored. I knew the cross's silver – not to mention the holy power of the blessing that had been laid upon it – was causing her system to break down. She needed to get that cross out of her as soon as possible.
"I'd heard rumors that you'd been marked by Edrigu," Overkill said, "but that doesn't make you one of his agents. Maybe it's simply a sign that you're in his debt."
I kept my face composed – a task easily accomplished for a dead man – but I swore inwardly. Overkill wouldn't have survived in her profession as long as she has if she was stupid, but I'd hoped my bluff would work. Since it hadn't, that left me with only one other option: bluff bigger.
I took a half step forward. Overkill didn't take her gaze off me, but her finger tightened on the trigger.
"You said you'd heard rumors about me," I began. "What have you heard about what happened last Descension Day?"
Overkill's eyes narrowed and she took a moment before answering. "Word on the street is that someone tried to interfere with the recharging of Umbriel and the city was almost destroyed. You prevented that from happening."
Umbriel the shadowsun is what provides the perpetual dusky half-light that illuminates Nekropolis, but it does much more than that. It also keeps the city stabilized in the dark dimension where it's located and what's more – and I'd only recently learned this – its power keeps the city safe from the native inhabitants of this dimension, who view the Nekropolitans as colonizing invaders.
I took another half step forward. "Anything else?"
Her eyes narrowed another fraction. "They say that your body decayed to dust in the battle to preserve Umbriel and that Father Dis himself restored your physical form."
Dis was once worshipped by the ancient Romans as a god of death, and he's the ultimate ruler of the city. It was Dis who several centuries ago led the Darkfolk to leave Earth and establish their own city in another dimension, where they'd be safe from a humanity grown too numerous and technologically advanced. There are other godlike beings in Nekropolis – most notably the five Darklords that rule the city's separate Dominions – but none are as powerful as Dis… or as feared.
"It's true," I said. "I'm not going to stand here and tell you I saved the city single-handedly, and I'm not going to claim that Dis and I are best buddies and I can rin
g him up whenever I feel like it. But if Dis went to all the trouble of putting me back together when all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't, I'd say that means we have more than a casual relationship. How do you think he'll react when I tell him the love of my life was killed by a certain mercenary who's too stubborn to know when she's lost? You're tough, Overkill, one of the toughest in town. But do you really think you can stand up against Father Dis?"
Her brow furrowed and for a moment I thought she was actually calculating her chances.
"You're bullshitting me." She said the words forcefully enough, but there was a slight hint of doubt in her voice.
"Probably," I admitted, "but you have no way of knowing for sure. Look at it this way: if you find out for certain that I'm bluffing, think how much satisfaction you'll get hunting me down and making me pay for lying to you."
Overkill looked at me for a long moment before slowly breaking into a grin.
"Good point." She hesitated a second longer before removing the gun from Devona's forehead and replacing the weapon in her shoulder holster. Moving with a warrior's brisk, economical motions, she stood and tossed me the autograph book. "Well played, Matt. Hope to see you soon."
In other words, she couldn't wait for a rematch. If I had a working nervous system, the statement might've caused a chill to ripple down my spine.
She gave me a nod, one professional to another, before turning and striding briskly through the crimson mist still filling the doorway. Now that she no longer carried anything of Scream Queen on her, the spell allowed Overkill to pass without any ill effect. Once she was gone, the mist dissipated, the enchantment no longer needed.
I tucked the autograph book into my jacket and then knelt next to Devona and took her hand. Bloodtears continued to stream down her cheeks and she grimaced in pain.
"I guess I don't need to ask how you're feeling," I said.
Devona spoke through gritted teeth. "You realize you just made an enemy, don't you?"
"I'll add her name to the list."
Devona kept a steel bladed knife in a sheath on her right boot. With my free hand I reached down and pulled the knife free. "This is going to hurt," I warned her.
"It already hurts," she snapped.
"Then this is going to hurt worse. Ready?"
She squeezed her eyes shut, gripped my hand, and nodded.
Though technically I didn't need to I took a deep breath and then I started cutting.
THREE
"How's the shoulder?"
"Like new." Devona's leather outfit had a tear over the shoulder, the edges crusted with dried blood, but the exposed skin was once more smooth and healthy. "Thanks, Bogdan."
The warlock shrugged in what I thought was a blatantly insincere attempt to appear modest. "Healing magic doesn't always work with Bloodborn – they are, after all, undead – but as you're half-human, I thought I'd make the attempt. I'm glad my spell was successful."
As for my own injury I'd removed the blade from between my ribs and aside from a new hole I'd need to get sewn up the next time I visited my houngan, I was no worse for wear. Papa Chatha is able to use his voodoo magic to keep me from rotting away to nothing, but when it comes to torn skin, broken bones and the like, instead of invoking the Loa, Papa tends to rely on thread, staples and superglue.
Devona and I – along with the rest of the team – had returned to the Midnight Watch building and now lounged in the great room. When Devona had first bought the building the stone fireplace was cracked and filled with cobwebs, musty old paintings hung on the walls, and the wooden beams overhead were rotten and falling apart. Devona had spent a significant amount of money to renovate the building's interior and the great room now had all new leather furniture, abstract holo art hanging on the walls – not really my taste, but hey, it's Devona's business, not mine – and an illusory fire flickering in a brazier set in the fireplace, providing plenty of light but no heat. Zombie flesh tends to be on the dry side, especially when I'm due for a new batch of preservative spells, and I try to stay away from fire whenever possible. Devona, considerate partner that she is, had the magical brazier installed just for me.
"She could've healed herself simply by chugging a mug or two of the red stuff before we left Sinsation," I said, trying not to sound irritated with Bogdan and failing miserably.
Devona scowled at me. "You know how I feel about drinking blood in bars, Matt."
Many of Nekropolis's denizens require blood as a major part of their diet and supplying that need is one of the city's major industries. The real thing, as you might imagine, is difficult to come by and the artificial substitute aqua sanguis – while providing a certain amount of nourishment – mostly just takes the edge off the thirst. Vampires often get blood from their shadows, human followers who serve their undead masters in the hope of one day joining their dark ranks, and over at the Foundry, Victor Baron produces blood by the gallons from an army of cloned human bodies that lack higher brain functions, primarily because, as rumor has it, they don't possess any heads. But all of those sources still aren't enough to meet the demand and there's a brisk black market trade in blood – and the sellers aren't too picky about how they come by their supply or who they have to kill to obtain it. According to the law in Nekropolis humans who choose to live in the city are not inferior beings to be exploited, save by their own choice, but they are fair game as prey, as is every other being in the city.
During the decades Devona served her father she lived in the Cathedral and gave little thought to where her food came from. In the stronghold of the Darklord Galm blood flows freely from a large marble fountain that never runs dry. If a member of the household or one of the staff wishes to slake his or her thirst they need only dip a goblet into the fountain and drink their fill. But during the few months since Devona had abandoned her sheltered existence and come to live with me, she'd learned a great deal about what life is like outside the walls of her father's home and she'd developed a social conscience. She refused to take part in exploiting humans – after all, her mother was human – and if she wasn't absolutely sure where blood came from, she wouldn't drink it, like humans back on Earth refusing to eat tuna from companies whose indiscriminate fishing practices result in the death of dolphins. And bars were among the worst offenders when it came to selling black market blood. As a former human myself, I normally admired Devona's attitude, but it bugged me that night… mostly because it had led to Bogdan getting to use his magic to heal her.
Are you getting the idea that I wasn't the warlock's biggest fan?
Devona sat on a couch near the fireplace and she'd just finished arranging five piles of darkgems in front of her on a crystal coffee table. She looked up at everyone and smiled.
"Scream Queen was very happy with our work tonight," she said. "So much so that she gave us each a bonus of ten darkgems." She gestured at the money. "Go ahead. You earned it."
Bogdan, Scorch and Tavi – the latter two once again wearing human form – stood on the other side of the coffee table. I stood next to the fireplace, learning against the wall, arms crossed, a scowl on my face. Normally I enjoyed standing close to the coldfire since I liked to gaze into its flickering flames and I knew they couldn't do any damage to me. But that night I stood there mostly out of habit. I wasn't enjoying myself in the least.
Despite Devona's invitation to collect their pay the three members of the Midnight Watch didn't step forward. Instead they exchanged uneasy glances and remained standing where they were.
Devona frowned. "What's wrong?"
Bogdan spoke for the trio. "Scorch, Tavi and I are reluctant to take a full share of tonight's profits. We don't feel as if we earned it."
"We were hired to protect Scream Queen," Devona said, "and we stopped Overkill from stealing her voice. She was pleased with the service we provided and she paid us. All of us." She looked at Bogdan. "And you were able to cast a spell that returned her voice to her."
Bogdan shrugged. "It was a s
imple matter. An Arcane child could've done it."
My scowl deepened. You're a modest son of a bitch, aren't you? I thought.
"And all of you–" Devona took in Scorch and Tavi with her gaze now – "participated in the fight against Overkill."
"For all the good we did," Scorch said in a pouty voice, sounding like the preteen she appeared to be. "The three of us got our butts kicked."
"We were up against Overkill," Tavi pointed out. "We're lucky to still be alive." He turned to glance at me. "Uh, sorry, Matt. I didn't mean–"
"Don't worry about it," I said. "Living or dead, I'm still ambulatory and that's all that matters."