by Tim Waggoner
The large oak door closed with a sonorous thud behind me and I stepped out into the dusky half light of Umbriel's perpetual gloom. I heard the sounds of various locks – magical, mechanical and electronic – engaging behind me, and though I didn't possess the skill with magic to sense it, numerous wardspells also kicked in. The stone building didn't just house a security business – it was one of the most secure places in the city.
A metal plaque on the door read THE MIDNIGHT WATCH: SAFEGUARDING ALL WORKHOUSES AND INSTITUTIONS AGAINST INTRUDERS AND MEDDLING. SAVAGE BEASTS EMPLOYED. It was, as you might tell from the phrasing, the original sign put up by the Watch's founder several centuries ago and Devona had decided to keep it. Not only to maintain continuity, but because after decades of safeguarding her father's collection of rare objects, she had an appreciation for historical artifacts. The sign seemed a bit stuffy to me, but I had to admit it suited the place.
Devona and I lived only a few blocks west of there. This was a relatively sedate part of the Sprawl – one of the reasons why I'd chosen to rent an apartment here – 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, Aleister 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.
Some of the vehicles were imports from Earth: sports cars, SUVs, Hummers and so on. The Darkfolk may have relocated to another dimension, but they maintain ties with the world of their origin, mostly so that they can get their greedy little talons on the latest toys the human race invents. But there were plenty of home grown vehicles racing along the street as well. Carapacers – vehicles created from the hollowed-out animated husks of giant insects – drove alongside Meatrunners: leprous constructions of sinew, muscle and bone that didn't so much roll as lurch spasmodically forward on disjointed legs, diseased lungs expelling rancid exhaust as their drivers hurried toward whatever dark destinations awaited them. The latter monstrosities, like so much of the city's organic tech, sprang from the feverish and ever fertile imagination of Victor Baron, the original Frankenstein monster, who was something like Nekropolis's version of Thomas Edison – or maybe Bill Gates would be a more apt comparison. Everywhere you go you encounter one of his fleshy machines, each of them tattooed with the slogan Another Victor Baron Creation. Baron isn't a Darklord, but in his own way he's as powerful as any of them and certainly he's as rich. The city would grind to a halt without the monstrous tech his Foundry produces.
To the right of the Watch 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 were, if not normal, harmless enough at least. Both businesses were closed – doors shut, windows dark – and I started walking west past the head shop in the direction of my apartment. Nekropolis follows a standard twenty-four hour Earth day, but because so many of its citizens don't need sleep, shop owners keep their own hours and many businesses stay open all the time. Not the Midnight Watch's neighbors, though, and given my current mood, that suited me just fine. The last thing I wanted was to have a bored shopkeeper stroll out onto the sidewalk and attempt to strike up a conversation with me. I wanted to be left alone with my thoughts.
The Sprawl contains a bizarre mix of earthly architectural styles – Victorian, gothic, baroque, postmodern, American colonial, classical, neoclassical, Spanish and more – along with structures that look like something straight out of a fever dream. Buildings that resemble giant insect hives resting next to structures formed of light and mist. Many of the buildings were formed from material resembling bone and the streetlights were made of the same stuff, making them resemble skeletal arms holding globes of greenish light. As I walked through the crazy quilt of Varvara's Dominion on my way home, I brooded and kept an eye out for danger. In Nekropolis, not paying attention to your surroundings is an excellent way to commit unintentional suicide. Viscous blue pseudopods extruded from sewer grates as the Azure Slime quested for bits of detritus to feed upon, but as long as I didn't step too close to the curb and tempt the creature, I'd be fine. Building fronts were covered with leech vine, a parasitic plant that grabs hold of its prey and feeds upon its blood. As a zombie my blood had long since turned to dry dust in my veins and the vine ignored me as I passed. Devona has to be more careful around the stuff, though. Leech vine loves vampire blood best of all – even half vampire blood. It's like the finest of wines to the plant. I find it poetic justice that one of the city's greatest predators has a blood thirsty nemesis that desires to feed on its liquid life essence, but the vampires don't see it that way. That's why the best leech vine exterminators in the city are Bloodborn.
I passed a number of nightclubs as I walked down the street and a majority of them had Frankenstein bouncers standing outside their entrances who resembled the bouncer at Sinsation – a few of them resembled him so much, in fact, that it was obvious they'd rolled off the same assembly line. More of Victor Baron's handiwork. 'Making life to make life better', as another of his slogans went.
I was halfway home, reviewing my conversation with Devona and mentally kicking myself for acting like such a jerk, when I passed by an alley. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the shadows and an instant later something obstructed my vision. I realized a cloth hood had been dropped over my head, but before I could do anything about it, I felt a razor thin sharpness bite into my neck. A garroting wire, I guessed. It didn't hurt, but I could feel the pressure as the wire was pulled backward, slicing through my bloodless flesh. When the garrote hit my neck bone, the wire began to vibrate with a soft humming sound, as if it were some sort of mechanical device, and it cut the rest of the way through my neck with the ease of a laser bisecting a stick of butter. All of this happened in mere seconds, far faster than my undead reflexes could react, and the next thing I felt was a sudden dizzying lurch as I fell, hit the ground, and bounced a couple of times before coming to a stop. At the same moment, I heard the sound of something large landing next to me with a muffled thud. This was followed by shuffling footsteps, rustling cloth and grunts of exertion. More footsteps then, quickly fading away. After that, there was only silence and darkness.
I already had a good idea what had happened to me, but I had to check. I tried to reach up and remove the hood from my head, but my arm refused to obey me. I then attempted to sit up, but once again my body failed to cooperate. The reason for this was distressingly simple: I no longer had a body. Or at least, it wasn't currently attached to my head.
This was not good. And a moment later, it got even worse.
I heard something moving – lots of somethings. Tiny claws scraping against stone, little high-pitched voices muttering, drawing closer as they spoke.
"What is it?"
"Something in a bag."
"Just more trash."
"No, no. Take a whiff!"
Soft snuffling sounds.
"Meat!"
"Starting to go bad."
"Starting to go good, you mean!"
Dark laughter then, with a hungry edge to it.
Inside the hood I couldn't see what was coming for me, but I already knew: carrion imps, some of the nastiest little scavengers in the city. Normally the miniature versions of ghouls aren't much of a threat, but I no longer had a body with which to defend myself. Now I was just a hunk of discarded meat, an unexpected but quite welcome feast for the little bastards, and once they picked my skull clean not all the magic in Nekropolis could resurrect me again.
All in all it was turning out to be a pretty shitty n
ight.
FOUR
I may have only been a decapitated head, but I still had my brain, so the first thing I did was send out a telepathic SOS to Devona. I'd never tried to communicate with her through our psychic link at such a great distance before, but even if she did receive my message I knew there was no way she could reach me in time to prevent the carrion imps from chowing down on me – both sections of me.
I'd heard my body fall at the same time as my head struck the ground, so presumably my other half was lying close by. I wondered then who'd done this to me, sliced me in two and left me lying on the street for scavengers to snack on. I had any number of enemies, but there was only one person I'd seriously pissed off that evening: Overkill. Devona's words came back to me then.
The only way for her to regain face is to confront the person who forced her to stand down without so much as raising a hand against her.
Well, I certainly couldn't raise a hand now – or any other body part, for that matter. But I had a hard time believing Overkill was responsible for my current state. She was certainly capable of ambushing me and slicing off my head before I could react, no doubt about that. But my attacker hadn't said a single word to me and Overkill would have definitely wanted me to know she was the one who'd taken me out. But I didn't have time to worry about that now. I needed to survive long enough for Devona to reach me – assuming she'd received my psychic call for help and was on her way. If she hadn't… I thrust the thought aside and focused on not becoming imp food.
They approached cautiously, clawed feet scratching against the pavement, breath softly hissing in and out of their nostrils as they scented the air.
"You really don't want to do this." My voice came out as a rough croak, but it seemed I still possessed enough of my throat to speak. How I managed to do so without a pair of lungs to move air over my vocal cords, I'm not sure. I decided to put it down to zombie magic. A severed head is much scarier if it can talk, right?
The scuffling stopped and was replaced by a tense silence. I pictured a crowd of carrion imps gathered around my hooded head, standing frozen, eyes agape as they realized what they'd taken for a hunk of discarded meat was, in fact, alive – or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
A few seconds passed and then one of the braver imps spoke. "Yeah? Why not?"
His words were tough enough, but his voice quavered. Individually carrion imps are cowards. They're only truly dangerous when gathered together in packs. If I could keep them off balance and play on their fearful nature I might be able to prevent them from swarming me. It wasn't much of a plan, I admit, but it was all I had.
"Because I'm lying in wait for prey, and while I'd rather feed on something more tasty than imp, I'll settle for you if I have to."
A few more moments of silence and then the imps began whispering among themselves. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I had a good idea. Eventually the brave one spoke again.
"What sort of creature are you that lies in wait for prey concealed by a piece of cloth?"
Damn good question, I thought. "I'm a… a sharp-sting," I said, thinking fast. "I'm waiting for some curious passerby to reach into the hood. When they do, I'll sting them and implant an egg in their body. The egg will carry my consciousness, so I'll leave my current body and take up residence in my new host. Once my egg hatches I'll begin to slowly devour the host from the inside over the course of several months and when the host dies I'll leave the hollowed out corpse in search of a new home."
I was impressed with myself for coming up with such a good bluff on the fly. But then the imps – all of them – began talking.
"You fill up that hood pretty good. Big as you are, you don't seem like you'd be a very effective ambush predator. I think–"
"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."