by Tim Waggoner
"Ever think about neutering these guys?" I asked Keket. "It might improve their disposition."
One of the guards snarled, whirled about, and rammed the butt end of his spear into my gut. The impact of the blow forced me to double over, though of course I felt nothing. It's a lot easier to act the part of a tough guy when you can't feel any pain.
I remembered then how Quillion had caused the green fire to blaze forth from the walls of the Inquisitory, and I shuddered.
Usually don't feel any pain, I amended.
Keket continued walking as if nothing had happened and the second guard prodded me in the back with his spear to get me moving again.
The four of us continued down a winding, curving hallway that was constructed from the same fleshy substance as the cell and similar bony protuberances stuck out from the walls and ceiling. We passed other cells as we walked, their doors formed from the same skeletal bars as mine was. The inmates represented every major race that inhabited Nekropolis – Bloodborn, Lyke, Arcane, Demonkin and the Dead – along with other creatures, some of whom belonged to nightmarish species that I'd never seen before. Many of them hung from manacles, as I had, but some were free to roam about their cells, presumably because they were better behaved than their fellow prisoners.
Keket spoke as we walked.
"Quillion informed me of the particulars of your case. A very interesting story. Personally, I would've investigated further before pronouncing sentence, but that's Quillion for you. He's rather single minded when it comes to matters of justice and punishment."
Keket's words were unexpected to me, but hardly unwelcome, and they filled me with new hope.
"Maybe you could talk to Quillion," I began.
"I said your story was interesting. I didn't say I intended to do anything to help you. It's the Adjudicators' task to judge. Mine is to incarcerate those individuals they send me. Matters of innocence or guilt mean nothing to me. Tenebrus is my Dominion, and once you are here, I am your ruler and you are my subject. End of story."
"I get it," I said. "You couldn't make it as a full-fledged Darklord, so you play god down here in the subterranean shithole you got stuck with."
One of the guards raised his spear as if to strike me down for my impertinence, but Keket turned around and raised a hand to stop him. The jackalhead snarled at me, foam dripping from his mouth, but he reluctantly obeyed his mistress and lowered his weapon.
Keket padded over to me, and though I couldn't tell, I had the impression she was smiling at me.
"You know what they say: it's better to rule in Tenebrus than serve in Nekropolis." She laughed then and turned back around and resumed walking.
The guards and I followed once more.
"Consider this talk your orientation to your new home," Keket said. "Tenebrus is actually a relatively simple system. It lies deep underground below the city and there are no entrances or exits. The only way in or out is by magic and only I and the Adjudicators possess the power to open passageways to and from Nekropolis. I'm sure you've been staying alert the entire time we've been walking, taking in everything and pondering possibilities for escape. But you needn't bother taxing your little zombie brain. There has never been an escape from Tenebrus because escape literally is not possible."
"Good to know," I said. "Now instead of wasting time trying to escape, I can devote my energies to my favorite pastime: mentally composing pornographic haiku."
Keket continued as if I hadn't spoken. "The prison is divided into three sections: maximum security, minimum security – which is where you were – and general population, which is where we're headed. Because of your service to the city, Quillion recommended that you be allowed to mingle freely with the general population. I think he may be underestimating how dangerous you are, but I've decided to follow his recommendation. After all, if Umbriel had been destroyed, everything – including Tenebrus – would've gone with it, so I owe you a debt of gratitude."
"You know, if you really want to repay me, you could always open a passageway back to the surface and look the other way while I scamper off."
Keket ignored me as she went on.
"Of course, should you cause too much trouble, you can always be returned to your cell – or if necessary, put in maximum security."
"Just out of curiosity's sake, what's maximum security like?"
"Are you familiar with humanity's various conceptions of hell?"
"In general."
"It's worse. So I recommend remaining on your best behavior."
We passed one cell where a gaunt Bloodborn male with long black hair and a thick mustache stood at the bars. He was dressed in formal attire, including a long silky black opera cape. When he saw me he stretched a clawed hand between the bars and contorted his long fingers into what I guessed was intended to be a mystical gesture, but which just looked silly. His eyes widened and glittered with a feral light.
"You are now under my power," the vampire said in a thick accent. "You will open the door and release me!"
"Not a chance, Vlad," Keket said.
We kept walking, and Vlad let out a blistering string of curses at the guard most unbefitting one of noble birth.
"Is that–"
"One of them," Keket said. "We have three and all of them say they're the real thing. That one's the least dangerous, which is why he's in minimum security."
We passed several more cells when I felt something wrap around my ankle, nearly tripping me. I looked down and saw that a tentacle had emerged from a cell and grabbed hold of me. Its surface was a spongy mottled green and was covered with large bloodshot eyes. The interior of the cell was cloaked in darkness, so I couldn't quite make out what the owner of the tentacle looked like. Not that it really mattered.
Without missing a beat, I stomped on the tentacle as hard as I could, making sure I hit a couple of the eyes. The beast within the cell howled in pain, released its hold on me, and swiftly withdrew its wounded appendage back inside the cage. The creature than began making soft sobbing sounds.
"Stop whining," I said as I scuffed my shoes on the floor to get the viscous goo off them. "You've got plenty of spares."
One of the guards waved me on with his lightspear, and we started walking again.
"Starting fights on your first day?" Keket said.
"Look, anything that has eyes all over its body should know better than to attack someone. It's like wearing armor made out of your own testicles."
Keket grunted, but otherwise didn't comment.
We passed a number of other cells without incident, but then we came to one that had a water puddle in front of its door. Standing behind the bone bars was a young woman with long straight black hair hanging down in front of her face, concealing her features. She wore a white dress that was soaking wet and the flesh of her hands – the only parts of her body that were visible – were moist, blue-white and slightly puffy, like the flesh of a snail.
As we drew close the woman hissed Keket's name and her long back hair suddenly began to move. Ebony strands reached through the bars, rapidly extending in length as they streaked toward Keket.
The warden of Tenebrus didn't bother to acknowledge the threat. She merely continued walking as one of the guards pointed his glowing spear tip at the thrashing mass of hair. Energy blasted forth from the spear, engulfing the hair which, despite being drenched, burst into flame. The young woman shrieked in a mixture of pain and fury, withdrew the smoldering remains of her hair back through the bars, and retreated farther into her cell, hissing angrily.
"Whoever that is, she doesn't have any love for you," I said to Keket.
"It's a long and not especially interesting story. But one thing I'll say: the woman can certainly hold a grudge."
We continued on and I was beginning to think Tenebrus wasn't half as bad as it was reputed to be. I mean, I wasn't thrilled at the idea of spending the rest of my existence here, but if what I'd seen so far was any indication, then I could handle this place, no pr
oblem.
As we walked we left the cell block behind and I began to become aware of a low level roar, almost like the constant rushing of a large waterfall. The corridor ended at a railing constructed from bone and Keket gestured for me to step forward and join her. I did so and found myself looking down upon a vast canyon formed from the same fleshy gray bone threaded substance as the rest of Tenebrus. The canyon floor was lit by large light spheres set atop pillars spread throughout the area, illuminating what I first took to be a writhing mass of crawling insects. But as I took a longer look I realized that I was seeing hundreds of people – inmates – circulating, talking, shouting, and in many cases, fighting. And when someone went down, huge scarab-like beetles scuttled forth from recessed spaces in the walls and floor, grabbed hold of the bodies, and pulled them back to their lairs, and judging from the screams, not everyone the scarabs collected was dead. Dozens of silvery round objects glided through the air above the prisoners, slowly criss-crossing the length of the canyon. I had no idea what they were or what purpose they served, but I guessed they were some manner of security or surveillance device. Jackalheads patrolled among the inmates, providing on the ground security. The canine-headed guards were easy to spot because of their size and the glowing spear tips of the weapons they carried.
With a sinking feeling I knew I was looking down at Tenebrus's general population and I no longer felt quite so confident about my ability to handle this place.
Keket turned to me and this time I could definitely hear the smile in her voice when she spoke.
"Quillion thought he was doing you a good turn by recommending you for the general population, but I know the truth. Down there are a number of criminals that you helped put away over the years, Matthew Richter. You can imagine how thrilled they'll be to learn that they will soon get a chance to become reacquainted with an old friend. Be sure to give them my regards."
Before I could react, Keket extended a cloth wrapped hand toward me and the bandages around her fingers uncurled and began moving toward me, lengthening as they came. Five strips of ancient Egyptian cerements took hold of me, encircling my neck, wrists and ankles, and then they lifted me off the floor as if I weighed nothing. Keket gestured and her cloth tentacles lifted me over the railing and held me out in the open air.
She gestured again and I began falling, still held tight by Keket's bandages. I plunged downward, feeling absurdly like a zombie yoyo, unable to do anything but watch as the canyon floor came rushing toward me. While most of the inmates below continued to go about their business without noticing my rapid approach, more than a few looked up, and the feral grins on their faces communicated their delight upon seeing that Keket was delivering fresh meat to them.
When I was within twenty feet of the canyon floor, the bandages jerked me to a stop and then lowered me the rest of the way more slowly. When I was within a couple yards of the ground, the bandages released me and streaked back up to return to their mistress, leaving me to fall the rest of the way. Luckily the inmates in the immediate vicinity had seen me coming and moved out of the way in time to prevent me landing on them. Unfortunately, that meant there was no one there to break my fall. I heard something snap when I hit – a rib or two, I guessed – but whatever it was that had broken, it didn't prevent me from quickly rising to my feet, so I decided not to worry about it.
I looked around at the faces staring at me. They belonged to different species and both genders – evidently Tenebrus was a coed facility – but they all had one thing in common. They all looked mean as hell. No one wore uniforms. Everyone had on street clothes, presumably whatever they'd been wearing when they'd been sentenced. And judging from the ragged, threadbare outfits of many of the inmates, they'd clearly been here for quite some time.
Keket's voice boomed from above, filling the canyon with sound.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our latest arrival: Matthew Richter, knight errant and savior of the city who has, it should go without saying, suffered a recent reversal in fortune and is now joining us here at our happy little home. Won't you make him welcome, my children?"
Her last word echoed several times before finally dying away. I looked up at the railing where she'd been standing but Keket and her guards had already gone. Evidently I'd used up whatever amusement value I'd had and the Demilord had left to attend to more important matters. That was good. I didn't feel like having an audience as I was torn apart by an angry mob of prisoners.
I brought my gaze back down to eye level and gave my best new-kid-on-the-block smile to my fellow prisoners.
"Anybody heard any good jokes lately?" I asked.
"I got one."
The voice sounded like two boulders grinding together and it was one I thought I recognized. A moment later my guess was confirmed as a tall man dressed in a black suit pushed his way through the crowd of prisoners gathered around me. His features were grotesquely distorted – pronounced brow, bulbous nose, overlarge ears, thick wormy lips and huge powerful hands that constantly clenched and unclenched as if he couldn't wait to wrap them around a neck and start squeezing.
"What do you call a zombie in jail?"
"I don't know, Rondo. What?"
Thick lips pulled back from large yellowed teeth as he smiled.
"My bitch."
He raised those giant hands of his and started toward me.
NINE
I'd encountered Rondo – known on the street as the Creeper – not long after I'd first come to Nekropolis. He'd begun his criminal career working as muscle for a veinburn manufacturer, but he didn't get enough opportunities to kill people working for drug pushers, so eventually he struck out on his own as a freelance assassin. Being a sociopath with a pair of insanely powerful hands designed to cause severe bodily damage, he excelled at the work and before long he was commanding quite a price for his services. One day he was hired by a vampire named Varney who'd had his blood bonded human lover, called a Shadow in Bloodborn parlance, stolen by another vampire. Rondo was hired to kill the Shadow and he succeeded in strangling the woman. But the woman's new lover, a Bloodborn named Camilla, was inconsolable at the Shadow's loss and she hired me to find the woman's killer. I eventually did, though Rondo had nearly managed to rip me apart with those hands of his before I turned him over to a Sentinel. Both Varney and Camilla were minor nobility among the Bloodborn, so Varney got away scot free. Rondo wasn't so fortunate. Camilla used her influence to make sure the Adjudicators sentenced Rondo to Tenebrus and that was the last I'd heard of him – until now.
Despite his ungainly appearance, Rondo could move swift and silent when he wished – hence his nickname Creeper – and he was nearly on me before I could react. But after everything I'd been through since saving Scream Queen's voice, I wasn't exactly in the mood to dance with the ugly sonofabitch.
While I keep most of my weapons in my suit jacket, I'm not dumb enough to keep all of them there. I was grateful for Keket's sloppy security. Perhaps she'd assumed that Quillion's people had searched me thoroughly and had removed any weapons I might be carrying before sending me to her. If Devona had been here she'd had given the undead sorceress a stern lecture on basic security protocols. I reached into my pants pocket and removed a small yellow sphere no larger than a pill, but this medicine wasn't supposed to be taken internally.
As Rondo came at me I threw the sphere to the ground and it burst upon impact. A cloud of yellow gas billowed upward, catching Rondo in the face. He stumbled to a stop and clapped those huge hands of his over his mouth and nose to keep from breathing any of the gas in, but it was too late. His already bulging eyes bugged out even further as they began to water. He took in two hitching breaths and then released a truly impressive sneeze that, if I hadn't braced myself, might've knocked me off my feet.
"As you've undoubtedly guessed by now, you've just inhaled a couple of lungfuls of the strongest sneezing powder in the city. There aren't many benefits to being dead, Rondo, but no longer having to breathe is one of them."<
br />
I'd picked up the powder at the same place where I get a lot of my toys – at Hop Frog's Delight, the best joke shop in Nekropolis. The dwarf who owns the place is an absolute genius when it comes to creating practical jokes and he handcrafts each one personally. But you have to be careful. As a joke on his customers, Hop Frog designed his jokes to randomly burst into flame upon activation – for some reason the jester has a thing about fire. Maybe they'll go off the first time you use them, maybe not until the seventh time. You never know, and for that reason, at Hop Frog's it's very much caveat emptor.
The cloud of itching powder was spreading and those inmates who were standing too close to Rondo and me quickly drew back to keep from inhaling any of the stuff. As for Rondo he was doubled over and sneezing so hard he could barely catch a breath. Hop Frog's jokes are extremely powerful and I wondered if Rondo was in danger of sneezing himself to death. Given the number of people who'd met their demises at the overlarge hands of the Creeper, the prospect of the man's death didn't exactly fill me with sorrow.