by Tim Waggoner
Without consulting one another, the three of us dashed our voxes to the ground and then stomped on them. The plastic cases broke and pieces of electronic components spilled out, along with copious amounts of blood. Voxes incorporate Victor Baron's fleshtech and it seemed they were just as susceptible to the influence of Osseal as any other reanimated creature.
"Who would want to make Baron's creatures riot?" Devona asked.
"Who else but Baron himself?" I said. "For years there's been talk of making him the sixth Darklord, but Father Dis has always refused. So Baron worked hard to spread his creations throughout Nekropolis, getting his army in place so that when the time was right, they could strike. Now with Dis and the Darklords still sleeping to recharge their energies after the last Renewal Ceremony, that time has finally come."
Overkill opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment Jigsaw Jones – who'd just finished snapping a witch's spine by slamming her against his knee – turned to look at me. He discarded the screaming witch and came striding toward us. His scarred flesh was splattered with blood from his victims and from the expression of violent lust on his face, he was looking to add even more gore to his collection. I wondered if Jigsaw Jones and the rest of Baron's creations were listening to a mystic melody that only they could hear, music that drove them to go forth and kill.
Overkill turned her P-90 away from me and trained it on the approaching wrestler.
"Hold on," I said. I drew my .45, aimed, and put a bullet through Jones' right eye. His head jerked back, blood sprayed the air, and he staggered backward. He didn't go down, though, so I sent a second bullet to follow the first through the same hole, and that did the trick. Jones hit the ground like a giant slab of scarred, bloodied beef.
I felt bad for having to put the big lug down. After all, I'd made more than a few darkgems betting on him over the years and I knew his homicidal rage wasn't his fault. Still, in Nekropolis, kill or be killed isn't just a saying. It's a way of life.
I turned to Overkill. "No point in wasting ammo we might need later."
"That was good shooting," she said.
"Being dead means my hands don't shake. Makes my aim steadier."
"Still, that was impressive," Overkill insisted. "I'm not sure I could've done it." She looked at me then, reappraisal in her gaze, as if she were somehow seeing me differently.
I wasn't sure how to take it, and it made me uncomfortable. Devona didn't like it either, for she gave Overkill a hard look as she stepped forward and took my hand.
"We can't keep standing out in the open like this," Devona said. "Come on."
Without waiting for either Overkill or me to reply, she started leading me around the side of Nosferatomes and into the alley between the bookstore and Matango. Overkill followed, frowning slightly, though I couldn't guess what she might be thinking. The alley was blessedly free of Victor Baron's creations eager to tear us apart, and if only for the moment, we were safe.
"I still have a hard time believing Baron's behind this," Overkill said. "I mean, he's already rich and powerful. What more could he want?"
"The operative word in your question is more," I said. "What else is left for someone like him to want? Power can be like a drug, Overkill, and its addicts need ever greater doses in order to get the high they crave."
"Christina," she said.
I frowned. "Excuse me?"
"My real name. It's Christina. Christina Butts, actually."
"Seriously?" Devona said.
Overkill's finger tightened on the trigger of her P-90. "You got a problem with that?"
"Not at all," Devona said in an overly sweet tone.
"Look, I don't know what's going on between you two, but can you at least put it on hold until we can figure out what the hell is happening out there?" I gestured toward the mouth of the alley where the sounds of violent mayhem continued to filter in from the street.
"Nothing is going on!" Devona and Overkill said in unison and then turned to glare at each other.
I sighed. "Let's get back to business. Baron is the perfect suspect. Who else has the know how to cut off my head, animate my body, and use it to steal Osseal from Edrigu?"
Devona gave Overkill a last dirty look before turning to me. "I get how he found out about the mark on your hand. He doubtless saw Acantha's interview with you at Sinsation. But how did he know it could get you – I mean your body – past Edrigu's security at the Reliquary?"
"And how did he find out about Osseal and what it could do?" Overkill put in, as if she were determined not to be left out of the conversation.
"Baron's a couple centuries old, and he's extremely intelligent and well connected," I said. "He might've found out about Osseal any number of ways. Maybe from research into different reanimation techniques or maybe from Edrigu himself. He told me that Edrigu is one of his best clients. However Baron learned about Osseal, he probably learned about Edrigu's mark the same way. He just needed to find someone who possessed the mark that he could use."
"And when he saw Acantha's interview, he knew he'd finally found what he'd been waiting for," Devona said.
"But Baron didn't do the job himself," I said. "After he saw the interview, he sent a pair of Bonegetters to track me down and collect my body. And they probably used one of Baron's hi-tech vivisection tools to sever my head from my body. That's how they did the job so swiftly. And I think I know who it was, too. Remember those two we saw at the Foundry? Burke and Hare? They seemed awfully smirky to me, as if they were sharing a private joke. Now I know why. They were having a laugh at my expense, knowing I had no idea they were the ones who'd cut off my head."
"It all makes sense," Overkill said. "More or less. But one thing I don't get. From what I gather, you went to Victor Baron to have your head reattached. Why didn't he just have his men dispose of your body when he was finished with it?"
"They tried." I told her how we'd found my body in a Dumpster behind the Tooth and Claw restaurant.
"Why not just incinerate your body at the Foundry?" she asked. "Seems like that would've been easier."
"Baron didn't want any evidence at his place," I said. "A good forensic sorcerer would've been able to find traces of my body's ashes. It's doubtful anyone would've even thought to check the Foundry for such evidence – especially if Baron's coup succeeded – but he's too smart to leave anything to chance. That's why he agreed to reattach my head to my body when we called. He didn't want to arouse any suspicion. Better to just go along and fix me. Besides, that way there was someone else to take the fall for the theft. And since Baron helped put me back together, that further deflected suspicion from him."
"Seems like Baron thought of everything," Overkill said. "Except how good a detective you are."
She gave me that look again, and Devona scowled. I decided to start talking again before they could resume arguing.
"I'm not sure knowing the truth makes any difference," I said. "Who can we tell? Dis and the Darklords are still sleeping, and while I'm guessing their servants are right now trying desperately to wake them, there's no guarantee they'll succeed. Edrigu didn't wake up when Baron had my body steal Osseal from around his neck. If Edrigu slept through that, I doubt someone shaking him by the shoulders and shouting in his ear will do the trick. Same for the other lords."
"We could try to tell Quillion," Devona ventured.
"The Adjudicators and Sentinels probably have their hands full trying to deal with the rioting," I said. "I'd try to call Quillion, but our voxes are destroyed, and none of the others in the city are working, so that's out. We could try to tell him in person – assuming we could make it through the rioting monsters and reach the Nightspire – but I fear Quillion would destroy me on the spot for escaping Tenebrus before I had a chance to get a single word out."
"To hell with Quillion," Overkill said. "Let's just go to the Foundry ourselves, kick Baron's ass, and take Osseal away from him. The rioting should stop then, yeah?"
"I suppose so," I
said. "But since when did you become the hero type?"
"I'm not. What I am is a gal who likes her fun and right now the idea of fighting my way through a city of murderously insane Frankenstein monsters sounds like a blast!"
Devona regarded Overkill for a moment. "You really are a very strange woman. You know that, right?"
Overkill just grinned at her.
I considered Overkill's suggestion. Back when I was a cop on Earth, I once saw a piece of spray-painted graffiti on an alley wall that read Justice = Just Us. All too often, that was the way it worked in Nekropolis. Who else was there to deal with Baron? Besides, the sonofabitch had used me like I was nothing more than a puppet, and I was determined to make him pay for it.
"It won't be easy," I said, thinking aloud. "The Foundry's as well protected as a military base – and I very much doubt we'll be able to get there on foot. Hell, I'm not sure we could get there by car, given how bad it is out there." I thought about Lazlo, but I doubted his cab had been repaired yet, and there was no way it could get us through a city of rioting monsters in the condition we'd last seen it in.
"We don't need to drive all the way to the Foundry," Devona said. "We could take the–" She winced, her face scrunching up as if she was experiencing a sudden, intense pain.
I understood. Devona had been about to say Underwalk, but the tongue worm the Dominari had given her had jolted her with a burst of pain to warn her not to speak the word.
"Take what?" Overkill asked, but we ignored her.
"Yes!" I said, but my enthusiasm for the idea quickly waned. "But we still need to get there." The only entrance we knew about lay in a warehouse on the other side of the Sprawl – and there were a lot of Baron's psychotic creations between us and there, every one of them eager to tear us into teeny-tiny pieces.
"I don't know what you two are talking about," Overkill said, "but if you need to get across the Sprawl, I can help you out." She grinned. "I've got a ride."
"You know, if someone had told me two days ago that I'd be riding shotgun inside Carnage with Overkill at the wheel, I'd have told them they were crazy."
"Funny how life works out sometimes," Overkill said.
From the back seat, Devona muttered, "Hilarious."
My love was obviously not thrilled to be stuck in back, especially since that left me sharing the front seat with Overkill, but we'd decided that each of us needed to be next to a window so we could fight if necessary, and there were only two windows on each side of the car. Still, given the scowl that had etched itself onto Devona's face since we'd climbed into the car, maybe I should've volunteered to sit in the back.
Only a few minutes earlier Overkill had led Devona and me from the alley between Nosferatomes and Matango to a spot a block away where Carnage was parked. We encountered more than a little resistance from Baron's mad monsters as we went, but between the three of us, we managed to discourage them from rending us limb from limb, and we made it to Carnage. The car's black paint was bleached white in places, evidence of his time bonded with the Conglomeration, but otherwise he looked little the worse for wear. We all hopped in, and the possessed car roared away from the curb like a Caddy out of Hell.
The streets of the Sprawl were clogged with wrecked and abandoned vehicles, not to mention pedestrians running for their lives from pursuing monsters. Carnage wove through the chaos with consummate skill and we made our way toward the Dominariowned warehouse. As we traveled, Overkill explained how she'd come to team up with Carnage.
"I was already out looking for you, like every other hunter in the city, when one of my sources told me you'd been spotted tangling with Carnage on Sybarite Street. I hurried there and found Carnage stuck in the Conglomeration – nice move, by the way. By that point he'd almost extricated himself, and it didn't take much help from me to get him the rest of the way free. I intended to pump him for information about his encounter with you, maybe get a lead on where you were headed, when Orlock called. Once I knew he had you and Devona on ice, I wanted to get there as soon as possible, so I proposed that Carnage give me a ride and we'd split the bounty."
"More like Carnage overheard the call and threatened to kill you if you didn't cut him in," I said.
"That's one interpretation," Overkill allowed. "By the way, he still expects to be paid, and considering how you tricked him when you last met, he expects to be well paid."
"I suppose I should be grateful he's more mercenary than vindictive," I said. I had no idea where I was going to get my hands on the amount of darkgems Carnage would want, but I decided to worry about that later.
I'd never been close enough to Carnage to look inside it… him… whatever. The dashboard display was lit with the same crimson glow as his headlights and the interior was done entirely in black. The seats were leather and Devona later told me they felt slightly oily, as if they were living skin. She also said a faint odor of brimstone issued from the car's vents.
"Wait a minute," Devona said to Overkill. "You can talk to Carnage?"
"Sure," Overkill said. "There isn't a language in Nekropolis I can't speak, at least well enough to get by. Though I admit I'm not as fluent in possessed automobile as I'd like to be."
The more time I spent around Overkill, the more impressed I was by her. My feelings must've showed on my face, for Devona leaned forward and punched me none-too-gently on the shoulder.
"Keep your mind on the job," she said, her fangs fully extended.
Overkill glanced at Devona in the rearview mirror and just smiled.
Because Carnage was alive (in a sense) and intelligent, Overkill didn't actually have to drive. She rode behind the wheel, holding on to her P-90, which she'd reloaded as soon as we'd gotten into Carnage, gaze sweeping the street ahead for signs of trouble as we drove. She'd loaned Devona her 9mm, and I had my .45 and both of us had some magical items left over from what Shrike had brought us. We weren't exactly loaded for bear, but we weren't unarmed, either.
The scenes we saw as we made our way through the Sprawl were nightmarish even by Nekropolis's standards. Victor Baron built his creations to be tough and virtually unstoppable, and so far they'd lived up to their reputation. Buildings had their doors torn from their hinges, their windows shattered, and skeletal streetlights had been snapped in half. Cars – some that had been run off the road by Baron's vehicles, others that had been picked up by his monsters and hurled – were torn and twisted, lying wherever they'd come to rest. And there were bodies of course, more often than not ripped asunder, limbs and organs strewn about the streets like some sort of hellish decorations.
People were fighting back – this was Nekropolis, after all. Sentinels were out in force, the golems battling fiercely to quell the rioting, but while they were just as powerful as any of Baron's creations, they were seriously outnumbered, and we saw more than one Sentinel fall beneath a pile of savage monsters, never to rise again. I recognized some of the combatants that we passed. Outside Sinsation I saw the club's bouncer trying to get his hands on Eeriegami, but the latter kept folding and unfolding his body into different shapes, slipping out of the monster's grasp every time. In the street near Westerna's, I saw the Bloodborn waitress I thought of as Countess Dolly standing toe to toe with the Frankenstein monster decked out like John Wayne. Dolly clawed deep furrows into the monster's chest, but it didn't stop him from tearing off her head and throwing it as far as he could. Dolly's head flew right past my window and I saw the expression of fury on her face, and though I couldn't read her rapidly moving lips, I doubted she was singing her attacker's praises. As a recently decapitated head myself, I sympathized.
We even saw Shrike outside the Broken Cross, where he'd teamed up with a midget vampire called Anklebiter. The latter would run up to one of Baron's monsters and sink his teeth into the flesh of its leg. When the creature opened its mouth to howl in pain, Shrike transformed into smoke, flowed into the creature's mouth and down into its lungs, where he partially solidified, causing some serious damage. The monster w
ould cough up copious amounts of blood and then fall to the ground, out of action. Shrike would then emerge and resolidify and he and Anklebiter would start looking around for another monster to tackle.
I had a lot of friends and acquaintances throughout the city, and I hoped that they'd have the good fortune – and good sense – to reach a hiding place where they'd be safe from the rampaging monsters, though I knew that most of them, like Shrike, were probably out in the thick of the chaos, fighting to protect their home. I found myself thinking of Tavi, Scorch and yes, even Bogdan, and wondering how they were faring right then. I'm sure they were on Devona's mind as well, but as neither of us had voxes at the moment, we couldn't call and check on them. As it was, all we could do was try our best to get to the Foundry, stop Victor Baron, and put an end to the violence ravaging the city as swiftly as possible.
Before long we drew close to the intersection where the Dominari warehouse was located, and it looked like we were going to reach it without further incident.