by Tim Waggoner
"Yes," she said softly. "I can."
She spoke no magic words, made no mystic gestures. She did nothing more than stand and stare at Magilla.
We heard the sounds first – a soft scritch-scratch of tiny claws on pavement coming from both sides of the street. We sensed movement next, shadows roiling and surging within the alleys between buildings. And then the shadows broke free and flooded into the street. Packs of small creatures ran out of the alleys and scampered on tiny legs toward Magilla, and the other guard demons shrieked when they saw the creatures. For they belonged to a species so savage, so remorseless that even monsters feared them, and with damn good reason.
They were chiranha.
No one knows where they came from, whether they're the result of some unnatural twist of evolution or the unexpected outcome of some bizarre magical or scientific experiment. No one believes they were created on purpose, though. There isn't a sorcerer or scientist insane enough to even contemplate such a thing, let alone actually do it. Chiranha are a cross between piranha and Chihuahua, and as silly as that might sound, no one in Nekropolis laughs at them. They're the city's ultimate predator-scavengers, and the only good thing about them is that they keep the carrion imp population under control.
They're the size of Chihuahuas, but scaled instead of furred, with beady black fish eyes and blunt piranha faces with a prominent lower jaw. Their teeth are tiny but razor sharp, and a pack of the little bastards can strip the flesh off your bones and start digesting it before your last scream has time to fade away.
Magilla shrieked at the sight of two packs of chiranha converging on him, sounding more like a young girl than Shamika. He aimed his futuristic blow dryer at the oncoming horde of miniature yapping death and unleashed a sizzling blast of glowing blue-white energy. The discharge disintegrated a huge chunk of the street, but the chiranha were too fast. They darted out of the beam's path just in time, without getting so much as a single fishy scale on their hides singed. The other guard demons let loose with their weapons, both mundane and esoteric, but with the same lack of success. The savage little bastards were just too small, fast, and agile. Fortunately for the other demons, they were only interested in Magilla. The chiranha were on him before he could fire his weapon a second time, and they swiftly covered the shrieking demon from head to toe. He fell to the ground, rolling and thrashing as he tried to fend off the chiranha, but no matter what he did, he couldn't dislodge the creatures.
All we could do was watch and wait for the inevitable to be over – or so I thought.
"Stop fussing," Shamika said. "They won't eat you unless I tell them to."
She had to repeat this several more times at increasingly louder volume, but eventually Magilla heard her and ceased his exertions. He lay motionless on the ground, the chiranha still covering his body, glaring at him with those tiny black eyes and growling softly. Shamika didn't say anything, but the chiranha covering Magilla's face moved away so he could see her.
The other guards, seeing that Magilla was, surprisingly enough, still alive, edged toward us, slowly raising their weapons.
I looked at them. "If she can summon chiranha to attack Magilla, what else do you think she might summon to attack you?"
The guards looked at me uncertainly, then at each other. Finally they shrugged and lowered their weapons. Demonkin aren't exactly a sentimental lot, and the others' concern for Magilla's fate didn't override their own survival instincts.
Shamika looked through the barrier at Magilla. "It's not nice to threaten people. Don't do it again."
Magilla looked at her as if she'd suddenly started speaking Urdu. Threatening people was one of the things demons like him did best.
"Um… OK. I'm… sorry?"
Before Shamika could respond, Devona gently nudged me. "We've got problems upstairs, Matt."
I directed my gaze skyward and saw a score of flying demons descending toward us. They'd doubtless witnessed what Shamika had done to Magilla, and while I doubted they gave anything remotely resembling a damn for him, they'd been assigned to guard the environs around Demon's Roost, and they weren't about to allow our aggression to go unchallenged. Now I really wished I had a Judas bomb – better yet, a few dozen. I was desperately trying to figure out what we could do to keep from being reduced to bloody gobs of shredded and sizzling flesh, when an image appeared in the air just above the barrier.
Varvara might be queen of all the Demonkin, but she looks human – with the exception of her emerald eyes which seem a bit too large and a bit too green to be real. But her humanity is an almost cartoonish representation of femininity. She's more gorgeous than any supermodel, more sexy than any Penthouse centerfold, with a body whose proportions would make a Barbie doll so sick with envy that she'd develop an eating disorder. She's statuesque in every sense of the word, with long full-bodied red hair that seems to glow with an inner fire. She usually dresses in the highest of high fashion, but today she was garbed in a military commander's outfit that looked vaguely Nazi-ish. Black fabric, black gloves, black boots, and a riding crop clasped in one hand held at her side. Her red hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and there was a stylized flame insignia over one of her extremely large breasts.
I knew we were looking at a magically projected image instead of the real thing because she was slightly transparent. Nevertheless, her image exuded the same psychic impression of Darklord power as her physical presence did, and it took an effort of will on my part not to take a step or two backward. No one else in our group did either – we were all a hardy bunch – but Scorch went down on one knee and bowed before her queen.
The flying demons that had been diving rapidly toward us stopped and hovered in mid attack, heads bowed, and Magilla's fellow guards did as Scorch had and knelt. Magilla, still covered by chiranha – who, I noticed, seemed oblivious to Varvara's presence – lay still, but the exaggerated relief on his face at seeing his mistress appear was almost comical.
"My queen!" he said, his voice more than a bit whiny. "These five attempted to breach the barrier and they've used Arcane magic to attack and insult me! I pray, Mistress, that you'll use your unholy powers to smite them for their transgression against your Infernal Majesty!"
I looked at Varvara. "He's laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?"
"More than a little, I'd say." Varvara scowled down at Magilla. "Get up. You look ridiculous lying there covered in carnivorous lapdogs. I swear, if I didn't need every able body to fight right now, I'd transform you into a school of catfish and let the chiranha have at you."
Magilla, far more terrified of his queen than he was of being devoured alive, leaped to his feet, scattering chiranha off him. The small creatures gave him a few last growls for good measure before turning away and padding back to the alleys from which they'd been summoned.
Varvara's image turned around to face the demon guards.
"Allow them through and escort them to Demon's Roost." She then turned her attention to Magilla once more. "And if any of them so much as stubs a toe on the way, I'll hold you personally responsible."
Magilla's scaly hide lightened a shade as he went pale. He tried unsuccessfully to speak, swallowed twice, and finally settled on a brisk nod. Varvara's image then turned back to us.
"So, Matt. I suppose you're coming to make my life even more hideously complicated than it already is."
"What else?" I said.
She smiled, said, "Sounds delicious," and then disappeared.
Varvara's parting words didn't exactly reassure me. When the Demon Queen says something sounds delicious, she might be speaking literally.
TEN
I've visited Demon's Roost on a number of occasions, almost all connected to a case in one way or another, and every time I've been there, a bacchanalia of epic proportions was taking place. But while there was still plenty of excitement in the air today, the atmosphere was military rather than celebratory. The Atrium was packed full of bodies as usual, but instead of a cross-section
of partying Darkfolk, only Demonkin were in attendance. All subspecies were represented – reptilian, insectine, mammalian, piscine, elemental, conglomerate, humanoid, and conceptual. And while they still wore their civilian clothes, if they wore anything at all, they stood at attention in rows or conducted precise drills at the shouted commands of demons garbed in black uniforms similar to what Varvara had been wearing. Most of the demons were armed, though there was no standardization in the types of weapons they carried. I had the impression that they'd been summoned to Demon's Roost on a moment's notice and had been commanded to bring whatever weapons they could get their claws on. While a number had topof-the-line Earth guns, bladed weapons, or futuristic hardware, quite a few carried baseball bats, lengths of metal pipe, or that old standby, a two-by-four with nails driven through it.
The makeshift army might've looked ridiculous if it wasn't for two things. One was the sheer number of them. A couple hundred demons were jammed into the Atrium, and there were at least twice that many outside drilling on the grounds surrounding Varvara's stronghold. The other thing that kept them from seeming ridiculous was the fact that they were demons – fierce, heartless, amoral, and savage creatures whose only reason for existing was to sate their appetites, especially if they could do so at someone else's expense. No blank expressions of military discipline on their faces. Their eyes blazed with battle lust, and their mouths were twisted into cruel smiles, no doubt as they imagined what they intended to do to anyone foolish enough to get in their way.
I thought of the total destructive force contained within this building and the horror that would result if it was released into the streets of Nekropolis. As important as finding Papa Chatha was to me, I knew it was even more vital that I find a way to stop the war between Varvara and Talaith before it spilled over onto the rest of the city. I thought of Devona's and my trip to the alternate Nekropolis. That world's Hyde plague would seem nothing but a minor inconvenience compared to the devastation an all-out war would cause in our world.
Magilla himself had escorted us to Demon's Roost, and he marched us across the Atrium, growling for demons to get out of our way in the name of the queen. No one challenged him or accused him of lying about acting under Varvara's authority. No demon was suicidal enough to use the name of their queen under false pretenses.
Magilla took us to the elevator that led straight to Varvara's penthouse quarters. And then, his duty done, he turned and departed without saying a word. None of us was sorry to see him go.
I was familiar with the demon guarding the elevator. Usually, he doesn't wear clothing, but since Jambha was one of the stronghold's staff, he'd been issued a black military uniform. Or at least, it appeared that way. Rakshasas are masters of illusion, so perhaps we only thought he was wearing clothes, which, if you think about, probably saves him a lot on dry-cleaning bills. Whenever I visit, he's wearing, or seems to be wearing, a necklace made of tiny decapitated heads – usually miniature versions of mine – but today all the heads were tiny copies of Talaith, their eyes rolled white, flesh pale; little beads of blood dripped from their ragged neck stumps. What else would a patriotic demon be wearing with an Arcane-Demonkin war in the offing?
Jambha's job is preventing anyone from trying to bother Varvara by using any or all means necessary, the more bloody and violent, the better. Considering that rakshasas are Hindu cannibal demons, there's usually a certain amount of biting, chewing, and swallowing involved. Jambha always gives me grief whenever I need to go up to Varvara's penthouse – though so far I've managed avoid ending up in his stomach – and since he'd dressed the part of a good little soldier that day, I expected him to demand that we present our papers to him or something similar as we approached. But all he did was give us a brisk nod, tap the elevator's up button with a claw, then returned to standing to attention and staring off into space as if we weren't there.
"Aren't you going to say something annoying?" I asked him. "It wouldn't be a visit to Demon's Roost without you threatening to eat me or one of my friends for having the temerity to even think of bothering your queen."
Jambha shrugged, though he continued looking straight ahead. "The queen knows you're coming, and she wants to see you. Why should I waste any time bantering with you? There's a war on, you know."
"You demons aren't much fun at the best of times, but you're downright dull when you get all militaristic," I said.
Jambha merely shrugged again, as if to say, That's war for you. The elevator arrived, the door slid open, and we entered. It was a bit of a tight fit for the five of us – it was Varvara's private elevator, after all, and not exactly designed for crowds – but we managed. The door slid shut and the elevator started to rise to the accompaniment of a Muzak version of the 1812 Overture.
"I've never met a Darklord before," Shamika said as we ascended. "How should I act?" She didn't sound particularly nervous, just curious – which was strange. Anyone else would've peed themselves at the thought of being in the same building as a Darklord, let alone in the same room. I've encountered all five Darklords on one occasion or another, but I know Varvara best, and I'm still intimidated by her, though I'd never give her the satisfaction of showing it. Anyone with half a mind should've been scared to death to meet the Demon Queen, and anyone with a whole mind should have been terrified right out of it. But not Shamika. She'd demonstrated that she could take care of herself against Magilla, but handling a single demon of middling rank was nowhere near the same as being able to defend yourself against the queen of the Demonkin herself. I wondered if Shamika was overconfident, naïve, or a combination of the two. Though she'd supposedly been born and raised in Nekropolis, she didn't always act like it.
"Let Matt do the talking," Devona said. "Varvara finds him amusing."
Shamika frowned. "And that's a good thing?"
"It's an irritating thing," I said, "but useful. As long as Varvara is entertained, there's a decent chance she won't destroy us for bothering her."
Varney grinned uncertainly. "You're joking, right?"
I looked at him. "You've met Galm. You tell me if I'm joking."
His grin fell away as he considered my comment.
The elevator came to a stop as it reached Varvara's penthouse. The door slid open, and we stepped out and into a place I didn't recognize. Normally, Varvara's private quarters look like a parody of a romance writer's ideal bedroom: silk and satin everywhere, a huge canopied bed covered with overstuffed pillows, perfumescented air… All of that was gone now, replaced by a war room with dim fluorescent lighting and gray walls. Computer stations lined the room, manned by furiously typing demons wearing communications headsets. A black flag with a crimson flame emblazoned in the middle hung on the wall, along with a number of motivational posters that showed fierce-faced demons and featured slogans like SUFFER NOT A WITCH TO LIVE and PUT THE FLAME TO THE ARCANE! In the middle of the room sat a large gleaming metal table displaying a detailed three-dimensional hologram of the entire city. A keyboard lay flush with the tabletop, along with several monitor screens and rows of buttons and dials – the setup would've done a cheesy spy movie's evil mastermind proud. Standing before the projection dressed in her stylish black uniform was Varvara, and next to her, wearing a similar uniform, was a male demon I didn't recognize.
Like her, he appeared human – tall and handsome in a lean, wolfish way, clean-shaven, but with thick black hair hanging down to his shoulders. Not exactly a military haircut, I thought, but then again, he did serve in a demon army, and their regulations were no doubt somewhat more broad than an Earthly army. The golden stars on his shoulders, along with the fact he stood at the map with Varvara, told me who he was.
"General Klamm, I presume?" I said.
He looked up at me, and I saw that his eyes were as black as his hair, and they shone in the light as if made of polished stone. It was an eerie effect, and I was surprised to discover it creeped me out a little.
"And you must be Matthew Richter. I'd say it was a pleas
ure to meet you, but I don't see any point in lying." His voice was rich and cultured, with the weary, snotty edge of a food or theatre critic who'd long ago gotten used to the world constantly disappointing him.
"That's funny. I thought lying came as naturally as breathing to demons." I looked him up and down. "You know, given your name, I expected you to look somewhat more mollusk-y."
Klamm's dark eyes glittered. "And I expected you to be a loudmouth who thinks he's cleverer than he really is. At least one of us isn't disappointed."
As desperately as I wanted to hit him with a devastatingly witty comeback, nothing came to mind, so I settled for simply glaring at him.
Varvara's emerald eyes sparkled with delight at our interplay. "I'd tell you boys to behave yourselves, but where would be the fun in that?" She left the table and came walking toward us. Perhaps sauntered might be a better word. Even when she's all business, Varvara moves like a jungle cat in heat.
I expected her to ask me what information I had for her, but instead of approaching me, she walked up to Devona, bent down – Varvara's quite tall and Devona's petite – and gave her a big hug. "Congratulations, sweetie! I'm so thrilled that you and Matt are expecting!"