by Paula Guran
“I think I actually did you a favor,” I said. “Your cyber-eye makes you look twice as intimidating as you did before. Of course, it also makes you look twice as ugly too, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
Troilus’ large hands curled into equally large fists. “If you got any more jokes, you better tell them fast,” he growled. “Because when I get hold of you, the first thing I’m going to do is rip out your tongue so I don’t have to listen to you yammer on anymore.”
I contemplated a witty rejoinder, trying to decide between I don’t give tongue on the second date and Go to hell, asshole, when I heard trash rustle behind me. “Hello, Maera. I was wondering when you were going to show up.”
I turned around and, sure enough, there she was, looking beautiful as ever, kaleidoscope eyes glittering, lips stretched into a cold, cruel smile.
“There’s no Finn and no Dominari loan sharks,” I said. “Just a pissed-off cyclops and his demon friend.”
“Business associate,” Maera corrected. “You didn’t think Troilus planned to go into the protection racket by himself, did you?”
“I suppose he’s the brawn and you’re the brains.”
Her smile widened, pliable demon flesh stretching farther than a human’s could without tearing. I’d seen similar effects before, but it was still disturbing to watch. “Actually, we’re both brawn.”
Maera’s attention-getting form blurred and shifted, and when she’d finished rearranging herself, instead of a beautiful naked woman with a black body-suit tattoo, standing before me was a hulking reptilian demon with steel talons jutting forth from its thick scaly fingers.
“This your real shape?” I asked.
Maera shrugged her massive shoulders. “I’m whatever I choose to be.” Her voice had become high-pitched, brittle, and grating, like metal fragments and glass shards rubbing together.
“That’s true of everyone, one way or another,” I countered.
A heavy hand gripped my shoulder, and Troilus turned me back around to face him. “Spare us the philosophy,” he said. “I got enough of that from the damned Greeks.”
“Tell me one thing before you start dismembering me.” Before Troilus could deny me, I hurried on. “You could’ve jumped me anytime. Why bring me here, and using such an elaborate cover story to boot?”
It’s hard to read the expression of someone whose only eye looks like a large camera lens, but a smug tone crept into the cyclops’ voice. “To humiliate you, of course. You think you’re so smart, so tough . . .” He sneered. “How does it feel to know that you’ve been outsmarted by a pair of street crooks?”
“If it ever happens, I’ll let you know.” While Troilus had been talking, I’d reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a handful of narrow white plastic pouches. I took one between my thumb and forefinger, aimed it at Troilus’ new eye, and squeezed. The packet burst under the pressure and thick red liquid splattered his lens. Before he could react, I took hold of the remaining packets, squeezed them in my fist, and smeared the gooey red results onto the cyclops’ tunic to join the stains already present.
“What the—what is this gunk?” Troilus reached toward his ocular implant to clear his lens, but all he succeeded in doing was smearing it around more.
Maera laughed. “It’s ketchup, you moron!” The demon looked at me. “Is this your idea of a secret weapon?”
“That’s right.” I grabbed hold of Troilus’ arm, spun him around once, kicked him in the kneecap to knock him off balance, and then shoved. I’m not any stronger than I was when alive, but I had the advantage of surprise. The cyclops went stumbling backward and landed on his mythological ass in a pile of trash.
Maera laughed even harder, but the demon’s laughter quickly died away as the first of the alley’s hungry scavengers—attracted by the smell of the ketchup—began to swarm over Troilus, Mostly bugs at first, but larger creatures swiftly followed. Within seconds, Troilus was screaming and thrashing about, trying to shake off his attackers. But his exertions lessened, his screams diminished, and soon he lay still and quiet, and the scavengers were able to continue feeding in peace.
Maera gaped as she watched her partner’s remains being swiftly and efficiently disposed of.
“Everything tastes better with ketchup,” I said.
Maera turned to me, her kaleidoscope eyes flashing with fury, and thrust her steel talons toward my face.
“I already had that arm reattached once today, and I still haven’t paid for it!”
Maera grinned as she tossed the limb in question aside. Her scaly hide was dotted with charred, smoking patches where the holy water had struck, but the wounds weren’t enough to incapacitate her.
“Forget the arm,” she said. “You’re not going to need it anymore. As a matter of fact, when I’m through, you’re not going to need your body at all.”
The demon continued grinning as she came toward me. I’d dropped the squirt gun when she tore my arm off, and the weapon lay on the ground. I could operate it with my left hand well enough if I could get hold of it, but there was no way I could get past Maera now. I stepped back as Maera advanced, and I felt myself bump into the alley wall. Coils of thirsty leech-vine wrapped around my body, barbs penetrating my clothing and sinking deep into my flesh, pinning me in place.
“Perfect!” Maera said in delight. She stopped in front of me, close enough to reach me but not so close that she was in danger of being attacked by leech-vine. “The way I figure it, you’re already dead, so the leech-vine won’t hurt you. It’ll probably let go of you in a minute once it realizes there’s nothing inside your veins for it to feed on. But it should hold you still long enough for me to tear your head off. If you’re dead, you can’t be killed, and that means you’ll stay conscious even after you’re decapitated.” She leaned in closer, and her grin widened. “I’m going to take you home and make you my pet. I might get a birdcage for you, or maybe I’ll just keep you in a box. Who knows? I might start a whole new trend: pet zombie heads!”
She reached out with her steel-taloned hands, but before she could take hold of my head, I spoke.
“You’re right: leech-vine can’t hurt me, and I can continue to survive as just a head. But you forgot something.”
Maera’s thick brow wrinkled in a frown. “What?”
“My arm.” I nodded toward the ground.
Maera looked down just time to see my arm—which had crawled over to us in the time it had taken the demon to advance—snatch hold of a leech-vine tendril and jam it against it her reptilian foot. The vine, realizing it had something alive to feed on, released me and whipped a dozen tendrils toward Maera. She screamed as the leech-vine covered her body and pulled her tight against the alley wall. The air was filled with soft slurping sounds as the vine began to drain the demon’s blood, but I didn’t look. Maybe Maera, like Troilus, had deserved what she got, but that didn’t mean I had to gloat about it. I understand death better than most, and I know it’s never something to celebrate.
With a sigh, I bent down to retrieve my arm for the second time that day. I tucked the limb under my remaining arm and walked out of the alley, headed back to Papa’s.
“So when did you first become suspicious of Maera?” Papa asked. For the second time that day, the voodoo priest worked on reattaching my arm, but with one difference: instead of using a needle and thread to hold the skin together, he employed a hot soldering gun. I wondered what burning zombie flesh smelled like, and I was glad my nose was as dead as the rest of me.
“When Maera first approached me, she told me she was a customer of Kyra’s. But Kyra specializes in living, animated tattoos that move across the wearer’s skin—Maera’s full-body tattoo didn’t move. That didn’t mean that Kyra couldn’t have done the work, but it started me thinking.”
Papa squinted one eye shut as he worked, and while the smell didn’t seem to affect him, I noticed he made sure to breathe through his mouth. “And where did those thoughts lead?” he asked.
“Maybe the loan sharks didn’t want to conduct their business in the public eye.” He gave me an embarrassed smile. “If they’d been real, I mean.”
“I’ll admit Maera’s story wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. The loan sharks might’ve wanted to make their demands on her in private, and they might’ve wanted her to see Finn in manacles, just to drive home the point that they were deadly serious. And despite their warning not to seek help from the Sentinels, Maera might’ve decided to take a chance on the zombie detective that had helped out her friend Kyra. But that was one too many might’ves for me. I decided her story was bogus, and after that, it was just a matter of playing along until I could figure out what her game was.”
“And you nearly ended up as a talking head in a birdcage for your troubles,” Papa said. He touched the hot metal tip of the soldering gun to my shoulder one last time, and then leaned back. “Finished. Try to take it easy on the arm for the next few days so the spells have a chance to take hold fully, all right? Same with the ear.”
“Sure thing.” I reached up with left hand and touched the ear Papa had also reattached. The arm worked and the ear didn’t fall off, so all was right with the underworld—at least for the time being. I got up from the stool and slipped on the pullover shirt that Papa had loaned me. My suit jacket and shirt were riddled with holes from where the leech-vine had grabbed me, and while Papa had used his soldering gun to seal the punctures on my dead flesh, he drew the line at tailoring. Considering how bad his sewing was, I didn’t mind.
Papa rose from his stool, turned off the soldering gun, and placed it on his workbench to cool.
“There’s one last thing,” I said. “Since Maera’s story was a lie—”
“She didn’t pay you,” Papa finished. “Which means that not only don’t you have the darkgems to cover the balance on your last repair, you can’t pay for this one either.”
“Afraid not.”
Papa grinned. “No worries. You’ll pay when you can. You always do.” He stuck out his hand and we shook.
I’d told a small lie of my own to Papa just then. There was something more about Maera, something that I’d learned from her and Troilus. Solitude can be all well and good, but sometimes it’s nice to have a friend.
“If you have the time, I’m up for a game of rattlebones,” I said, then added, “If the offer’s still good.”
Papa looked at me, and for a moment I thought he might comment on my change of heart, but instead he grinned even wider and clapped me on the back gently, careful not to ruin his latest repair.
“Always, my friend. Always.”
About the Author
Tim Waggoner’s most current novels are the Nekropolis series of urban fantasies and the Lady Ruin series for Wizards of the Coast. In total, he’s published over twenty novels and two short story collections, and his articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and Writers’ Journal, among others. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. Visit him at www.timwagonner.com and and www.nekropoliscity.com.
Story Notes
As Waggoner explains in his story—but is able to expand on more fully in Nekropolis, the novel for which this story serves as a “prequel”—his supernatural creations exist in another dimension that interacts with the mundane world and its humans. His hard-boiled zombie private investigator works in a world of demons, werewolves, magic, and other supernaturals—often technologically enhanced. But, don’t worry, purists, the brainless-walking-dead brand of zombies still shamble about in his world, too.
Like more and more speculative fiction authors these days, Waggoner crosses so many genres you can’t keep count. Readers seem to love the imaginative results writers are coming up with. Critics who love to devise definitions and marketers who feel books belong in slots, however, aren’t always in step with the writers or readers. That—even though it is a topic pertinent to zombies—is, however, another subject.
The Zombie Prince
Kit Reed
What do you know, fool, all you know is what you see in the movies: clashing jaws and bloody teeth; raw hunger lurching in to eat you, thud thud thud.
We are nothing like you think.
The zombie that comes for you is indifferent to flesh. What it takes from you is tasteless, odorless, colorless and huge. You have a lot to lose.
The incursion is gradual. It does not count the hours or months it may spend circling the bedroom where you sleep. For the zombie, there is no anxiety and no waiting. We walk in a zone that transcends disorders like human emotion. In the cosmos of the undead there is only being and un-being, without reference to time.
Therefore your zombie keeps its distance, fixed on the patch of warmth that represents you, the unseemly racket you make, breathing. Does your heart have to make all that noise, does your chest have to keep going in and out with that irritating rasp? The organs of the undead are sublimely still. Anything else is an abomination.
Then you cough in your sleep. It is like an invitation.
We are at your bedroom window. The thing we need is laid open for us to devour.
For no reason you sit up in bed with your heart jumping and your jaw ajar: What?
Nothing, you tell yourself, because you have to if you’re going to make it through the night. Just something I ate.
Hush, if you enjoy living. Be still. Try to be as still as me. Whatever you do, don’t go to the window! Your future crouches below, my perfect body cold and dense as marble, the eyes devoid of light. If you expect to go on being yourself tomorrow when the sun comes up, stay awake! Do it! This is the only warning you’ll get.
One woman alone, naturally you are uneasy, but you think you’re safe. Didn’t you lock the windows when you went to bed last night, didn’t you lock your doors and slip the dead bolt? Nice house, gated community with Security patrolling, what could go wrong? You don’t know that while you sleep the zombie seeks entry. This won’t be anything like you think.
Therefore you stumble to the bathroom and pad back to your bedroom in the dark. You drop on the bed like a felled cedar, courting sleep. It’s as close as you can get to being one of us. Go ahead, then. Sleep like a stone and if tonight the zombie who ha come for you slips in and takes what it needs from you, tomorrow you will not wake up, exactly.
You will get up. Changed.
When death comes for you, you don’t expect it to be tall and gorgeous. You won’t even know the name of the disaster that overtakes you until it’s too late.
Last night Dana Graver wished she could just bury herself in bed and never have to wake up. She’d rather die than go on feeling the way she does.
She wanted to die the way women do when the man they love ends it with no apologies and no explanation. “I’d understand,” she cried, “if this was about another girl.” And Bill Wylie, the man she thought she loved—that she thought loved her!—Bill gave her that bland, sad look and said unhelpfully, “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this any more.”
Her misery is like a bouquet of broken glass flowers, every petal a jagged edge tearing her up inside. She would do any thing to make it stop. She’d never put herself out—no pills, no razor blades for Dana Graver, no blackened corpse for Bill to find, although he deserves an ugly shock.
She’d never consciously hurt herself but if she lies on her back in the dark and wills herself to die it might just accidentally happen, would that be so bad? Let the
heartless bastard come in and find his sad, rejected love perfectly composed, lovely in black with her white hands folded gracefully and her dark hair flowing, a reproach that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Look what you did to me. Doesn’t he deserve to know what it sounds like to hear your own heart break?
Composed for death, Dana dozes instead. She drops into sleep like an ocean, wishing she could submerge and please God, never have to come back up. She . . .
She jerks awake. Oh God, I didn’t mean it!
There is something in the room.
With her heart hammering she sits up, trembling. Switches on the light.
The silent figure standing by the dresser looks nothing like the deaths a single woman envisions. No ski mask, so this is no home invasion; no burglar’s tools. It isn’t emblematic, either, there’s no grim reaper’s robe, no apocalyptic scythe. This isn’t SARS coming for her and it isn’t the Red Death. The intruder is tall and composed. Extremely handsome. Impeccable in white. The only hint of difference is the crescents of black underneath the pale, finely buffed fingernails.
She shrieks.
In ordinary incursions the victim’s scream prompts action: threats or gunshots or knife attack, the marauder’s lunge. This person does nothing. If it is a person. The shape of the head is too perfect. There is something sublime in its unwavering scrutiny. Chilled, Dana scrambles backward until she is clinging to the bed stead. She throws the lamp at it, screaming. “Get out!”
It doesn’t move. It doesn’t speak.
There is only the crash as the glass lamp-base shatters against the wall behind the huge head. The light itself survives, casting ragged shadows on the ceiling. The silence spins out for as long as Dana can stand it. They are in stasis here.
When she can speak, she says, “What are you doing here?”