The Nekropolis Archives (2 page)

  Bellowing in agony, eyes squeezed shut and weeping blood, the creature lashed out and fastened its thick fingers around the wrist of my gun hand. Before I could react, the demon yanked, and my right arm came out of the socket as easily as a greasy wing parting from an overcooked chicken. I had only a single thought.

  
Not again!

"I have to warn you, Matt. This isn't the prettiest work I've ever done. I'm a houngan, not a surgeon."

  "Don't worry about it. I got over being vain about my appearance about the same time I stopped breathing. Look at it this way: you have an important advantage over a medical doctor. You don't have to worry about your patient dying if you screw up."

  It was late afternoon, and my confrontation with the demon lay several hours in the future. I was sitting on a stool in Papa Chatha's workshop, shirt off, holding my right arm in place with my left hand while Papa, seated next to me, played seamstress. His brow was furrowed in concentration, and small beads of sweat had gathered on the mahogany skin of his smoothly shaven head. His white pullover shirt and pants were splotched with stains that looked too much like blood. None of if was mine, though. I hadn't bled for a long time. One of the advantages to being a zombie.

  Another benefit was that I felt no pain as Papa sank the bone needle into the gray-tinged flesh of my shoulder. I could feel pressure as the pointed tip emerged from the ragged skin of my left arm, felt the tug as Papa pulled the thread through, but that was all. I looked away, but not because I found it uncomfortable to watch someone reattaching a limb that had once been part of my body. I've gotten banged up quite a few times since I came to Nekropolis, and Papa's usually the one who gets stuck trying to put the pieces back together. I didn't want to watch because seeing Papa at work reminded me that not only couldn't I experience pain, I couldn't experience pleasure, either. Not physically, at any rate.

  I scanned the shelves in Papa's workroom, taking in the multitude of materials that a professional voodoo practitioner needs to perform his art: wax-sealed vials filled with ground herbs and dried chemicals, jars containing desiccated bits of animals – rooster claws, lizard tails, raven wings – books and scrolls piled on tabletops next to rattles and tambourines of various sizes, along with pouches of tobacco, chocolate bars, and bottles of rum. Papa said he used the latter three substances to make offerings to the Loa, the voodoo spirits, and while I had no reason to doubt him, over the years I've noticed that he tends to run out of rum before anything else.

  "There." Papa broke off the thread with his ivory-white teeth then tied the end into a knot. I turned back and examined the result. The stitching looked tight enough, but the pattern was uneven, to put it kindly. Papa hadn't been kidding about the aesthetic qualities of his sewing. You'd think a guy who makes as many voodoo dolls as he does would be a better seamstress.

  "Give it a try," Papa said.

  I made a fist with my right hand and flexed the arm. It moved stiffly, but that had nothing to do with Papa's repair job and everything to do with the fact that I was dead.

  I lowered my arm. "Feels good. Thanks." I rose from the stool and went over to the chair where I'd draped my shirt, suit jacket, and tie. Most zombies wear whatever rags they died in, but I'm not your run-of-the-mill walking dead man. I'm still self-aware and possess free will. Before I came to this dimension, back when I was alive, I worked as a homicide detective in Cleveland. I wore a suit on the job then, and I still wear one now. Makes me feel more human, I guess.

  Papa continued sitting on his stool while I got dressed. "Sorry I couldn't do more for the skin, but the spells I used to fuse the bone and muscle back together should last for about a month before they need to be reapplied," he said. "That is, assuming you don't irritate any more cyclops." He frowned. "Cyclopses? Cyclopsi?" He shrugged. "Whatever."

  I finished with my tie and slid on my jacket. "You know Troilus. Always trying one scam or another to make easy money. This time it was a protection racket." I lowered my voice to a bass monotone in what I thought was a passable imitation of the cyclops. "'Pay me a hundred darkgems a week or you might end up taking a bath in Phlegethon.'"

  Phlegethon is the river of green fire that surrounds Nekropolis and separates the city's five sections. It's a cold fire that burns the spirit instead of the flesh, but its waters are home to giant serpents called Lesk who are only too eager to use their sharp teeth to take care of what the flames can't.

  Papa grinned. "I assume you were hired to encourage Troilus to pursue alternative methods of securing an income. Your employer anyone I know?"

  "A vampire named Kyra who has a tattoo parlor on the other side of the Sprawl, not far from the Bridge of Forgotten Pleasures. She uses living ink, and the tattoos she creates move through their wearer's skin. It's a striking effect."

  Papa nodded. "This is the first time I've heard her name, but I've seen her work before. So what did you do?"

  "I decided on the subtle approach. I tracked down Troilus and told him that if he didn't stop threatening people, I'd poke his eye out."

  Papa laughed. "
Very
subtle! Let me guess: in response, Troilus yanked your arm out of the socket."

  "That's right. But I'm nothing if not professional. Instead of getting angry, I calmly asked Troilus to give me my arm back. People like him are used to getting what they want through violence, and he was so surprised by my lack of reaction that he just looked at me with that basketball-sized eye of his for a moment before doing as I asked."

  "And what did you do after that?"

  "Undead or not, I'm a man of my word. An arm doesn't have to be attached to be useful, you know." I looked at the fingers on my right hand and frowned. "I think there's still some vitreous fluid under my nails."

  Papa grinned and shook his head. "One of these days, Matt, you're going to get yourself torn into so many bits that not even Father Dis will be able to put you back together."

  "Let's hope that day's a long time coming." I reached into the inner pocket of my suit jacket and took out a handful of darkgems. My fee for helping Kyra. I hadn't charged her much, but even though I was dead and no longer needed food or drink, I still needed money to cover the rent on my apartment and to pay Papa Chatha for his services. Not only for today's repair, but for the regular application of the preservative spells that keep me from rotting and smelling like Lake Erie at low tide.

  I held them out to Papa Chatha. "I know it's not enough, but I'll get you the rest when I can."

  He took the gems and tucked them into a pocket of his white shirt. "Tell you what, I'll call it even if you stick around and play a few games of rattlebones with me."

  I hesitated before replying. Not long, but long enough for Papa to notice.

  "I'd love to, but I've got an appointment to see another client."

  Papa could've asked me to call and reschedule. We do have cell phones in Nekropolis, along with our own Aethernet, too. But he just smiled – a touch sadly, I thought – and nodded his understanding. I mumbled a quick goodbye and departed Papa's workshop. I was lying. I didn't have any appointment scheduled, but I'd never been much for socializing, even when I was alive. Besides, I needed to scrounge up some more work if I was going to pay Papa the rest of what I owed him. Even houngans have expenses. It's not like dried raven wings come free, you know.

  And I stunk at rattlebones anyway.

Monsters are real. So are witches and ghosts and just about any other thing you can think of that goes bump in the night. They co-existed alongside humanity for thousands of years, peacefully enough for the most part. But several centuries ago Father Dis – who supposedly was worshipped as a god of death by the Romans – decided that humans were becoming too numerous and more importantly too dangerous to share the planet with. Dis met with five other powerful supernatural beings called Darklords to decide what should be done. Several of the Lords wanted to enslave humanity or simply exterminate the pests altogether, but in the end it was decided that the Darkfolk, as supernaturals call themselves, would relocate to another dimension, a realm of darkness called the Null Plains, and there they would create their own home, a vast city to rival any that had ever existed on Earth.

  Nekropolis.

  The Darklords didn't completely sever their ties to Earth, though. After all, not only was it their original home, the Darkfolk had all sorts of uses for humanity's technology – not to mention humans themselves. Five mystic portals between Earth and Nekropolis were created, each one controlled by a different Darklord. I came through one of those portals as a living man, chasing a suspect in a series of ritualistic murders that had happened in Cleveland. By the time I'd finished with, as Elvis used to say, TCB, the suspect was dead and I was too. Except I didn't stay that way. I couldn't return home as a zombie – without Papa Chatha's preservation spells I'd eventually rot away to nothing – so I had no choice but to remain in Nekropolis and try to make a new life for myself here. It was easier than you'd think. I didn't have any family or friends to speak of back home, and Darkfolk aren't all that different than humans, not deep down. They have needs and desires, and while most try to fulfill them lawfully, many don't. Too many.

  Since I was a cop on Earth, I use those same skills to pay the bills here. But Nekropolis doesn't have an organized police force. Each of the five Darklords sees to justice in his or her domain, while Father Dis – with the aid of his squadron of golem-like Sentinels – oversees the entire city, including the Darklords. But just like back home, justice isn't always applied fairly and consistently in Nekropolis, and that's when people turn to me, Matthew Richter, zombie PI.

Papa Chatha's workshop was located in the Sprawl, a riotous maze of streets and buildings ruled over by Lady Varvara, the Demon Queen. Although
ruled
is too strong a word. The Sprawl is a combination of Times Square on New Year's Eve, Mardi Gras, and Carnivale in Rio – a never-ending party with Varvara serving as eternal hostess. I make my home here, not because I'm especially fond of the chaotic anything-goes atmosphere, but because I've had a few run-ins with the other Darklords, and I'm not exactly welcome in their domains. Besides, this is where all the work is.

  Case in point: only a few moments after I left Papa's, a woman came hurrying up to me. I'd never seen her before; if I had, I'd have remembered. She was beautiful, with long blonde hair that fell halfway down her back, and she was tall, well over six foot, with a trim, well-toned body. The state of her physical fitness was easy to assess because she wasn't wearing any clothing. Not that she was naked, exactly. From the neck up, her skin was a creamy ivory, but from the neck down – excluding her hands – it was black. Not African-American black, but black-black. Obsidian. The color created the illusion that she was wearing a black skin-tight body suit, especially in the shadowy half-light provided by Umbriel, the dark sun which shrouds Nekropolis in perpetual dusk.

  "Excuse me – are you the dead guy who helped out Kyra, the tattoo artist?"

  She stopped as she reached me, out of breath, and I wondered how far she'd run to find me. All the way from the other side of the Sprawl, I guessed, given her mention of Kyra. That meant whatever her problem was, it was urgent. At least to her.

  "That's me. Matthew Richter." I offered my right hand for her to shake. My arm movement felt a little loose and wobbly, and I wondered if Papa's repair job was already starting to go bad. It's not like him to do shoddy work, but then again, reattaching entire limbs isn't normally part of a houngan's repertoire.

  The woman eyed my hand for a moment before giving it a perfunctory shake. Citizens of Nekropolis are generally tolerant of racial and species differences, but even here, few people are thrilled to touch a zombie's flesh.

  "My name's Maera." She looked as if she wanted to wipe her hand off, but since she wasn't wearing any clothes, she didn't have anything to wipe it off onto other than her own body. As she struggled with this dilemma, I took the opportunity to examine her more closely.

  She was strikingly beautiful, especially given her wardrobe choice, so much so that I wondered when someone would finally get around to inventing Viagra for zombies. But if I had any doubt about Maera's beauty, I had only to look around at our fellow pedestrians. All the men on the street, and more than a few women, gazed at Maera with intense interest. Some seemed to merely appreciate the aesthetics of her appearance, while others – most notably the vampires, ghouls, and lycanthropes in the crowd – clearly hungered for her, and not just sexually. I wasn't certain what race she was at first. Back on Earth, racial distinctions mattered only in a social sense, and even then they were only part of an individual's background, not a defining quality. Individuality is just as important a factor in Nekropolis, but racial qualities carry more weight here. When dealing with someone on these streets, it's important to know if in the back of their minds they're considering eating you, drinking your blood, pos sessing your body, devouring your soul, or any combination thereof.

  Maera's teeth were blunt, and she had no excess body hair or feral gleam in her eyes. So she wasn't one of the Bloodborn or a lyke, and she was far too attractive to be a ghoul. She wasn't a ghost or a revenant. Her handshake had been too solid and firm. I thought for a moment that she might be human, perhaps one of the witchfolk known as the Arcane, but then I noticed multicolored flecks in her eyes rotating slowly, like small organic kaleidoscopes.

  "You're a demon," I said.

  She nodded. "How could you tell?"

  "I'm a detective. It's my job." Clients expect you to say stuff like that. It's all part of the package they're buying.

  I didn't add that she was extremely beautiful for a demon. They come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them can change their form as easily as you or I change clothes. But no matter what body they appear in, they can't disguise their eyes.