The Nekropolis Archives (86 page)

  "What – the hell – was that?" she demanded between coughs.

  "A cure for what ails you," I said.

  Glassine's coughing gave way to harsh gagging, and she clawed at her throat, desperate to catch a breath. Her eyes bulged wildly, and for an instant I feared that the chemical I'd dosed her with had poisoned her – perhaps due to some unanticipated physiological differences between denizens of this Nekropolis and mine – but a moment later her breathing eased and a transformation began to sweep over her body. Her skin remained transparent, which was a natural state for her, but her body became symmetrical again – arms and legs properly proportioned and the same length – her claws became fingernails, and her teeth receded into her gums, becoming less sharp. Her wild tangle of hair smoothed out, her pronounced brow became less so, and best of all, the feral gleam in her eyes faded, to be replaced by confusion.

  Glassine, normal once more – or at least looking
her
version of normal – took in the three of us, and while I saw recognition in her eyes, it didn't drive out the confusion.

  "Matt? Devona? Is that you?" Her voice, though no longer guttural, was a bit raspy. The after-effect of all that coughing, I supposed. "You both look so different."

  "I hate to do this, Glassine, but I really don't have a choice." I stepped forward, shifted my gas gun to my left hand, balled my right hand into a fist, and struck Glassine a solid blow to the jaw. Her eyes rolled white, her body went limp, and she started to collapse. Devona darted forward lightning-fast and caught the transparent woman before she could fall and lowered her gently to the ground.

  Devona scowled at me as she straightened. "Did you have to hit her so hard?"

  "I had to make sure she went down before she could be re-infected." As if to illustrate my words, Glassine's body convulsed and she began to change back to her bestial state. Thankfully, she remained unconscious once the transformation was complete. I had no idea how long she'd stay that way, though.

  "Damn, that was fast!" Devona said. She turned to Darius. "You weren't exaggerating when you told us how contagious the Hyde plague was."

  I scowled as a thought occurred to me. "If it's so contagious," I said to Darius, "how did you avoid getting infected the last time you were here?"

  He smiled. "Who said I did? But I've picked up a lot of interesting… souvenirs during my travels between Nekropolises… Nekropoli? A universal antidote was one of them. Unfortunately, I used my final dose during my last trip here to counteract the transformation just as it started to take hold of me. If it wasn't for Bennie's inoculation, I'd look like her right now." He nodded to Glassine.

  "At least she's out of action for the time being," I said. "With any luck, she'll stay unconscious until it's all over."

  "We can't just leave her here," Devona said. "If one of the others finds her like this, she'll be easy prey."

  "We don't have time to move her," I pointed out. "The longer we stand here talking, the greater the chance that another of the Hydes will discover us. And even if we did have time, where could we take her? The moment we leave the alley, we'll be spotted."

  "I suppose you're right," Devona said, but she didn't sound happy about it. I didn't blame her. I didn't like the idea of leaving the unconscious Glassine behind either, even if she was currently a Hyde. But we really didn't have a choice, not if we wanted to do what we'd come here for –
and
survive long enough to go home. It was possible that Glassine might fall victim to one or more of the other Hydes before we could fix things, and after seeing the savage creatures rioting out in the street, I had a pretty good idea of the unpleasant things that would happen to her if she were discovered. But there was nothing we could do about that except work as fast as we could and hope it would be enough. Leaving Glassine like this would be hard, but I had a bad feeling it would only be the first of a number of tough choices we'd be forced to make before this was over.

  I tucked away my gas gun and withdrew several plastic-coated yellow spheres the size of ping-pong balls from my jacket pocket. Devona and Darius also took out handfuls of spheres, though where Devona had been keeping hers, given how tight her leather outfit was, remained a mystery to me. The three of us walked to the mouth of the alley, a single sphere held in each of our right hands, ready to throw, the rest clasped tight in our left hands.

  We then stepped onto the sidewalk and into Hell.

TWO

We tossed the first grenades underarm into the street, aiming at the Hydes closest to us. As soon as the spheres struck, they burst open, releasing yellow clouds of antidote gas, and every creature within range sucked in lungfuls of the stuff and began hacking. We didn't wait for the gas to take effect. As soon as the first wave of grenades detonated, we ran into the street and threw the next batch ahead of us to clear the way. We continued hurling grenades as we went, and within moments the homicidal chaos that had reigned in Sybarite Street gave way to mass confusion as clouds of yellow gas filled the air and dozens of the Hydes began to revert to their original forms. It wouldn't last – witness how long it had taken Glassine to become re-infected – but our goal wasn't to effect a permanent cure, at least not yet. Our goal was to create enough of a distraction so that we could cross the street and reach the
House of Dark Delights
, preferably without getting any limbs torn out of their sockets.

  I've done a lot of difficult things during my time in Nekropolis, but crossing that dimension's version of Sybarite Street was one of the hardest. As soon as one of the Hydes reverted to his or her natural form, any unchanged creature close to them attacked, and the air was filled with the sounds of their screaming as they tried to escape and failed. It took everything I had to ignore their cries of agony and terror and force myself to keep running, and from the pained look on Devona's face, I knew she felt the same. I told myself that we were doing what we had to do, and maybe that was true, but it sure as hell didn't make it any easier.

  We were two-thirds of the way across the street when a Hyde behind the wheel of an Agony DeLite aimed his vehicle at us and tromped on the accelerator. Agony DeLites are flesh-tech, formed from the bodies of a dozen sadomasochists. The vehicles run on pain, and the harder their drivers abuse them, the faster they go. I don't know what the Hyde inside the vehicle was doing to motivate his car, but it screamed in pleasure as it came toward us, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase on the asphalt. A glance showed me that the driver had the windows up, not that it mattered. Even if he got a dose of antidote and began to change back to normal, it wouldn't be in time for him to stop the car. I wasn't worried about Devona; I knew she could leap out of the way in time, but Darius and I were a good deal slower. Darius
might
be able to avoid being hit, but I'd end up zombie roadkill for sure. I'd survive the impact, but I'd sustain so many broken bones, I'd end up as little more than a rattling skin bag – zombie maracas. I figured I'd better do something to avoid that, seeing as how it would make saving this dimension's Nekropolis a bit harder.

  I still had a couple gas grenades in my left hand, so I reached into my pants pocket with my right and pulled out an ancient coin. This was one of Charon's coins, paid to the ferryman as a fee for passage to the Land of the Dead. In my case, its magic had allowed me to purchase twenty-four hours as a living man. I'd used it, so its magic was gone, or at least that one aspect of its magic was gone. But that didn't mean the coin was without power. Magic items are funny. Some work like batteries: once their juice is used up, they're worthless. Others – especially objects of significant power – are more complicated. If you follow the instructions carefully and take the proper precautions, they'll work for you. But if you screw anything up, or if you get greedy and try to use them one more time than you should, they'll turn around and bite you on the ass in spectacularly awful ways. I was counting on the coin being the latter type of object. If I was wrong… well, I hoped Devona and Darius wouldn't mind carting around an undead bag of bone shards for a while.

  I flipped the coin at the Agony DeLite. It spun end over end through the air, struck the vehicle on its fleshy hood, and bounced off. But that brief contact was enough for the coin's magic to take effect. The vehicle's nearly orgasmic shrieks became pained gasps, and its skin went from a healthy pink to a sickly gray-green. It lost speed and began wobbling back and forth, its discolored flesh growing hard and leathery, its windshield clouding over, as if it were a huge cyclopean eye covered by a thick, milky cataract. The car wheezed, veered off to the right, and stumbled by without hitting any of us. It struck a street lamp made from a large spinal column and curving rib bones, shattering it. The impact brought the vehicle to a sudden halt, and with a rattling cough the engine – hell, the whole damned car – died.

  The driver's door flew open and the operator of the vehicle climbed out, looking mad as hell and no worse for the collision with the street lamp. The Hyde started toward us, fangs bared, claws outstretched, ready to inflict some serious damage on the person responsible for spoiling his fun. But he didn't get five steps from the dead Agony DeLite – which was suffering from an advanced state of decay, its flesh liquefying and beginning to slide off its skeletal chassis – when his own flesh began to take on a gray cast and his breathing became labored. He made it two more steps before his face contorted in a grimace and he clutched his chest. A second later he collapsed to the ground, as dead as his vehicle.

  I'd hope that the coin's death energy would affect the vehicle, though I hadn't expected the effect to be quite so dramatic. But I hadn't realized the coin's magic might also affect the driver, whose bare hands had no doubt been gripping the steering wheel when the coin struck the Agony DeLite. As we watched, the creature returned to his natural form in death, revealing his true self to be a youthful-appearing vampire that I didn't recognize. I knew the vampire hadn't exactly been an innocent bystander – I'd lived in Nekropolis too long to believe any of its citizens are completely innocent – but he'd attacked us only because the Hyde plague had transformed him into a maniacally murderous beast. And without meaning to, I'd killed him. I half-expected him to open his eyes and sit up – after all, he
was
a vampire – but he remained motionless. I guess a coin imbued with powerful death magic is just as effective as a wooden stake for his kind.

  I glanced at Devona to see if she recognized him, but she shook her head. Whoever I'd killed, it hadn't been someone either of us knew, but that didn't make me feel any better about it. I hoped he'd be the last casualty before this day was over, but somehow I doubted it.

  The three of us continued on, throwing gas grenades and doing our best to avoid the slashing claws of the rioting Hydes. At one point, I ran out of grenades and switched to my gas gun.

  I swiveled my weapon to the right, intending to fire a burst of antidote at a group of Hydes. But before I could squeeze the trigger, a Hyde lunged toward me from the side, a glowing blade clutched in his oversized paw. He wore the white uniform of a Bonegetter, one of Victor Baron's employees who scour Nekropolis in search of lost and discarded body parts, or better yet, entire bodies, of which there are quite an abundance, given the all-toooften violent nature of the Darkfolk. I recognized the instrument he held as a laser scalpel, a device that cuts through flesh and bone as if they were water – an exceptionally useful tool for performing vivisections on the go. Before I could react, the Bonegetter-Hyde slashed down with his laser scalpel and cut through my right wrist. My hand, still holding onto the gas gun, fell to the ground.

  I felt no pain since my nerve-endings are as dead as the rest of me, and even if the laser scalpel hadn't automatically cauterized my wound, no blood would've spurted forth from my wrist stump. But that didn't mean I wasn't irritated to lose the hand, or more importantly right then, the gas gun that it held.

  The Bonegetter-Hyde looked at me and grinned.

  "So what are you going to do now, deader?" he growled.

  "This," I said, and concentrated.

  My hand flexed its muscles, managed to aim the gas gun's muzzle in the general direction of the Bonegetter-Hyde, and then pulled the trigger. A burst of yellowish gas shot up out of the Hyde's face, and he staggered back, coughing. He dropped the laser scalpel as he moved away from me, and I was half-tempted to retrieve the device and bury it in the Bonegetter's eye for what he'd done. But I didn't. For one thing, he was already in the process of changing back into his true form, and for another, I needed to get my right hand back ASAP.

  I knelt down and held my wrist stump out toward my severed hand. Small tendrils of grayish-green flesh extended from both the stump and my hand, and within seconds my hand had reattached itself to my body. I stood up, and since my hand still held onto the gun, I tightened my grip on the weapon to test how successful the rejoining had been. The hand flexed just fine, and I turned and fired a fresh burst of gas at another group of Hydes that were determined to finish what their Bonegetter brother had started.

  I was thrilled – and to be honest, more than a bit surprised – that the spell had worked. Over the years I've developed an unfortunate habit of losing pieces of myself in the line of duty, and I'd always relied on Papa Chatha to put me back together. But not long ago I'd literally lost my head… well, technically it had been my
body
that I had lost, but you get the idea. That injury had been beyond Papa's ability to repair, and I had to go to Victor Baron, the original Frankenstein monster, to get my head put back on my body. Papa's professional pride had been wounded, and he'd devoted himself to developing a spell that would allow me to reattach body parts in the field, at least temporarily. And what was even cooler, I could still exert control over any part of my body, whether it was attached to me or not. This was the first time I'd had the opportunity to try out the spell, and I was impressed by the results. Papa had been quick to caution me that the spell didn't make permanent fixes, though. The severed parts didn't literally rejoin with my body. They were held in place with strips of flesh, almost like bandages, and they would still function since my will animated them, but if I didn't get a more permanent repair done within twenty-four hours, any severed parts would fall off and stay off, and I'd no longer be able to control them. Still, as a temporary fix, the spell was more than adequate, as demonstrated by the fact that it had just saved my undead ass from getting sliced and diced by a homicidal Hyde wielding a high-tech surgical tool.