Tim Waggoner: Dead Streets

As a rule, vermen tend to be short – between four and five feet tall – with rat heads, lean bodies covered with brown, black, or gray fur, and long hairless tails. They tend to walk hunched over with a shuffling gate, though they can move damned fast when they wish to. The creatures avoid clothing for the most part, though sometimes they'll wear vests, mostly just to have pockets to carry things. The vermen employed at Sinsation, male and female, wore black vests with gold buttons and matching bow ties. I suppose the club's management was hoping the vests would make the vermen look classy and formal, but the overall effect struck me as rather silly.

"Pardon me, sir. Can I get you anything?"

I barely heard the voice over the music and I turned to see a verman server quivering before me. When I first came to Nekropolis I thought vermen trembled like that because they were always afraid. I'd soon learned that they shook due to their rapid metabolic rate. Standing still must've been torturous for the creature, but he did so, looking up at me with wet glossy-black eyes.

He was a bit leaner than the average verman – evidently the club owners didn't feed their employees as well as their guests – and he was missing half of his left ear. He didn't carry an order pad because vermen didn't need to write things down. They never forgot the details of an order.

I shook my head and the verman bowed his head before shuffling off in search of someone else to serve. I headed toward the bar to check in with Tavi when I felt a hand on my shoulder. At first I thought the verman had returned for some reason and was trying to get my attention, but his kind never came in physical contact with the clientele where they worked, perhaps because they knew how revolting their touch was to most people. So since I didn't know who had laid a hand on me, I reached into one of my pants pockets as I turned. Nekropolis is a dangerous place at the best of times, and along with a 9mm loaded with blessed silver bullets currently resting in a shoulder holster concealed beneath my jacket and a squirt gun filled with a blend of holy water and garlic juice tucked into my jacket pocket, I always carry a number of useful trinkets with me in case I run into any unpleasantness. I had my fingers on one such item, ready to pull it out and activate it, as I turned to see who wanted my attention. In the back of my mind I was thinking that Scream Queen's would-be kidnapper had gotten wind that Devona and the rest of us were on the job and for whatever reason had decided to confront me. But when I saw who was standing before me, I knew that wasn't the case.

"Matthew Richter! I'm so glad to finally catch up with you!"

She wore a white floor-length gown that resembled a toga, bodice cut low to display an impressive amount of cleavage. She wasn't fat, but she was, shall we say, Rubenesque, and I wondered if she used some sort of spell to keep from spilling out of her dress. She wore a pair of dark wrap-around goggles to hide her eyes, something for which I was exceedingly grateful, considering she was a gorgon. Since I was a zombie, I had no idea whether her direct gaze could turn me into stone, but I didn't want to find out. Her hair, as you might imagine, was a nest of green serpents, although instead of heads, miniature video cameras sprouted from the snakes' necks. It's not uncommon for the denizens of Nekropolis to sport cybernetic or genetic enhancements, for their inhuman physiognomy is able to adapt to such drastic changes in ways that merely human bodies can't, but this was one of the stranger body modifications I'd seen since taking up residence in the city. Although, technically, this wasn't the first time I'd seen the woman's cyberserpents, just the first time up close and in person and I wasn't thrilled about it.

"I'm too busy to talk right now, Acantha!" I had to shout to make myself heard over the band.

The gorgon smiled, revealing a mouthful of slightly pointed pearl-white teeth. "No need to raise your voice, sweetie. My little pets can filter out any background noise, even when it's as loud as this. Just speak normally." Her smile widened. "And by the way, just so you know, we're on live right now."

I grimaced. On the Scene with Acantha was one of the most popular Mind's Eye programs in Nekropolis. Devona and I watched it now and again, more as a guilty pleasure than anything else. Acantha specialized in live, on-the-spot tabloid-style interviews with the city's famous and infamous, the up-and-comers and the downward-sliders. She came across as all sweetness and light at first, but it never took long for her true nature to reveal itself. She could be more vicious than a lyke suffering from a bad case of intestinal parasites and those who were unfortunate enough to get cornered by her rarely came across well during the interview, to put it mildly. I joked with Devona that the gorgon's program should be re-titled V erbal Evisceration with Acantha, so as you might imagine, I was eager to get away from the woman as fast as possible. Besides, I couldn't afford to be distracted while I was supposed to be watching for another abduction attempt on Scream Queen.

Before I could protest any further Acantha launched into her first question. "Are you on the job right now, Matthew? Trying to track down some nefarious villain, no doubt. I'm sure you can't tell us the whole story – detective/client confidentiality and all that – but perhaps you can give us one or two juicy tidbits to satisfy our curiosity?"

To be honest, I was a bit flattered. The dead aren't held in high regard by other Darkfolk and zombies are considered to be on the lowest rung of that particular ladder. I was used to people turning up their noses at me – especially when I'd gone a bit too long between applications of preservative spells to keep me from rotting – so the fact that Acantha at least appeared to be happy to see me was a nice change. And it occurred to me that doing an interview with Acantha might garner some good publicity for Devona's business. But I was working, and as tempting as it was to do the interview, the job came first.

"I'm afraid I don't have any tidbits to offer, juicy or otherwise. Like I said, I really don't have the time for this right now."

Muted light flashed behind the gorgon's dark goggles and her lips stretched into a hard, thin line. Translation: Acantha Is Not Pleased.

"I've wanted to get you on the show ever since you saved the city last Descension Day, but for some reason my calls to you weren't returned." Before I could respond she reached out and grabbed hold of my left hand and turned it palm up. "So the rumors are true!" she said, her tone triumphant, as if she'd caught me with my pants down and my undead zombie dick exposed for all the world to see.

I had no doubt that her serpentcameras were focusing on a close-up of my hand and the pattern of puckered scar tissue there that formed the letter E.

"You are a servant of Lord Edrigu!" the gorgon crowed.

Edrigu, Master of the Dead, is one of the five Darklords who rule Nekropolis.

I yanked my hand free of Acantha's grip. "One of Edrigu's servants did a favor for me and now I owe Edrigu a favor in return. That's the extent of our relationship."

That was true enough as far as it went, but I had no real idea just how much I owed Edrigu for the help Silent Jack had given my friends and me. I tried not to think about it too much. It's never a good idea to owe a Darklord anything and if I'd had any other choice at the time… Well, I hadn't and I'd made the deal with Silent Jack and one day I would have to pay for it. I just hoped that day was a while in coming.

I wasn't really paying much attention to Acantha at this point. I'd returned to scanning the crowd, keeping an eye out for anything or anyone that seemed out of the ordinary. Well, more out of the ordinary than usual for Nekropolis. While I knew that Scream Queen's would-be abductor had cloaked his or her true appearance with illusion spells during the two previous attempts to kidnap the singer, that didn't help much. Scream Queen's former guards had been able to describe the illusions well enough: a male vampire covered with synthticks, cybernetic insects that constantly filter and recycle their wearer's blood supply, adding various drug cocktails to it in the process, and a female demon who resembled a bipedal shark, complete with water-breathing apparatus and, according to the guards, a truly impressive pair of shark-skincovered breasts. But it didn't matter what the abductor had looked like before. Assuming he or she stuck to the same MO a new illusion would be used next time and there was no way to predict what sort it might be.