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  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.

  Maera continued. "Kyra's the one who did my…outfit." She gave me a tentative, almost shy smile. "I saw her today, and she told me how you helped her with the cyclops, and I thought…" Her fragile smile fell away and she looked as if she might cry.

  "You're in trouble, and you need help." I didn't need to be a detective to figure this part out.

  Maera nodded.

  "Tell me about it."

  She drew in a trembling breath and started talking.

  "They're holding him on the second floor," Maera whispered.

  We were standing close together in an alley across the stre
et from the building in question. So close that, if I hadn't been dead, I could've felt Maera's breath in my ear as she whispered. I was disappointed I couldn't. There are a lot of things about being alive that I miss, and you can probably imagine most of them, but it's the small, unexpected things I miss the most. Like a woman's breath on my skin.

  This was one of the seamier neighborhoods in the Sprawl, and that's saying something. The sidewalks were cracked – when they were paved at all – and the buildings looked like they were made out of crumbling sandstone instead of brick. The windows were boarded or barred, and probably protected by cheap wardspells that were just as likely to backfire and injure the residents as repel intruders. Leech-vine covered walls and roofs, and rat-like vermen skulked through the shadows, fighting over whatever rancid treasures they came across. The few pedestrians that were either brave or foolish enough to walk the street moved with quick, determined strides, expressions coldly neutral, gazes alert for any challenge or threat. None of them appeared to be armed, but I knew they were, some of them heavily so. No one came here without a means of protecting themselves, myself included.

  The building Maera had pointed out looked no different than any of the others on the street, but then, if what she'd told me was true, it was important the occupants didn't draw attention to themselves.

  "How many?" I asked.

  "I only saw two. The rest of the building was deserted."

  Appeared deserted, I amended mentally. "How long ago was that?"

  "It was early, before noon. I was too upset to notice the exact time, though."

  According to Maera's story, this morning she and her lover – a male demon named Finn – had been on their way to the SixLegged Café, one of Nekropolis' more specialized eateries, for a breakfast of live cockroaches and blood-fattened tics. But before they could reach the restaurant, a pair of men approached them and drew obsidian daggers with intricate runes carved into the blades. The instant nausea that surged through Maera's gut told her the weapons were Dire Blades, knives created specifically to slay supernatural creatures of all kinds. Of course, as sharp as the daggers were, they were quite capable of killing non-supernatural beings as well. Dire Blades were so lethal to supernaturals that it hurt just to hold them, and there was only one group in the city tough enough to wield them: the Dominari, Nekropolis' version of the Mafia

  The two mobsters – a werewolf with cybernetic implants and a creature that resembled a bipedal lobster with opposable thumbs on its claws – told the demon lovers that they had come to collect the darkgems Finn owed them. Maera had known Finn loved to gamble – after all, they'd met at a tangleclaw table – but she hadn't known that her boyfriend had been dumb enough to borrow money from a Dominari loan shark to finance his hobby. A hobby, as it turned out, that he was spectacularly bad at. Finn had been sure he'd win enough to pay back the darkgems he owed along with the steep interest the Dominari toughs wanted. But Finn had hard luck and even less skill, and he didn't have a single gem to his name, and Maera didn't have much more than what it would take to pay for their buggy breakfast.

  The Dominari sharks were less than pleased, but when they saw how beautiful Maera was, not to mention the striking way she "clothed" herself, they decided to cut Finn a break. They wouldn't kill him on the spot…if his gorgeous girlfriend used her unnatural assets to earn the money Finn owed them. Maera started to tell Techwolf and Lobster-Head that she had no intention of prostituting herself for them, but before she could get more than a couple words out, the lycanthrope pricked Finn on the back of the hand with his Dire Blade. That brief touch was enough to cause the demon to scream in agony, and Maera, tears streaming from her kaleidoscope eyes, told them she'd do anything they wanted, just as long as they didn't hurt Finn anymore. After that, the two Dominari toughs escorted the demon lovers to this blighted neighborhood and marched them into the abandoned building across the street. Inside, in one of the upper rooms, they shoved Finn onto the floor and bound him in manacles made from the same enchanted obsidian as their Dire Blades, rendering him helpless. Then Maera received her instructions on just how much money she had to make and how fast she had to make it in order to pay back the debt Finn owed the Dominari and save his life. And she was warned that if she so much as looked in a Sentinel's direction, let alone told her tale of woe to one of the golems, Finn would die for certain, and she'd be next.

  Filled with despair but seeing no other choice, Maera returned to her usual stomping grounds in the Sprawl, picked out a street corner to conduct business on, and prepared to do what she had to do. But before she could attract her first customer, Kyra saw her and came over to talk, specifically, to tell her about what this zombie PI she'd hired had done to a certain greedy cyclops earlier. Maera realized then that she did have another choice, and after asking Kyra where I could be found, the demoness abandoned her street corner and hurried off to search for me.

  At least, that's the story Maera told. But she was a demon, and her kind had been known to tell a fib now and again. I was withholding judgment on her tale until I'd had a chance to check it out more thoroughly.

  "You stay here and keep out of sight," I told her. "I'll go see how the land lays."

  Without waiting for her to reply, I left the alley and started across the street. Instead of walking, though, I shuffled, dragging my left leg and allowing my arms to dangle loosely at my sides. I canted my head to the left and let my mouth gape open. If I'd been able to produce any saliva, I'd have drooled. There aren't many benefits to being a zombie, but instant camouflage was one of them. Walking – or rather shuffling – dead are common in Nekropolis, so much so that people pay them little attention. As long as I don't moan "Braaaaaaaiiiinssssss…" and try to take a bite out of someone's skull, once I go into my act, I might as well be invisible.

  I made it to the sidewalk in front of the Dominari sharks' hideout without drawing any undue attention to myself. I doubted I'd done so unobserved, though. The sharks would either have sentry wards on the building to warn them of anyone's approach, or if they were too cheap to pay for the spellwork, one of them would be keeping watch on the street through a window, mostly likely one of the two on the second story facing the street. I couldn't simply look up and check without risking blowing my disguise. Regular zombies aren't bright enough to recognize a building for what it is, let alone understand what windows are. But there was a way to make that work for me.

  I continued shuffling toward the building and bumped into the wall, like a goldfish bopping its nose against the glass of its bowl. I was careful to avoid the leech-vine clinging to the front of the building. It couldn't do much to me since I was already dead, but it would snag hold of me nevertheless, and I couldn't fight my way free without ruining my act. I stumbled back from the wall, waving my arms erratically and looking around in confusion: right, left, down, and then up. If anyone was watching, all they would see is another brain-dead zombie perplexed by the seemingly magical appearance of a large solid object in his path. And when that zombie looked up, he saw a dingy, tattered curtain drawn away from the right second-floor window, and then a second later, he saw it fall back into place. I didn't get a look at whoever had been standing at the window. Considering the dark light cast by Umbriel, everyone in Nekropolis is usually standing in shadow of one sort or another. But the movement of the curtain was enough to let me know that someone was indeed on the second floor of the building, and that whoever it was knew a zombie had come calling. I just hoped they bought my act and decided I was a harmless nuisance to be ignored.

  I stumbled around for a moment as if unsure what to do next before finally heading down the sidewalk toward the alley at the side of the building. I was tempted to look back across the street to see if Maera had done as I'd told her, but I didn't want to give her away in case I was still being observed. I shuffled into the alley, did my bump-into-the-wall bit again, and looked up. Leech-vine completely covered this side of the building, so thick that I couldn't tell if there were wi
ndows here or not. I decided to take a chance that if there were, the vines would block any view of the alley, and I hurried to the other end at my usual lessthan-breakneck-but-faster-than-a-shuffle speed. I knew the longer I took to reconnoiter the place, the more time whoever was inside would have to get suspicious.

  Behind the building was a cross alley that provided a lovely view of the backsides of another row of vine-covered hovels. Detritus filled the alley, along with rats, cats, dogs, vermen, and other less-identifiable scavengers, all sifting through the open landfill for whatever they could find to eat, including each other. But I hadn't come here to observe the local fauna in action. I'd come in search of a back door, and I'd found one. The problem was, it was wide open and someone was standing in the doorway grinning at me – someone who now possessed a fancy new ocular implant in place of the eye I'd poked out earlier.

  "Hello, Troilus. Whoever your cyber-doc is, he, she, or it did a decent job." In some ways, the technology in Nekropolis is more advanced than Earth's. The physiognomy of supernatural creatures – given their overall strength and healing capacity – lends itself far more easily to biomechanical and genetic enhancement than humans. Troilus' eye implant was a little crooked, it wept pus, and from the way the skin around it had blistered, I knew the machinery was running hot. The image resolution was probably substandard too, but all in all, not bad for what had surely been a rush job completed by a street surgeon.