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  The last customer in the bar was a reed-thin blonde dressed in tight black leather sipping a glass of aqua sanguis alone at a corner table. The woman's gaze was focused intently on Honani, her brow furrowed in concentration. She looked alert, but not especially worried. She was extremely attractive, and if I'd still been alive – but I wasn't, so I turned my attention back to Honani.

  The big lyke reached the bar and slapped a paw on the shoulder of the insectine demon sitting next to me and threw him/her/it backwards. The demon squealed in fright as it sailed across the room and smashed into the table where the holo-vampires were sitting. Despite how sturdy the table was, it collapsed, and the bloodshards winked out of existence. The demon, tangleglow leaking from cracked tubes, squealed in terror and scuttled off into a corner where it rolled into a quivering ball and attempted to make itself look as non-threatening as possible. The vampires, who looked so much alike they could've been brother and sister, turned toward Honani and hissed in cold anger, displaying their incisors. But as much as the vampires might have liked to, they didn't make a move toward the lyke. He was just too damned big.

  "Whisky," he growled, the words barely recognizable coming out of his inhuman mouth.

  Skully trained his empty sockets on Honani for a long moment before finally nodding and setting a bottle on the counter in front of the lyke. Skully unscrewed the cap with his fully fleshed fingers, set it down, and then reached for a glass.

  "Forget the glass," Honani said, then grabbed the bottle and drank the entire contents down in three gulps. He tossed the empty over his shoulder and it shattered against the concrete floor.

  Skully normally doesn't put up with much crap. He keeps a silver broadaxe behind the counter, but he hardly ever has to use it. Rumor is that he has ties to the Dominari, Nekropolis's version of the Mafia, and while he's never admitted it to me, he hasn't denied it, either. A rumor like that, true or not, can head off a lot of trouble before it starts. If the Descension celebration hadn't been in full swing, and Honani already likely drunk before he even came in here, he would've had more sense than to act like such a jackass. Probably. But Skully didn't reach for his axe. Instead he looked over at me – at least I think he looked at me; it's kind of hard to tell when the person you're talking about doesn't have any eyes. I nodded. Show time. If I still had a pulse, it would have been racing.

  I stood up.

  "My friend," I said just a bit too loudly, "you are the butt-ugliest sonofabitch in the city." And considering the citizenry of Nekropolis, that was saying something.

  The thick muscles in Honani's shoulders rippled and tensed beneath his fur. The other people (and I use the term extremely loosely) in the bar drew in surprised gasps of air. Those that breathed, anyway.

  Honani turned around. His lips curled back from his sizable teeth in a snarl, and his eyes burned feral yellow.

  "I ain't your friend."

  The lyke was damned intimidating, but I stood my ground. There's only one cardinal rule when it comes to surviving in Nekropolis: Show No Fear.

  "That's true. If you were my friend, I'd suggest you have a street-surgeon remove your ass and graft it onto your face. It'd be a vast improvement."

  The big lyke just stood there a moment, blinking in confusion while his alcohol-sodden brain struggled to process what I'd said. Either he figured it out or decided to give up and just assume I'd insulted him. Either way, he let out an ear-splitting roar and came at me.

  You know the old cliché about how time seems to slow down when you're in danger? It's true. Unfortunately, being dead, my reflexes aren't what they once were, so the shift in time perception didn't do me any good. But twenty years' experience as a cop can make up for a whole hell of a lot, and thus I was able to sidestep just as Honani's claws – which had lengthened to twice their previous size and were still growing – raked the air where my chest had been a moment earlier.

  I was a bit slow, however, and the lyke's razor-sharp talons sliced through my Marvin the Martian tie, decapitating the cartoon spaceman. I watched Marvin's headless body flutter to the floor.

  "Damn it! Do you know how hard it is to come by ties like that around here?"

  Honani didn't sympathize with my sartorial loss. Instead, he lunged forward, mouth wide open, jaw distended farther than should have been anatomically possible, and fastened his twisted yellow teeth on my shoulder. I didn't feel a thing – except regret that along with my tie, I'd also lost a perfectly good suit jacket and shirt.

  But before he could take a hunk out of me, he pulled back, his face scrunched up in disgust, and spat great gobs of foam and saliva to the floor. "You're a deader!" he accused.

  "Guilty as charged. You'd have known that if you'd bothered to smell me." Mixbloods' patchwork physiology doesn't always function properly. It was quite possible his sense of smell was no better than an ordinary human's.

  Though the idiot should've been able to tell just by looking. It'd been a while since my last application of preservative spells, and I wasn't too fresh – skin gray, dry, and beginning to flake. I probably didn't taste too good either.

  As if emphasizing this last point, Honani spat once more then looked at me with disdain. "Go back to the Boneyard, zombie. Your kind isn't wanted around here." And then he turned and walked toward the bar.

  Honani's reaction was understandable. Most zombies are little more than undead automatons under the control of whoever raised them, and hardly a threat to a lyke as strong as Honani. But I'm not most zombies.

  I removed a glass vial full of gray dust from the inner pocket of my suit jacket and pried off the cork. And then I made a leap for Honani.

  My reflexes may be slower, and I'm no stronger than I was when alive, but I can get the job done when I have to. I threw my left arm around Honani's chest and with my right jammed the vial into the lyke's massive mouth and emptied the contents. There wasn't much in the vial, but a little was all that I needed.

  Honani choked and sputtered and then I felt a distant tearing sensation. I stepped back from the lyke, still clutching the mostly empty vial. Something was… and then I realized what had happened: my left arm was gone. The preservative spells were breaking down fast.

  Honani whirled around and brandished my detached limb like a club. Behind him, I saw Skully lifting his silver axe, ready to strike, but I shook my head and he lowered his weapon.

  "You… damn… corpse!" Honani advanced on me, no doubt intending to pound me into grave mold with my own arm. But he only managed a few steps before he doubled over in pain. He dropped my arm and it hit the floor with a meaty plap! His breathing became harsh, labored, and he started whining like a wounded animal, which, I suppose, he was.

  "You shouldn't have killed her, Honani," I said. "Lyra was a simple working girl; it wasn't her fault you couldn't get it up." Like I said, mixblood physiology doesn't always work right.

  He fell to his knees, breathing rapidly now. His entire body shook, as if a great struggle were occurring within him.

  "That dust I dumped into your mouth was part of Lyra's ashes. Not much, but enough. You took her life; now you're going to give it back."

  He rolled onto his side, quivering uncontrollably in the throes of a violent seizure. His eyes had lost all of their anger and wildness and were now rolled up in their sockets.

  This was it.

  With my remaining hand, I reached into one of my jacket's outer pockets and removed a small clay jar. I shook off the lid, which was attached by a short length of twine, then knelt down next to Honani's head and held the open jar in front of his mouth.

  His exertions lessened bit by bit and finally his body grew still. And then, as I watched, thin whitish wisps curled forth from between his teeth, lazily at first, but then the jar's magic began to draw them in, and they flowed out of his mouth faster and faster, until at last they were done. I sat the jar on the floor, put the lid back on tight, and then slipped Honani's soul into my pocket.

  Honani – or rather his body �
�� began to stir. I put my right hand beneath one of the lyke's sweaty armpits and lifted. I don't know how much help I was, but a few moments later, the body was on its feet again.

  Lyra swayed dizzily and for a moment I thought she might fall, but then she steadied herself and gave me a toothy smile.

  "It worked!" The voice was Honani's, but yet it wasn't.

  I nodded. "Of course. Didn't Papa Chatha say it would?" I decided not to tell her that sometime Papa's spells failed, often in quite spectacular – and deadly – fashion. Why spoil the moment?

  She ran her hands across her new body. Luckily, Honani's claws had retracted during the struggle for possession of his form, or else she would have sliced herself to ribbons.

  "It feels so strange… and I'm male now, aren't I?" She reached down to check and I politely looked away.

  "Yes," I said. "But it's better than being dead, isn't it?"

  "Oh, yes, much!" And then she looked at me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean–"

  I held up my remaining hand. "That's okay. I know what you meant." Would I have traded in my undead carcass for Honani's body? Maybe. Probably. I don't know.

  She pointed at my empty, ragged left sleeve. "Your arm!"

  "Don't worry about it. Occupational hazard. Papa'll fix it up for me." I hoped.

  She regarded me for a moment, and I could see the confusion in her eyes.

  "Something wrong?" I asked.

  "I… I don't know what to do now." She shrugged her massive shoulders.

  "You're alive – do whatever you want."

  She grinned, and even though I knew it was Lyra inside the body, the sight of all those teeth being bared still unnerved me. "You're right." She came forward and gave me a hug that, if I hadn't been dead, most likely would have killed me on the spot.

  "Thank you, Matthew."

  I wanted to respond, but I couldn't pull any air into my dead lungs to do it. She released me, and then with a wave she left the bar for whatever her new life held in store for her. I couldn't help but envy her.

  Everyone watched her go, and then Skully said, "All right, show's over," and his customers returned to drinking, talking, laughing, the incident well on its way to being forgotten. Just another day in Nekropolis.

  I walked up to the bar and sat on one of the stools.

  "Looked pretty hairy there for a minute," Skully said. "Pun intended." He grinned at that, but then he always looks like he's grinning.

  "You know, I can never figure out how you talk without lips or a tongue."

  "Just talented, I guess."

  "Right." I got off the stool. "Thanks for letting me conduct my business here."

  "No sweat. What're friends for?"

  "Gotta go. Papa's waiting." I started to leave.

  "Matt? Don't forget your arm."

  "Oh, yeah. Right." I bent down to retrieve it, more than a little embarrassed, and then continued toward the door. I was half aware of some of the bar-goers watching me as I left, especially the blonde in leather.

  However, it wasn't until later I learned that as soon as I left, she got up and followed.

  TWO

  Papa Chatha's shop was on the other side of the Sprawl from Skully's, and while navigating the maze of cramped streets was never easy, this time of year it was a nightmare, both figuratively and literally. It was the anniversary of the Descension, and the Sprawl, always party central for Nekropolis, had become a mix of Las Vegas and Disneyland (assuming the Haunted Mansion had exploded and taken over the entire park) during both Mardi Gras and New Year's Eve. Beings of every description – and quite a few who defied description – choked the streets, drinking, shouting, singing, groping, slapping, hitting, dancing, screwing… You name the verb, they were doing it. It was Halloween as scripted by Franz Kafka, with costumes and set design by Salvador Dali.

  Umbriel, the shadowsun, hung motionless in the starless sky, fixed in the same position it holds day in, day out, its strange diffuse light maintaining the city's perpetual dusk. And directly below Umbriel, rising forth from the ground like a gigantic obsidian talon, visible from anywhere in Nekropolis, rested the Nightspire, home to Father Dis, founder of Nekropolis and its absolute ruler. And in many ways, its God.

  Over three hundred years ago, the Darkfolk, rather than deal with an increasingly populous, aggressive, and technologically advanced mankind, decided to leave Earth. Led by Father Dis and the five lesser Lords, they traveled to a distant dark dimension where Nekropolis was born. This leave-taking, which the Darkfolk call the Descension, is Nekropolis's most sacred holiday.

  As far as I'm concerned, it's a gigantic pain in the ass.

  The Sprawl was crowded at the best of times, but this was madness. Normally, the streets were filled with traffic, vehicles of every type and description – and many that defied description – racing this way and that, drivers searching impatiently for whatever pleasures they'd come to the Sprawl to find. But because of the Descension celebration, the Sprawl was presently closed to vehicular traffic, and masses of partiers thronged the streets, as if determined to take advantage of the one day during the year when Nekropolitans could stand in the middle of the street and not risk getting run down by cars… or devoured by things only pretending to be cars.

  The sidewalks weren't much better, but I shoved my way through the crowds as best I could, past bars, clubs, restaurants, and establishments offering more esoteric – and often stomachturning – entertainments. I'd have kept one hand on the few darkgems I carried to prevent pickpockets from taking them, but I needed my good arm to carry my detached one.

  I was passing by Sawney B's, a fast-food franchise established by descendants of the infamous Scottish cannibal, when a trio standing outside the restaurant's cave-entrance façade turned to look at me. A bald man with large spider legs growing out of his head held a container of lady fingers, while his friends – a being who looked like a lobster in a leisure suit and a well-built woman with pythons instead of arms – sipped a marrow shake and nibbled homunculus nuggets, respectively.

  The bald man was about to pop a lady finger with cherry-red nail polish into his mouth when he stopped and pointed the finger at me. "Hey, check it out! The guy's been disarmed!"

  The three gourmands laughed. I stopped walking and turned to scowl at them.

  "I only need one arm to yank those legs off your head and shove them where Umbriel doesn't shine."

  The laughter died in their throats and I continued on my way to Papa Chatha's.

  The architecture in the Sprawl is a mad conglomeration of styles – Art Deco, Tudor, Baroque, Victorian, Post-Modern, Frank Lloyd Wright, and buildings which look like structures made from regurgitated insect resin. The whole place is like an M. C. Escher fever dream. But the Sprawl is Lady Varvara's Dominion, and zoning isn't exactly high on the Demon Queen's list of priorities.

  After struggling through the drunken, drugged-up throngs for what could only have been an hour or so but which felt more like a handful of eternities, I saw the greenish tint against the sky which told me I was nearing the flaming river Phlegethon and the Bridge of Nine Sorrows. Papa Chatha's was close by – finally.

  And then I felt a hand on my shoulder; or rather, I felt the pressure of a hand on my shoulder, as that was all the sensation my dead nerves were capable of conveying.

  "Excuse me."

  The voice was soft, feminine, and nervous. But while I'd been in Nekropolis only a couple years, that was long enough to know that in this place appearances mean jack. So I stepped forward, and whirled about, body tensed, ready to fight, holding my detached arm out before me like a weapon.

  The woman – the leather-clad blonde I'd seen at Skully's – took a step back, startled by my action. But then she regained her composure, or at least a good portion of it, and said, "I watched you handle that lyke in the bar. A most impressive performance, Mister Richter."

  She was barely five feet tall, slim to the point of being modelthin, with pale porcelain skin. Her short hair was
bright blonde, almost white. Her eyes were large and red, as if from crying. Or perhaps too much celebrating. "Yeah, well the next show isn't till midnight. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go see a voodoo priest." I turned to go.

  "Wait, please!"

  The urgency in her voice, almost panic, made me hesitate. "Look, whatever it is, can't it wait? I'm no expert, but as I understand these things, if I don't get my arm reattached soon, I'll lose it for good."

  "I… it's just…" She looked around, as if afraid someone might be listening, though how anyone could overhear us talking in the din of celebration, I didn't know. Hell, I could barely hear us. She leaned forward and mumbled something.