Magilla tightened his grip on the weapon and raised it a few inches, but he still didn't level it at us, something for which I was profoundly grateful.
'Guard duty,' the demon said in a low rumbling voice that sounded like a small avalanche. 'The general's ordered all access points to Demon's Roost blocked off and guarded.'
'General who?' I asked.
Magilla looked at me as if he was considering gutting me and using my eviscerated corpse for a field latrine. But he said, 'General Klamm. Varvara put him in charge.'
'She's already gathering an army?' Devona asked.
Magilla shrugged. 'You know Varvara. Once she decides to do something, it's fast forward all the way.'
'The bridges weren't destroyed by ground troops,' I pointed out.
In response, Magilla hooked a thumb skyward. I looked up and saw a dozen winged demons flying above us. Some had bat wings, some had insect wings, and some just levitated, but, like their groundbased counterparts, they were all armed and ready for trouble.
'Looks like Klamm's thought of everything,' I said.
'He's a pretty smart guy,' Magilla agreed affably enough, though from our conversation so far, I figured he wasn't the greatest judge of intelligence levels. He went on. 'What are you doing here, Scorch? You come to enlist?'
Scorch said, 'Naw. You know me. I'm a lover, not a fighter.'
Scorch's assertion was a bit hard to take considering that she now looked like something Hieronymus Bosch would've hesitated to paint, but it made Magilla laugh, and whenever a soldier is laughing instead of blasting you with his futuristic super-weapon, that's a good thing.
Scorch went on. 'I've got some people here that need to talk to Varvara. This is Matthew Richter, the zombie PI. He has some information that might prove useful to the queen.'
I was coming to ask questions of Varvara, not deliver information, but I didn't see the need to correct Scorch, not if her ruse would get us past the guard.
'I heard you've been hanging around him lately.' Magilla gave me an appraising look with his simian eyes. 'You can't mistake the smell, can you? Nothing reeks quite like a deader.'
I frowned, but I held my tongue. I was tempted to draw my 9mm and put a couple bullets in the big scaly ape just to show him that I don't take shit from anyone, but I told myself that, satisfying as it might be, it wouldn't help matters – especially when Magilla decided to retaliate with a deadly blast from his Buck Rogers gun.
Magilla thought for a moment, and from the way his brow crinkled and the little grunts of effort he made, I knew it wasn't an easy task for him.
'I guess it's OK if you take the deader on to Demon's Roost,' he said at last. 'Everyone knows Varvara finds him amusing, and she could probably use a good laugh right now.'
'Looks like my reputation has preceded me,' I muttered.
Magilla's scaly lips drew back in a grin, exposing a mouthful of large yellowed fangs. 'And if she's not in the mood to see you, she'll probably just blast you to atoms.'
'Always a risk when you seek an audience with the Demon Queen,' I agreed.
Magilla's grin fell away, and I had the impression he was disappointed that I hadn't found him intimidating. Monsters are like that. They're so used to being terrifying that when you don't automatically pee your pants at the sight of them, they're at a loss for what to do next. Usually they just try to kill you. And failing that, they try to scare anyone else in the vicinity. Magilla was no different. He turned away from me and focused his attention on Devona, Shamika, and Varney. He grinned again, wider this time.
'What about these three, Scorch?' he asked. 'Who are they and why should I let them through?'
'They're friends,' Scorch said, 'and they also have information that might be of interest to Varvara.'
Magilla looked them up and down for a moment. 'I don't see that it takes five of you to talk to the queen, but I'll tell you what. You give me the girl to play with, and I'll let the rest of you pass.' Magilla's grin widened into a full-fledged leer.
Shamika's eyes widened in shock, and Devona stepped closer to her and put a protective arm around her shoulders.
'We will do no such thing! I can't believe you'd even make such a suggestion!' Devona's eyes flashed dangerously.
Magilla laughed. 'What part of 'I'm a demon' don't you understand?'
'No deal,' I said.
Magilla shrugged. 'Then none of you pass. It's as simple as that. Now go on and get out of here before I decide to use you all for target practice.'
I fixed Magilla with the sort of unblinking stare that only dead people like me are capable of.
'I pick up a lot of nifty toys in my line of work,' I said in what I hoped was a low, dangerous tone. 'One of the nastier ones I've got is called a Judas bomb. Ever heard of it?'
Magilla shook his head. He didn't look especially scared, but he was paying attention.
'It's a magical device that when activated causes half the cells in your body to become cannibalistic. They immediately turn on the unaffected cells and begin devouring them. In a sense, your body betrays itself, hence the device's name. It's an extremely messy and unbelievably painful way to die.'
Magilla smiled, but it was forced. 'And what? If I say anything more about wanting to play with the little girlie you'll use the bomb on me? Just kill me in cold blood? I thought you hero types were better than that.'
I kicked myself mentally for trying to bluff Magilla. It's almost impossible to out-nasty a demon. Of course, it would've helped if I'd actually had a Judas bomb on me. I'd heard of the devices but never actually saw one. If I'd had one, I'd have probably used it then, just to wipe the smug smile off Magilla's face and to hell with my heroic reputation.
Shamika stepped up next to me. 'Thank you for trying to defend my honor, Matt, but I can take care of myself.'
Magilla leered at her and a thick ropey strand of saliva dripped out of the corner of his mouth. 'The question is, can you take care of me?'
The other guard demons had kept their distance so far, but they'd been watching our conversation with interest, and they burst out with laughter upon hearing the simian demon's less-than-subtle innuendo.
Shamika wasn't amused, however.
'Yes,' she said softly. 'I can.'
She spoke no magic words, made no mystic gestures. She did nothing more than stand and stare at Magilla.
We heard the sounds first – a soft scritch-scratch of tiny claws on pavement coming from both sides of the street. We sensed movement next, shadows roiling and surging within the alleys between buildings. And then the shadows broke free and flooded into the street. Packs of small creatures ran out of the alleys and scampered on tiny legs toward Magilla, and the other guard demons shrieked when they saw the creatures. For they belonged to a species so savage, so remorseless that even monsters feared them, and with damn good reason.
They were chiranha.
No one knows where they came from, whether they're the result of some unnatural twist of evolution or the unexpected outcome of some bizarre magical or scientific experiment. No one believes they were created on purpose, though. There isn't a sorcerer or scientist insane enough to even contemplate such a thing, let alone actually do it. Chiranha are a cross between piranha and Chihuahua, and as silly as that might sound, no one in Nekropolis laughs at them. They're the city's ultimate predator-scavengers, and the only good thing about them is that they keep the carrion imp population under control.
They're the size of Chihuahuas, but scaled instead of furred, with beady black fish eyes and blunt piranha faces with a prominent lower jaw. Their teeth are tiny but razor sharp, and a pack of the little bastards can strip the flesh off your bones and start digesting it before your last scream has time to fade away.
Magilla shrieked at the sight of two packs of chiranha converging on him, sounding more like a young girl than Shamika. He aimed his futuristic blow dryer at the oncoming horde of miniature yapping death and unleashed a sizzling blast of glowing blue-white energy. The discharge disintegrated a huge chunk of the street, but the chiranha were too fast. They darted out of the beam's path just in time, without getting so much as a single fishy scale on their hides singed. The other guard demons let loose with their weapons, both mundane and esoteric, but with the
