handvoxes, flesh computers, and anything other tech based on resurrecting the dead. Just look for the label, often tattooed into the flesh of your device: Another Victor Baron Creation. From time to time I’d toyed with the idea of making an appointment with Baron to see if he could anything to stabilize my zombie state or, better yet, return me to the living, but Papa Chatha counseled caution.
Magic and science don’t always get along as well as they could, Papa once warned me. Baron’s technology would be as likely to destroy you as help you.
I sometimes wonder if Papa feels more than a little professional jealousy toward Baron, but since my houngan has kept me going for years, I’ve decided to trust his advice.
Devona and I kept walking. Gregor’s place wasn’t far from the Foundry, and I soon recognized a broken beam here and a shattered wall there, and before much longer we stood before the ruins of a stone building: roof collapsed, walls fallen, columns broken and timeworn.
“This is it,” I pronounced. “Good thing Gregor has the columns, or I’d never be able to find this place.”
“Who is Gregor, precisely?”
“Gregor is probably Nekropolis’s best kept secret. He’s an information broker on a par with Waldemar. But where Waldemar specializes in the past, Gregor deals in the present.” I smiled. “If he doesn’t know something, it’s because it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Then why didn’t we come here in the first place?”
“Because to do so we had to go through either Glamere or the Wyldwood. It’s suicide for anyone but a lyke to travel the Wyldwood-and you experienced Talaith’s hospitality. Gregor may be the best source of information in the city, but he’s not exactly the most accessible.”
“I understand.” She surveyed the ruins. “How do we get in?”
I led the way up the cracked and broken steps and we walked carefully through the rubble of Gregor’s building until we came to a shiny black rectangle set into the ground.
“It’s me, Gregor. And I brought a friend.”
Nothing happened for a moment, and then the rectangle parted as the tiny black shapes which comprised it scurried off.
Devona took in a hiss of air. “Insects!”
“Gregor’s little friends-and his informants.”
As the roach-like bugs retreated, they revealed stone stairs leading down into the earth.
“Try not to make any sudden moves,” I told Devona. “Gregor and his friends tend to be on the skittish side.”
I took out a pocket flashlight, thumbed the switch to low, and shined its beam down the steps, sending more insects fleeing, thousands of hair-thin segmented legs whispering across stone. Gregor didn’t keep his underground lair lit, so the flashlight was a necessity for me-one which he tolerated. And even though I had no reason to fear Gregor, none that I could name, anyway, I always felt better visiting him with flashlight in hand.
We started down into the darkness, roaches scuttling away from the steps and walls as we descended. I’d been here only a handful of times since coming to Nekropolis, but I’d never gotten used to seeing so many of Gregor’s friends in one place. My dead nerve endings didn’t work anymore, but I still felt itchy when I visited.
When we reached the bottom of the steps, Devona turned around.
“The insects have closed up behind us.” Her voice was steady, but I detected a hint of nervousness beneath her words.
“They always do that; don’t worry about it.”
We were in a large, empty basement which seemed cloaked in tangible darkness, except for the small circle of gray stone around us illuminated by my flashlight.
“Is this place…filled with them too?” Devona asked me in a whisper.
“Try not to think about it,” I whispered back, and then in a normal voice I said, “Thank you for seeing us, Gregor.”
A faint clicking sound emerged from the darkness where the opposite wall should be.
“Always a pleasure, Matthew.” The voice was soft and the words rustled like insect carapaces sliding against one another. “Ms. Kanti, it’s quite an honor to meet you.”
“The honor is, uh, all mine.” As a half-vampire, Devona’s eyesight was far better than mine, and I was sure she could see through the basement’s gloom to Gregor.
“Please, both of you, come closer. But keep your flashlight pointed downward, if you don’t mind, Matthew.”
“Not at all,” I replied, and we walked forward, the carpet of insects which blanketed the floor flowing out of our path like living oil. We stopped about nine feet from the gigantic insect huddled against the basement wall. He leaned back like a humanoid, though his body wasn’t really built for it: he looked as if he might topple over any second. I wondered, as I had before, whether this was a natural position for him, or if he assumed it to seem more humanlike. If the latter, the attempt was a dismal failure.
Gregor was a gigantic version of the far smaller insects which served as his spies throughout the city. Somewhat like a roach, but his head was too large, his legs too many, and his eyes…they didn’t resemble a human’s, but then they didn’t look all that much like an insect’s, either. They looked more like obsidian gems set into the hard shell of his carapace.
A constant stream of the smaller Gregors ran up his body, over his head, and touched their antennae to the tips of his far larger feelers. They then scuttled back down as another took their place, and then another, and another. The flow of information from his spies never stopped, even when he was involved in a conversation.
“You’ll have to excuse me if I seem a bit distracted today,” Gregor said. “But the Descension celebration is the busiest time of the year for us-so much happens around the city-and the sheer tidal wave of information my children bring me can be a bit overwhelming at times. Please bear with me.”
“No problem,” I said. “So I don’t waste your time or ours, Gregor, why don’t you tell us how much you know about why we’ve come? I assume you at least know a little. After all, I did see one of your children in my apartment when I first spoke with Ms. Kanti, and I saw another in the alley where we found Varma’s body.”
Gregor made a high-pitched chittering sound which I took for laughter. “Very observant, Matthew. Suffice it say I have a fair grasp of your basic situation.”
I knew that was all we would get out of him on the subject. Gregor never gave away more information than he had to.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course you do. Why else would you be here?” More chittering. Then he folded his legs across his abdomen-a sign he was preparing to listen closely.
“First off, do you know who stole the Dawnstone?”
“Regrettably, no. My children have a very difficult time penetrating the Darklords’ strongholds. Their protections are too strong, too intricate.”
“Are you aware of anyone trying to fence the Dawnstone?”
“Again, no.”
I was certain Gregor’s children had every fence in town “bugged.” If he didn’t know of anyone trying to sell the Dawnstone, then no one had.
“Do you know who killed Varma?”
“My child happened late upon the scene, but arrived in time to see three members of the Red Tide departing.”
The Red Tide. And three of them. When it came to believing in coincidences, I was an atheist. “Are you aware we had a run-in with some Red Tiders?”
“I am.”
“Were the three who left the alley the same three who attacked us?”
“As I said, my child only saw them leave the alley, but I believe it was them, yes.”
It was beginning to look like our encounter with the gang members in Gothtown hadn’t been just random bad luck after all.
“Do you know where they went?”
“Alas, no. My children lost them in the confusion of the festival.”
“What do you know about veinburn?”
