were still traces of burns on their faces and hands, but the worst injuries had been covered by patches of what appeared to be blue rubber that seemed to have bonded to their skin. Narda’s missing eye hadn’t regenerated; rather, in its place was a camera lens which protruded several inches from the socket. Their tech bodysuits, which had been short-circuiting as they fled from us in Gothtown, had been repaired, but sloppily-exposed wires, mismatched parts, metallic glops from hurried soldering. The suits sparked here and there, and the power hum was overloud and sounded a bit strained. I imagined the air contained the faint hot metal and plastic smell of machinery working too hard.
“The Boneyard isn’t exactly your normal stomping grounds,” I said. “How’d you find us?”
“We want to find someone, they’re good as found,” Narda said.
“You can’t hide from the Tide,” Enan added.
The Giggler giggled. Big surprise.
“What’s with the blue gunk?” I asked. “New fashion statement?”
“Plaskin,” Enan said. “Helps burns heal faster-even for Bloodborn-but they still hurt like a bitch.” He gnashed his fangs, and his eyes blazed with anger. “But not as much as you’re going to hurt before we finish you.”
The Giggler lived up to his nickname once again, and I decided now was not the time to point out that my body was incapable of feeling any sensation, including pain. It would just make them more determined-and inventive.
“I’d have thought you’d be used to burns by now,” I said. “After all, don’t the crosses embedded in your foreheads burn your flesh?”
“Sure they do,” Narda said. “They show the Red Tide’s hardcore, and that we’re not afraid of anything.”
The Giggler let forth another peal of his high-pitched, girlish laughter. I was really getting tired of that sonofabitch. I bent down and picked up a broken brick from the worn and cracked street.
The Red Tide vampires laughed.
“What do you think you’re gonna do with that?” Enan asked.
“This.” Throwing isn’t easy as slow as I am, but I’ve had plenty of practice. With a wind-up and then a halfthrow, half-lurch, I hurled the makeshift missile as hard as I could at the Giggler’s forehead. It struck the cross set into his flesh, driving it inward. The Giggler screamed and clawed at his forehead, but it was no good. The cross’s corrosive effect on vampire flesh and bone, aided by the impact of my brick, had buried the holy object in his brain. Steam curled forth from the wound, and then rays of pure white light shot out of his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. The light winked out and Giggler now had nothing but open ruins where his sensory organs had been. He stiffened and fell forward onto the broken pavement. I was confident he was dead, but I half expected him to start giggling again anyway.
“You worm-eaten motherfucker!” Narda shrieked.
For a moment, all Narda and Enan could do was stared in stunned amazement at the body of their fallen comrade-long enough to allow me to pull out my garlic and holy water squirt gun, which was mostly empty. But before I could start pumping the plastic trigger, Narda pointed and tendrils of wire shot forth to wrap themselves around Devona’s arm.
“Put the gun down, Deadboy, or little Miss Leather here’ll get a few million volts. Enough to fry her up good.”
Vampires, for all their strengths, have a surprising number of weaknesses. Beyond the ones everyone knows about-sunlight, holy objects, wooden stakes- are others such as silver and fire. Vampires aren’t as flammable as zombies by any means, but fire can kill them.
I dropped the squirt gun to the ground with a plastic clatter.
“Kick it away.”
I did.
Enan grinned. “Now we’re going to have ourselves a little fun. Put your hands above your head, zombie, and step toward me slowly. Make any funny moves, and Narda turns your friend into charcoal. Got it?”
I nodded and did as he ordered.
“Stick out your arm,” he commanded.
I did; I knew what was coming. “Veinburn won’t work on me. I’m dead. All the way dead, not like you overgrown mosquitoes.”
“Then you won’t mind if I do this!” Enan plunged his needle fingers into the unfeeling flesh of my forearm. After a few moments, Enan yanked his hand away-tearing five ragged holes in my gray skin in the process-and the needles thickened into fingers once more.
“Well?” he asked. “How’s it feel, deader?”
“I told you, I’m not-” I broke off, my body beginning to shake all over. I collapsed to the pavement not far from the Giggler’s corpse, flipping and flopping like a fish tossed live into a frying pan.
“I’ll be damned again!” Narda crowed. “This shit’s even stronger than they said it is! Look at him go!”
“I bet that’s the best he’s felt in a loooooong time!” Enan laughed.
My exertions became so severe that I rolled over onto my stomach, and when I came around on my back again, I’d drawn my 9mm and leveled it at Narda’s head. If I’d still been a cop, I’d have given her a warning. But I wasn’t a cop anymore.
Two silver bullets apiece later, Narda and Enan had joined the Giggler on the ground. I stood, walked over to the bodies, reloaded, and pumped another couple rounds into their hearts, just to be sure.
Devona had untangled herself from Narda’s wire. “I take it the veinburn didn’t affect you. Nice acting job.”
“What can I say? I was in drama club in high school.” I examined the patches of plaskin on the forms of the dead vampires. I wondered if the substance might help fend off my decay, but I decided it probably wouldn’t. The plaskin likely only worked on living tissue. No loss; I don’t look good in blue anyway.
Devona gazed at the remains of the Red Tide members. “Makes it rather difficult to question them, doesn’t it? Their being dead and all.”
“You complaining?”
She smiled. “Not in the slightest. But it does narrow our options.”
“The Red Tide has to get its technology somewhere, and the only Darklord enamored of technology is Varvara. But none of this strikes me as her style. Varvara’s charming, fun, and she’d betray her best friend in a heartbeat if there was a laugh in it, but the Red Tide are too declasse for her. My money’s on the Dominari. They have the connections to import technology from Earth and supply it to the Red Tide, and from what Gregor told us, the Dominari are involved in the manufacturing and testing of veinburn, which Enan possessed in abundance.”
I put my gun away and shook my arm; it felt heavy and swollen. “Stupid vamps. Not only doesn’t this stuff work on me, you’d think they’d have realized I’d need a functioning circulatory system to distribute it throughout my body.”
“What will happen to the veinburn?”
“It’ll just sit in my arm until I have it removed. Papa Chatha can do it for me. If I’m still around in a few days.” As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. It was one thing to think those kind of morbid thoughts, another to voice them.
“Oh, Matt, I wish you had told me earlier.”
“We only met a few hours ago, Devona. My situation has no bearing on your problem or on our efforts to resolve it.” I paused. “Besides, I didn’t want you worrying about me.”
“That’s sweet.” And then she did something that surprised the hell out of me. She leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I hadn’t been kissed since I’d died, hadn’t even really been touched-in a non-violent way, that is-by a woman.
I didn’t know how to react, so I didn’t. Just stood there and looked at her. Pretty smooth, huh?
“I want you to know something, Matt. No matter whether we find the Dawnstone or not, I intend to ask my father to help you.”
Now I really didn’t know what to say. But Devona didn’t wait for a reply. “I assume we’re off to the Sprawl again?”
I nodded. “To locate either Morfran or the drug lab.” I smiled. “And I promise not to kill anyone else before we’ve had a chance to talk with them.”
You know the old punchline? You can’t get there from here. Nekropolis can be like that sometimes. To get
