“But you helped that woman, the one the lyke killed.”
“Sometimes I do favors for people-for a fee. Preservative spells don’t come cheap, you know.”
“I am in desperate need of a favor. And I can pay. Please!”
She sounded as if she might burst into tears at any moment. But that wasn’t what made me stop. I knew Papa Chatha would only give me so much for Honani’s soul. And now thanks to that miserable lyke ripping off my arm, I needed more work done than when I’d decided to help Lyra. More work than Honani’s rotten spirit would pay for.
It wasn’t her beauty, and it wasn’t the threat of her tears. It was the money. Really.
I turned around. “All right, Miss…?”
“Devona,” she supplied. “Devona Kanti.”
“You can come along, Devona. We can talk after I see Papa. But I’m not promising anything,” I cautioned.
“Of course.” But she smiled in relief just the same.
I rotated my left arm and then flexed it a couple times.
“How’s it feel?” Papa Chatha asked.
“A bit loose,” I admitted.
Papa ran long, slender black fingers through his short gray hair, and then sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
Papa Chatha was a dignified, handsome black man in his sixties, with a tattoo of a blue butterfly spread across his smooth-shaven face. The edges of the butter-fly’s wings seemed to ripple, but it was probably just my imagination.
I scanned the shelves in Papa’s workroom, taking in the multitude of materials that a professional voodoo practitioner needs to perform his art: wax-sealed vials filled with ground herbs and dried chemicals, jars containing desiccated bits of animals-rooster claws, lizard tails, raven wings-candles of all sizes and colors, varying lengths of rope tied in complicated patterns of knots, small dolls made of corn shucks and horsehair, books and scrolls piled on tabletops next to rattles and tambourines of various sizes, along with pouches of tobacco, chocolate bars, and bottles of rum. Papa said he used the latter three substances to make offerings to the Loa, the voodoo spirits, and while I had no reason to doubt him, I’ve noticed that he tends to run out of rum before anything else.
Papa sat on the only chair in his workroom, a simple wooden stool, and smoothed his loose white pants which matched his pullover shirt. He then tapped his bare toes on the wooden floor.
I had the impression he was stalling.
“You’re a self-willed zombie, Matt. Do you have any idea how rare that is?” He had a deep, resonant voice that was usually full of good humor. But he was somber today.
“From what you’ve told me, pretty damned rare.”
He nodded. “Most zombies are merely reanimated corpses, bereft of souls, linked to the life-force of the sorcerer who raised them from the dead. It’s this link, this sharing of a living being’s life-force, which prevents their dead flesh from withering away. But you have no master.” He frowned. “How did you become a zombie, anyway, Matt? You’ve never told me.”
“Just too stubborn to die, I suppose.”
Papa looked at me a long moment before going on. “Since you have no master-”
“I know,” I interrupted. “I need you and your magic to keep my body in tip-top condition.”
Papa gestured at the collection of odds and ends that cluttered the shelves and benches of his workroom. “My meager arts can only do so much, Matt. And I fear they’ve done all they can for you.”
I don’t feel emotions the same way I did when I was alive, but I felt an echo of fear at Papa Chatha’s words. “What do you mean?”
“That this last application of preservative spells almost didn’t take. And they may not last more than two, three days.”
“You mean-”
“We’ve staved off the inevitable as long as we could, my friend. I’m sorry.”
I felt like a man who’d just been told by his doctor that he only had a short time to live. And I suppose in a way, I was.
“Nothing personal, Papa, but is there anyone else who might be able to help me? After all, Nekropolis is lousy with all sorts of witches and magicians. Maybe one of them-”
Papa shook his head. “I’m afraid not. While it’s true there are others more powerful than I, there is only so much power can do.”
I thought for a moment. “Could my spirit be caught, like Honani’s, and implanted into a second body?”
“Perhaps,” Papa allowed. “If you are willing to steal another’s form.”
So much for that. After what he’d done to Lyra, Honani deserved to be evicted from his body. But I couldn’t do that to someone else just to save my own life. If I did, in effect I’d be a killer, no better than Honani.
I stood there, trying to come to terms with what Papa had told me. I wasn’t going to die. I couldn’t; I was already dead. But my body was going to…what? Collapse into a puddle of putrefaction? Or just flake away to dust? And when it was gone, what would happen to me? Would I end up wandering Nekropolis, a disembodied spirit like Lyra? Or would my soul depart for some manner of afterlife? Assuming, of course, that there was any beyond Nekropolis. Or would I just cease to be, my spirit rotting away to nothing along with my body?
As much as I hated my mockery of a life, it was the only mockery I had, and I didn’t particularly want to lose it. There had to be a way for me to continue existing, a way that wouldn’t result in my having to steal another’s body. I’d just have to find it within the next couple days.
I shook Papa’s hand. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” I reached into my pocket, intending to hand over the soul jar containing Honani’s spirit to pay for Papa’s services.
“Keep it, Matt.” He smiled sadly. “This one’s on the house, okay?”
I didn’t know what I’d do with Honani’s soul, but Papa refused to take it, so in the end I walked out with the jar still in my pocket. I had two souls now, when what I needed was another body. Life-and death-is full of little ironies, isn’t it?
Devona was waiting for me outside, leaning up against the wooden wall of Papa’s shack, arms crossed, surveying the Descension Day celebrants in the street with a wary, nervous gaze. The crowd was thinner this far from the center of the Sprawl, but there were still a lot of loud, drunken monsters about, and they bore watching.
Devona’s leather outfit clung to her like a second skin, and even though I no longer had any libido to speak of, I couldn’t help appreciating how good she looked in it.
I had my own problem now, and no time for hers. But I thought I could at least hear her out. Maybe her problem would turn out to be something simple. And I could use the darkgems; I would need them if I was going to find someone else-someone more powerful than Papa-to extend my unlife.
“All done. I’m ready to talk.” I didn’t feel a need to mention the bad news I’d received. After all, Devona and I had just met.
“Not here. We need someplace private.”
Like I’d told her, I wasn’t a detective, no matter what she’d heard from them, whoever the hell they were, and I didn’t have an office. But my apartment wasn’t far from Papa Chatha’s.
“How about my place?”
She nodded.
A few more blocks of negotiating our way through the chaotic riot of partiers-which for Devona meant slapping more than a few males of various species and states of life and death who decided to grab her shapely leather-clad posterior-and we were there.
My neighborhood is actually one of the more mundane sections of the Sprawl, a street of urban townhouses, which, except for the fact that the bricks appear to be made of gristle, looks perfectly ordinary.
We went up the front steps, inside, and up more steps to my apartment. I had unlocked the door and was just about to grip the knob when a voice behind us said, “Hey, Matt!”
“Hell,” I muttered, and turned around to greet my neighbor. “Hi, Carl,” I said without enthusiasm. “What’s up?”
