Carl was a grizzled old fart in a rumpled seersucker suit which had probably once been white but was now mostly yellow.
He grabbed a sheet of paper from the stack under his arm and thrust it into my hand.
“Just finished printing out the latest edition of the Night Stalker News. I’m breaking a major story this week.”
I glanced at the headline: WATCHERS FROM OUTSIDE PLOT CITY’S DESTRUCTION.
“Sounds ominous, Carl. I’ll be sure to read it.”
I quickly opened the door and gestured for Devona to go in; she did and I hurried after her.
Carl scowled. “Don’t you humor me now, Matt. It’s true! None of the other media will have anything to do with the story. It’s too hot for the Tome, and even that rag the Daily Atrocity won’t touch it. If we don’t do something about it soon, we’ll all be-”
I closed the door in Carl’s rapidly reddening face, cutting him off.
“Just you wait!” came his muffled voice from the other side of the door. “You’ll be singing a different tune when the Watchers come!”
He shouted a bit more before finally moving off, grumbling to himself about idiot zombie cops.
“Who was that?” Devona asked.
“Just some nut who lives upstairs. Used to be some sort of tabloid reporter back on Earth, but he can’t find work on any of the papers in the city. The stories he comes up with are too crazy even for Nekropolis. Don’t worry; he won’t bother us anymore. He’ll no doubt head out into the street to harangue the festival-goers with his latest paranoid expose.” I crumpled Carl’s socalled “paper” into a wad and tossed it into an empty corner while Devona surveyed the room.
“It’s better than a tomb, even if it does have about as much personality,” I said, feeling only a little self- conscious. A threadbare couch, a single wooden chair-with one leg shorter than the others-and a Mind’s Eye set sitting atop a wooden stand comprised the sole contents of the living room. No pictures, no rugs, not even curtains. No toilet facilities, either, but then I don’t need them. One of the perks of being dead.
Nekropolis doesn’t have television. Instead we have Mind’s Eye Theatre. Mind’s Eye is exactly what it sounds like: psychic transmissions are received by your set and then relayed straight into your brain. The process is kind of hit and miss for me, probably because my zombie brain doesn’t get good reception, so I tend not to watch too often. I read instead, hence the reason for the piles of books stacked in the corners of the room. Right now the set was off, the large eye closed, its lashes crusted with yellowish crud, probably because it had been so long since I’d turned it on. I wondered if the set had some kind of infection, and I told myself to remember to call a repairman.
“Do you have a bed?” Devona asked.
“I told you: I don’t do those kinds of favors.”
She gave me a look which said I was being less than amusing. “I’m just curious. Do zombies sleep? I’ve never thought about it before. But then, I’ve never been to a zombie’s apartment, either.”
“I have a bed.” Though it was just a lumpy mattress sitting on the floor, no sheets, no covers. “I don’t sleep, exactly, but sometimes I feel a need to…rest. To relax.”
“And so you just lie there and stare at the ceiling?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I close my eyes. So tell me, what’s it like to sleep in a coffin? Ever feel like a sardine?”
“Bloodborn don’t sleep in coffins,” she said disdainfully.
“Even when they’re half human?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know?”
I shrugged, the gesture a bit lopsided thanks to the bite Honani had taken out of my shoulder, which Papa hadn’t been able to repair completely. “Little things. You don’t move as gracefully as other vampires. Your pallor isn’t as white. And whatever your problem is, it’s got you tied up in knots inside. I’ve never seen a fullblooded vampire afraid. It doesn’t seem to be an emotion they’re capable of.”
I went into the bedroom, and she followed. Aside from my mattress, the only other items in the room were my laptop computer, the desk it sat on, and the chair I sat on when I used it. In Nekropolis, the computers are organic, fashioned from bone, cartilage, muscle, sinew, and specialized organs. The machines breathe, gurgle, and moan-especially when doing difficult tasks-and have even been known to burst blood vessels if asked to perform too many functions at the same time. The damned things literally get sick when they catch a virus and become all mopey and lazy, refusing to do any work until they get better. The spoiled things are worse than pampered cats.
My computer made a soft humming sound to catch my attention, and I grudgingly went over and scratched the top of its casing. In response, it let out a moist, phlegmy purr.
“You use your bedroom as your office too?” Devona asked.
“I don’t have an office because I don’t have a business,” I said. “I mostly use the computer to play DVDs-it works better for me than the Mind’s Eye-and to hop on the Aethernet from time to time.” The Aethernet is Nekropolis’s answer to the Internet back on Earth. Information is swiftly transported through the system by data- ghosts: the spirits of executed criminals sentenced to spend their afterlives ferrying bytes back and forth for the rest of us.
“So you can check out zombie porn?” Devona asked with a wry grin.
“You ever see one of those sites? No? Well, if you get curious, take my advice and don’t eat for a week or two before logging on.”
I removed the soul jar from my pocket, and placed it on the desk next to my computer. I then walked over to the closet and removed my torn jacket, tie, and shirt. I opened the closet door, dropped my ruined garments on the floor next to my footlocker, and scanned my pitifully small collection of clothes for replacements. If Devona felt any disgust upon seeing so much of my bare zombie skin with its slight grayish cast revealed, she showed no sign.
“You said you don’t think vampires experience fear,” Devona said, picking up the thread of our earlier conversation. “But they do. They just don’t like to show it. But you were right about me; I’m only half Bloodborn. My mother was human.”
From my closet’s meager offerings, I chose a brown shirt, yellow paisley tie, and a brown jacket. I could wear whatever I want, I suppose. I’m not a cop anymore, and besides, I’m dead. Who cares how I dress? But old habits-and old cops like me-die hard, I guess. And besides, wearing the sort of clothes I wore in life makes me feel more…well, human.
I dressed and stood before the cracked mirror hanging on the wall and adjusted my tie. Thanks to Papa Chatha’s latest round of spells, I didn’t look too much different than I had in life, grayish skin aside. Black hair, brown eyes, features on the ordinary side of handsome (or so I’d been told by my ex-wife; I’m no judge of such things). Face a bit thinner than when I’d been alive. Death is a great diet plan.
I put the soul jar in the pocket of my new jacket. I’m not really sure why; it just didn’t seem like the sort of thing a person should leave lying around, and then I turned to face my guest. “And who’s your father?”
She hesitated a moment before answering. “Lord Galm.”
If my heart had been functional, it would’ve skipped a beat or two right then.
“I think you’d better leave now,” I said.
Confusion spread across her face. “Why?”
“It’s nothing personal; I just make it a policy never to get involved with Darklords if I can avoid it. And that includes getting involved with their relatives.”
Lord Galm is an ancient, powerful vampire, ruler of the Bloodborn, and of Gothtown, the Dominion where the vampires live, or rather, exist. And like any Darklord, he’s dangerous as hell. I’d rather run up to a Mafia don in his favorite restaurant, dump his spaghetti marinara in his lap, and accuse him of diddling his grandchildren than I would mess with a Darklord.
“Please, at least let me-”
I held up a hand to cut her off. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. But getting involved with a Darklord is what got me killed and resurrected as a zombie. I hate to think what might happen to me the next time. Being dead isn’t all that much fun, but I’ve lived in Nekropolis long enough to know it could be worse. A lot worse.”
She cocked her head to one side and looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Which Darklord was it?”
