particular, the Law of Contagion.'
'What's that?' I asked, but it was Devona who answered.
''Once connected, always connected,'' she said, sounding as if she were reciting from memory. 'It means that once two things have been in contact they're forever after bound on a magical level. The longer they've been in contact the stronger that connection will be.'
Papa nodded. 'We're lucky. Since your head was left behind we can use it to locate the rest of you.'
I glanced at the compass. 'I hate to break this to you but my head's too big to fit inside there.'
'We don't need your whole head. Just part of it.' Papa grinned as he showed me what he held in his other hand: a pair of pliers.
'Head east, Lazlo.'
'You got it, Devona.' Lazlo hit the gas and his cab swerved alarmingly as he rounded a corner.
'Take it easy on the curves, OK?' My voice was stronger now, louder and clearer, thanks to some of Papa's hocus pocus.
'Relax, Matt,' Lazlo said. 'No need to lose your head.' He guffawed, a sound something like a cross between a shotgun blast and a whoopee cushion's fart.
Lazlo's a demon cabbie who works the Sprawl, though he'll drive you to other Dominions if the fare's right. In my case the ride was always gratis because Lazlo refused to take any darkgems from me after I'd helped him out of a jam not long after I'd first become zombiefied. Whenever I needed a ride Lazlo would appear as if by magic and ferry me to my destination. Once when I'd asked him how he knew whenever I needed a lift, he just shrugged – at least, I think that's what he did. Lazlo looks something like a cross between a mandrill and a ferret, with a little carp around the edges, and with his inhuman physiognomy it's sometimes hard to read his gestures. 'I keep a close eye on you, pal,' is what he told me.
His answer might be a bit on the stalkerish side but Lazlo's always been there when I needed him, so I did my best to ignore the creepiness factor.
Lazlo's cab is a patchwork monstrosity cobbled together from metal and swaths of what I hope is animal hide and I've seen the vehicle open its hood to reveal a very large mouthful of sharp teeth. I'm careful to avoid walking too near the front of the cab just in case it isn't too picky about what it eats.
Given the bizarre nature of Lazlo's ride I wasn't sure it had anything resembling a suspension but, if it did, it was in dire need of new shock absorbers. I felt every little dip and bump in the road as if they were major seismic events and if Devona hadn't been holding me in her lap and steadying me by keeping her hand on top of my head, I'd have been bouncing around the cab's interior like a giant pinball covered in rotting meat. In her other hand Devona held the compass Papa Chatha had given us. In place of its missing needle it now had one of my back teeth. As we navigated the twisting, winding streets of the Sprawl the tooth spun slowly around as it tried to get a fix on my missing body.
I thought back to Papa's extraction of the tooth. It had taken him several minutes to pry the thing loose from my jaw and the entire time I was giving thanks to whatever deity might be listening that the nerve endings in my mouth were as dead as the rest of me.
We weren't simply relying on the tooth compass to locate my body, though. Papa had also promised to put the word out on the street that someone had stolen my body. I might've made my fair share of enemies over the years but I've made plenty of friends, too, and Papa would make sure they were all keeping their ears to the ground for any word of what might've happened to my body or who might be responsible.
'Magic's all well and good,' he'd said. 'But sometimes friends are more help than the most powerful spell.'
Devona – always security-conscious – had worried that putting the word out about my current condition would let my enemies know that I was vulnerable to attack, but Papa had promised he'd be discreet about who he spoke to and we decided to leave it at that.
Lazlo glanced in the rearview mirror at us, an action which never failed to alarm me. The way Lazlo drives it's never a good idea for him to take his gaze off the road.
'What's the range on that thing?' he asked.
'Papa wasn't definite,' I told him. 'A couple miles, give or take, was his best guess. We'll just have to drive around until the compass gets a hit.'
'No prob. I'm at your service for as long as it takes. We may have to stop and refuel, but maybe we'll get lucky and my cab'll find something to snack on along the way.'
'I hope you're joking,' I said.
Lazlo burst out with another of his deafening laughs.
'You're a funny guy, Matt!'
Thankfully I was spared from having to learn anything more about his vehicle's dietary needs when Lazlo turned on the radio. A DJ's voice full of exaggerated enthusiasm blared from the tinny speakers.
'You're tuned to Bedlam 66.6, Nekropolis's hit machine! Coming up this hour we'll have tunes from Hard Rock Zombies, The Crypt Kicker Five, and Jude's Hammer, but first here's a blast from the past from Kakophonie, in honor of Scream Queen not losing her voice tonight. Better luck next time, Overkill!'
I groaned as the band's so called music blasted through the cab. Sometimes Nekropolis is more like a gossipy small town than a large city and word about any scandal – the juicier the better – travels more swiftly than a flock of vampire bats equipped with jet packs.
'I hope Overkill didn't hear that,' Devona said. 'She'll be more determined than ever to get back at you.' She paused. 'That is, if she isn't the one who stole your body in the first place.'
It was true. As pissed off as Overkill undoubtedly was at me, the last thing I needed was for people to start gossiping about how I'd stopped her. The bad publicity would only turn her already fiery fury to a white-hot incandescence.
'I'll worry about that later,' I said. 'First, I have to find my other half.'
'I thought I was your other half,' Devona said.
'No, you're my better half.'
Devona gently ruffled my hair. 'You're sweet. Hopefully we'll be able to locate your body soon. But if we don't… well, things won't change between us. You know that, right?'
'Yes.'
As I might have mentioned earlier I'm not anatomically functional in certain areas but, with Devona's ability to create a mindlink between us, I didn't need to be. We're able to join on the astral plane, merging spirits in a way that's more deep and profound than any physical lovemaking could ever be. As long as my mind was intact we'd still be able to bond psychically, although the prospect of Devona carting me around in a hatbox the rest of our lives didn't exactly appeal to me. I forced myself not to think about that. Back on Earth I'd never been the type to borrow trouble and my time in Nekropolis – where living, dead, or somewhere in between, existence is precarious at best and fleeting at worst – had only strengthened that trait.
Instead I turned my thoughts to the conversation Devona and I had before I'd left the Midnight Watch. I'd been telling myself that I kept apart from Devona's business so as not to interfere, but now I wondered if that wasn't just an excuse. Maybe I hadn't gotten to know her employees because I hadn't wanted to bother. Not long after we'd first met Devona told me that I'd died inside a long time before my physical body did. Her observation had hurt at the time, all the more so because she was right. I'd been trying to be more emotionally available – as a therapist might put it – ever since, but I still wasn't very good at it. The next time any of the Midnight Watch team invited me out for a drink after work maybe I should accept, I thought. Unless it was Bogdan.
'Devona, about the things I said earlier…'
I felt her hand atop my head tense.
'Don't worry about that now, Matt,' she said, just a little too quickly. 'For now, let's concentrate on finding your body.'
Her words were delivered in a calm, rational tone, but through our link I could feel how much she was still hurting. As strong and intelligent as she was I still sometimes forgot how much she depended on my support and tonight I'd failed to give it – or at least, it seemed that way to her, and that was all that mattered.
But she didn't want to talk about it right then and I had to respect that. And truthfully, I was grateful to postpone what promised to be an uncomfortable conversation a little while longer. So I tried to send a psychic
