standing but Keket and her guards had already gone. Evidently I'd used up whatever amusement value I'd had and the demilord had left to attend to more important matters. That was good. I didn't feel like having an audience as I was torn apart by an angry mob of prisoners.
I brought my gaze back down to eye level and gave my best new-kid-on-the-block smile to my fellow prisoners.
'Anybody heard any good jokes lately?' I asked.
'I got one.'
The voice sounded like two boulders grinding together and it was one I thought I recognized. A moment later my guess was confirmed as a tall man dressed in a black suit pushed his way through the crowd of prisoners gathered around me. His features were grotesquely distorted – pronounced brow, bulbous nose, overlarge ears, thick wormy lips and huge powerful hands that constantly clenched and unclenched as if he couldn't wait to wrap them around a neck and start squeezing.
'What do you call a zombie in jail?'
'I don't know, Rondo. What?'
Thick lips pulled back from large yellowed teeth as he smiled.
'My bitch.'
He raised those giant hands of his and started toward me.
NINE
I'd encountered Rondo – known on the street as the Creeper – not long after I'd first come to Nekropolis. He'd begun his criminal career working as muscle for a veinburn manufacturer, but he didn't get enough opportunities to kill people working for drug pushers, so eventually he struck out on his own as a freelance assassin. Being a sociopath with a pair of insanely powerful hands designed to cause severe bodily damage, he excelled at the work and before long he was commanding quite a price for his services. One day he was hired by a vampire named Varney who'd had his blood bonded human lover, called a Shadow in Bloodborn parlance, stolen by another vampire. Rondo was hired to kill the Shadow and he succeeded in strangling the woman. But the woman's new lover, a Bloodborn named Camilla, was inconsolable at the Shadow's loss and she hired me to find the woman's killer. I eventually did, though Rondo had nearly managed to rip me apart with those hands of his before I turned him over to a Sentinel. Both Varney and Camilla were minor nobility among the Bloodborn, so Varney got away scot free. Rondo wasn't so fortunate. Camilla used her influence to make sure the Adjudicators sentenced Rondo to Tenebrus and that was the last I'd heard of him – until now.
Despite his ungainly appearance, Rondo could move swift and silent when he wished – hence his nickname Creeper – and he was nearly on me before I could react. But after everything I'd been through since saving Scream Queen's voice, I wasn't exactly in the mood to dance with the ugly sonofabitch.
While I keep most of my weapons in my suit jacket, I'm not dumb enough to keep all of them there. I was grateful for Keket's sloppy security. Perhaps she'd assumed that Quillion's people had searched me thoroughly and had removed any weapons I might be carrying before sending me to her. If Devona had been here she'd had given the undead sorceress a stern lecture on basic security protocols. I reached into my pants pocket and removed a small yellow sphere no larger than a pill, but this medicine wasn't supposed to be taken internally.
As Rondo came at me I threw the sphere to the ground and it burst upon impact. A cloud of yellow gas billowed upward, catching Rondo in the face. He stumbled to a stop and clapped those huge hands of his over his mouth and nose to keep from breathing any of the gas in, but it was too late. His already bulging eyes bugged out even further as they began to water. He took in two hitching breaths and then released a truly impressive sneeze that, if I hadn't braced myself, might've knocked me off my feet.
'As you've undoubtedly guessed by now, you've just inhaled a couple of lungfuls of the strongest sneezing powder in the city. There aren't many benefits to being dead, Rondo, but no longer having to breathe is one of them.'
I'd picked up the powder at the same place where I get a lot of my toys – at Hop Frog's Delight, the best joke shop in Nekropolis. The dwarf who owns the place is an absolute genius when it comes to creating practical jokes and he handcrafts each one personally. But you have to be careful. As a joke on his customers, Hop Frog designed his jokes to randomly burst into flame upon activation – for some reason the jester has a thing about fire. Maybe they'll go off the first time you use them, maybe not until the seventh time. You never know, and for that reason, at Hop Frog's it's very much caveat emp tor.
The cloud of itching powder was spreading and those inmates who were standing too close to Rondo and me quickly drew back to keep from inhaling any of the stuff. As for Rondo he was doubled over and sneezing so hard he could barely catch a breath. Hop Frog's jokes are extremely powerful and I wondered if Rondo was in danger of sneezing himself to death. Given the number of people who'd met their demises at the overlarge hands of the Creeper, the prospect of the man's death didn't exactly fill me with sorrow.
Rondo's super sized sneezing fit attracted the guards' attention and several of the jackalheaded musclemen were making their way toward us, plowing through the crowd of inmates, shouldering them aside and – if they didn't move fast enough – giving them a short blast of energy from their golden speartips. The guards weren't the only ones coming. Several of the silvery floating devices I'd seen from the overhead railing were heading in my direction, gliding soundlessly through the air. Now that I was closer I could see that the objects were levitating silver skulls about three times the size of a human skull. They reminded me of the skull sentry I'd encountered at the Foundry's main gate. These were more of Victor Baron's creations, I assumed, this type designed to provide additional security in Tenebrus. There were probably living brains housed within those metallic craniums that were even now sizing up the situation and deciding what to do about this disturbance in the general population. An instant later I got an inkling of what the flying skulls' response was going to be when their hollow eye sockets began to glow with ruby colored light.
I felt a tug on my elbow and a voice whispered urgently in my ear.
'Quick! Come with me if you want to live!'
I decided now wasn't the time to point out the irony in my newfound benefactor's statement and I allowed him to pull me away from Rondo, who was still sneezing so loud I figured it was even money that he would cough up at least one lung before any of the guards could reach him.
As I was led through the crowd of inmates I took a good look at the being who was pulling me along. It was a verman, although he was larger than usual, almost my height, and he was a true albino with white fur and red eyes. He wore a green frock coat with white ruffles at the sleeves and brass buttons down the front. I was surprised to see one of his species in Tenebrus. As mild and servile as vermen usually are they almost never cause any trouble, let alone commit crimes. I'd never seen a white furred verman before, nor had I ever seen one dressed so fancy. Something strange was going on here, but that didn't surprise me: something strange is always going on in Nekropolis. Weird is our stock in trade, after all.
The verman led me on a winding path across the canyon floor and while the inmates we passed glared at me none of them made a move to stop us. What's more none of them looked at the verman at all. They deliberately ignored him as if he were beneath their notice. At least that's what I thought at first, but as he continued to lead me, I saw that they made a point of getting out of his way. Most of them tried to appear casual about it, but it was obvious to me that they were showing deference to the verman, which was unheard of.
After a while we reached one of the canyon walls and the verman finally stopped. We stood close to a large semicircular opening which I recognized as a lair for one of the giant scarabs I'd seen earlier. I started to tell the verman that I didn't think this was the safest place to stand, but he put a finger to his mouth to shush me while he reached into a pocket with his other hand. He removed a large white cube and tossed it into the mouth of the entrance. Quick as a flash, a giant scarab darted forward, snatched up the cube in its mandibles, and scuttled backward into its lair. When the mammoth insect was gone, the albino verman visibly relaxed.
'It's safe to talk now. It won't bother us for a while.' He gave a soft, snuffling laugh. 'Those things are crazy for sugar.'
This verman's manner was different from any of his kind I had ever encountered before. He stood up straight and looked me in the eye when he spoke and his tone contained no trace of servility. He talked to me as if we were
