I had to admit, the woman was good.
'He's not going to be too pleased with you once the spells wears off,' Devona said.
'Maybe, but he's nothing if not pragmatic. Once I collect the reward on Matt, I'm going to start looking for Osseal. If I can find it and bring it to him, there's a good chance he'll forgive me for freeing you two. And if not…' She shrugged. 'There are plenty of other people in the city willing to pay for my services.'
'I don't suppose it matters to you that I'm innocent,' I said.
'Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Orlock seemed to think you are and he's usually right about things like that. But I don't care. Guilty or innocent, you're still worth five hundred thousand darkgems to me.'
I was racking my brain, trying to come up with a way to convince Overkill to let us go or, failing that, a way that we could escape her, when Devona decided to take matters into her own hands.
She bared her fangs and hissed as she sprang toward Overkill. Devona is only half-vampire, but she's still fast as hell and she was almost on top of the mercenary before the woman could tighten her finger on the trigger of her P-90 and release a burst of gunfire. Devona managed to avoid being struck by any of the bullets, and they flew on, hitting various displays around us, taking chunks out of rare and valuable objects. Orlock would have a fit once he finally managed to pull himself together and come down here and saw the damage.
Devona wasn't fooling around. She fastened her teeth on Overkill's neck and bit down. The momentum of Devona's leap sent both women falling to the floor, and the impact caused Overkill to lose her grip on the P-90, and the strap slipped over her shoulder. The weapon skittered away from her, coming to stop over by the Frankenstein experiment display. I started toward it, doing the half-shuffle, half-run which is the fastest way I can make my dead body move.
As I went for the gun, Overkill hit Devona in the temple with a solid left cross, dislodging her teeth from Overkill's neck in a spray of blood. But Devona had a firm grip on Overkill's shoulders and she managed to hold on. Devona tried to bite Overkill again, but the mercenary brought up a forearm to block her. I saw Overkill reaching for her dire blade and I knew I had only seconds to reach the P-90. A single strike from a dire blade is fatal, as I'd demonstrated to Lycanthropus Rex in Tenebrus, and if Overkill managed to draw her blade, Devona was as good as dead.
I reached the P-90 and was bending down to pick it up when I became aware of movement. I looked at the metal framework containing the severed limbs of Dr. Frankenstein's early work and saw that every one of them had become fully animated and was thrashing about wildly. I glanced at the hand crank generator. No one had touched the crank and the machine wasn't active. No electricity was reaching the limbs, so how were they moving? What could make a bunch of dead arms and legs suddenly -
Then it hit me.
I turned to Devona and Overkill, who were still fighting on the floor. Devona had straddled the mercenary who'd managed to draw her dire blade. Devona had hold of the other woman's wrist, preventing her from using the dagger, and from the look of fury on Devona's face, I figured Overkill had only a few seconds before her wrist snapped like kindling.
'Ladies!' I shouted. Then again, louder. 'Ladies!'
That time I got their attention. They stopped fighting, though Devona kept hold of Overkill's wrist. They focused their gazes on me and I pointed to the rack of thrashing limbs behind me.
'We've got a problem,' I said. 'I think someone just started playing Edrigu's flute.'
FIFTEEN
Once Devona and Overkill stopped fighting, the mercenary applied first aid to her throat wound – a powerful anticoagulant to stop the bleeding and a patch of plaskin to seal the bite and begin the healing process. Both items were developed by the Bloodborn physicians at the Fever House, undisputed experts in treating injuries sustained during vampire attacks.
I hated to leave the others who were trapped in Orlock's stasis domes, but there wasn't time to free them all and besides, Overkill hadn't brought enough demon piss to do the job. But after what Devona and I had experienced in that bastard's virtual fishbowl, I was determined to return one day and free Orlock's prisoners, even if I had to kill the sonofabitch to do it.
The three of us then returned to Nosferatomes and walked outside, where we saw my worst fears confirmed.
Fighting had broken out in the street and not the usual sort of brawling that can happen anytime in the Sprawl. This was a serious toe -to toe, tooth-and-claw struggle for survival, complete with shouts of alarm, screams of agony, and lots of the red stuff being spilled. At first it was hard to come to any specific conclusions about the combatants because the fighting was so fast and furious, but after a couple moments it became clear that they could be broken into two separate camps: the dead and the living. A huge Frankenstein creature wearing only ragged jeans – the better to show off the jagged scars covering his obscenely muscled body – stood outside Matango, strangling a ghoul with one hand while he tore the arm off a lyke with the other. I recognized the man as Jigsaw Jones, one of the most popular professional wrestlers in the city and the sport's current champion. From the bleeding cuts on his flesh and the restaurant's shattered front window, I guessed Jones had been dining there when he'd flipped out and started killing people. I pictured him killing several of his fellow diners before leaping through the window and attacking the first people unlucky enough to be in his way.
In front of Hemlocks, Baristastein stood in the midst of carnage, a half-dozen bodies in various states of disembowelment spread out around her on the sidewalk. She currently had both hands wrapped around the throat of a toad-faced demon with overlarge insect eyes and was slowly squeezing the life out of him. No longer was her face expressionless. Now her features were contorted in savage joy as she throttled the struggling demon.
Ferdinand approached her, confused sadness in his eyes.
'Sandy, something's happened to you – something bad. Please… let me help you!'
Baristastein snapped the toad demon's neck with a single quick shake and then tossed his body aside. She then started walking toward the minotaur, her gaze glittering with hungry anticipation.
Any thought I'd had about getting even with the bull man for making me drink the Sprawlicano vanished when I saw the danger he was in. 'Get away from her!' I shouted.
But either Ferdinand didn't hear me or he was in too much shock to listen, for instead of turning away from the approaching Baristastein and running like hell in the opposite direction, he opened his arms wide to welcome her.
I didn't want to look, but I forced myself to watch as Baristastein rammed a hand into her boyfriend's chest and yanked out his still beating, bloody heart. Ferdinand bellowed in pain, and as the life quickly fled from his eyes, he looked upon the object of his adoration uncomprehendingly, and then his body went limp and he collapsed to the ground. Baristastein looked at the grisly object clutched in her hand for a moment as if she didn't quite understand what it was, then she hurled it aside, roared in fury, and stomped off in search of new victims.
I might have made a joke about how even in death Ferdinand had given his heart to his girl, but even though I can't experience nausea, I didn't have the stomach for such gallows humor right then. The minotaur might've been a jerk, but he hadn't deserved to die like that.
Up and down the street the same scene was played out again and again as the dead made violent, bloody war on the living. It was the same in the street as well. Vehicles that contained any part of Victor Baron's fleshtech, such as Agony DeLites and Meatrunners ignored their drivers' commands and crashed into other cars, running them off the road or into each other, engines roaring with bestial joy.
'This is most definitely not good,' Overkill said.
'I didn't realize that understatement was one of your many skills,' I said, unable to take my gaze off the chaos that surrounded us.
I heard Overkill rack the slide on her P-90 and when I turned to took at her I saw she had the weapon trained on me.
'So if all the deaders in the city have gone psycho, why haven't you?' she demanded.
I opened my coat to show her the Loa necklace Papa Chatha had given me.
'This makes me immune to magic. It's why your bargain basement Obeah charm failed. Its primary purpose
