Dead Streets (19 page)

  I shook my head in amazement. Gnasher was right: in many the ways the Darkfolk aren't so different from humanity.

  "So what are you doing here in Tenebrus?" I asked. "I'd think your people would've seen to it that you were never arrested, let alone convicted."

  Gnashed snuffled again. "I'm not a prisoner. I am a Secundar, a high rank among my people. Only Primark is higher. I have the great honor of serving as the Dominari's liaison to Tenebrus. We can't prevent every captured criminal from being incarcerated, so we make sure to keep the lines of communication open between Tenebrus and the outside world. That way our associates' knowledge and skills don't go to waste. We
despise
waste."

  It's no secret that organized crime figures and gang leaders back on Earth are still able to run their organizations from inside prison and it seemed the Dominari were doing the same here – only they'd moved one of their own into Tenebrus to do the job.

  "I carry messages back and forth as well as delivering alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, pure blood and fresh meat for our people inside. No weapons, though. Keket is aware of my presence here, and while she allows me a great deal of freedom, she'd never permit me to bring in weapons that might be used against her guards – or more importantly, against her."

  "Back and forth… You mean you can get out whenever you want? Keket told me that no one has ever escaped Tenebrus!"

  Gnasher grinned. "I told you, I'm not a prisoner, so technically I can't escape. From time to time we're allowed to take some of our people out for a furlough, provided we return them. So again, no escapes."

  For the first time since Quillion cast me down to Tenebrus, I began to feel a ray of hope.

  "So you can get me out."

  Gnasher spread his hands. "Maybe yes, maybe no. Intervening to keep you from getting torn apart by an old enemy is one thing. You save one of us and we owed you. And as long as you remain with me, you will be safe. No one in Tenebrus would dare touch anyone under my protection. But that's as much as we'll do to repay our debt to you. If you want more from us, we'll need to negotiate."

  "I should have guessed as much. After all, everything is business with the Dominari, isn't it?"

  Gnasher gave me a hungry smile. "Indeed."

  The idea of dealing with the Dominari didn't sit well with me. Despite all of Gnasher's talk about his people filling an important niche in Nekropolis's society, the bottom line was that the Dominari were thieves and murderers, the very people I'd spent my entire adult life trying to get off the streets. Still, it didn't look as if I had much of a choice if I didn't want to live the remainder of my unlife trapped in Tenebrus, trying to avoid Rondo and the other prisoners I'd helped send here. I'd been framed for a crime I didn't commit and if I wanted to clear my name I'd need to return to the city proper to do it. Besides, I missed Devona and I was pretty sure Keket wouldn't permit conjugal visits.

  "All right. What do you want from me?"

  "Nothing, actually. When I said we need to negotiate, I meant the Dominari. Not you. Discussions are taking place even as we speak and if terms can be reached you will get your chance at freedom. If not… " He shrugged. "I suppose you can always work as my assistant."

  I frowned. "If you're not going to negotiate with me, then who…" Then it hit me. "Devona."

  "We contacted her as soon as we learned you'd been sent here."

  Without thinking I grabbed Gnasher's coat by the lapels and gave the ratman a shake.

  "If anything happens to her…"

  Gnasher's eyes glittered dangerously and I felt the pressure of something poking my abdomen. I looked down and saw that the verman had drawn a black bladed dagger and held it pressed against my stomach.

  Gnasher's voice was emotionless as he spoke. "I said I don't deliver weapons to prisoners. I didn't say I don't carry weapons of my own."

  I stood very still. The black knife was a dire blade, one of the deadliest weapons in the city and a trademark of the Dominari. No one outside the Dominari, supposedly not even the Darklords, understood the magic that was used to create the foul things, but a dire blade could kill any supernatural creature with a single thrust, zombies included.

  I very slowly released my hold on Gnasher's coat.

  "Sorry," I said. "I appreciate everything you've done for me. I guess I'm just a little stressed out after everything that's happened to me over the last day or so."

  Gnasher regarded me a moment longer before making the dagger disappear somewhere inside his jacket.

  "Perfectly understandable, but a word of warning: if you touch me again, I'll gut you faster than you can blink."

  Gnasher delivered the threat matter –of factly but the anger smoldering in his gaze told me he was deadly serious. He was, after all, Dominari.

  "I get it."

  Gnasher nodded curtly. "Good. We should go now. It's best to keep moving down here, and besides, one sugar cube only satisfies a scarab for so long. We keep talking here and we run the risk of becoming the insect's next treat."

  He started walking away from the scarab's lair, and I followed.

  "How long will your people's negotiations with Devona take?" I asked as we walked.

  "It all depends on what she has to offer us and how swiftly we can come to terms. In the meantime, there's no reason to stand around doing nothing. Time is money, you know."

  As Gnasher led me toward a group of prisoners I wondered what Devona could possibly have that the Dominari might want. I just hoped that whatever the price for my freedom might be it wouldn't prove too costly for her in the end. Despite Gnasher's last comment I knew the Dominari wasn't solely interested in money. They had all sorts of ways to get their claws into you and the last thing I wanted Devona to do was make a deal with the Dominari that she would later regret. But I knew if our positions were reversed I'd do whatever it took to win her freedom. But there was nothing I could do right then except try not to worry and stay out of trouble while I accompanied Gnasher on his rounds.

  I had a feeling that both would be much easier said than done.

 

I spent the next several hours tagging along with Gnasher. Sometimes the transactions he conducted were obvious, like when he delivered several vials of tangleglow to a porcine creature with a bushy red beard who looked like Porky Pig and Yosemite Sam's love child. The pig thing immediately opened one of the vials and snorted the contents while tucking the second away in a pocket. A few seconds later the creature's eyes began to shine with a kaleidoscopic light. Satisfied, he handed a bag of darkgems over to Gnasher and the ratman placed it into one of his own pockets. A jackalheaded guard standing nearby kept his gaze averted during the transaction, giving no sign he was aware of us, let alone that he had any intention of interfering. When I later asked Gnasher about the guards he said, "They'd better look away. We pay them enough."

  Other times the verman's errands were more enigmatic, like when he walked up to a naked woman whose body was covered in fish-like scales and whispered a series of seemingly random numbers in her ear. The woman nodded, whispered a different series of numbers back to Gnasher, and the verman thanked her and we departed.

  Everywhere we went the guards ignored us and the Overwatchers gliding above seemed oblivious to our existence. The inmates still pretended not to be interested in Gnasher as they had when I first arrived – unless of course he had direct business to conduct with them – but now I knew the prisoners were well aware of him, and by extension, of me too. They maintained their distance, though, never approaching the verman, always waiting for him to come to them. I kept watch for Rondo, and while I didn't see him, I wasn't foolish enough to think he'd leave me alone just because I was in Gnasher's company. Wherever the Creeper was I knew he was plotting his next move against me.

  I saw other criminals that I'd help put away – the Lotus Bleeder, Zack the Knife, Nightshadow, Carnality and more. All of them glared at me as if hoping the hatred in their gazes might reduce me to dust, but none made a move toward me, presumably out of respect for – or fear of – Gnasher. It's good to have friends in low places.

  After a while I realized that Gnasher had been pulling more objects from his pockets than he should've had room for. I was sure there was some sort of magic at work and probably a high-level enchantment too. After all, the Dominari could afford the very best. Given that I rely on the contents of my own pockets in my work I was more than a little envious of Gnasher's jacket, but I didn't ask the verman for the name of his tailor. Whoever it was I knew I couldn't afford his services.

  Gnasher was talking with a tall man in a black suit who'd been jailed for smuggling dead bodies between dimensions without proper authorization when a fanged being covered in crusty armor plates lumbered up and grabbed the verman from behind. The creature – a she, I guessed based on the configuration of her armored chest – got Gnasher in an arm lock and held him tight.

  "What do you think you're doing?" the verman said in an indignant squeak that sounded more like Mickey Mouse's voice than that of a well connected mobster. "Don't you know who I am?"

  "She knows," said a gravelly voice. "She just doesn't give a damn."

  I turned to see Rondo approaching, a grin splitting his distorted face. The Tall Man decided he was suddenly needed elsewhere and rapidly moved off on those long legs of his.

  I nodded toward the vaguely lobsterish looking She Creature. "I'm surprised you found someone to help you. I didn't think scum like you had any friends."

  Gnasher struggled in the She Creature's clawed grip, but she was too powerful and he couldn't break free.

  Rondo stopped a dozen feet from me, evidently having learned to keep his distance after our last encounter. He might look like a slender Neanderthal but that didn't mean he was stupid.

  "I don't need friends," Rondo said. "Not when there are lots of people here who hate your guts almost as much as I do. You don't know her –" he nodded toward the She-Creature – "but her brother was a gill man you had a run-in with once."

  "I remember. The fishface kidnapped a selkie and was holding her captive as his sex slave. Her parents hired me to get her back, which I did, but I needed a dehydra's help to do it." I turned to face the She Creature, who was glaring at me, long ropey strands of saliva dripping from her fangs. "You ever see a dehydra at work? Those creatures can suck all the moisture out of a person in seconds. They're like water vampires. Your brother went from gill man to bipedal prune in less than five seconds."

  The She Creature snarled and started to loosen her grip on Gnasher, clearly tempted to let him go so she would be free to attack me.

  "Don't listen to him, Marla," Rondo warned. "He's just trying to goad you into making a stupid move."

  The She Creature looked like she was still considering having a go at me, but in the end she tightened her grip on the verman once more.

  Rondo gave me a triumphant grin and I shrugged.

  "Can't blame a guy for trying. So… what's next? She's going to hold Gnasher while you and I fight? Do you really think that will help? I managed to kick your ass all by myself the last time we met and I only needed a little sneezing powder to do it. You're not nearly as tough as you think you are."

Rondo kept grinning, but his gaze turned deadly cold.

  "Much as I hate to admit it, I agree. Which is why I've brought along another former friend of yours."

  A crowd of prisoners had gathered as we talked, all of them looking excited at the prospect of witnessing some prison yard mayhem. But now they began whispering among themselves and looking back nervously over their shoulders. More than a few moved off, as if they decided they'd be better off watching the proceedings from a distance. A moment later I found out why when a husky man with shaggy brown hair came walking toward us. He wore a loose tan shirt and matching pants, but no shoes. His black eyebrows were just as thick as the hair on his head and they met in the middle, a sure sign that he was a lyke. But I already knew that because I'd encountered this shapeshifter before. I didn't know what his given name was, but I was all too familiar with his street name.

  Lycanthropus Rex.

 
 

 
"Don't take this the wrong way, Rex, but I sincerely hoped I'd never see your butt ugly face again."

  "I bet," Rex growled.

  For reasons that were still unclear to me about a year earlier Lycanthropus Rex had gone on a rampage in the Sprawl one night when I happened to be working on a separate case. I was in the right place at the right time (or maybe wrong place, wrong time – take your pick) to stop him. When the dust settled, seventeen people were dead, thirty-two were injured and Papa Chatha had to reattach all four of my limbs. Rex had been taken away by the Sentinels and cast down into Tenebrus.

  Rex walked up to join Rondo, and while I was gratified to see the lyke also kept his distance from me, the feeling was tempered by the knowledge of how much firepower he packed. I'd been lucky as hell during our last encounter and even then I'd barely defeated him. I didn't think much of my chances to win a rematch, let alone survive it.

  "I never met Rondo before today," Rex said, "but he and I have something in common. We've both spent every minute since we were thrown into this shithole dreaming about someday getting a chance to tear you to fucking pieces. And you know something, zombie? That day's today." He grinned, displaying a mouthful of sharp canine teeth. "Who says dreams don't come true?"

  Rondo began to step away from Rex then and I knew what was coming. Lycanthropus Rex was going to show his fellow inmates how he'd come by his name. A lyke's transformation from human to wild form is usually a rapid one, but with Rex it took a bit longer, I think because he got off on watching people's reactions when he changed. And I had to admit, the man put on a hell of a show.