The Sprawl contains a bizarre mix of earthly architectural styles – Victorian, gothic, baroque, postmodern, American colonial, classical, neoclassical, Spanish and more – along with structures that look like something straight out of a fever dream. Buildings that resemble giant insect hives resting next to structures formed of light and mist. Many of the buildings were formed from material resembling bone and the streetlights were made of the same stuff, making them resemble skeletal arms holding globes of greenish light. As I walked through the crazy quilt of Varvara's Dominion on my way home, I brooded and kept an eye out for danger. In Nekropolis, not paying attention to your surroundings is an excellent way to commit unintentional suicide. Viscous blue pseudopods extruded from sewer grates as the Azure Slime quested for bits of detritus to feed upon, but as long as I didn't step too close to the curb and tempt the creature, I'd be fine. Building fronts were covered with leech vine, a parasitic plant that grabs hold of its prey and feeds upon its blood. As a zombie my blood had long since turned to dry dust in my veins and the vine ignored me as I passed. Devona has to be more careful around the stuff, though. Leech vine loves vampire blood best of all – even half vampire blood. It's like the finest of wines to the plant. I find it poetic justice that one of the city's greatest predators has a blood thirsty nemesis that desires to feed on its liquid life essence, but the vampires don't see it that way. That's why the best leech vine exterminators in the city are Bloodborn.
I passed a number of nightclubs as I walked down the street and a majority of them had Frankenstein bouncers standing outside their entrances who resembled the bouncer at Sinsation – a few of them resembled him so much, in fact, that it was obvious they'd rolled off the same assembly line. More of Victor Baron's handiwork. 'Making life to make life better', as another of his slogans went.
I was halfway home, reviewing my conversation with Devona and mentally kicking myself for acting like such a jerk, when I passed by an alley. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the shadows and an instant later something obstructed my vision. I realized a cloth hood had been dropped over my head, but before I could do anything about it, I felt a razor thin sharpness bite into my neck. A garroting wire, I guessed. It didn't hurt, but I could feel the pressure as the wire was pulled backward, slicing through my bloodless flesh. When the garrote hit my neck bone, the wire began to vibrate with a soft humming sound, as if it were some sort of mechanical device, and it cut the rest of the way through my neck with the ease of a laser bisecting a stick of butter. All of this happened in mere seconds, far faster than my undead reflexes could react, and the next thing I felt was a sudden dizzying lurch as I fell, hit the ground, and bounced a couple of times before coming to a stop. At the same moment, I heard the sound of something large landing next to me with a muffled thud. This was followed by shuffling footsteps, rustling cloth and grunts of exertion. More footsteps then, quickly fading away. After that, there was only silence and darkness.
I already had a good idea what had happened to me, but I had to check. I tried to reach up and remove the hood from my head, but my arm refused to obey me. I then attempted to sit up, but once again my body failed to cooperate. The reason for this was distressingly simple: I no longer had a body. Or at least, it wasn't currently attached to my head.
This was not good. And a moment later, it got even worse.
I heard something moving – lots of somethings. Tiny claws scraping against stone, little high-pitched voices muttering, drawing closer as they spoke.
"What is it?"
"Something in a bag."
"Just more trash."
"No, no. Take a whiff!"
Soft snuffling sounds.
"Meat!"
"Starting to go bad."
"Starting to go good, you mean!"
Dark laughter then, with a hungry edge to it.
Inside the hood I couldn't see what was coming for me, but I already knew: carrion imps, some of the nastiest little scavengers in the city. Normally the miniature versions of ghouls aren't much of a threat, but I no longer had a body with which to defend myself. Now I was just a hunk of discarded meat, an unexpected but quite welcome feast for the little bastards, and once they picked my skull clean not all the magic in Nekropolis could resurrect me again.
All in all it was turning out to be a pretty shitty night.
FOUR
I may have only been a decapitated head, but I still had my brain, so the first thing I did was send out a telepathic SOS to Devona. I'd never tried to communicate with her through our psychic link at such a great distance before, but even if she did receive my message I knew there was no way she could reach me in time to prevent the carrion imps from chowing down on me – both sections of me.
I'd heard my body fall at the same time as my head struck the ground, so presumably my other half was lying close by. I wondered then who'd done this to me, sliced me in two and left me lying on the street for scavengers to snack on. I had any number of enemies, but there was only one person I'd seriously pissed off that evening: Overkill. Devona's words came back to me then.
The only way for her to regain face is to confront the person who forced her to stand down without so much as raising a hand against her.
Well, I certainly couldn't raise a hand now – or any other body part, for that matter. But I had a hard time believing Overkill was responsible for my current state. She was certainly capable of ambushing me and slicing off my head before I could react, no doubt about that. But my attacker hadn't said a single word to me and Overkill would have definitely wanted me to know she was the one who'd taken me out. But I didn't have time to worry about that now. I needed to survive long enough for Devona to reach me – assuming she'd received my psychic call for help and was on her way. If she hadn't… I thrust the thought aside and focused on not becoming imp food.
They approached cautiously, clawed feet scratching against the pavement, breath softly hissing in and out of their nostrils as they scented the air.
"You really don't want to do this." My voice came out as a rough croak, but it seemed I still possessed enough of my throat to speak. How I managed to do so without a pair of lungs to move air over my vocal cords, I'm not sure. I decided to put it down to zombie magic. A severed head is much scarier if it can talk, right?
The scuffling stopped and was replaced by a tense silence. I pictured a crowd of carrion imps gathered around my hooded head, standing frozen, eyes agape as they realized what they'd taken for a hunk of discarded meat was, in fact, alive – or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
A few seconds passed and then one of the braver imps spoke. "Yeah? Why not?"
His words were tough enough, but his voice quavered. Individually carrion imps are cowards. They're only truly dangerous when gathered together in packs. If I could keep them off balance and play on their fearful nature I might be able to prevent them from swarming me. It wasn't much of a plan, I admit, but it was all I had.
"Because I'm lying in wait for prey, and while I'd rather feed on something more tasty than imp, I'll settle for you if I have to."
A few more moments of silence and then the imps began whispering among themselves. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I had a good idea. Eventually the brave one spoke again.
"What sort of creature are you that lies in wait for prey concealed by a piece of cloth?"