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 message through our link, a combination of I'm sorry and I love you. I didn't know if she received it or not, but she patted my head and even though it made me feel a bit like a cute pet sitting on his owner's lap, it reassured me.
Lazlo drove on and Devona and I continued to watch the tooth compass, waiting for it to indicate where my body was.
It was well after midnight but the Sprawl is always open for business. The streets were thick with traffic and Lazlo wove erratically in and out of lanes with disturbing regularity, earning a multitude of raised middle fingers – many with claws on the tip – horn blasts and snarls from the more feral drivers. At one point he nearly sideswiped the Headless Horseman and ended up with splattered pumpkin smeared across his rear window. I was just glad the Horseman hadn't glanced into the cab and seen me or else the specter might've been tempted to replace his missing head with mine. Then again, if he had, at least I'd experienced a smoother ride on the back of his ghostly steed than I would've in the backseat of Lazlo's nightmare conglomeration of a cab.
We crisscrossed the Sprawl, cruising the main drag of Sybarite Street and passing such well-known landmarks as the Freakatorium and the Grotesquerie, as well as the House of Dark Delights and Pandemonia. We even circled the high rise of Demon's Roost, the seat of Varvara's power. But no matter where we went my tooth continued its slow rotation around the compass's face, never once indicating my body might be near.
We drove past the crystalline pyramid that was the Eidolon Building where the city's major media outlets were housed. The Daily Tome, Bedlam 66.6 and Mind's Eye Theatre all have offices there and I wondered if even then Acantha was inside, seething over how I'd humiliated her on the air and planning revenge – assuming she hadn't already taken it by stealing my body, that is. But if she had orchestrated the theft of my body it wasn't located anywhere near the Eidolon Building, according to the compass.
Our drive continued like this for several hours and I'd just about resigned myself to living the rest of my unlife as a talking head when the tooth finally swiveled to point northeast of our current location.