"Stop whining," I said as I scuffed my shoes on the floor to get the viscous goo off them. "You've got plenty of spares."
One of the guards waved me on with his lightspear, and we started walking again.
"Starting fights on your first day?" Keket said.
"Look, anything that has eyes all over its body should know better than to attack someone. It's like wearing armor made out of your own testicles."
Keket grunted, but otherwise didn't comment.
We passed a number of other cells without incident, but then we came to one that had a water puddle in front of its door. Standing behind the bone bars was a young woman with long straight black hair hanging down in front of her face, concealing her features. She wore a white dress that was soaking wet and the flesh of her hands – the only parts of her body that were visible – were moist, blue-white and slightly puffy, like the flesh of a snail.
As we drew close the woman hissed Keket's name and her long back hair suddenly began to move. Ebony strands reached through the bars, rapidly extending in length as they streaked toward Keket.
The warden of Tenebrus didn't bother to acknowledge the threat. She merely continued walking as one of the guards pointed his glowing speartip at the thrashing mass of hair. Energy blasted forth from the spear, engulfing the hair which, despite being drenched, burst into flame. The young woman shrieked in a mixture of pain and fury, withdrew the smoldering remains of her hair back through the bars, and retreated farther into her cell, hissing angrily.
"Whoever that is, she doesn't have any love for you," I said to Keket.
"It's a long and not especially interesting story. But one thing I'll say: the woman can certainly hold a grudge."
We continued on and I was beginning to think Tenebrus wasn't half as bad as it was reputed to be. I mean, I wasn't thrilled at the idea of spending the rest of my existence here, but if what I'd seen so far was any indication, then I could handle this place, no problem.
As we walked we left the cell block behind and I began to become aware of a low level roar, almost like the constant rushing of a large waterfall. The corridor ended at a railing constructed from bone and Keket gestured for me to step forward and join her. I did so and found myself looking down upon a vast canyon formed from the same fleshy gray bone threaded substance as the rest of Tenebrus. The canyon floor was lit by large light spheres set atop pillars spread throughout the area, illuminating what I first took to be a writhing mass of crawling insects. But as I took a longer look I realized that I was seeing hundreds of people – inmates – circulating, talking, shouting, and in many cases, fighting. And when someone went down, huge scarab-like beetles scuttled forth from recessed spaces in the walls and floor, grabbed hold of the bodies, and pulled them back to their lairs, and judging from the screams, not everyone the scarabs collected was dead. Dozens of silvery round objects glided through the air above the prisoners, slowly criss-crossing the length of the canyon. I had no idea what they were or what purpose they served, but I guessed they were some manner of security or surveillance device. Jackalheads patrolled among the inmates, providing on the ground security. The canine headed guards were easy to spot because of their size and the glowing speartips of the weapons they carried.
With a sinking feeling I knew I was looking down at Tenebrus's general population and I no longer felt quite so confident about my ability to handle this place.
Keket turned to me and this time I could definitely hear the smile in her voice when she spoke.
"Quillion thought he was doing you a good turn by recommending you for the general population, but I know the truth. Down there are a number of criminals that you helped put away over the years, Matthew Richter. You can imagine how thrilled they'll be to learn that they will soon get a chance to become reacquainted with an old friend. Be sure to give them my regards."
Before I could react, Keket extended a cloth wrapped hand toward me and the bandages around her fingers uncurled and began moving toward me, lengthening as they came. Five strips of ancient Egyptian cerements took hold of me, encircling my neck, wrists and ankles, and then they lifted me off the floor as if I weighed nothing. Keket gestured and her cloth tentacles lifted me over the railing and held me out in the open air.
She gestured again and I began falling, still held tight by Keket's bandages. I plunged downward, feeling absurdly like a zombie yoyo, unable to do anything but watch as the canyon floor came rushing toward me. While most of the inmates below continued to go about their business without noticing my rapid approach, more than a few looked up, and the feral grins on their faces communicated their delight upon seeing that Keket was delivering fresh meat to them.
When I was within twenty feet of the canyon floor, the bandages jerked me to a stop and then lowered me the rest of the way more slowly. When I was within a couple yards of the ground, the bandages released me and streaked back up to return to their mistress, leaving me to fall the rest of the way. Luckily the inmates in the immediate vicinity had seen me coming and moved out of the way in time to prevent me landing on them. Unfortunately, that meant there was no one there to break my fall. I heard something snap when I hit – a rib or two, I guessed – but whatever it was that had broken, it didn't prevent me from quickly rising to my feet, so I decided not to worry about it.
I looked around at the faces staring at me. They belonged to different species and both genders – evidently Tenebrus was a co-ed facility – but they all had one thing in common. They all looked mean as hell. No one wore uniforms. Everyone had on street clothes, presumably whatever they'd been wearing when they'd been sentenced. And judging from the ragged, threadbare outfits of many of the inmates, they'd clearly been here for quite some time.
Keket's voice boomed from above, filling the canyon with sound.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our latest arrivaclass="underline" Matthew Richter, knight errant and savior of the city who has, it should go without saying, suffered a recent reversal in fortune and is now joining us here at our happy little home. Won't you make him welcome, my children?"
Her last word echoed several times before finally dying away. I looked up at the railing where she'd been 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.