Glassine, normal once more – or at least looking her version of normal – took in the three of us, and while I saw recognition in her eyes, it didn't drive out the confusion.
"Matt? Devona? Is that you?" Her voice, though no longer guttural, was a bit raspy. The after-effect of all that coughing, I supposed. "You both look so different."
"I hate to do this, Glassine, but I really don't have a choice." I stepped forward, shifted my gas gun to my left hand, balled my right hand into a fist, and struck Glassine a solid blow to the jaw. Her eyes rolled white, her body went limp, and she started to collapse. Devona darted forward lightning-fast and caught the transparent woman before she could fall and lowered her gently to the ground.
Devona scowled at me as she straightened. "Did you have to hit her so hard?"
"I had to make sure she went down before she could be re-infected." As if to illustrate my words, Glassine's body convulsed and she began to change back to her bestial state. Thankfully, she remained unconscious once the transformation was complete. I had no idea how long she'd stay that way, though.
"Damn, that was fast!" Devona said. She turned to Darius. "You weren't exaggerating when you told us how contagious the Hyde plague was."
I scowled as a thought occurred to me. "If it's so contagious," I said to Darius, "how did you avoid getting infected the last time you were here?"
He smiled. "Who said I did? But I've picked up a lot of interesting… souvenirs during my travels between Nekropolises… Nekropoli? A universal antidote was one of them. Unfortunately, I used my final dose during my last trip here to counteract the transformation just as it started to take hold of me. If it wasn't for Bennie's inoculation, I'd look like her right now." He nodded to Glassine.
"At least she's out of action for the time being," I said. "With any luck, she'll stay unconscious until it's all over."
"We can't just leave her here," Devona said. "If one of the others finds her like this, she'll be easy prey."
"We don't have time to move her," I pointed out. "The longer we stand here talking, the greater the chance that another of the Hydes will discover us. And even if we did have time, where could we take her? The moment we leave the alley, we'll be spotted."
"I suppose you're right," Devona said, but she didn't sound happy about it. I didn't blame her. I didn't like the idea of leaving the unconscious Glassine behind either, even if she was currently a Hyde. But we really didn't have a choice, not if we wanted to do what we'd come here for – and survive long enough to go home. It was possible that Glassine might fall victim to one or more of the other Hydes before we could fix things, and after seeing the savage creatures rioting out in the street, I had a pretty good idea of the unpleasant things that would happen to her if she were discovered. But there was nothing we could do about that except work as fast as we could and hope it would be enough. Leaving Glassine like this would be hard, but I had a bad feeling it would only be the first of a number of tough choices we'd be forced to make before this was over.
I tucked away my gas gun and withdrew several plastic-coated yellow spheres the size of ping-pong balls from my jacket pocket. Devona and Darius also took out handfuls of spheres, though where Devona had been keeping hers, given how tight her leather outfit was, remained a mystery to me. The three of us walked to the mouth of the alley, a single sphere held in each of our right hands, ready to throw, the rest clasped tight in our left hands.
We then stepped onto the sidewalk and into Hell.
TWO
We tossed the first grenades underarm into the street, aiming at the Hydes closest to us. As soon as the spheres struck, they burst open, releasing yellow clouds of antidote gas, and every creature within range sucked in lungfuls of the stuff and began hacking. We didn't wait for the gas to take effect. As soon as the first wave of grenades detonated, we ran into the street and threw the next batch ahead of us to clear the way. We continued hurling grenades as we went, and within moments the homicidal chaos that had reigned in Sybarite Street gave way to mass confusion as clouds of yellow gas filled the air and dozens of the Hydes began to revert to their original forms. It wouldn't last – witness how long it had taken Glassine to become re-infected – but our goal wasn't to effect a permanent cure, at least not yet. Our goal was to create enough of a distraction so that we could cross the street and reach the House of Dark Delights, preferably without getting any limbs torn out of their sockets.
I've done a lot of difficult things during my time in Nekropolis, but crossing that dimension's version of Sybarite Street was one of the hardest. As soon as one of the Hydes reverted to his or her natural form, any unchanged creature close to them attacked, and the air was filled with the sounds of their screaming as they tried to escape and failed. It took everything I had to ignore their cries of agony and terror and force myself to keep running, and from the pained look on Devona's face, I knew she felt the same. I told myself that we were doing what we had to do, and maybe that was true, but it sure as hell didn't make it any easier.
We were two-thirds of the way across the street when a Hyde behind the wheel of an Agony DeLite aimed his vehicle at us and tromped on the accelerator. Agony DeLites are flesh-tech, formed from the bodies of a dozen sadomasochists. The vehicles run on pain, and the harder their drivers abuse them, the faster they go. I don't know what the Hyde inside the vehicle was doing to motivate his car, but it screamed in pleasure as it came toward us, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase on the asphalt. A glance showed me that the driver had the windows up, not that it mattered. Even if he got a dose of antidote and began to change back to normal, it wouldn't be in time for him to stop the car. I wasn't worried about Devona; I knew she could leap out of the way in time, but Darius and I were a good deal slower. Darius might be able to avoid being hit, but I'd end up zombie roadkill for sure. I'd survive the impact, but I'd sustain so many broken bones, I'd end up as little more than a rattling skin bag – zombie maracas. I figured I'd better do something to avoid that, seeing as how it would make saving this dimension's Nekropolis a bit harder.
I still had a couple gas grenades in my left hand, so I reached into my pants pocket with my right and pulled out an ancient coin. This was one of Charon's coins, paid to the ferryman as a fee for passage to the Land of the Dead. In my case, its magic had allowed me to purchase twenty-four hours as a living man. I'd used it, so its magic was gone, or at least that one aspect of its magic was gone. But that didn't mean the coin was without power. Magic items are funny. Some work like batteries: once their juice is used up, they're worthless. Others – especially objects of significant power – are more complicated. If you follow the instructions carefully and take the proper precautions, they'll work for you. But if you screw anything up, or if you get greedy and try to use them one more time than you should, they'll turn around and bite you on the ass in spectacularly awful ways. I was counting on the coin being the latter type of object. If I was wrong… well, I hoped Devona and Darius wouldn't mind carting around an undead bag of bone shards for a while.