I flipped the coin at the Agony DeLite. It spun end over end through the air, struck the vehicle on its fleshy hood, and bounced off. But that brief contact was enough for the coin's magic to take effect. The vehicle's nearly orgasmic shrieks became pained gasps, and its skin went from a healthy pink to a sickly gray-green. It lost speed and began wobbling back and forth, its discolored flesh growing hard and leathery, its windshield clouding over, as if it were a huge cyclopean eye covered by a thick, milky cataract. The car wheezed, veered off to the right, and stumbled by without hitting any of us. It struck a street lamp made from a large spinal column and curving rib bones, shattering it. The impact brought the vehicle to a sudden halt, and with a rattling cough the engine – hell, the whole damned car – died.
The driver's door flew open and the operator of the vehicle climbed out, looking mad as hell and no worse for the collision with the street lamp. The Hyde started toward us, fangs bared, claws outstretched, ready to inflict some serious damage on the person responsible for spoiling his fun. But he didn't get five steps from the dead Agony DeLite – which was suffering from an advanced state of decay, its flesh liquefying and beginning to slide off its skeletal chassis – when his own flesh began to take on a gray cast and his breathing became labored. He made it two more steps before his face contorted in a grimace and he clutched his chest. A second later he collapsed to the ground, as dead as his vehicle.
I'd hope that the coin's death energy would affect the vehicle, though I hadn't expected the effect to be quite so dramatic. But I hadn't realized the coin's magic might also affect the driver, whose bare hands had no doubt been gripping the steering wheel when the coin struck the Agony DeLite. As we watched, the creature returned to his natural form in death, revealing his true self to be a youthful-appearing vampire that I didn't recognize. I knew the vampire hadn't exactly been an innocent bystander – I'd lived in Nekropolis too long to believe any of its citizens are completely innocent – but he'd attacked us only because the Hyde plague had transformed him into a maniacally murderous beast. And without meaning to, I'd killed him. I half-expected him to open his eyes and sit up – after all, he was a vampire – but he remained motionless. I guess a coin imbued with powerful death magic is just as effective as a wooden stake for his kind.
I glanced at Devona to see if she recognized him, but she shook her head. Whoever I'd killed, it hadn't been someone either of us knew, but that didn't make me feel any better about it. I hoped he'd be the last casualty before this day was over, but somehow I doubted it.
The three of us continued on, throwing gas grenades and doing our best to avoid the slashing claws of the rioting Hydes. At one point, I ran out of grenades and switched to my gas gun.
I swiveled my weapon to the right, intending to fire a burst of antidote at a group of Hydes. But before I could squeeze the trigger, a Hyde lunged toward me from the side, a glowing blade clutched in his oversized paw. He wore the white uniform of a Bonegetter, one of Victor Baron's employees who scour Nekropolis in search of lost and discarded body parts, or better yet, entire bodies, of which there are quite an abundance, given the all-toooften violent nature of the Darkfolk. I recognized the instrument he held as a laser scalpel, a device that cuts through flesh and bone as if they were water – an exceptionally useful tool for performing vivisections on the go. Before I could react, the Bonegetter-Hyde slashed down with his laser scalpel and cut through my right wrist. My hand, still holding onto the gas gun, fell to the ground.
I felt no pain since my nerve-endings are as dead as the rest of me, and even if the laser scalpel hadn't automatically cauterized my wound, no blood would've spurted forth from my wrist stump. But that didn't mean I wasn't irritated to lose the hand, or more importantly right then, the gas gun that it held.
The Bonegetter-Hyde looked at me and grinned.
"So what are you going to do now, deader?" he growled.
"This," I said, and concentrated.
My hand flexed its muscles, managed to aim the gas gun's muzzle in the general direction of the Bonegetter-Hyde, and then pulled the trigger. A burst of yellowish gas shot up out of the Hyde's face, and he staggered back, coughing. He dropped the laser scalpel as he moved away from me, and I was halftempted to retrieve the device and bury it in the Bonegetter's eye for what he'd done. But I didn't. For one thing, he was already in the process of changing back into his true form, and for another, I needed to get my right hand back ASAP.
I knelt down and held my wrist stump out toward my severed hand. Small tendrils of grayish-green flesh extended from both the stump and my hand, and within seconds my hand had reattached itself to my body. I stood up, and since my hand still held onto the gun, I tightened my grip on the weapon to test how successful the rejoining had been. The hand flexed just fine, and I turned and fired a fresh burst of gas at another group of Hydes that were determined to finish what their Bonegetter brother had started.
I was thrilled – and to be honest, more than a bit surprised – that the spell had worked. Over the years I've developed an unfortunate habit of losing pieces of myself in the line of duty, and I'd always relied on Papa Chatha to put me back together. But not long ago I'd literally lost my head… well, technically it had been my body that I had lost, but you get the idea. That injury had been beyond Papa's ability to repair, and I had to go to Victor Baron, the original Frankenstein monster, to get my head put back on my body. Papa's professional pride had been wounded, and he'd devoted himself to developing a spell that would allow me to reattach body parts in the field, at least temporarily. And what was even cooler, I could still exert control over any part of my body, whether it was attached to me or not. This was the first time I'd had the opportunity to try out the spell, and I was impressed by the results. Papa had been quick to caution me that the spell didn't make permanent fixes, though. The severed parts didn't literally rejoin with my body. They were held in place with strips of flesh, almost like bandages, and they would still function since my will animated them, but if I didn't get a more permanent repair done within twenty-four hours, any severed parts would fall off and stay off, and I'd no longer be able to control them. Still, as a temporary fix, the spell was more than adequate, as demonstrated by the fact that it had just saved my undead ass from getting sliced and diced by a homicidal Hyde wielding a high-tech surgical tool.
Devona, Darius, and I continued fighting, and though we finally made it to the other side of the street, we didn't get there entirely intact. I had several deep slashes on my arms and chest, as did Devona. My wounds were nothing to worry about; they didn't bleed and none of them were serious enough to slow me down, but the sight of Devona's injuries made me feel sick. They bled a lot, and even though they were healing rapidly, I couldn't help fearing damage had been done to the baby inside her. Sensing my worry, Devona gave me a smile, but it didn't do much to reassure me. Even though I knew rationally that she was all right, I also knew I wouldn't feel better until we'd done what we'd come to this dimension for and returned home safe and sound.
Though Darius had a few scratches, he'd fared better than either of us in the injury department, no doubt having picked up more than a few survival skills during the course of his interdimensional travels. While the three of us had made it across Sybarite Street relatively intact, there was no guarantee we'd remain that way. The clouds of yellow gas we'd released into the street were beginning to dissipate, and the Hydes who'd been returned to their true forms were rapidly becoming re-infected by the plague. We'd managed to create the confusion we'd needed, but I knew it wouldn't last much longer. A few more moments, and the Hydes in the street would begin turning their attention to us, and once that happened, they'd come for us en masse, and no amount of strategy or trickery would save us then. We needed to get inside the House of Dark Delights, and we needed to do it fast.