In front of Hemlocks, Baristastein stood in the midst of carnage, a half-dozen bodies in various states of disembowelment spread out around her on the sidewalk. She currently had both hands wrapped around the throat of a toad-faced demon with overlarge insect eyes and was slowly squeezing the life out of him. No longer was her face expressionless. Now her features were contorted in savage joy as she throttled the struggling demon.
Ferdinand approached her, confused sadness in his eyes.
"Sandy, something's happened to you – something bad. Please… let me help you!"
Baristastein snapped the toad demon's neck with a single quick shake and then tossed his body aside. She then started walking toward the minotaur, her gaze glittering with hungry anticipation.
Any thought I'd had about getting even with the bull man for making me drink the Sprawlicano vanished when I saw the danger he was in. "Get away from her!" I shouted.
But either Ferdinand didn't hear me or he was in too much shock to listen, for instead of turning away from the approaching Baristastein and running like hell in the opposite direction, he opened his arms wide to welcome her.
I didn't want to look, but I forced myself to watch as Baristastein rammed a hand into her boyfriend's chest and yanked out his still beating, bloody heart. Ferdinand bellowed in pain, and as the life quickly fled from his eyes, he looked upon the object of his adoration uncomprehendingly, and then his body went limp and he collapsed to the ground. Baristastein looked at the grisly object clutched in her hand for a moment as if she didn't quite understand what it was, then she hurled it aside, roared in fury, and stomped off in search of new victims.
I might have made a joke about how even in death Ferdinand had given his heart to his girl, but even though I can't experience nausea, I didn't have the stomach for such gallows humor right then. The minotaur might've been a jerk, but he hadn't deserved to die like that.
Up and down the street the same scene was played out again and again as the dead made violent, bloody war on the living. It was the same in the street as well. Vehicles that contained any part of Victor Baron's fleshtech, such as Agony DeLites and Meatrunners ignored their drivers' commands and crashed into other cars, running them off the road or into each other, engines roaring with bestial joy.
"This is most definitely not good," Overkill said.
"I didn't realize that understatement was one of your many skills," I said, unable to take my gaze off the chaos that surrounded us.
I heard Overkill rack the slide on her P-90 and when I turned to took at her I saw she had the weapon trained on me.
"So if all the deaders in the city have gone psycho, why haven't you?" she demanded.
I opened my coat to show her the Loa necklace Papa Chatha had given me.
"This makes me immune to magic. It's why your bargain basement Obeah charm failed. Its primary purpose is to prevent anyone from finding me with a tracking spell, but it blocks all magic – including that of Osseal, it seems."
"Maybe," Devona said, "but I'm not sure that's the only reason." She was still looking out into the street. "Have you two noticed something about which dead are attacking?"
Overkill frowned, though she didn't lower her weapon. "What do you mean?"
I turned to look at the mayhem once more and this time I saw what Devona was talking about. It was so obvious that I felt stupid for not having realized it before.
"Only Victor Baron's creations are attacking," I said.
Overkill swept her gaze up and down the street as she more closely examined the fighting taking place.
"Maybe it just seems like that," she said. "There's more of Baron's flesh tech in the Sprawl than there are other types of dead." Still, she sounded doubtful.
"This may not be the Boneyard, but there are numerous ghosts, revenants, liches, reanimated skeletons, zombies and the like around," Devona said. "Do you see any out there?"
"No," Overkill admitted. "So if it's true, and only Baron's monsters have gone crazy, what does that mean?"
"It means that whoever stole Osseal is using it to control only Baron's creations, and he's making them attack," I said.
The thought would've chilled my blood if I had any running through my veins. Baron's fleshtech was everywhere in Nekropolis, and I thought of all the businesses that employed his monsters, all the vehicles that incorporated his technology – voxes, Mind's Eye projectors, the Overwatchers in Tenebrus, even David's ravens… I imagined the scenes of death we were witnessing being played out all over the city, in clubs, bars, restaurants and homes.
And then, as if my thoughts were a cue, a chorus of piercing shrieks filled the air around us, and we looked at each other as we tried to determine where the deafening noise originated from.
"It's our voxes!" Devona shouted, though I could barely understand what she said, so loud was the din issuing from our phones.
The three of us pulled out our voxes and flipped open their covers. Their mouths were wide open and screaming at top volume, but once they were exposed they began snapping and gnashing their teeth, as if desperate to bite us.
Without consulting one another, the three of us dashed our voxes to the ground and then stomped on them. The plastic cases broke and pieces of electronic components spilled out, along with copious amounts of blood. Voxes incorporate Victor Baron's fleshtech and it seemed they were just as susceptible to the influence of Osseal as any other reanimated creature.
"Who would want to make Baron's creatures riot?" Devona asked.
"Who else but Baron himself?" I said. "For years there's been talk of making him the sixth Darklord, but Father Dis has always refused. So Baron worked hard to spread his creations throughout Nekropolis, getting his army in place so that when the time was right, they could strike. Now with Dis and the Darklords still sleeping to recharge their energies after the last Renewal Ceremony, that time has finally come."
Overkill opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment Jigsaw Jones – who'd just finished snapping a witch's spine by slamming her against his knee – turned to look at me. He discarded the screaming witch and came striding toward us. His scarred flesh was splattered with blood from his victims and from the expression of violent lust on his face, he was looking to add even more gore to his collection. I wondered if Jigsaw Jones and the rest of Baron's creations were listening to a mystic melody that only they could hear, music that drove them to go forth and kill.
Overkill turned her P-90 away from me and trained it on the approaching wrestler.
"Hold on," I said. I drew my. 45, aimed, and put a bullet through Jones' right eye. His head jerked back, blood sprayed the air, and he staggered backward. He didn't go down, though, so I sent a second bullet to follow the first through the same hole, and that did the trick. Jones hit the ground like a giant slab of scarred, bloodied beef.
I felt bad for having to put the big lug down. After all, I'd made more than a few darkgems betting on him over the years and I knew his homicidal rage wasn't his fault. Still, in Nekropolis, kill or be killed isn't just a saying. It's a way of life.
I turned to Overkill. "No point in wasting ammo we might need later."
"That was good shooting," she said.
"Being dead means my hands don't shake. Makes my aim steadier."
"Still, that was impressive," Overkill insisted. "I'm not sure I could've done it." She looked at me then, reappraisal in her gaze, as if she were somehow seeing me differently.