Devona gasped in pain, stumbled, and fell to the floor. She clutched at her wounded shoulder, trying to grab hold of the cross and pull it free, but it had already sunk too deep. Holy objects and silver don't affect halfvampires as strongly as they do full-blooded vampires, but that just means their poisonous and corrosive effects are slower. Devona wasn't in danger of suffering any long-term damage from the cross, provided she could get it removed within the next half-hour or so, but the pain was excruciating and there was no way she would be able to continue battling the ghoul. It was all she could do to hold on to consciousness. This also meant there was no way she could concentrate effectively to use her telepathic powers against her assailant.
But wounding Devona wasn't enough for the ghoul. She plunged her hand into her side – right in the spot where I estimated a shoulder holster would be – and pulled out a 9mm handgun. She stepped forward, her ghoul disguise wavering as she did so and, by the time she knelt next to Devona and placed the gun barrel against her forehead, the ghoul illusion was completely gone. The voicenapper was revealed to be a humanoid of indeterminate gender and species encased in black body armor, just as had been reported.
"You have five seconds to remove the spell on the exit. If you don't, I'll put a blessed silver-jacketed bullet through your skull. You'll have a hell of a time healing from that."
The kidnapper wore a hooded mask and black goggles, but the muffled voice that came through was unmistakably that of a woman. And that gave me an idea of who we might be dealing with.
I'd finally reached Devona and I stopped a couple yards away so as not to make the kidnapper too nervous. There's a reason someone coined the phrase "itchy trigger finger" and I didn't want to put the kidnapper's combat cool to the test.
"You might as well give it up, Overkill. There's no way you're leaving with Scream Queen's voice."
The woman turned to look at me, but she didn't remove the gun from Devona's head. She was a consummate professional.
"What are you going to do, zombie? Drop flakes of dead skin on me?"
"So you are Overkill."
A slight hesitation. "I didn't say that."
"But you didn't deny it, either. No one would be stupid enough to pretend to be Overkill or even allow anyone to think she's Overkill. If the real Overkill ever found out, she'd hunt them down and make them pay for using her name in vain."
The woman seemed to consider that for a moment. "True." She tucked the autograph book under her arm and then, with her free hand reached up, pulled off her goggles and face mask and tossed them to the floor. She was an attractive woman in her twenties, with brown hair, brown eyes, who stood five-eight and weighed around a hundred and forty pounds. She looked normal enough, but everyone in Nekropolis knows that looks are deceiving. If something appears dangerous it's probably ten times worse and if something appears harmless you'd best turn and run screaming in the other direction as fast as your feet will carry you. I'd never met this woman before, but despite her appearance, I knew I was standing face to face with one of the most feared mercenaries in the city.
"You gave it your best shot, but you're not going to get away with the voice, Overkill. You know that. The best thing for you to do is put the autograph book down, take the gun away from Devona's head, and leave."
She smiled. "I don't know anything of the sort. I'm the one holding the gun against your girlfriend's forehead. You know I'm not bluffing when I say I'll fire if she doesn't dispel the enchantment on the doorway."
I did know it. Overkill was one of the deadliest fighters in the city. She was a human who wanted to show the monsters that ruled Nekropolis that not only could she be their equal, she could surpass them, becoming a bigger, badder monster than any of them could ever hope to be. To this end she employed weapons both mundane and mystical in her work, usually to quite deadly effect, but she accepted no enhancements to her body, magical, cybernetic, or genetic. She was one hundred percent homo sapiens and two hundred percent bugfuck crazy. She took on only the most difficult of jobs – the more suicidal, the better – and while rumor had it that she was obscenely well paid for what she did, money meant nothing to her. As Dr. Scott says in Rocky Horror, Overkill lives solely for "ze thrills".
"So you have a gun. I do too." I slowly opened my jacket to show her the 9mm resting in my shoulder holster, a souvenir from my days as a human cop.
Her smile took on a mocking edge. "Even if you were alive, there's no way you could move fast enough to draw your weapon before I pulled the trigger on mine. And as a zombie, your reflexes are way too slow to even think about it."
I didn't take any offense at what she said, mostly because she was right. "You're not the only one who carries magical toys. I have all kinds of surprises I can pull out of my bag of tricks."
"Maybe so, but that doesn't change anything. The second your hand so much as twitches in the direction of one of your pockets, my gun goes off and your lady love's half-undead brains will exit the back of her head suddenly, violently, and quite messily. There's no way she'll be able to repair that kind of damage on her own, and even a top-flight healer won't be able to help her. She won't have enough brains left to be resurrected as a zombie – not that she'd be intelligent like you. I suppose you can always hope she'll return as a ghost, but you can't ever predict who'll come back and who'll cross over to the next life, whatever that may be. So if you want her to live, you'll back off and let her remove the spell on the door for me."
So far I'd managed to keep Overkill talking, but I had no illusions that I might be able to make some sort of deal with her. She was verbally sparring with me only because it amused her. It wouldn't take her long to get tired of our little tete-a-tete and then she'd make good on her threat to kill Devona – an outcome I'd prefer to avoid, as you might imagine. Death isn't necessarily the end in Nekropolis, but it does seriously cut down on your options.
"There are a lot of heavy hitters in here," I pointed out, "and any number of them could give you a serious run for your money. If they teamed up…"
"Nice try, but if any of them were going to interfere, they'd have done so by now." Her smile turned into a leer. "Maybe they're having too much fun watching."
Unfortunately she was probably right. Most Nekropolitans aren't big on altruism, mostly because sticking your nose into other people's business in this city is an excellent way to get yourself killed – and that's just for starters. There are worse things than death in this town and they're usually standing a few inches behind you, ready to reach out and grab you when you least expect it.
"What about this?" I raised my hand and showed her the scar-tissue E on my palm. "Do you really want to defy the agent of a Darklord?"
That seemed to give her pause. Her smile fell away and she seemed to consider the matter. Meanwhile, tears of blood streamed down Devona's face and her breathing was becoming more labored. I knew the cross's silver – not to mention the holy power of the blessing that had been laid upon it – was causing her system to break down. She needed to get that cross out of her as soon as possible.
"I'd heard rumors that you'd been marked by Edrigu," Overkill said, "but that doesn't make you one of his agents. Maybe it's simply a sign that you're in his debt."
I kept my face composed – a task easily accomplished for a dead man – but I swore inwardly. Overkill wouldn't have survived in her profession as long as she has if she was stupid, but I'd hoped my bluff would work. Since it hadn't, that left me with only one other option: bluff bigger.