Lazlo stopped and stared, a beatific expression on his hideous face. He looked like a demon who had died and, much to his surprise, gone to heaven.
“Look.” He pointed to a crumpled hunk of yellow metal that had once been a taxicab and grinned. “I thought I’d never see it again.”
“Surely you don’t think that’s yours,” Devona said.
“Look at the tires on the passenger side,” I said. “They’ve been melted.”
She shook her head. “It’s not possible.”
“Maybe this is where cars go when they die,” Lazlo said in wonder.
“Or maybe it’s part of the deal I made with Lord Edrigu. Whichever, it sure looks like your cab.”
“I’m going to check it out, see if anything’s salvageable. Maybe, with enough work, I can even get the poor thing running again. You guys go on ahead.” He started forward.
“We can’t just leave you here,” I said.
Lazlo stopped. “Why not? What can happen to me in the Boneyard? Everything’s dead here.”
I thought of the E emblazoned on my palm. “This is Nekropolis, Lazlo. Just because something’s dead doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.”
He chuckled. “You worry too much.”
“We almost died in Glamere,” Devona pointed out.
“We didn’t, though, did we?” Lazlo countered. “But my cab did. Maybe now I have chance to get it back. You two take care, and good luck.” And with that he shufled toward the remains of his pride and joy.
“Let’s go, Devona.”
“But-”
“Lazlo’s cab is his whole life. And you’ve seen him drive. Once he starts, he doesn’t slow down, and he doesn’t listen to anyone telling him to stop. He’s like that about everything. He’ll probably mess around with the cab for a few hours, realize it’s no use, mourn his loss, and then head on back to the Sprawl. Eventually, he’ll either find another cab, or he’ll be forced to go into a new line of work and the pedestrians of Nekropolis will be able to breathe a little easier.”
Devona looked at Lazlo-who was walking around the wreckage of his cab, shaking his head and muttering-one last time, and then together we continued down the street toward Gregor’s.
The streets in the Boneyard had no names, and there were no particular landmarks, just block after block of decay and dissolution, so finding Gregor’s place wasn’t easy. Eventually we passed a large factory that looked something like a medieval castle with three towering smoke stacks pumping black clouds into the already ebon sky. An intricate lattice of metal beams and wires stretched upward from the roof of the building, and electricity sizzled as it swept through the lattice, bolts cracking like thunder as they leaped from one connection point to another. A high wrought-iron fence surrounded the facility, tipped with sharp spear points to prevent any curiosity-seekers from being tempted to climb over.
Devona gazed upon the factory with wonder. “Is that-”
I nodded. “The Foundry. Home, laboratory, and production facility of Victor Baron, otherwise known as Frankenstein’s Monster.”
“It’s bigger than I imagined,” she said.
“Baron lives to create things, and that includes his facility. He’s been expanding it for over two hundred years, and he shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.”
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“Only by reputation. From what I understand, he doesn’t leave the Foundry much.”
For the last two centuries, Victor Baron had been Nekropolis’s prime supplier of what he terms reanimation technology but which most people call meatwork. Baron is responsible for the city’s Mind’s Eye technology, handvoxes, flesh computers, and anything other tech based on resurrecting the dead. Just look for the label, often tattooed into the flesh of your device: Another Victor Baron Creation. From time to time I’d toyed with the idea of making an appointment with Baron to see if he could anything to stabilize my zombie state or, better yet, return me to the living, but Papa Chatha counseled caution.
Magic and science don’t always get along as well as they could, Papa once warned me. Baron’s technology would be as likely to destroy you as help you.
I sometimes wonder if Papa feels more than a little professional jealousy toward Baron, but since my houngan has kept me going for years, I’ve decided to trust his advice.
Devona and I kept walking. Gregor’s place wasn’t far from the Foundry, and I soon recognized a broken beam here and a shattered wall there, and before much longer we stood before the ruins of a stone building: roof collapsed, walls fallen, columns broken and timeworn.
“This is it,” I pronounced. “Good thing Gregor has the columns, or I’d never be able to find this place.”
“Who is Gregor, precisely?”
“Gregor is probably Nekropolis’s best kept secret. He’s an information broker on a par with Waldemar. But where Waldemar specializes in the past, Gregor deals in the present.” I smiled. “If he doesn’t know something, it’s because it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Then why didn’t we come here in the first place?”
“Because to do so we had to go through either Glamere or the Wyldwood. It’s suicide for anyone but a lyke to travel the Wyldwood-and you experienced Talaith’s hospitality. Gregor may be the best source of information in the city, but he’s not exactly the most accessible.”
“I understand.” She surveyed the ruins. “How do we get in?”
I led the way up the cracked and broken steps and we walked carefully through the rubble of Gregor’s building until we came to a shiny black rectangle set into the ground.
“It’s me, Gregor. And I brought a friend.”
Nothing happened for a moment, and then the rectangle parted as the tiny black shapes which comprised it scurried off.
Devona took in a hiss of air. “Insects!”
“Gregor’s little friends-and his informants.”
As the roach-like bugs retreated, they revealed stone stairs leading down into the earth.
“Try not to make any sudden moves,” I told Devona. “Gregor and his friends tend to be on the skittish side.”
I took out a pocket flashlight, thumbed the switch to low, and shined its beam down the steps, sending more insects fleeing, thousands of hair-thin segmented legs whispering across stone. Gregor didn’t keep his underground lair lit, so the flashlight was a necessity for me-one which he tolerated. And even though I had no reason to fear Gregor, none that I could name, anyway, I always felt better visiting him with flashlight in hand.
We started down into the darkness, roaches scuttling away from the steps and walls as we descended. I’d been here only a handful of times since coming to Nekropolis, but I’d never gotten used to seeing so many of Gregor’s friends in one place. My dead nerve endings didn’t work anymore, but I still felt itchy when I visited.
When we reached the bottom of the steps, Devona turned around.
“The insects have closed up behind us.” Her voice was steady, but I detected a hint of nervousness beneath her words.
“They always do that; don’t worry about it.”
We were in a large, empty basement which seemed cloaked in tangible darkness, except for the small circle of gray stone around us illuminated by my flashlight.
“Is this place…filled with them too?” Devona asked me in a whisper.
“Try not to think about it,” I whispered back, and then in a normal voice I said, “Thank you for seeing us, Gregor.”
A faint clicking sound emerged from the darkness where the opposite wall should be.
“Always a pleasure, Matthew.” The voice was soft and the words rustled like insect carapaces sliding against one another. “Ms. Kanti, it’s quite an honor to meet you.”
“The honor is, uh, all mine.” As a half-vampire, Devona’s eyesight was far better than mine, and I was sure she could see through the basement’s gloom to Gregor.
“Please, both of you, come closer. But keep your flashlight pointed downward, if you don’t mind, Matthew.”