Around us, Gregor’s children began getting restless. A sign, I knew, that Gregor himself was becoming bored and was eager to move on to another topic.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Not that I can think of,” I answered.
“Then on to the matter of payment.” If there’s such a thing as an insect version of a purr, Gregor’s words were it.
Before I could respond, Devona stepped in front of me and said, “I’ll pay.”
“No you won’t,” I said.
She turned to me, her face set in a determined expression. “You paid Waldemar’s price, Lord Edrigu’s, and Silent Jack’s. It’s my turn.”
“I could afford to pay them, Devona. I…Papa Chatha gave me some bad news. My body can no longer be preserved by magic. I’ll be gone in a couple days, maybe less.”
Gregor didn’t react; he’d probably already known. But Devona came forward and took my hand.
“I thought your skin looked a little grayer than when we first met, but I told myself it was just my imagination. It wasn’t, though, was it?”
I shook my head.
“And you’re spending the time you have left helping me.” She sounded bemused, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it.
I felt a need to tell her the truth. “My motives aren’t unselfish. I was hoping that if we recovered the Dawnstone, you would intercede with Lord Galm on my behalf and ask him to help me make Papa a liar.”
“So you haven’t given up.”
I smiled. “It’s not in my nature.”
“Then the prices you paid-a page from your life, bearing Edrigu’s mark, losing your finger-you paid them even though you still intend to continue living. Uh, existing.”
“Yes.”
She nodded, as if in understanding, but of what I had no idea. She released my hand and turned back to face Gregor. “I shall pay this time.”
“Actually,” Gregor said, his antennae quivering as if he could barely contain himself, “since the information I’ve provided may benefit both of you-Devona, by helping recover the Dawnstone, and Matthew, by providing a chance to avoid discorporation-you must both pay.”
“What?” Devona nearly shouted, setting Gregor’s children to rustling nervously. “That isn’t fair!”
Gregor leaned forward, and although nothing else in his attitude changed, I sensed a hint of menace in the motion. “This is my home. Here, I decide what is and isn’t fair.”
From behind us came a soft whispering, like a distant wave breaking on the beach. I turned to see Gregor’s children had left the ceiling and the walls and were massing behind us.
I put a hand on Devona’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Information is the only coin he deals in.”
“Quite so,” Gregor affirmed.
Devona sighed. “Very well, then.”
I looked behind us; the mound of Gregor’s children was growing smaller as they returned to their places.
“Ms. Kanti, you shall pay first.” Gregor settled back once more. “As Matthew told you, all that interests me is information. But as I mentioned earlier, there are some places in Nekropolis-only a few, mind you-where my children have a difficult time venturing. Among these places, as I indicated, is the Cathedral. I want you to escort one of my children into Lord Galm’s stronghold and then, after a period of precisely one month, escort it out again. You need do nothing else to pay your debt to me.”
Devona considered briefly, and then said, “Agreed.”
“Excellent.” Gregor did or said nothing more, but one of his insects detached itself from the others and scurried up Devona’s leg, over her waist and chest, along her neck, across her jawline, and then darted into her ear.
She screamed in pain and clapped her hand to the side of her head. Blood trickled out from between her fingers. She swayed and then fell to her knees.
I went to her and gently pulled her hand away from her ear. I saw no sign of the insect and, thanks to her half-vampire physiology, the wound of its passage was already healing.
“I apologize. I should have made clear what I meant by escort.” Gregor chittered softly.
“If you’ve hurt her-”
“No need for dramatics, Matthew. My child must be hidden inside Ms. Kanti in order to be able to penetrate Lord Galm’s wardspells. Despite the initial…unpleasantness of the process, she will not be harmed by hosting my child, and when a month is over, it shall depart and Ms. Kanti’s body will heal the minor damage caused by its leavetaking.” He rubbed four of his legs together, maybe in anticipation of soon gaining access to a place so long denied him.
“I’m all right, Matt,” Devona said, sounding a bit shaky but otherwise unhurt. I helped her to stand. “It feels…odd,” she said. “But that’s all.”
“All right, Gregor,” I said. “My turn. Let me guess: you want me to carry one of your little spies too, so in case I do rot away to dust, I can ferry it over to the afterlife with me.”
More chittering. “Hardly. You have only to answer one simple question for me, Matthew: how do you feel about being a zombie?”
FIFTEEN
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come now, Matthew, it’s a simple enough question. How do you feel about being a zombie?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Gregor chittered loudly. “Why do I want to know anything? Because it is there to be known, because I do not already know. Because by knowing, I can perhaps come to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Everything, of course. But to answer your initial question more specifically, I wish to know because you are one of a kind, the only self-willed zombie in Nekropolis, perhaps the only one that has ever existed. And unlike normal zombies, you are aware and can provide valuable insight into your state of existence.”
“I’d like to help you, Gregor, but I don’t experience emotions the way I did when I was alive. I’m not sure I have any feelings about being a zombie.”
Gregor’s mandibles clacked together slowly- tik-tik-tik-tik -a gesture and sound which I’d come to know as a sign that the big bug was losing patience.
“Come now, Matthew. You forget to whom you are speaking. My children have watched you many times since your arrival in Nekropolis. You pretend to help people solely for monetary compensation in order that you might purchase preservative spells. But the lengths you go to in order to help them, the risks you take, indicate a man who is interested in far more than just collecting a paycheck.”
“When I take on a job, I do it to the best of my abilities. That’s how I am.”
“And is that why you chose to help Lyra? She was a spirit, Matthew, and unable to pay you.”
“Not true; I got to keep Honani’s soul.”
“Which you did not know would happen when you decided to aid Lyra. You helped her because you felt sorry for her and because her death filled you with righteous anger and you wanted to make her killer pay. You cannot deny it.”
Gregor was right, I couldn’t. “So?”
“So that proves you still feel, Matthew. Now answer my question and discharge your debt to me.”
I looked at Devona and thought of what she had said to me in the alley where we’d discovered Varma’s body. If you don’t feel anything, perhaps it doesn’t have anything to do with your being a zombie. Perhaps that’s who Matthew Richter really is-a man who was dead inside long before he died on the outside.
Had she been right? Was that really who and what I was?
I heard the soft whisper of Gregor’s children gathering behind.
“Matt-” Devona said warningly.
“How do I feel, Gregor? Even in Nekropolis I’m an oddity-a freak in a city of freaks-the only walking dead man with a mind of his own. And that mind is trapped in a body that’s little more than a numb piece of meat. I can’t feel warm or cold, can’t feel the wind on my face. Can’t smell, can’t taste. I’m cut off from the world around me, on the outside of life, looking in and trying to remember what it was like to be a man, to be Matthew Richter, instead of just a pale memory of him.