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I punched the guard in the face, smashing his nose and mouth and jaw, and then back-elbowed the other guard in the side of the head. They both went down and didn’t get up again. Normally, I would have taken the time to do them both some serious damage, to make a point, but I had more important things in mind. I stepped over the broken guards, kicked in the black-lacquered doors, and strode into the Voodoo Lounge.
* * *
“Hello!” I said loudly as I strode into the entrance-hall. “I’m here! Come on, give it your best shot! Do your worst! I can take it!”
And the next level of defence came running silently down the hallway towards me. A short, stocky Chinaman, the tattoos down one side of his face marking him as a combat magician. A very powerful and frightening figure—to anyone else. He waited till he was almost upon me, then he gestured sharply and snatched a blazing ball of fire out of nowhere. Vivid green flames shot up around his hand, and he stopped dead in his tracks to thrust them at me. Emerald fires blasted me like a flame-thrower. But I was already turning, putting my back to him; and the searing flames slammed against my deep purple greatcoat. A terrible fire roared over and around me; but the flames couldn’t touch me. In my dead state, I couldn’t even feel the heat. And when the flames finally died out, I straightened up, turned around, and smiled at the combat magician.
“I had my coat fire-proofed long ago, on the quiet, for occasions just like this,” I said.
And while I was saying that, holding his attention, I surged forward, snatched the jade fire amulet out of his hand, and beat him to the floor. I heard his skull crack and break under the blows, but I hit him a few more times anyway, to be sure. I stood over him, listening to the bloody froth bubble in his mouth and nose, and felt nothing, nothing at all. I studied the fire amulet, a simple jade piece with a golden cat’s-eye pupil at its heart. You can buy them at any market in the Nightside, though learning the proper Words of Power to make them work costs rather more. I turned the amulet back and forth, admiring the quality of the workmanship, then I said the right Words, and set fire to the combat magician. His screams, and the sound of the consuming flames, followed me down the hall as I walked away.
* * *
The interior of the Club had been painted all the shades of red and purple. It was like walking through the interior of someone’s body. The air was thick with the scents of burned meat and spilled blood, and all kinds of illegal smoke. Smells so heavy even I could detect them. The air was hot and damp, and heavy beads of condensation ran down my face. I couldn’t feel the heat or the moisture, only noticed them when they fell down to stain my coat. There were doors on either side of the hallway, leading to very private rooms, for very private passions. I considered them thoughtfully. It might make me feel better, to kick the doors in and see what was going on behind them. It might make me feel … something. But then a voice came to me, through some hidden speaker, saying, “This way. Walk straight ahead. Come into my parlour, Dead Boy, and we’ll talk. I’ve been waiting for you.”
A calm, confident, female voice. Didn’t sound like my Mother Macabre. I walked on, into the belly of the beast, into the trap that had been prepared for me. And the cold in my dead heart was the cold of dark and righteous anger.
* * *
Didn’t take me long to reach the door at the end of the hall. It was standing just a little open, invitingly. I slammed right through it, almost taking the door off its hinges, and there she was, in her parlour. Mother Macabre’s sweet little home away from home was more than comfortable, full of every luxury and indulgence you could think of, and some you never even dreamed of. Tables full of drinks, bowls full of pills and powders, toys and trinkets to suit the most jaded sexual palates—decadence on display. All for the Bright Young Things … as they sat in chairs, or sprawled on couches, or lay giggling happily on the deep pile carpet. Young ladies and gentlemen from rich and powerful and well-connected families, still young enough to believe money could buy you satisfaction, or at the very least enough pleasure to convince you that you were happy. Spending Daddy’s money and influence on the very latest thing, the newest kick, on something dark and dangerous enough to make them feel they were important, after all. They stared at me with blank eyes and meaningless smiles, and limited curiosity. And the dozen or so naked men and women, standing around the parlour to serve the young people’s every need or whim, were all quite obviously dead. Well-preserved, even pleasant to the eye; but you only had to look into their faces to know there was no-one home. They weren’t dead like me; they were nothing more than animated bodies, moved by some other’s will.
I wasn’t interested in them. I fixed my gaze on the parlour’s mistress: proud and disdainful on her raised throne, like a spider at the heart of her web. Mother Macabre, sitting at her ease on a throne made of human skulls. Bone so old it had faded past yellow ivory into dirty brown, stained here and there with old, dried blood. There was a cushion on the seat, of course. Tradition and style and making the right kind of impression are all very well, but comfort is what matters.
Mother Macabre looked as she always had, a withered, old, black crone, in tattered ethnic clothes. Deep-sunk eyes, and a wide smile to show off the missing teeth. Very authentic. But I didn’t believe that any more. I concentrated, looking at her with the eyes of the dead, because the dead can see many things that are hidden from the living. And just like that, the illusion snapped off. And underneath the glamour, she was just an ordinary middle-aged black business woman, neat and tidy in a smart business suit, her well-manicured hands folded calmly in her lap.
“Took you long enough to work it out,” she said. ”Mistress Macabre is just a trade name. Handed down through the generations, along with the trade and the look, because that’s what people want when they do business with a voodoo witch. There were many Mother Macabres before me, and no doubt there will be many more after. It’s a very profitable trade. Because there will always be a need for women like us. But … this is the real me. You should feel flattered, Dead Boy. Not many are privileged to see the real me.”
“Flattered,” I said. “Yes. That’s how I feel, all right. Tell me: who did I really make a deal with?”
“And you’ve worked that out, too! Well done, Dead Boy. Yes, I’m afraid your memories of what happened after you died are as much a fake as anything else. You thought you made a deal with one of the voodoo loa, Mistress Erzulie; but everything you saw and experienced came from me. A show I put on to distract you while I did the many vile and nasty things necessary, to raise you from the dead. It was all just an illusion, another mask. Just me. It’s always been just me.”
“Why?” I said.
And there must have been something in my voice because everyone in the parlour stopped smiling and looked at me. Even Mother Macabre on her throne of skulls took a moment before she answered me. I fixed her with my unblinking eyes, and she actually squirmed uncomfortably on her throne.
“Why?” said Mother Macabre. “Because I needed someone to experiment on! Didn’t matter who. Could have been you, could have been anyone. I was just starting out in the Mother Macabre trade. I inherited it from my mother—after I killed her. She was so old-fashioned, couldn’t see the potential in the business I saw … Anyway, I had all these marvellous ideas for new pills and potions, but I needed someone to test them on before I introduced them to a wider audience. I needed someone young and strong and vital, new to the Nightside,
without friends or protectors. I picked you out entirely at random and paid to have you killed. And then I brought you back again, to be my test subject. You took everything I gave you, every new drug and concoction I came up with, and never once questioned any of it. And because it was my lore that brought you back, your body had no secrets from me. I’ve studied you, from a safe distance, for all these years … And, oh, the things I’ve learned from you! You have no idea how much money you’ve made me down the years!”
“All the things I’ve been, and done,” I said. “And all along I was nothing but your lab rat.”
“Actually, no,” said Mother Macabre. “You’re a lot more than I ever intended you to be. I was just interested to see what would happen when I trapped a living soul inside a dead body, but you have made yourself into the legendary, infamous Dead Boy! You should be proud of what you’ve achieved!”
“Proud,” I said. “Yes. That’s what I’m feeling, right now.”
Mother Macabre looked at me uncertainly, unable to read my dead face or my dead voice. “You really shouldn’t take it personally, Dead Boy. It was only ever … business.”
“It was my life!” I said loudly.
She smiled. “It wasn’t as though you were doing anything important with it.”
“All the things I could have done,” I said. “All the people I might have been; and you took them away from me.”
“None of them would have been as important, or as interesting, as Dead Boy.” Mother Macabre sank back on her throne as though she were getting tired, or bored, with the conversation. “What does your life, or your death, matter, where there were fortunes to be made? I had a business to run! It’s all about the pleasures of the flesh, you see. Control them, and you have control over the living and the dead.” She looked fondly at the young people scattered around her parlour. “My lovely ladies and gentlemen. I give them what they think they want and take everything they have. And when they die … I raise them up again, to serve me. The dead always make the best servants. No back-talk, no days off. And the dead make the very best lovers because they can go forever…”
She gestured to a naked man and a naked woman, and they came forward to caress her face and neck with their cool, dead hands. She smiled happily.
“They feel nothing. The only pleasure is mine. But then, I never was big on sharing. I knew you were coming after me, Dead Boy. Knew it the moment you killed poor old Krauss. I could have had you destroyed anywhere along the way; but I wanted to have you here, so I could watch it happen right in front of me. I have the right to destroy you because I made you. You belong to me. You always have. And after you’ve gone, I’ll make another Dead Boy.”
