Chapter 14

“Hey, what the-”

Artemvian pushed past Jack, taking the stairs two at a time.

Getting to the first floor was easy.  Getting out of Pink Bodies without the authorities noticing, now that would be a challenge.

Artemvian wasn’t foolish enough to think that he could tangle with the law enforcement structure of this world and get away scot free.  There was no way to tell the limits of power in this world, and with the revelation of vampires old enough to have formed a family and groom Ghouls to be their henchmen… well, he wouldn’t be surprised to see other significant powers here.  He was under no illusion that he was the most powerful human in this world either.

He might have left a strong impression in this line of work, but Artemvian didn’t want to start getting noticed by those with real power until he did a little more research.

Artemvian went over to a girl, nearly naked except little strings that barely did anything to cover all but the most important bits.  She was nearly bald, sporting a buzzcut.  But the lack of hair lended sensuality to the overall featureless look she had, almost like a doll.

“Is there a backdoor out of here?”

She looked at him up and down, pausing mid-conversation with another girl who was more machine than human at this point.  The pink-buzzcut sporting girl snorted and held out a hand.  “Fifty Doilies.”

Artemian took out a card and the girl made it disappear.  Where she made it disappear to? He didn’t want to know.

“That way.”

He was in the middle of walking towards the back room when the front door burst open.

“Hey you can’t just-”

A man, obviously the one in charge, stepped through the doors.  He flipped open a badge, nearly identical to the one Artemvian had pocketed off of the other agent, in Helen’s apartment.  His badge glowed with a light blue light and created larger, superimposed version of itself mid-air, lines of blue leading back to the original.  The emblem looked like two fists, crossed over one another.

“Nobody moves.  We’re looking for a suspect who assaulted a police officer.  If you know what’s good for you, you’ll cooperate.  Now where’s the- Hey! You over there! In the leather jacket, stop!”

Artemvian pretended not to hear and walked through the backdoor.  As the double doors swung closed, he managed to catch the officer’s last words.

“-right there! Him!”

The back of this brothel (or strip joint, whatever made the natives happy) was similar to Riley’s.  Hallways stacked with crates and boxes.  Though at Riley’s it had just been Brant manning the back; here there were a dozen more employees.  Some of them looked up, alarmed, at the commotion and tried to get a better look.  Putting on his best smile, Artemvian strode through the kitchens, flashing the stolen badge.

Artemvian got out of Pink Bodies without trouble and quickly joined the masses on the streets.  He hailed down a cab.

“Where to, bud?”

The taxi driver was a greasy looking fellow with a purple mohawk.  He looked at Artem’s reflection through the mirror, making eye contact.  “This is gang territory.  Going to cost you extra.”

Artem nodded, flashing a Doiley card in his palm.  “I’m good for it.”

The man’s eyes clouded over with greed and he smirked.  Within moments, the taxi began to zoom through the streets.  No matter how many times Artemvian rode in one of these ‘cars’, he was amazed by the speed.  Of course, it had nothing on teleportation.  But there was a sheer joy in traveling fast, a deep sense of satisfaction in seeing the landscape blur into anonymity.

“So, what’s a bloke like you doing, heading to Gang Territory? No offense, but you don’t look like the usual gang member.”

Artemvian deflected the question.  In his experience, men like these were just making conversation; they weren’t really curious about their customers.  “Is it really dangerous there?”

The driver snorted.  “Bet your ass it is.  Last I heard, the Hammerheads have been keeping their head down and a bigger gang started to move in on their turf, plus a few other smaller gangs.  Because of that, the place is practically a warzone.  Shootings, muggings, kidnapping, you name it.”

“Huh… the Hammerheads.  Never heard of them.”

“Well, I’m not surprised.  Heard they got humiliated by some other gang.  Rumor is that a rival gang hired a hitman to assassinate the gang boss’ daughter; left a dozen corpses as warning.”

Artemvian only remembered one corpse but didn’t dare interrupt.

“Because of that, they ain’t the biggest gang in the area anymore.  Heard this neighborhood,”  The man waved the paper that Artemvian handed him.  “Is basically owned by a new gang; they call themselves the Corpse Heads.”

“...How quaint and… fitting.”  Artemvian commented, wrinkling his nose like he just smelt something nasty.

He had no doubt that this ‘Corpse Head’ was the gang of Ghouls under command of this Vampire House, if everything Tracy said was to be believed.  There was a sense of excitement in him, like the feeling one gets when the jig-saw puzzle finally starts to take form.  Or that burst of joy as the knot finally becomes untangled.  Artemvian’s exposure to the Other Side of this city had been limited so far and this was the closest he’d come to touching upon it.

Succubus.  Ghouls and Vampires.

What else was out there?

On one hand, Artemvian wondered if this was truly what he wanted.  Is this what he wanted in this second chance at life? Hunting down monsters again? But he also couldn’t forget the look on Chang and Kim’s face as they thanked him.  Yes, he hadn’t taken this request because of monsters.  He had taken it on because he wanted to experience that again, helping someone and actually seeing how he changed someone’s life.

Yet, he couldn’t deny that there had been an inexplicable joy in seeing the Succubus.  A brush with the folklore, something familiar with this world had invigorated him, turning this job from something akin to soul-searching to a reunion with a long lost lover.  Plus, Tracy had a really nice full rack… nice full red lips… and long, smooth, toned legs… and-

“Oh, by the forsaken stars, I never should have died a virgin.”  Artemvian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What was that, mate?”

“Nothing.”  He said too quickly.

The cabbie driver gave him a weird look.  “We’re almost there, mate.  Try to hold it until you leave.”

“Oh, I’m not carsick.”

“Yeah, yeah.  All I know is, if you throw up in my car, you’re paying extra..”

Artemvian sighed, returning to his thoughts.

He couldn’t figure it out.  Whether he wanted to go back to his old life, being entangled with Daemons and Monsters; the things of fairy tales.  On one hand, he had been really really good at it.  On the other…

It changed you.

A mere mortal, powerful mage or not, could not hope to entwine his fate with these creatures and pray that his soul was untouched.  It had been one of the reasons that Artemvian had been so sure that he ended up in somekind of Hell.  The killings, the sacrifices and things too horrible to describe with words… they changed you.  The more you dealt with these things, the more like them you became.  You had to.

You had to understand them, to think like them.

It was worse for mages, their magic being such a crucial part of their soul.  The more their magic touched the darkness, the more they became tainted by it.

Artemvian had seen too many good men meet bad ends because of this.

“We’re here.”

The neighborhood was just like the other ‘bad’ parts of town.  Tall apartment buildings with boarded windows and doors surrounded them.  Streets that were empty except for one man pushing a cart with zombie-like visage (Not to get confused with Ghouls, Artemvian noted).  Stores with signs that said ‘CLOSED’.  Some stores didn’t even have that, the doors having been ripped off of its hinges long ago with broken windows.

And the sickening mana signature of death rolling through the streets.

If the rest of Nero City was a painfully bright light of purple, yellow and orange; this place was black, gray and colorlessness rolled into one.  Artemvian put his palm on the window and with quickly took in more of the mana, analyzing it.

Wrongness grated on his mind like the scent of garbage that permeated the alleys of Nero City.

There was Death here that wasn’t part of the Natural Order of life.  Swimming against the current of Souls.

Undeath.

These Ghouls weren’t just here doing a job for the Vampire.

They had made this place their home and had made the people here their prey.

“Uh… you alright, bud?”

Artemvian turned his head and saw his own reflection in the mirror.  His face was set in a snarl.  Shaking his head, Artemvian nodded and handed the man a Doiley Card.  

“Yeah.  I am.  Thank you, good sir.”

The man quickly scanned it and handed it back to Artemvian.  “Stay safe out there, you hear? Don’t know what your business could be, but you should do it as quick as you can.  See you around, bud.”

Artemvian looked at the streets with flat eyes after the cab left.

“Oh, I’m sure this won’t take long.”

***