Tim Waggoner - Nekropolis

I was sitting in Skullys, nursing a beer that I couldnt taste, and which Id have to throw up later, and trying real hard to look like I was minding my own business, when the lyke walked in.

He (I knew it was male only because Id been told) stood well over seven feet tall. But he didnt have to stoop to enter the bar. Since Skullys is located close to the Wyldwood, a lot of his customers are lykes, who often wear their wildforms, and hed designed the nine foot-high doorway to accommodate the specialized-and mutable-physiognomy of his clientele.

The lyke, Honani by name, stone-cold killer by rep, was one of the newer shapeshifter breeds, a mixblood: lyke biology tweaked by the hand of genetic engineering. But as far as I was concerned, he was an ugly mess. I could pick out badger, puma, crow and what I thought was a bit of snake around the eyes. He looked almost as ugly as one of Lady Varvaras demon kin. Almost.

Skullys doesnt offer much in the way of decor, but that has more to do with the owners practicality than any lack of aesthetic sense on his part. The nine-foot high door is solid iron, and there are no windows so customers arent tempted to throw anything-or anyone-through them. The walls are unpainted brick and the floor smooth concrete so Skully can hose the place down every night and remove the bloodstains. The tables are solid oak and bolted to the floor to make it more difficult to use them as weapons, and the chairs are easily replaceable cheap wood because they have an extremely short life-expectancy. Theres no mirror behind the long oak bar-not only because it would be just another damned thing to break, Skully once told me, but because it would annoy the vampires.

Honani stomped across the floor, the concrete shuddering beneath his considerable weight. Even for a lyke, he was massive.

The jukebox in the corner had been singing a fairly decent rendition of I Aint Got Nobody, but the three heads bolted to the top of the machine had gone silent when the huge lyke entered, and now they watched him pass by with nervous gazes. The multitude of scars, bruises, welts, and fresh cuts on their flesh testified to how hazardous their job could be, and they knew trouble when they saw it.

Skully stood on the other side of the bar close to me, sizing up the mixblood. He looks bigger than I expected, he said softly. Meaner, too.

Youre supposed to be my friend, I replied, just as softly. Try to be a little more encouraging.

That was encouraging. What I really wanted to say is he looks like he could tear your head off with just his little finger.

I grimaced. Thanks. Unfortunately, I couldnt disagree with him.

Skullys is always open, and the man himself is always behind the bar-or at least he is whenever I go there. Im not sure what he is exactly. He looks like a stocky, broad-shouldered human, at least from the bottoms of his feet up to the top of his fleshy neck. But resting on that neck is a skull. Just a skull: no hair, no skin, no organs. Hence his name, obviously. Skully always wears a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up, a black apron, black pants, and black shoes. To the right of the bar is a second iron door which leads upstairs. I assumed Skully had quarters up there, but hed never said anything about them, even when Id pried a bit. There are no other servers in Skullys, and he doesnt bring drinks to your table. Hell mix your drinks when he gets around to it, you have to come to the bar to fetch them, and if you dont like it, you can get the hell out.

As Honani continued heading toward the bar, Skullys other patrons looked up to assess the nightmarish hodge-podges threat potential. An insectine demon with tangleglow delivery tubes surgically grafted to its chitinous head sat next to me at the bar. The demon glanced at Honani once, and then quickly found an empty corner of the room to turn its attention to. A pair of black-clad vampires-one male, one female-sitting at a nearby table were playing a game of bloodshards, the game pieces appearing in the air between them, projected from the holographic implants where their eyes had once been. Though neither looked in Honanis direction, I could tell by the way the crimson shards momentarily faded that their attention was on the lyke instead of their game. The table next to the holo-vampires was occupied by two men and a woman who were working on finishing off a pitcher of beer. Their clothes were simple-flannel shirts, jeans, boots-and at first glance, they seemed human enough, but each of their eyebrows met in the middle, a sure sign that they were shapeshifters. As Honani passed, the trio growled softly and wrinkled their noses in disgust. From their reactions, I knew the three were un-en-hanced lykes who had just made their low opinion of their genetically altered cousin clear. I half-expected Honani to stop and snarl a challenge at the trio, but he just kept on walking. The other lykes continued to glare at his back, but from the way the tension in their bodies eased, I could tell they were relieved hed kept going.

He cowed those three lykes without doing a thing. Impressive.

Not helping, Skully, I muttered.

Honani continued toward the bar, passing a table where a lean heavily pierced man with a shaven head and a black T-shirt with an anarchy symbol on the front was sitting. A soft shimmer of argent energy passed over the mans piercings as Honani went by, and I knew the punk was one of the Arcane, a magic user, and that hed just activated a battery of defensive spells. There was something naggingly familiar about the warlock, but I didnt know what. I figured Id probably seen him around the Sprawl somewhere before. Sitting at the table next to the warlock was a fluid shadowy mass that sometimes resembled the silhouette of a person, sometimes a formless blob. I had no idea what the thing was, but as Honani walked by, the shadowy thing flowed down to the floor, became a black puddle, and then quickly oozed toward the exit and slipped beneath the closed iron door.

The last customer in the bar was a reed-thin blonde dressed in tight black leather sipping a glass of aqua sanguis alone at a corner table. The womans gaze was focused intently on Honani, her brow furrowed in concentration. She looked alert, but not especially worried. She was extremely attractive, and if Id still been alive-but I wasnt, so I turned my attention back to Honani.

The big lyke reached the bar and slapped a paw on the shoulder of the insectine demon sitting next to me and threw him/her/it backwards. The demon squealed in fright as it sailed across the room and smashed into the table where the holo-vampires were sitting. Despite how sturdy the table was, it collapsed, and the bloodshards winked out of existence. The demon, tangleglow leaking from cracked tubes, squealed in terror and scuttled off into a corner where it rolled into a quivering ball and attempted to make itself look as non-threatening as possible. The vampires, who looked so much alike they couldve been brother and sister, turned toward Honani and hissed in cold anger, displaying their incisors. But as much as the vampires might have liked to, they didnt make a move toward the lyke. He was just too damned big.

Whisky, he growled, the words barely recognizable coming out of his inhuman mouth.

Skully trained his empty sockets on Honani for a long moment before finally nodding and setting a bottle on the counter in front of the lyke. Skully unscrewed the cap with his fully fleshed fingers, set it down, and then reached for a glass.

Forget the glass, Honani said, then grabbed the bottle and drank the entire contents down in three gulps. He tossed the empty over his shoulder and it shattered against the concrete floor.

Skully normally doesnt put up with much crap. He keeps a silver broadaxe behind the counter, but he hardly ever has to use it. Rumor is that he has ties to the Dominari, Nekropoliss version of the Mafia, and while hes never admitted it to me, he hasnt denied it, either. A rumor like that, true or not, can head off a lot of trouble before it starts. If the Descension celebration hadnt been in full swing, and Honani already likely drunk before he even came in here, he wouldve had more sense than to act like such a jackass. Probably. But Skully didnt reach for his axe. Instead he looked over at me-at least I think he looked at me; its kind of hard to tell when the person youre talking about doesnt have any eyes. I nodded. Show time. If I still had a pulse, it would have been racing.