by Sasha White
“And this is why you’re considered our best field agent. Yes. Please proceed.” The Count actually sounded pleased. It was always nice to impress the boss. I didn’t feel like I ever did it often enough.
“Will do, over and out.” I thanked Clyde and his staff for their help, jerked my head at my team, and headed off.
“I’m getting confused,” Jack said to me as we rode the moving sidewalk back through the OLOC.
“That’s natural.”
“No. I mean, I wouldn’t have thought the three-headed dog and the cat that looks half-human would have been humans originally.”
“Oh, that. Well, it’s kind of complicated, but I’ll try to do a fast overview of Edgar’s ‘The Undead World’ class. Undeads can be made or born. The original ones were born, or hatched, or whatever.” I had no idea how white worms actually reproduced and had less interest in finding out.
“Where did they come from?”
“Depends on whose theory you agree with. Some say the Prince created them. Some say it was one or more of the gods. Some say it was an accident, sort of like life forming here in the first place.”
“So Earth’s the only planet with life on it?”
I snorted. “Hardly. But life is still rare, percentage-wise. I mean, when you consider all the universes.”
“There’s more than one universe?” Jack was starting to sound like he was getting a headache.
“Yeah. You know, let’s just focus on Hansel and Gretel for the moment. They were never human siblings. Humans don’t turn into hellhounds or daemon cats. Demons do.”
“So they’re evil?” Jack didn’t sound like he believed it, which either showed his insight or naiveté. I went for insight.
“No. Demons aren’t born evil. They’re just born in the nether realms. They have souls and so have the same choices the rest of us do – serve the Prince or refuse and fight him. If you want to get technical, an altar-demon’s soul is pledged to a god and hell-demon’s soul is pledged to the Prince. If an altar-demon runs into a werewolf and gets bitten, then they don’t change into a wolf, because only a human base gives you a werewolf. They turn into a daemon cat or a hellhound, depending.”
“Depending on the sex?”
“No, natural proclivity. Hansel and Gretel could have both been one or the other, or switched, but this was what was ‘right’ for each of them. Good for us, by the way, because many times hellhounds and daemon cats fight like, uh, cats and dogs, but having a team of them is really helpful.”
Jack seemed to consider this. “You know, here’s something else. You call yourselves undeads. But you’re alive. I mean, you breathe, you eat, you sleep. I can understand why many of the others are undeads, but not you, or them,” he indicated Hansel and Gretel.
“Well, they stopped being otherworldly and I stopped being human. Essentially, those parts of us died. Demons, like humans, have average lifespans. Once you’re a werewolf, hellhound, daemon cat, or any of the other species we call part of the greater undead, you can unlive forever. You can be destroyed, of course – dusted or so damaged you’re unable to function – but it’s much harder. So, we’re part of the undead, no longer a part of the living worlds we came from.”
“That must be hard,” he said softly.
I shrugged. “It’s not too bad. There are a lot of benefits. And the undead community is pretty welcoming. Besides, the alternatives for some of us made becoming an undead very appealing.”
“Like what?”
I was saved from avoiding an answer by our arrival outside of the OLOC and the appearance of a thin, sad-looking man with a receding hairline. His face wreathed in smiles when he saw us, though.
“Victoria, my dear, I’m so relieved you weren’t badly injured.” Edgar gave me a hug, then shook hands or paws with the males, depending, hugged the females, and patted Rover. He turned and looked expectantly at Jack.
“Edgar, please meet Detective Jack Wagner, Prosaic City P.D. Jack, this is Doctor of Demonology Edgar Allen Poe.”
Jack’s mouth dropped. Edgar twinkled and gave him a sweeping bow. “At your service.”
Chapter 12
I wrapped my arm through Edgar’s and Amanda did the same. Gretel adjusted her size and jumped up onto his shoulder. H.P. was fun and polite and fatherly; Edgar was charming, he loved the ladies, and we loved him right back.
Even though he was actually a lich, I always thought of him as a man, mostly because he was so young, as liches go, that he was at no risk of turning stone-like and none of his parts ever wobbled, let alone fell off. Monty assured me that in a few hundred years Edgar was going to stop being the ladies’ man of the lich set, but I didn’t worry about it and I knew Edgar didn’t, either.
It was always fun to see the other males’ reactions to Edgar’s effect on the females. It was nice to see that Jack seemed just as annoyed and jealous as the others. Maurice was the only one not bothered by it one way or the other.
“So, my dears,” Edgar said to me, Amanda and Gretel. “What is our plan?”
“Well, first off, what did you find at the scene?” That Edgar had already been to the scene was a given.
He shook his head. “Human intervention for certain. However, I have nothing more than that. Those with the enhanced senses of sight and smell need to weigh in.”
“Pretty much what we figured.” I looked around. “How do we want to get there?” I hoped someone else would suggest not flying.
“Well, I left our car the next street over,” Jack said. “I think the Chief would like it returned, so some of us can go in that.”
“I think everyone but the vamps can fit.” It would be cozy, but I was willing to sit right up next to Jack. Anything for the cause, me.
Ken nodded. “Sounds about right. We’ll stay with you overhead, though, just in case.”
We found the car and piled in. I made sure I was in the front seat next to Jack. Thankfully, I was joined by Edgar. Hansel “accidentally” shoved Ralph into the backseat and the others piled in. Gretel stayed small and sat on Edgar’s lap. No one other than Jack bothered with seatbelts – a car crash wasn’t going to kill any of us unless we crashed into a silver and garlic factory made out of wooden spikes and filled with unholy water. And even then, our chances were better than average of not having any problems.
Jack drove quickly, but even so, downtown was far away from the OLOC. “This is cozy,” he said quietly. “You and the other girls all part of Edgar’s harem?”
“Gee, you sound jealous. I’ll be flattered later. He’s charming. More males could try that as a technique. Besides, he’s happily married.” This was true. The first thing he’d done when he’d been turned into a lich was find his late wife and see if she could become undead. She’d turned into a zombie and they had a very happy, though quiet, family life. She didn’t get involved in Enforcement work, but she did handle a lot of “wife of the dean” chores at the University. She covered those for H.P.’s side of things, too, since he wasn’t married.
“If you say so.” Jack didn’t sound convinced. I wasn’t sure if I should go for hopeful and flattered or businesslike and educational. I was saved from a decision by the radio.
“Detectives Wagner and Wolfe, please come in.” Darlene sounded stressed again. Probably not a good sign.
I grabbed the radio since Jack was driving. “Here, Darlene. What’s up?”
She sighed. We were supposed to use the official police call numbers and codes, but I almost never bothered. I had enough Enforcement info rattling around in my head; the human stuff was more confusion than I felt I needed to deal with. Besides, it wasn’t like it affected my performance. “Chief would like to know where the two of you have been. You did not respond to radio or cellular.”
That made sense. My cell phone was still in the car, on the dash – I was staring at it. It was blinking merrily. I took a look. Oh yeah, a lot of missed calls. Jack’s was there, too, blinking just as much.
“We, ah, were in p
ursuit.”
“Of what?” Darlene didn’t sound amused.
“Perpetrators of the crime we investigated earlier.” I mean, technically, we were in pursuit now, so that counted, right? “How are the four officers who were down?”
“They’re all going to recover, at least so far as we’ve heard.”
Jack and I both relaxed a little. “That’s great news. What about the others?”
“The drug dealer’s already back on the streets,” Darlene said. “Figures, doesn’t it? The ladies of the evening are likely to pull through, though they’re still in the hospital.”
A thought struck me. “Where was the dealer released? And what’s his name?”
“Anthony Tomio was released from City Hospital twenty minutes ago. Do you want officers looking for him?”
“No, we’ll find him. Thanks, Darlene.”
“Chief wants to see you both before you go off duty,” she said by way of signing off.
I hung up the radio. “Can’t wait.”
We reached our special alley of fun and everyone poured out of the car. Jack stopped me. “What are you thinking, that Tomio had something to do with the attack?”
“Possibly. Edgar says a human’s involved. The only human not dead or still hospitalized just strolled out, apparently fit as a fiddle. It seems suspicious to me.”
He nodded. “How are we going to find him?”
I got out of the car and Jack followed. “Amanda, we need the drug dealer from this whole incident found. He was released from City Hospital about twenty minutes ago. Think you can remember his signature?”
“Of course. You want me to tail him or pick him up?”
“Depends on what he’s doing.”
“Take someone with you,” Jack said.
“What?” Amanda looked shocked. “It’s a human.”
“It’s a human potentially involved in this,” Jack pointed to the end of the alley. “Take your partner.”
Maurice sighed. “I’d whine about it, but the human has a point. We’ll contact you if there’s anything interesting going on.” They flipped out their wings and took off.
“How do they get them to sort of disappear?” Jack asked.
“Illusion. They don’t disappear, they just sort of envelop them so no one sees. Standard vampire stuff.”
“Unreal.” Jack led the way back to the scene of the manifestation.
We got close and I started to growl. So did Ralph, Hansel and Gretel. Gretel jumped off Edgar’s shoulder and went normal-sized. I switched to full werewolf form. Whatever it was, we didn’t like it.
“Ken, keep Jack at hand. Monty, Edgar, full alert. Rover, c’mere, boy.”
Rover undulated over. White worms can’t growl, they don’t make much noise as a rule, and they aren’t the kings of expressions, either. But what they lack in vocal and facial expression they make up for in body language. And Rover’s body said we had bigger problems than an ancient Sumerian demon.
I had to say it, some because it was true, some because I was the leader. Mostly because I was scared and wanted to share the fear.
“I think the Prince passed through here.”
Chapter 13
I heard Ken speaking softly. He’d contacted the Count and was advising Amanda and Maurice to treat their quarry as the most dangerous man on the planet. Tomio might be an ordinary drug dealer, but he’d walked away from Slimy’s attack and no one else had. So we were going to have to find out if he’d walked under his own steam or the Prince’s.
Meanwhile, I and the rest of the animal squad did our sniff and freak out thing. “I’ve got a trail,” Ralph said. Even he got subdued when we were faced with the biggest bad in the universes.
“Me, too,” Hansel said. “And, of course, it’s not the same as Ralphie’s trail.”
“Same here,” Gretel said.
“I’ve got an airborne trail, and,” I looked at Rover, “Rover’s got an underground one. Fabulous. Either the Prince manifested through five different beings, or four of these are decoys.”
“Maybe all of them,” Jack said. “If what I’m guessing you all think – that our drug dealer du jour is alive and kicking because he’s the vessel or whatever for the Prince – then these could all be false leads to keep us away from Tomio.”
“Amanda and Maurice have Tomio in sight,” Ken advised. “They’re staying well back. Neither one is picking up any signs of the Prince, but they may not be close enough.”
“And if the Prince has a plan, he’s sure not going to go waltzing around being all obvious with his psychic signature.” I tried to figure out what to do and came up with the idea I liked least. “We have to split up.”
I expected to hear a lot of protests and “are you kidding me’s” , but all I got were heads nodding in agreement, even Rover’s.
“I hate it when you guys are reasonable. Okay, how’re we going to do this? We go against every code in the book if we separate.”
Monty coughed. “I’ve called Dirt Corps in.”
“Oh. Ah. Good.”
“I know regular Enforcement doesn’t think much of them,” Monty said testily. “But they’re brave, dedicated, and fit the code requirements.”
As he spoke a variety of the Corps arrived. Monty had apparently requested top of the line – all of the ones before me were full bodied, which was a refreshing change. We had two mummies, three skeletons, two ghouls, and a wraith. Not bad.
“Okay, I want a mummy and a skeleton each with Hansel and Gretel. Our third skeleton and a ghoul with Ralph. Second ghoul and wraith with Ken. Monty, I assume you and Rover can get more support than I can contemplate for the underground trail, right?”
“Right.”
“Great. I want regular reports, in to me if possible, but the Count for certain. Edgar, are you okay staying here to man the portal?”
He nodded. “Absolutely, and I’ll be fine alone. However, if it would make you feel more secure and if we have some other Dirt Corps personnel who wouldn’t mind playing some whist while guarding and waiting, I’d be amenable.”
I shrugged. “Sure, why not? And, yes, I’d feel safer if you had someone around to back you up.” Even a young lich wasn’t easy to hurt or kill, but Edgar, like H.P., was special and I’d never forgive myself if either one of them got hurt due to my lack of vigilance or preparedness.
No sooner agreed to than two eager-looking ghouls and one clearly excited ghost arrived, table, chairs, and deck of cards in ectoplasmic hands.
Monty gave some orders while I helped Ken recognize the aerial trail. This took some time – vamps smell blood like nobody’s business, but otherwise their sense of smell isn’t anything to get excited about. However, they can see a psychic trail almost as well as a werewolf. Once Ken could spot what I smelled, he was able to confirm it had absolutely flown away, and that it wasn’t a trail from any vampire who’d been here earlier. There were other flying undeads, of course, but neither one of us could be certain of the species the trail belonged to.
The aerial team took off and the ground teams left right after. Edgar and his group were already into their game. Monty draped Rover around his shoulders then gave me a long look. “What trail are you going to be following?”
I shrugged. “My partner and I are going to follow the human ones.”
“There’s more than one?” Monty asked.
“I think we’re going to find there are a lot.”
Chapter 14
I went back to human form and Jack and I got back into the sedan and started off. “Police headquarters first?” he asked me.
“Yeah. We need to check in and, since I now find out the Chief knows all about me and Necropolis Enforcement, we need to let him know what’s going on.”
“What is going on?”
“Takeover bid. Standard, really. The Prince wants to control all the planes of existence. When he can do that, he’ll have enough power to destroy any and every god. Without a god, even if it’s one puny weak one, ev
ery living soul is in jeopardy.”
“Why is that?”
“Souls need a…higher source…to tap into. It’s how they work.”
“Sounds like souls are kind of useless, all things considered.”
I shook my head. “Souls are what powers the universes. All of them. There’s no power greater than that of a soul, let alone a combination of souls.”
Jack was quiet for a minute or so. “So, an entity that controlled a lot of souls would be powerful?”
“That’s the basis for gods, yeah. A god is a concentration of multi-universal energy with the focused power of belief from the souls it controls.”
“Ugh.”
I laughed. “It sounds gross, yeah, but it’s not. It’s kind of beautiful, really.”
“So, the worshipper creates the god?”
“Sort of. And the god creates the worshipper. Kind of a cosmic, metaphysical chicken and egg scenario.”
“What about the Prince?”
“Same idea, turned to complete evil.”
“Okay, but there’s, what, hundreds of good gods and only one bad one? How does that work?”
We pulled into the Prosaic City P.D. parking lot. “The good gods don’t force the other gods to join them.”
Jack snorted. “The Greek and Roman ones did.”
“No, they have an almost military hierarchy, but the lowest Greek god still has free will. Zeus can’t stop them from doing whatever they want. He can punish them, but he can’t control them.”
“And the Prince controls the evil gods?” We parked and got out of the car.
“No. He absorbs them. There are no evil gods, not any more. The Prince joined them into himself centuries ago.”
Dawn was coming. Probably less than an hour away. That was going to cause problems for Ken, Amanda and Maurice. I activated my wrist-com. “Count?”
“Here, as always.”
“I need our top daytime aerial teams to hook up with Ken and Amanda. Ken’s following a trail, Amanda and Maurice are trailing a human who could be the Prince’s current vessel. Or could just be a lucky drug dealer. We’re not sure yet.”