by Sasha White
“Sorry, didn’t mean to insult you,” Jack said.
She shook her head. “I don’t care what you think of me. But your soul is in jeopardy.”
“Because I’m a human?”
“No,” Miriam said slowly. “Because you no longer want to be.”
And then she was gone, back next to Martin and Magdalena, her back to us.
Jack looked at me. “Really? The most attractive undead species? Compared to what, Dirt Corps?”
“No, really. More than vampires, even.”
“Um, I’m not really attracted to Amanda, but I’d take her in a heartbeat over Black Angels Charm and Charmer.” He looked around. “They’re going to be working with us for the rest of this case?”
“I think so. Don’t worry, maybe Black Angel One will drop in, too.”
“More ‘hot chicks’?”
“No, they’re male. Brothers.” Considered the hottest things with two wings, too, but I decided not to mention it.
“I can’t wait.”
“You’ll have to,” Monty said. He’d played dead while this was going on, but I knew he’d taken it all in. “Black Angel One spent all day trailing Tomio for, as near as we can tell, no reason. They’re resting, but I believe they plan to join us in a few hours.”
“Good, I’m sure we’re going to need them.” I decided to let Miriam’s comment about Jack’s soul wait. We had to plan our course of action. I’d have time to find out what she meant – about his soul as well as him not wanting to be human – later. “Ken, what’ve we got?”
Ken came over to us and the others followed. “Nothing much. Amanda and Maurice are as bored on their trailing detail as they were last night and Black Angel One was all day.”
“No one’s found any of the doppelgängers? Not one?”
Gretel shook her head. “We put out an ABA. Nothing.”
“ABA?” Jack asked.
“All Being Alert.” I heaved a sigh. “So, all the false trails led here. What happened with the people who died at the scene last night?”
“They’re still interred,” Monty answered. “Nothing different about them.”
“The living victims are exorcised,” Martin offered. “But, as I’d suspected, it was a waste of effort. The traces were all external, only. Left to confuse and delay.”
“But why? The Prince’s side hasn’t done anything now for going on twenty-four hours. And with doppelgängers wandering loose, you’d think something would have gone down by now.”
“Are we sure we have doppelgängers at all?” Jack asked.
I shrugged. “No. We’re not sure the Prince or his stronger minions are on the human plane, either. But if they’re not, what’s with all the divide, conquer and confuse tactics? It’s not like doing that would cause us to take monitoring off the normal entryways or stop watching the usual suspects.”
“Everything seems normal, on all the planes,” Magdalena said. “Even in Hell.”
Martin nodded. “Undercover agents report no unusual activity, other than the incident from last night, which appeared to be an attempt to impress the boss that went wrong.”
“Our agents think Slimy acted alone and there was no one else on the grassy knoll or, in this case, in the creepy alley?”
“As far as they can tell,” Magdalena said. “As far as anyone can tell, we shouldn’t be gathered here, trying to find doppelgängers. Or anything else, for that matter.”
The group started discussing the situation, options, theories. I let it wash over me and didn’t add in. Neither, I noted, did Miriam. She still had her back to the rest of us, watching. She was still alert for danger. And I knew I needed to be. Werewolf senses work on many levels, and all of mine were saying we were in not just trouble, but real, potential Apocalyptic trouble. The trouble was, I had no idea of what it was, where it was coming from, or what to do to defend against it.
I realized we were missing two beings I’d requested. “Hey, where are Freddy and Sexy Cindy?”
“Finishing indoctrination,” H.P. advised. “They’ll be along shortly.”
“Good.”
“Why?” Jack asked, sounding tired already. “What are a former bum and hooker going to have that everyone else doesn’t?”
I shrugged. “Whatever they have, the Prince couldn’t get them. Besides, maybe they know where Tomio normally hangs out. We need to know if the person Maurice and Amanda are tailing is the real Tomio or not, for starters.”
“How would they know more than anyone here?” Jack shook his head. “If this were a human-only situation, I’d tell you to round up the usual suspects and find out what’s going on.”
Miriam stalked off. She went to what I knew were fresh graves.
“What’s she doing?” Interestingly, this question didn’t come from Jack, but from Ken.
I watched her. “I think she’s going to do what Jack suggested. She’s gathering the usual suspects, at least the ones from our favorite alley.”
“How is she doing that?” Jack asked.
“By raising the dead.”
Chapter 24
Despite what many religions would have you believe, raising the dead isn’t all that hard, shocking, or unusual. Angels and gods can do it any time they want. They just don’t usually want to, for a variety of reasons.
There are also a variety of ways to raise the dead. Resurrection is a rarity – most who die really don’t want to come back as humans or whatever they were before. The ones who die and are undead material are usually already out of their graves before an angel or god would be coming by.
I let Monty handle Jack’s new, myriad questions, while I went over to Miriam. Raising takes concentration, but she was so strong I figured she could talk and raise at the same time. I watched her movements – she was going for a limited raising, which I considered good sense. The problem was, a limited raising was just that – limited. You got a short time to ask whatever you needed of the dead and then they were back to dead.
“What are we going to ask them?”
“You’re the detective.” Miriam had supposedly had a way with people when she’d been alive. You couldn’t prove it by anyone these days, but she didn’t bother me all that much. In a little way, I sort of idolized her and Magdalena – they were at a level I was never likely to achieve and they’d worked harder than anyone else to get there. I wanted to be like Black Angel Two when I grew up.
“True.” I considered what we really needed to know. What was going on, for starters. But the questions had to be posed in a way to get the right answers. The dead weren’t any smarter or with it in the grave than they’d been in life. And we had a lot of life’s losers raising up.
“You’ve achieved much in your unlife,” Miriam said apropos of nothing other than, I suspected, reading my mind.
“Thanks.” The freshly turned earth was starting to move, in a way that looked like it was boiling.
“Your drive is understandable, your conviction stronger than most. You’ll need to be stronger than you’ve ever had to be, sooner than any would like.”
“I didn’t know you were a prophet.” Now the earth was moving like liquid in a blender within the confines of each grave.
“Magdalena and I both spent our human lives around the most influential prophets the human world has known. Some of it rubs off.”
“I know you think Jack’s in danger, but we’ll all protect him.” The earth in each grave moved to the sides now, so there were openings. The air above the openings shimmered.
“The danger is more than physical.” She looked away from the graves and right at me. “I want you to know – if you fail, it will not be your fault, it will be his. You have the responsibility only for your own soul, no one else’s. None who have come before, exist now, or will come in the future are your responsibility. Every being can only do what is right for their own soul, no one else’s.”
“I don’t believe that. I think we all help or hinder each other.”
She
shook her head. “Right now, two new undeads are coming to join us, to fight the eternal fight alongside all our other warriors. You had no control over their souls. Neither did the Prince. That they were the only two worthy of an unlife was neither your loss nor your victory.” She looked back at the graves. “Remember this – when it comes down to it, it’s always you alone against the Prince. No matter if there are thousands standing with you, each of you fights him alone.”
The others joined us now, so I wasn’t able to question Miriam further. Seven bodies floated in the air above their graves. They didn’t look good, but they hadn’t looked good prior to Slimy’s attack, either.
I examined them. I didn’t really know them. They were vaguely familiar faces, people I’d looked at to make sure they weren’t committing crimes in front of me. Then I’d looked away from them. Like everyone else had.
Jack was next to me. “Monty said we had limited time. What do you want to ask them?”
All seven were staring at us, their expressions a mixture of fear, truculence and insolence. Just like we’d brought them into the station for questioning. This was truly a routine round-up.
Things being what they were, I decided to go for broke. “What did you all see, right before, and most importantly, right after you died?”
There was the dead version of foot shuffling and averted eyes. The hookers stuck their chests out and tried to distract that way. The bums muttered. The junkies laughed. I decided to focus on them. They were, as we’d all told Jack, much closer to the Prince.
“You,” I pointed to the nearest junkie. “Why didn’t the Prince take you with him?”
He was young, no more than twenty-two. He just grinned at me. “That’s Jerry,” someone said in a quiet voice from behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Freddy the new zombie standing there. “He don’t like authority. His daddy’s a preacher.”
“Who’s the other junkie?”
“Bobby. Used to be on the corporate ladder, wife, kids.” Freddy sounded sad.
I looked back at the resurrected. “Bobby, why didn’t the Prince take you?” Bobby looked away. “You know, if the Prince is here, he’ll take your family. Even if you’re no good to him, I’ll bet your wife and kids will be just what he’s after.”
Bobby’s head swiveled back. “I don’t have a family anymore.”
“You may have deserted them for addiction, but you’re still connected to them. Forever. But…maybe you don’t care about them now any more than you did when you started using.”
“You know nothing about me,” Bobby said angrily.
“Your wife came to try to get you into rehab last year,” Sexy Cindy said derisively. “You shoved her away and she fell. I had to help her up and get her back to her car. She cried the whole way.”
One of the bums nodded. “You showed me pictures of your kids, when you first come to live with us.”
The others added in. Clearly, Bobby had clung to the idea of his family, even if he’d gone to living death on the streets. But he still wouldn’t give us anything. I tried Jerry again. “What if the Prince goes after your father?”
Jerry grinned. “Him? He says he’s protected from the devil. My mom, too.”
“You have any sisters or brothers?” Jack asked, sounding bored.
“Nope.” Jerry laughed. “Just me. Just me to put all their damned hopes and dreams on. Like I wanted to be what they wanted.”
“What was that?” I kept my voice mild.
“Respectable.” Jerry snorted. “Be good, grow up right, serve the Lord, don’t have any fun, don’t ever get into trouble. Or you’ll embarrass us.”
Sexy Cindy sighed. “Your mamma came to see you every damn week, you whiney little weakling. Only reason you’re still alive, ‘cause she brought you food and water.”
Jerry laughed. “And money. Money for Tony Tomio. I miss him. He was good people.”
“He’s still alive,” I mentioned with a touch of sarcasm.
Jerry looked right at me. This was a rarity in a junkie, and I didn’t get the feeling he was doing it accidentally. “So you say…bitch.” His eyes widened then quickly narrowed. He smiled slyly. “I bet you like to do it doggy-style, get the back of your neck bit. How many cops do you do a night, huh? All of ‘em, or just a few?”
I could smell everyone’s anger. Jack’s, in particular. But he didn’t react. We’d been cops too long – we both recognized when a perp had slipped up and was trying to cover by making us angry.
I smiled slowly. “Where’s Tomio, Jerry?”
“You wanna try me doggie-style?”
“What plane of existence is Tomio on, Jerry?”
“What’s it like, to get it from a real bitch?”
“I’m going to dust you, Jerry.”
That got him. Alive he might not have known what that meant. Dead, he knew. His eyes widened again. “No way.”
“Yes way. I have two powerful liches with me. They’ll dust you and spread you. No hope then for a rescue, is there, Jerry?”
Hard as it was to believe, him being dead and all, he got even more pale. “You wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” I let my smile go wide and feral. “Because we’re the good guys? Yeah, we are. But we’re the scary good guys. And you’re dead and you weren’t good enough to join us. So you know what that makes you?”
I waited. I could see the other resurrected looking confused and frightened, Bobby included. So, they didn’t know. They’d been left behind because they weren’t useful right now. Left to be resurrected when the time came, to serve as foot soldiers in the Army of the Damned.
“What does that make you, Jerry?” Jack asked. “You answer the lady, like a good boy.”
“I’m not a good boy!”
“True enough.” Jack grinned. “Not good enough to live up to your parents’ hopes, not good enough to live anywhere but on the streets, not good enough for the Prince to take with him. Good enough to use. But not good enough to save.”
“He’ll come for me!” Jerry started to shake. I wasn’t sure if it was him or if Miriam’s resurrection was about to end. “He’s coming and he’ll put me where I belong!”
“No, Jerry,” I said softly. “He already did that. He put you where you belong – in the ground.”
Jerry started to cry. “No. He promised. He promised.”
“Jerry.” I waited until he looked at me. “Jerry…he lied.”
Jerry closed his eyes, threw his head back, and howled. Pity he’d been too close to the Prince – with a howl like that, he was real werewolf material.
Magdalena moved up next to Miriam and put her hands out. I could tell she was taking over the resurrection, to keep them going longer.
Bobby looked shaken. “The Prince, he didn’t say anything about our families.”
“What did he say?” Jack asked.
Bobby was shaking now, too, just like Jerry. The others weren’t. I got a bad feeling at the base of my tail. “Ask fast,” I murmured to Jack.
“The Prince, he said it was what we had to do.” Bobby started to cry. “Just let the monster in. That was all.”
“You and Jerry created the portal?” I found that almost impossible to believe. They had no psychic talent, Ken would have spotted it. Heck, I would have spotted it.
Edgar whispered in my ear. “It’s possible. If they were given the right incantations. As I told you, it was human-created.”
“Who gave you the words?” They didn’t answer. I tried again. “Did Tomio give you the words?” The junkies didn’t answer, but one of the bums raised his hand. “Yes?”
“Tony, he give us all words. Everyone had some words to say. He said it was like…like a prayer.”
“A prayer for the dying,” one of the hookers said.
Sexy Cindy gasped. “He did. Freddy used to be a professor, ‘way back when. I saw what Tony gave us and made Freddy take a look. And you said those words were wrong, didn’t you, Freddy?”
“Yeah.” Freddy so
unded angry. “The words were evil. I told ‘em not to do it, but Tony said we needed to, to help him out.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t make the connection. Tony gave us those words to read months ago.”
“Months?” This was asked by every living and undead being, other than Black Angel Two, who were concentrating.
Freddy nodded. “Months easy.”
I did some fast math. “Nine dead, seven hurt. That’s sixteen.”
“Doesn’t add up,” Jack said quietly.
“It does if you subtract,” H.P. offered. “Of the nine dead, two were able to become undead, and of the seven hurt, one walked away healthy. That leaves thirteen.”
“Evil number?” Jack asked.
“The Prince likes to ensure humanity continues to think so,” H.P. replied. “So, it’s always a good bet.”
“There’s another option.” I looked at Freddy and Sexy Cindy. “Who made it out of the alley alive and on their own steam?”
Freddy shook his head. “No one. We nine, like you said. And then the others at the hospital. All accounted for.”
Sexy Cindy’s eyes narrowed. I realized they were narrowing in thought. “No,” she said slowly. “There were two more, really.”
“Who?” Freddy asked, rather huffily.
Sexy Cindy gulped, then pointed. At me and Jack. “Them.”
Chapter 25
We all let that settle for a moment. “Okay, that’s eighteen.” There was another option, though, at least according to the base of my tail. “How many of the dead have family still living in Prosaic City?”
Amazingly, Jerry and Bobby both raised their hands. I figured they were just smart enough to have figured out we already knew. The hookers looked uncertain and looked at each other. “They got no family here,” Sexy Cindy said. “But, I dunno…does your pimp count? ‘Cause if he does, they got a real possessive one.”
“He counts. You sure there’s no one else? Trust me when I say it’s important.”