by Sasha White
I heard the sound of running feet and a variety of beings raced into the room. I was a little preoccupied, but I did spot Sexy Cindy and Freddy in the group. She had a spray can which she aimed and emptied right into the fallen angel’s face.
How Evil Fairy Repellent would be useful in this situation I had no idea, but it seemed to stun my opponent enough for me to get the upper claw. I wrenched my head and heard her neck snap. Good, but not good enough, and her wings were still attached, though much worse for wear.
“Vic, jump now!” Ralph shouted in a voice that didn’t really brook argument.
And I didn’t argue. I leaped off, up and over. I felt something swish by my tail as I flipped. I saw Merc swing an ax and cut off the fallen angel’s wings while L.K. did the same with her head. Apparently others had read up on fallen angel destruction. I got the distinct feeling these two were over bus driving as their main pursuit.
I didn’t stick the landing, but instead gracefully slammed right into Ralph. I was afraid I’d hurt him, but he didn’t seem too rocked by it. I switched back to human as he helped me up. “Nice one. Thanks for the save.” He kept his arms around me. I didn’t mention it. And my arms were around his waist purely in the interest of not falling over.
“I kind of owed you.” I didn’t know what else to say. There were a lot of other beings in the room and I wasn’t sure if that one kiss had been just to see what it was like before he trotted off into the sunset.
“Is that why you kissed me?” he asked softly. I wasn’t prepared to swear to anything, but he looked like he was trying to act casual and brave. But his eyes were sad and disappointed.
“Well, you kissed me.” Hey, it was true. “But that’s not why I kissed you back.”
He swallowed. “Why did you?”
I heard a dramatic sigh before I could answer. “Because she’s finally seen what you look like on two legs.” I looked over my shoulder to see Maurice saunter into the room. He shook his head. “I told you to go human a century ago, Ralphie. But did you listen?” He looked around. “What a mess. I hate to interrupt, but we do have a situation.”
“You’re not interrupting,” Ralph said, sounding very disappointed.
Maurice rolled his eyes. “She thinks you’re hot, stop acting hangdog.”
I looked back and forth between them. “I thought you two didn’t like each other.”
Ralph shrugged. “It was easier to deal with you that way.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Maurice sighed again. “Ralphie didn’t want you compromised, Vicster. However, not exactly being a wolf of the world, he somehow felt that you thinking we couldn’t stand each other was a good way to protect you.” He shook his head. “The things I’ve had to put up with over the decades. Specifically the whining. No being whines quite like a werewolf in love.”
“Are you Special Ops, too?” I was prepared for Maurice to say yes. Maybe the entire team was Special Ops. Maybe all of Necropolis Enforcement was there as an illusion for me, the clueless idiot.
Maurice snorted. “Hardly. I just found Ralphie a little…secretive and checked him out carefully, a long time ago.”
“He thought I was hiding that I was gay,” Ralph said flatly.
“He’s not,” Maurice reassured, though if the kiss had been any indicator, I didn’t need the confirmation. “However, what he is is Minion Target Number One. As I see you realized.”
“Why are they trying to kill Ralph now?”
This time everyone in the room gave me the “really?” look. “I don’t know,” Sexy Cindy said, sarcasm overly evident. “Maybe it’s because the dude’s finally gotten you to look at him as more than an annoyance?” I couldn’t argue. Ralph’s arms were still around me and I hadn’t exactly let go of him, either.
“Could we have maybe one minute alone?” Ralph asked. “Perhaps while everyone else cleans up the dead lesser minion?”
“Not lesser,” Merc said quietly. “I think we just offed Enepsigos.”
The room was quiet. She’d been very powerful, not up to the Three A’s level, but close. “Uh, yay team.”
“Thanks, Vic,” L.K. said with a morose chuckle. “You know what this means?”
“We’re really popular?”
“There’s a convergence point open,” Maurice said. “We’ll advise the Count while you two get your situation taken care of.” I opened my mouth but he put his hand up. “It wasn’t a guess. I’m here because there’s a convergence point open. Three guesses which one and the first two don’t count. Beings are advised. Trust me when I say you two getting your one minute of requested alone time is probably a good use of time and leave it at that.” He spun on his heel and flounced out.
The others followed him, taking the dead body and severed wings and head with them.
Ralph sighed. “Back in action.”
“Not you. You need to rest and get well.”
He stroked my hair and the side of my face. “I am well. And I’m also not letting you face all of this without me.”
I thought about all the grandstanding he’d done with me over the years. Not grandstanding, though, not really. He’d spent all this time trying to protect me, because it was his job and because he’d fallen in love with that job.
“I know this is hard for you,” Ralph said softly, still stroking my hair. “And with what just happened with Wagner,” he snarled the name, “I’m sure you’re confused and not really ready for a relationship with anyone, let alone me.” He closed his eyes. “I just want to know if, after this is over, you think you might still be open to a date, or even going steady.”
“You heard me?”
He opened his eyes. “Yeah. I heard you talking – to someone else and to me. I couldn’t answer, even though I wanted to. So I had to struggle to get to you. According to the doctors, if I hadn’t woken up when I did I’d have dusted.” Ralph gave me a half-smile. “You know what they say about hearing the voice of someone you –” He stopped talking and smiling and looked down. “Well, you know.” He let go of me and headed for the door.
“You really are a dork, you know.”
Ralph’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I know.”
“I mean, you have the girl all ready to burst into tears and tell you how sorry she is that she was an unobservant idiot and how much she wants you to hold her and do that growl thing again, let alone that kiss thing again. And instead of taking advantage of the moment, you decide to trot off. Did you date at all before I met you?”
He spun around. “Not really, no.”
“It shows.” He stood there, looking very unsure and also, I was happy to realize, really cute. Like a big puppy who wasn’t sure if he was going to get swatted or loved on. Clearly, I was going to have to help. “Ralph, this is the part where you kiss me again.”
He brightened up. “Really?”
I couldn’t help it – I laughed. “Come closer and find out.”
Chapter 63
Our incredibly hot make-out session was interrupted by Sexy Cindy. “Maurice says to stop slobbering on each other because we need you two, now. Exact quote, by the way. If it were me, I’d let you two go at it.”
Ralph and I separated. “Fine, fine. But Ralph has to stay here.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Maurice got him cleared. The doctors want him under observation, so he has to stay in a full team, no solo work. Otherwise, good to go.”
“Our kind heals fast,” Ralph reminded me.
“True. I just don’t want you to get hurt again.” My voice was back to almost-whining.
Ralph hugged me tightly. “We’ll be fine. A pack together can never be defeated.”
I didn’t make any sarcastic comment and I wondered at myself. His outlook, while still a little militant, made sense now. And I felt safer next to him.
Normally I’d have been in a funk over what had happened with Jack and hesitant about getting involved with Ralph for a variety of justifiable reasons. But I’d made the fastest
mating switch of my entire existence, thanks to Jack actually being evil incarnate, and I still wasn’t having any problems with it. And if it would make the horrific ick factor about having been intimate with what was at least a part of my biological father fade away sooner as opposed to later, so much the better.
“You got a big pack, if they don’t all have to have four legs,” Sexy Cindy said. She gave me a wry grin. “Told you he was gonna be worth it.”
“You did. Good insight. Who’s with us besides you?”
“Freddy, Merc, L.K., pretty much everyone else from earlier.” She gave me a long look, then stuck her head out the door. “Boys!” Freddy, Merc, and L.K. arrived. “You three take Ralph back to Maurice. We girls’ll be along as soon as we clean up a little.”
No one argued. Either Sexy Cindy was really gaining some on-the-job authority, or I looked like hell.
The males trooped out. “Okay, how bad do I look?”
Sexy Cindy shook her head. “You look okay. I mean, brush your hair and straighten your clothes, but otherwise, you’re fine. You and Ralph seem all loved up. You sure you’re okay?”
I considered lying, but Amanda wasn’t here and I needed someone to talk to. Besides, I probably wouldn’t fool Sexy Cindy either. “I think I am, but let’s be honest, I’m not totally sure. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I feel completely out of love with Jack and more than grossed-out by the whole experience. I wanted to give Ralph a chance, even before I saw him in human form, and it feels natural and right to be with him like this. But, Adversary or not, beyond-gross familial relationship or not, I was so in love with Jack….”
“What you thought was Jack.”
“Ralph thinks he was a sleeper. He’s probably right. But that means I didn’t just fall in love with Jack’s exterior, I had to have fallen in love with at least a part of him. So, the part I fell in love with was likely more Jack than Adversary.” I considered Jack without Adversary parts. “Of course, he was screwing Susan the day dispatcher, and as far as I can tell, planned to keep on doing it even while professing undying love to me.”
She snorted. “Could be a good reason why you’re not losing it.”
I shook my head. “Maybe, but still, even though he wasn’t cheating on me with another being, Jude did have a mistress – saving the planes of existence. But when I broke up with him I couldn’t consider dating for close to a decade. It was easier with Ken.”
“You were in love with Jude, and you weren’t in love with Ken.” Statement, not question.
“Yeah, I suppose. But I thought I was in love with Ken.”
“Why didn’t it work for you?”
I thought about it. “He was too perfect. He never minded that I wasn’t as perfect as he was, but I felt…inadequate, I guess.”
She chuckled. “He told me you dumped him and he was really crushed because he couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong. He went out of his way to be perfect, from what he said.”
“Thanks, ‘cause I don’t feel bad enough.”
“Oh, he’s over it. He realized you two weren’t really going to work out, and he’s relieved you’re still close friends. Jude wasn’t perfect, was he?”
I controlled the snort. “No. He’s awesome, but not perfect. He’d be the first one to tell you that, too.”
“Flaws are interesting. Ken’s realizing that, I think.”
“How so?”
She giggled. “He told me he’s hemoglobin-intolerant.”
Ken had bad reactions to drinking blood? Who knew? Well, Sexy Cindy, apparently. A thought waved its tail. “Are you two becoming an item?”
She shrugged. “Maybe, if we all survive this. He feels real bad for messing me and Freddy up, undead-wise, so he’s spent a lot of time apologizing. More to me than to Freddy.”
I looked at her carefully. “You like Freddy, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah. He always treated me like I was more than a whore, you know?”
“Because you always were more than a whore.”
“But I didn’t know that.” She looked down. “This is gonna sound stupid, I think. But thank you.”
“Uh, for what?”
She looked up. “For also seeing me as more than a whore.”
I shook my head. “Everyone gets a fresh start, once they undie.”
“Girl, you knew me as a human, okay? Maybe Ken and the others, they look at me clean. But you’re a cop, and I was a street hooker, and you knew me that way for a good long time. But you still listened to me and let me back you up, and I don’t think any other being would have done that.”
“Well, we’ll never know. But for what it’s worth, if I’d known how smart you were back when you were a living human, I’d have dragged you off the streets and into some sort of hooker-rehab.”
“I’d have fought it,” she said flatly. Then she grinned. “But not anymore. I like being a sorta-cop.”
“You’re good at it, so I’m relieved you’re not wishing you were safely tucked away at the University.”
“Nah, I like kicking butt and taking names.”
“It’s addictive, isn’t it? So, before we hug and sing ‘We Are the Undead World’, you want to give me your thoughts about my twisted love life, just in case I’ve missed something? Like that I’m not handling it well and will fall apart at the worst possible time?”
“Sure.” She laughed. “If we ignore the whole ‘he’s really the Adversary’ thing and your suspicions about him sleeping around – which he was, but you didn’t know that when it mattered – Jack was too perfect. He was almost like Ken, only Ken’s got real flaws, he just knows how to hide them well. But Jack was made to be perfect for you, and that made him actually the wrong guy.”
“Somewhere there was logic in that explanation, but I’ve missed it.”
She shook her head. “Girl, you’re gonna have to trust me. Maurice thinks if you’d seen Ralph in human form years ago you two would already be married.”
“Married seems a little fast and extreme.” Only, in a way, it didn’t. I considered checking myself for fever.
“Right. As if you’re determined to be single forever? Face it, you saw the dude without fur and started drooling. No argument there, either. He’s hot.”
“Jack was more handsome.” Jack was more everything. I didn’t care anymore, but facts were facts.
“Maybe. Ralph’s a lot more…real.”
And per Nurse Nancy, well-endowed. And Ralph not only was a great kisser, but not even Jack had done that growl thing. My breathing got heavier just thinking about the growl-thing.
“So you don’t think I’m rebounding, or rebounding stupidly or dangerously?”
“Nope. I think you’re doing so good because Jack was wrong for you and Ralph is right. But I think the bad guys are gonna try to play Jack against Ralph, maybe even against Ken and Jude, to get you.”
“Wonderful.”
We did a fast straighten of the room, just to show willing and pretend we hadn’t been spending time on girl talk. I managed to make myself look somewhat presentable, then we caught up with the others.
Ralph was there, flanked by Maurice, Amanda and Ken. I relaxed a little and it was a shock – I hadn’t realized I’d been worried about his safety, but clearly I had. I looked around – Ken and I were still the highest ranking officers. Unless, of course, Ralph ranked higher, which was a real possibility.
“What’re your orders, Vic?” Ralph asked, as if he was reading my mind. I wondered if he was. It wasn’t really a werewolf trait, but instincts were so strong in our race that he might just be reading my smell.
It dawned on me that he was still in human form. “You’re going to go out without paws on?”
“The doctors want me remaining in human form for a while.” He sounded evasive and I decided to have the rest of this particular conversation in private.
“Okay. I’d like fast, high-level updates. What’ve we got?”
Ken pulled out a list. It looked like a
long list. Lucky us. He sighed. “Maybe you want to sit down.”
Chapter 64
I chose to lean against a nearby wall. “Can’t wait.”
“No,” Ken agreed. “We can’t.”
He took a deep breath but before he could say anything I remembered something. Something important. Something important that I’d left behind. “Oh, no. The bag!” I didn’t wait. I turned wolf, turned tail, and ran, as fast as I could.
Wolves can run fast to begin with, but werewolves are faster. I left the shouting far behind me in short order. However, I wasn’t alone.
“What are you doing?” Ralph was panting a little, but he was right next to me.
“What are you doing? You weren’t supposed to change, per the doctors.”
“You’re not supposed to act insane and then race off without warning or backup.”
“Whatever.” I hadn’t seen that memo.
“What are we doing and why?”
“I’m going after the stuff we took from Cotton’s pawn shop. The things that Tomio left and Jack selected. I just hope we’re not too late.” I sped up. Jack might have forgotten them, too, what with all that had been going on, but if it had dawned on me, then it was likely to have dawned on him. So the only thing our side had going for it was that he might not have realized where the bag of stuff had ended up.
As we ran like Hell was on our tails, I filled Ralph in on what was in said bag. “Wonderful,” he growled as we reached the OLOC. “So Gods and Monsters knows what is in the hands of the Prince’s minions.”
“Not yet. I hope.” We raced alongside the moving sidewalk – we were going faster than it could ever hope to move. Just before we reached the doorway I changed back to human. Ralph followed suit. Only, in his case, it was more like birthday suit. “Whoa!” I didn’t know whether to look or not. But, you know, I looked. I mean, it was there, on full display. Full, impressive display.
“Whoa what?” It was cute, he was confused.
“You never told me you went commando. Back to wolf! Back to wolf!” I couldn’t help it, I wasn’t looking at his face. I was looking at his naked body. All of it, and then specifically one part of it.