by Gini Koch
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 pursuit.”
“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?”
“Angelo 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, every 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.”
“Understood. Sending Black Angel Teams One and Two to support.”
“Thanks.” I turned off the com.
“Black angels?”
“Literally. The best day fliers around.”
“Real angels? You’re serious?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve seen everything else, or heard about it, and yet the existence of angels seems hard for you to fathom?”
“I guess I didn’t associate them with --”
He stopped himself, but I knew what he was thinking. “With ‘my kind’? Yeah, I know. They’re pure and holy and we’re the evil undead.” I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice. Figured I didn’t succeed.
Jack stopped, grabbed my arm, and pulled me against the side of the building. “That’s not how I meant it.”
“Yes, it is.” I tried to get away. “Look, we need to see the Chief.”
“No. We need to get this straightened out, right now.” Jack was a lot taller than me and bigger all around. He was using his body to keep me in place and struggling meant I was rubbing up against him. I tried not to like it and failed completely. Of course, I had werewolf strength, but I didn’t really want to send him flying into the parking lot. Besides, feelings hurt or not, being this close to him made my senses go haywire. He was in a form of supreme manly-mode and it was all I could do not to start that doggy begging whine he seemed to be bringing out in me more and more.
“There’s nothing to straighten out.” I tried to look away but he had big brown eyes and they were hard to avoid. They were also flashing.
“I don’t think you’re evil,” he said through gritted teeth. “Or weird or frightening. I don’t even think you’re all that strange.”
“What do you think I am?” This didn’t come out in the strong, authoritative voice I was shooting for. It came out like a little girl whisper. Sadly, I wasn’t covered with fur, so as I felt my cheeks get hot, I knew Jack could see me blushing like an idiot.
He gave me a slow smile. “I think you’re one of the best cops I’ve even known. You’re smart, gutsy, funny and loyal, and you have the best instincts going. I also think you’re the hottest woman on two or four legs.”
Then he bent and kissed me and I started blushing all over. At least, my whole body felt like it was on fire.
Jack kissed me for a good, long while, until I wasn’t trying to do anything but hump his leg. Hey, there are some things you can’t help if you have a drop of canine in you. He pulled away slowly. “Now, are we past that?”
“Ah, past kissing?” I was okay with moving fast, but even I had speed limits.
Jack rolled his eyes. “No. Are we past you thinking I don’t like you because you’re a werewolf?”
“Um, dunno.”
He kissed me again. “How about now?”
I really wanted to tell him I wasn’t sure again, because if his method of convincing me was to kiss me, I wanted to stay unconvinced forever. But we were in the middle of a case with horrifying ramifications and I’d been in law enforcement for several human lifetimes. “I guess so.”
He stroked my face. “I think it’s kind of sexy.”
“What is?”
“You turning into a hot-looking wolf.”
“I had no idea you were into bestiality.”
“I’m not. Ken explained, it’s not the same thing at all.”
As ex-boyfriends went, you couldn’t get better than Ken. “Um, what else did he explain?”
Jack grinned. “That if I wanted to make a move, I had a good chance of not having my throat ripped out.” He let me go but took my hand. “Think we need to pretend that we’re still just professional partners, at least as far as the rank and file here are concerned.”
“We’re an item?” I wasn’t arguing, but we were back to moving faster than I’d been prepared for.
He pulled me to him and kissed me again. Okay, yeah, we were an item. My butt wagging was a clear sign.
Chapter 15
Jack and I finally stopped making out and went into headquarters. I was glad I didn’t bother with makeup, because if I’d had any on it would have been all over my face and his.
We supposedly looked the same
as we always did. I mean, we’d straightened our clothes and fixed the hair and all before we went into the building. And I didn’t think we got a lot of looks from our fellow officers.
However, the moment we were alone with the Chief, we got the superior glare of disapproval. “You know you’re not supposed to become involved with your partner.”
I did my best “innocent puppy has not piddled on the rug” look. “What do you mean, Chief?”
The Chief was short and stocky, pretty much all muscle and coiled energy. I’d never been able to figure out how anyone had managed to convince him to take the highest desk job available on the force. He always seemed like he was ready to trot over to the holding cells and beat a confession out of the perps, probably all at once.
He glared at me. “I mean you two have crossed the line.”
“How do you figure?” Jack asked calmly.
The Chief rolled his eyes. “I’d say it was the fact you both look guilty, but really, how stupid are you?” He pointed to the video monitor screens to the left of his desk. To the one trained on the parking lot, in particular.
“Oh.” Well, I felt stupid. And forgetful. Hey, a lot was going on.
“It’s not a normal situation, and you know it,” Jack said.
“Fine, whatever. What’s actually going on, now that we can, I assume, all stop acting?”
“You could have told me you knew a long time ago.”
The Chief shrugged. “I didn’t want you getting sloppy. If you had to fool me and Wagner, then you were going to fool anyone else you came across. As this morning has just proven, the moment you got to stop pretending you also got stupid and careless.”
I tried to apologize and yawned instead. Widely.
“Vic got hurt tonight,” Jack said. “She had to go the hospital in Necropolis Enforcement.”
“I’m fine. My kind heals fast.” Under most circumstances, anyway. However, much as I didn’t want to admit it, while stifling another yawn, I was dog-tired.
And not hiding it well, if the Chief’s reaction was any indication. “Go home and get some sleep.”