The Night Beat

by Gini Koch

  “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 any more.”

  “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 sounded 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.”

  One of the hookers looked at me. “I got family I don’t talk about.” I could see everyone’s expressions -- she really hadn’t talked about them, no one else knew.

  “Who, where, how many?”

  “My parents, my two younger sisters and my little brother. They live in Prosaic Country Club and Estates.” She said it defensively. It was an easy guess why she’d never told anyone. It was a sad statement, though, that, unlike Jerry and Bobby, no one in her family had tried to help her.

  “What about the others?” I asked Freddy.

  “My family’s gone,” Freddy said. “All dead. However, the others might have someone close still living.” He spoke to the bums. “Fellas, really, you need to answer. You have any family here still?”

  One shook his head but the other two raised their hands. “Got a daughter,” the one who’d mentioned Bobby had kids said. “She’s married. May have kids now, too.” He looked down. “Don’t know. She and I didn’t…talk.” And now they’d never get the chance. I didn’t let it affect me -- cops have to keep the emotional side protected, otherwise we’d spend our days and nights crying or falling for sob stories.

  “What about you?” I asked the last one.

  “Got two sisters, younger than me. Not married.”

  “How old are they?”

  He shrugged. “Guess they’re about seventy now.”

  I managed not to react. It was hard to tell how old a street person might really be, for a variety of reasons, but this was older than I’d been expecting.

  “How’d you survive so well?” Jack asked.

  The bum shrugged. “Don’t see how you call it ‘well’. Come from hearty stock. Still, dead now, right?”

  “Right.” I could see they weren’t going to stay resurrected for much longer. “Did all of you say the words Tomio gave you?” They all nodded. “What about the ones in the hospital, the ones who aren’t dead -- did they say them?” More nods. I heard Martin speaking softly, into his wrist-com, I presumed.

  “Did the cops on beat say them, too?” Jack asked. To my stomach’s horror and my tail’s expectations, their heads nodded again.

  “They were trying to humor them,” Freddy said quietly. “You know how it is, they worked our area, knew all us regulars. They didn’t see no harm in it, and some bum telling them otherwise? Well, it was read the words and appease the majority or not read them and appease me and Cindy.”

  I noted Freddy’s speech was starting to go back to what I figured it had been before he’d become a bum. The undead lifestyle was good for a great number of those who’d failed at being successful humans.

  “Does an ex-husband count?” Sexy Cindy asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  She grimaced. “Then I got one of those. Well, had, I guess. No other family, Jerk Face moved us here, used up all our money, then dumped me for some gal who grew her own pot.”

  “I’m going to guess she counts, too. Why didn’t you go back where you were from?”

  She shrugged. “He’d put me onto the streets to make money already. Not like I wanted to go back to my grandmamma’s house like that.” She glared at me. “They’d have taken me back, sure. But I can survive on my own.”

  I refrained from mentioning that she hadn’t survived and wasn’t on her own. I had nothing against moxie, and a new succubus with drive was always a helpful addition to any team. “So, that’s seventeen. If we guess that there’s at least one child or other family member not accounted for, we get to eighteen easily.”

  “So, that’s three options, right?” Sexy Cindy’s brain appeared to be chugging along, too. I wondered what she’d been before she’d become a hooker. Besides a girl from what I guessed was a pretty strict family.

  “Yes.” I directed one last question to the resurrected. “Again, I want to know -- what did you see and hear right before and right after you died?”

  I didn’t expect a lot and wasn’t surprised. The bums and hookers all looked confused. The bum with a daught
er answered, seemingly for all of them. “A big, horrible monster came outta nowhere and ate us all before we could run. Then, the pain stopped and it went all black. I thought we got to see some kinda light when we died,” he added in the tone every sinner uses when they find out they really did have responsibility for their souls.

  “The light is for those ascending,” Martin said gently. “The choice is for those like Frederick and Cynthia, who are in a moral and mental state to make it. The darkness is for those who have not yet…been called.” He looked right at Jerry and Bobby. “And the hellfire is for those who know their choices -- and choose incorrectly.”

  Jerry seemed to have recovered his junkie decorum. “You don’t scare me, weirdo.”

  “You should be scared,” Miriam said. “When the time comes and you are called, I promise you -- I will destroy you myself.”

  “Scared me,” Jack whispered to me.

  Bobby looked away from Martin and back at me. “I saw the monster, but I also saw something else. It was smaller than the monster and it shimmered. I thought it was the drugs, they do stuff like that.”

  “Shut up,” Jerry snarled.

  Bobby shook his head and went on, talking faster. “There was a sound, like millions of buzzing flies or insects or something. And it…it was like the sound went into the shimmering. And all that went into Tomio, after we all died -- that was the last thing I saw, that shimmering thing go into him. He opened his mouth and it sort of flowed in.”

  “He’ll kill you when he comes back,” Jerry said almost gleefully.

  Bobby gave him a look that said what we were all thinking. “We’re already dead, you moron.” He looked back to me. “I don’t care what happens to me, but if you’re right, I don’t want anything to hurt my wife and kids. I never thought this would touch them. Please…do whatever you need to do to me, but keep them safe. Keep everyone’s families safe.”

  The resurrection was fading. The bodies moved back to their graves. I had only seconds. “We’ll do everything we can to protect the people close to you -- I promise.”