by Gini Koch
“Not as powerful as us,” his younger brother said with another dazzling grin. “You going to introduce us to your new friends, Vic?”
“Sure.” I risked a look at Jack. He didn’t look happy. For some reason, that made me feel good. “Jack, Cindy, Freddy, meet Black Angel One. Their friends and associates call them Cain and Abel.”
Three jaws dropped. I turned back to Cain. “Look, that’s peachy, but if you and Abel couldn’t spot that you were following Abaddon or Apollyon, we’re really screwed.”
Cain shook his head. “Remember what our orders were? We were tailing and watching for odd activity.”
“Yeah,” Abel added. “And we had to hang back. I mean, I know we and Black Angel Two have the best range, but even we have limits.”
“Do Abaddon and Apollyon have limits? Or the Adversary? Since all three are on the human plane now, wandering around, doing Gods and Monsters knows what.”
Cain chucked me under my chin. “Vic, you worry too much.”
“Excuse me.” Jack’s voice was like ice. “Am I understanding this right? You’re the Cain and Abel? From the Old Testament?”
“That’s us,” Abel said with a wide grin. “We look pretty damned good for being this old, don’t we?”
“I’ll say,” Sexy Cindy muttered. I got the impression she was ready to offer up the Corner Special for Two. Not that I could blame her. Sexiest things with two wings, that was Black Angel One.
Jack pressed on. “So, you,” he pointed to Cain, “murdered him,” pointing to Abel, “and yet you’re an angel and happily working together? And this doesn’t seem odd to anyone?”
Cain sighed and rubbed his forehead. “You make one smartass comment to your parents at what turns out to be the wrong time, and you’re branded for life.”
Abel put his arm around Cain’s shoulders. “I knew. I was waiting for you, wasn’t I? I tried to tell them, they didn’t listen.”
“Tell who what?” Jack asked.
Abel shrugged. “Cain didn’t kill me. He always took care of me. But we’d had a fight and I ran off because I was upset. Ran into trouble, didn’t have my big brother there to back me, I was murdered. Yahweh angelicized me, I tried to let the others know -- the scribes and the storytellers, let alone our parents, that Cain wasn’t to blame.”
“It got so bad I had to leave,” Cain said with a sigh. “But, you know, in the long run, things worked out.” He tousled Abel’s hair. “Was nice to see my baby brother waiting for me, I must admit.”
Jack caught my eye. “Seriously?”
“Yep. Haven’t you picked up yet that the religious texts of the human world, while well meaning and doing their best and all, aren’t necessarily the most reliable reference materials on the planet?”
“Most humans don’t use them for reference, Vic.”
“Yeah, Jack, I know. Most humans don’t think I’m real, either. We’re here to protect them, not make them love us.”
He gave me a long look. “Cops stick with cops.”
“Right. You’re hanging with a bigger force than you’re used to, that’s all.”
Jack managed a weak grin. “Well, I did always tell my parents I wanted to fly with the angels.”
“Give it time,” Cain said.
Abel nudged him. “Actually, I think right now is good.”
“Why?” Cain asked, sounding slightly annoyed.
Abel shrugged. “Incoming.” With that he grabbed Jack and Freddy, while Cain grabbed me and Sexy Cindy. They took off like the proverbial bats out of Hell.
“Not that this sucks,” Sexy Cindy shouted. “But what’s going on and what’s coming in?”
“Black Angel Two are under attack and they’d like our help,” Cain said as he went supersonic and I tried not to squirm, to no avail. “Vic, hold still!”
“Trying.” Failing. I looked down, the suns were high enough that I could see the ground clearly, and it was too far away. Werewolf paws demanded ground, Cain lost his hold, and then I got to see what flying without wings felt like.
I wasn’t a fan.
Chapter 40
There’s no good way for a canine to fall from a great height. Cats have that land on their feet thing, but even Gretel would have been hard-pressed to land from this height without shattering all her bones. And I wasn’t a daemon cat.
Normally panic meant I’d change into or stay in wolf or werewolf form. Apparently when I was plummeting to my death, my subconscious wanted to die human. I changed back into my human form. Great, just great.
I could see Black Angel One above me. Cain was doing his best to catch me, but he had Sexy Cindy and she was a hindrance. And Abel had his hands full, so to speak. I decided that, as far as deaths went, this one was going to go down as truly stupid. Not exactly the way to go. And this could indeed dust me -- because my mind believed it could.
That was one of the little secrets about being an undead that no human ever got to know. Sure there were plenty of real ways to dust us into oblivion. But our minds could do it in the right combination of bad circumstances. And I was in one of those. I knew that no one could survive falling from this height and my mind was prepared to die therefore. I tried to swing it back into positive city, but it wasn’t having any. We were going splat and then we were going into the eternal blackness.
All of a sudden I wasn’t falling any more. I wasn’t splatted, either. I risked a look over my shoulder. There was a whirlwind under me. A whirlwind made up of Dirt Corps.
The half mummy who I was resting on grunted. “You’re heavier than you look.”
“Thanks. Meant both sarcastically and extremely gratefully. I’d ask how you knew to show up and do this impressive save, but truth be told, I don’t care.”
There were a variety of ghosts who were on the outside of the whirlwind, essentially keeping it moving. They all chuckled. One who I was pretty sure was someone who Maurice had fought with during the Revolutionary War spoke up. “We’re going to transport you to your next destination. Black Angel One feels that might be safer.”
“Couldn’t be less safe than any other form of flying.” Frankly, it felt safer to me, which was ridiculous. But I didn’t argue. I also didn’t struggle or feel terrified. Dirt Corps Whirlwind was definitely the way to fly.
In this interesting fashion we went through Necropolis to the site of the disturbance. Interestingly enough, Black Angel Two and Martin were at the Prosaic City National Cemetery. I was sick of that place already.
We slid up to the cemetery through one of the temples to Yahweh. My personal Dirt Corps whirlwind handed me gently back to Cain. Then they spun off and the six of us shifted onto the human plane. I noted that Jack did it without any indication of confusion or problems. He was coming along fast. I was going to have to have Martin check his brainwaves -- this fast was possible without the risk of going crazy, but it was rare.
I looked around. Impressive lack of nothing going on. “I thought you said they were under attack and there was incoming or something.”
“Will be,” Miriam said. The others nodded. None of the angels said anything else. Apparently we were either supposed to guess or shut up. I picked shutting up.
Jack pulled me aside. “What was that? Testing to see how easy it is to give someone a heart attack?”
“I hate flying. In an airplane it’s okay, sort of. Any other way just plain sucks.”
He hugged me tightly. “I thought I was going to see you die. I mean, I suppose you would have recovered, but it didn’t feel like that was going to be an option when I was watching you. I thought angels were powerful. And after all that talking up about Black Angel One, I didn’t think one of them would have butter-fingers.”
“They are powerful, and Cain did his best. I don’t work with Black Angel One a lot.” Ever, really. “Maurice and Amanda would have known to have just one of them take me, Cain didn’t. It’s normally considered polite and a relief if they’re not reading your mind, you know.”
“Yea
h, I wasn’t enjoying that Jude guy reading me, I can say that.”
I let this one pass. “We need to get ready for whatever’s coming, you know, if we figure it out before we’re attacked. And then we need to figure out a plan, because we’ve spent a lot of time running around and precious little thinking or running where we think we should be.”
“I agree.” Jack let me out of his arms. “I think we need to check on the families of those from the alley. Jerry the Junkie knew something. Bobby did, too, but not as much as Jerry.”
“Jerry was clear that Tomio was dead. So he knew it was Abaddon a few months ago, and probably that Apollyon came through the other night. I think we need to find Nero.” A thought occurred. “I think we really need to find Nero, and I’ll bet cash money that he’s either with the Tomio dupes or he’s with the families of the deceased.”
“No argument, but why?”
“They wanted us away from that block, and that has to mean they wanted us away from The Pleasure Palace and possibly Cotton’s pawnshop.” Me seeing Jude would only work in the favor of the Prince, because of all the past relationship issues, so they probably didn’t care about that one way or the other.
“Yeah, you seeing your ex-boyfriend you still have the hots for probably would be viewed as a benefit to the other side.”
I felt myself flush. Either Jack had acquired mind-reading abilities from hanging with Black Angel One for ten minutes or I hadn’t kept any emotion off my face when we were with Jude and probably wasn’t doing too great a job right now, either. “I don’t still have the hots for him. We just broke up kind of strangely. Besides, in case you’ve missed it, I have the hots for you now.”
Jack grinned and I felt him relax. “Good to be sure.”
“If you’re feeling all better, we need to get addresses on all the recently dead’s relatives and probably the relatives of the recently hospitalized as well.”
Jack pulled out his cell phone. “Decided not to leave this in the car.” He dialed and started talking to Darlene.
While he was occupied I sidled over to Black Angel Two. “What, exactly, are we waiting for?”
Miriam shook her head, Magdalena heaved a martyred sigh. Nothing coming from them. Did the same with Black Angel One. Got charming smiles, but in the “go away little girl” way.
Decided to give Martin a try. “Want to share? At all?”
“Psychic attack. Really, Victoria, we all need to concentrate.” He didn’t sound angry, just very, very focused.
I sidled away. Jack was off the phone and Sexy Cindy and Freddy were standing near him. Huddled near him, really. “You two picking something up?”
Sexy Cindy shook her head. “Just that the angels are really focused.”
“They do seem intent,” Freddy agreed. “But I don’t understand. If there is an attack, why don’t we see anyone or anything?”
“Martin said it was psychic. Which begs the ‘why aren’t there any other angels arriving’ question.”
“Begs another one,” Jack said. “What’s being attacked? As in, are our favorite big-winged buddies defending themselves or someone else?”
“And from what?” Sexy Cindy added.
“And why did they bring us here, if they’re not going to tell us what’s going on or ask us to help?” Freddy asked.
I considered all these questions. They were good questions. The beings with the answers weren’t sharing, however. Therefore, it was time to act like a cop. I sniffed. Nothing smelled off. I looked carefully at where the angels were standing. Roughly where Black Angel Two had been when they’d resurrected the recently dead.
I looked at the graves. The earth was moving. Not like it had when Miriam had done the raising. It looked more like the earth was heaving up and being shoved back down, but in a small way, which is why I figured none of us had noticed it.
The others saw where I was staring and stared there also. “I’m just betting that’s not good,” Sexy Cindy offered.
“Right you are.” I took a deep breath. “Well, now I know why we’re along for this ride.”
“Why’s that?” Jack asked.
“One or more of the minions is trying to raise these dead. Probably as a test run, but who knows, maybe for more nefarious purposes. Our side’s working to keep that from happening.”
“What happens if they fail?” Freddy asked quietly.
I shrugged. “To prevent the Prince’s minions from forming the Army of the Damned, we dust them.”
Chapter 41
My dusting comment was greeted with horrified stares from all three of them. “What?”
“You’d send them to nothingness?” Sexy Cindy asked, clearly appalled. I had to remind myself that the dead were, for all intents and purposes, the closest friends she and Freddy had probably had in the past few years.
“Look, they went into the ground and stayed there.” I tried to speak as patiently and kindly as I could. “Ken checked them all before they were interred. None of them could become an undead. None of them ascended.”
“We didn’t ascend,” Freddy interjected. “And according to all of you, we were angel material.”
“Angel material and ascension aren’t the same thing. In many cases, yes. Black Angels One and Two, Martin, Jude, and so forth. But in other cases, souls ascend and don’t become undeads.”
“What do they become?” Jack asked.
“Well, they’re still them, but they reside with the Gods, so to speak. They don’t fight in the War. I think some of them act as advisors. Others I think really get their version of heaven.”
“You want to explain that?” Freddy sounded thoughtful.
“I can’t. It’s complicated and the only undeads who ever go up to visit with the Gods and those who have ascended are angels. They don’t share much, as a rule.” I tried to think of an example they’d understand. “Mother Theresa’s up with the Gods and Monsters, in what she would consider heaven.”
“She didn’t turn into an angel?” Sexy Cindy sounded shocked.
I coughed. “No. She’d done her angel work on Earth. I guess…look at ascension as retirement. You did everything the Gods and Monsters could have hoped for on your original plane of existence and unless you want to fight, you deserve your chance to relax. Martin wanted to fight. Mother Theresa didn’t.”
They all nodded. “Why the Gods and Monsters?” Jack asked. “Why not just the Gods?”
“Some of the monsters are good, too. In case you missed it.”
Jack had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry. So, back to why you’re okay with dusting the dead perps here?”
I sighed. “If they didn’t ascend and weren’t undead material, as explained before, they’re here, waiting to be foot soldiers in the War. As Cindy pointed out the last time we visited, they’re all set to be a part of the Army of the Damned. There are a lot of dead who just didn’t have an undead nearby to help them change, and they could end up on the side of the Gods and Monsters. However, in Prosaic City, that’s not really the case. You die here, we’re on it. Ergo, if you die here and you stay in the ground….”
They all nodded. “Makes sense.” Jack was back to full cop. “So, how do we dust them, if we have to?”
“Lucky for the three of you, I’m the only one with the right weapon.”
“What about the little crossbow and the Evil Fairy Repellent?” Sexy Cindy asked.
“Not evil fairies, not undeads. Won’t do a thing to them.”
“What about that special gun of yours, the one you keep at your back?” Jack asked. “Why don’t you have that out?”
“It’s got special bullets, but they’re for undeads and the like. Not for dead bodies.”
“What are you going to use then?” Jack sounded concerned.
I shifted into wolf form. “Me.”
I truly hoped I wasn’t going to have to dust. There were a variety of ways to dust a dead body, but only a few undeads were any good for it.
“You mind expla
ining this?” Jack asked, back to cop voice on full.
“Yeah I do, but anything to pass the time. Because the dead whose souls remain in the dirt and the dark are tied to their bodies, it’s easier to dust them than to kill an undead of any kind.”
“They know they’re in the dark?” Freddy sounded horrified.
“No. The soul is, oh, call it the sleep of the dead. No comprehension, no knowledge. Until they’re awakened, and then, as you saw, knowledge of what’s going on comes to them. But they can only comprehend what they could when they were alive. So, stupid in life means stupid in death.”
“Makes sense,” Jack said. “So, you destroy the bodies?”
“Yes. We turn them to dust, literally.”
“You mean like cremation?” Sexy Cindy asked.
“In a way. It’s one of the reasons Yahweh’s sort of big on the no cremation thing. He doesn’t want to lose potential good undeads. However, a cremated human could still turn undead, since cremation happens days after someone dies and undeads form pretty much immediately upon death, give or take a little wiggle room. Only humans cremate, by the way. Interesting trivia fact you should store away in case you end up playing Undead Pursuit with Edgar or H.P.”
“So filing,” Freddy said. I figured he had the best shot for that game, anyway. “So, how does it work?”
“Well, it’s easiest with liches, witches or warlocks. They cast a ‘dust and scatter’ or ‘dust and contain’ spell and, as long as it has enough power and hits the target, it’s all over. A Golem will take the body into a live kiln and do some sort of Golem thing to ensure the soul goes along with the rest of the dusting. Neat and tidy.”
“No liches, witches, warlocks or Golem around,” Jack mentioned.
“And, sadly, no fiery furnace either. For vampires, drain any blood left, suck out and spit out other fluids, body withers into dust, taking soul with it. Gross but effective.”
“Also no vamps here just now,” Sexy Cindy offered.