The Night Beat

looked around. Amanda and Ken were here, too. Here was, easily, a mile up. I stopped looking down quickly and focused on something sure to keep my mind off going splat -- everything else that was going on. “Ken, I’m so sorry. For everything.”
    He shook his head. “We picked up that something was wrong, but he was pretty well hidden, Vic. Him suggesting we had infiltrators was pretty ballsy, though.”
    I sighed. “I’m the one who came up with that.”
    “Correctly, I must add,” Amanda said. “You just didn’t look in the right place.”
    “Clearly.” I looked up, where the right place had just been. “Where did he go?”
    “Disappeared,” Ken snapped. “I’d love to say he was worried about the three of us arriving, but I doubt it.”
    “So, Kenny briefed us on what was going on, at least what we think was going on.” Maurice gave me an arch look. “Mister Yummy was actually the Adversary? As in, you just personified the Elektra Complex?”
    “You know, I feel grossed out enough about it. You don’t have to add salt to the wound. But, yeah, from what I can tell, there was at least a part of the Adversary’s soul mingled in with Jack’s. Maybe his entire soul. I’m not sure yet.”
    Amanda hugged me. This is hard to do while flying in the air when the huggee is being held by another vampire. But she managed it. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You were so crazy about him.”
    “Yeah, I was. I was supposed to be.” I filled them in fast on what Little Harp had told me. “So, apparently, they’ve been setting this up since I became an undead.”
    Ken shook his head, as we started back towards the ground and I did my best to pretend we were already there. “I never got the impression the Harps were that smart.”
    “That was my thought, too. I don’t think they are.”
    “Then someone else is helping with the hard work of thought processes. Vicki, darling, stop thrashing.”
    “Trying, trying. So, any ideas of who came up with this plan, and why?” I had some, but I wanted to hear what these three thought first.
    “Possibly the Prince himself,” Amanda suggested. “Though it seems too….”
    “Detail-oriented for him,” Maurice finished. “I agree. It’s possible, but he’s reputed to like minions who can come up with havoc on their own.”
    “But all the long term plans are the Prince’s,” Ken protested. “And this is certainly long-term.”
    “There are other options. Hitler, some of the other major minions. Lucifer.” As I said it, I knew I was right. Which sucked in a variety of ways, not that I could mention any of them aloud.
    The vampires nodded. “This is his style. Smart, sophisticated and very well hidden.” Ken grimaced. “But why execute it through the Adversary?”
    I wondered that myself. I had a couple of ideas of why, but one reason stood out the clearest -- because, ultimately, it wouldn’t work. But I didn’t suggest this aloud. There were only a couple of beings I could talk to about this possibility, both of them hanging at the Salvation Center.
    But there was another reason, and it was also just as likely. Probably both reasons were true -- Lucifer would have to have a cover reason that flew in the Depths, after all. “Because I’ve got a nifty title down in the Depths -- the Child of the Adversary.”
    “Snazzy as that is, or rather, isn’t,” Maurice snipped, “what’s the point?”
    “I think I’m the Adversary’s weakness, his Achilles’ Heel.”
    Amanda and Maurice didn’t look convinced, but Ken was clearly thinking. “That makes sense,” he said slowly. “Every Adversary can be killed. We’ve killed every one but this one, after all. And we will kill him,” he added fiercely.
    “I agree, but I think I’m going to have to be the one to do it.”
    “Possibly,” Amanda said. “But I’d like to hear more of a reason why, other than blood ties.”
    Maurice jerked. “But that’s it, isn’t it? Blood ties. Not necessarily for every Adversary, but certainly for this one. It’s all about bringing the family together for Vicki’s fab parental units. Why would they care unless there was a survival reason involved?”
    “Considering my so-called family’s history, they wouldn’t. I think they’ve been after all the werewolves because that’s what I was turned into. Either they’re more affected by whatever breed of undead I am -- so if I’d become a vampire, they’d have spent the last couple of hundred years