The Night Beat

evil!”
    “No, they’re not.” Mrs. Johnson managed a weak smile. “I’ve seen you, your kind, well, kinds…all my life. Not as much when I was young, but when we moved here, all the time.”
    Interesting. “Are you crazy?”
    She laughed. “No. I prayed to God for guidance. And…He showed me the way.”
    “What way was that?” I felt it was going to pay to ensure she was dealing with one of the Gods and Monsters, not the Prince.
    Mrs. Johnson opened her mouth and then stood there, staring. We all turned to see what she was looking at. Martin, as it turned out, wings on full.
    He gave us all a gentle, twinkling smile. “Helen, my dear, how delightful to see you, albeit under some quite awful conditions.”
    Mrs. Johnson’s jaw snapped shut and she pointed to Martin. “He came to me. Before, I mean.”
    Martin did some extra twinkling. “I did indeed. Yahweh does like to provide the personal touch when it’s truly necessary.” He winked at me. “Now, let’s finish off our easiest major minion kill of this century.”
    “It’s either a trap, or they’re really unhappy with his performance.”
    “I’d go with the latter, Victoria,” Martin tossed over his shoulder as he went to help Black Angels One and Two finish off Hitler in fine, albeit rather horrific, style. Holy water does just terrible things to a major minion, especially when said minion has to swallow it.
    Ralph cocked his head. “If it’s punishment, then who made that decision? The Three A’s are all powerful, but I’ve never heard of any of them being given the authority to destroy one of their peers.”
    This was quite true. Additionally, the humans -- religious leaders from all over the world -- had been manipulated by Hitler for weeks. Undoubtedly more so once Slimy had come through. Meaning they’d likely been praying up a storm in their minds. Meaning that any being could have come through. And I was pretty certain which one had just joined the party.
    “They aren’t the ones who made the decision.” I looked at Johnson. “I want the spell, what you’re all calling a prayer, and I want it now. We have a command performance you’re making us late for.”

Chapter 69
     
    Fortunately, Martin felt it was acceptable to use the old angel influence to clear the heads of all the humans. This saved considerable time, though the angst level remained high. Nothing like finding out you’ve been helping the ultimate evil to put a damper on the moods of those who do religion as their life and livelihood.
    We got the prayer out of them. It was well set-up, mentioning evil names all over the place, purportedly to send them away. Only it was sending them away from their normal planes of existence and inviting them to this one, while at the same time creating this aura of holiness around them. I was impressed.
    “The Prince and company must have been more than extremely displeased with good ol’ Hitler’s performance, because that is one massively good spell, spoken as a non-practitioner.”
    Martin nodded. “We found the rest of the doppelgängers. All destroyed by angelic forces. Easily, I must admit.”
    “All subordinates of Hitler’s?” I asked while Black Angels One and Two swept up Hitler’s dust into a container of holy water. Tidy and smart.
    “Yes. On the plus column, I believe we’ve finally destroyed what’s left of the Third Reich.”
    “Better late than never.” I was touchy about human wars. Because we weren’t allowed in them. “Anyway, Martin, this is Benny the Fence, or, as they know him here, Bill Bennett, realtor. The bag he’s clutching is filled with nastiness. Ergo, once we leave, I’d like to ensure that Benny remains in the most alert and nasty protective custody known to man, beast or undead.”
    “I’d like to mention that the nasty shouldn’t be focused on me,” Benny added.
    “Right. Benny good. All others bad.”
    “What are we going to do with the humans?” Ralph asked as Black Angel Two flanked Benny with the same expressions they used when they flanked Martin.
    “That’s why I asked for all the black and whites. We’re taking them with us.”
    “Are you serious?” Ralph actually yelped.
    “Do I look like I’m funning around?” I motioned to Johnson and, as she was insisting we call her, Helen. “We’re going to leave our unmarked police car here, mostly because we don’t have the keys and we’re all tired of hotwiring it. I’m going to take a wild guess and ask