The Night Beat

us, watching. She was still alert for danger. And I knew I needed to be. Werewolf senses work on many levels, and all of mine were saying we were in not just trouble, but real, potential Apocalyptic trouble. The trouble was, I had no idea of what it was, where it was coming from, or what to do to defend against it.
    I realized we were missing two beings I’d requested. “Hey, where are Freddy and Sexy Cindy?”
    “Finishing indoctrination,” H.P. advised. “They’ll be along shortly.”
    “Good.”
    “Why?” Jack asked, sounding tired already. “What are a former bum and hooker going to have that everyone else doesn’t?”
    I shrugged. “Whatever they have, the Prince couldn’t get them. Besides, maybe they know where Tomio normally hangs out. We need to know if the person Maurice and Amanda are tailing is the real Tomio or not, for starters.”
    “How would they know more than anyone here?” Jack shook his head. “If this were a human-only situation, I’d tell you to round up the usual suspects and find out what’s going on.”
    Miriam stalked off. She went to what I knew were fresh graves.
    “What’s she doing?” Interestingly, this question didn’t come from Jack, but from Ken.
    I watched her. “I think she’s going to do what Jack suggested. She’s gathering the usual suspects, at least the ones from our favorite alley.”
    “How is she doing that?” Jack asked.
    “By raising the dead.”

Chapter 24
     
    Despite what many religions would have you believe, raising the dead isn’t all that hard, shocking or unusual. Angels and gods can do it any time they want. They just don’t usually want to, for a variety of reasons.
    There are also a variety of ways to raise the dead. Resurrection is a rarity -- most who die really don’t want to come back as humans or whatever they were before. The ones who die and are undead material are usually already out of their graves before an angel or god would be coming by.
    I let Monty handle Jack’s new, myriad questions, while I went over to Miriam. Raising takes concentration, but she was so strong I figured she could talk and raise at the same time. I watched her movements -- she was going for a limited raising, which I considered good sense. The problem was, a limited raising was just that -- limited. You got a short time to ask whatever you needed of the dead and then they were back to dead.
    “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