The Night Beat

flew up and landed on what I was going to insist, until told otherwise, was the thing’s back. Vamps can do the whole extend the claws thing, too, and when they’re really pissed, frightened or fighting something a lot stronger, they go all Nosferatu. It wasn’t Amanda’s best look, but then again, I wasn’t going to win Best in Show, either.
    However, six inch claws that looked like sling blades were impressive weapons. She slashed, I clawed, we both bit. We weren’t doing anything other than ensuring we’d need the biggest bottles of Listerine in the universe later.
    Maurice got into the act. He hated going into what was politely called the Ancient Vampire Form, but he wasn’t an idiot. If we didn’t stop this thing, we were going to be dinner or minions. We were at the top of the food chain and refused to leave that spot without a fight, and if we’d wanted to be minions we would have already committed our souls to the Prince.
    From the little I could see as I chomped on a big face tentacle and got flipped around, Maurice was attacking the stomach area, normally considered somewhat vulnerable. This thing had three top level, professionally trained, Enforcement personnel on it and all we were doing was causing it to stagger a little. I got flipped around even more and realized we weren’t causing the stagger -- the thing’s foot was sort of caught on the lip of the hole the Dirt Corps had created.
    Slimy tried to shake me off, big time, but I clamped my jaws harder. Supposedly pit bulls have locking jaws, but they’re Chihuahuas by comparison to a werewolf. If I didn’t want off, I wasn’t going off.
    Of course, after being slammed against all three walls of the alley a few times, I was considering the benefits of letting go. The thing was, Slimy was moving towards the street. And a loose slime monster was bad enough, but a loose ancient Sumerian demon crossed with a slime monster was the definition of Foreshadow of the Apocalypse.
    My particular tentacle flipped low and I caught that there were at least twenty Dirt Corps members clinging to this thing’s lower half. As I was whipped around, I saw Monty slamming his hands into whatever parts of Slimy he could hit. Considering the fact that liches are stronger than vampires, this should have done something. But Slimy just did his version of a Santa Claus impersonation and shook like a bowlful of jelly.
    Ken noticed we were having a little trouble and joined the fray. This was good in that he was the most powerful vamp on the scene, so he could probably do the most damage. It was bad, however, because Ken lost concentration for some reason, and Jack came out of that happy “it’s all good” vamp stupor and took a good look around.
    I moved out of werewolf form and into wolf, in the hopes I’d look more normal, so to speak. I also managed to catch hold and dig my claws in so I wasn’t flailing around like Slimy was using me for fly-fishing bait. So I had a good view of Jack.
    He was a cop on Prosaic City’s Night Beat. They only took the best, and the ones who could handle the more-than-weird. Even so, he was a human and one of the things those of us in Necropolis Enforcement swore to -- aside from the standard protect and serve stuff -- was that we’d do our best to never let the humans know this wasn’t really their city.
    Now Jack was staring at pretty much every undead known to man and a couple man didn’t really know about. All we were missing was a zombie to cover every trope -- the mummies were already there, being dragged along by Slimy -- and the minute H.P. arrived, that was going to be covered, too.
    As I tried to figure out which was going to be worse -- Slimy stomping around using my city as a midnight buffet or Jack having to have a serious memory wipe -- he reached into the sedan. And pulled out our riot gun, which was a lot more like a bazooka, and aimed.
    “All of you, let go on three!” I knew that tone of voice. It was the one Jack used that told all listeners he was the man in charge.
    “Is he serious?” Amanda asked me.
    “One….”
    “He seems serious,” Maurice offered.
    “Two….”
    “He means it!” I shouted. “Everybody, do it!”
    “Three.”

Chapter 5
     
    We went flying -- in the vamps’ cases under their own control -- as Jack fired. The riot gun held a lot of shots and it looked like he planned to use them all.
    I hit the wall over the trashcans and fell onto the top of one. Mercifully, the lid