The Night Beat

expect.”
    “Once we get this settled, we can see about making it a little harder for The Pleasure Palace. But if we don’t find out what the real plan is and stop it, Ishtrallum’s little hot spot’s going to look extremely appealing, at least by comparison to what the rest of the planes will be going through.”
    “That snake-man said Armageddon,” Freddy said. “Was he serious?”
    “And accurate, yeah. And he’s not a man. He’s a lesser snake-demon, so, a being.”
    “She’s touchy about that, remember?” Jack muttered to the other two.
    I rolled my eyes. “I’m not the only one. Now, come on, we have a pawnshop to shake down.”
    I strode off the whole five feet or so it took to reach Killjoy’s doorway. It didn’t look unusual for a pawnshop, though the windows were smaller than most. But they were as heavily barred as any other I’d seen. I sniffed. Nothing other than the standard street stench.
    “Any odd feelings from the three of you?”
    “Nope,” Jack said.
    “Me, either,” Freddy added.
    “I don’t wanna go in,” Sexy Cindy said.
    “Any real reason or you just being a pain in the tail?”
    “I don’t like the guy who runs it,” she muttered. Apparently Sexy Cindy had gotten around.
    “Because he’s evil?”
    “Because he’s a jerk.”
    “The way things are going, that’s an improvement.” I opened the door and walked in. There was a cheerful, jangling bell that rang every time the door opened wide enough to let a normal-sized being through. As I entered, it was cheerful, I mean. By the time all four of us were inside, I was ready to rip the bell off the wall.
    The pawnshop wasn’t as large as The Pleasure Palace by half, but it was still good-sized, all things considered. It bore more of a resemblance to an antique shop, though, at least if the dust and randomness of the displays were anything to go by.
    “From the stink of depravity to the stink of the ancient and discarded.” Jack chuckled without a lot of mirth. “We hit the best places.”
    “What kind of pawnshop has old National Geographic magazines?” Freddy asked. “I mean, I suppose they’re worth something to collectors, but who collects from a place like this?”
    “Jerk-face probably took ‘em ‘cause someone was late on a payment,” Sexy Cindy said under her breath.
    “You dealt with the proprietor frequently?”
    “Yeah. For some reason, my life wasn’t going in that up direction.” Sexy Cindy was trying to give Ishtrallum a run for the sarcasm money.
    “That,” a man’s deep voice boomed from the back, “is because you gave yourself over to sin instead of to goodness.”
    My ears pricked up. I knew that voice. I hated that voice. “Uh, Cindy, don’t tell me, let me guess. The proprietor’s a self-righteous, hypocritical, hyper-judgmental type, looks middle sixties in human age terms, and loves, just loves to preach.”
    She nodded as he came around a corner. There he was, in all his so-called glory. Most ghosts were subdued, but not him. He glowed -- with ectoplasmic smugness.
    He gave me and Sexy Cindy condescending smiles and bowed to the men. “Welcome to my establishment.”
    “And, boy, is it aptly named.”
    “I assume your manners are as atrocious as ever, Victoria?” he asked me in that way of his where it didn’t matter what you said or did, he’d already passed judgment and you’d failed.
    “Oh, heavens no.” I ensured I was in a dead heat with Sexy Cindy and Ishtrallum in the Sarcasm Olympics. “Detective Jack Wagner, human, and Freddy, brand new zombie, please enjoy the rare thrill of meeting the Right Reverend and all around swell guy -- as long as you’re not a female, anyone considered inferior at any time in the history of the world, or, all the Gods and Monsters help you, a witch -- and my personal favorite undead of all time…Cotton Mather.”

Chapter 31
     
    Cotton put his hand out. “Pleased to meet you, gentlemen. Please excuse Victoria -- she’s never pleasant this time of the moon cycle.”
    It took all my self-control not to go into wolf form and try to rip his throat out. Of course, as a ghost, there really wasn’t any throat, or any other substance, to rip. But that hadn’t stopped me when I was a younger undead and it wasn’t stopping me now.
    Jack standing there was stopping me. I didn’t want to do anything that would make him think that Cotton had a real line on me or how I thought or acted.
    Freddy took Cotton’s hand, insomuch