The Night Beat

thought the lower levels looked bad, it was nothing compared to this. Whole walls were down, I wasn’t sure if there was a piece of furniture still intact. It was too crowded in there to be sure.
    Gagging from the smell, I did a fast nose count. Other than Martin and Black Angel One and Two, the full extended team was accounted for plus extras. I recognized the extras as the Dirt Corps beings who’d helped follow the scent trails the other day.
    Everyone looked like they were still with us, but they all looked worse for wear, too. I was relieved down to my claws that Amanda and Maurice were ambulatory. The Count was doing the vampire hover thing, but even he looked like he’d seen some action.
    As I looked around, I realized Ralph was the least injured. He was also growling, but not at anything in particular. I realized he was growling at the smell.
    I concentrated and examined the scent with all my senses. I started to growl, too. I was surprised Hansel and Gretel weren’t, but managed to take a better look at them -- they weren’t looking too great. We were going to have a lot of beings heading to the hospital. Hot night for the little undeads tour group.
    “You get it?” Ralph asked through bared fangs.
    “Yes. Can we track it?”
    “No. I just wanted you to know and to be sure that it wasn’t me making it up.”
    “Ralph, there’s a lot of things I know about you, and one is that you’d never make something like this up. But, I’m glad you let me smell it for myself.” Well, glad was pushing it. But I didn’t have time to find the correct word.
    “What’s Ralph talking about?” Jack asked.
    “The stench, I’m sure,” Sexy Cindy said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Damn. I thought the sulfur was bad. What is that?”
    Every head, even the ones that were extremely banged up, turned and every set of eyes stared at her.
    “What do you think it smells like?” I asked carefully.
    “Shit, of the worst kind. Mixed up with, I don’t know, skunk stink and, gag me, rotting parts.” Sexy Cindy was gagging for real. “How can you all stand it?”
    Ralph and I exchanged a look. “Only Ralph, Hansel, Gretel and I actually can smell it.”
    “Girl, the place reeks. You telling me no one else is ready to toss it because of breathing?”
    The Count floated down and landed next to her. “How did they miss you?” he asked softly. “How did they let you escape?”
    The answer came to me. After all, I’d spent a lot of time with her now. “She’d shut her brain off, to survive. And she’s like a chameleon in a lot of ways -- when she’s around scum, she reflects them. When she’s around good beings, she reflects that. They only saw the cheap hooker side of her.”
    “I didn’t,” Freddy said loyally.
    “That’s true,” Sexy Cindy said. “Freddy always told me I was a lady. But then, he was a professor before he fell on hard times.”
    “Professor of what?” It had never occurred to me to ask.
    “Theology,” Freddy replied, as if it had no bearing on this entire situation.
    I nodded and refrained from kicking myself. “Yeah, they missed both of you. I mean, we did, too, but they had more time to sniff you out than we did. What did you two do when they did that incantation?”
    “We booked it out of there,” Sexy Cindy said in between gagging. “Went to the shelter for the night.”
    “So Abaddon never saw them, never felt them,” Ken said quietly from behind me.
    “Therefore, Apollyon wouldn’t have known to dust them.” I looked back to the Count. “They stay with me.”
    He nodded. “I agree. However, I believe I must insist that you have angelic support and protection as well.”
    Jack groaned quietly. “Before that, you mind telling the rest of us what’s so special about Cindy and Freddy?”
    Ken cleared his throat. “I didn’t realize, or I would have given them more undead options.”
    “Not your fault,” the Count said soothingly. “Not all the fallen are found, and all the Gods and Monsters work in mysterious ways, you know that.”
    “Fallen what?” Jack asked, cop voice back in place.
    “Fallen angels.”
    “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Sexy Cindy said. “I ain’t no fallen angel.”
    “No, you’re not. ‘Not all the fallen are found’ is an undead expression,” H.P. explained. “It started with the true fallen angels, of course, but it’s expanded in its usage to cover any time a mistake is made with resurrection or the