The Night Beat

creation of an undead.”
    “You saying we shouldn’t have been turned into undeads?” Now Sexy Cindy sounded ready to cry. “You think we belong in the dirt and the dark?”
    I was still in full werewolf form. Didn’t matter. I put my gun and mini-bow away, went to her and put my foreleg around her. “No.” I put my other one around Freddy. I had a feeling they were both going to have some trouble with what I was going to say next. “We’re saying that when Ken brought you to the undead side of existence, he gave you a limited range of options.”
    “Dude never stopped talking,” Sexy Cindy said. “It was like this never-ending list.”
    “But in that list, only a few options stood out to me,” Freddy said thoughtfully. “Zombie, lich…warlock. I picked zombie because it seemed the most…right.”
    Sexy Cindy nodded. “Yeah. I picked succubus because, well, it sounded like me.”
    I cleared my throat. “How about ‘angel’?”
    “H.P. just said they weren’t fallen angels,” Jack protested.
    “They’re not. A fallen angel originated from the angelic plane and fell from grace.” I sighed. “They’re like Martin. They could have, and probably should have, angelicized.”
    I’d been right -- they both started to shake. I held onto them and held them up.
    Ken shook his head. “I should have realized --”
    Edgar interrupted him. “How? How exactly would you have realized? It’s only because of what’s gone on and is in the process of unfolding that the realization has hit any of us. Stop blaming yourself.” He grimaced. “It’s too late to fix it, isn’t it?”
    “Far too late,” the Count said. “They’ve settled into themselves.”
    “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Sexy Cindy said. “But I don’t want to turn into some big fighting girl with badass wings.”
    “I’d rather teach,” Freddy added.
    “Well, that’s good,” I said as cheerfully as possible. “Because you’re pretty much stuck as you are.” I hugged them. “But don’t worry -- we’d rather have you like this. Angels sort of make everyone feel inferior.”
    “Got that right,” Jack muttered.
    “Besides, they might not have chosen, even if given the option,” Monty added. “Not all pick what we think they should. They pick what they think they should.”
    “Well, that’s a comfort,” Freddy said. He didn’t sound all that comforted, but both he and Sexy Cindy seemed like they were relaxing a little.
    “Every undead serves in their own way,” H.P. said. “You’re serving in yours. Splendidly, too, especially for your first days.” Those heads that could nod without too much pain or trouble did so. We were Go Team central.
    “Now what?” Sexy Cindy asked. “Do we clear out the damned smell?”
    “Interesting choice of words. See, what Ralph, Hansel, Gretel and I can smell, and what you can smell, is the scent of Hell. That ‘all the crap that’s fit to make you sick’ scent is the rarified dung from the Depths. But the skunk stink and rotting entrails addition lets us know, roughly, who came by to visit in our skins.”
    “Who would that be?” Jack asked.
    Oh well. I couldn’t dance around it any longer. Better they should know now, probably. So when the confrontation came it would be less of a shock.
    I would have liked to take a deep breath, but the stench was too much. I settled for fur ruffling and the wave of my tail that said I was really unhappy, annoyed and angry. “My father.”

Chapter 38
     
    I wasn’t watching anyone else’s face, only Jack’s. He took it in fast, did the mental calculations thing, and kept his expression extremely neutral. “I see. Does this complicate things?” He didn’t sound freaked out, he sounded like he did when we were dealing with a domestic dispute.
    “The only complication is that Victoria’s father is, sadly, one of the Prince’s most powerful minions,” the Count answered for me.
    “Want to clarify?” Jack asked, detective voice on full.
    “Just lucky, I guess.”
    This earned me a dirty look. “I want answers, Vic.” Jack didn’t sound like he was going to put up with me stalling any more. I sort of couldn’t blame him.
    Oh well. I’d known it was coming. Sooner or later, you have to tell beings the truth about your family, even if you don’t want to.
    “There were these two cousins, but they called themselves brothers. They were well beyond crazy -- they were evil and vicious because they could be. They stole