The Night Beat

two women and made them their wives. The younger one actually legally married a third woman. In addition to the well over thirty people they murdered, they also killed all their own children. All but one.”
    Jack kept his expression very blank. “I see. What were their names?”
    “They had a few first names, but went most commonly by Big and Little Harp. Big died first -- he was beheaded in seventeen-ninety-nine. Little died about five years later. The women went off. Two of them remarried and went to different parts of the country. Susan Wood, the one with the only surviving Harp child, went to Tennessee. ” I wasn’t shaking. I was proud of myself.
    “How did they survive?” Sexy Cindy asked softly. “The mother and…daughter?”
    I nodded. “Eudora Harp was an infant when Big died and because Little had run off, she didn’t really know him, either. Susan felt Eudora’s life had been spared because the Harps thought she was special, that she would be their legacy. Susan told Eudora all about her father -- fathers, really -- about all they’d done. No one was ever sure which Harp fathered which child. Not that it mattered.”
    “Lineage does matter,” Freddy said.
    “Not in this case,” the Count interjected. “In the case of the Harps, part of the reason they were so evil is that they shared one soul between them. They’d each sold half their soul to the Prince and then he mingled what was left between them. It gave them power and strength, in that sense, but it also made them what they were. Then again, they wanted to be what they were.”
    “They were the Prince’s loyal and enthusiastic servants on the human plane,” I continued. “And when they died, what was left of their souls went straight to him. He created one being from them -- the Adversary.”
    “Another name for the devil in the Bible,” Freddy said. “And, I assume, like the others, incorrect?”
    “Right. It’s a title, really, for the Prince’s top general in the war. Reporting wasn’t all it could have been in the olden days and innumerable translations tend to mix things up a bit. In the course of time, the Prince has had many hold the position of Adversary. But none have been as successful as this one.” I took a deep breath. “In the time since the Harps became the Adversary, murder, sin, depravity, evil in general has increased exponentially. The more evil done, the stronger the Adversary grows.”
    “Is it stoppable?” Jack asked.
    “Yes,” the Count answered. “All the Adversaries who have come before have been destroyed by our side.”
    “Usually at a great cost,” Monty added. “It was bad enough with Abaddon and Apollyon here. With the Adversary on the plane, we’ve gone from bad to horrifyingly worse.”
    “Thanks for the booster speech,” Sexy Cindy said. “So, what happened to Eudora? And her mother?”
    My jaw clenched. “The Adversary came back and found them.” Sexy Cindy and Freddy looked concerned, Jack looked angry. I shook my head. “You might have thought those three women would have hated the Harps, wouldn’t you? But they went back to them any time they were separated. Even when the women were imprisoned for the men’s crimes, once they were freed with provisions and a way out, they went back to them. Back to the men who had murdered their children and a slew of innocent people.”
    I was still in full werewolf form and it was all I could do to keep from baring my teeth. “The Adversary arrived on the doorstep and Eudora discovered that Susan had been pining for the Harp brothers. She gave herself to them, willingly.”
    “What about Eudora?” Sexy Cindy asked. “What did they do to her?”
    I could barely get the words out. “They offered her immortality, to join them as the Prince’s servant.”
    “What did Eudora do?” Jack asked softly.
    I couldn’t talk. Because all I could do was growl.
    Monty cleared his throat. “She stood up to them, to her parents, to the Adversary.” He chuckled. “She told them to go back to Hell, where they belonged.”
    “Then what happened?” Freddy asked.
    I found my voice. “Then they brought Hell to her, right there.”
    *****
    Eudora watched the monster that was her father grow into something indescribable, but terrifying. Her mother gazed upon it lovingly, and Eudora’s stomach clenched.
    “You will join us, or we will obliterate you from existence,” the thing said to her, voice booming. Horrifying things, things of