The Night Beat

wonderful thing. According to some, instinct was nothing more than the sum total of all your experiences -- everything that had ever happened to you, that you’d ever read, seen, heard, felt or thought -- bundled together in a tiny part of your hindbrain. Others said instincts were passed down species by species, to help said species survive, and that most instinctive reactions have no real basis in thought or even the experience of the specific reactor, just that if you were a gazelle and you saw a lion, you were going to run, period.
    My personal opinion was that both were true. I had instinctive reactions to things as a werewolf that I’d never have had as a human, and vice versa.
    One thing about instinct -- I never, ever argued with it. And my instincts told me that Jerry was about to be dusted, but not by my side.
    I leaped off him, grabbed Jack, and flung him and myself at Freddy and Sexy Cindy. Uninjured werewolves are strong and I threw the three of them as far as I could. I leaped after them, landed and turned, ready to go knock the angels out of the way.
    But there wasn’t time.

Chapter 43
     
    Jerry exploded into dust. One moment I was staring at a ripped up junkie deader. The next there was a layer of rust-colored dust floating over his grave.
    On the plus side, the ground stopped moving. On the negative side, the dust swirled up from the ground. The angels flipped their collective wings out and around themselves. They were protected, but the four of us weren’t. Jerry’s dust could infect us, based on who was likely controlling it.
    I had to figure Abaddon and Apollyon were with Jerry’s parents and the others, meaning we were likely dealing with the Adversary. I had to get the others out of here. Well, no time like the present for the learning of new skills.
    “Cindy, grab Freddy and Jack and fly out of here.”
    “Excuse me?” She sounded like I’d asked her to grow another head.
    “You can fly. You haven’t been trained yet, but you can, it’s a succubus trait.” I watched the dust float around the angels. It wasn’t sticking to them, but we weren’t likely to be that lucky. “Grab them and fly away.”
    “I can’t.”
    I turned and did a full on werewolf growl-snarl-howl combination that said I was going to eat her and anyone else nearby. “DO IT!”
    Werewolves can be very scary, and I’d ensured that I’d looked and sounded as much like Queen Bitch as possible. Sexy Cindy gave a little shriek, grabbed the others, and leaped into the air away from me. Her flying left a lot to be desired -- she was about a foot off the ground, no more, and wobbling like it was her first time on rollerblades. However, she was carrying the other two and they were getting away, and that’s what mattered.
    I turned back to watch Jerry’s dust. It circled the angels, gave up, and headed towards me. Normally when someone got dusted they went into the earth or sea or wherever. It didn’t matter if their motes were floating around, they were rendered null and void. In this case, I knew better.
    That the dust was animated meant it was under the Adversary’s control. Due to what had been in Jerry’s body, the dust would be deadly to me. I couldn’t breathe or swallow it, and I had a good guess that letting it land on me wasn’t going to be all fun and frolic either.
    I readied myself to jump and dodge, but was interrupted by Freddy dropping down in front of me. “Come on, you dirty little bastard,” he shouted at the dust. “Pathetic mamma’s boy can’t even die right!”
    Apparently the dust still had some of Jerry in it, because it veered right towards Freddy. Before I could react he opened his mouth and the dust flew into him, every single mote. Then he pulled a flask out of his hip pocket, took a long drink, and burped.
    He turned around, grinning, and winked at me. “A little dry.”
    “What did you do? We have to get you to medical right away.”
    He took another swig and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “Nope. Little zombie trick H.P. and Edgar filled me in on. Zombies can’t do the dusting, but we can indeed do the clean up.”
    “Huh?” I had nothing better to offer. Two hundred years plus undead and this was a new one to me. Sexy Cindy and Jack landed, to use the term loosely. After they picked themselves up from the ground, I tried again. “What are you talking about?”
    “Only matters in times like these, when you have an infected deader. I hadn’t understood