The Night Beat

worked out. Not that she was the vampire equivalent of a body builder or something, but she was stronger than the average vamp. She was at least as strong as Monty.
    “I’d take one, but Vicki squirms,” Maurice said. Sadly, he was right. Werewolves don’t like to fly all that much. And Maurice loved to fly fast and wild. It was all I could do to not claw him and jump for the illusion of safety when I wasn’t hurt. When I was it took all my concentration and his to keep me from freaking out, even if he flew slowly.
    “You need to get moving,” Ken said.
    “I’ll see you later, partner,” Jack said as he handed me to Maurice. “Behave and don’t bite someone’s head off.”
    “Funny. See you later.”
    Maurice snorted, Amanda picked up H.P., our new zombie and our new succubus, and we all took off.
    “Slow down!”
    “Vicki, Vic, Vicster, Vicarino…you freak at granddaddy speeds, you freak at NASCAR speeds. I’m a formula vehicle and since it makes no difference, I’m going to get us there faster so I get clawed less.”
    Maurice had a point. I shut up, closed my eyes, and tried to relax.
    Didn’t help. I could feel the air moving past us, smell everything we whizzed by, hear the noises that showed me our speed.
    “What happened?” This question came from the succubus.
    “Well, an ancient Sumerian demon manifested and they always come out hungry,” H.P. began. I could recognize a lecture starting. I opened my eyes, did my best to drown out the lecture by humming “Werewolves of London”, and tried to enjoy the view.
    All things considered, Prosaic City looked pretty good from the air. Like all big American cities it had a variety of business and high-rise sections, older stately buildings surrounded by newer, sleeker ones, scattered suburban sections filled with every kind of tract home from simple to McMansion, a lot of streets and highways, an old downtown nice people didn’t want to be in after dark, a newer downtown where they did, and a variety of uptown and other higher class, hot spot, and trendy areas. Unlike many cities, it had a variety of rivers running through it and an impressive bridge system.
    And unlike every other city in this hemisphere, it had an underground like you wouldn’t believe.
    Prosaic City was one of the country’s older inhabited burgs. In the course of its existence it’s been rebuilt several times. Because it was built on top of Necropolis. Which was a bad move by the old-time Prosaic City Planning Council, but everyone makes mistakes, right? Just because no one else had settled on the pretty spot next to the water didn’t mean anything, they reasoned, they’d just gotten there first.
    Actually, they’d gotten there last.
    There are points in the world where the occult pull is particularly strong. Where the ley lines, longitude, latitude, winds, weather, and general forces of both nature and the occult combine with placement in the cosmos and an entity is formed that shouldn’t be able to exist in reality. I’ve heard them called hell mouths, portals, doorways, entryways, and a variety of other terms. But those aren’t really accurate.
    What forms isn’t a door. What forms is a city. A city that exists both in this plane of reality and all the others at the same time. A place that wasn’t built but can never be removed, a power created by everything and nothing at the same time, something that wasn’t born but can never die. What my kind call an Undead City.
    In the American hemisphere, that city is Necropolis.
    Necropolis was here first, but most of its residents immigrated over time. The pull from an Undead City is strong. The power in one is even stronger.
    Prosaic City was built right on top of Necropolis. This made things hard for the Necropolites and weird for the Prosaics. Due to the way an Undead City worked, the humans could and did put their buildings and roads and such on top of things of ours that were already there. So, City Hall and the city courthouse was right on top of what was considered Necropolis’ Red Light District, which, as the Count said, made poetic sense.
    All the undead can see into at least two planes of existence, and most can see into more. Vampires and liches can see almost as many planes as a god. Werewolves aren’t quite as powerful magically, so we have limits. Which was okay with me. I had enough fun keeping Necropolis separated from Prosaic City on a nightly basis.
    Not that I wasn’t good at it. I was