The Night Beat, From the Necropolis Enforcement Files Read Online Free PDF Page B

what happened? Are you going to be okay? Do you need a transfusion?”
    “Just got banged up, Ralph.”
    “I’d better stick with you. Werewolves need to pack together.” He was serious. Ralph Rogers, Werewolf With a Cause. He was a big, good-looking wolf, but a weregirl could only take so much dork in her life and Ralph threatened to exceed my limit on a nightly basis.
    “I think we can handle it, Ralphie,” Maurice said, as he pointedly swished by. Ralph and Maurice didn’t get along. At all.
    The med personnel got their paws, claws and talons on me, and I got hustled into a medical bay. They tried to keep Ralph and Maurice out, but Ralph was loud and insistent and Maurice was willing to be nasty and they knew it, so ultimately, it was a intimate group of ten by the time I got onto a bed.
    Ralph tried to get next to me. Maurice blocked him every time and made it look accidental. Really, a werewolf doesn’t stand a chance against a vampire, especially a smart and sneaky vampire, and there weren’t a lot of earnest and apple-cheeked ones out there.
    “Ralph, I really think I’m okay. I didn’t lose any blood, all my limbs are attached, and I can feel my bones setting themselves. Shouldn’t you be out on patrol or something?”
    “It’s my night off.” Ralph gave Maurice a dirty look. “Though I see I shouldn’t have taken it.”
    “Ralph, it was an ancient Sumerian demon crossed with some sort of slime monster. Maurice gave it his all, just like the rest of us.”
    “I note he’s not the one injured.” Ralph made this sound like Maurice had tossed me to Slimy and then run off screaming.
    “I wasn’t the one who went on Mister Monster’s Wild Ride,” Maurice said haughtily. “I also wasn’t the one listening to the Enforcement Band Radio to be able to intercept the object of my unrequited affections the moment she returned on premises.”
    Ralph growled, always impressive in a werewolf. The doctor in charge had enough. “All personnel who aren’t medically trained and part of my med team, out. Now. That particularly means you, Agent Rogers.”
    Ralph bared his teeth, shot me an expectant look that turned to doggy-disappointment when I didn’t demand he stay so we could hold paws, heaved the big sigh, then turned tail and left. The tension in the room dropped.
    Maurice winked at me. “I’ll ride herd on Mister Lovestruck. I can see why you want the human when this is your most likely alternate.”
    “I have options!”
    “Uh huh. Let’s talk about why you and Ken didn’t work out, shall we?”
    “Later,” the doctor snapped. “After she’s healed later.”
    Maurice blew kisses to all and swished out after Ralph. The tension in the room went back to normal.
    “How do you deal with them?” one of the nurses asked as they started the various tortures we called medical treatment.
    “I tell myself it could always be worse.”
    “How?”
    “I could be living and working with my parents.”

Chapter 10
     
    I was through with the torture that was medical care and ready to go back on duty. The only downside was that I knew without asking that Ralph was waiting for me. I prayed Maurice was, too.
    I normally didn’t waste prayer on something minor, but it had been a long night and Ralph always jumped up and down on my last nerve. Besides, if things went according to how they’d seemed, Jack was going to be here soon, and I didn’t really want to have to introduce him to Ralph.
    Of course, what I wanted and what was going to happen were rarely the same thing. Yahweh didn’t waste help on the minor stuff, which was why it never paid to bother him with it. This was one reason why plenty of other gods had a lot of Necropolite followers. Zeus and his gang were all over the little stuff, for example. But experience had taught me that when it was you against the Prince, it really paid to have the god willing to get down, dirty, and personally involved on your side.
    However, I wasn’t facing the