I stood up, and nearly fell; my legs were shaky. John caught my arm, and I stared at him until he let go. He gave a half-smile. “Still a hard case.”
“Always,” I said.
There had been two dates between us. Mistake. It made working together more awkward, and he couldn’t cope with me being a female version of him. He had this old southern idea of what a lady should be. A lady should not carry a gun and spend most of her time covered in blood and corpses. I had two words for that attitude. Yeah, those are the words.
There was a large fish tank smashed against one wall. It had held guinea pigs, or rats, or rabbits. All it held now were bright splashes of blood and bits of fur. Vampires don’t eat meat, but if you put small animals in a glass container, then throw it against the wall, you get diced small animals. There wasn’t enough left to scoop up with a spoon.
There was a head near the glass mess, probably male, judging from the short hair and style. I didn’t go any closer to check. I didn’t want to see the face. I’d have been brave tonight. I had nothing left to prove.
The body was in one piece, barely. It looked like the vampire had shoved both hands into the chest, grabbed a handful of ribs and pulled. The chest was nearly torn in two, but a band of pink muscle tissue and intestine held it together.
“The head’s got fangs,” Zerbrowski said.
“It’s the vampire counsellor,” I said.
“What happened?”
I shrugged. “At a guess, the counsellor was leaning over the vamp when it rose. It killed him, quick and messy.”
“Why’d it kill the vampire counsellor?” Dolph asked.
I shrugged. “It was more animal than human, Dolph. It woke up in a strange place with a strange vampire leaning over it. It reacted like any trapped animal and protected itself.”
“Why couldn’t the counsellor control it? That’s what he was here for.”
“The only person who can control an animalistic vampire is the master who made it. The counsellor wasn’t powerful enough to control it.”
“Now what?” John asked. He’d put up his gun. I still hadn’t. I felt better with it out for some reason.
“Now I go make my third animation appointment of the evening.”
“Just like that?”
I looked up at him, ready to be angry at somebody. “What do you want me to do, John? Fall into a screaming fit? That wouldn’t bring back the dead, and it would annoy the hell out of me.”
He sighed. “If you only matched your packaging.”
I put my gun back in the shoulder holster, smiled at him, and said, “Fuck you.”
Yeah, those are the words.
Chapter 19
I had washed most of the blood off my face and hands in the bathroom at the morgue. The bloodstained coveralls were in my trunk. I was clean and presentable, or as presentable as I was going to get tonight. Bert had said to meet the new guy at my third appointment for the night. Oakglen Cemetery, ten o’clock. The theory was that the new man already raised two zombies and would just watch me raise the third one. Fine with me.
It was 10:35 before I pulled into Oakglen Cemetery. Late. Dammit. It’d make a great impression on the new animator, not to mention my client. Mrs. Doughal was a recent widow. Like five days recent. Her dearly departed husband had left no will. He’d always meant to get around to it, but you know how it is, just kept putting it off. I was to raise Mr. Doughal in front of two lawyers, two witnesses, the Doughals’ three grown children, and a partridge in a pear tree. They’d made a ruling just last month that the newly dead, a week or less, could be raised and verbally order a will. It would save the Doughals half their inheritance. Minus lawyer fees, of course.
There was a line of cars pulled over to the side of the narrow gravel road. The tires were playing hell with the grass, but if you didn’t park off to one side, nobody could use the road. Of course, how many people needed to use a cemetery road at 10:30 at night? Animators, voodoo priests, pot-smoking teenagers, necrophiliacs, satanists. You had to be a member of a legitimate religion and have a permit to worship in a cemetery after dark. Or be an animator. We didn’t need a permit. Mainly because we didn’t have a reputation for human sacrifice. A few bad apples have really given voodooists a bad name. Being Christian, I sort of frown on satanism. I mean, they are, after all, the bad guys. Right?
As soon as my foot hit the road, I felt it. Magic. Someone was trying to raise the dead, and they were very near at hand.
The new guy had already raised two zombies. Could he do a third?
Charles and Jamison could only do two a night. Where had Bert found someone this powerful on such short notice?
I walked past five cars, not counting my own. There were nearly a dozen people pressed around the grave. The women were in skirt-suits; the men all wore ties. It was amazing how many people dressed up to come to the graveyard. The only reason most people come to the graveyard is for a funeral. A lot of clients dress for one, semiformal, basic black.
It was a man’s voice leading the mourners in rising calls of, “Andrew Doughal, arise. Come to us, Andrew Doughal, come to us.”
The magic built on the air until it pressed against me like a weight. It was hard to get a full breath. His magic rode the air, and it was strong, but uncertain. I could feel his hesitation like a touch of cold air. He would be powerful, but he was young. His magic tasted untried, undisciplined. If he wasn’t under twenty-one, I’d eat my hat.
That’s how Bert had found him. He was a baby, a powerful baby. And he was raising his third zombie of the night. Hot damn.
I stayed in the shadows under the tall trees. He was short, maybe an inch or two taller than me, which made him five-four at best. He wore a white dress shirt and dark slacks. Blood had dried on the shirt in nearly black stains. I’d have to teach him how to dress, as Manny had taught me. Animating is still on an informal apprenticeship. There are no college courses to teach you how to raise the dead.
He was very earnest as he stood there calling Andrew Doughal from the grave. The crowd of lawyers and relatives huddled at the foot of the grave. There was no family member inside the blood circle with the new animator. Normally, you put a family member behind the tombstone so he or she could control the zombie. This way, only the animator could control it. But it wasn’t an oversight, it was the law. The dead could be raised to request and dictate a will but only if the animator, or some neutral party, had control of it.
The mound of flowers shuddered and a pale hand shot upward, grabbing at the air. Two hands, the top of a head. The zombie spilled from the grave like it was being pulled by strings.
The new animator stumbled. He fell to his knees in the soft dirt and dying flowers. The magic stuttered, wavering. He’d bitten off one zombie more than he could finish. The dead man was still struggling from the grave. Still trying to get its legs free, but there was no one controlling it. Lawrence Kirkland had raised the zombie, but he couldn’t control it. The zombie would be on its own with no one to make it mind. Uncontrolled zombies give animators a bad name.
One of the lawyers was saying, “Are you all right?”
Lawrence Kirkland nodded his head, but he was too exhausted to speak. Did he even now realize what he’d done? I didn’t think so. He wasn’t scared enough.
I walked up to the huddled group. “Ms. Blake, we missed you,” the lawyer said. “Your… associate seems to be ill.”
I gave them my best professional smile. See nothing wrong. A zombie isn’t about to go amuck. Trust me.
I walked to the edge of the blood circle. I could feel it like a wind pushing me back. The circle was shut, and I was on the outside. I couldn’t get in unless Lawrence asked me in.
He was on all fours, hands lost in the flowers of the grave. His head hung down, as if he was too tired to raise it. He probably was.