Bloody Bones (38 page)

“And you believed her?”

He shook his head. “I'm the only person in the family who has the power. We are the guardians forever as penance for stealing it, for letting it kill.” He collapsed to his knees in the blue, blue flowers, his head bowed, hair spilling forward to hide his face. “I'll never be free.”

“You don't deserve to be free,” Dorrie said.

“Why did Serephina want you so badly?” I asked.

“She's afraid of death. She says drinking from something as long-lived as I am helps her keep death at bay.”

“She's a vampire,” Larry protested.

“But not immortal,” I said.

Magnus looked up, strange aquamarine eyes glimmering out through his shining hair. Maybe it was the hair, or the eyes, or his being nearly covered in the strange moving, not moving flowers, but he didn't look very human.

“She fears death,” he said. “She fears you.” His voice was low and echoing.

“She nearly cleaned my clock last night. Why's she afraid of me?”

“You brought death among us last night.”

“It can't be the first time,” I said.

“She came to me for my long life, my immortal blood. Perhaps she will go to you next. Perhaps instead of running from death, she will embrace it.”

The skin on my arms twitched, marching in gooseflesh up to my elbows. “She tell you that last night?”

“There is a power involved, hurting her old enemy Jean-Claude, but in the end, Anita, she wonders if your power would make the difference. If she drank you up, would she be immortal? Would you be able to keep death from her with your necromancy?”

“You could leave town,” Larry said. I wasn't sure which of us he was speaking to.

I shook my head. “Master vampires don't give up that easy. I'll tell Stirling that I won't be raising his dead, Magnus. No one else can do it but me, so it won't get done.”

“But they won't give back the land,” Magnus said in his strange voice. “If they simply blow up the mountain, the result might be the same.”

“Is that true, Dorrie?”

She nodded. “It could be.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

Magnus crawled through the flowers, peering at me through the shining curtain of his hair. His eyes were swirling bands of green and blue, whirling until I was dizzy. I looked away.

“Raise a handful of the dead. Can you do that?” he asked.

“No sweat,” I said. “But will everybody's lawyers agree to that?”

“I'll see that they do,” he said.

“Dorrie?” I asked.

She nodded. “I'll see to it.”

I stared at Magnus for a moment. “Will Serephina really rescue the boy?”

“Yes,” he said.

I stared down at him. “Then I'll see you tonight.”

“No, I'll be well and truly drunk again. It's not foolproof, but it helps drown her out.”

“Fine; I'll raise you a handful of dead. Keep your land safe.”

“You have our gratitude,” Magnus said. He looked feral, frightening, beautiful crouched in the flowers. His gratitude might be worth something if Serephina didn't kill him first.

Hell, if she didn't kill me first.

33

I
CALLED
S
PECIAL
Agent Bradford late in the day. They hadn't found Xavier. They hadn't found Jeff. They hadn't found any vampires that I needed to kill, and why the hell was I calling him? I was not on this case, remember? I remembered. And yes, the two youngest victims had been sexually assaulted, but not the same day they were killed. I probably should have brought Magnus in, but he was the only one who understood the spells on Bloody Bones. He wouldn't be any good to us locked up. Dorrie knew a local witch she trusted. I'd thought that maybe Bloody Bones was our killer. I'd never seen a vampire hide itself so completely from me as the one that killed Coltrain. I'd added it to my list of suspects, but hadn't told the cops. Now I was glad I hadn't. The sexual assault had Xavier written all over it. Besides, explaining that a nursery boggle from Scotland was committing murders on the ethereal plane sounded farfetched even to me.

The sky was thick with clouds that glowed like jewels. They shimmered and stretched across the sky like a gigantic gleaming blanket that some great beast had shredded with massive claws. Through the holes in the clouds, the sky
peeked through black with a few diamond-chip stars bright enough to compete with the gleaming sky.

I stood on the hilltop staring up at the sky, breathing in the cool spring air. Larry stood beside me, looking up. His eyes reflected the glowing light.

“Get on with it,” Stirling said.

I turned and looked at him. Him, Bayard, and Ms. Harrison. Beau had been with them, but I'd made him wait at the bottom of the mountain. I'd even told him if he so much as showed his face up top, I'd put a bullet in it. I wasn't sure Stirling believed me, but Beau had.

“Not an appreciator of nature's beauty, are you, Raymond?”

Even by moonlight I could see his scowl. “I want this over with, Ms. Blake. Now, tonight.”

Strangely enough, I agreed with him. It made me nervous. I didn't like Raymond. It made me want to argue with him, regardless of whether I agreed. But I didn't argue. Point for me.

“I'll get it done tonight, Raymond; don't sweat it.”

“Please stop calling me by my first name, Ms. Blake.” He made the request through clenched teeth, but he had said “please.”

“Fine. It'll be done tonight, Mr. Stirling. Okay?”

He nodded. “Thank you; now get on with it.”

I opened my mouth to say something smart, but Larry said very softly, “Anita.”

He was right, as usual. As much fun as it was to yank Stirling's chain, it was just delaying the inevitable. I was tired of Stirling, of Magnus, and of everything. It was time to do this job and go home. Well, maybe not straight home. I wouldn't leave without Jeff Quinlan, one way or another.

The goat gave a high, questioning bleat. It was staked out in the middle of the boneyard. It was a brown-and-white-spotted goat with those strange yellow eyes they sometimes have. It had floppy white ears and seemed to like having the top of its head scratched. Larry had petted it in the Jeep on the drive over. Always a bad idea. Never get friendly with the sacrifices. Makes it hard to kill them.

I had not petted the goat. I knew better. This was Larry's first goat. He'd learn. Hard or easy, he'd learn. There were two more goats at the bottom of the hill. One of them was even smaller and cuter than this one.

“Shouldn't we have the Bouviers' lawyers present, Mr. Stirling?” Bayard said.

“The Bouviers waived having their attorney present,” I said.

“Why would they do that?” Stirling asked.

“They trust me not to lie to them,” I said.

Stirling looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't see his eyes clearly, but I could feel the wheels inside his head moving.

“You're going to lie for them, aren't you?” he said. His voice was cold, repressed, too angry for heat.

“I don't lie about the dead, Mr. Stirling. Sometimes about the living, but never about the dead. Besides, Bouvier didn't offer me a bribe. Why should I help him if he doesn't throw money at me?”

Larry didn't call me on that one. He was looking at Stirling, too. Wondering what he'd say, maybe.

“You've made your point, Ms. Blake. Can we get on with it now?” He sounded reasonable, ordinary suddenly. All that anger, all that mistrust, had had to go somewhere. But it wasn't in his voice.

“Fine.” I knelt and opened the gym bag at my feet. It held my animating equipment. I had another one that held vampire gear. I used to just transfer whatever I wanted into the bag. I bought a second bag after I showed up once at a zombie raising with the wrong bag. It was also illegal to carry vampire slaying stuff if you didn't have a warrant of execution on you. Brewster's law might change that, but until then . . . I had two bags. The zombie was my normal burgundy one; the vampire bag was white. Even in the dark, it was easy to tell them apart. That was the plan.

Larry's zombie bag was a nearly virulent green with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it. I was almost afraid to ask what his vampire bag looked like.

“Let me test my understanding here,” Larry said. My words fed back to me. He knelt and unzipped his bag.

“Go ahead, ” I said. I got out my jar of ointment. I knew animators who had special containers for the ointment. Crockery, hand-blown glass, mystical symbols carved into the sides. I used an old Mason jar that had once held Grandma Blake's green beans.

Larry fished out a peanut butter jar with the label still on it. Extra-crunchy. Yum-yum.

“We have to raise a minimum of three zombies, right?”

“Right,” I said.

He stared around at the scattered bones. “A mass grave is hard to raise from, right?”

“This isn't a mass grave. It's an old cemetery that was disturbed. That's easier than a mass grave.”

“Why?” he asked.

I laid the machete down beside the jar of ointment. “Because each grave had rites performed that would tie the dead individual to the grave, so that if you call it you have a better chance of getting an individual to answer.”

“Answer?”

“Rise from the dead.”

He nodded. He laid a wicked curved blade on the ground. It looked like a freaking scimitar.

“Where did you get that?”

He dipped his head, and I would have bet he was blushing. Just couldn't see it by moonlight.

“Guy at college.”

“Where'd he get it?”

Larry looked at me, surprise plain on his face. “I don't know. Is something wrong with it?”

I shook my head. “Just a little fancy for beheading chickens and slitting a few goats open.”

“It felt good in my hand.” He shrugged. “Besides, it looks cool.” He grinned at me.

I shook my head, but I let it go. Did I really need a machete to behead a few chickens, no, but the occasional cow, yeah.

Why, you may ask, didn't we have a cow tonight? No one
would sell Bayard one. He had the brilliant idea of telling the farmers why he wanted the cow. The God-fearing folk would sell their cows to be eaten, but not for raising zombies. Prejudiced bastards.

“The youngest of the dead here are two hundred years old, right?” Larry asked.

“Right,” I said.

“We're going to raise a minimum of three of these corpses in good enough condition for them to answer questions.”

“That's the plan,” I said.

“Can we do that?”

I smiled at him. “That's the plan.”

His eyes widened. “Damn, you don't know if we can do it either, do you?” His voice had dropped to an amazed whisper.

“We raise three zombies a night every night routinely. We're just doing them back to back.”

“We don't raise two-hundred-year-old zombies routinely.”

“True, but the theory's the same.”

“Theory?” He shook his head. “I know we're in trouble when you start talking about theories. Can we do this?”

The honest answer was no, but the thing that dictated more than anything else what you could raise and what you couldn't was confidence. Believing you could do it. So . . . I was tempted to lie. But I didn't. Truth between Larry and me.

“I think we can do it.”

“But you don't know for sure,” he said.

“No.”

“Geez, Anita.”

“Don't get rattled on me. We can do this.”

“But you aren't sure.”

“I'm not sure we'll survive the plane ride home, but I'm still getting on the plane.”

“Was that supposed to be comforting?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“It wasn't,” he said.

“Sorry, but this is as good as it gets. You want certainty, be an accountant.”

“I'm not good at math.”

“Me either.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Alright, boss, how do we combine powers?”

I told him.

“Neat.” He didn't look nervous anymore. He looked eager. Larry may have wanted to be a vampire executioner, but he was an animator. It wasn't a career choice, it was a gift, or a curse. No one could teach you to raise the dead unless you had the power in your blood. Genetics is a wonderful thing: brown eyes, curly hair, zombie raising.

“Whose ointment you want to use?” Larry asked.

“Mine.” I'd given Larry the recipe for the ointment and told him which ingredients you couldn't mess with, like the graveyard mold, but there was room for experimentation. Every animator had their own special recipe. You never knew what Larry's ointment would smell like. For sharing powers you used the same ointment, so we were using mine.

For all I knew, we didn't have to use the same ointment, but I'd only shared my powers three times. Twice with the man who trained me as an animator. Each time we'd used the same ointment. I had acted as a focus all three times. Which meant I was in charge. Where I liked to be, right?

“Could I act as a focus?” Larry asked. “Not this time, but later?”

“If this comes up again, we'll try it,” I said. Truth was, I didn't know if Larry had the power to be a focus. Manny, who taught me, couldn't do it. Very few animators could act as a focus. Those who could were mistrusted by the rest, and most wouldn't play with us. We would literally share our powers. A lot of animators wouldn't be willing to do that. There is a theory that you could permanently steal another's magic. But I don't buy it. Raising the dead isn't like a magic charm that someone can take with them, and leave you without. Animating is built into the cells of our bodies. It's part of us. You can't steal that.

I opened the ointment, and the spring air suddenly smelled like Christmas trees. I used a lot of rosemary.

The ointment was thick and waxy and always felt cool. Flecks of glowing graveyard mold looked like ground-up lightning bugs. I smeared ointment across Larry's forehead, down his cheeks. He untucked his t-shirt and raised it so I could dab it over his heart. Which is harder than it sounds with a shoulder holster on, but we'd both worn a gun apiece. I had left both knives and my backup gun in the Jeep. I touched his skin and could feel his heart pounding under my hand.

I handed Larry the Mason jar. He dipped two fingers into the thick ointment. He traced ointment over my face. His hand was very steady, face blank with concentration. Eyes utterly serious.

I unbuttoned the polo shirt and Larry slipped his fingers inside to touch my heart. His fingers rubbed the chain of my crucifix, spilling it out of my shirt. I slipped it back inside next to my skin. He handed the jar back to me, and I screwed the lid on tight. Wouldn't do to let it dry out.

I'd never heard of anyone doing exactly what we were about to attempt. Not the age part, but the scattered bodies. We only wanted three, but there weren't three intact bodies. Even doing them one at a time, it was chancy. How to raise just so much dead and no more when they were lying jumbled together? I had no names to use. No gravesite to encircle with power. How to do it?