34
   I was half asleep in the back of the squad car when they pulled up in front of my apartment building. The throbbing pain in my throat had slid away on a smooth tide of pain medication. I felt nearly boneless. What had the doctor given me? It felt great, but it was like the world was some sort of movie that had little to do with me. Distant and harmless as a dream.
   I'd given Dolph my car keys. He promised to have someone park the car in front of my apartment building before morning. He also said he'd call Bert and tell him I wouldn't be in to work today. -I wondered how Bert would take the news. I wondered if I cared. Nope.
   One of the uniformed police officers leaned back over the seat and said, "You going to be alright, Miss Blake?"
   "Ms.," I corrected automatically.
   He gave me a half smile as he held the door for me. No door handles on the inside of a squad car. He had to hold the door for me, but he did it with relish, and said, "You going to be alright, Ms. Blake?"
   "Yes, Officer"-I had to blink to read his name tag-" Osborn. Thank you for bringing me home. To your partner, too."
   His partner was standing on the other side of the car, leaning his arms on the roof of the car. "It's a kick to finally meet the spook squad's Executioner." He grinned as he said it.
   I blinked at him and tried to pull all the pieces together enough to talk and think at the same time. "I was the Executioner long before the spook squad came along."
   He spread his hands, still grinning. "No offense."
   I was too tired and too drugged to worry about it. I just shook my head. "Thanks again."
   I was a touch unsteady going up the stairs. I clutched the railing like it was a lifeline. I'd sleep tonight. I might wake up in the middle of the hallway, but I'd sleep.
   It took me two tries to put the key in the door lock. I staggered into my apartment, leaning my forehead against the door to close it. I turned the lock and was safe. I was home. I was alive. The killer zombie was destroyed. I had the urge to giggle, but that was the pain medication. I never giggle on my own.
   I stood there leaning the top of my head against the door. I was staring at the toes of my Nikes. They seemed very far away, as if distances had grown since last I looked at my feet. The doc had given me some weird shit. I would not take it tomorrow. It was too reality-altering for my taste.
   The toes of black boots stepped up beside my Nikes. Why were there boots in my apartment? I started to turn around. I started to go for my gun. Too late, too slow, too fucking bad.
   Strong brown arms laced across my chest, pinning my arms. Pinning me against the door. I tried to struggle now that it was too late. But he had me. I craned my neck backwards trying to fight off the damn medication. I should have been terrified. Adrenaline pumping, but some drugs don't give a shit if you need your body. You belong to the drug until it wears off, period. I was going to hurt the doctor. If I lived through this.
   It was Bruno pinning me to the door.
   Tommy came up on the right. He had a needle in his hands.
   "NO!"
   Bruno cupped his hand over my mouth. I tried to bite him, and he slapped me. The slap helped a little but the world was still cotton-coated, distant. Bruno's hand smelled like after-shave. A choking sweetness.
   "This is almost too easy," Tommy said.
   "Just do it," Bruno said.
   I stared at the needle as it came closer to my arm. I would have told them that I was drugged already, if Bruno's hand hadn't been clasped over my mouth. I would have asked what was in the syringe, and whether it would react badly with what I had already taken. I never got the chance.
   The needle plunged in. My body stiffened, struggling, but Bruno held me tight. Couldn't move. Couldn't get away. Dammit! Dammit! The adrenaline was finally chasing the cobwebs away, but it was too late. Tommy took the needle out of my arm and said, "Sorry, we don't have any alcohol to swab it off with." He grinned at me.
   I hated him. I hated them both. And if the shot didn't kill me, I was going to kill them both. For scaring me. For making me feel helpless. For catching me unaware, drugged, and stupid. If I lived through this mistake, I wouldn't make it again. Please, dear God, let me live through this mistake.
   Bruno held me motionless and mute until I could feel the injection taking hold. I was sleepy. With a bad guy holding me against my will, I was sleepy. I tried to fight it, but it didn't work. My eyelids fluttered. I struggled to keep them open. I stopped trying to get away from Bruno and put everything I had into not closing my eyes.
   I stared at my door and tried to stay awake. The door swam in dizzying ripples as if I were seeing it through water. My eyelids went down, jerked up, down. I couldn't open my eyes. A small part of me fell screaming into the dark, but the rest of me felt loose and sleepy and strangely safe.

35
   I was in that faint edge of wakefulness. Where you know you're not quite asleep, but don't really want to wake up either. My body felt heavy. My head throbbed. And my throat was sore.
   The last thought made me open my eyes. I was staring at a white ceiling. Brown water marks traced the paint like spilled coffee. I wasn't home. Where was I?
   I remembered Bruno holding me down. The needle. I sat up then. The world swam in clear waves of color. I fell back onto the bed, covering my eyes with my hands. That helped a little. What had they given me?
   I had an image in my mind that I wasn't alone. Somewhere in that dizzying swirl of color had been a person. Hadn't there? I opened my eyes slower this time. I was content to stare up at the water-ruined ceiling. I was on a large bed. Two pillows, sheets, a blanket. I turned my head carefully and found myself staring into Harold Gaynor's face. He was sitting beside the bed. It wasn't what I wanted to wake up to.
   Behind him, leaning against a battered chest of drawers was Bruno. His shoulder holster cut black lines across his blue short-sleeved dress shirt. There was a matching and equally scarred vanity table near the foot of the bed. The vanity sat between two high windows. They were boarded with new, sweet-smelling lumber. The scent of pine rode the hot, still air.
   I started to sweat as soon as I realized that there was no air-conditioning.
   "How are you feeling, Ms. Blake?" Gaynor asked. His voice was still that jolly Santa voice with an edge of sibilance. As if he were a very happy snake.
   "I've felt better," I said.
   "I'm sure you have. You have been asleep for over twenty-four hours. Did you know that?"
   Was he lying? Why would he lie about how long I'd been asleep? What would it gain him? Nothing. Truth then, probably.
   "What the hell did you give me?"
   Bruno eased himself away from the wall. He looked almost embarrassed. "We didn't realize you'd already taken a sedative."
   "Painkiller," I said.
   He shrugged. "Same difference when you mix it with Thorazine."
   "You shot me up with animal tranquilizers?"
   "Now, now, Ms. Blake, they use it in mental institutions, as well. Not just animals," Gaynor said.
   "Gee," I said, "that makes me feel a lot better."
   He smiled broadly. "If you feel good enough to trade witty repartee, then you're well enough to get up."
   Witty repartee? But he was probably right. Truthfully, I was surprised I wasn't tied up. Glad of it, but surprised.
   I sat up much slower than last time. The room only tilted the tiniest bit, before settling into an upright position. I took a deep breath, and it hurt. I put a hand to my throat. It hurt to touch the skin.
   "Who gave you those awful bruises?" Gaynor asked.
   Lie or truth? Partial lie. "I was helping the police catch a bad guy. He got a little out of hand."
   "What happened to this bad guy?" Bruno asked.
   "He's dead now," I said.
   Something flickered across Bruno's face. Too quick to read. Respect maybe. Naw.
   "You know why I've had you brought here, don't you?"
   "To raise a zombie for you," I said.
   "To raise a very old zombie for me, yes."
   "I've refused your offer twice. What makes you think I'll change my mind?"
   He smiled, such a jolly old elf. "Why, Ms. Blake, I'll have Bruno and Tommy persuade you of the error of your ways. I still plan on giving you a million dollars to raise this zombie. The price hasn't changed."
   "Tommy offered me a million five last time," I said.
   "That was if you came voluntarily. We can't pay full price when you force us to take such chances."
   "Like a federal prison term for kidnapping," I said.
   "Exactly. Your stubbornness has cost you five hundred thousand dollars. Was it really worth that?"
   "I won't kill another human being just so you can go looking for lost treasure."
   "Little Wanda has been bearing tales."
   "I was just guessing, Gaynor. I read a file on you and it mentioned your obsession with your father's family." It was an outright lie. Only Wanda had known that.
   "I'm afraid it's too late. I know Wanda talked to you. She's confessed everything."
   Confessed? I stared at him, trying to read his blankly good humored face. "What do you mean, confessed?"
   "I mean I gave her to Tommy for questioning. He's not the artist that Cicely is, but he does leave more behind. I didn't want to kill my little Wanda."
   "Where is she now?"
   "Do you care what happens to a whore?" His eyes were bright and birdlike as he stared at me. He was judging me, my reactions.
   "She doesn't mean anything to me," I said. I hoped my face was as bland as my words. Right now they weren't going to kill her. If they thought they could use her to hurt me, they might.
   "Are you sure?"
   "Listen, I haven't been sleeping with her. She's just a chippie with a very bent angle."
   He smiled at that. "What can we do to convince you to raise this zombie for me?"
   "I will not commit murder for you, Gaynor. I don't like you that much," I said.
   He sighed. His apple-cheeked face looked like a sad Kewpie doll. "You are going to make this difficult, aren't you, Ms. Blake?"
   "I don't know how to make it easy," I said. I put my back to the cracked wooden headboard of the bed. I was comfortable enough, but I still felt a little fuzzy around the edges. But it was as good as it was going to get for a while. It beat the hell out of being unconscious.
   "We have not really hurt you yet," Gaynor said. "The reaction of the Thorazine with whatever other medication you had in you was accidental. We did not harm you on purpose."
   I could argue with that, but I decided not to. "So where do we go from here?"
   "We have both your guns," Gaynor said. "Without a weapon you are a small woman in the care of big, strong men."
   I smiled then. "I'm used to being the smallest kid on the block, Harry."
   He looked pained. "Harold or Gaynor, never Harry."
   I shrugged. "Fine."
   "You are not in the least intimidated that we have you completely at our mercy?"
   "I could argue that point."
   He glanced up at Bruno. "Such confidence, where does she get it?"
   Bruno didn't say anything. He just stared at me with those empty doll eyes. Bodyguard eyes, watchful, suspicious, and blank all at the same time.
   "Show her we mean business, Bruno."
   Bruno smiled, a slow spreading of lips that left his eyes dead as a shark's. He loosened his shoulders, and did a few stretching exercises against the wall. His eyes never left me.
   "I take it, I'm going to be the punching bag?" I asked.
   "How well you put it," Gaynor said.
   Bruno stood away from the wall, limber and eager. Oh, well. I slid off the bed on the opposite side. I had no desire for Gaynor to grab me. Bruno's reach was over twice mine. His legs went on forever. He had to outweigh me by nearly a hundred pounds, and it was all muscle. I was about to get badly hurt. But as long as they didn't tie me up, I'd go down swinging. If I could cause him any serious damage, I'd be satisfied.
   I came out from behind the bed, hands loose at my side. I was already in that partial crouch that I used on the judo mat. I doubted seriously if Bruno's fighting skill of choice was judo. I was betting karate or tae kwon do.
   Bruno stood in an awkward-looking stance, halfway between an x and a t. It looked like someone had taken his long legs and crumbled them at the knees. But as I moved forward he scooted backwards like a crab, fast and out of reach.
   "Jujitsu?" I made it half question.
   He raised an eyebrow. "Most people don't recognize it."
   "I've seen it," I said.
   "You practice?"
   "No."
   He smiled. "Then I am going to hurt you."
   "Even if I knew jujitsu, you'd hurt me," I said.
   "It'd be a fair fight."
   "If two people are equal in skill, size matters. A good big person will always beat a good small person." I shrugged. "I don't have to like it, but it's the truth."
   "You're being awful calm about this," Bruno said.
   "Would being hysterical help?"
   He shook his head. "Nope."
   "Then I'd just as soon take my medicine like, if you'll excuse the expression, a man."
   He frowned at that. Bruno was accustomed to people being scared of him. I wasn't scared of him. I'd decided to take the beating. With the decision came a certain amount of calm. I was going to get beat up, not pleasant, but I had made my mind up to take the beating. I could do it. I'd done it before. If my choices were a) getting beat up or b) performing human sacrifice, I'd take the beating.
   "Ready or not," Bruno said.
   "Here you come," I finished for him. I was getting tired of the bravado. "Either hit me or stand up straight. You look silly crouched down like that."
   His fist was a dark blur. I blocked it with my arm. The impact made the arm go numb. His long leg kicked out and connected solidly with my stomach. I doubled over like I was supposed to, all the air gone in one movement. His other foot came up and caught me on the side of the face. It was the same cheek of Seymour had smashed. I fell to the floor not sure what part of my body to comfort first.
   His foot came for me again. I caught it with both hands. I came up in a rush, hoping to trap his knee between my arms and pop the joint. But he twisted away from me, totally airborne for a moment.
   I dropped to the ground and felt the air pass overhead as his legs kicked out where my head had been. I was on the ground again, but by choice. He stood over me, impossibly tall from this angle. I lay on my side, knees drawn up.
   He came for me, evidently planning to drag me to my feet. I kicked out with both feet at an angle to his kneecap. Hit it just right above or below and you dislocate it.
   The leg buckled, and he screamed. It had worked. Hot damn. I didn't try to wrestle him. I didn't try to grab his gun. I ran for the door.
   Gaynor grabbed for me, but I flung open the door and was out in a long hallway before he could maneuver his fancy chair. The hallway was smooth with-a handful of doors and two blind corners. And Tommy.
   Tommy looked surprised to see me. His hand went for his shoulder holster. I pushed on his shoulder and foot-swept his leg. He fell backwards and grabbed me as he fell. I rode him down, making sure my knee ground into his groin. His grip loosened enough for me to slip out of reach. There were sounds behind me from the room. I didn't look back. If they were going to shoot me, I didn't want to see it.
   The hallway took a sharp turn. I was almost to it when the smell slowed me from a run to a walk. The smell of corpses was just around the corner. What had they been doing while I slept?
   I glanced back at the men. Tommy was still lying on the floor, cradling himself. Bruno leaned against the wall, gun in hand, but he wasn't pointing it at me. Gaynor was sitting in his chair, smiling.
   Something was very wrong.
   Around the blind corner came that something that was wrong, very, very wrong. It was no taller than a tall man, maybe six feet. But it was nearly four feet wide. It had two legs, or maybe three, it was hard to tell. The thing was leprously pale like all zombies, but this one had a dozen eyes. A man's face was centered where the neck would have been. Its eyes dark and seeing, and empty of everything sane. A dog's head was growing out of the shoulder. The dog's decaying mouth snapped at me. A woman's leg grew out of the center of the mess, complete with black high-heeled shoe.
   The thing shambled towards me. Pulling with three of a dozen arms, dragging itself forward. It left a trail behind it like a snail.
   Dominga Salvador stepped around the corner. "Buenas noches, chica. "
   The monster scared me, but the sight of Dominga grinning at me scared me just a little bit more.
   The thing had stopped moving forward. It squatted in the hallway, kneeling on its inadequate legs. Its dozens of mouths panted as if it couldn't get enough air.
   Or maybe the thing didn't like the way it smelled. I certainly didn't. Covering my mouth and nose with my arm didn't block out much of the smell. The hallway suddenly smelled like bad meat.
   Gaynor and his wounded bodyguards had stayed at the end of the hall. Maybe they didn't like being near Dominga's little pet. I know it didn't do much for me. Whatever the reason we were isolated. It was just her and me and the monster.
   "How did you get out of jail?" Better to deal with more mundane problems first. The mind-melting ones could wait for later.
   "I made my bail," she said.
   "This quickly on a murder involving witchcraft?"
   "Voodoo is not witchcraft," she said.
   "The law sees it as the same thing when it comes to murder."
   She shrugged, then smiled beatifically. She was the Mexican grandmother of my nightmares.
   "You've got a judge in your pocket," I said.
   "Many people fear me, chica. You should be one of them."
   "You helped Peter Burke raise the zombie for Gaynor."
   She just smiled.
   "Why didn't you just raise it yourself?" I asked.
   "I didn't want someone as unscrupulous as Gaynor to witness me murdering someone. He might use it for blackmail."
   "And he didn't realize that you had to kill someone for Peter's gris-gris?"
   "Correct," she said.
   "You hid all your horrors here?"
   "Not all. You forced me to destroy much of my work, but this I saved. You can see why." She caressed a hand down the slimy hide.
   I shuddered. Just the thought of touching that monstrosity was enough to make my skin cold. And yet ...
   "How did you make it?" I had to know. It was so obviously a creation of our shared art that I had to know.
   "Surely, you can animate bits and pieces of the dead," Dominga said.
   I could, but no one else I had ever met could do it. "Yes," I said.
   "I found I could take these odds and ends and meld them together."
   I stared at the shambling thing. "Meld them?" The thought was too horrible.
   "I can create new creatures that have never existed before."
   "You make monsters," I said.
   "Believe what you will, chica, but I am here to persuade you to raise the dead for Gaynor."
   "Why don't you do it?"
   Gaynor's voice came from just behind us. I whirled, putting the wall at my back so I could watch everybody. What good that would do me, I wasn't sure. "Dominga's power went wrong once. This is my last chance. The last known grave. I won't risk it on her."
   Dominga's eyes narrowed, her age-thinned hands forming fists. She didn't like being dismissed out of hand. Couldn't say I blamed her.
   "She could do it, Gaynor, easier than I could."
   "If I truly believed that, I would kill you because I wouldn't need you anymore."
   Hmm, good point. "You've had Bruno rough me up. Now what?"
   Gaynor shook his head. "Such a little girl to have taken both my bodyguards down."
   "I told you ordinary methods of persuasion will not work on her," Dominga said.
   I stared past her at the slathering monster. She called this ordinary?
   "What do you propose?" Gaynor asked.
   "A spell of compulsion. She will do as I bid, but it takes time to do such a spell for one as powerful as she. If she knew any voodoo to speak of, it would not work at all. But for all her art, she is but a baby in voodoo."
   "How long will you need?"
   "Two hours, no more."
   "This had better work," Gaynor said.
   "Do not threaten me," Dominga said.
   Oh, goody, maybe the bad guys would fight and kill each other.
   "I am paying you enough money to set up your own small country. I should get results for that."
   Dominga nodded her head. "You pay well, that is true. I will not fail you. If I can compel Anita to kill another person, then I can compel her to help me in my zombie business. She will help me rebuild what she forced me to destroy. It has a certain irony, no?"
   Gaynor smiled like a demented elf. "I like it."
   "Well, I don't," I said.
   He frowned at me. "You will do as you are told. You have been very naughty."
   Naughty? Me?
   Bruno had worked himself close to us. He was leaning heavily on the wall, but his gun was very steadily pointed at the center of my chest. "I'd like to kill you now," he said. His voice sounded raw with pain.
   "A dislocated knee hurts like hell, doesn't it?" I smiled when I said it. Better dead than a willing servant of the voodoo queen.
   I think he ground his teeth. The gun wavered just a little, but I think that was rage, not pain. "I will enjoy killing you."
   "You didn't do so good last time. I think the judges would have given the match to me."
   "There are no fucking judges here. I am going to kill you."
   "Bruno," Gaynor said, "we need her alive and whole."
   "After she raises the zombie?" Bruno asked.
   "If she is a willing servant of the Senora, then you are not to hurt her. If the compulsion doesn't work, then you may kill her."
   Bruno gave a fierce flash of teeth. It was more snarl than smile. "I hope the spell fails."
   Gaynor glanced at his bodyguard. "Don't let personal feelings interfere with business, Bruno."
   Bruno swallowed hard. "Yes, sir." It didn't sound like a title that came easily to him.
   Enzo came around the corner behind Dominga. He stayed near the wall as far from her "creation" as he could get.
   Antonio had finally lost his job as bodyguard. It was just as well. He was much better suited to stool pigeon.
   Tommy came limping down the hall, still sort of scrunched over himself. The big Magnum was in his hands. His face was nearly purple with rage, or maybe pain. "I'm gonna kill you," he hissed.
   "Take a number," I said.
   "Enzo, you help Bruno and Tommy tie this little girl to a chair in the room. She's a lot more dangerous than she seems," Gaynor said.
   Enzo grabbed my arm. I didn't fight him. I figured I was safer in his hands than either of the other two. Tommy and Bruno both looked as if they were looking forward to me trying something. I think they wanted to hurt me.
   As Enzo led me past them, I said, "Is it because I'm a woman or are you always this bad at losing?"
   "I'm gonna shoot her," Tommy grunted.
   "Later," Gaynor said, "later."
   I wondered if he really meant that. If Dominga's spell worked, I'd be like a living zombie, obeying her will. If the spell didn't work, then Tommy and Bruno would kill me, a piece at a time. I hoped there was a third choice.

36
   The third choice was being tied to a chair in the room where I woke up. It was the best of the three choices, but that wasn't saying much. I don't like being tied up. It means your options have gone from few to none. Dominga had clipped some of my hair and the tips of my fingernails. Hair and nails for her compulsion spell. Shit.
   The chair was old and straight-backed. My wrists were tied to the slats that made up the back of the chair. Ankles tied separately to a leg of the chair. The ropes were tight. I tugged at the ropes, hoping for some slack. There wasn't any.
   I had been tied up before, and I always have this Houdini fantasy that this time I'll have enough slack to wiggle free. It never works that way. Once you're tied up, you stay tied up until someone lets you go.
   The trouble was when they let me go, they were going to try a nasty little spell on me. I had to get away before then. Somehow, I had to get away. Dear God, please let me get away.
   The door opened as if on cue, but it wasn't help.
   Bruno entered, carrying Wanda in his arms. Blood had dried down the right side of her face from a cut above the eye. Her left cheek was ripe with a huge bruise. The lower lip had burst in a still bleeding cut. Her eyes were shut. I wasn't even sure she was conscious.
   I had an aching line on the left side of my face where Bruno had kicked me, but it was nothing to Wanda's injuries.
   "Now what?" I asked Bruno.
   "Some company for you. When she wakes up, ask her what else Tommy did to her. See if that will persuade you to raise the zombie."
   "I thought Dominga was going to bespell me into helping you."
   He shrugged. "Gaynor doesn't put much faith in her since she screwed up so badly."
   "He doesn't give second chances, I guess," I said.
   "No, he doesn't." He laid Wanda on the floor near me. "You best take his offer, girl. One dead whore and you get a million dollars. Take it."
   "You're going to use Wanda for the sacrifice," I said. My voice sounded tired even to me.
   "Gaynor don't give second chances."
   I nodded. "How's your knee?"
   He grimaced. "I put it back in place."
   "That must have hurt like hell," I said.
   "It did. If you don't help Gaynor, you're going to find out exactly how much it hurt."
   "An eye for an eye," I said.
   He nodded and stood. He favored his right leg. He caught me looking at the leg.
   "Talk to Wanda. Decide what you want to end up as. Gaynor's talking about making you a cripple, then keeping you around as his toy. You don't want that."
   "How can you work for him?"
   He shrugged. "Pays real well."
   "Money isn't everything."
   "Spoken by somebody who's never gone hungry."
   He had me there. I just looked at him. We stared at each other for a few minutes. There was something human in his eyes at last. I couldn't read it though. Whatever emotion it was, it was nothing I understood.
   He turned and left the room.
   I stared down at Wanda. She lay on her side without moving. She was wearing another long multicolored skirt. A white blouse with a wide lace collar was half-ripped from one shoulder. The bra she wore was the color of plums. I bet there had been panties to match before Tommy got hold of her.
   "Wanda," I said it softly. "Wanda, can you hear me?"
   Her head moved slowly, painfully. One eye opened wide and panic-stricken. The other eye was glued shut with dried blood. Wanda pawed at the eye, frantic for a moment. When she could open both eyes, she blinked at me. Her eyes took a moment to focus and really see who it was. What had she expected to see in those first few panicked moments? I didn't want to know.
   "Wanda, can you speak?"
   "Yes." The voice was soft, but clear.
   I wanted to ask if she was alright, but I knew the answer to that. "If you can get over here and free me, I'll get us out of here."
   She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "We can't get out. Harold's gonna kill us." She made that last sound like a statement of pure fact.
   "I don't believe in giving up, Wanda. Untie me and I'll think of something."
   "He'll hurt me if I help you," she said.
   "He's planning on you being the human sacrifice to raise his ancestor. How much more hurt can you get?"
   She blinked at me, but her eyes were clearing. It was almost as if panic were a drug, and Wanda was fighting off the influence. Or maybe it was Harold Gaynor who was the drug. Yeah, that made sense. She was a junkie. A Harold Gaynor junkie. Every junkie is willing to die for one more fix. But I wasn't.
   "Untie me, Wanda, please. I can get us out of this."
   "And if you can't?"
   "Then we're no worse off," I said.
   She seemed to think about that for a minute. I strained for sounds from the hallway. If Bruno came back while we were in the middle of escaping, it would be very bad.
   Wanda propped herself up on her arms. Her legs trailed out behind her under the skirt, dead, no movement at all. She began dragging herself towards me. I thought it would be slow work, but she moved quickly. The muscles in her arms bunched and pushed, working well. She was by the chair in a matter of minutes.
   I smiled. "You're very strong."
   "My arms are all I have. They have to be strong," Wanda said.
   She started picking at the ropes that bound my right wrist. "It's too tight."
   "You can do it, Wanda."
   She picked at the knot with her fingers, until after what seemed hours, but was probably about five minutes, I felt the rope give. Slack, I had slack. Yea!
   "You've almost got it, Wanda." I felt like a cheerleader.
   The sound of footsteps clattered down the hall towards us. Wanda's battered face stared up at me, terror in her eyes. "There's not time," she whispered.
   "Go back where you were. Do it: We'll finish later," I said.
   Wanda hand-walked back to where Bruno had laid her. She had just arranged herself into nearly the same position when the door opened. Wanda was pretending to be unconscious, not a bad idea.
   Tommy stood in the doorway. He'd taken off his jacket and the black webbing of the shoulder rig stood out on his white polo shirt. Black jeans emphasized his pinched-in waist. He looked top-heavy from lifting so many weights.
   He'd added one new thing to the outfit. A knife. He twirled it in his hand like a baton. It was almost a perfect sheen of light. Manual dexterity. Wowee.
   "I didn't know you used a knife, Tommy." My voice sounded calm, normal, amazing.
   He grinned. "I have a lot of talents. Gaynor wants to know if you've changed your mind about the zombie raising."
   It wasn't exactly a question, but I answered it. "I won't do it."
   His grin widened. "I was hoping you'd say that."
   "Why?" I was afraid I knew the answer.
   "Because he sent me in here to persuade you."
   I stared at the glittering knife, I couldn't help myself. "With a knife?"
   "With something else long and hard, but not so cold," he said.
   "Rape?" I asked. The word sort of hung there in the hot, still air.
   He nodded, grinning like a damn Cheshire cat. I wished I could make him disappear except for his smile. I wasn't afraid of his smile. It was the other end I was worried about.
   I jerked at the ropes helplessly. The right wrist gave a little more. Had Wanda loosened the rope enough? Had she? Please God, let it be.
   Tommy stood over me. I stared up the length of his body and what I saw in his eyes was nothing human. There were all sorts of ways to become a monster. Tommy had found one. There was nothing but an animal hunger in his gaze. Nothing, human left.
   He put a leg on either side of the chair, straddling me without sitting down. His flat stomach was pressed against my face. His shirt smelled of expensive after-shave. I jerked my head back, trying not to touch him.
   He laughed and ran fingers through the tight waves of my hair. I tried to jerk my head out of his reach, but he grabbed a handful of hair and forced my head back.
   "I'm going to enjoy this," he said.
   I didn't dare jerk at the ropes. If my wrist came free he'd see it. I had to wait, wait until he was distracted enough not to notice. The thought of what I might have to do to distract him, allow him to do to me, made my stomach hurt. But staying alive was the goal. Everything else was gravy. I didn't really believe that, but I tried.
   He sat down on me, his weight settling on my legs. His chest was pressed against my face, and there was nothing I could do about it.
   He rubbed the flat of the knife across my cheek. "You can stop this anytime. Just say yes, and I'll tell Gaynor." His voice was already growing thick. I could feel him growing hard where he was pressed against my belly.
   The thought of Tommy using me like that was almost enough to make me say yes. Almost. I jerked on the ropes and the right one gave a little more. One more hard tug and I could get free. But I'd have just one hand to Tommy's two, and he had a gun and a knife. Not good odds, but it was the best I was going to get tonight.
   He kissed me, forcing his tongue in my mouth. I didn't respond, because he wouldn't have believed that. I didn't bite his tongue either because I wanted him close. With only one hand free, I needed him close. I needed to do major damage with one hand. What? What could I do?
   He nuzzled my neck, face buried in my hair on the left side. Now or never. I pulled with everything I had and the right wrist popped free. I froze. Surely he'd felt it, but he was too busy sucking on my neck to notice. His free hand massaged my breast.
   He had his eyes closed as he kissed to the right side of my neck. His eyes were closed. The knife was loose in his other hand. Nothing I could do about the knife. Had to take the chance. Had to do it.
   I caressed the side of his face, and he nuzzled my hand. Then his eyes opened. It had occurred to him that I was supposed to be tied. I plunged my thumb into his open eye. I dug it in, feeling the wet pop as his eye exploded.
   He shrieked, rearing back, hand to his eye. I grabbed the wrist with the knife and held on. The screams were going to bring reinforcements. Dammit.
   Strong arms wrapped around Tommy's waist and pulled him backwards. I grabbed the knife as he slid to the floor. Wanda was struggling to hold him. The pain was so severe, it hadn't occurred to him to go for his gun. Putting out an eye hurts and panics a lot more than a kick to the groin.
   I cut my other hand free and knicked my arm doing it. If I hurried too much, I'd end up slitting my own wrist. I forced myself to be more careful slicing my ankles free.
   Tommy had managed to get free of Wanda. He staggered to his feet, one hand still over the eye. Blood and clear liquid trailed down his face. "I'll kill you!" He reached for his gun.
   I reversed my grip on the knife and threw it. It thunked into his arm. I'd been aiming for his chest. He screamed again. I picked up the chair and smashed it into his face. Wanda grabbed his ankles, and Tommy went down.
   I pounded at his face with the chair until the chair broke apart in my hands. Then I beat him with a chair leg until his face was nothing but a bloody mess.
   "He's dead," Wanda said. She was tugging at my pants leg. "He's dead. Let's get out of here."
   I dropped the blood-coated chair leg and collapsed to my knees. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't breathe. I was splattered with blood. I'd never beaten someone to death before. It had felt good. I shook my head. Later, I'd worry about it later.
   Wanda put an arm over my shoulders. I grabbed her around the waist, and we stood. She weighed a lot less than she should have. I didn't want to see what was under the pretty skirt. It wasn't a full set of legs, but for once that was good. She was easier to move.
   I had Tommy's gun in my right hand. "I need this hand free, so hold on tight."
   Wanda nodded. Her face was very pale. I could feel her heart pounding against her ribs. "We're going to get out of this," I said.
   "Sure," but her voice was shaky. I don't think she believed me. I wasn't sure I believed me.
   Wanda opened the door, and out we went.

37
   The hallway was just like I remembered it. A long stretch with no cover, then a blind corner at each end.
   "Right or left?" I whispered to Wanda.
   "I don't know. This house is like a maze. Right I think."
   We went right, because at least it was a decision. The worst thing we could do was just stand there waiting for Gaynor to come back.
   I heard footsteps behind us. I started to turn, but with Wanda in my arms, I was slow. The gunshot echoed in the hallway. Something hit my left arm, around Wanda's waist. The impact spun me around and sent us both crashing to the floor.
   I ended up on my back with my left arm trapped under Wanda's weight. The left arm was totally numb.
   Cicely stood at the end of the hallway. She held a small caliber handgun two-handed. Her long, long legs were far apart. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
   I raised the .357 and aimed at her, still lying flat on my back on the floor. It was an explosion of sound that left my ears ringing. The recoil thrust my hand skyward, backwards. It was everything I could do not to drop the gun. If I'd needed a second shot I'd have never gotten it off in time. But I didn't need a second shot.
   Cicely lay crumpled in the middle of the hallway. Blood was spreading on the front of her blouse. She didn't move, but that didn't mean anything. Her gun was still gripped in one hand. She could be pretending, then when I walked up, she'd shoot me. But I had to know.
   "Can you get off my arm, please?" I asked.
   Wanda didn't say anything, but she lifted herself to a sitting position, and I could finally see my arm. It was still attached. Goody. Blood was seeping down my arm in a crimson line. A point of icy burning had started to chase away the numbness. I liked the numbness better.
   I did my best to ignore the arm as I stood up and walked towards Cicely. I had the Magnum pointed at her. If she so much as twitched, I'd hit her again. Her miniskirt had hiked up her thighs, displaying black garters and matching underwear. How undignified.
   I stood over her, staring down. Cicely wasn't going to twitch, not voluntarily. Her silk blouse was soaked with blood. A hole big enough for me to put my fist through took up most of her chest. Dead, very dead.
   I kicked the .22 out of her hand, just in case. You can never tell with someone who plays voodoo. I've had people get up before with worse injuries. Cicely just lay there, bleeding.
   I was lucky she'd had a ladylike caliber pistol. Anything bigger and I might have lost the arm. I stuck her pistol in the front of my pants, because I couldn't figure out where else to put it. I did click the safety on first.
   I'd never been shot before. Bitten, stabbed, beaten, burned, but never shot. It scared me because I wasn't sure how badly I was hurt. I walked back to Wanda. Her face was pale, her brown eyes like islands in her face. "Is she dead?"
   I nodded.
   "You're bleeding," she said. She tore a strip from her long skirt. "Here, let me wrap it."
   I knelt and let her tie the multicolored strip just above the wound. She wiped the blood away with another piece of skirt. It didn't look that bad. It looked almost like a raw, bloody scrap.
   "I think the bullet just grazed me," I said. A flesh wound, nothing but a flesh wound. It burned and was almost cold at the same time. Maybe the cold was shock. One little bullet graze, and I was going into shock? Surely not.
   "Come on, we've got to get out of here. The shots will bring Bruno." It was good that I had pain in the arm. It meant I could feel and I could move the arm. The arm did not want to be wrapped around Wanda's waist again, but it was the only way to move her and keep my right hand free.
   "Let's go left. Maybe Cicely came in this way," Wanda said. There was a certain logic to that. We turned and walked past Cicely's body.
   She lay there, blue eyes staring impossibly wide. There is never a look of horror on the face of the newly dead, more surprise than anything. As if death had caught them while they weren't looking.
   Wanda stared down at the body as we passed it. She whispered, "I never thought she'd die first."
   We rounded the corner and came face-to-face with Dominga's monster.

38
   The monster stood in the middle of a narrow little hall that seemed to take up most of the back of the house. Many-paned windows lined the wall. And in the middle of those windows was a door. Through the windows I could see black night sky. The door led outside. The only thing standing between us and freedom was the monster.
   The only thing, sheesh.
   The shambling mound of body parts struggled towards us. Wanda screamed, and I didn't blame her. I raised the Magnum and sighted on the human face in the middle. The shot echoed like captive thunder.
   The face exploded in a welter of blood and flesh and bone. The smell was worse. Like rotten fur on the back of my throat. The mouths screamed, an animal howling at its wound. The thing kept coming, but it was hurt. It seemed confused as to what to do now. Had I taken out the dominant brain? Was there a dominant brain? No way to be sure.
   I fired three more times, exploding three more heads. The hallway was full of brains and blood and worse. The monster kept coming.
   The gun clicked on empty. I threw the gun at it. One clawed hand batted it away. I didn't bother trying the .22. If the Magnum couldn't stop it, the .22 sure as hell couldn't.
   We started backing down the hallway. What else could we do? The monster pulled its twisted bulk after us. It was that same sliding sound that had chased Manny and I out of Dominga's basement. I was looking at her caged horror.
   The flesh between the different textures of skin, fur, and bone was seamless. No Frankenstein stitches. It was like the different pieces had melted together like wax.
   I tripped over Cicely's body, too busy watching the monster to see where my feet were. We sprawled across her body. Wanda screamed.
   The monster scrambled forward. Misshapen hands grabbed at my ankles. I kicked at it, struggling to climb over Cicely's body, away from it. A claw snagged in my jeans and pulled me towards it. It was my turn to scream. What had once been a man's hand and arm wrapped around my ankle.
   I grabbed onto Cicely's body. Her flesh was still warm. The monster pulled us both easily. The extra weight didn't slow it down. My hands scrambled at the bare wood floor. Nothing to hold on to.
   I stared back at the thing. Eager rotting mouths yawned at me. Broken, discolored teeth, tongues working like putrid snakes in the openings. God!
   Wanda grabbed my arm, trying to hold me, but without legs to brace she just succeeded in being pulled closer to the thing. "Let go!" I screamed it at her.
   She did, screaming, "Anita!"
   I was screaming myself, "No! Stop it! Stop it!" I put everything I had into that yell, not volume, but power. It was just another zombie, that was all. If it wasn't under specific orders, it would listen to me. It was just another zombie. I had to believe that, or die.
   "Stop, right now!" My voice broke with the edge of hysteria. I wanted nothing more than just to start screaming and never stop.
   The monster froze with my foot halfway to one of its lower mouths. The mismatched eyes stared at me, expectantly.
   I swallowed and tried to sound calm, though the zombie wouldn't care. "Release me."
   It did.
   My heart was threatening to come out my mouth. I lay back on the floor for a second, relearning how to breathe. When I looked up, the monster was still sitting there, waiting. Waiting for orders like a good little zombie.
   "Stay here, do not move from this spot," I said.
   The eyes just stared at me, obedient as only the dead can be. It would sit there in the hallway until it got specific orders contradicting mine. Thank you, dear God, that a zombie is a zombie is a zombie.
   "What's happening?" Wanda asked. Her voice was broken into sobs. She was near hysterics.
   I crawled to her. "It's alright. I'll explain later. We have a little time, but we can't waste it. We've got to get out of here."
   She nodded, tears sliding down her bruised face.
   I helped her up one last time. We limped towards the monster. Wanda shied away from it, pulling on my sore arm.
   "It's alright. It won't hurt us, if we hurry." I had no idea how close Dominga was. I didn't want her changing the orders while we were right next to it. We stayed near the wall and squeezed past the thing. Eyes on the back of the body, if it had a back and a front, followed our progress. The smell from the running wounds was nearly overwhelming. But what was a little gagging between friends?
   Wanda opened the door to the outside world. Hot summer wind blew our hair into spider silk strands across our faces. It felt wonderful.
   Why hadn't Gaynor and the rest come to the rescue? They had to have heard the gunshots and the screaming. The gunshots at least would have brought somebody.
   We stumbled down three stone steps to the gravel of a turn around. I stared off into the darkness at hills covered in tall, waving grass and decaying tombstones. The house was the caretaker's house at Burrell Cemetery. I wondered what Gaynor had done to the caretaker.
   I started to lead Wanda away from the cemetery towards the distant highway, then stopped. I knew why no one had come now.
   The sky was thick and black and so heavy with stars if I'd had a net I could have caught some. There was a high, hot wind blowing against the stars. I couldn't see the moon. Too much starlight. On the hot seeking fingers of the wind I felt it. The pull. Dominga Salvador had completed her spell. I stared off into the rows of headstones and knew I had to go to her. Just as the zombie had had to obey me, I had to obey her. There was no saving throw, no salvaging it. As easy as that I was caught.

39
   I stood very still on the gravel. Wanda moved in my arms, turning to look at me. Her face by starlight was incredibly pale. Was mine as pale? Was the shock spread over my face like moonlight? I tried to take a step forward. To carry Wanda to safety. I could not take a step forward. I struggled until my legs were shaking with the effort. I couldn't leave.
   "What's the matter? We have to get out of here before Gaynor comes back," Wanda said.
   "I know," I said.
   "Then what are you doing?"
   I swallowed something cold and hard in my throat. My pulse was thudding in my chest. "I can't leave."
   "What are you talking about?" There was an edge of hysteria to Wanda's voice.
   Hysterics sounded perfect. I promised myself a complete nervous breakdown if we got out of here alive. If I could ever leave. I fought against something that I couldn't see, or touch, but it held me solid. I had to stop or my legs were going to collapse. We had enough problems in that direction already. If I couldn't go forward, maybe, backwards.
   I backed up a step, two steps. Yeah, that worked.
   "Where are you going?" Wanda asked.
   "Into the cemetery," I said.
   "Why!"
   Good question, but I wasn't sure I could explain it so that Wanda would understand. I didn't understand it myself. How could I explain it to anyone else? I couldn't leave, but did I have to take Wanda back with me? Would the spell allow me to leave her here?
   I decided to try. I laid her down on the gravel. Easy, some of my choices were still open.
   "Why are you leaving me?" She clutched at me, terrified.
   Me, too.
   "Make it to the road if you can," I said.
   "On my hands?" she asked.
   She had a point, but what could I do? "Do you know how to use a gun?"
   "No."
   Should I leave her the gun, or should I take it with me, and maybe get a chance to kill Dominga? If this worked like ordering a zombie, then I could kill her if she didn't specifically forbid me to do it. Because I still had free will, of a sort. They'd bring me, then send someone back for Wanda. She was to be the sacrifice.
   I handed her the .22. I clicked off the safety. "It's loaded and it's ready to fire," I said. "Since you don't know anything about guns, keep it hidden until Enzo or Bruno is right on top of you, then fire point-blank. You can't miss at pointblank range."
   "Why are you leaving me?"
   "A spell, I think," I said.
   Her eyes widened. "What kind of spell?"
   "One that allows them to order me to come to them. One that forbids me to leave."
   "Oh, God," she said.
   "Yeah," I said. I smiled down at her. A reassuring smile that was all lie. "I'll try to come back for you."
   She just stared at me, like a kid whose parents left her in the dark before all the monsters were gone.
   She clutched the gun in her hands and watched me walk off into the darkness.
   The long dry grass hissed against my jeans. The wind blew the grass in pale waves. Tombstones loomed out of the weeds like the backs of small walls, or the humps of sea monsters. I didn't have to think where I was going, my feet seemed to know the way.
   Was this how a zombie felt when ordered to come? No, you had to be within hearing distance of a zombie. You couldn't do it from this far away.
   Dominga Salvador stood at the crown of a hill. She was highlighted against the moon. It was sinking towards dawn. It was still night, but the end of night. Everything was still velvet, silver, deep pockets of night shadows, but there was the faintest hint of dawn on the hot wind.
   If I could delay until dawn, I couldn't raise the zombie. Maybe the compulsion would fade, too. If I was luckier than I deserved.
   Dominga was standing inside a dark circle. There was a dead chicken at her feet. She had already made a circle of power. All I had to do was step into it and slaughter a human being. Over my dead body, if necessary.
   Harold Gaynor sat in his electric wheelchair. on the opposite side of the circle. He was outside of it, safe. Enzo and Bruno stood by him, safe. Only Dominga had risked the circle.
   She said, "Where is Wanda?"
   I tried to lie, to say she was safe, but truth spilled out of my mouth, "She's down by the house on the gravel."
   "Why didn't you bring her?"
   "You can only give me one order at a time. You ordered me to come. I came."
   "Stubborn, even now, how curious," she said. "Enzo, go fetch the girl. We need her."
   Enzo walked away over the dry, rustling grass without a word. I hoped Wanda killed him. I hoped she emptied the gun into him. No, save a few bullets for Bruno.
   Dominga had a machete in her right hand. Its edge was black with blood. "Enter the circle, Anita," she said.
   I tried to fight it, tried not to do it. I stood there on the verge of the circle, almost swaying. I stepped across. The circle tingled up my spine, but it wasn't closed. I don't know what she'd done to it, but it wasn't closed. The circle looked solid enough but it was still open. Still waiting for the sacrifice.
   Shots echoed in the darkness. Dominga jumped. I smiled.
   "What was that?"
   "I think it was your bodyguard biting the big one," I said.
   "What did you do?"
   "I gave Wanda a gun."
   She slapped me with her empty hand. It wouldn't really have hurt, but she slapped the same cheek Bruno and what's-his-name had hit. I'd been smacked three times in the same place. The bruise was going to be a beauty.
   Dominga looked at something behind me and smiled. I knew what it would be before I turned and saw it.
   Enzo was carrying Wanda up the hill. Dammit. I'd heard more than one shot. Had she panicked and shot too soon, wasted her ammunition? Damn.
   Wanda was screaming and beating her small fists against Enzo's broad back. If we were alive come morning, I would teach Wanda better things to do with her fists. She was crippled, not helpless.
   Enzo carried her over the circle. Until it closed everyone could pass over it without breaking the magic. He dropped Wanda to the ground, holding her arms out behind her at a painful angle. She still struggled and screamed. I didn't blame her.
   "Get Bruno to hold her still. The death needs to be one blow," I said.
   Dominga nodded. "Yes, it does." She motioned for Bruno to enter the circle. He hesitated, but Gaynor told him, "Do what she says."
   Bruno didn't hesitate after that. Gaynor was his greenback god. Bruno grabbed one of Wanda's arms. With a man on each arm, and her legs useless, she was still moving too much.
   "Kneel and hold her head still," I said.
   Enzo dropped first, putting a big hand on the back of Wanda's head. He held her steady. She started to cry. Bruno knelt, putting his free hand on her shoulders to help steady her. It was important for the death to be a single blow.
   Dominga was smiling now. She handed me a small brown jar of ointment. It was white and smelled heavily of cloves. I used more rosemary in mine, but cloves were fine.
   "How did you know what I needed?"
   "I asked Manny to tell me what you used."
   "He wouldn't tell you shit."
   "He would if I threatened his family." Dominga laughed. "Oh, don't look so sad. He didn't betray you, chica. Manuel thought I was merely curious about your powers. I am, you know."
   "You'll see soon enough, won't you," I said.
   She gave a sort of bow from the neck. "Place the ointment on yourself in the appointed places."
   I rubbed ointment on my face. It was cool and waxy. The cloves made it smell like candy. I smeared it on over my heart, under my shirt, both hands. Last the tombstone.
   Now all we needed was the sacrifice.
   Dominga told me, "Do not move."
   I stayed where I was, frozen as if by magic. Was her monster still frozen in the hallway, like I was now?
   Dominga laid the machete on the grass near the edge of the circle, then she stepped out of the circle. "Raise the dead, Anita," she said.
   "Ask Gaynor one question first, please." That please hurt, but it worked.
   She looked at me curiously. "What question?"
   "Is this ancestor also a voodoo priest?" I asked.
   "What difference does it make?" Gaynor asked.
   "You fool," Dominga said. She whirled on him, hands in fists. "That is what went wrong the first time. You made me think it was my powers!"
   "What are you babbling about?" he asked.
   "When you raise a voodoo priest or an animator, sometimes the magic goes wrong," I said.
   "Why?" he asked.
   "Your ancestor's magic interfered with my magic," Dominga said. "Are you sure this ancestor had no voodoo?"
   "Not to my knowledge," he said.
   "Did you know about the first one?" I asked.
   "Yes."
   "Why didn't you tell me?" Dominga said. Her power blazed around her like a dark nimbus. Would she kill him, or did she want the money more?
   "I didn't think it was important."
   I think Dominga was grinding her teeth. I didn't blame her. He'd cost her her reputation and a dozen lives. He saw nothing wrong with it. But Dominga didn't strike him dead. Greed wins out.
   "Get on with it," Gaynor said. "Or don't you want your money?"
   "Do not threaten me!" Dominga said.
   Peachy keen, the bad guys were going to fight among themselves.
   "I am not threatening you, Senora. I merely will not pay unless this zombie is raised."
   Dominga took a deep breath. She literally squared her shoulders and turned back to me. "Do as I ordered, raise the dead."
   I opened my mouth to think of some other excuse to delay. Dawn was coming. It had to come.
   "No more delays. Raise the dead, Anita, now!" That last word had the tone of a command.
   I swallowed hard and walked towards the edge of the circle. I wanted to get out, to leave, but I couldn't. I stood there, leaning against that invisible barrier. It was like beating against a wall that I couldn't feel. I stayed there straining until my entire body trembled. I took a deep shaking breath.
   I picked up the machete.
   Wanda said, "No, Anita, please, please don't!" She struggled, but she couldn't move. She would be an easy kill. Easier than beheading a chicken with one hand. And I did that almost every night.
   I knelt in front of Wanda. Enzo's hand on the back of her head kept her from moving. But she whimpered, a desperate sound low in her throat.
   God, help me.
   I placed the machete under her neck and told Enzo, "Raise her head up so I can make sure of the kill."
   He grabbed a handful of hair and bowed her neck at a painful angle. Her eyes were showing a lot of white. Even by moonlight I could see the pulse in her throat.
   I placed the machete back against her neck. Her skin was solid and real under the blade. I raised it just above her flesh, not touching for an instant. I drove the machete straight up into Enzo's throat. The point speared his throat. Blood gushed out in a black wave.
   Everyone froze for an instant, but me. I jerked the machete out of Enzo and plunged it into Bruno's gut. His hand with the gun half-drawn fell away. I leaned on the machete and drew it up towards his throat. His insides spilled out, in a warm rush.
   The smell of fresh death filled the circle. Blood sprayed all over my face, chest, hands, coating me. It was the last step, and the circle closed.
   I'd felt a thousand circles close, but nothing like this. The shock of it left me gasping. I couldn't breathe over the rush of power. It was like an electric current was running over my body. My skin ached with it.
   Wanda was covered in other people's blood. She was having hysterics in the grass. "Please, please, don't kill me. Don't kill me! Please!"
   I didn't have to kill Wanda. Dominga had told me to raise the dead, and I would do just that.
   Killing animals never gave me this kind of rush. It felt like my skin was going to crawl off on its own. I shoved the power flowing through me into the ground. But not just into the grave in the circle. I had too much power for just one grave. Too much power for just a handful of graves. I felt the power spreading outward like ripples in a pool. Out and out, until the power was spread thick and clean over the ground. Every grave that I had walked for Dolph. Every grave but the ones with ghosts. Because that was a type of soul magic, and necromancy didn't work around souls.
   I felt each grave, each corpse. I felt them coalesce from dust and bone fragments to things that were barely dead at all.
   "Arise from your graves all dead within sound of my call. Arise and serve me!" Without naming them all I shouldn't have been able to call a single one from the grave, but the power of two human deaths was too much for the dead to resist.
   They rose upward like swimmers through water. The ground rippled underfoot like a horse's skin.
   "What are you doing?" Dominga asked.
   "Raising the dead," I said. Maybe it showed in my voice. Maybe she felt it. Whatever, she started running towards the circle, but it was too late.
   Hands tore through the earth at Dominga's feet. Dead hands grabbed her ankles and sent her sprawling into the long grass. I lost sight of her but I didn't lose control of the zombies. I told them, "Kill her, kill her."
   The grass shuddered and surged like water. The sound of muscles pulling away from bone in wet thick pieces filled the night. Bones broke with sharp cracks. Over the sounds of tearing flesh, Dominga shrieked.
   There was one last wet sound, thick and full. Dominga's screams broke off abruptly. I felt the dead hands tearing out her throat. Her blood splattered the grass like a black sprinkler.
   Her spell shredded on the wind, but I didn't need her urging now. The power had me. I was riding it like a bird on a current of air. It held me, lifted me. It felt solid and insubstantial as air.
   The dry sunken earth cracked open over Gaynor's ancestor's grave. A pale hand shot skyward. A second hand came through the crack. The zombie tore the dry earth. I heard other old graves breaking in the still, summer night. It broke its way out of his grave, just like Gaynor had wanted.
   Gaynor sat in his wheelchair on the crest of the hill. He was surrounded by the dead. Dozens of zombies in various stages of decay crowded close to him. But I hadn't given the order yet. They wouldn't hurt him unless I told them to.
   "Ask him where the treasure is," Gaynor shouted.
   I stared at him and every zombie turned with my eyes and stared at him, too. He didn't understand. Gaynor was like a lot of people with money. They mistake money for power. It isn't the same thing at all.
   "Kill the man Harold Gaynor." I said it loud enough to carry on the still air.
   "I'll give you a million dollars for having raised him. Whether I find the treasure or not," Gaynor said.
   "I don't want your money, Gaynor," I said.
   The zombies were moving in on every side, slow, hands extended, like every horror movie you've ever seen. Sometimes Hollywood is accurate, whatta ya know.
   "Two million, three million!" His voice was breaking with fear. He'd had a better seat for Dominga's death than I had. He knew what was coming. "Four million!"
   "Not enough," I said.
   "How much?" he shouted. "Name your price!" I couldn't see him now. The zombies hid him from view.
   "No money, Gaynor, just you dead, that's enough."
   He started screaming, wordlessly. I felt the hands begin to rip at him. Teeth to tear.
   Wanda grabbed my legs. "Don't, don't hurt him. Please!"
   I just stared at her. I was remembering Benjamin Reynolds's blood-coated teddy bear, the tiny hand with that stupid plastic ring on it, the blood-soaked bedroom, the baby blanket. "He deserves to die," I said. My voice sounded separate from me, distant and echoing. It didn't sound like me at all.
   "You can't just murder him," Wanda said.
   "Watch me," I said.
   She tried to climb my body, but her legs betrayed her and she fell in a heap at my feet, sobbing.
   I didn't understand how Wanda could beg for his life after what he had done to her. Love, I suppose. In the end she really did love him. And that, perhaps, was the saddest thing of all.
   When Gaynor died, I knew it. When pieces of him stained almost every hand and mouth of the dead, they stopped. They turned to me, waiting for new orders. The power was still buoying me up. I wasn't tired. Was there enough to lay them all to rest? I hoped so.
   "Go back, all of you, go back to your graves. Rest in the quiet earth. Go back, go back."
   They stirred like a wind had blown through them, then one by one they went back to their graves. They lay down on the hard dry earth and the graves just swallowed them whole. It was like magic quicksand. The earth shuddered underfoot like a sleeper moving to a more comfortable position.
   Some of the corpses had been as old as Gaynor's ancestor, which meant that I didn't need a human death to raise one three-hundred-year-old corpse. Bert was going to be pleased. Human deaths seemed to be cumulative. Two human deaths and I had emptied a cemetery. It wasn't possible. But I'd done it anyway. Whatta ya know?
   The first light of dawn passed like milk on the eastern sky. The wind died with the light. Wanda knelt in the bloody grass, crying. I knelt beside her.
   She jerked back at my touch. I guess I couldn't blame her, but it bothered me anyway.
   "We have to get out of here. You need a doctor," I said.
   She stared up at me. "What are you?"
   Today for the first time I didn't know how to answer that question. Human didn't seem to cover it. "I'm an animator," I said finally.
   She just kept staring at me. I wouldn't have believed me either. But she let me help her up. I guess that was something.
   But she kept looking at me out of the edge of her eyes. Wanda considered me one of the monsters. She may have been right.
   Wanda gasped, eyes wide.
   I turned, too slowly. Was it the monster?
   Jean-Claude stepped out of the shadows.
   I didn't breathe for a moment. It was so unexpected.
   "What are you doing here?" I asked.
   "Your power called to me, ma petite. No dead in the city could fail to feel your power tonight. And I am the city, so I came to investigate."
   "How long have you been here?"
   "I saw you kill the men. I saw you raise the graveyard."
   "Did it ever occur to you to help me?"
   "You did not need any help." He smiled, barely visible in the moonlight. "Besides, would it not have been tempting to rend me to pieces, as well?"
   "You can't possibly be afraid of me," I said.
   He spread his hands wide.
   "You're afraid of your human servant? Little of moi?"
   "Not afraid, ma petite, but cautious."
   He was afraid of me. It almost made some of this shit worthwhile.
   I carried Wanda down the hill. She wouldn't let Jean-Claude touch her. A choice of monsters.

40
   Dominga Salvador missed her court date. Fancy that. Dolph had searched for me that night, after he discovered that Dominga had made bail. He had found my apartment empty. My answers about where I had gone didn't satisfy him, but he let it go. What else could he do?
   They found Gaynor's wheelchair, but no trace of him. It's one of those mysteries to tell around campfires. The empty, blood-coated wheelchair in the middle of the cemetery. They did find body parts in the caretaker's house: animal and human. Only Dominga's power had held the thing together. When she died, it died. Thank goodness. Theory was that the monster got Gaynor. Where the monster came from no one seemed to know. I was called in to explain the body parts, that's how the police knew they'd once been attached.
   Irving wanted to know what I really knew about Gaynor's vanishing act. I just smiled and played inscrutable. Irving didn't believe me, but all he had were suspicions. Suspicions aren't a news story.
   Wanda is waiting tables downtown. Jean-Claude offered her a job at The Laughing Corpse. She declined, not politely. She'd saved quite a bit of money from her "business." I don't know if she'll make it or not, but with Gaynor gone, she seems free to try. She was a junkie whose drug of choice was dead. It was better than rehab.
   By Catherine's wedding the bullet wound was just a bandage on my arm. The bruises on my face and neck had turned that sickly shade of greenish-yellow. It clashed with the pink dress. I gave Catherine the option of me not being in the wedding. The wedding coordinator was all for that, but Catherine wouldn't hear of it. The wedding coordinator applied makeup to the bruises and saved the day.
   I have a picture of me standing in that awful dress with Catherine's arm around me. We're both smiling. Friendship is strange stuff.
   Jean-Claude sent me a dozen white roses in the hospital. The card read, "Come to the ballet with me. Not as my servant, but as my guest."
   I didn't go to the ballet. I had enough problems without dating the Master of the City.
   I had performed human sacrifice, and it had felt good. The rush of power was like the memory of painful sex. Part of you wanted to do it again. Maybe Dominga Salvador was right. Maybe power talks to everyone, even me.
   I am an animator. I am the Executioner. But now I know I'm something else. The one thing my Grandmother Flores feared most. I am a necromancer. The dead are my specialty.

Laurell K. Hamilton - Circus of the Damned

1
   There was dried chicken blood imbedded under my fingernails. When you raise the dead for a living, you have to spill a little blood. It clung in flaking patches to my face and hands. I'd tried to clean the worst of it off before coming to this meeting, but some things only a shower would fix. I sipped coffee from a personalized mug that said, "Piss me off, pay the consequences," and stared at the two men sitting across from me.
   Mr. Jeremy Ruebens was short, dark, and grumpy. I'd never seen him when he wasn't either frowning, or shouting. His small features were clustered in the middle of his face as if some giant hand had mashed them together before the clay had dried. His hands smoothed over the lapel of his coat, the dark blue tie, tie clip, white shirt collar. His hands folded in his lap for a second, then began their dance again, coat, tie, tie clip, collar, lap. I figured I could stand to watch him fidget maybe five more times before I screamed for mercy and promised him anything he wanted.
   The second man was Karl Inger. I'd never met him before, He was a few inches over six feet. Standing, he had towered over Ruebens and me. A wavy mass of short-cut red hair graced a large face. He had honest-to-god muttonchop sideburns that grew into one of the fullest mustaches I'd ever seen. Everything was neatly trimmed except for his unruly hair. Maybe he was having a bad hair day.
   Ruebens's hands were making their endless dance for the fourth time. Four was my limit.
   I wanted to go around the desk, grab his hands, and yell, "Stop that!" But I figured that was a little rude, even for me. "I don't remember you being this twitchy, Ruebens," I said.
   He glanced at me. "Twitchy?"
   I motioned at his hands, making their endless circuit. He frowned and placed his hands on top of his thighs. They remained there, motionless. Self-control at its best.
   "I am not twitchy, Miss Blake."
   "It's Ms. Blake. And why are you so nervous, Mr. Ruebens?" I sipped my coffee.
   "I am not accustomed to asking help from people like you."
   "People like me?" I made it a question.
   He cleared his throat sharply. "You know what I mean."
   "No, Mr. Ruebens, I don't."
   "Well, a zombie queen . . ." He stopped in mid-sentence. I was getting pissed, and it must have shown on my face. "No offense," he said softly.
   "If you came here to call me names, get the hell out of my office. If you have real business, state it, then get the hell out of my office."
   Ruebens stood up. "I told you she wouldn't help us."
   "Help you do what? You haven't told me a damn thing," I said.
   "Perhaps we should just tell her why we have come," Inger said. His voice was a deep, rumbling bass, pleasant.
   Ruebens drew a deep breath and let it out through his nose. "Very well." He sat back down in his chair. "The last time we met, I was a member of Humans Against Vampires."
   I nodded encouragingly and sipped my coffee.
   "I have since started a new group, Humans First. We have the same goals as HAV, but our methods are more direct."
   I stared at him. HAV's main goal was to make vampires illegal again, so they could be hunted down like animals. It worked for me. I used to be a vampire slayer, hunter, whatever. Now I was a vampire executioner. I had to have a death warrant to kill a specific vampire, or it was murder. To get a warrant, you had to prove the vampire was a danger to society, which meant you had to wait for the vampire to kill people. The lowest kill was five humans, the highest was twenty-three. That was a lot of dead bodies. In the good ol' days you could just kill a vampire on sight.
   "What exactly does 'more direct methods' mean?"
   "You know what it means," Ruebens said.
   "No," I said, "I don't." I thought I did, but he was going to have to say it out loud.
   "HAV has failed to discredit vampires through the media or the political machine. Humans First will settle for destroying them all."
   I smiled over my coffee mug. "You mean kill every last vampire in the United States?"
   "That is the goal," he said.
   "It's murder."
   "You have slain vampires. Do you really believe it is murder?"
   It was my turn to take a deep breath. A few months ago I would have said no. But now, I just didn't know. "I'm not sure anymore, Mr. Ruebens."
   "If the new legislation goes through, Ms. Blake, vampires will be able to vote. Doesn't that frighten you?"
   "Yes," I said.
   "Then help us."
   "Quit dancing around, Ruebens; just tell me what you want."
   "Very well, then. We want the daytime resting place of the Master Vampire of the City."
   I just looked at him for a few seconds. "Are you serious?"
   "I am in deadly earnest, Ms. Blake."
   I had to smile. "What makes you think I know the Master's daytime retreat?"
   It was Inger who answered. "Ms. Blake, come now. If we can admit to advocating murder, then you can admit to knowing the Master." He smiled ever so gently.
   "Tell me where you got the information and maybe I'll confirm it, or maybe I won't."
   His smile widened just a bit. "Now who's dancing?"
   He had a point. "If I say I know the Master, what then?"
   "Give us his daytime resting place," Ruebens said. He was leaning forward, an eager, nearly lustful look on his face. I wasn't flattered. It wasn't me getting his rocks off. It was the thought of staking the Master.
   "How do you know the Master is a he?"
   "There was an article in the Post-Dispatch.It was careful to mention no name, but the creature was clearly male," Ruebens said.
   I wondered how Jean-Claude would like being referred as a "creature." Better not to find out. "I give you an address and you go in and what, stake him through the heart?"
   Ruebens nodded. Inger smiled.
   I shook my head. "I don't think so."
   "You refuse to help us?" Ruebens asked.
   "No, I simply don't know the daytime resting place." I was relieved to be able to tell the truth.
   "You are lying to protect him," Ruebens said. His face was growing darker; deep frown wrinkles showed on his forehead.
   "I really don't know, Mr. Ruebens, Mr. Inger. If you want a zombie raised, we can talk; otherwise . . ." I let the sentence trail off and gave them my best professional smile. They didn't seem impressed.
   "We consented to meeting you at this ungodly hour, and we are paying a handsome fee for the consultation. I would think the least you could do is be polite."
   I wanted to say, "You started it," but that would sound childish. "I offered you coffee. You turned it down."
   Ruebens's scowl deepened, little anger lines showing around his eyes. "Do you treat all your . . . customers this way?"
   "The last time we met, you called me a zombie-loving bitch. I don't owe you anything."
   "You took our money."
   "My boss did that."
   "We met you here at dawn, Ms. Blake. Surely you can meet us halfway."
   I hadn't wanted to meet with Ruebens at all, but after Bert took their money, I was sort of stuck with it. I'd set the meeting at dawn, after my night's work, but before I went to bed. This way I could drive home and get eight hours uninterrupted sleep. Let Ruebens's sleep be interrupted.
   "Could you find out the location of the Master's retreat?" Inger asked.
   "Probably, but if I did, I wouldn't give it to you."
   "Why not?" he asked.
   "Because she is in league with him," Ruebens said.
   "Hush, Jeremy."
   Ruebens opened his mouth to protest, but Inger said, "Please, Jeremy, for the cause."
   Ruebens struggled visibly to swallow his anger, but he choked it down. Control.
   "Why not, Ms. Blake?" Inger's eyes were very serious, the pleasant sparkle seeping away like melting ice.
   "I've killed master vampires before, none of them with a stake."
   "How then?"
   I smiled. "No, Mr. Inger, if you want lessons in vampire slaying, you're going to have to go elsewhere. Just by answering your questions, I could be charged as an accessory to murder."
   "Would you tell us if we had a better plan?" Inger said.
   I thought about that for a minute. Jean-Claude dead, really dead. It would certainly make my life easier, but . . . but.
   "I don't know," I said.
   "Why not?"
   "Because I think he'll kill you. I don't give humans over to the monsters, Mr. Inger, not even people who hate me."
   "We don't hate you Ms. Blake."
   I motioned with the coffee mug towards Ruebens. "Maybe you don't, but he does."
   Ruebens just glared at me. At least he didn't try to deny it.
   "If we come up with a better plan, can we talk to you again?" Inger asked.
   I stared at Ruebens's angry little eyes. "Sure, why not?"
   Inger stood and offered me his hand. "Thank you, Ms. Blake. You have been most helpful."
   His hand enveloped mine. He was a large man, but he didn't try using his size to make me feel small. I appreciated that.
   "The next time we meet, Anita Blake, you will be more cooperative." Ruebens said.
   "That sounded like a threat, Jerry."
   Ruebens smiled, a most unpleasant smile. "Humans First believes the means justifies the end, Anita."
   I opened my royal purple suit jacket. Inside was a shoulder holster complete with a Browning Hi-Power 9mm. The purple skirt's thin black belt was just sturdy enough to be looped through the shoulder holster. Executive terrorist chic.
   "When it comes to survival, Jerry, I believe that, too."
   "We have not offered you violence," Inger said.
   "No, but ol' Jerry here is thinking about it. I just want him and the rest of your little group to believe I'm serious. Mess with me, and people are going to die."
   "There are dozens of us," Ruebens said, "and only one of you."
   "Yeah, but who's going to be first in line?" I said.
   "Enough of this, Jeremy, Ms. Blake. We didn't come here to threaten you. We came for your help. We will come up with a better plan and talk to you again."
   "Don't bring him," I said.
   "Of course," Inger said. "Come along, Jeremy." He opened the door. The soft clack of computer keys came from the outer office. "Good-bye Ms. Blake."
   "Good-bye, Mr. Inger, it's been really unpleasant."
   Ruebens stopped in the doorway and hissed at me, "You are an abomination before God."
   "Jesus loves you, too," I said, smiling. He slammed the door behind them. Childish.
   I sat on the edge of my desk and waited to make sure they had left before going outside. I didn't think they'd try anything in the parking lot, but I really didn't want to start shooting people. Oh, I would if I had to, but it was better to avoid it. I had hoped flashing the gun would make Ruebens back off. It had just seemed to enrage him. I rotated my neck, trying to ease some of the tension away. It didn't work.
   I could go home, shower, and get eight hours uninterrupted sleep. Glorious. My beeper went off. I jumped like I'd been stung. Nervous, me?
   I hit the button, and the number that flashed made me groan. It was the police. To be exact, it was the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. The Spook Squad. They were responsible for all preternatural crime in Missouri. I was their civilian expert on monsters. Bert liked the retainer I got, but better yet, the good publicity.
   The beeper went off again. Same number. "Shit," I said it softly. "I heard you the first time, Dolph." I thought about pretending that I'd already gone home, turned off the beeper, and was now unavailable, but I didn't. If Detective Sergeant Rudolf Storr called me at half-past dawn, he needed my expertise. Damn.
   I called the number and through a series of relays finally got Dolph's voice. He sounded tinny and faraway. His wife had gotten him a car phone for his birthday. We must have been near the limit of its range. It still beat the heck out of talking to him on the police radio. That always sounded like an alien language.
   "Hi, Dolph, what's up?"
   "Murder."
   "What sort of murder?"
   "The kind that needs your expertise," he said.
   "It's too damn early in the morning to play twenty questions. Just tell me what's happened."
   "You got up on the wrong side of bed this morning, didn't you?"
   "I haven't been to bed yet."
   "I sympathize, but get your butt out here. It looks like we have a vampire victim on our hands."
   I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Shit."
   "You could say that."
   "Give me the address," I said.
   He did. It was over the river and through the woods, way to hell and gone in Arnold. My office was just off Olive Boulevard. I had a forty-five-minute drive ahead of me, one way. Yippee.
   "I'll be there as soon as I can."
   "We'll be waiting," Dolph said, then hung up.
   I didn't bother to say good-bye to the dial tone. A vampire victim. I'd never seen a lone kill. They were like potato chips; once the vamp tasted them, he couldn't stop at just one. The trick was, how many people would die before we caught this one?
   I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to drive to Arnold. I didn't want to stare at dead bodies before breakfast. I wanted to go home. But somehow I didn't think Dolph would understand. Police have very little sense of humor when they're working on a murder case. Come to think of it, neither did I.
   

2
   The man's body lay on its back, pale and naked in the weak morning sunlight. Even limp with death his body was good, a lot of weights, maybe jogging. His longish yellow hair mixed with the still-green lawn. The smooth skin of his neck was punctured twice with neat fang marks. The right arm was pierced at the bend of the elbow, where a doctor draws blood. The skin of the left wrist was shredded, like an animal had gnawed it. White bone gleamed in the fragile light.
   I had measured the bite marks with my trusty tape measure. They were different sizes. At least three different vamps, but I would have bet everything I owned that it was five different vampires. A master and his pack, or flock, or whatever the hell you call a group of vampires.
   The grass was wet from early morning mist. The moisture soaked through the knees of the coveralls I had put on to protect my suit. Black Nikes and surgical gloves completed my crime-scene kit. I used to wear white Nikes, but they showed blood too easily.
   I said a silent apology for what I had to do, then spread the corpse's legs apart. The legs moved easily, no rigor. I was betting that he hadn't been dead eight hours, not enough time for rigor mortis to set in. Semen had dried on his shriveled privates. One last joy before dying. The vamps hadn't cleaned him off. On the inside of his thigh, close to the groin, were more fang marks. They weren't as savage as the wrist wound, but they weren't neat either.
   There was no blood on the skin around the wounds, not even the wrist wound. Had they cleaned the blood off? Wherever he was killed, there was a lot of blood. They'd never be able to clean it all up. If we could find where he died, we'd have all sorts of clues. But in the neatly clipped lawn in the middle of a very ordinary neighborhood, there were no clues. I was betting on that. They'd dumped the body in a place as sterile and unhelpful as the dark side of the moon.
   Mist floated over the small residential neighborhood like waiting ghosts. The mist was so low to the ground that it was like walking through sheets of drizzling rain. Tiny beads of moisture clung to the body where the mist had condensed. Beads collected in my hair like silver pearls.
   I stood in the front yard of a small, lime-green house with white trim. A chain-link fence peeked around one side encircling a roomy backyard. It was October, and the grass was still green. The top of a sugar maple loomed over the house. Its leaves were that brilliant orangey-yellow that is peculiar to sugar maples, as if their leaves were carved from flame. The mist helped the illusion, and the colors seemed to bleed on the wet air.
   All down the street were other small houses with autumn-bright trees and bright green lawns. It was still early enough that most people hadn't gone to work yet, or school, or wherever. There was quite a crowd being held back by the uniform officers. They had hammered stakes into the ground to hold the yellow Do-Not-Cross tape. The crowd pressed as close to the tape as they dared. A boy of about twelve had managed to push his way to the front. He stared at the dead man with huge brown eyes, his mouth open in a little "wow" of excitement. God, where were his parents? Probably gawking at the corpse, too.
   The corpse was paper-white. Blood always pools to the lowest point of the body. In this case dark, purplish bruising should have set in at buttocks, arms, legs, the entire back of his body. There were no marks. He hadn't had enough blood in him to cause lividity marks. Whoever had murdered him had drained him completely. Good to the last drop? I fought the urge to smile and lost. If you spend a lot of time staring at corpses, you get a peculiar sense of humor. You have to, or you will go stark raving mad.
   "What's so funny?" a voice asked.
   I jumped and whirled. "God, Zerbrowski, don't sneak up on me like that."
   "Is the heap big vampire slayer jumping at shadows?" He grinned at me. His unruly brown hair stuck up in three separate tufts like he'd forgotten to comb it. His tie was at half-mast over a pale blue shirt that looked suspiciously like a pajama top. The brown suit jacket and pants clashed with the top.
   "Nice pajamas."
   He shrugged. "I've got a pair with little choo-choos on them. Katie thinks they're sexy."
   "Your wife got a thing for trains?" I asked.
   His grin widened. "If I'm wearing 'em."
   I shook my head. "I knew you were perverted, Zerbrowski, but little kids' jammies, that's truly sick."
   "Thank you." He glanced down at the body, still smiling. The smile faded. "What do you think of this?" He nodded towards the dead man.
   "Where's Dolph?"
   "In the house with the lady who found the body." He plunged his hands into the pockets of his pants and rocked on his heels. "She's taking it pretty hard. Probably the first corpse she's seen outside of a funeral."
   "That's the way most normal folks see dead people, Zerbrowski."
   He rocked forward hard on the balls of his feet, coming to a standstill. "Wouldn't it be nice to be normal?"
   "Sometimes," I said.
   He grinned. "Yeah, I know what you mean." He got a notebook out of his jacket pocket that looked as if someone had crumbled it in their fist.
   "Geez, Zerbrowski."
   "Hey, it's still paper." He tried smoothing the notebook flat, but finally gave up. He posed, pen over the wrinkled paper. "Enlighten me, oh preternatural expert."
   "Am I going to have to repeat this to Dolph? I'd like to just do this once and go home to bed."
   "Hey, me too. Why do you think I'm wearing my jammies?"
   "I just thought it was a daring fashion statement." He looked at me. "Mm-huh."
   Dolph walked out of the house. The door looked too small to hold him. He's six-nine and built bulky like a wrestler. His black hair was buzzed close to his head, leaving his ears stranded on either side of his face. But Dolph didn't care much for fashion. His tie was tight against the collar of his white dress shirt. He had to have been pulled out of bed just like Zerbrowski, but he looked neat and tidy and businesslike. It never mattered what hour you called Dolph, he was always ready to do his job. A professional cop down to his socks.
   So why was Dolph heading up the most unpopular special task force in St. Louis? Punishment for something, that much I was sure of, but I'd never asked what. I probably never would. It was his business. If he wanted me to know, he'd tell me.
   The squad had originally been a pacifier for the liberals. See, we're doing something about supernatural crime. But Dolph had taken his job and his men seriously. They had solved more supernatural crime in the last two years than any other group of policemen in the country. He had been invited to give talks to other police forces. They had even been loaned out to neighboring states twice.
   "Well, Anita, let's have it."
   That's Dolph; no preliminaries. "Gee, Dolph, it's nice to see you too."
   He just looked at me.
   "Okay, okay." I knelt on the far side of the body so I could point as I talked. Nothing like a visual aid to get your point across. "Just measuring shows that at least three different vampires fed on the man."
   "But?" Dolph said.
   He's quick. "But I think that every wound is a different vampire."
   "Vampires don't hunt in packs."
   "Usually they are solitary hunters, but not always."
   "What causes them to hunt in packs?" he asked.
   "Only two reasons that I've ever come across: first, one is the new dead and an older vampire is teaching the ropes, but that's just two pairs of fangs, not five; second, a master vampire is controlling them, and he's gone rogue."
   "Explain."
   "A master vampire has nearly absolute control over his or her flock. Some masters use a group kill to solidify the pack, but they wouldn't dump the body here. They'd hide it where the police would never find it."
   "But the body's here," Zerbrowski said, "out in plain sight."
   "Exactly; only a master that's gone crazy would dump a body like this. Most masters even before vampires were legally alive wouldn't flaunt a kill like this. It attracts attention, usually attention with a stake in one hand and a cross in the other. Even now, if we could trace the kill to the vampires that did it, we could get a warrant and kill them." I shook my head. "Slaughter like this is bad for business, and whatever else vampires are, they're practical. You don't stay alive and hidden for centuries unless you're discreet and ruthless."
   "Why ruthless?" Dolph said.
   I stared up at him. "It's utterly practical. Someone discovers your secret, you kill them, or make them one of your . . . children. Good business practices, Dolph, nothing more."
   "Like the mob," Zerbrowski said.
   "Yeah."
   "What if they panicked?" Zerbrowski asked. "It was almost dawn."
   "When did the woman find the body?"
   Dolph checked his notebook. "Five-thirty."
   "It's still hours until dawn. They didn't panic."
   "If we've got a crazy master vampire, what exactly does that mean?"
   "It means they'll kill more people faster. They may need blood every night to support five vampires."
   "A fresh body every night?" Zerbrowski made it a question.
   I just nodded.
   "Jesus," he said.
   "Yeah."
   Dolph was silent, staring down at the dead man. "What can we do?"
   "I should be able to raise the corpse as a zombie."
   "I thought you couldn't raise a vampire victim as a zombie," Dolph said.
   "If the corpse is going to rise as a vampire, you can't." I shrugged. "The whatever that makes a vampire interferes with a raising. I can't raise a body that is already set to rise as a vamp."
   "But this one won't rise," Dolph said, "so you can raise it."
   I nodded.
   "Why won't this vampire victim rise?"
   "He was killed by more than one vampire, in a mass feeding. For a corpse to rise as a vampire, you have to have just one vampire feeding over a space of several days. Three bites ending with death, and you get a vampire. If every vampire victim could come back, we'd be up to our butts in bloodsuckers."
   "But this victim can come back as a zombie?" Dolph said.
   I nodded.
   "When can you do the animating?"
   "Three nights from tonight, or really two. Tonight counts as one night."
   "What time?"
   "I'll have to check my schedule at work. I'll call you with a time."
   "Just raise the murder victim and ask who killed him. I like it," Zerbrowski said.
   "It's not that easy," I said. "You know how confused witnesses to violent crimes are. Have three people see the same crime and you get three different heights, different hair colors."
   "Yeah, yeah, witness testimony is a bitch," Zerbrowski said.
   "Go on, Anita," Dolph said. It was his way of saying, "Zerbrowski, shut up." Zerbrowski shut up.
   "A person who died as the victim of a violent crime is more confused. Scared shitless, so that sometimes they don't remember very clearly."
   "But they were there," Zerbrowski said. He looked outraged.
   "Zerbrowski, let her finish."
   Zerbrowski pantomimed locking his lips with a key and throwing the key away. Dolph frowned. I coughed into my hand to hide the smile. Mustn't encourage Zerbrowski.
   "What I'm saying is that I can raise the victim from the dead, but we may not get as much information as you'd expect. The memories we do get will be confused, painful, but it might narrow the field down as to which master vampire led the group."
   "Explain," Dolph said.
   "There are only supposed to be two master vampires in St. Louis right now. Malcolm, the undead Billy Graham, and the Master of the City. There's always the possibility we've got someone new in town, but the Master of the City should be able to police that."
   "We'll take the head of the Church of Eternal Life," Dolph said.
   "I'll take the Master," I said.
   "Take one of us with you for backup."
   I shook my head. "Can't; if he knew I let the cops know who he was, he'd kill us both."
   "How dangerous is it for you to do this?" Dolph asked.
   What was I supposed to say? Very? Or did I tell them the Master had the hots for me, so I'd probably be okay? Neither. "I'll be all right."
   He stared at me, eyes very serious.
   "Besides, what choice do we have?" I motioned at the corpse. "We'll get one of these a night until we find the vampires responsible. One of us has to talk to the Master. He won't talk to police, but he will talk to me."
   Dolph took a deep breath and let it out. He nodded. He knew I was right. "When can you do it?"
   "Tomorrow night, if I can talk Bert into giving my zombie appointments to someone else."
   "You're that sure the Master will talk to you?"
   "Yeah." The problem with Jean-Claude was not getting to see him, it was avoiding him. But Dolph didn't know that, and if he did, he might have insisted on going with me. And gotten us both killed.
   "Do it," he said. "Let me know what you find out."
   "Will do," I said. I stood up, facing him over the bloodless corpse.
   "Watch your back," he said.
   "Always."
   "If the Master eats you, can I have your nifty coveralls?" Zerbrowski asked.
   "Buy your own, you cheap bastard."
   "I'd rather have the ones that have enveloped your luscious body."
   "Give it a rest, Zerbrowski. I'm not into little choo-choos."
   "What the hell do trains have to do with anything?" Dolph asked.
   Zerbrowski and I looked at each other. We started giggling and couldn't stop. I could claim sleep deprivation. I'd been on my feet for fourteen straight hours, raising the dead and talking to right-wing fruitcakes. The vampire victim was a perfect end to a perfect night. I had a right to be hysterical with laughter. I don't know what Zerbrowski's excuse was.
   

3
   There are a handful of days in October that are nearly perfect. The sky stretches overhead in a clear blue, so deep and perfect that it makes everything else prettier. The trees along the highway are crimson, gold, rust, burgundy, orange. Every color is neon-bright, pulsing in the heavy golden sunlight. The air is cool but not cold; by noon you can wear just a light jacket. It was weather for taking long walks in the woods with someone you wanted to hold hands with. Since I didn't have anyone like that, I was just hoping for a free weekend to go away by myself. The chances of that were slim and none.
   October is a big month for raising the dead. Everyone thinks that Halloween is the perfect season for raising zombies. It isn't. Darkness is the only requirement. But everyone wants an appointment for midnight on Halloween. They think spending All Hallows Eve in a cemetery killing chickens and watching zombies crawl out of the ground is great entertainment. I could probably sell tickets.
   I was averaging five zombies a night. It was one more zombie than anyone else was doing in one night. I should never have told Bert that four zombies didn't wipe me out. My own fault for being too damn truthful. Of course, truth was, five didn't wipe me out either, but I was damned if I'd tell Bert.
   Speaking of my boss, I had to call him when I got home. He was going to love me asking for the night off. It made me smile just thinking about it. Any day I could yank Bert's chain was a good day.
   I pulled into my apartment complex at nearly one in the afternoon. All I wanted was a quick shower and seven hours of sleep. I had given up on eight hours; it was too late in the day for that. I had to see Jean-Claude tonight. Joy. But he was the Master Vampire of the City. If there was another master vampire around, he'd know it. I think they can smell each other. Of course, if Jean-Claude had committed the murder, he wasn't likely to confess. But I didn't really believe he'd done it. He was much too good a business vampire to get messy. He was the only master vampire I'd ever met who wasn't crazy in some way: psychotic, or sociopath, take your pick.
   All right, all right, Malcolm wasn't crazy, but I didn't approve of his methods. He headed up the fastest-growing church in America today. The Church of Eternal Life offered exactly that. No leap of faith, no uncertainty, just a guarantee. You could become a vampire and live forever, unless someone like me killed you, or you got caught in a fire, or hit by a bus. I wasn't sure about the bus part, but I'd always wondered. Surely there must be something massive enough to damage even a vampire beyond healing. I hoped someday to test the theory.
   I climbed the stairs slowly. My body felt heavy. My eyes burned with the need to sleep. It was three days before Halloween, and the month couldn't end too soon for me. Business would start dropping off before Thanksgiving. The decline would continue until after New Year's, then it'd start picking up. I prayed for a freak snowstorm. Business drops off if the snow is bad. People seem to think we can't raise the dead in deep snow. We can, but don't tell anyone. I need the break.
   The hallway was full of the quiet noises of my day-living neighbors. I was fishing my keys out of my coat pocket when the door opposite mine opened. Mrs. Pringle stepped out. She was tall, slender, thinning with age, white hair done in a small bun at the back of her head. The hair was perfectly white. Mrs. Pringle didn't bother with dyes or makeup. She was over sixty-five and didn't care who knew it.
   Custard, her Pomeranian, pranced at the end of his leash. He was a round ball of golden fur with little fox ears. Most cats outweighed him, but he's one of those little dogs with a big-dog attitude. In a past life he was a Great Dane.
   "Hello, Anita." Mrs. Pringle smiled as she said it. "You're not just getting in from work, are you?" Her pale eyes were disapproving.
   I smiled. "Yeah, I had an . . . emergency come up."
   She raised an eyebrow, probably wondering what an animator would have for an emergency, but she was too polite to ask. "You don't take good enough care of yourself, Anita. If you keep burning the candle at both ends, you'll be worn out by the time you're my age."
   "Probably," I said.
   Custard yapped at me. I did not smile at him. I don't believe in encouraging small, pushy dogs. With that peculiar doggy sense, he knew I didn't like him, and he was determined to win me over.
   "I saw the painters were in your apartment last week. Is it all repaired?"
   I nodded. "Yeah, all the bullet holes have been patched up and painted over."
   "I'm really sorry I wasn't home to offer you my apartment. Mr. Giovoni says you had to go to a hotel."
   "Yeah."
   "I don't understand why one of the other neighbors didn't offer you a couch for the night."
   I smiled. I understood. Two months ago I had slaughtered two killer zombies in my apartment and had a police shootout. The walls and one window had been damaged. Some of the bullets had gone through the walls into other apartments. No one else had been hurt, but none of the neighbors wanted anything to do with me now. I suspected strongly that when my two-year lease was up, I would be asked to leave. I guess I couldn't blame them.
   "I heard you were wounded."
   I nodded. "Just barely." I didn't bother telling her that the bullet wound hadn't been from the shootout. The mistress of a very bad man had shot me in the right arm. It was healed to a smooth, shiny scar, still a little pink.
   "How did your visit with your daughter go?" I asked.
   Mrs. Pringle's face went all shiny with a smile. "Oh, wonderful. My last and newest grandchild is perfect. I'll show you pictures later, after you've had some sleep." That disapproving look was back in her eyes. Her teacher face. The one that could make you squirm from ten paces, even if you were innocent. And I hadn't been innocent for years.
   I held up my hands. "I give up. I'll go to bed. I promise."
   "You see you do," she said. "Come along, Custard, we have to go out for our afternoon stroll." The tiny dog danced at the end of his leash, straining forward like a miniature sled dog.
   Mrs. Pringle let three pounds of fluffy fur drag her down the hall. I shook my head. Letting a fuzzball boss you around was not my idea of dog ownership. If I ever had another dog, I'd be boss, or one of us wouldn't survive. It was the principle of the thing.
   I opened the door and stepped inside the hush of my apartment. The heater whirred, hot air hissing out of the vents. The aquarium clicked on. The sounds of emptiness. It was wonderful.
   The new paint was the same off-white as the old. The carpet was grey; couch and matching chair, white. The kitchenette was pale wood with white and gold linoleum. The two-seater breakfast table in the kitchen was a little darker than the cabinets. A modern print was the only color on the white walls.
   The space where most people would have put a full-size kitchen set had the thirty-gallon aquarium against the wall, a stereo catty-corner from it.
   Heavy white drapes hid the windows and turned the golden sunlight to a pale twilight. When you sleep during the day, you have to have good curtains.
   I flung my coat on the couch, kicked my dress shoes off, and just enjoyed the feeling of my bare feet on the carpet. The panty hose came off next, to lie wrinkled and forlorn by the shoes. Barefoot, I padded over to the fish tank.
   The angelfish rose to the surface begging for food. The fish are all wider than my outspread hand. They are the biggest angels I've ever seen outside of the pet store I bought them from. The store had breeding angelfish that were nearly a foot long.
   I stripped off the shoulder holster and put the Browning in its second home, a specially made holster in the headboard. If any bad guys snuck up on me, I could pull it and shoot them. That was the idea, anyway. So far it had worked.
   When the dry-clean-only suit and blouse were hung neatly in the closet, I flopped down on the bed in my bra and undies, still wearing the silver cross that I wore even in the shower. Never know when a pesky vampire is going to try to take a bite out of you. Always prepared, that was my motto, or was that the Boy Scouts? I shrugged and dialed work. Mary, our daytime secretary, answered on the second ring. "Animators, Incorporated. How may we serve you?"
   "Hi, Mary, it's Anita."
   "Hi, what's up?"
   "I need to talk with Bert."
   "He's with a prospective client right now. May I ask what this is pertaining to?"
   "Him rescheduling my appointments for tonight."
   "Ooh, boy. I'll let you tell him. If he yells at someone, it should be you." She was only half-kidding.
   "Fine," I said.
   She lowered her voice and whispered, "Client is on her way to the front door. He'll be with you in a jiffy."
   "Thanks, Mary."
   She put me on hold before I could tell her not to. Muzak seeped out of the phone. It was a butchered version of the Beatles' "Tomorrow." I'd have rather listened to static. Mercifully, Bert came on the line and saved me.
   "Anita, what time can you come in today?"
   "I can't."
   "Can't what?"
   "Can't come in today."
   "At all?" His voice had risen an octave.
   "You got it."
   "Why the hell not?" Cursing at me already, a bad sign.
   "I got beeped by the police after my morning meeting. I haven't even been to bed yet."
   "You can sleep in, don't worry about meeting new clients in the afternoon. Just come in for your appointments tonight."
   He was being generous, understanding. Something was wrong.
   "I can't make the appointments tonight, either."
   "Anita, we're overbooked here. You have five clients tonight. Five!"
   "Divide them up among the other animators," I said.
   "Everybody is already maxed."
   "Listen, Bert, you're the one who said yes to the police. You're the one who put me on retainer to them. You thought it would be great publicity."
   "It has been great publicity," he said.
   "Yeah, but it's like working two full-time jobs sometimes. I can't do both."
   "Then drop the retainer. I had no idea it'd take up this much of your time."
   "It's a murder investigation, Bert. I can't drop it."
   "Let the police do their own dirty work," he said.
   He was a fine one to talk about that. Him with his squeaky-clean fingernails and nice safe office. "They need my expertise and my contacts. Most of the monsters won't talk to the police."
   He was quiet on the other end of the phone. His breathing came harsh and angry. "You can't do this to me. We've taken money, signed contracts."
   "I asked you to hire extra help months ago."
   "I hired John Burke. He's been handling some of your vampire slayings, as well as raising the dead."
   "Yeah, John's a big help, but we need more. In fact, I bet he could take at least one of my zombies tonight."
   "Raise five in one night?"
   "I'm doing it," I said.
   "Yes, but John isn't you."
   That was almost a compliment. "You have two choices, Bert; either reschedule or delegate them to someone else."
   "I am your boss. I could just say come in tonight or you're fired." His voice was firm and matter-of-fact.
   I was tired and cold sitting on the bed in my bra and undies, I didn't have time for this. "Fire me."
   "You don't mean that," he said.
   "Look, Bert, I've been on my feet for over twenty hours. If I don't get some sleep soon, I'm not going to be able to work for anybody."
   He was silent for a long time, his breathing soft and regular in my ear. Finally, he said, "All right, you're free for tonight. But you damn well better be back on the job tomorrow."
   "I can't promise that, Bert."
   "Dammit, Anita, do you want to be fired?"
   "This is the best year we've ever had, Bert. Part of that's due to the articles on me in the Post-Dispatch."
   "They were about zombie rights and that government study you're on. You didn't do them to help promote our business."
   "But it worked, didn't it? How many people call up and ask specifically for me? How many people say they've seen me in the paper? How many heard me on the radio? I may be promoting zombie rights, but it's damn good for business. So cut me some slack."
   "You don't think I'd do it, do you?" His voice snarled through the phone. He was pissed.
   "No, I don't," I said.
   His breath was short and harsh. "You damn well better show up tomorrow night, or I'm going to call your bluff." He slammed the receiver in my ear. Childish.
   I hung up the phone and stared at it. The Resurrection Company in California had made me a handsome offer a few months back. But I really didn't want to move to the west coast, or the east coast for that matter. I liked St. Louis. But Bert was going to have to break down and hire more help. I couldn't keep this schedule up. Sure, it'd get better after October, but I just seemed to be going from one emergency to another for this entire year.
   I had been stabbed, beaten, shot, strangled, and vampire-bit in the space of four months. There comes a point where you just have too many things happening too close together. I had battle fatigue.
   I left a message on my judo instructor's machine. I went twice a week at four o'clock, but I wasn't going to make it today. Three hours of sleep just wouldn't have been enough.
   I dialed the number for Guilty Pleasures. It was a vampire strip joint. Chippendale's with fangs. Jean-Claude owned and managed it. Jean-Claude's voice came over the line, soft as silk, caressing down my spine even though I knew it was a recording. "You have reached Guilty Pleasures. I would love to make your darkest fantasy come true. Leave a message, and I will get back to you."
   I waited for the beep. "Jean-Claude, this is Anita Blake. I need to see you tonight. It's important. Call me back with a time and place." I gave him my home number, then hesitated, listening to the tape scratch. "Thanks." I hung up, and that was that.
   He'd either call back or he wouldn't. He probably would. The question was, did I want him to? No. No, I didn't, but for the police, for all those poor people who would die, I had to try. But for me personally, going to the Master was not a good idea.
   Jean-Claude had marked me twice already. Two more marks and I would be his human servant. Did I mention that neither mark was voluntary? His servant for eternity. Didn't sound like a good idea to me. He seemed to lust after my body, too, but that was secondary. I could have handled it if all he wanted was physical, but he was after my soul. That he could not have.
   I had managed to avoid him for the last two months. Now I was willingly putting myself within reach again. Stupid. But I remembered the nameless man's hair, soft and mingling with the still-green lawn. The fang marks, the paper-white skin, the fragility of his nude body covered with dew. There would be more bodies to look at, unless we were quick. And quick meant Jean-Claude.
   Visions of vampire victims danced in my head. And every one of them was partially my fault, because I was too chickenshit to go see the Master. If I could stop the killings now, with just one dead, I'd risk my soul daily. Guilt is a wonderful motivator.