Bloody Bones

Chapter 17



It was after 2:00 a.m. before we got back to the graveyard. The Feds had kept us forever, like they didn't believe we were telling them the whole truth. Fancy that. I hated being accused of concealing evidence when I wasn't. Made me want to lie to them just so they wouldn't be disappointed. I think Freemont had painted a less than charitable picture of me. That'll teach me to be generous. But it seemed petty to point fingers at each other, and say she did it, when Beth St. John's blood was still wet on the carpet.



The wind that had all but promised rain had drifted away. The thick clouds that had obscured the woods while we were playing tag with vampires were suddenly gone. The moon rode high and two days past full. Since dating Richard, I'd paid more attention to the lunar cycles. Fancy that.



The moon sailed the shining night sky, gleaming like it had been polished. The moonlight was so strong it cast faint shadows. You didn't need a flashlight, but Raymond Stirling had one. A big freaking halogen torch that filled his hand like a captive sun.



I watched him start to point it at Larry and me. I raised an arm and said, "Don't point it at us. You'll ruin our night vision." It wasn't very diplomatic, but I was tired, and it had been a long night.



He hesitated in mid-motion. I didn't have to see his face to know he didn't like it. Men like Raymond give orders better than they take them.



He clicked off the light. Good for him. He waited with Ms. Harrison, Bayard, and Beau gathered around him. He was the only one with a flashlight. I bet that his entourage wasn't worried about night vision, and would have liked to have had a light.



Larry and I were still wearing the coveralls. I was getting tired of mine. What I really wanted to do was go back to the hotel and sleep. But once Jean-Claude arrived I wouldn't be sleeping anyway; might as well work. Besides, Stirling was my only paying client. Well, yeah I do get money for killing vampires if it's a legal kill, but it's not a lot of money. Stirling was financing this trip. He deserved his money's worth, I guess.



"We've been waiting for a very long time, Ms. Blake."



"I'm sorry that the death of a young girl inconvenienced you, Mr. Stirling. Shall we go up?"



"I am not unsympathetic to another's loss, Ms. Blake, and I resent the implication that I am." He stood there in the moonlit dark, very straight, very commanding. Ms. Harrison and Bayard moved a little closer, showing support. Beau just stood there, looking sort of amused behind Stirling's back. He was wearing a black slicker with a hood. He looked like a phantom.



I looked up at the clear, sparkling sky. Looked at Beau. He grinned broadly enough for his teeth to flash in the moonlight. I just shook my head and let it go. Maybe he'd been a Boy Scout, always prepared and all that.



"Fine, whatever you say. Let's get this over with." I didn't wait for them. I just walked past them and started up.



Larry, at my side, said, "You're being rude."



I glanced at him.



"Yeah, I am."



"He is a paying client, Anita."



"Look, I don't need you to chastise me, okay?"



"What's wrong with you?"



I stopped. "What we just left is what's wrong with me. I'd think it'd bother you a little more, too."



"It bothers me, but I don't have to take it out on everyone else."



I took a deep breath and let it out slow. He was right. Damn. "Alright, you've made your point. I'll try to be nicer."



Stirling marched up to us, entourage in tow. "Are you coming, Ms. Blake?" He walked past us, his back ramrod-straight.



Ms. Harrison stumbled, and only Bayard's grab on her elbow kept her from falling flat on her butt. She was still wearing her high heels. Maybe it was against the executive secretary code to wear tennis shoes.



Beau followed with his black slicker flapping around his long legs. It made a distinctive slap-slap sound that was most irritating.



Okay, maybe everything was irritating right now. I was feeling decidedly grumpy. Jeff Quinlan was out there somewhere. He was either already dead or had one bite by now. It wasn't my fault. I'd told his father to put a piece of the host in front of every entrance. I would have thought of the doggie door if I'd seen it, but I'd never gone that far into the house. Even I would have thought it was paranoid to guard the doggie entrance. But I would have done it, and Beth St. John would be alive.



I'd dropped the ball. I couldn't bring Beth St. John back, but I could save Jeff. And I would. I would. I didn't want to avenge him by killing the vampire that killed him. For once I wanted to be in time. For once I wanted to save someone and leave revenge for someone else.



Was Jeff being violated, right this minute? Was that thing I'd seen in the Quinlans' living room doing more than just biting his neck? God, I hoped not. I was pretty sure I could bring Jeff back from a vampire bite, but combine that with rape by a monster, and I wasn't so sure. What if I found him and there wasn't much left to save? The mind is a surprisingly fragile thing sometimes.



I prayed as we walked up the hill. I prayed and felt a measure of calm return. No visions. No angels singing. But a feeling of peace flowed over me. I took a deep breath, and something hard and tight and ugly in my heart let go. I took it as a good sign that I'd get to Jeff in time. But part of me was skeptical. God doesn't always save someone. Often He just helps you live through the loss. I guess I don't entirely trust God. I never doubt Him, but His motives are too beyond me. Through a glass darkly and all that. Just once I'd like to see through the damn glass clearly.



The moon shone down on the top of the hill like silver fire. The air was almost luminescent. The rain was gone, giving its blessing somewhere else. Heaven knows we could have used the rain, but personally I was just as glad I didn't have to walk the raw dirt in a downpour. Mud would have been just too perfect.



"Well, Ms. Blake, shall we begin?" Stirling asked.



I glanced at him. "Yeah." I took a breath and swallowed the blunt things I wanted to say. Larry was right. Stirling was a pain in the ass, but he wasn't who I was mad at. He was just a convenient target.



"Mr. Kirkland and I will walk the graveyard. But you need to stay here. Other people moving around are very distracting." There; that was diplomatic.



"If you were going to make us stand here like an audience, you could have said so at the bottom of this mountain. And saved us the walk."



So much for diplomacy. "Would you have liked me telling you to stay at the bottom of the hill where you couldn't see what we were doing?"



He thought about that for a minute. "No, I suppose I wouldn't have liked it."



"Then what are you complaining about?"



"Anita," Larry said very softly under his breath.



I ignored him. "Look, Mr. Stirling, it has been a really rough night. I am just out of niceness right now. Please, just let me do my job. The faster I get this done, the sooner we go home. Okay?"



Honesty. I was hoping profound honesty would work. It was about all I had left.



He hesitated a minute, then nodded. "All right, Ms. Blake. Do your job, but know this. You have been decidedly unpleasant. It better be pretty spectacular."



I opened my mouth, and Larry touched my arm. He gripped my arm not too hard, but hard enough. I swallowed what I was going to say and walked away from all of them. Larry trailed after me. Brave Larry.



"What's the matter with you tonight?" he asked when we were out of earshot of Stirling and Co.



"I told you."



"No," he said, "it isn't just the murder tonight. Hell, I've seen you kill people and be less upset afterwards. What's wrong?"



I stopped walking and just stood there for a minute. He'd seen me kill people and be less upset. Was that true? I thought about it for a heartbeat. It was true. That was pretty damn sad.



I knew what was wrong. I'd seen too many slaughtered people in the last few months. Too much blood. Too much killing. I'd done some of the killing. Not all of it had been sanctioned by the state. I also wanted to be looking for Jeff Quinlan. I couldn't do anything until Jean-Claude arrived. I really couldn't. But I felt like my job was interfering with my police work. Was that a bad sign? Or a good one?



I took a deep breath of the cool mountain air. I let it out very slowly, concentrating on just breathing, in and out, in and out. When I felt calm again, I looked at Larry.



"I'm just a little on edge tonight, Larry. I'll be alright."



"If I said a little on edge with a surprised lilt in my voice, would you get mad?"



I smiled. "Yeah, I would."



"You've been in a blacker mood than usual since you talked to Jean-Claude. What's up?"



I stared into his smiling face and didn't want to tell him. He wasn't that much older than Jeff Quinlan, four years. He could still have passed for a high-schooler. "Fine," I said, and told him.



"A vampire pedophile; isn't that against the rules?"



"What rules?"



"That you can only be one kind of monster at a time."



"It kind of caught me off guard, too."



A strange look flashed across his face. "Sweet Jesus, Jeff Quinlan is with that thing." He looked at me, all the horror, all the pain, or as much as he could imagine, flowing across his face. "We have to do something, Anita. We have to save him." He turned as if to go back down the mountain.



I grabbed his arm. "We can't do anything until Jean-Claude arrives."



"But we can't just do nothing."



"We aren't doing nothing. We're doing our job."



"But how can we..."



"Because we can't do anything else right now."



Larry looked at me for a second, then nodded. "Okay; if you can be calm, so can I."



"Good man."



"Thanks. Now show me this nifty trick you've been talking about. I've never heard of anyone who could read the dead without raising them first."



Truthfully, I didn't know if Larry could do it. But telling him he might not be able to was not going to help his confidence. Magic, if that was the right word, often rises and falls on your own belief in your abilities. I've seen very powerful people completely crippled by self-doubt.



"I'm going to walk the cemetery." I tried to think of how to put it into words. How do you explain something that you don't fully understand yourself?



I have always had an affinity with the dead. Even as a small child, I always knew if the soul had fled the body. I remember my great-aunt Katerine's funeral. I'm named after her, my middle name. She was my father's favorite aunt. We went early to view the body and make sure everything was ready. I felt her soul hovering above the coffin. I looked up expecting to see it, but there was nothing for my eyes to hold onto. I've never seen a soul. I've felt them, but I've never seen one.



I know now that Aunt Katerine's soul hung around a long time. Most souls leave within three days, some leave instantly, some don't. My mother's soul was gone by the time the funeral arrived. I didn't feel her there. There was nothing but a closed coffin and a blanket of pink roses over the coffin, as if the coffin would get cold.



It was at home where I felt my mother hovering close. Not her soul, not really, but some piece of her that couldn't let go immediately. I would hear her footsteps in the hall outside my bedroom as if she was coming to kiss me good night. She moved through the house for months, and I found it comforting. When she finally left, I was ready to let her go. I never told my father. I was only eight, but even then I knew that he couldn't hear her. Maybe he heard other things. I don't know. My father and I never talked much about my mother's death. It made him cry.



I'd been able to sense ghosts long before I could raise the dead. What I was about to do was just an extension of that, or maybe a combination of both skills. I don't know. But it was like trying to explain that there was a soul hovering over Aunt Katerine's coffin. Either you knew the soul was there or you didn't. Words didn't quite cover it.



"Can you see ghosts?"



"You mean right now?"



I smiled and shook my head. "No, just in general."



"Well, I knew the Calvin house wasn't haunted, no matter how many stories people made up. But there was a little cave near town that had something in it. Something not nice."



"Was it a ghost?"



He shrugged. "I never tried to find out, but nobody else seemed able to feel it."



"Do you know when the soul leaves the body? I mean, can you tell it?"



"Sure." He said it like, Couldn't everybody do that?



I had to smile. "Good enough. I'm just going to do it. I don't know what you'll see, if anything. I know that Raymond is going to be disappointed because he won't see anything, unless he's a lot more talented than he looks."



"What are you going to do, Anita? They never talked about 'walking a cemetery' in college."



"It's not like a magic spell, a few words or gestures and it works. It isn't anything like that." I struggled to put into words something that we had no vocabulary for. "It's closer to psychic ability than magic. It's not physical. It's not a muscle to move, or even a thought. It's... I just do it. Let me get started; then if I can, I'll bring you in or try and talk to you while I do it. Okay?"



He shrugged. "I guess so. I still don't understand what the heck you're doing, but that's okay. I usually don't know what's going on."



"But you always figure it out," I said.



He grinned. "I do, don't I?"



"You bet."



I stood in nearly the dead center of the raw earth. Not so long ago I was afraid of what I was about to do. It wasn't really frightening in and of itself. I was scared of the fact that I could do it at all. It wasn't a very human thing to be able to do.



But then, lately I'd been rethinking exactly what made you human, and what made you one of the monsters. Once I'd been very sure of myself, and everyone else. I wasn't so sure anymore. Besides, I'd been practicing.



Of course, I'd been practicing in empty graveyards where there was nothing but me and the dead. Okay, night insects, but arthropods never bothered my concentration. People did.



Even with my back turned, I could feel Larry like a warm presence behind me. It bugged me. "Can you move back farther?"



"Sure; how far?"



I shook my head. "As far as you can get and still be in sight."



He raised his eyebrows. "Do you want me to go over and wait with Mr. Stirling?"



"If you can stand it."



"I can stand it. I schmooze clients better than you do."



That was the God's honest truth. "Great. When I call you over, come slowly. I've never tried to talk to someone while I do this."



"Whatever you say." He gave a laugh that was almost nervous. "I can't wait to see this."



I let that go, and turned away. I walked away from him. When I glanced back, he was walking to the others. I hoped Larry wouldn't be disappointed. I still wasn't sure if he'd be able to even sense anything. I turned my back on all of them. Seeing them huddled there would distract me, that much I was sure of.



The top of the mountain had been stripped. It was like standing on the edge of the world looking down. The moonlight bathed everything in a soft glow. It was so bright up here near the sky without any trees to hide it that the air itself glowed with diffused light. A gentle wind traced just about head-high. It smelled green and fresh, almost as if the rain had actually fallen. I closed my eyes and let the wind touch my skin, ruffle my hair. There was almost no sound but the singing of insects from below. Nothing but the wind, me, and the dead.



I couldn't tell Larry exactly how to do it, because I wasn't completely sure myself. If it was a muscle, I would move it. If it was a thought, I would think it. If it was a magic word, I would say it. It is none of those things. It is like my skin opens up. All my nerve endings naked to the wind. My skin grew cool. It's like a cool wind emanates from my body. It isn't really wind. You can't see it. You can't feel it, or no one else can. But it's there. It's real.



The cool fingers of "wind" stretched outward from me. Within a ten- to fifteen-foot radius I would be able to search the graves. As I moved, the circle would move with me, searching.



I raised my arm and waved. I didn't turn around to see if Larry saw me. I stayed tight inside my private circle. I was holding it in, trying not to start searching the dead until Larry got over here. I was hoping he'd be able to sense what was going on. Seemed logical that it would be easier to figure out if he saw it from the beginning.



I heard his footsteps on the dry earth. They seemed thunderously loud, as if I could hear every grain of dirt under his shoes.



He stopped behind me. "Jesus, what is that?"



"What?" My voice sounded distant and loud at the same time.



"Wind, a cold wind." He sounded a little scared. Good. You should always be a little afraid when you do magic. It's when you start taking it for granted that you get in trouble.



"Come closer, but don't touch me." I wasn't sure on that last, but it sounded like a good idea. Better cautious than not.



He came slowly, one hand held out like he was feeling the wind against his skin. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Anita, it's coming from you. The wind is coming from you."



"Yes," I said.



His eyes were wide. He looked like his voice sounded, a little scared.



"If I stood right next to Stirling, he wouldn't feel a thing. None of them would."



Larry shook his head. "How could they miss it?" His hand hovered just off my body, almost touching but not quite. "It's colder, or stronger, or something the closer I get to your body."



"Interesting," I said.



"What now?" he asked.



"Now, I touch the dead." I let go of it, like unclenching a hand. The fingers of "wind" stretched downward. How does it feel to go through solid earth and touch the dead beneath? Like nothing human. It was as if the invisible fingers could melt through the dirt searching for the dead. This time we didn't have to search far. The earth was disturbed, and the dead lay on top of the raw land.



I'd never tried this in anything but a well-organized cemetery. Where each grave, each body, was distinct. The wind touched Larry like a stone in a stream. The power rippled around him. He was alive, and it disturbed us. But we'd been practicing, and we could work around him.



I was standing on top of bones. Under the earth where eyes could not see. I tried to step off them, and only stepped on more. The earth was thick with bodies, like raisins in a pudding. No getting around them.



I stood on top on a raft of bones in a sea of dry, red earth. Everywhere I touched was a body--a piece of bone. There was no clear space. No breathing space. I stood there, huddled in on myself, trying to sort through what I was sensing.



The rib cage just to the left belonged with the thighbone yards away. The wind leaked out and touched piece after piece. I could have put the skeleton back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. That was what my power would do if I tried to raise it.



I moved, stepping on the dead, and everywhere I walked I put bodies together. The pieces stayed separate, but I remembered.



Larry moved with me. He moved surprisingly smoothly through the power, like a swimmer leaving the smallest possible ripples behind.



A ghost flared to life like a pale, dancing flame. I walked towards it. It rose like a swaying snake, watching me without eyes. There was that thread of hostility that some ghosts seem to feel towards the living. A jealousy. But if I'd been tied to some forsaken piece of earth for a hundred years or more, I might be hostile, too.



"What is that?" Larry whispered.



"What do you see?" I asked.



"I think it's a ghost. I've just never seen one materialize before." He reached out as if to touch it.



I grabbed his wrist before he could ever have reached. I felt his power flare to life in a rush of wind that should have poured my hair back from my face.



The circle suddenly widened, like a camera lens spreading wide. The dead awoke under our combined power like twigs touched by fire. Our power spread over them, and they gave up their secrets. Bits of muscle withered to bone, gaping skulls, all the pieces were there. All we had to do was call them forth. Two more ghosts rose from the ground like smoke. It was a lot of active ghosts for this small and this old a cemetery. And they were all angry at being disturbed. The level of hostility was unusual.



Combining our powers hadn't doubled the circle--it had quadrupled it.



The nearest ghost stood like a white pillar of flame. It was strong, powerful. A full-blown ghost in a graveyard that hadn't seen a burial in over two hundred years.



I stared at it. Larry stared at it. As long as we didn't touch it, we were safe. Heck, we were safe even if we did touch it. Ghosts can't cause physical harm, not really. They can grab you, but if you ignore them they fall away. If you pay attention, they can be bothersome. Frightening, but if a spirit causes real harm it isn't just a ghost. Demon, evil sorcerous dead, but not a normal ghost.



Staring at the wavering shape, I wasn't at all sure this was a normal ghost. Ghosts wear out. They fade to haunts, which don't usually materialize, hot spots that can give you a jolt, then just shivery places. Ghosts do not last forever. These looked pretty damn solid. For ghosts.



"Stop!" a man's voice yelled.



Larry and I turned towards the voice. Magnus Bouvier scrambled up the side of the mountain opposite from where we had walked up. His hair fell across his face, hiding everything but his eyes from the moonlight. His eyes glowed in the dark, reflecting lights I could not see.



"Stop!" He was waving his hands. His long-sleeved shirt was untucked over jeans. He hit the circle of wind and froze. He put his hands up as if he was trying to touch it.



Two people in one night who could sense the power. Unusual, but sort of cool. If Magnus hadn't been on the run from the police, we could have sat down and had a nice talk about it.



"We told you to stay off this land, Mr. Bouvier," Stirling said.



Bouvier looked at him, turning his head slowly as if concentrating on anything besides the feel of power was hard.



"We've tried being nice about this," Stirling said. "We are not going to be nice any longer. Beau."



The pump action on a shotgun is a very distinctive sound. I turned towards the sound, gun in hand. I don't remember thinking about it. I was just looking down the barrel of a gun at Beau. He was cradling a shotgun in his arms, not aimed at anything. That saved him. I know if it had been pointed near us, I'd have shot him.



I was still seeing double. I could see the graveyard behind my eyes where there is no optic nerve. The cemetery was mine. I knew the bodies. I knew the ghosts. I knew where all the pieces lay. I stared down the gun, seeing Beau and the shotgun, but inside my head the dead still reached out for their scattered parts.



The ghosts were still real. The power had agitated them. They'd dance and sway on their own for a while. But they'd fade back into the ground. There was more than one way to raise the dead, but not permanently.



I couldn't look away from the shotgun to see what Bouvier was doing. "Anita, please don't raise the dead." His surprisingly deep voice held a note of pleading.



I fought an urge to glance at him. "Why not, Magnus?"



"Get off my land," Stirling said.



"This is not your land."



"Get off my land or you will be shot for trespassing."



Beau glanced my way. "Mr. Stirling?" He was being very careful that the shotgun stayed loose, and harmless, in his hands.



"Beau, show him we mean business."



"Mr. Stirling," he said again, with a little more urgency in his voice.



"Do what I pay you for," Stirling said.



He started to raise the shotgun to his shoulder, but slowly, watching me.



"Don't do it," I said. I let my breath out all the way until my body was still and quiet. There was nothing but the gun and what I was aiming at.



Beau lowered the shotgun.



I took a breath and said, "Put it on the ground, now."



"Ms. Blake, this is none of your business," Stirling said.



"You are not going to shoot someone for trespassing on a piece of land while I watch."



Larry had his gun out too, now. It wasn't pointed at anybody in particular, which I was grateful for. Pointed guns have a tendency to go off if you don't know what you're doing.



"On the ground, Beau, now. I won't ask a third time."



He laid the shotgun on the ground.



"I pay your salary."



"You don't pay me enough to get killed."



Stirling made an exasperated sound and moved forward as if he would pick up the gun himself.



"Don't touch it, Raymond. You'll bleed just as easy as anybody else."



He turned to me. "I cannot believe that you would hold me at gunpoint on my own property."



I lowered my gun arm just a touch; it gets shaky if you hold a shooting pose too long. "I cannot believe that you had Beau come up here armed. You knew my little show would attract Bouvier. You knew it and planned for it. You cold-blooded son of a bitch."



"Mr. Kirkland, are you going to let her talk to me like that? I am a client."



Larry shook his head. "I'm with her on this one, Mr. Stirling. You were going to ambush that man. Murder him. Why?"



"Good question," I said. "Why are you so afraid of the Bouvier family? Or is it just him that you're afraid of?"



"I am afraid of no one. Come along; we will leave you to your new friend." He marched away, and the others followed. Beau sort of hesitated.



"I'll bring the shotgun down for you," I said.



He nodded. "Figured that."



"And you better not be waiting down there with another gun."



He looked at me for a long minute. At both of us. He shook his head. "I'm going home to my wife."



"You do that, Beau," I said.



He walked away, black slicker flapping against his legs. He hesitated, then said, "I'm out of it from now on. Money doesn't spend if you're dead."



I knew a few vampires that would argue with him, but I said, "Glad to hear it."



"I just don't want to get shot," he said. He walked away down the slope, out of sight.



I stood there with the Browning pointed skyward. I turned in a slow circle, surveying the mountaintop. We were alone, the three of us. So why didn't I want to put my gun up?



Magnus took a step up the slope and stopped. He raised slender hands towards the power-charged air. He trailed fingertips down it, like it was water. I felt the ripples of his touch shiver down my skin, tremble through my magic.



No, I wasn't putting my gun up yet.



"What was that?" Larry asked. His gun was still out, pointed at the ground.



Bouvier moved his gleaming eyes to Larry. "He is not a necromancer, Anita, but he is more than he seems."



"Aren't we all," I said. "Why didn't you want me to raise the dead, Magnus?"



He stared up at me. His eyes were full of glinting lights like reflections in a pool, but the reflections were of things that were not there.



"Answer me, Magnus."



"Or what?" he asked. "You'll shoot me?"



"Maybe," I said.



The slope made him shorter than I was, so I was looking down on him. "I didn't believe anyone could raise dead this old without a human sacrifice. I thought you'd take Stirling's money, try, fail, and go home." He took a step forward, trailing his hands through the power again, as if he were testing it. As if he weren't sure he could cross into it. The touch made Larry gasp.



"With this power you can raise some of them, maybe enough of them," Magnus said.



"Enough for what?" I asked.



He stared up at me, as if he hadn't meant to speak aloud. "You mustn't raise the dead on this mountain, Anita, Larry. You must not."



"Give us a reason not to," I said.



He smiled up at me. "I don't suppose just because I asked."



I shook my head. "Not hardly."



"This would be so much easier if glamor worked on you." He took another step up the slope. "Of course, if glamor worked on you, we wouldn't be here, would we?"



If he wouldn't answer one question, I'd try another one. "Why'd you run from the police?"



He took another step closer, and I backed up. He'd done nothing overtly threatening, but there was something about him as he stood there, something alien.



There were images in his eyes that made me want to glance behind to see what was reflecting in his eyes. I could almost see trees, water... It was like the things you see out of the corner of your eye, except in color.



"You told the police my secret; why?"



"I had to."



"You really think I did those awful things to those boys?" He took another step, moving into the flow of power, but he didn't slip easily as Larry had. Magnus was like a mountain, huge, forcing the power to go wide around him, as if he filled more space magically than could be seen with the naked eye.



I pointed the Browning two-handed at his chest. "No, I don't."



"Then why point a gun at me?"



"Why all this fey magic shit?"



He smiled. "I performed a lot of glamor tonight. It's like a high."



"You feed off your customers," I said. "You don't just do it for business. You siphon them; that's fucking unseelie court."



He gave a graceful shrug. "I am what I am."



"How'd you know the victims were boys?" I asked.



Larry moved to my left, gun pointed carefully at the ground. I'd yelled at him for pointing guns at people too soon.



"The police said so."



"Liar."



He smiled gently. "One of them touched me. I saw it all."



"Convenient," I said.



He reached out towards me. "Don't even think it."



Larry pointed his gun at Magnus. "What's going on, Anita?"



"I'm not sure."



"I can't allow you to raise the dead here. I am sorry."



"How are you going to stop us?" I asked.



He stared at me, and I felt something push against my magic, like something large swimming just out of sight in the dark. It made me gasp.



"Freeze, right there, or I will pull this trigger."



"I haven't moved a muscle," he said softly.



"No games, Magnus; you're too damn close to being dead."



"What did he just do?" Larry asked. There was a fine tremor in his two-handed grip.



"Later," I said. "Clasp your hands on top of your head, Magnus, slowly, very slowly."



"Are you going to take me in, as they say on television?"



"Yeah," I said. "You've got a better chance of getting to the jail alive with me than with most of the cops."



"I don't think I'll go with you." Staring down two guns, and he still sounded sure of himself. He was either stupid or knew something I didn't. I didn't think he was stupid.



"Tell me when to shoot him," Larry said.



"When I shoot him, you can shoot him, too."



"Okay," Larry said.



Magnus looked from one to the other of us. "You would take my life for such a small thing?"



"In a heartbeat," I said, "Now clasp your hands slowly on top of your head."



"If I don't?"



"I don't bluff, Magnus."



"Do you have silver bullets in those guns?"



I just stared at him. I could feel Larry shift slightly beside me. You can only point a gun so long without getting tired, or antsy.



"I'll bet they're silver. Silver isn't very effective against fairies."



"Cold iron works best," I said. "I remember."



"Even normal lead bullets would be better than silver. The metal of the moon is a friend to the fey."



"Hands, now, or we find out how fairie flesh holds up to silver bullets."



He raised his hands slowly, gracefully upward. His hands were above shoulder level when he threw himself backwards, falling down the slope. I fired, but he kept on rolling down the earth, and somehow I couldn't quite see him. It was like the air blurred around him.



Larry and I stood at the top of the slope and fired down on him, and I don't think either of us hit him.



He scrambled down the raw earth faster than he looked because he got harder to see even in the moonlight until he vanished into the underbrush left near the midpoint on that side.



"Please tell me he didn't just go poof," Larry said.



"He didn't just go poof," I said.



"What did he do, then?"



"How the hell do I know. This wasn't covered in Fairies 301." I shook my head. "Let's get out of here. I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is, I think we lost our client."



"You think we lost our hotel rooms?"



"I don't know, Larry. Let's go find out." I clicked the safety on the Browning but left it out in my hand. I'd have left the safety off, but that didn't seem wise while stumbling down a rocky mountainside even in the moonlight.



"I think you can put the gun up now, Larry." He hadn't put his safety on.



"You aren't."



"But I've got the safety on."



"Oh." He looked a little sheepish, but he clicked the safety on and holstered it. "You think they would have really killed him?"



"I don't know. Maybe. Beau would have shot at him, but see how much good it did us."



"Why does Stirling want Magnus dead?"



"I don't know."



"Why did Magnus run from the police?"



"I don't know."



"It makes me nervous when you keep answering all my questions with 'I don't know.'"



"Me, too," I said.



I glanced back once just before we lost sight of the mountaintop. The ghosts twisted and flared like candle flames, cool white flames. I knew something else I hadn't known before tonight. Some of the bodies were nearly three hundred years old. A hundred years older than Stirling had told us they were. A hundred years makes a lot of difference in a zombie raising. Why had he lied? Afraid I'd refuse, maybe. Maybe. Some of the bodies were Indian remains. Bits and pieces of jewelry, animal bone, stuff that wasn't European. The Indians in this area didn't bury their dead, at least not in simple graves. And this wasn't a mound.



Something was going on, and I didn't have the faintest idea what it was. But I'd find out. Maybe tomorrow after we got new hotel rooms, gave back the nifty jeep, rented a new car, and told Bert we no longer had a client. Maybe I'd let Larry break the news to him. What are apprentices for if they can't do some of the grunt work?



Okay, okay, I'd tell Bert myself, but I wasn't looking forward to it.