"Raise Sabitini and find out if he could raise vampires like you can. He's just a little over a hundred years dead. You've raised zombies a lot older than that."

"You missed the case last year where a vaudun priestess had raised a necromancer. The zombie got completely out of control and started killing people."

"You've told me about it, but the priestess didn't know what he was. If you knew going in, you could take precautions."

"No," I said.

"Why not?" he said.

I opened my mouth, closed it, because I didn't have a good answer. "I don't approve of raising the dead for curiosity's sake. You know how much money I've been offered to raise dead celebrities?"

"I'd still like to know what really happened to Marilyn Monroe," he said.

"When her family comes and asks, maybe I'll do it. But I am not raising the poor woman because a tabloid waved money at our boss."

"Waved a lot of money at our boss," Larry said. "Enough money that he sent Jamison out to try it. He couldn't raise her. Too long dead without a bigger sacrifice."

I shook my head. "Jamison is a weenie."

"Everyone else at Animators Inc. turned it down."

"Including you," I said.

He shrugged. "I might raise her and ask how she died, but not in front of cameras. The poor woman was hounded alive. Dead, she's still being hounded. Doesn't seem fair."

"You're a good guy, Larry."

"Not good enough to know that vampires burn to ash and skeletal remains are human."

"Don't start, Larry. It's just experience. I should have told you before you went out today. Truthfully, you're getting so good at the job, I didn't think to tell you."

"You assumed I knew?" he said.

"Yeah."

"I have noticed the daily lectures have been in short supply lately. I used to take more notes at work with you than I ever did in college."

"Not so many notes lately, huh?" I said.

"No, I hadn't really thought about it, but no." He grinned suddenly and it lit up his eyes, chased away the horrors of the day. For a moment he was the bright-eyed, optimistic kid who had first shown up on my doorstep. "You mean I'm finally learning how to do the job?"

"Yeah," I said, "you are. In fact, if you were quicker on the trigger, I'd say you were good at it. It's just hard to learn everything, Larry. Something comes up and you find out you really don't know what the hell's going on after all."

"You, too?" he said.

"Me, too."

He took a deep breath and let it out. "I've seen you surprised a time or two, Anita. When the monsters get so strange that you don't know what's going either, it usually gets real nasty, real fast."

He was right. I wished he wasn't, because right now I didn't know what the hell was going on. I didn't understand what had happened with Nathaniel. I didn't know how the marks worked with Richard. I didn't know how to find out if Malcolm was still among the undead, or if he'd crossed into that more permanent state of true death. In fact I had so many questions and so few answers that I just wanted to go home. Maybe Larry and I could both take a pain pill and sleep until tomorrow. Surely tomorrow would be a better day. God, I hoped so.

41

The house was still smoking when we got there. Thin greyish wisps of smoke rose from the blackened beams like miniature ghosts. Some trick of the fire had left the high cupola on top of the building intact. The lower stories were gutted and blackened, but the cupola rose like a white beacon above the wreck. It looked like a black-toothed giant had taken a great bite out of the house.

The fire truck took up most of the narrow street. There was a spread of water seeping along the street like a shallow lake. Firefighters waded through the water, rolling up miles of hose over their shoulders. A uniformed police officer stopped us well back from the action.

I eased down my window and flashed my ID. It was a little plastic clip-on card and looked official, but it wasn't a badge. Sometimes the uniforms would let me through, and sometimes they had to go ask permission. Brewster's Law was going around Washington and would give vamp executioners what amounted to federal marshal status. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. It takes a hell of a lot more to make a cop than just a badge, but for me personally I'd love to have had a badge to flash.

"Anna Blake, Larry Kirkland, to see Sergeant Storr."

The officer frowned at the ID. "I'll have to clear this with someone."

I sighed. "Fine, we'll wait here."

The uniform went off in search of Dolph, and we waited.

"You used to argue with them," Larry said.

I shrugged. "They're just doing their job."

"Since when has that stopped you from bitching?"

I looked at him. He was smiling, which saved him from the scathing comeback I had ready. Besides, it was nice to see him smiling about anything right now. "So I'm mellowing -- a little. So what?"

The smile widened to a grin, a shit-eating grin, my uncle would have called it. It was like the next thing out of his mouth was almost too funny to say. I was betting I wouldn't think it was funny at all.

"Is it being in love with Jean-Claude that's mellowed you or the regular sex?"

I smiled sweetly. "Speaking of regular sex, how is Detective Tammy?"

He blushed first. I was happy.

The uniform was walking down the wet street towards us with Detective Tammy Reynolds in tow. Oh, life was good.

"Well, if it isn't your little sugarplum now," I said.

Larry saw her then. The red flush brightened to something the color of raw flame, redder than his hair. His blue eyes were a little bulgy with the effort to breathe. The soot had been wiped away, which saved his face from looking like a reddish bruise. "You won't say anything, will you, Anita? Tammy doesn't like to be teased."

"Who does?" I said.

"I'm sorry," he said, speaking very fast before they could get to us. "I apologize. It will never happen again. Please do not embarrass me in front of Tammy."

"Would I do that to you?"

"In a hot second," he said. "Please don't."

They were almost at the car. "Don't pull my leg and I won't pull yours," I whispered.

"Deal," he said.

I eased down the window, smiling. "Detective Reynolds, how good to see you."

Reynolds frowned because I was seldom glad to see her. She was a witch and the first police detective ever with preternatural abilities beyond psychic gifts. But she was young, bright, shiny, and tried just a little too hard to be my friend. She was just sooo fascinated with the fact that I raised the dead. She wanted to know all about it. I'd never had a witch make me feel like such a damned freak. Most witches were nice understanding souls. Perhaps it was the fact that Reynolds was a Christian witch, a member of the Followers of the Way. A sect going back to the Gnostics, who embraced almost all magical ability. They were all but wiped out during the Inquisition due to the fact that their beliefs don't allow them to hide their light under a bushel, but they survived. Fanatics have a way of doing that.

Reynolds was tall, slender, with straight brown hair falling around her shoulders, and eyes that I would have said were hazel but she called green. Greyish-green with a large circle of pale brown around the pupil. Cats have green eyes. Most people don't. She'd tried to be my friend, and when I wouldn't tell her about raising the dead, she'd turned to Larry. He'd been reluctant at first for the same reasons I was, but she hadn't offered me sex. It pushed Larry over the edge and into her arms.

I'd have complained about his choice of sweeties if I'd any moral high ground to stand on. It wasn't the witch part that bothered me or the cop. It was the religious-fanatic part. But when you share the sheets with the walking dead, you don't get a lot of room to bitch.