"What's the job?" I asked. I didn't sound happy, but I asked.

Bert was all smiles. Sometimes I suspected that he'd been behind that en masse meeting, but Manny and Charles swore up and down he hadn't been. Jamison I wouldn't have believed either way, so I didn't ask.

"The Browns' son died about three years ago. They want you to raise him and ask some questions."

My eyes were unfriendly slits. "Tell me all of it, Bert, so far I wouldn't have turned it down."

He cleared his throat and fidgeted. Bert didn't fidget much. "Well, the son was murdered."

I threw my hands into the air. "Damn it, Bert, I can't raise a murder victim. None of us here can. I gave you a list that you were supposed to refuse for all of us, for legal reasons, and that was one of them."

"You used to do it."

"Yeah, before I found out what happens when you raise a murder vic as a zombie, and that was before the new laws went into effect. A murdered person rises from the grave and goes after their murderer, no ifs, ands, or buts. They will tear through anyone and anything that tries to stop them. I had it happen twice, Bert. The zombies don't answer questions about who killed them, they just go rampaging off and try to find who did it."

"Couldn't the police just follow them, sort of like they do bloodhounds?"

"These bloodhounds will tear people's arms off and crash through houses. Zombies do a very straight line to their murderers. And the way the law reads now, the animator that raised the zombie would be liable for all the damage, including the deaths. If one of us raised this boy and he killed anyone, even his own murderer, we'd be charged with murder. Murder with magical malfeasance. That's an automatic death sentence. So no, I can't do it, and neither can anybody else."

He looked sad, probably about the money. "I told them you'd explain it to them."

"You should have explained it to them yourself, Bert. I've told you all this before."

"They asked me if I was an animator, when I said no, they wouldn't believe me. They said if they could just meet with Ms. Blake, they're sure they could change your mind."

"Jesus, Bert, this is really unfair. It can't be done, and watching their son rise from the grave as a shambling murderous zombie is not going to help them heal."

He raised eyebrows at that. "Well, I can't say I put it as well as you just did, but I swear to you that I did tell them no."

"But I'm meeting with them anyway, because they offered fifteen grand for an hour of my time."

"I could have gotten them to twenty grand. They're desperate. I could smell it on them. If we turn them down flat, they're going to try to find someone less reputable, less legal."

I closed my eyes and let the air out in a long slow sigh. I hated that he was right, but he was. When people get to a certain level of desperation, they'll do stupid things. Stupid, foolish, horrible things. We were the only animating firm in the Midwest. There was one in New Orleans and one in California, but they wouldn't take this job for the same reason we wouldn't. The new laws. I could say it was to save the clients pain, but in all honesty the idea that you could raise a murder victim from the grave and just ask them who killed them was so tempting that several of us had tried to do it. We'd thought it hadn't worked because of the trauma of the murder, or that the animators doing it weren't powerful enough, but that wasn't it. If you were murdered, you rose with only one thought in your dead brain: revenge. Until you got that revenge, you wouldn't listen to anyone's orders, not even the animator or voodoo priest or priestess that raised you from the grave.

But just because none of the reputable people would do it, didn't mean that a disreputable person wouldn't do it. There were people here and there across the country that had the talent without the morals. None of them worked for the professional companies because they'd either been fired as a liability, or they'd never been hired. Some because they didn't want to be hired, but most because what they did was secret and rarely something they wanted the authorities to know about. They kept a low profile, and didn't advertise much, but if you started waving twenty grand around, they'd come out of the woodwork. The Browns would find someone willing to do what they asked, if they were willing to pay for it. Someone who would give them a false name, raise the kid, and run with their money, and leave the bereaved parents to clean up the mess and explain things to the police. There was a test case in New England at state supreme court level that was seeking the death penalty for the person who paid a magical practitioner to kill someone by magic. I didn't know how it would go, and it would probably get to the Supreme Court before all was said and done. I'd never forgive myself if the Browns found someone less reputable and ended up on death row for it. I mean, that would just suck, especially if I could prevent it here and now.

I gave Bert the look he deserved. The one that said he was a greedy son of a bitch, and I knew he'd turned down their money for something other than humanitarian reasons. He just sat back and smiled at me, because he knew what that particular look meant. It meant I would do it, even if I hated it.

29

Mrs. Barbara Brown was blond, and Mr. Steve Brown was brunette with gray coming in at the temples. He's was taller than she was by about five inches, but other than that, they matched. You could still see the pretty round-faced cheerleader she'd been in high school. The handsome football player was still there in his shoulders and the edges of his face, but the extra weight and the extra years and the grief had covered over who they'd been. Their eyes were bright, but it was an unnatural brightness, almost shocky. She spoke too fast, and he spoke too slowly, as if he had to think about each word before he said it. She spoke as if talking about her son was something she had to do, or she'd explode, or break down.

"He was a straight A student, Ms. Blake, and here's the last picture he painted. It was a water color of his youngest sister. He had such talent." She held up the picture, which they'd brought in one of those art carriers that looks like a thin briefcase.

I dutifully looked at the painting. It was a very soft picture, all watery blues and delicate yellows, and the child's curls were almost white. The little girl was laughing, and the artist had caught a shine in her eyes that usually required a camera to capture. It was good. For a junior in high school, it was spectacular.

"It's a wonderful painting, Mrs. Brown."

"Steve didn't want me to bring it. He said that you didn't need to see it, but I thought if you saw what kind of person he was, that you'd be willing to do what we want."

"I don't think that seeing Steve's paintings will influence Ms. Blake, that's all, Barbara." He patted her hand as he finished, and she didn't react to it at all. It was almost as if he hadn't touched her. I began to understand who was the driving force behind this tragic farce. Because it was a farce. She wasn't talking like she wanted her son brought back as a zombie so he could say who'd murdered him. She was talking like she was trying to persuade me to do a Lazarus on him, to really bring him back. Had Bert heard that in her voice and ignored it, or had she saved it for me?

"He was a track star, and on the football team." She opened the yearbook to appropriate places, and I looked at Stevie Brown running in shorts with a baton in his hand, head thrown back, a look of utter concentration on his face. His hair was dark and not long. Stevie Brown kneeling on the ground in full football gear, helmet on the ground by his hand. He was grinning out at the camera, his bangs spilling over his eyes. He had his father's hair, and a thinner, younger, brighter version of his mother's face, except for the lips and the eyes, which, again, were his father's.