As I prepared to raise a body, kneeling at my altar cloth while Jeremy and Eve kept watch, I pondered on how we-true supernatu-rals-weren't much different. There's no single way to raise a corpse. Every necromancer family has its way-one it swears is better than everyone else's.

Some use poppets-small dolls stuffed with hair or nail clippings from the target. The O'Caseys prefer a more complicated method, but one that doesn't require body bits.

As for the ingredients and invocations, again, they vary. Like spellcasters, we use what's been "proven" to work. As with spellcast-ers, there are those who say the whole thing is hooey-that we don't need to sprinkle grave dirt over a chalk symbol, we don't need to blow corpse dust to the four winds-that the power to raise the dead, as the power to communicate with them, is within us.

But we keep using what works. That doesn't mean we're too stupid and superstitious to try without the bits and bobs of ritual. This group had probably done the same-tried sacrificing an adult. Maybe it failed, as did our pared-back rituals. That could be psychology at work-at some level we're convinced we need ingredient X and therefore we fail without it. Or maybe I was thinking too much to avoid what I was supposed to be doing.

Paige told me once that her mother always said the main function of ritual was that it provided the spellcaster-or necromancer-with a gradual transition from the everyday world to the magical. That the act of concentrating on placing ingredients just so, on drawing symbols, on laying out tools and lighting censers was for focus, to release the brain from thoughts of shopping lists and luncheon dates. If that was the case, I'd probably never needed that refocusing more than I did this afternoon.

It wasn't thoughts of shopping lists cluttering my mind, but the horror of what I was about to do.

Raising the dead. If you're a religious person, you call it resurrection and it's a miracle. If you're a horror buff, it's Armageddon at the hands of a flesh-munching mob of shambling corpses. In truth, it's some of both.

Like miracle workers, we return the ghost-the soul-to the body, conscious and aware. So unless you raise a Hannibal Lecter, the person's not going to start eating brains. But the body is the dead one, the broken one, the rotting one, just like in a horror flick. So now the ghost is trapped, fully aware, in that broken and rotting corpse. Could anything be more horrific?

Yet every well-trained necromancer is taught to do this. Must practice even. Whether he or she ever chooses to raise a zombie, we know how, should we need that knowledge.

And now I did. To raise a child.

THE DARKEST POWER

I BEGAN THE INCANTATION. Jeremy stood just past the nearest garden bed, watching for anyone coming from the house. Eve patrolled for ghosts, warning them off. I think Kristof was helping too, but I didn't see him; didn't see anyone.

As much as I tried to clear my mind, every sight, every sound seemed to vie for my attention. The poke and scrape of pebbles under my knees. A prop plane buzzing overhead. A fly walking over my chalk symbol. The sickly sweet smell of lilies. To me, they smell of funeral homes and death. Sweet yet off-putting, like the stink of rot.

Rot…

How long had these children been in the garden? How much had their bodies decayed? Were they even whole? What if they weren't and I'd return a soul to a partial corpse, one without arms, without legs, unable to fight to the surface, trapped under the earth as I sat, oblivious, listening to airplanes and watching flies-

Enough. Focus.

It took awhile, but I finally found a mental place without sights, without smells, feelings, sounds, even thoughts. Just me, commanding any nearby soul to return to its body.

A soft sound came to my left, so faint that I first mistook it for the rustle of a leaf. Then I heard Jeremy, softly calling my name.

I leapt to my feet and hurried toward the sound. Jeremy was walking toward a garden of rosebushes, moving fast, his gaze on a shifting patch of earth. Something small and gray darted back and forth as if pushing the dirt away.

Jeremy slowed. "Isn't that the spot where-?"

The ground erupted in a flurry of dirt. Even Jeremy reeled back.

"Raw-raw-raw-"

The garbled raucous cry echoed through the garden as the dirt continued to fly, the thing at its center moving so fast it was only a blur under the geyser of dirt. I saw something long and flat and broad, flapping against the ground. A wing.

The dead bird. The one Jeremy had uncovered and I'd reburied.

Once I realized what I was seeing, I could recognize all the parts- the eyeless head lolling, neck broken, one leg grabbing dirt, trying to find its grip, the other leg jabbing at the earth, the claws gone, wing beating frantically, trying to take off. The bird kept screaming in fear and pain, battering itself against the ground as it tried to make its broken body work. The stink of it filled the air, that horrible rotting-

"Jaime!" Eve's voice was harsh at my ear. "Send it back."

All I could do was stare at the bird.

"Goddamn it, Jaime. Send it back!"

I snapped out of it then, my lips flying in the invocation that would free the bird's soul from its body. The garbled screeching stopped and the tiny corpse fell to the earth, dirt raining down on its still form.

For a moment, nobody moved. Even Jeremy seemed shocked into speechlessness.

Life from death. The darkest power. In my hands.

After a moment, Jeremy moved in to clean up. He said something to me and I responded, but I don't know what I said. I walked past him, as stiff and unseeing as a sleepwalker. He caught my arm, tried to get me to stay, but I mumbled something-again, I don't know what-and kept going.

I walked back to my ritual setup and dropped to my knees. A rock jabbed into my shin hard enough to cut me. Warm blood welled up. I couldn't find the energy to wince.

"It's over," Eve said, from somewhere close. "Yeah, it was bad, but it's over and the bird's free and it happened so fast it probably doesn't remember anything."

She kept reassuring me that the bird was okay, but we both knew that when I closed my eyes, I didn't see a broken and rotting bird, screaming and flapping in terror. I saw a child. Until now, I'd only imagined what I intended to do to these children. Now I saw it, heard it, smelled it.

"We'll find another way." Jeremy's voice, somewhere above me, his words drifting past.

Eve said nothing, but I could feel her tension as she held her tongue.

"We'll find another way." His voice was beside me now, as if he'd dropped to his knees.

"He's right," Eve said finally. "This was a bad idea-"

"No. I'm going to do it."

"You don't need-" Jeremy began.

"Yes, I do." I followed the sound of his voice, forced my gaze to focus and saw him crouched beside me. "This time I'll release the soul as soon as we see something. We don't have time to back off now and do more research. Better to-" I swallowed, "-just do it and do it fast."

Jeremy hesitated, then nodded. "Would you like me to go? Leave you be?"

"No." I met his gaze. "Please don't."

So, with him beside me, and Eve scouting, I began again. My heart beat so hard I could scarcely breathe. When I closed my eyes, I saw the bird again. Every time a child's ghost touched me, I jumped, as if in guilt.

"Take some time," Jeremy murmured. "Everyone inside is busy packing. No one's going to bother us."

When I couldn't relax, Jeremy tried distracting me with a story from his youth. Any other time, I'd have hung on his every word, sifting through the tale for insight. But, even though his story took place in his late teens, it made me think of childhood. Of the children. And underscoring his words, I heard them whispering.