"You have two stories that are perfect for this moment?" Domino said, and let the suspicion be thick in his voice.
"Hey, I'm in my fifties looking at sixty; you learn a thing or two just by surviving this long."
Domino smiled. "Okay, I get that."
"Some people are stupid and mean if they live to be seventy," Nicky said.
"Or a hundred and seventy," I said.
We all just nodded and agreed.
"But I'm not one of them, or I try not to be," Manny said, "and what happens tonight could mark this woman forever."
"You think I'm being stupid to not just say no."
"I think you're letting your guilt and fear override your common sense," Manny said.
"What he said," Domino said.
"And I think you need to let the woman decide for herself," Nicky said.
"You're a sociopath," Domino said. "You don't give a damn for her feelings, or how her life will turn out."
Nicky shrugged. "True, and not true."
"What's the not-true part?" Domino asked.
"I don't care for this particular girl's feelings, but she's older than any of us, except Manny."
"She's over thirty?" I asked.
"Thirty-four."
"You asked."
He nodded.
"So what's your point?" Domino asked.
"She's thirty-four, that makes her old enough to decide for herself. Fucking a zombie no matter how alive"--and he made little quote marks with his fingers--"wouldn't be my idea of fun, but what if she spends her life pining for the dead guy, so what? She'll have had one night of absolutely Shakespearian-level tragic love, which is more than most people ever have."
"That is both one of the most cynical things I've ever heard, and the most romantic," Domino said.
"It can't be both cynical and romantic," I said.
"Why not?" he asked.
"So, I'm a cynical romantic?" Nicky asked.
Domino seemed to think about it, and finally nodded. "Yeah."
Nicky grinned. "I like it."
I rolled eyes at both of them.
Manny looked thoughtful.
"What if you tell Justine everything you just told us, and Warrington, too?" I asked.
Manny raised his eyebrows. "Good idea, but she won't believe me. No one ever thinks they'll make the same mistakes everyone else does."
"All we can do is try."
"Besides, if she's a die-hard romantic she could build not having sex into this great love affair that never happened, and compare all the other guys she dates to that, and then the men really would be screwed, because the only thing harder to compete with than a tragic lost love is a tragic lost love that never actually happened. Fantasy is almost always better, to a certain kind of person, than the real thing."
We all looked at Nicky; even I was surprised. "Wow," Domino said, "that was like really smart."
"I thought sociopaths couldn't understand emotions," Manny said.
"Sociopaths spend their lives studying people, because we have to imitate things we don't understand, or feel, to blend in. It makes us some of the most observant people on the planet. We have to be or people figure out what we are, and I'm pretty sure centuries ago they killed us, or put us in charge of killing people."
Manny made a hmm face and said, "Okay, let's talk to Justine and Warrington."
"You know, you both call him by his name now," Nicky said.
Manny and I looked at each other. "Creepy, isn't it?" I said.
"Oh yes," he said, "very."
Manny and I went to give all the warnings to Justine and the zombie, knowing full well what she would decide. Sometimes you can't save people, and sometimes they don't want to be saved.
30
WE HADN'T COUNTED on Warrington's sense of honor. He didn't want to leave the only woman he had ever loved haunted like that. "Show her that I am a zombie," he said at last.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"If I am truly what you say I am, then shouldn't you be able to order me to do things and I will have no choice but to obey?"
"You get that from the Internet, too?"
"Yes," he said, with no hint that he'd heard the sarcasm. I guess he hadn't been exposed to modern culture long enough to know that people could lie, and frequently did, on the Internet. Of course, in this case it wasn't a lie; fancy that.
There was a tiny part of me that wondered if Warrington really had to obey me like other zombies. I think part of me was beginning to think of him as a person, and not undead, or at least not a zombie. Sometimes doubt can undo your abilities. It's like if you don't believe you can, you can't, or something like that.
I pushed the unhelpful thought away, and just believed. I wasn't just an animator; I was a necromancer, which was a whole new level of power. I'd raised the zombie, which meant I could control it, period.
I closed my eyes and breathed in and out, slowly, letting the tension, the doubts, everything slide down into the ground, away from me. Grounding, Marianne, witch and my metaphysical teacher, called it. You could air, instead of ground, but that usually needed wind for me to do it. Ground and center, she had said over and over, until it was almost automatic for me.
When I opened my eyes I was calm again, and I could look at Warrington without the guilt and all the emotions getting in my way. He was warm to the touch now; so what? He could love again; so what? I looked at him not with my eyes, but with that part of the brain just behind them where you can see dreams. I didn't usually "see" auras around people, but I could "feel" energy around them. I brushed my abilities over the waiting group and found the humans warm; Nicky and Domino's energy was warmer still, and Manny's energy was cooler. An ability to work with the dead leaves its mark like a kiss from the grave on our energy signatures. I couldn't see my own the way I could see other people's--most practitioners couldn't, Marianne said--but she'd told me my energy could be very cool, like no other human she'd ever touched. I let my power trail over Warrington, and his energy was very different. It wasn't just a trace of the grave, but as if the lightbulb of his aura were going out, not like death, or not like he was injured and dying, but . . . He wasn't as alive as everyone else, because he was the undead. He was a zombie, just a zombie, a really good and high-functioning one, but still it was my power that animated him, not that more divine spark that filled the living.
It was impressive as hell, but in the end I could feel what he was, and it wasn't alive. I had no idea how I'd brought this much of his personality back, but it didn't matter in the end. He wanted me to prove to Justine that he wasn't alive; I could do that.
I used what Nicky had started calling my command voice and said, "Thomas Warrington, come to me!" I held out my hand.
Justine shivered and held on to his arm. "Don't do it, Tom, don't go."
He frowned at her and then at me. "I seem to have a choice, Miss Blake."
I shook my head. "If I'm nice about it, you have some choice, but I don't have to be nice."
"I don't understand what you mean by that, Miss Blake."
"I know you don't."
Justine wrapped herself around him, hugging him tight, making him look down at her. "She may have raised you from the grave, but something else happened when we kissed for the first time. You get warmer every time I touch you."
"Romantic wishful thinking, Justine," I said.
She turned and looked at me, eyes a little wild. "No, no, it's not. His skin gets warmer every time we kiss, or hold hands. I'm not making it up." She went up on tiptoe and offered her lips to him.
He hesitated, looking at me. I nodded, and only then did he bend down to her. I didn't think he was a zombie looking for permission, but just Warrington wondering if it was still all right, with my magic creeping over their skin, because I knew he felt it, and her reaction let me know that Justine was feeling some touch of it.
They kissed and I looked with power, not my eyes. Energy flared between them so that his glow went from a
pale, almost invisible shine to a flare of scarlet. When they parted from the kiss his energy stayed brighter, and so did hers. It was as if she gained power from it, too, but then maybe we always do from love, or even lust. If we didn't gain shared energy it wouldn't be so addictive.
She turned to me. "See, see, he's more alive every time."
I couldn't even argue with her, because I'd seen it. "It doesn't matter," I said.
"We love each other! How can that not matter?" She walked toward me, and the moment she let go of his hand his energy faded again. Whatever was happening between them was temporary.
"Take his hand again," I said.
"What?" she asked.
"Take her hand in yours, Tom."
He reached out and did what I asked, but again I didn't think it was because he was obeying me; he wanted to touch her. His energy sparked again, not as much as it had when they kissed, but it was there. He was gaining something from her.
"Let go of her hand and shake hands with Mr. MacDougal."
He hesitated, but let Justine go and reached out to the other man. MacDougal hesitated, too, but shook hands with him. Warrington's energy brightened, not as much as it had with Justine, but it was there, a little boost. That was very interesting and totally shouldn't have been happening. Zombies didn't care if you touched them, but then normal zombies didn't care about anything; they just obeyed orders, or answered questions when asked. Whatever kind Warrington was, it was something different, maybe something new. I wondered if anyone else had raised a zombie that gained energy from human contact. I knew a few animators in the business that I trusted enough to ask, but that was for another night. Tonight had enough weird without borrowing.
"You can stop shaking hands; thank you both."
"See, see, you thanked them both, even you think Tom is a person."
I looked at the woman and understood some of the demand on her face, in the tension of her body, her hands caught somewhere between fists and claws ready to scratch. I wondered if she even knew that she was getting ready for a fight; probably not. Fight-or-flight can affect people oddly, if they're not used to the reaction.
"He is the most alive zombie I've ever raised," I said, but my voice was still calm and unemotional. It was a headspace similar to the one I'd used in college when I was getting my biology degree and doing my senior project. You record what your test subjects do; you don't anthropomorphize them. I was looking at them all with a dispassionate distance that was part of the scientific mind-set, and a little bit sociopathic, but then what is either but a lack of emotional projection? One is so you can record events without editorializing, so the data is as pure as possible, and the other is so you stay sane while the bad things happen.
"He's a man, not a zombie!" she yelled at me.
We'd taken long enough that some of the other history lovers had come out to stand near MacDougal. "What's going on?" they asked. "Why is Justine upset?"
I could answer that last one, because I was about to be the villain in her tragic love affair. To be fair I was also the fairy godmother who had used magic to make her wish come true, but magic is like a gun sometimes, neither good nor bad, but capable of doing both.
"Thomas Warrington, come to me," I said, and held out my hand again.
He started moving toward me immediately, but there was no tug along the line that bound us. I could feel my power in him, as if even if he tried to run away I'd still be able to track him without the GPS on his ankle.
Justine grabbed his arm. "No!"
Bob told the others, "Blake is going to put Tom back in the ground tonight."
One of the other women said, "We paid to have him until tomorrow night for questioning."
MacDougal said, "It's all right, Iris; Ms. Blake and I have discussed things and circumstances have changed."
"Is it because Justine and he are boning?" one of the younger guys asked. The rest of the group immediately turned on him with looks that said, Way to overshare.
One issue at a time. "Come to me." He did what I wanted and finally touched my hand. God, he was warm. Zombies weren't supposed to have body heat like this; they just weren't.
"You can't take him away, you can't!" Justine grabbed his other hand while I was still touching him. The energy spiked, but this time I wasn't just seeing it from a distance. It ran through me from the hand touching him, and thrilled through my body like a rush of electricity and power. It upped my energy just like it had Warrington's. I realized I could gain energy through him the way a vampire does from a human servant, or in my case a vampire servant to my necromancer. When the servant fed, you gained energy. It had begun as a way for vampires to travel long distances without having to take blood and be discovered on the ship, train, or however they were traveling. The servants ate, and that was enough energy to keep the vampires going until they could feed on blood.
Warrington looked at me and said, "What is that? What is happening?"
I didn't really want to explain out loud. I'd discuss it with Manny in private, but not here with strangers who were probably not going to like me very much by the end of the night. Justine swayed on her feet, and I realized that once I knew I could feed on her energy I'd opened the channel wider and was drinking her down faster through my zombie.
I let go of him, and Justine fainted. He had to catch her, or she'd have hit the parking lot hard. "What's wrong with her?" her friends asked.
Warrington looked at me as he held her in his arms like a child, or a romance heroine. "What have you done?"
"We. What have we done," I said.
"Did I help you hurt Justine?"
I nodded.
"How? What did you do to me? I would never deliberately hurt her."
"I believe that, Warrington, but you don't really get to choose."
MacDougal was beside them, touching Justine's cheek. "She's cold and clammy to the touch. She was fine a few minutes ago."
"Is it what happens if you sleep with a zombie?" Iris asked.
It was a good question, and in fact it was pretty clear that Justine had slept with one of my zombies, and recently, but out loud I said, "If I'd dreamt any of you would sleep with the zombie, I'd have warned you."
"Dear God," Warrington said, "what have I done?"
"So you've already had sex with her," I said.
He looked embarrassed, blushing again, while Justine kept looking pale and wan. "Yes, yes, God help me, I was weak, and now I have hurt the one person in this world I never wanted to harm. I thought I could be . . . modern, but lust is punished just as much here as it always was for the woman." He hugged her to him and said, "I am so sorry, Justine, so sorry."
"Will she be all right?" MacDougal asked.
"If he stops touching her, she should recover, but I'll want to check back with her in twenty-four hours just to make certain."
"Are you saying that his just touching her like that is hurting her more?" Iris asked.
"He's taking energy from her, that I know."
Warrington went down on his knees with Justine still clasped in his arms. He kissed her gently on the cheek, then slipped her into the arms of MacDougal and the woman, Iris. "Tell her I never meant to hurt her, and that I am more sorry than I know how to say."
"I will," MacDougal said.
"Time to go," I said.
Warrington stood up, glancing at the love of his life one more time, then turned and came to stand beside me. "Put me back where I belong, Ms. Blake, before I hurt someone else."
"That's the plan, Mr. Warrington, that's the plan."
The four, now five of us got into my SUV and left the history group clustered around Justine. If someone called 911, I wondered what they'd tell the ambulance was wrong with her. Zombie love? It made me smile, until I saw the grim look on the zombie's face. Did I tell him that it was my fault Justine had fainted? Was it? Or had he taken too much energy when they had sex? He and Justine had lied to me earlier when we talked about them having sex again tonight. Was it a lie
by omission, or directly? I couldn't remember their exact words, but either way he'd known I'd be upset, or maybe he'd just tried to be a gentleman. They didn't kiss and tell.
"Justine should be fine, Warrington. She just needs time to rebuild her energy."
"Are you certain she will be all right?" he asked from the very backseat.
Was I? Manny answered for me. "She'll be fine, Warrington."
A tension went out of the zombie's face and shoulders. I exchanged a look with Manny in the front seat. He knew that neither of us was sure that Justine would be a hundred percent. We'd never had a client that boned one of our zombies before. It made me wonder about the men who were screwing the zombies on the Feds' sex tapes. Were the men feeling drained like Justine? Was the animator who raised them gaining energy from it? Maybe there was more than one reason for someone to turn zombies into sex slaves. Was it for power as well as profit? I didn't know, but I knew one thing: I needed to watch the videos again, but this time not as a cop, but as a necromancer. I needed to look at the images with power, not eyesight. I'd try to find out how much Manny had seen with his own power of what just happened. If he'd sensed enough, I'd ask the Feds if he could watch the tapes with me. It was either Manny or try to make friendly with fellow animator and U.S. Marshal Larry Kirkland. We'd started out friends--hell, I'd trained him as an animator and vampire hunter--but we weren't buddies anymore. He thought I was a monster who killed too many and too easily, and I thought he was weak and didn't kill easily enough to do our job. I wasn't the only marshal who thought that about Larry. He'd gotten a reputation for not being a shooter. It made other marshals with the Preternatural Branch not want to work with him. Every time someone requested me over him, he resented me more. But if I needed someone to watch the videos for raising magic, Larry was good. Truthfully if he went all out he could raise more zombies in a night than Manny could.
I still hoped the Feds would work with Manny, or let me show him the videos. The thought of watching sex videos this hardcore with Larry, who was a right-wing, squeaky-clean, vanilla kind of guy, was just . . . awkward.
31
BUT FIRST WE had a very special zombie to put back in his grave. I'd called MacDougal from the car and found that Warrington's clothes weren't going to be ready until tomorrow, something about the older fabrics and not knowing how to clean them safely. I asked Manny and he thought it should be fine to put him back in the new clothes.