Burnt Offerings ab-7

by Laurell Hamilton

  "In his coffin?"

  "No."

  "Then how ... ?"

  "He was on the stairs covered in blankets. They don't think he's going to make it. But this is one of the halfway houses for the Church. We've got a two-biter here that says the vamp we took was the guardian for the younger vamps still inside. She seems worried about what the vamps will do when they wake and the guardian isn't there to calm them down or feed them."

  "Feed them?" I asked.

  "Says that they each take a small drink from the guardian to start the night. Without it, she says the hunger grows too strong, and they may be dangerous."

  "Isn't she a font of information."

  "She's scared, Anita. She's got two freaking vampire bites on her neck, and she's scared."

  "Shit," I said. "I'm on my way, but frankly, Dolph, I don't know what you want me to do."

  "You're the vampire expert, you tell me." A little hostility there.

  "I'll think about it on the way. Maybe I'll have come up with a plan by the time I get there."

  "Before they became legal, we'd have just burned them out ourselves."

  "Yeah," I said, "the good old days."

  "Yeah," he said. I don't think he got the sarcasm. But with Dolph it was always hard to tell.

  I dialed the third number. Larry answered, "Anita." His voice sounded strained, pain-filled.

  "What's wrong?" I asked, my throat suddenly tight.

  "I'm all right."

  "You don't sound all right," I said.

  "I've just been moving around too much with the stitches and stuff. I need to take a pain pill, but I won't be able to drive."

  "You need a lift?"

  He was quiet for a second or two, then, "Yes."

  I knew how much it had cost him to call me. This was one of his first times in the field on a police job without me. The fact that he needed my help for anything must have griped his ass. It would have bugged the hell out of me. In fact, I wouldn't have called. I'd have toughed it out, until I passed out. This wasn't a criticism of Larry, it was a criticism of me. He was just smarter than I was sometimes. This was one of those times.

  "Where are you?"

  He gave me the address, and it was close. Lucky us. "I'm less than five minutes away, but I can't take you home. I'm on my way to another crime scene."

  "As long as I don't have to drive, I'll be okay. It's starting to take all my attention just to stay on the road. Time to stop driving when it's this hard."

  "You really do have a higher wisdom score than I do."

  "Which means you wouldn't have asked for help yet," he said.

  "Well ... yeah."

  "When would you have asked for help?"

  "When I drove off the road and had to call a tow truck."

  He laughed and took a sharp breath as if it hurt. "I'll be waiting for you."

  "I'll be there."

  "I know," he said. "Thanks for not saying you told me so."

  "I wasn't even thinking it, Larry."

  "Honest?"

  "Cross my heart and ... "

  "Don't say it."

  "You getting superstitious on me, Larry?"

  He was quiet for a space of heartbeats. "Maybe, or maybe it's just been a long day."

  "It'll be a longer night," I said.

  "Thanks," he said. "Just what I wanted to hear." He hung up then without saying goodbye.

  Maybe I'd trained Dolph never to say goodbye. Maybe I was always the bearer of bad tidings, and everyone wanted to get off the phone with me as soon as possible. Naw.

  40

  I expected Larry to be sitting in his car. He wasn't. He was leaning against it. Even from a distance I could tell he was in pain, back stiff, trying not to move any more than necessary. I pulled in beside him. Up close he looked worse. His white dress shirt was smeared with black soot. His summer-weight dress pants were brown, so they'd survived a little better. A black smudge ran across his forehead to his chin. The blackness outlined one of his blue eyes so that it seemed darker, like a sapphire surrounded by onyx. The look in his eyes was dull, as if the pain had drained him.

  "Jesus, you look like shit," I said.

  He almost smiled. "Thanks, I needed that."

  "Take a pill, get in the Jeep."

  He started to shake his head, stopped in mid-motion and said, "No, if you can drive, I can go to the next disaster."

  "You smell like someone set your clothes on fire."

  "You look pristine," he said, and he sounded resentful.

  "What's wrong, Larry?"

  "Other than my back feels like a red-hot poker is being shoved up it?"

  "Besides that," I said.

  "I'll tell you in the car." Underneath the sulkiness, he sounded tired.

  I didn't argue with him, just started walking for the Jeep. A few steps and I realized he wasn't keeping up. I turned and found him standing very still, eyes closed, hands in fists at his sides.

  I walked back to him. "Need a hand?"

  He opened his eyes, smiled, "A back, actually. Hands work fine."

  I smiled and took his arm gently, half expecting him to tell me not to, but he didn't. He was hurting. He took a stiff step, and I steadied him. We made slow but sure progress to the Jeep. His breath was coming in small, shallow pants by the time I got him around to the passenger side door. I opened the door, wasn't sure how to get him inside. It was going to hurt any way I could do it.

  "Just let me hold your arm. I can do it myself," he said.

  I offered my arm. He got a death grip on it and sat down. He made a small hissing noise between his teeth. "You said it would hurt worse the second day. Why are you always right?"

  "Hard to be perfect," I said, "but it's a burden I've learned to cope with." I gave him my best bland face.

  He smiled, then started to laugh, then almost doubled over with pain, which hurt more. He ended up writhing on the seat for a few seconds. When he could sit still again, he grabbed the dashboard until his fingers turned colors. "God, don't make me laugh."

  "Sorry," I said. I got the aloe-and-lanolin Baby Wipes from the trunk of my car. They were great for getting blood off. They'd probably work on soot. I handed him the wipes and helped him buckle his seat belt. Yes, his wounds would have hurt less if he hadn't had the belt, but no one rides with me without a seat belt. My mom would be alive today if she'd been wearing a belt.

  "Take a pill, Larry. Sleep in the car. I'll take you home after this next scene."

  "No," he said, and he sounded so stubborn, so determined, that I knew I couldn't talk him out of it. So why try?

  "Have it your way," I said. "But what have you been doing that you look like you've been trying to hide your spots?"

  He moved just his eyes to look at me, frowning.

  "Rolling in soot," I said. "Don't you ever watch Disney movies or read children's books?"

  He gave a small smile. "Not lately. I've had three fire scenes where I just had to confirm the vamps were dead. Two of the scenes I couldn't find anything, just ashes. The third one looked like black sticks. I didn't know what to do, Anita. I tried to check for a pulse. I know that was stupid. The skull just exploded into ashes all over me." He was sitting very stiff, very controlled, yet his body gave the impression of hunching from pain, avoiding the blow of what he'd seen today.

  What I was about to say wouldn't help things. "Vamps burn to ashes, Larry. If there were skeletal remains left, it wasn't vampire."

  He looked at me then, the sudden movement bringing tears to his eyes. "You mean that was human?"

  "Probably -- I'm not sure, but probably."

  "Thanks to me we'll never know for sure. Without the fangs in the skull you can't tell the difference."

  "That's not entirely true. They can do DNA. Though truthfully I'm not sure what the fire does to DNA sampling. If they can gather it, they can at least know if it's human or vamp."

  "If it's human, I've destroyed any chance they have of using dental records," he said.
>
  "Larry, if the skull was that fragile, I don't think anything could have saved it. It certainly wouldn't have stood up to dental imprinting."

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  I licked my lips and wanted to lie. "Not a hundred percent."

  "You'd have known it was human. You wouldn't have touched it, thinking it was alive, would you?"

  I let silence fill the car.

  "Answer me," he said.

  "No, I wouldn't have checked for a pulse. I would have assumed it was human remains."

  "Dammit, Anita, I've been doing this for over a year, and I'm still making stupid mistakes."

  "Not stupid, just mistakes."

  "What's the difference?" he asked.

  I was thinking that what he'd done to get his back ripped up was a stupid mistake, but decided not to say it out loud. "You know the difference, Larry. When you get over feeling sorry for yourself, you'll know the difference."

  "Don't be condescending, Anita."

  The anger in his voice stung more than the words. I didn't need this today. I really didn't. "Larry, I'd love to soothe your ego and make it all better, but I am all out of sugarplums and puppy-dog tails. My day hasn't been exactly a barrel of laughs either."

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  I shook my head.

  "Come on. I'm sorry. I'll listen."

  I wasn't even sure where to start, and I wasn't ready to tell anybody about what had happened in the hospital room, least of all Larry.

  "I don't even know where to start, Larry."

  "Try," he said.

  "Richard is being nasty."

  "Boyfriend trouble," he said; he sounded almost amused.

  I glanced at him. "Don't be condescending, Larry."

  "Sorry."

  "It's not just that. Before this emergency came up, they wanted me at the Church of Eternal Life. Malcolm is bedded in the basement. His followers want him to be rescued. The firemen want to know if they can leave him until nightfall when he'll rise on his own."

  "So?" Larry asked.

  "So, I don't have the faintest idea how to find out if Malcolm is alive or dead."

  He stared at me. "You're kidding."

  "Wish I was."

  "But you're a necromancer," he said.

  "I raise zombies and an occasional vamp, but I can't raise a master vamp of Malcolm's power. Besides, what if I could? Would that prove he was alive or prove he was dead? I mean if I could raise him, it might just mean he was ready to be a zombie. Hell, Jean-Claude's awake for the day, maybe Malcolm is, too."

  "A vampire zombie?" Larry said.

  I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm the only person who can raise vamps like zombies, that I know of. There aren't a lot of books on the subject."

  "What about Sabitini?"

  "You mean the magician?"

  "He raised zombies as part of his act, and he had vampires that did his bidding. I've read eyewitness accounts of it."

  "First, he died in 1880. A little before my time. Second, the vampires were just dupes who went along with him. It was a way for vampires who would have normally been killed on sight to walk freely among the people. Sabitini and his pet vampires, they called them."

  "No one's ever proved that he was a fraud, Anita."

  "Fine, but he's dead and he didn't leave any diaries behind."

  "Raise him and ask," Larry said.

  I stared at him long enough that I had to hit the brakes fast to keep from ramming a car in front of me. "What did you say?"

  "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.