The sky was thick with clouds that glowed like jewels. They shimmered and stretched across the sky like a gigantic gleaming blanket that some great beast had shredded with massive claws. Through the holes in the clouds, the sky peeked through black with a few diamond-chip stars bright enough to compete with the gleaming sky.
I stood on the hilltop staring up at the sky, breathing in the cool spring air. Larry stood beside me, looking up. His eyes reflected the glowing light.
"Get on with it," Stirling said.
I turned and looked at him. Him, Bayard, and Ms. Harrison. Beau had been with them, but I'd made him wait at the bottom of the mountain. I'd even told him if he so much as showed his face up top, I'd put a bullet in it. I wasn't sure Stirling believed me, but Beau had.
"Not an appreciator of nature's beauty, are you, Raymond?"
Even by moonlight I could see his scowl. "I want this over with, Ms. Blake. Now, tonight."
Strangely enough, I agreed with him. It made me nervous. I didn't like Raymond. It made me want to argue with him, regardless of whether I agreed. But I didn't argue. Point for me.
"I'll get it done tonight, Raymond; don't sweat it."
"Please stop calling me by my first name, Ms. Blake." He made the request through clenched teeth, but he had said "please."
"Fine. It'll be done tonight, Mr. Stirling. Okay?"
He nodded. "Thank you; now get on with it."
I opened my mouth to say something smart, but Larry said very softly, "Anita."
He was right, as usual. As much fun as it was to yank Stirling's chain, it was just delaying the inevitable. I was tired of Stirling, of Magnus, and of everything. It was time to do this job and go home. Well, maybe not straight home. I wouldn't leave without Jeff Quinlan, one way or another.
The goat gave a high, questioning bleat. It was staked out in the middle of the boneyard. It was a brown-and-white-spotted goat with those strange yellow eyes they sometimes have. It had floppy white ears and seemed to like having the top of its head scratched. Larry had petted it in the Jeep on the drive over. Always a bad idea. Never get friendly with the sacrifices. Makes it hard to kill them.
I had not petted the goat. I knew better. This was Larry's first goat. He'd learn. Hard or easy, he'd learn. There were two more goats at the bottom of the hill. One of them was even smaller and cuter than this one.
"Shouldn't we have the Bouviers' lawyers present, Mr. Stirling?" Bayard said.
"The Bouviers waived having their attorney present," I said.
"Why would they do that?" Stirling asked.
"They trust me not to lie to them," I said.
Stirling looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't see his eyes clearly, but I could feel the wheels inside his head moving.
"You're going to lie for them, aren't you?" he said. His voice was cold, repressed, too angry for heat.
"I don't lie about the dead, Mr. Stirling. Sometimes about the living, but never about the dead. Besides, Bouvier didn't offer me a bribe. Why should I help him if he doesn't throw money at me?"
Larry didn't call me on that one. He was looking at Stirling, too. Wondering what he'd say, maybe.
"You've made your point, Ms. Blake. Can we get on with it now?" He sounded reasonable, ordinary suddenly. All that anger, all that mistrust, had had to go somewhere. But it wasn't in his voice.
"Fine." I knelt and opened the gym bag at my feet. It held my animating equipment. I had another one that held vampire gear. I used to just transfer whatever I wanted into the bag. I bought a second bag after I showed up once at a zombie raising with the wrong bag. It was also illegal to carry vampire slaying stuff if you didn't have a warrant of execution on you. Brewster's law might change that, but until then... I had two bags. The zombie was my normal burgundy one; the vampire bag was white. Even in the dark, it was easy to tell them apart. That was the plan.
Larry's zombie bag was a nearly virulent green with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it. I was almost afraid to ask what his vampire bag looked like.
"Let me test my understanding here," Larry said. My words fed back to me. He knelt and unzipped his bag.
"Go ahead, " I said. I got out my jar of ointment. I knew animators who had special containers for the ointment. Crockery, hand-blown glass, mystical symbols carved into the sides. I used an old Mason jar that had once held Grandma Blake's green beans.
Larry fished out a peanut butter jar with the label still on it. Extra-crunchy. Yum-yum.
"We have to raise a minimum of three zombies, right?"
"Right," I said.
He stared around at the scattered bones. "A mass grave is hard to raise from, right?"
"This isn't a mass grave. It's an old cemetery that was disturbed. That's easier than a mass grave."