I’d been arrogant, and I prayed for forgiveness for that particular sin. I was heartily sorry for it. Killing Bennington didn’t bother me. “By steel, blood, and will, I command you to go back to your graves and walk no more.”
There was another moment of that eye flicker.
I put power into the words, all the power I had, and willed it to work. I called the dead to me. I called them with the power that had made my dog rise from the grave when I was fourteen. I called them to me with the power that had put a suicidal professor in my dorm room in college. I called them with that part of me that made vampires hover around me like I was the last light in all the darkness. I called the dead to me, and bade them to rest and walk no more.
I shoved my power into them, and felt something else in there. Something else that shoved back, but the bodies were too much mine. Too much of my power animated them, and one by one their eyes emptied and they stood like shells waiting for orders.
“Rest and walk no more; by steel, grave, and will, I command thee.” They shambled back to their graves in a silent mass; the only sounds the shuffling of feet and the brush of cloth. Ilsa Bennington came to stand in front of us. She was still the lovely flirt that her husband had been willing to kill for, but her blue eyes were as empty as all the rest. Her mouth was smeared with redder things than lipstick.
Nicky whispered, “God.” But when I moved to the side of the grave, he and Jacob moved with me. Ilsa lay down on the grave and the dirt flowed over her like water. I’d never had so many zombies lay to rest at once. The dirt made a sound like waves crashing as it covered them all back up.
We stood in a silence so deep I could hear the pulse in my own body thundering in my ears. Then the first night insect called, then a distant frog, then the wind blew through the clearing, and it was as if the world had been holding its breath. We could all breathe again.
“You almost got us eaten alive,” Jacob said.
“You kidnapped me, remember?”
He nodded, and he was pale even by moonlight. Ellen made a small moan in his arms. “She’ll be all right,” he said, as if someone had asked the question.
He looked at the gun that was still in his other hand underneath her body. I watched the thought run through his eyes. “Don’t do it,” I said.
“Why not? You don’t have any more zombies to eat me.”
“Jacob,” Nicky said, “don’t.”
“You’ll kill me for her, won’t you?”
He just nodded.
Jacob looked at me. “I wish I’d turned down this job.”
“Me, too,” I said.
He looked at Nicky, then back to me. “They tortured our lions to get this location.” I didn’t know who he was saying it to.
“We’d have done the same,” Nicky said.
“You’ve destroyed my pride,” he said.
“No, Jacob,” I said, “you destroyed it when you put yourself on the wrong side of me and mine.”
He looked at me then, his eyes so wide there was a flash of white to them. “I’m going to try to leave before your people get here. Oh, yeah,” he said, “I feel them like something hot riding closer, so much power coming to your rescue, as if you need rescuing.” He laughed, but not like it was funny.
“Go, Jacob,” Nicky said.
Jacob looked at me. “If your name ever comes up in connection with another job, I’ll turn it down.”
“No matter how much money they offer you?” I asked.
He nodded. “There isn’t a price big enough to get me to come near you again.” He actually looked at the gun in his hand under Ellen’s body. I watched him think about it. “I’ll make you a deal, Anita Blake. You don’t come near me, and I will leave you the fuck alone.”
“Deal,” I said.
Nicky hugged me. “I don’t think I’m leaving, Jacob.”
“I know that.” He looked at me then, his eyes so wide there was a flash of white to them. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to leave. I’ll gather everyone up, and we’ll leave you and your men alone. I’d put a sign above St. Louis for all the hired thugs, if I could.”
“What would it say?” I asked.
“Here is a bigger motherfucker than you are.”
Jacob returned my weapons and trusted me not to shoot him in the back. He walked to the edge of the cemetery with Ellen in his arms and only when he was about to enter the trees did he turn and look at me. Maybe I should have shot him, but my lioness was content with beating his ass and letting him go. In the world of lions, he wouldn’t be back. Here was hoping my lion knew what she was talking about.