Page 10 (1/2)

Chapter 17

It was after 2:00 araveyard The Feds had kept us forever, like they didn&039;t believe ere telling the accused of concealing evidence when I wasn&039;t Made me want to lie to them just so they wouldn&039;t be disappointed I think Freemont had painted a less than charitable picture of enerous But it seeers at each other, and say she did it, when Beth St John&039;s blood was still wet on the carpet

The wind that had all but promised rain had drifted away The thick clouds that had obscured the woods while ere playing tag with vah and two days past full Since dating Richard, I&039;d paid more attention to the lunar cycles Fancy that

Thelike it had been polished Theit cast faint shadows You didn&039;t need a flashlight, but Rayen torch that filled his hand like a captive sun

I watched him start to point it at Larry and me I raised an arm and said, "Don&039;t point it at us You&039;ll ruin our night vision" It wasn&039;t very diploht

He hesitated in mid-motion I didn&039;t have to see his face to know he didn&039;t like it Men like Rayive orders better than they take theht Good for hiathered around hiht I bet that his entourage wasn&039;t worried about night vision, and would have liked to have had a light

Larry and I were still wearing the coveralls I was getting tired of o back to the hotel and sleep But once Jean-Claude arrived I wouldn&039;t be sleeping anyway;client Well, yeah I do get al kill, but it&039;s not a lot ofthis trip He deserved his uess

"We&039;ve been waiting for a very long time, Ms Blake"

"I&039;irl inconvenienced you, Mr Stirling Shall we go up?"

"I am not unsympathetic to another&039;s loss, Ms Blake, and I resent the implication that I aht, very co Ms Harrison and Bayardsupport Beau just stood there, looking sort of a a black slicker with a hood He looked like a phanto sky Looked at Beau He grinned broadly enough for his teeth to flash in the o Maybe he&039;d been a Boy Scout, always prepared and all that

"Fine, whatever you say Let&039;s get this over with" I didn&039;t wait for them I just walked past them and started up

Larry, at lanced at hi client, Anita"

"Look, I don&039;t need you to chastisewith you?"

I stopped "What we just left is what&039;s wrong with me I&039;d think it&039;d bother you a little more, too"

"It bothers me, but I don&039;t have to take it out on everyone else"

I took a deep breath and let it out slow He was right Daht, you&039;ve made your point I&039;ll try to be nicer"

Stirling , Ms Blake?" He walked past us, his back raht

Ms Harrison sturab on her elbow kept her froh heels Maybe it was against the executive secretary code to wear tennis shoes

Beau folloith his black slicker flapping around his long legs It

Okay,decidedly grumpy Jeff Quinlan was out there somewhere He was either already dead or had one bite by now It wasn&039;t my fault I&039;d told his father to put a piece of the host in front of every entrance I would have thought of the doggie door if I&039;d seen it, but I&039;d never gone that far into the house Even I would have thought it was paranoid to guard the doggie entrance But I would have done it, and Beth St John would be alive

I&039;d dropped the ball I couldn&039;t bring Beth St John back, but I could save Jeff And I would I would I didn&039;t want to avenge hi the vampire that killed him For once I wanted to be in tie for soht thisI&039;d seen in the Quinlans&039; living roo his neck? God, I hoped not I was pretty sure I could bring Jeff back from a vampire bite, but combine that with rape by a monster, and I wasn&039;t so sure What if I found him and there wasn&039;tsometimes

I prayed as alked up the hill I prayed and felt aBut a feeling of peace flowed over ly in et to Jeff in time But part of me was skeptical God doesn&039;t always save souess I don&039;t entirely trust God I never doubt Hilass darkly and all that Just once I&039;d like to see through the dalass clearly

The moon shone down on the top of the hill like silver fire The air was al somewhere else Heaven knoe could have used the rain, but personally I was just as glad I didn&039;t have to walk the raw dirt in a downpour Mud would have been just too perfect

"Well, Ms Blake, shall we begin?" Stirling asked

I glanced at his I wanted to say Larry was right Stirling was a pain in the ass, but he wasn&039;t who I was et

"Mr Kirkland and I alk the graveyard But you need to stay here Other people " There; that was diplo to make us stand here like an audience, you could have said so at the bottom of this mountain And saved us the walk"

Soyou to stay at the botto?"

He thought about that for a minute "No, I suppose I wouldn&039;t have liked it"

"Then what are you co about?"

"Anita," Larry said very softly under his breath

I ignored hiht I aht now Please, just let o ho profound honesty would work It was about all I had left

He hesitated a ht, Ms Blake Do your job, but know this You have been decidedly unpleasant It better be pretty spectacular"

I opened ripped oing to say and walked away from all of them Larry trailed after me Brave Larry

"What&039;s the ht?" he asked ere out of earshot of Stirling and Co

"I told you"

"No," he said, "it isn&039;t just the ht Hell, I&039;ve seen you kill people and be less upset afterwards What&039;s wrong?"

I stopped walking and just stood there for a minute He&039;d seen ht about it for a heartbeat It was true That was pretty da I&039;d seen too htered people in the last fewI&039;d done so Not all of it had been sanctioned by the state I also wanted to be looking for Jeff Quinlan I couldn&039;t do anything until Jean-Claude arrived I really couldn&039;t But I felt like n? Or a good one?

I took a deep breath of the coolon just breathing, in and out, in and out When I felt calain, I looked at Larry

"I&039;ht"

"If I said a little on edge with a surprised lilt in et mad?"

I smiled "Yeah, I would"

"You&039;ve been in a blacker mood than usual since you talked to Jean-Claude What&039;s up?"

I stared into his s face and didn&039;t want to tell him He wasn&039;t that much older than Jeff Quinlan, four years He could still have passed for a high-schooler "Fine," I said, and told hiainst the rules?"

"What rules?"

"That you can only be one kind of uard, too"

A strange look flashed across his face "Sweet Jesus, Jeff Quinlan is with that thing" He looked at ine, flowing across his face "We have to do soo back down the rabbed his ar until Jean-Claude arrives"

"But we can&039;t just do nothing"

"We aren&039;t doing nothing We&039;re doing our job"

"But how can we"

"Because we can&039;t do anything else right now"

Larry looked at me for a second, then nodded "Okay; if you can be calm, so can I"

"Good man"

"Thanks Noabout I&039;ve never heard of anyone who could read the dead without raising them first"

Truthfully, I didn&039;t know if Larry could do it But telling hi to help his confidence Magic, if that was the right word, often rises and falls on your own belief in your abilities I&039;ve seen very powerful people co to walk the cemetery" I tried to think of how to put it into words How do you explain so that you don&039;t fully understand yourself?

I have always had an affinity with the dead Even as a small child, I always knew if the soul had fled the body I rereat-aunt Katerine&039;s funeral I&039;m named after her, my middle name She was my father&039;s favorite aunt We went early to view the body andabove the coffin I looked up expecting to see it, but there was nothing for my eyes to hold onto I&039;ve never seen a soul I&039;ve felt them, but I&039;ve never seen one

I kno that Aunt Katerine&039;s soul hung around a long time Most souls leave within three days, some leave instantly, soone by the time the funeral arrived I didn&039;t feel her there There was nothing but a closed coffin and a blanket of pink roses over the coffin, as if the coffin would get cold

It was at ho close Not her soul, not really, but soo immediately I would hear her footsteps in the hall outside ht SheWhen she finally left, I was ready to let her go I never told ht, but even then I knew that he couldn&039;t hear her Maybe he heard other things I don&039;t know My father and I never talked much about my mother&039;s death It hosts long before I could raise the dead What I was about to do was just an extension of that, or maybe a combination of both skills I don&039;t know But it was like trying to explain that there was a soul hovering over Aunt Katerine&039;s coffin Either you knew the soul was there or you didn&039;t Words didn&039;t quite cover it

"Can you see ghosts?"

"You ht now?"

I seneral"

"Well, I knew the Calvin house wasn&039;t haunted, no matter how many stories people made up But there was a little cave near town that had sohost?"

He shrugged "I never tried to find out, but nobody else seemed able to feel it"

"Do you knohen the soul leaves the body? I mean, can you tell it?"

"Sure" He said it like, Couldn&039;t everybody do that?

I had to s to do it I don&039;t knohat you&039;ll see, if anything I know that Ray to be disappointed because he won&039;t see anything, unless he&039;s a lotto do, Anita? They never talked about &039;walking a cee"

"It&039;s not like a estures and it works It isn&039;t anything like that" I struggled to put into words so that we had no vocabulary for "It&039;s closer to psychic ability than ic It&039;s not physical It&039;s not a ht It&039;s I just do it Letyou in or try and talk to you while I do it Okay?"

He shrugged "I guess so I still don&039;t understand what the heck you&039;re doing, but that&039;s okay I usually don&039;t knohat&039;s going on"

"But you always figure it out," I said

He grinned "I do, don&039;t I?"

"You bet"

I stood in nearly the dead center of the raw earth Not so long ago I was afraid of what I was about to do It wasn&039;t really frightening in and of itself I was scared of the fact that I could do it at all It wasn&039;t a very hu to be able to do

But then, lately I&039;d been rethinking exactly what made you human, and what made you one of the monsters Once I&039;d been very sure of myself, and everyone else I wasn&039;t so sure any

Of course, I&039;d been practicing in e but ht insects, but arthropods never bothered my concentration People did

Even with my back turned, I could feel Larry like a wared me "Can you move back farther?"

"Sure; how far?"

I shook ht"

He raised his eyebrows "Do you want ?"

"If you can stand it"

"I can stand it I schmooze clients better than you do"

That was the God&039;s honest truth "Great When I call you over, come slowly I&039;ve never tried to talk to soave a laugh that was almost nervous "I can&039;t wait to see this"

I let that go, and turned away I walked away fro to the others I hoped Larry wouldn&039;t be disappointed I still wasn&039;t sure if he&039;d be able to even sense anything I turnedthem huddled there would distract me, that much I was sure of

The top of the e of the world looking down The ht up here near the sky without any trees to hide it that the air itself gloith diffused light A gentle wind traced just about head-high It sreen and fresh, almost as if the rain had actually fallen I closed my eyes and let the wind touch my skin, ruffleof insects fro but the wind, me, and the dead

I couldn&039;t tell Larry exactly how to do it, because I wasn&039;t completely sure ht, I would think it If it was a s It is like s naked to the wind My skin grew cool It&039;s like a cool wind emanates from my body It isn&039;t really wind You can&039;t see it You can&039;t feel it, or no one else can But it&039;s there It&039;s real

The cool fingers of "wind" stretched outward from me Within a ten- to fifteen-foot radius I would be able to search the graves As I

I raised my arm and waved I didn&039;t turn around to see if Larry sawit in, trying not to start searching the dead until Larry got over here I was hoping he&039;d be able to sense as going on Seeure out if he saw it fro

I heard his footsteps on the dry earth They seerain of dirt under his shoes

He stopped behind me "Jesus, what is that?"

"What?" My voice sounded distant and loud at the same time

"Wind, a cold wind" He sounded a little scared Good You should always be a little afraid when you do ranted that you get in trouble

"Come closer, but don&039;t touch ood idea Better cautious than not

He caainst his skin "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Anita, it&039;s co from you"

"Yes," I said

His eyes ide He looked like his voice sounded, a little scared

"If I stood right next to Stirling, he wouldn&039;t feel a thing None of them would"

Larry shook his head "How could theybut not quite "It&039;s colder, or stronger, or soet to your body"

"Interesting," I said

"What now?" he asked

"Now, I touch the dead" I let go of it, like unclenching a hand The fingers of "wind" stretched doard How does it feel to go through solid earth and touch the dead beneath? Like nothing huh the dirt searching for the dead This time we didn&039;t have to search far The earth was disturbed, and the dead lay on top of the raw land

I&039;d never tried this in anything but a well-organized cerave, each body, was distinct The wind touched Larry like a stone in a stream The power rippled around him He was alive, and it disturbed us But we&039;d been practicing, and we could work around hi on top of bones Under the earth where eyes could not see I tried to step off them, and only stepped on more The earth was thick with bodies, like raisins in a pudding No getting around them

I stood on top on a raft of bones in a sea of dry, red earth Everywhere I touched was a body--a piece of bone There was no clear space No breathing space I stood there, huddled in on

The rib cage just to the left belonged with the thighbone yards away The wind leaked out and touched piece after piece I could have put the skeleton back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle That hat my poould do if I tried to raise it

Ion the dead, and everywhere I walked I put bodies together The pieces stayed separate, but I remely s the shost flared to life like a pale, dancing fla snake, watching me without eyes There was that thread of hostility that so A jealousy But if I&039;d been tied to soht be hostile, too

"What is that?" Larry whispered

"What do you see?" I asked

"I think it&039;s a ghost I&039;ve just never seen one materialize before" He reached out as if to touch it

I grabbed his wrist before he could ever have reached I felt his power flare to life in a rush of wind that should have poured my hair back from my face

The circle suddenly widened, like a ca wide The dead awoke under our cos touched by fire Our power spread over theave up their secrets Bits ofskulls, all the pieces were there All we had to do was call theround like shosts for this s disturbed The level of hostility was unusual

Co our powers hadn&039;t doubled the circle--it had quadrupled it

The nearest ghost stood like a white pillar of flaraveyard that hadn&039;t seen a burial in over two hundred years

I stared at it Larry stared at it As long as we didn&039;t touch it, ere safe Heck, ere safe even if we did touch it Ghosts can&039;t cause physical harnore them they fall away If you pay attention, they can be botherso, but if a spirit causes real harhost Dehost

Staring at the wavering shape, I wasn&039;t at all sure this was a norhost Ghosts wear out They fade to haunts, which don&039;t usually ive you a jolt, then just shivery places Ghosts do not last forever These looked pretty dahosts

"Stop!" a man&039;s voice yelled

Larry and I turned towards the voice Magnus Bouvier scrambled up the side of the mountain opposite from where we had walked up His hair fell across his face, hiding everything but his eyes frohts I could not see