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"Rolling in soot," I said "Don&039;t you ever watch Disney ave a small smile "Not lately I&039;ve had three fire scenes where I just had to confirm the va, just ashes The third one looked like black sticks I didn&039;t knohat to do, Anita I tried to check for a pulse I know that was stupid The skull just exploded into ashes all oververy stiff, very controlled, yet his body gave the i the blohat he&039;d seen today
What I was about to say wouldn&039;t help things "Vamps burn to ashes, Larry If there were skeletal remains left, it wasn&039;t vampire"
He looked attears to his eyes "You mean that was human?"
"Probably--I&039;m not sure, but probably"
"Thanks to s in the skull you can&039;t tell the difference"
"That&039;s not entirely true They can do DNA Though truthfully I&039;ather it, they can at least know if it&039;s human or vamp"
"If it&039;s hu dental records," he said
"Larry, if the skull was that fragile, I don&039;t think anything could have saved it It certainly wouldn&039;t have stood up to dental i"
"Are you sure?" he asked
I licked my lips and wanted to lie "Not a hundred percent"
"You&039;d have known it was hu it was alive, would you?"
I let silence fill the car
"Answer me," he said
"No, I wouldn&039;t have checked for a pulse I would have assumed it was human re this for over a year, and I&039; stupid mistakes"
"Not stupid, just mistakes"
"What&039;s the difference?" he asked
I was thinking that what he&039;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&039;ll know the difference"
"Don&039;t be condescending, Anita"
The anger in his voice stung more than the words I didn&039;t need this today I really didn&039;t "Larry, I&039;d love to soothe your ego and arplu tails My day hasn&039;t been exactly a barrel of laughs either"
"What&039;s wrong?" he asked
I shook my head
"Come on I&039;m sorry I&039;ll listen"
I wasn&039;t even sure where to start, and I wasn&039;t ready to tell anybody about what had happened in the hospital room, least of all Larry
"I don&039;t even knohere to start, Larry"
"Try," he said
"Richard is being nasty"
"Boyfriend trouble," he said; he sounded allanced at hi, Larry"
"Sorry"
"It&039;s not just that Before this eency came up, they wanted me at the Church of Eternal Life Malcolm is bedded in the basement His folloant him to be rescued The firehtfall when he&039;ll rise on his own"
"So?" Larry asked
"So, I don&039;t have the faintest idea how to find out if Malcolm is alive or dead"
He stared at "
"Wish I was"
"But you&039;re a necromancer," he said
"I raise zombies and an occasional vamp, but I can&039;t raise a master vamp of Malcolm&039;s power Besides, what if I could? Would that prove he was alive or prove he was dead? I ht just mean he was ready to be a zombie Hell, Jean-Claude&039;s awake for the day, maybe Malcolm is, too"
"A vaed "I don&039;t know I&039;m the only person who can raise vamps like zombies, that I know of There aren&039;t a lot of books on the subject"
"What about Sabitini?"
"You ician?"
"He raised zombies as part of his act, and he had va I&039;ve read eyewitness accounts of it"
"First, he died in 1880 A little beforewith him It was a way for vaht to walk freely a the people Sabitini and his pet vampires, they called them"
"No one&039;s ever proved that he was a fraud, Anita"
"Fine, but he&039;s dead and he didn&039;t leave any diaries behind"
"Raise hi enough that I had to hit the brakes fast to keep fro a car in front of me "What did you say?"
"Raise Sabitini and find out if he could raise vampires like you can He&039;s just a little over a hundred years dead You&039;ve raised zombies a lot older than that"
"You missed the case last year where a vaudun priestess had raised a necroot co people"
"You&039;ve told me about it, but the priestess didn&039;t knohat he was If you knew going in, you could take precautions"
"No," I said
"Why not?" he said
I opened ood answer "I don&039;t approve of raising the dead for curiosity&039;s sake You kno much money I&039;ve been offered to raise dead celebrities?"
"I&039;d still like to knohat really happened to Marilyn Monroe," he said
"When her family co the poor woman because a tabloid waved money at our boss"
"Waved a lot of h money that he sent Ja dead without a bigger sacrifice"
I shook my head "Jamison is a weenie"
"Everyone else at Ani you," I said
He shrugged "I ht raise her and ask how she died, but not in front of cameras The poor wo hounded Doesn&039;t seeuy, Larry"
"Not good enough to know that vampires burn to ash and skeletal remains are human"
"Don&039;t start, Larry It&039;s just experience I should have told you before you went out today Truthfully, you&039;re getting so good at the job, I didn&039;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 e"
"Not so many notes lately, huh?" I said
"No, I hadn&039;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 ht-eyed, optimistic kid who had first shown up onhow to do the job?"
"Yeah," I said, "you are In fact, if you were quicker on the trigger, I&039;d say you were good at it It&039;s just hard to learn everything, Larry So comes up and you find out you really don&039;t knohat the hell&039;s going on after all"
"You, too?" he said
"Me, too"
He took a deep breath and let it out "I&039;ve seen you surprised a tie that you don&039;t knohat&039;s going either, it usually gets real nasty, real fast"
He was right I wished he wasn&039;t, because right now I didn&039;t knohat the hell was going on I didn&039;t understand what had happened with Nathaniel I didn&039;t kno the marks worked with Richard I didn&039;t kno to find out if Malcol the undead, or if he&039;d crossed into that more permanent state of true death In fact I had so o home Maybe Larry and I could both take a pain pill and sleep until tomorrow Surely tomorroould be a better day God, I hoped so