Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘So it would have to be someone from one of the major animating firms?’ Rickman asked.

‘I can’t imagine anyone from the firms doing this kind of shit,’ I said.

‘Who else?’ Rickman asked.

‘There are good vaudun practitioners and not-so-bad ones. A really powerful one who had chosen to do dark magic could do it, but the only one left that I’m aware of is in New Orleans, and Papa Jim is eighty and a good guy from all accounts. There are powerful priests and priestesses, but that doesn’t automatically mean they can raise the dead, no matter what the legends say about voodoo.’

‘I thought all voodoo priests could make zombies if they were powerful enough,’ Al said.

I shook my head. ‘No, you can’t just pray your way into the ability to raise the dead. It’s a gift, like running a mile in under four minutes; practice makes you faster, but some stuff has to be genetic, inherent to you.’

‘So you’re saying that you couldn’t do a spell evil enough to be given the ability to control the dead?’ he asked.

I thought about that for a long minute. ‘Honestly, I can’t answer that. I don’t do black magic or mess with the kind of stuff that bargains power for sacrifice or evil deeds.’

‘Why does anyone do it?’ Burke asked.

‘Because they’re too weak, or scared, or powerless on their own, and they want to be stronger, scary themselves, and feel powerful.’

‘And you don’t need any of that?’ Rickman asked.

‘Nope, do you?’ I asked.

He looked surprised. ‘No, but I’m just a detective. There’s nothing the demonic could offer me.’

I laughed. ‘Oh, Detective, there’s a certain kind of evil that specializes in finding what a person wants most and pretending to offer it to them at a price.’

‘Why do you say pretend?’ Al asked.

‘Because the demonic can only give you what God has created, or what someone else has; they can’t help you create something new and fresh, because that’s beyond them. They are a part of the creator’s design, not part of the creating of it. They imitate, they bargain, they may know your darkest secret, or worst fear, but they can’t create your fear, only exploit the one that’s already there, and they can’t make you do a damn thing, only know what you’ve already done and try to use it against you.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Rickman asked.

‘One, I was raised a good little Catholic girl. Two, I’ve come up against the demonic a time or two.’

‘You’ve fought demons?’ Al said.

‘Not the way you probably mean, but yeah.’

‘And you won?’ Rickman said, and he sounded skeptical.

‘I’m here, and their victims survived, so yeah, I won.’

‘Did you do an exorcism?’ Burke asked.

‘No, I’ve assisted a priest on one once; really don’t want to do a traditional exorcism again.’

‘Why not?’

I just looked at him. ‘If you have to ask, you don’t want to know.’

‘So you help priests fight demons?’ Rickman managed to be even more disdainful.

‘No, I worked with one priest on one exorcism, but the Catholic Church has excommunicated all of us animators, so I can’t help now.’

‘Excommunication must make demons harder to fight,’ Rickman jibed.

‘If your faith is pure, you’re safe enough,’ I said.

‘Pure? Your faith is pure?’ Rickman laughed.

‘Don’t be a dick, Ricky,’ Dr Shelley warned him.

‘She’s sleeping with enough men to field a football team, how is that pure?’

Gonzales and Burke both called him on it, but I raised a hand and said, ‘It’s okay, I’ve heard it before, but I have a question for the detective.’

Burke looked skeptical, Gonzales looked worried, Al more curious, Shelley angry, and Rogers like he was ready to be elsewhere, but they all let me ask my question.

‘If I were a man sleeping with that many women, would it bother you as much?’

He seemed to think about it and then finally shook his head. ‘No, I guess it wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want the guy dating my sister, but … no, it wouldn’t bother me as much.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Why not, what?’ he asked.

‘Why wouldn’t it bother you as much, if I were a man?’

He frowned, thought, and finally said, ‘You’re a woman, you’re not supposed to sleep around. You’re a beautiful woman. You don’t have to be a slut.’

Dr Shelley said, ‘Jesus, Ricky.’

Burke said, ‘You aren’t in my chain of command, but I will be speaking to your superiors about this.’

Gonzales was shaking his head. ‘All I can do is apologize for him, Anita.’

I laughed, not the I-think-this-is-funny laugh, but the abrupt I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-hearing laugh. ‘I’ve heard all of it before, unfortunately, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone’s reasoning being that only ugly women sleep around. That’s a new one.’

‘Beautiful women don’t have to; men chase them,’ Rickman said, as if he truly didn’t understand what he was doing wrong. Maybe he didn’t?

‘So ugly women sleep around because sex is the only way they can get men?’ I asked.

‘Please, shut up now, Ricky,’ Gonzales said. ‘You are embarrassing yourself and the Boulder PD.’

He looked from one to the other of the others, and his expression was plainly confused.

It was Dr Rogers, who had been so quiet through all of it, who said, ‘He doesn’t understand, does he?’

‘Jesus, Ricky,’ Dr Shelley said, ‘I thought you just hated women in authority and were offensive, but you honestly don’t understand that you’re wrong.’

‘Regardless, I will be reporting this incident to your superiors,’ Commander Burke said.

‘What?’ Rickman said.

‘You called Marshal Blake a slut,’ Al said.

‘I didn’t,’ he said.

Gonzales sighed and smoothed his hand over his face. ‘So that’s why when the other women came forward and said you’d called them names, you were so surprised.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s why none of the complaints stuck; he seemed so damned innocent.’

‘Because he thought he was,’ I said.

Gonzales nodded.

‘It’s like social dyslexia,’ I said. ‘He can’t see it.’

Gonzales nodded again.

Burke said, ‘Regardless, it’s unacceptable behavior in an officer.’ I was betting he hadn’t realized he was sounding more military than cop, but once military enough, it’s hard to shake all of it.

‘Conduct unbecoming,’ I said.

Burke nodded. ‘Very much so. I apologize for all the discourtesy you have experienced since you arrived here. I thought the religious zealots upstairs would be the main problem, but apparently not.’ He gave Rickman a hard, cold look.

Rickman might not understand why he was in trouble for talking to me, but he understood the look. He tried to give a hard look in return, but his face was uncertain. I think because he knew that not everyone in the room could be wrong, which made him wrong. Maybe, just maybe, he was rethinking all those accusations from other women and wondering if they had been right? One could hope that even men like Rickman could be taught.

Dr Rogers had to go back to his living patients. We were all stripping off the gowns, masks, and protective gear as I asked him, ‘Is Micah going to be able to actually talk to his dad?’

‘He’s basically in a medically induced coma. Normally, I’d bring him out of it pretty quickly, but the last patient to die seemed to go into shock when the drugs left her system, so I’m going to wean the sheriff off more slowly and hope his body adjusts better.’

‘You mean, one of the victims died just from coming out of the drugs?’ I asked.

He nodded.