Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“I think he’s typing for the guy in the corner.”

“ Who the hell are you? he’s typing now,” Gillingham said.

I could have moved my gaze by inches and read the screen, but I didn’t want to look away from her eyes. I could feel her. I didn’t want to lose that.

“Uh-oh,” Brent said.

“What’s uh-oh mean in this context?” Manning asked.

“I just got a private message from the monitor. They’re telling me to drop out, they’ll refund my money and give me a credit for another session, just drop out now.”

“Then just drop out,” Manning said.

“If we drop out, Anita’s energy stops and my cover is blown, but if we don’t drop out, then eventually everyone else will. . . .”

“And my energy will still be coming through so your cover is blown anyway,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” Manning said.

“Unfortunately,” Brent said, hesitating over the keyboard.

“Then answer his question,” Gillingham said.

“What question?” Brent asked.

“Tell him who is here.”

“The FBI?” Brent asked.

“Anita Blake, that’s the energy he’s picking up that’s making him frantic.”

“You okay with being outed to this nut job?” Brent asked.

“Nut job? Really?” I asked.

“I’ll give you the standard vocabulary that’ll go in my report later, right now decide whether you want this man, these people to know who you are.”

Manning said, “Once they know who you are, then they can find you, Blake. You’re all over the news right now.”

“Let them find me, that means we have a better chance of catching them.”

“Are you sure?” Manning asked.

“We have to decide soon, he’s gone past me in the queue. If everyone else drops out first, then we’ve lost him.”

“A bold front is our only chance,” Gillingham said.

“Do it,” I said.

“Bold it is,” Brent said, and typed on the keyboard. In between the repeated “ Who is this? ” he answered, “ Anita Blake, who is this? ”

“Private message again: What do you want? ”

“Is it too bold to say, your head on a pike?” I asked, still looking into the zombie’s eyes.

“That’s a little aggressive. The longer we keep him on, the better chance we have of our techs tracing this to its source.”

“You mean where they’re filming?” I asked.

“If we’re lucky, very lucky, yes.”

“He’s asking the question again, what do you want?”

“Type: You know what I want .”

“Really?” Brent said.

“Just type it,” Manning said.

I heard the keys click. “Sent,” Brent said.

“ No, I don’t, he says.”

“Liar, tell him liar,” I said.

Brent typed it.

“ We’re not breaking any laws with the videos , he says,” Brent read.

“Tell him, not with the videos, but where are you getting your zombies?”

“He says, We have someone raise them for us. ”

I put my other hand on the corner of the film where he had to be sitting, and I flexed the connection to the zombie and there it was, a line of power flaring so bright. “Tell him, he’s lying, he raised the zombie.”

“ We’ll kill whoever told you , he typed.”

“Anita, try and make the zombie do something that he’s not ordering,” Gillingham said.

“I can’t do that to someone else’s zombie, and I sure as hell can’t do it over a computer like this.”

“Stop saying can’t and try, damn it. Don’t you understand, if he thinks someone ratted them out, they’ll start killing people that they suspect.”

“Fine, type: Then kill yourself, because your power called to me. You told me you existed.”

“Repeat it slower,” Brent said.

I repeated it.

It was so long before he replied I thought we’d lost him, but he sent back, “ I thought I could hide .”

“Tell him, a power as great as his shines out. It attracts the dead and those who work with the dead.”

“That’s bullshit, right?” Manning asked.

“Yeah, if I hadn’t seen the videos I wouldn’t have known he existed, but he doesn’t know that.”

“ I’ve felt your power, too, Anita , he says.”

“More bullshit,” Manning said.

“Maybe not,” Gillingham said. “Anita shines bright even to me, but to someone who raises the dead she might come up on their radar.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, I just want him to stay on the line so they can trace him,” I said.

“ You’re trying to keep us on the line so you can trace us , he says,” Brent read.

“Make the zombie do something, Anita,” Gillingham said.

“That may make him hang up,” I said.

“He’s going to hang up soon anyway.”

“ I don’t believe you felt my energy, Anita. Who told you? ”

“Make the zombie move, Anita.”

I said it out loud as I thought it at her, “Walk toward the door.”

She swayed.

I repeated it. “Please God, let her hear me.”

She took a step toward the door. The man’s voice said, “Stop moving.”

“Walk,” I said, and willed her to do it.

She took another step.

“Stop!” He yelled it, and she obeyed.

To Brent I said, “Type, ‘Your power called to me. Did you really think you could do this and I wouldn’t know?’”

He typed and read the response, “ How are you doing that? How are you giving it orders? ”

I thought, and prayed, “Talk to me, I’ll hear you.”

The zombie said, “Ruthie, my name is Ruthie Sylvester.”

“Shut up!” he screamed.

“Help me! Oh, God, help me!” she yelled.

“Come on, tell us where you are,” Brent whispered.

“Give us a clue,” I said.

“Illinois, he took me in Chicago.”

He screamed, “Shut up!” To the actor who was standing there waiting for direction, someone offscreen said, “Hit her.”

He hit her hard enough that she fell to the floor, but she kept talking. “Melvin’s Diner, Trust Bank, Lucky Lady strip club.”

The man in the corner rushed out into camera view. Short black hair, trimmed neat, and a hooded sweatshirt with a design on it. He grabbed the zombie’s arm and the moment he touched her she stopped talking. I could still feel her energy and his now, but I couldn’t hear her in my head. His touching her had put her back under his control. Damn it.

He kept his face turned away, but he spoke to me, not to the zombie when he said, “Anita, I’ve wanted to meet you.”

“Type: We should have coffee sometime and talk.”

A voice off camera read back my words to him. He laughed. “A coffee date with Anita Blake, my mother would be so happy.”

The screen went blank. I couldn’t feel the zombie anymore except as a vague sensation. “I’ll know that zombie again when I get close enough to it, but I can’t hear her now.”

“They cut the feed,” Brent said. “They’re gone.”

“What was all that the zombie was saying?” Gillingham asked.

“Clues,” Manning said.

“She was trying to tell us things she’d heard or seen, to help us locate her, I think,” Brent said. He typed in what we could remember, and then went back over the screen capture of the video for any place in Illinois that had a Trust Bank, Melvin’s Diner, and a Lucky Lady strip club.

“Trust Bank is a Midwest chain, that’s not helpful. There are about twenty Melvin’s or Mel’s Diners across the country, but there’s only one Lucky Lady strip club. Holy shit! We may know what city they’re in!”

I prayed that he was right, and that we found them soon, and I said thank you, because when God lets you hear the prayers of the dead, well, He’s pulling out some serious stops for you. I was grateful. I’d be even more grateful when we found Ruthie Sylvester and set her soul free, set all the souls free that we’d seen imprisoned on the videos. Then I wanted the animator, or voodoo priest, or whatever the fuck he called himself punished to the full extent the law allowed. If we could prove that he’d killed any of the girls so he could trap their souls at the moment of death, then it was an automatic death sentence, because it would fall under the magical malfeasance acts. If someone killed with magic or for magical purposes, they were treated like rogue vampires or shapeshifters. It was the only time a warrant of execution could be issued specifically for a live human being. I hoped we proved it. I didn’t have to be the one to pull the trigger on him, but for this, he needed killing. I’d have apologized to God about that whole vengeful thing, but I’d read the Old Testament; I was pretty sure He’d be okay if we helped Him out with that whole “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord,” just this once. I felt that little pulse that I got sometimes when I prayed; it usually meant that I’d get what I asked for, or at least He was listening. Holy Wrath of God, Batman, your ass was going to be ours soon, you soul-trapping son of a bitch.