Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“I was fine in theory, but now that the animal is standing in front of me, it seems wrong to slaughter it because we want to do historical research.”

“Do you want the zombie raised, or not?” I asked.

“Of course we do.” Mr. Owen MacDougal came up behind her, much taller, much broader, not fat, but solid like an old-time linebacker gone a little heavy around the middle. He looked like an older version of my other bodyguard, Dino, except Dino was darkly Hispanic and MacDougal was Middle America white bread. I knew Dino was six-two, so MacDougal was at least that tall, maybe an inch or so more. Neither of them was as broad through the shoulders as Nicky, but then I knew Dino didn’t go for bulk as much as he did, and MacDougal obviously hadn’t been keeping up with the gym, but he was still a big, solid guy.

“Of course we do,” he repeated. “Ethel, it’s a cow. You eat steak.”

“I eat meat out of the grocery store,” she said. “I don’t watch the poor animals slaughtered in front of me.” She motioned at the brown-and-white Guernsey tied to a nearby tree. It was munching the fresh grass and chewing whatever cows chew contentedly. If it knew why it was here tonight it seemed calm about it, but it was a cow. They puzzle me. I’ve never looked at one and thought, I know what it’s thinking . Cows aren’t like dogs, or cats, or even certain birds. Cows are mysterious things when it comes to motives, and this one was no different as she grazed among the weathered tombstones.

Nathaniel had surprised me by being nervous of the cow. All he would say was, he’d had a bad experience with a cow once. He was standing well away from it by the clients’ cars, while we talked business.

I tried to think my way past the PETA-esque attack of conscience, and finally said, “Mrs. Willis, I have other appointments tonight”—which was a lie, because raising something this old would exhaust any animator powerful enough to do it, but Ethel Willis didn’t know that—“so you need to decide if we’re raising this zombie within the next fifteen minutes or I’m calling it, and you can figure out what to do with the live cow.”

“What?” she asked, and MacDougal echoed her.

“I mean I’ve made arrangements with a disposal company to come get the cow carcass. It’ll be made into pet food since humans aren’t allowed to eat anything killed in a religious ritual, but the disposal company does not deal in live animals, so if we leave here and the cow is still alive, then it’s your problem.”

I heard Dino chuckle behind me, and try to turn it into a cough.

“But I don’t know anything about cows,” Mrs. Willis said. “Whatever would I do with it?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. You paid for the animal to be sacrificed when you agreed to the price for the zombie, so in effect it’s your cow. If you don’t want me to kill it and raise the zombie, fine, but it’s still your cow dead or alive. I’ll dispose of its corpse, but if it’s still alive when I leave here tonight it’s no longer my problem, it’s yours.” I glanced behind me at the narrow road that ran through the graveyard. “The biggest car I see over there is a Cadillac. It’s a big car. You could probably get a goat in the backseat, but I don’t know about a cow, especially not a full-grown Guernsey. They’re a big animal. I don’t think it’ll fit, and this municipality doesn’t let you keep cows except as short term for blood sacrifices or other religious observances, so no just letting the cow loose, because that would be breaking the law and when the police contact Animators Inc. asking why a cow that we purchased is roaming loose, I’ll tell them it’s your cow.”

“How would they know whose cow it was?” Willis asked.

“They have serial numbers like license plates. The number tells you the cow’s entire history including that it’s now your cow, and unless I kill it here and now, you have a very big, very not-house-trained pet.” The cow chose that moment to lift its tail and prove just how not-house-trained it was. I think that was the selling point for Mrs. Willis. The nice animal had done something messy and disgusting, and very real. I think it was all a little too real for the older lady. She went to sit in the Cadillac and left the rest of us to get all messy and real.

“Once I come back from the car we’ll get started, but first, which of you is going to stand by the grave so the zombie will answer the questions you want to ask it?”

MacDougal and the young guy, whose name seemed to be Patrick, though I wasn’t sure if it was his first or his last, looked at each other. “You mean we’d have control of the zombie and you wouldn’t?” Patrick asked.

I sighed; if only they’d read the literature we give them, they wouldn’t ask stupid questions, because they’d know already, but I didn’t say that out loud. “No, the animator who raises a zombie controls it. It will always answer to me before it answers to anyone else, but this way it will answer your questions without me being present, so which of you wants to hold the leash, so to speak?”

They looked at each other again. Patrick took a step forward. I added, “Just so we’re clear, and don’t have any more misunderstandings, I will have to put some of the cow’s blood on the face and body of the person who controls the zombie.”

Patrick’s eyes got a little bigger, and he shook his head. “Not me, sorry, but I don’t want to do that.”

MacDougal stepped up. “I guess it has to be me. Where do you want me to stand?”

“Behind the tombstone, so you’re not on the grave, will be dandy, but I have to get the rest of my equipment ready, so just relax for a few minutes, and then we’ll get started.”

He nodded. “Just tell me what to do.”

I turned for the cars, because what I wanted to say was, Read the damned handouts!

IT’S HARDER TO kill a cow than a goat or a chicken. First, it’s a much bigger animal, which is both more difficult to kill when the only acceptable method is a blade, and a hell of a lot more dangerous. Normally, Nicky, Dino, and the other guards kept us safe from bad guys, but tonight I’d want them to help me with the sacrifice. I hadn’t lied to Mrs. Willis; a Guernsey is a big cow.

When I’d asked the guards if any of them knew about handling big livestock, only Dino and Nicky had stepped up. Turns out that Dino had started life on a cattle ranch in Mexico. His grandfather had owned it and he’d grown up around cows. I’d had no idea, but I’d also had no idea that Nicky had grown up on a ranch out West in this country.

“Really, I had you pegged for a city boy,” I’d said.

“I like cities, but I can lay fence, do carpentry if something breaks and I have the right tools. About the only thing I never got very good at was wiring, and I can do some of that, but I’m not an electrician.”

I’d stared up at him and realized just how little I knew about his past. Of all the men in my life, Nicky had come to me with the least “getting to know you” period, because we met when he helped kidnap me. His original lion pride had been mercenaries, oh sorry, private contractors. They’d done everything from assassinations to information gathering, and probably things I didn’t even know to ask about. They’d been paid a lot of money to kidnap me so I could raise a zombie that I’d already refused to raise. They’d threatened to kill Micah, or Nathaniel, or Jason. Nicky thought of Nathaniel as family now, but in the beginning Nicky would have killed the other love of my life without a second thought. Nicky was a sociopath, made not born, but the effect was the same. Weaponless, with a witch having closed off my metaphysical powers so I couldn’t contact anyone for help, I’d turned to the powers of the vampire marks that were a permanent part of me now, and to my own necromancy. Thanks to Jean-Claude I fed off sex the way other vampires fed off blood. The ardeur was originally supposed to keep a vampire fed on a long sea voyage or in a small group where taking blood would be noticed; fucking around was more sociably acceptable. Some vampire lines could feed off fear and pain, and they would cause that so they could “drink” it down. I’d learned to feed on rage, too, but it had side effects on the victims that I hadn’t learned to control yet. The ardeur had side effects, too. I’d addicted people to me by accident, but by the time I’d met Nicky I could stop that from happening, most of the time, but Nicky, him I mind-fucked on purpose. To save the men I loved I’d taken everything I could from him, including his free will, and turned him into my Bride, as in Bride of Dracula. It’s always that term in vampireland, brides, not grooms, regardless of their gender—so sexist. Nicky had turned against his lion pride, been willing to kill his friends and what had been the closest thing to a family he’d ever known, because he was mine in a way that slave doesn’t even cover. If I was sad, it made Nicky anxious, and he was driven to make me happy again. We’d worked hard to give him as much of his autonomy back as he had, but he could never be free of me. He would adore me forever, while I hadn’t given a damn for him at first. Brides are walking, talking batteries for their creators, which can be drained of life when the vampire needs it, though most of the time they are just the ultimate servants, read “slaves.” That old saying about love meaning that another person’s happiness is more important to you than your own was true for Nicky. The fact that I had fallen in love with him, too, was either irony or God being kind.