Sierra Woods - The Resurrectionist

Sam looked at me through that sexy, protective eyewear in a bold, jaundiced color and raised his brows. He really didn’t even have to ask, but I so appreciated it.

“Hell, yeah, I want to shoot that thing.” He grinned and handed me the weapon.

“Give it a whirl.”

“Where’d you get this thing, some online shooting shop?”

“Yeah, right.”

He knows I want his contacts and insulting him is one of the ways I’m trying to pry the information out of him. Not subtle, but then, I’m really not known for it. I tried the direct route for a while by just asking politely, or as polite as I get, but he just dissed me, so I was reduced to insults.

He went over a few specifics before I loaded the thing, then leaned against the wall beside me. I think he likes watching me shoot. Probably gives him a hard-on. He didn’t stand behind me or try to put his hands around me or treat me like a girl, which I totally appreciated. I am so not a girl.

Without a word, I squinted through my equally sexy eyewear and popped off one shot, just to get a feel of it before I unloaded the clip. “Recoil’s a bitch.”

“Did I forget to mention that?” The man had wrists of steel, so recoil meant little to him.

“Uh, yeah.” Squinting my left eye, I focused on the target again and squeezed off five shots.

“Nice, Dani. Very nice,” he said, admiring the way I so sweetly took out the target.

I returned the gun to Sam and shook out my hands. “Gonna have to work up to that bad boy.” Not that I was weak, but my wrists were tiny compared with Sam’s. I had supernatural powers, but not supernatural strength. Maybe I could put an order in with Burton, but I doubted it. He’d just laugh.

We picked up our spent shell casings and cleared the way for someone else to shoot. There was never any shortage of cops, P.I.s or gun fanatics practicing at the range. After we left the shooting area, we removed our ear protection. He used an over-the-head earmuff type, and I used the squishy things in my ears. They were cheap and didn’t mess up my hair. A woman’s gotta watch out for these little issues in life.

“That’s a nice piece,” I said and meant it.

“Feel better now that you’ve shot something?”

Oh, the man knows me too well. “Yeah. Sometimes the grind of the job just gets to me, and I want to kill something. Better a target than a person, ya know?” Since I came back from the other side, controlling my anger has been an issue. Kickboxing and margaritas help keep it under control, depending on the situation. They are not interchangeable coping mechanisms.

“So, you want to tell me what’s really bugging you?”

We headed outside into the parking lot on the south side of the big square, cinder-block building out in the middle of nowhere. Guess the desert has its perks. There are a lot of open spaces that no one wants to build on, so this was perfect.

I told Sam about Mrs. Chapman and the stupid dog she wanted resurrected.

“My grandmother would have loved that one.” Normally, Sam is your typical, well-controlled, serious cop-type guy, but now, he wiped his eyes beneath his reflective sunglasses. He was laughing so hard, it brought tears to his eyes. I’d never have bet money on that happening.

I tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. Laughter is nearly as good as sex as a tension reliever. There has been little of either in my life of late, but then sex was what got me killed in the first place. Not mine, my ex-husband’s. He’s the one who couldn’t keep it zipped. “Did she have a dog like Fluffy?” I asked. I knew his grandmother had passed into the beyond, but other than that, I knew little about her.

“No.” He shook his head and put his hands on his hips. The laughter was still with him, and it was good to see. I love police officers, and our men in blue have little to laugh about on the job, so a snicker here and there does them good. “Oh, no. She’d have never had a dog like Fluffy.”

“She liked big dogs then, like the killer Dobie?”

“No.”

“Then what?” I couldn’t see what was so funny now.

“The irony of the underappreciated. Like you. Like her. I never told you, but she was like you,” Sam said, and all humor between us came to a screeching halt.

My smile faded. “What do you mean, just like me?”

“A resurrectionist.” Sam removed his sunglasses. I saw his eyes, so I knew he spoke the truth. “That’s why I volunteered for the liaison post with you. I have some experience with it.”

“Are you kidding? Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled and slugged him in the chest. Touching people gives me too much information about them, but now and then I put up with it if I get to punch someone. Like now.

“What was the point? She was gone already, and I don’t know how to do that stuff.”

“The point was that...well, hell, I don’t know, but I would have liked to have known.”

“She was gone, Dani, years ago.”

I sighed, not satisfied with that explanation. It was as if he had insider information and had kept it from me. “I would have liked to have known, that’s all. Maybe you could have helped me in the beginning. Maybe you could help me now get some things figured out.” I know there are others out there like me, but finding them is not easy. It’s not as though we have an online newsletter or a blog like other, more populous states do. I’m going to have to work on one for New Mexico, because no one else is doing it.

“I don’t know anything about what goes on during the rituals, other than what I’ve seen you do.”

“Didn’t she raise you?” As if that meant he knew everything about her life.

“Yes, but she kept that part of her life very secret when we were kids. It was only by accident that I found out.”

Sam put his glasses back on, and we walked to his car. It was an unmarked police vehicle, and it looked like one. In the dark, no one would know, but in the daylight it screamed cop car. Just needed a cherry on top. The dashboard was outfitted with more technology than a small plane, and the two hundred antennae on it was a dead giveaway. It looked like an insect on steroids. But I got in anyway. I had to unless I wanted to walk back to the office, some forty miles away. I didn’t. “How did you find out?”

“She didn’t think my sisters and I were old enough to understand. Our family and the neighborhood were very superstitious. If there had been any implication of witchcraft in her house, the state would have taken us from her. It’s different now that there are others out there.” He shrugged. “So I did what every kid does. I followed her.”

“So following people has been a lifelong endeavor?” Explains why I didn’t hear him sneak up on me the other day. Bastard.

He didn’t answer that and just gave me a look. “I was about twelve, but looked older, so I could be out on the streets and no one said anything. Back then the courts hadn’t sanctioned resurrections and life-swaps, so it was very underground. Only the family of the victim was present, and the killer of course.”

“You were such a wiseass, even at twelve, weren’t you?” The image I had of him at that age was funny, all legs and feet and not quite grown into his attitude yet.

“Yeah. I was a piece of work. Got into more trouble than I was worth. Until the Rangers, anyway.” He looked away. That’s where his secrets lay, in his past, but here was an opportunity to find out a little more about him.

“Did she have a fit when she found out you had followed her?” I could just imagine. My grandmother would have kicked my ass from here to Sunday.

“Oh, yeah. My ears rang for a week. She could carry on like no one I’ve ever known.” He grinned as if it was a good memory. Having good childhood memories is a sign of a balanced life. “Kinda miss that now.” That was good. We usually have too many bad memories from childhood that are stuck in our brains. I never understood why the bad ones always come through first and the good memories are left behind. It would be nice to have that in reverse. If I’m ever elected Queen of the Universe, that’s the first thing I’m changing. “I had to clean the chicken coop for three months after that.”