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Apparently, I was included in the good feelings. Most people get a little uncomfortable when it’s time to put the zombie back, if he looks alive enough.

Requiem stopped the compliments. “Ms. Blake has had a difficult night, gentlemen, if you could allow her to finish her work, then she can rest.”

“Oh, terribly sorry . . . We didn’t know. Thank you . . . worth every penny.” And they began to drift away.

Edwin Alonzo Herman looked down at me, and it wasn’t a friendly look. “I understand that I am supposed to be dead and only your magic gave me life again.”

I shrugged and asked Graham to please get the machete and the salt from the bag.

“I’ve also been told that vampires have rights and are considered citizens. Am I not merely another kind of vampire? If I were declared alive, I would be a very, very wealthy man. I would be willing to share that wealth, Miss Blake.”

I clung to Requiem’s arm and looked up at the zombie, so self-assured. “You know, Mr. Herman, you’re one of the few old ones that I’ve ever raised that have grasped the possibilites so quickly. You must have been something special in your day.”

“Thank you for the compliment, and may I return one? This must be a unique gift that you have. Together we could turn it into an empire.”

I smiled. “I have a business manager, but thanks anyway.” I let go of Requiem and found I could stand without falling. Good to know. I was actually feeling a little better just standing on the grave by the zombie, because no matter how good he looked, that’s what he was. I took the jar of salt from Graham’s hand.

“Miss Blake, if I am only another type of walking dead, then is it fair to deny me the same chance that this vampire has gotten?”

“You’re not a vampire,” I said.

“And how great could the difference be between what I am, and what he is?”

I did something that Marianne had tried to teach me, and I just had been too stubborn to try before. I wasn’t sure I had enough energy left to walk the circle, so I just pictured it in my mind, like a glowing circle around the grave, around the great stone angel, around all of us. It closed with the same neck-ruffling power rush that it did when I walked it with steel and blood. Good, very good.

“You want a difference, try and walk away from the grave.”

He frowned at me. “I don’t understand.”

“Just walk to the road, where you answered their questions.”

“I don’t see what it will prove.”

“It will prove the difference between what you are and what he is.”

Herman frowned at me, then took a deep settling breath and strode off of his grave, toward the road. He hesitated, then slowed, then stopped. “I seem unable to move forward. I don’t know why. I just simply don’t seem able to go farther.” He turned back to me. “Why? Why can I not go where I just stood?”

“Requiem, walk outside the circle.”

He looked at me, then he walked past the man. He hesitated for a moment, and I worried that I’d done too good a job on the circle, but it should have only kept in the zombie, and out other things. The vampire shouldn’t have been affected by it. Requiem pushed through, and the circle flared. It did recognize him as a type of undead, but not the one tied to this grave. I realized that with a little tweaking I might be able to throw up a circle that bound a vampire to its grave, or coffin, or a room. It couldn’t be kept up forever, but for awhile. I filed it away. It would be a sort of desperation measure, but I’d been desperate before.

Herman pushed against the cirlce, or rather pushed against his own unwilliness to cross it. Requiem glided back through it, and out again, and in again.

“Enough,” I said, “I think we’ve made the point.”

“Why can I not cross this point, and he can?”

“Because this is your grave, Mr. Herman, your body knows this ground, and it knows you. It holds you to it, now that I’ve made it do so. Now come back and stand on the grave like a nice zombie.”

“I am not a zombie.”

“I said, stand on the grave.”

He took a step toward me, before he stopped, and fought