Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [131]
He moved just his eyes to look at me, frowning.
“Rolling in soot,” I said. “Don’t you ever watch Disney movies or read children’s books?”
He gave a small smile. “Not lately. I’ve had three fire scenes where I just had to confirm the vamps were dead. Two of the scenes I couldn’t find anything, just ashes. The third one looked like black sticks. I didn’t know what to do, Anita. I tried to check for a pulse. I know that was stupid. The skull just exploded into ashes all over me.” He was sitting very stiff, very controlled, yet his body gave the impression of hunching from pain, avoiding the blow of what he’d seen today.
What I was about to say wouldn’t help things. “Vamps burn to ashes, Larry. If there were skeletal remains left, it wasn’t vampire.”
He looked at me then, the sudden movement bringing tears to his eyes. “You mean that was human?”
“Probably—I’m not sure, but probably.”
“Thanks to me we’ll never know for sure. Without the fangs in the skull you can’t tell the difference.”
“That’s not entirely true. They can do DNA. Though truthfully I’m not sure what the fire does to DNA sampling. If they can gather it, they can at least know if it’s human or vamp.”
“If it’s human, I’ve destroyed any chance they have of using dental records,” he said.
“Larry, if the skull was that fragile, I don’t think anything could have saved it. It certainly wouldn’t have stood up to dental imprinting.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I licked my lips and wanted to lie. “Not a hundred percent.”
“You’d have known it was human. You wouldn’t have touched it, thinking it was alive, would you?”
I let silence fill the car.
“Answer me,” he said.
“No, I wouldn’t have checked for a pulse. I would have assumed it was human remains.”
“Dammit, Anita, I’ve been doing this for over a year, and I’m still making stupid mistakes.”
“Not stupid, just mistakes.”
“What’s the difference?” he asked.
I was thinking that what he’d done to get his back ripped up was a stupid mistake, but decided not to say it out loud. “You know the difference, Larry. When you get over feeling sorry for yourself, you’ll know the difference.”
“Don’t be condescending, Anita.”
The anger in his voice stung more than the words. I didn’t need this today. I really didn’t. “Larry, I’d love to soothe your ego and make it all better, but I am all out of sugarplums and puppy-dog tails. My day hasn’t been exactly a barrel of laughs either.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Come on. I’m sorry. I’ll listen.”
I wasn’t even sure where to start, and I wasn’t ready to tell anybody about what had happened in the hospital room, least of all Larry.
“I don’t even know where to start, Larry.”
“Try,” he said.
“Richard is being nasty.”
“Boyfriend trouble,” he said; he sounded almost amused.
I glanced at him. “Don’t be condescending, Larry.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not just that. Before this emergency came up, they wanted me at the Church of Eternal Life. Malcolm is bedded in the basement. His followers want him to be rescued. The firemen want to know if they can leave him until nightfall when he’ll rise on his own.”
“So?” Larry asked.
“So, I don’t have the faintest idea how to find out if Malcolm is alive or dead.”
He stared at me. “You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was.”
“But you’re a necromancer,” he said.
“I raise zombies and an occasional vamp, but I can’t raise a master vamp of Malcolm’s power. Besides, what if I could? Would that prove he was alive or prove he was dead? I mean if I could raise him, it might just mean he was ready to be a zombie. Hell, Jean-Claude’s awake for the day, maybe Malcolm is, too.”
“A vampire zombie?” Larry said.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m the only person who can raise vamps like zombies, that I know of. There aren’t a lot of books on the subject.”
“What about Sabitini?”
“You mean the magician?”
“He raised zombies as part of his act, and he had vampires that did his bidding. I’ve read eyewitness accounts of it.”
“First, he died in 1880. A little before my time. Second, the vampires