Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K. Hamilton [106]
“Do you know a wererat or don’t you?”
“I do.”
“I need to get a message to the Rat King.”
He gave a low whistle that was piercing over the phone. “You don’t ask for much, do you? I might be able to get you a meeting with the wererat I know, but not their king.”
“Give the Rat King this message; got a pencil?”
“Always,” he said.
“The vampires didn’t get me, and I didn’t do what they wanted.”
Irving read it back to me. When I confirmed it, he said, “You’re involved with vampires and wererats, and I don’t get an exclusive.”
“No one’s going to get this one, Irving. It’s going to be too messy for that.”
He was silent a moment. “Okay. I’ll try to set up a meeting. I should know sometime tonight.”
“Thanks, Irving.”
“You be careful, Blake. I’d hate to lose my best source of front page bylines.”
“Me, too,” I said.
I had no sooner hung up the phone when it rang again. I picked it up without thinking. A phone rings, you pick it up, years of training. I haven’t had my answering machine long enough to shake it completely.
“Anita, this is Bert.”
“Hi, Bert.” I sighed, quietly.
“I know you are working on the vampire case, but I have something you might be interested in.”
“Bert, I am way over my head already. Anything else and I may never see daylight.” You’d think Bert would ask if I was all right. How I was doing. But no, not my boss.
“Thomas Jensen called today.”
My spine straightened. “Jensen called?”
“That’s right.”
“He’s going to let us do it?”
“Not us, you. He specifically asked for you. I tried to get him to take someone else, but he wouldn’t do it. And it has to be tonight. He’s afraid he’ll chicken out.”
“Damn,” I said softly.
“Do I call him back and cancel, or can you give me a time to have him meet you?”
Why did everything have to come at once? One of life’s rhetorical questions. “Have him meet me at full dark tonight.”
“That’s my girl. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“I’m not your girl, Bert. How much is he paying you?”
“Thirty thousand dollars. The five-thousand-dollar down payment has already arrived by special messenger.”
“You are an evil man, Bert.”
“Yes,” he said, “and it pays very well, thank you.” He hung up without saying good-bye. Mr. Charm.
Edward was staring at me. “Did you just take a job raising the dead, for tonight?”
“Laying the dead to rest actually, but yes.”
“Does raising the dead take it out of you?”
“It?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Energy, stamina, strength.”
“Sometimes.”
“How about this job? Is it an energy drain?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
He shook his head. “You can’t afford to be used up, Anita.”
“I won’t be used up,” I said. I took a deep breath and tried to think how to explain things to Edward. “Thomas Jensen lost his daughter twenty years ago. Seven years ago he had her raised as a zombie.”
“So?”
“She committed suicide. No one knew why at the time. It was later learned that Mr. Jensen had sexually abused his daughter and that was why she had killed herself.”
“And he raised her from the dead.” Edward grimaced. “You don’t mean . . .”
I waved my hands as if I could erase the sudden vivid image. “No, no, not that. He felt remorseful and raised her to say he was sorry.”
“And?”
“She wouldn’t forgive him.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“He raised her to make amends, but she had died hating him, fearing him. The zombie wouldn’t forgive him, so he wouldn’t put her back. As her mind deteriorated and her body, too, he kept her with him as a sort of punishment.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah,” I said. I walked to the closet and got out my gym bag. Edward carried guns in his; I carried my animator paraphernalia in it. Sometimes, I carried my vampire-slaying kit in it. The matchbook Zachary gave me was in the bottom of the bag. I stuffed it in my pants pocket. I don’t think Edward saw me. He does catch on if a clue sits up and barks. “Jensen finally agreed to put her in the ground if I’ll do it. I can’t say no. He’s sort of a legend among animators. The closest we come to a ghost story.”
“Why tonight? If it’s waited seven years, why not a few more