Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K. Hamilton [73]
“Get up, Zachary,” I said. “Time to go to work.”
He stood. “I’ve never worked with a focus before. You’ll have to tell me what to do.”
“No problem,” I said.
28
THE GOAT LAY on its side. The bare white of its spine glimmered in the moonlight. Blood still seeped into the ground from the gaping wound. Eyes were rolled and glazed, tongue lolling out of its mouth.
The older the zombie, the bigger the death needed. I knew that, and that was why I avoided older zombies when I could. At a hundred years the corpse was just so much dust. Maybe a few bone fragments if you were lucky. They re-formed to rise from the grave. If you had the power to do it.
Problem was, most animators couldn’t raise the long-dead, a century and over. I could. I just didn’t want to. Bert and I had had long discussions about my preferences. The older the zombie, the more we can charge. This was at least a twenty-thousand-dollar job. I doubted I’d get paid tonight, unless living ’til morning was payment enough. Yeah, I guess it was. Here’s to seeing another dawn.
Zachary came to stand beside me. He had torn the remnants of his shirt off. He stood thin and pale beside me. His face was all shadows and white flesh, high cheekbones almost cavernous. “What next?” he asked.
The goat carcass was inside the blood circle he had traced earlier; good. “Bring everything we need into the circle.”
He brought a long hunting knife and a pint jar full of pale faintly luminous ointment. I preferred a machete myself, but the knife was huge, with one jagged edge and a gleaming point. The knife was clean and sharp. He took good care of his tools. Brownie point for him.
“We can’t kill the goat twice,” he said. “What are we going to use?”
“Us,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“We’ll cut ourselves; fresh, live blood, as much as we’re willing to give.”
“The blood loss would leave you too weak to go on.”
I shook my head. “We already have a blood circle, Zachary. We’re just going to rewalk, not redraw it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t have time to explain metaphysics to you. Every injury is a small death. We’ll give the circle a lesser death, and reactivate it.”
He shook his head. “I still don’t get it.”
I took a deep breath, and then realized I couldn’t explain it to him. It was like trying to explain the mechanics of breathing. You could break it down into steps, but that didn’t tell you what it felt like to breathe. “I’ll show you what I mean.” If he didn’t feel this part of the ritual, understand it without words, the rest wouldn’t work anyway.
I held out my hand for the knife. He hesitated, then handed it to me, hilt first. The thing felt top-heavy, but then it wasn’t designed for throwing. I took a deep breath and pressed the blade edge against my left arm, just below the cross burn. A quick down stroke, and blood welled up, dark and dripping. It stung, sharp and immediate. I let out the breath I’d been holding and handed the knife to Zachary.
He was staring from me to the knife.
“Do it, right arm, so we’ll mirror each other,” I said.
He nodded and made a quick slash across his right upper arm. His breath hissed, almost a gasp.
“Kneel with me.” I knelt, and he followed me down, mirroring me as I asked. A man who could follow directions; not bad.
I bent my left arm at the elbow and raised it so the fingertips were head-high, elbow shoulder-high. He did the same. “We clasp hands and press the cuts together.”
He hesitated, immobile.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
He shook his head, two quick shakes, and his hand wrapped around mine. His arm was longer than mine, but we managed.
His skin felt uncomfortably cool against mine. I glanced up at his face, but I couldn’t read it. I had no idea what he was thinking. I took a deep, cleansing breath and began. “We give our blood to the earth. Life for death, death for life.