Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K. Hamilton [75]
Black hair clung to her head in a bun, wisps of it tracing her nearly skeletal face. All the bones showed, as if the skin were clay molded over a framework. Her eyes were wild, dark, showing too much white. At least they hadn’t dried out like shriveled grapes. I hated that.
Estelle sat by her grave and tried to gather her thoughts. It would take a while. Even the recently dead took a few minutes to orient themselves. A hundred years was a damn long time to be dead.
I walked around the grave, careful to stay within the circle. Zachary watched me come without a word. He hadn’t been able to raise the corpse because he was a corpse. The recently dead he could still handle, but not long-dead. The dead calling the dead from the grave; there was something really wrong with that.
I stared up at him, watching him grip the knife. I knew his secret. Did Nikolaos? Did anyone? Yes, whoever had made the gris-gris knew, but who else? I squeezed the skin around the cut on my arm. I reached bloody fingers towards the gris-gris.
He caught my wrist, eyes wide. His breathing had quickened. “Not you.”
“Then who?”
“People who won’t be missed.”
The zombie we had raised moved in a rustle of petticoats and hoops. It began crawling towards us.
“I should have let them kill you,” I said.
He smiled then. “Can you kill the dead?”
I jerked my wrist free. “I do it all the time.”
The zombie was scrambling at my legs. It felt like sticks digging at me. “Feed it yourself, you son of a bitch,” I said.
He held his wrist down to it. The zombie grabbed for it, clumsy, eager. It sniffed his skin but released him untouched. “I don’t think I can feed it, Anita.”
Of course not; fresh, live blood was needed to close the ritual. Zachary was dead. He didn’t qualify anymore. But I did.
“Damn you, Zachary, damn you.”
He just stared at me.
The zombie was making a mewling sound low in her throat. Dear God. I offered her my bleeding left arm. Her stick-hands dug into my skin. Her mouth fastened over the wound, sucking. I fought the urge to jerk away. I had made the bargain, had chosen the ritual. I had no choice. I stared at Zachary while the thing fed on my blood. Our zombie, a joint venture. Dammit.
“How many people have you killed to keep yourself alive?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“How many!”
“Enough,” he said.
I tensed, raising my arm, nearly lifting the zombie to her feet. She cried, a soft sound, like a newborn kitten. She released my arm so suddenly, she fell backwards. Blood dripped down her bony chin. Her teeth were stained with it. I couldn’t look at it, any of it.
Zachary said, “The circle is open. The zombie is yours.”
For a minute I thought he was talking to me; then I remembered the vampires. They had been huddled in the dark, so still and unmoving I had forgotten them. I was the only live thing in the whole damn place. I had to get out of there.
I picked up my shoes and walked out of the circle. The vampires made way for me. Theresa stopped me, blocking my path. “Why did you let it suck your blood? Zombies don’t do that.”
I shook my head. Why did I think it would be faster to explain than to fight about it? “The ritual had already gone wrong. We couldn’t start over without another sacrifice. So I offered myself as the sacrifice.”
She stared. “Yourself?”
“It was the best I could do, Theresa. Now get out of my way.” I was tired and sick. I had to get out of there, now. Maybe she heard it in my voice. Maybe she was too eager to get to the zombie to mess with me. I don’t know, but she moved aside. She was just gone, like the wind had swept her away. Let them play their mind games. I was going home.
There was a small scream from behind me. A short, strangled sound, as if the voice wasn’t used to talking. I kept walking. The zombie screamed, human memories still there, enough for fear. I heard a rich laugh, a faint echo of Jean-Claude’s. Where are you, Jean-Claude?
I glanced back once. The vampires were closing in. The zombie was stumbling from one side to the other, trying to