Hold Me Closer, Necromancer - Lish McBride [79]
The bird struggled in my hands. I tightened my grip around it.
“Just be quick,” I said. I held out the bird.
A silver slash, and the dove was dead. Blood spilled directly onto the ground. With each drop, I could feel Douglas’s power rise. I really didn’t want to see what he needed that build up of power for.
In the movies, zombies just seem to appear. They shamble in from off screen and try to eat your brains. Or they are the newly dead that sit up and try to eat your brains. They never seem to show what happens if a zombie is buried safe and snug in the ground.
Since we were on solid concrete, it took a minute. The floor made a cracking noise as it split open, revealing a few inches of dark topsoil beneath. Bones inched up out of the dirt, each sliding right back into place as if they’d never left. The small bones of the hand came together, joining with wrist, arm, elbow. Muscles and tendons attached, twisted and inched their way back onto the bones. Flesh reassembled, shaping the body into something recognizable. Hair sprouted and grew. The eyes went from dried-out husks to liquid-filled orbs. A rumpled suit came last, sliding onto the flesh of the man. I wondered if the clothing was Douglas’s choice or the zombie’s. It was like watching time-lapse photography of a body decomposing, but backward. I couldn’t take my eyes off the spectacle.
The finished body was a man, maybe midforties, with a receding hairline. His suit looked a little dirt-stained, but all in all he looked like your average American businessman. Except he was dead. And not just soul-dead like most cubicle workers, but actually dead.
“Go ahead,” Douglas said. “Ask him a question.”
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” The zombie stared back at me blankly.
Douglas glared at me. I heard Brid stifle a giggle from inside the cage. Good to know I wasn’t the only one who’d read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. How come I couldn’t meet a nice, naked, well-read girl until I was kidnapped and thrown into a cage?
“Sorry, it was all I could think of,” I said. I tried to sound apologetic.
“You have to ask it something that it knew when it was alive. People don’t become omniscient just because they have keeled over.”
“Um, sir?” The man stared at his hands, confused. I snapped my fingers and he looked up. “Yeah, hey, how’s it going?” The zombie blinked. “Hey, can you tell me your name?”
“David Andrew Davidson.”
The name rang a bell. They’d had a small blip on the news about his disappearance when we were watching for information on Brooke. He’d vanished a month ago. I swallowed. Looked like he hadn’t skipped town, after all. “How old are you, David?”
“I am forty-three years, eight months, and sixteen days.”
“Are they always this literal?” I asked Douglas.
“Not usually. They can’t lie, of course, but some force of personality remains. I’d wager that Mr. Davidson here was fairly literal and exacting before he met his unfortunate end.”
David stood roughly at attention. Whenever he wasn’t talking to me, his focus seemed to slip back to Douglas. “What’s the last thing you remember, David?”
The man fiddled with his tie, straightening it. “I got off the bus at the Park and Ride. I was walking to my car and then…” His hand moved slowly from the tie to the back of his head. “Pain,” he said.
“Is that it?” I asked softly.
David frowned. “Yes.” His eyes swiveled toward the large wooden restraint table that was set off to the side. “No.”
He was becoming agitated, and I didn’t want to put him through any memories of torture or his own death. I guess when Douglas had listed sacrifice as one of death’s coins he hadn’t meant emotional and personal sacrifice, but the pagan god ritualistic kind. I couldn’t imagine wanting anything so bad I’d kill someone for it. I wondered what Douglas had needed all of David’s blood for. “It’s okay, David. You don’t have to remember.” He eased and his attention went back to Douglas.
“Is there something specific I need to ask him, or can we put him back to sleep now?”
Of course, Douglas wasn’t content