The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 2)

"Shit."

"You won't tell?"

"I won't tell. Promise," I said.

He looked so relieved, I patted his hand. The hand felt like a hand. His body didn't feel wood hard anymore. Why? I didn't know, and if I asked Willie, he probably wouldn't know either. One of the mysteries of . . . death.

"Thanks."

"I thought you said that Jean-Claude was the kindest master you've ever had."

"He is," Willie said.

Now that was a frightening truth. If being tormented by your darkest fear was the kindest, how much worse had Nikolaos been. Hell, I knew the answer to that one. She'd been psychotic. Jean-Claude wasn't cruel just for the sake of watching people squirm. There was reason to his cruelty. It was a step up.

"I gotta go. Thanks for helping with the zombie." He stood.

"You were brave, you know," I said.

He flashed a grin my way, fangs glinting in the dim light. The smile vanished from his face like someone had turned a switch. "I can't afford to be anything else."

Vampires are a lot like wolf packs. The weak are either dominated or destroyed. Banishment is not an option. Willie was moving up in the ranks. A sign of weakness could stop that rise or worse. I'd often wondered what vampires feared. One of them feared zombies. It would have been funny if I hadn't seen the fear in his eyes.

The comic on stage was a vampire. He was the new dead. Skin chalk-white, eyes like burned holes in paper. His gums were bloodless and receding from canines that would have been the envy of any German shepherd. I had never seen a vampire look so monstrous. They all usually made an effort to appear human. This one wasn't.

I had missed the audience's reaction to his first appearance, but now they were laughing. If I had thought the zombie jokes were bad, these were worse. A woman at the next table laughed so hard, tears spilled down her cheeks.

"I went to New York, tough city. A gang jumped me, but I put the bite on them." People were holding their ribs as if in pain.

I didn't get it. It was genuinely not funny. I gazed around the crowd and found every eye fixed on the stage. They peered up at him with the helpless devotion of the bespelled.

He was using mind tricks. I'd seen vampires seduce, threaten, terrify, all by concentrating. But I had never seen them cause laughter. He was forcing them to laugh.

It wasn't the worst abuse of vampiric powers I'd ever seen. He wasn't trying to hurt them. And this mass hypnosis was harmless, temporary. But it was wrong. Mass mind control was one of the top scary things that most people don't know vampires can do.

I knew, and I didn't like it. He was the fresh dead and even before Jean-Claude's marks, the comic couldn't have touched me. Being an animator gave you partial immunity to vampires. It was one of the reasons that animators are so often vampire slayers. We've got a leg up, so to speak.

I had called Charles earlier, but I still didn't see him. He is not easy to miss in a crowd, sort of like Godzilla going through Tokyo. Where was he? And when would Jean-Claude be ready to see me? It was now after eleven. Trust him to browbeat me into a meeting and then make me wait. He was such an arrogant son of a bitch.

Charles came through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen area. He strode through the tables, heading for the door. He was shaking his head and murmuring to a small Asian man who was having to quick-run to keep up.

I waved, and Charles changed direction towards me. I could hear the smaller man arguing, "I run a very good, clean kitchen."

Charles murmured something that I couldn't hear. The bespelled audience was oblivious. We could have shot off a twenty-one-gun salute, and they wouldn't have flinched. Until the vampire comic was finished, they would hear nothing else.

"What are you, the damn health department?" the smaller man asked. He was dressed in a traditional chef's outfit. He had the big floppy hat wadded up in his hands. His dark uptilted eyes were sparkling with anger.

Charles is only six-one, but he seems bigger. His body is one wide piece from broad shoulders to feet. He seems to have no waist. He is like a moving mountain. Huge. His perfectly brown eyes are the same color as his skin. Wonderfully dark. His hand is big enough to cover my face.

The Asian chef looked like an angry puppy beside Charles. He grabbed Charles's arm. I don't know what he thought he was going to do, but Charles stopped moving. He stared down at the offending hand and said very carefully, voice almost painfully deep, "Do not touch me."

The chef dropped his arm like he'd been burned. He took a step back. Charles was only giving him part of the "look." The full treatment had been known to send would-be muggers screaming for help. Part of the look was enough for one irate chef.

His voice was calm, reasonable when he spoke again, "I run a clean kitchen."

Charles shook his head. "You can't have zombies near the food preparation. It's illegal. The health codes forbid corpses near food."

"My assistant is a vampire. He's dead."

Charles rolled his eyes at me. I sympathized. I'd had the same discussion with a chef or two. "Vampires are not considered legally dead anymore, Mr. Kim. Zombies are."

"I don't understand why."

"Zombies rot and carry disease just like any dead body. Just because they move around doesn't mean they aren't a depository for disease."

"I don't . . . "

"Either keep the zombies away from the kitchen or we will close you down. Do you understand that?"

"And you'd have to explain to the owner why his business was not making money," I said, smiling up at both of them.

The chef looked a bit pale. Fancy that. "I . . . I understand. It will be taken care of."

"Good," Charles said.

The chef darted one frightened look at me, then began to thread his way back to the kitchen. It was funny how Jean-Claude was beginning to scare so many people. He'd been one of the more civilized vampires before he became head bloodsucker. Power corrupts.

Charles sat down across from me. He seemed too big for the table. "I got your message. What's going on?"

"I need an escort to the Tenderloin."

It's hard to tell when Charles blushes, but he squirmed in his chair. "Why in the world do you want to go down there?"

"I need to find someone who works down there."

"Who?"

"A prostitute," I said.

He squirmed again. It was like watching an uncomfortable mountain. "Caroline is not going to like this."

"Don't tell her," I said.

"You know Caroline and I don't lie to each other, about anything."

I fought to keep my face neutral. If Charles had to explain his every move to his wife, that was his choice. He didn't have to let Caroline control him. He chose to do it. But it grated on me like having your teeth cleaned.

"Just tell her that you had extra animator business. She won't ask details." Caroline thought that our job was gross. Beheading chickens, raising zombies, how uncouth.

"Why do you need to find this prostitute?"

I ignored the question and answered another one. The less Charles knew about Harold Gaynor, the safer he'd be. "I just need someone to look menacing. I don't want to have to shoot some poor slob because he made a pass at me. Okay?"

Charles nodded. "I'll come. I'm flattered you asked."

I smiled encouragingly at him. Truth was that Manny was more dangerous and much better backup. But Manny was like me. He didn't look dangerous. Charles did. I needed a good bluff tonight, not firepower.

I glanced at my watch. It was almost midnight. Jean-Claude had kept me waiting an hour. I looked behind me and caught Willie's gaze. He came towards me immediately. I would try to use this power only for good.

He bent close, but not too close. He glanced at Charles, acknowledging him with a nod. Charles nodded back. Mr. Stoic.

"What ya want?" Willie said.

"Is Jean-Claude ready to see me or not?"

"Yeah, I was just coming to get ya. I didn't know you was expecting company tonight." He looked at Charles.

"He's a coworker."

"A zombie raiser?" Willie asked.

Charles said, "Yes." His dark face was impassive. His look was quietly menacing.

Willie seemed impressed. He nodded. "Sure, ya got zombie work after you see Jean-Claude?"

"Yeah," I said. I stood and spoke softly to Charles, though chances were that Willie would hear it. Even the newly dead hear better than most dogs.

"I'll be as quick as I can."

"Alright," he said, "but I need to get home soon."

I understood. He was on a short leash. His own fault, but it seemed to bother me more than it bothered Charles. Maybe it was one of the reasons I'm not married. I'm not big on compromise.