Flirt (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 18)

Ms. Natalie Zell sat across from me with her red hair in an artful tangle of swept waves that managed to be short enough not to go past her shoulders but also gave the impression that she had long hair. It was a good illusion, and probably an expensive one, but from the cr??me of her designer dress to the nearly perfect skin under its even more perfect makeup-all so understated that, at a glance, you might have been fooled into thinking she wasn't wearing makeup-everything about her breathed money. I'd had enough rich clients to know the taste of someone who had always had money. Two days later I was betting that Natalie Zell was someone who had never wanted for anything and didn't see any reason for that to change. She crooked her pale lips and they caught the light, shining, very sparkly in a subdued sort of way. Old money is seldom gaudy; they leave that for the nouveau riche.

"I want you to raise my husband from the dead, Ms. Blake," she said, smiling.

I searched her face for signs of grief, but her grayish-green eyes were wide and unmarred with anything but a faint humor and a force of personality quietly controlled. I must have looked into her eyes too long, or too directly, because she lowered her lashes so that I lost eye contact.

"Why do you want Mr. Zell raised from the dead?" I asked.

"Does it really matter at the rates your business manager charges for your services?"

I nodded. "It matters."

She crossed her long, slender legs under the pale dress. I think she actually flashed me some thigh, but it might have just been habit, and nothing personal. "My therapist thinks that a last good-bye would help me find closure."

That was one of the standard reasons that I raised the dead. "I'll need the name of your therapist."

Her eyes lost that mild amusement and I caught a flash of that personality that I could feel behind all the pale control. I didn't believe her about the therapist.

"Why do you need his name?" she asked, as she leaned back in the client chair, all elegant nonchalance.

"It's standard to check." I smiled, and I could feel that it didn't quite make it to my eyes. I could have made the effort, but I didn't. I didn't want her comfortable. I wanted the truth.

She gave me a name.

I nodded. "He'll have to sign a waiver that he really thinks it's a good idea for you to see your husband raised as a zombie. We've had a few clients who didn't react well to it."

"I understand that people could be traumatized by a normal animated zombie, all rotted and awful." She made a face, then leaned a little toward me. "But you raise zombies that look like real people. My therapist says that Chase will look like he's alive, that he'll even believe he's alive at first. If that's true then how will it be traumatic?"

I was betting that if I called the therapist he'd back her story. Maybe it was her therapist's confidence, but something felt wrong about her reactions. You usually saw grief even through a brave face. Either she was a sociopath or she didn't give a damn about Chase Zell, her late husband.

"So, I raise your late husband as a zombie that can talk and think, and you talk to him and say good-bye, is that it?"

She smiled happily and leaned back in her chair again. "Exactly."

"I think you should ask one of the other animators at Animators Inc."

"But you're the only one that everyone says can raise a zombie that thinks and looks and acts alive."

I shrugged. "There are one or two others in this country who can do it."

She shook her head, the expensive haircut bobbing as she moved. "No, I've checked. You are the only one that everyone agrees can guarantee that a zombie will be completely lifelike."

I had a bad thought. "What do you want your late husband to be able to do one last time, Ms. Zell?"

"I want him to be alive one more time."

"Sex with a zombie, no matter how lifelike, is still considered a crime. I can't help you do that, not legally."

She actually blushed under the nice makeup. "I have no intention of doing that with him ever again, and especially not as a zombie. That's... that's just... disgusting."

"Glad we agree on that."

She recovered, though I had shocked her; nice to know I could. "Then you will raise Chase from the dead for me?"

"Maybe."

"Why won't you just do this? If it's the money, I'll double your fee."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot of money."

"I have a lot of money. What I need is my husband back among the living for a few more minutes."

I couldn't tell you what it was that went through her eyes just then, or why I didn't like it. I'd spent too much time around bad people not to look for it in most faces, and I had my share of clients whose lies had created some really awful nights. I'd even had one client who had me raise a husband that she had killed, and he had done what all murdered zombies do-killed his murderer. Until he throttled the life out of her I couldn't command him to do a damn thing. Things like that had made me suspicious of the stories that the nice people across my desk told me.

"What will you do with him for those minutes, Ms. Zell?" I asked.

She crossed her arms over her thin chest and scowled at me. She wasn't trying to be pretty anymore, or soft. Her eyes were suddenly more gray than green, and it was a steely gray like a polished gun barrel. "You know, who the fuck talked to you?"

I shrugged and gave a little smile, letting her pick a name.

"It was that bastard gardener, wasn't it? I should have tried to sharpen the axe myself."

I kept the vague smile on my face and gave her an encouraging look. It was amazing what people would tell me if I just kept quiet and seemed to know more than I did.

"I'll pay your regular fee, plus a million dollars tax-free so that no one knows but you and me."

I raised both eyebrows at that. "That is a lot of money."

"It's not about the money; what I want is revenge."

I fought my face not to look surprised. I needed her to believe I already knew most of it to keep her talking. "You can't take revenge on the true dead, Ms. Zell. They're dead. It doesn't get much more revengey than that."

She leaned forward again, hands out, almost pleading. "But you can make him alive again for me. He'll believe he's alive, right?"

I nodded.

"You can do that without a human sacrifice, right?"

"Most animators can't do it with one," I said.

She gave me a look. "Are you that arrogant, or that good?"

"That wasn't arrogance, Ms. Zell, just the truth."

She looked strangely satisfied. "Then raise him for me. Raise him and let him be alive. He will feel emotions, right?"

"Yes," I said.

"Fear? Can a zombie feel fear?"

"One that thinks it's alive and looks alive will be afraid. Most of them are afraid when they realize they're in a graveyard. Some of them freak when they see their own tombstone. It's actually best if you don't let them see that. It can make them begin to lose focus on your questions or your vengeance."

"But he'll see me, know me, and when I hurt him, he'll be afraid of me, right?"

I nodded. "Right..."

"That's perfect. So, you'll do it?"

"Are you honestly going to use an axe on your deceased husband?"

She nodded, and her face was very firm and sure of itself. Her eyes glinted and the gray seemed to get even darker, like clouds before it storms. "Oh, yes, I am. I'm going to chop the bastard up while he begs me to stop. I want him to think I'm killing him for real."

I studied her face and wanted to ask if she was joking, but I knew the answer. "You want the last memory you will ever have of your husband to be you chopping him up?"

She nodded.

"How long were you married?"

"Almost twenty-five years," she said, which made me put her on the almost-fifty side of forty, though she didn't look it.

"A man who you married, lived with, slept with, loved at some point, for twenty-five years, and you want to play axe murderer all over his ass?"

"More than anything in the world," she said.

"What did he do to piss you off this much?"

"That's none of your business," she said, and her face said she believed I'd accept that answer. Apparently now that we'd agreed on a price she thought she could be arrogant.

"It is if you want me to raise him. Some crimes, some magicks, some problems in life can affect a zombie, make it harder to control. What did he do that was so terrible?"

"He told me he never wanted children. That they would interfere with his business and our social circle, and because I loved him I abided by his rules. Other friends would skip a few pills and come up accidentally pregnant, but I played fair. Chase didn't want children so we didn't have them." Her eyes were distant as if seeing something other than my office, something sad and faraway.

"If you wanted children then I'm sorry that he cost you that chance."

She focused on me again, and now the rage was in her eyes, her face. God, she was angry. "Two weeks ago a young man came to my door. He told me his mother had recently died and that he found letters. He showed me letters from my husband to his mother. There were pictures of them on vacations together. He took her to Rome, but wouldn't take me. He took her to Paris, but wouldn't take me. He once told me that I was one of the least romantic women he'd ever met; it was one of the reasons that he wanted me to be his wife and partner, because he knew that I wouldn't let sentiment get in the way of getting wealthy and successful, because I wanted it as badly as he did."

"You've always been wealthy?" I asked.

She nodded. "It was my money that he used to start his company, but he made even more. There was a letter to this woman where he literally said that if he hadn't signed a prenuptial agreement where he'd have to give up controlling interest in his company and have no money that he would have divorced me and stayed with her and their son."

The look on her face was bleak, like someone who had seen the worst possible thing and lived. She knotted those slender, perfectly manicured hands in her lap and continued to stare past me at things I couldn't see.

"That must have been very painful to read," I said.

She didn't react.

"Ms. Zell," I said softly.

She shook herself, like a bird settling its feathers, and gave me a hard look. I'd seen a lot of hard looks in my day, but this was a good one. I believed she meant to do exactly what she'd said with her shiny new axe.

"How soon can we schedule it?" she asked.

"We can't," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I won't do it," I said.

"Don't be silly, of course you will."

"No, Ms. Zell, I won't."

"Two million beyond your fee. Two million dollars that no one knows about but us." She seemed very sure of herself.

I shook my head. "It's not about money, Ms. Zell."

"You have to do this for me, Ms. Blake. You're the only one who can raise a zombie that can feel real fear and real pain."

"I couldn't guarantee that he'd feel the same pain he would have felt when he was alive," I said. I tried to concentrate on the details so I wouldn't concentrate on other things.

"But he will feel pain, real pain?"

"He'll be able to feel. I've had zombies stumble on rocks and fall. They react like it hurts."

"Perfect," she said, and that one word was full of so much anticipation.

It made my stomach clench to realize what she was anticipating. "Let me test my understanding, Ms. Zell, just so we're clear. You want me to raise your husband, Chase, from the dead so that he will think he's alive and be able to feel terror and pain while you chop him up with an axe. Do you realize that an axe won't kill a zombie, so he'll keep thinking and being afraid even if you chop him to bits? He'll be afraid until I lay him to rest again."

"I don't want you to lay him to rest. I want his pieces buried as they are, so that he'll be buried alive and aware until he rots away."

I did the long blink at her, the one I reserve for moments when I can't think of a damned thing to say. I finally found something to say: "No."

"What?" she asked.

"No, as in no, I won't do it."

"Three million," she said.

"No," I said.

"How much will it take?" she asked.

"You don't have that kind of money."

"Yes," she said, "I do."

"Jesus, woman, if you are sane enough to understand what you are asking me to do, then it is maybe the worst thing I've ever heard of one human being doing to another. That should frighten you, Ms. Zell. It really should if you knew the kind of crimes I've worked."

"You do a lot of serial killers and rogue monsters. I did my research on you, Anita Blake."