easy, he'd learn. There were two more goats at the bottom of the hill. One of them was even smaller and cuter than this one.
"Shouldn't we have the Bouviers' lawyers present, Mr. Stirling?" Bayard said.
"The Bouviers waived having their attorney present," I said.
"Why would they do that?" Stirling asked.
"They trust me not to lie to them," I said.
Stirling looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't see his eyes clearly, but I could feel the wheels inside his head moving.
"You're going to lie for them, aren't you?" he said. His voice was cold, repressed, too angry for heat.
"I don't lie about the dead, Mr. Stirling. Sometimes about the living, but never about the dead. Besides, Bouvier didn't offer me a bribe. Why should I help him if he doesn't throw money at me?"
Larry didn't call me on that one. He was looking at Stirling, too. Wondering what he'd say, maybe.
"You've made your point, Ms. Blake. Can we get on with it now?" He sounded reasonable, ordinary suddenly. All that anger, all that mistrust, had had to go somewhere. But it wasn't in his voice.
"Fine." I knelt and opened the gym bag at my feet. It held my animating equipment. I had another one that held vampire gear. I used to just transfer whatever I wanted into the bag. I bought a second bag after I showed up once at a zombie raising with the wrong bag. It was also illegal to carry vampire slaying stuff if you didn't have a warrant of execution on you. Brewster's law might change that, but until then... I had two bags. The zombie was my normal burgundy one; the vampire bag was white. Even in the dark, it was easy to tell them apart. That was the plan.
Larry's zombie bag was a nearly virulent green with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it. I was almost afraid to ask what his vampire bag looked like.
"Let me test my understanding here," Larry said. My words fed back to me. He knelt and unzipped his bag.
"Go ahead, " I said. I got out my jar of ointment. I knew animators who had special containers for the ointment. Crockery, hand-blown glass, mystical symbols carved into the sides. I used an old Mason jar that had once held Grandma Blake's green beans.
Larry fished out a peanut butter jar with the label still on it. Extra-crunchy. Yum-yum.
"We have to raise a minimum of three zombies, right?"
"Right," I said.
He stared around at the scattered bones. "A mass grave is hard to raise from, right?"
"This isn't a mass grave. It's an old cemetery that was disturbed. That's easier than a mass grave."
"Why?" he asked.
I laid the machete down beside the jar of ointment. "Because each grave had rites performed that would tie the dead individual to the grave, so that if you call it you have a better chance of getting an individual to answer."
"Answer?"
"Rise from the dead."
He nodded. He laid a wicked curved blade on the ground. It looked like a freaking scimitar.
"Where did you get that?"
He dipped his head, and I would have bet he was blushing. Just couldn't see it by moonlight.
"Guy at college."
"Where'd he get it?"
Larry looked at me, surprise plain on his face. "I don't know. Is something wrong with it?"
I shook my head. "Just a little fancy for beheading chickens and slitting a few goats open."
"It felt good in my hand." He shrugged. "Besides, it looks cool." He grinned at me.
I shook my head, but I let it go. Did I really need a machete to behead a few chickens, no, but the occasional cow, yeah.
Why, you may ask, didn't we have a cow tonight? No one would sell Bayard one. He had the brilliant idea of telling the farmers why he wanted the cow. The God-fearing folk would sell their cows to be eaten, but not for raising zombies. Prejudiced bastards.
"The youngest of the dead here are two hundred years old, right?" Larry asked.
"Right," I said.
"We're going to raise a minimum of three of these corpses in good enough condition for them to answer questions."
"That's the plan," I said.
"Can we do that?"
I smiled at him. "That's the plan."
His eyes widened. "Damn, you don't know if we can do it either, do you?" His voice had dropped to an amazed whisper.
"We raise three zombies a night every night routinely. We're just doing them back to back."