Zerbrowski let it go at that, and turned to me. "Sic 'em, Anita."
I raised an eyebrow at the phrasing, but let it go. His grin was enough; he'd make a joke with his last breath, and after a while you had to let the smart-ass remarks go, or he wore you down.
"Give me a minute," I said. If we'd been trying to sneak up on the vampires I couldn't have searched for them using my necromancy because they might sense the power, and then they'd know we were coming, but with the marked police cars, it wasn't like we were hiding.
In the interrogation room it had been an accident, a little power leaking out, and only after that on purpose. There was nothing accidental about this. Most people who raise the dead - animators if you're being polite, zombie queens or kings if you're being rude - have to do ritual to raise the dead. They need a circle of power, ointment, ritual tools, a blood sacrifice, and even then, they're lucky to raise one zombie a night. I used a circle of power to keep wandering bad powers out of my zombies, and the blood sacrifice just meant I could raise more and better zombies, but with nothing but my power I could raise the dead. If I used all the accoutrements of the profession I could raise cemeteries. I'd kept that part to myself as much as possible, because no one, absolutely no one, should be able to do that - not even me.
I didn't so much try to conjure up my necromancy as release it. The best I could describe it was like having a fist in my diaphragm, a fist that I kept clenched tight, holding on to my power so it didn't escape. This was unfolding my fingers, spreading my hand wide, letting go that tension that was almost always there just under my ribs. It was like letting out a breath I always had to hold, and finally being able to be free.
Maybe for some it was magic and that was why they needed all the tools and ointments, but for me it was a psychic ability, and all I had to do was unleash it. My necromancy was like a cool breeze flowing outward from me. It didn't actually move so much as a hair on anyone's head, so maybe breeze wasn't the right word, but I could feel it seeking outward from me almost like the rings in water when you throw a pebble into it, except I was the pebble, and the power tended to be a little more powerful and directed in the direction I was facing. I could "feel" behind me, but it wasn't as strong. I had no idea why.
Smith shivered beside me, and Clive Perry actually took a step back from all of us. He didn't really feel anything, but I'd learned that his grandmother, like mine, had practiced as a Vaudun priestess, except his had been a bad person and mine hadn't been. It had made him skittish around me, but not have a problem with Smith.
I searched for the undead. My power never even hesitated at a truly dead body. It was as if my power saw it the same as a table or chair: inert. Then I caught a hint of vampire, like something tugged at the edge of my attention, and I'd learned to direct my power so that it was like a scenting hound. I followed that "feeling," that energy, and if the pull got stronger, then it was vampires; if not, it could be ghouls, or zombies, or just a place where vampires had been recently. The feeling got stronger, and stronger, and now my power was being pulled.
"This way," I said. They'd all been with me before on hunts; they knew that once the power found the vampires it was a race. A race to see if we found them before they fled, or found us. We got our guns out and we ran. Running over the brick in the stilettos made me curse under my breath. The men couldn't go first, because I was the only one who knew where we were going. I moved up on the balls of my feet, so the heels didn't touch, and I ran, gun pointed at the ground. I loved Nathaniel, but I was going to have to stop letting my stripper boyfriend dress me for