Flirt - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,2

what you think you'll get out of raising her like this. She will be a zombie. Mine look very human, Mr. Bennington, very human, but they aren't. I don't want you to believe that I can raise her up and you can keep her with you, because you can't."

"Why can't I?"

I made my voice soft as I told him the truth. "Because eventually she'll start to rot, and you don't want that to be your last visual of your wife."

"I heard you raise zombies that don't even know they're dead."

"Not at first," I said, "but eventually the magic wears off, and it's... not pretty, Mr. Bennington."

"Please," he said, "no one else can do this but you."

"If I could raise her from the dead for real for you, maybe I would. I won't debate the whole religious/philosophical problem with you, but the truth is that even I can't do what you want. I raise zombies, Mr. Bennington, and that is not the same thing as resurrection of the dead. I'm good, maybe the best there is in the business, but I'm not that good. No one is."

A tear began to slide down each cheek, and I knew from my own hatred of crying that the tears were hot, and his throat hurt with holding it all in. "I don't beg, Ms. Blake-ever-but I'll beg you now. I'll double your fee. I'll do whatever it takes for you to do this for me."

That he was willing to double my fee meant he had as much money as he seemed to have; a lot of people who wore designer suits and Rolex watches were wearing their money. I stood again. "I am sorry, but I don't have the ability to do what you want. No one on this earth can bring your wife back from the dead in the way you want."

"It's too late for her to be a vampire, then?"

"First, she'd have to have been bitten before she died to have any chance of raising her as a vampire. Second, you say she died in an explosion."

He nodded, his face ignoring the tears, except for the pain in his eyes and the hard line of his jaw.

"Fire is one of the few things that destroy everything, even the preternatural."

"One of the reasons I'm here, Ms. Blake, is that most animators have trouble raising the dead when there're just burned bits left. I thought that was because of how little they had to work with, but is it because of the fire itself?"

It was a good question, an intelligent question, but I didn't have a good answer to give back to him. "I'm honestly not sure. I know that most animators need a nearly complete body to raise from the dead, but I'm not sure I've ever seen an article on whether death by fire impedes the process." I stood up and walked around the desk to offer him my hand. "I am sorry that I can't help you, Mr. Bennington, but trust me that what I could do for you, you don't really want."

He didn't stand up, just looked at me. "You're the girlfriend of the Master Vampire of St. Louis. Isn't he powerful enough to overcome all that and raise her as a vampire?"

I was a lot more than just Jean-Claude's girlfriend. I was his human servant, but we tried to keep that out of the media. The police that I worked with as a U.S. Marshal already mistrusted me because I was having sex with a vampire; if they were certain of our mystical connection they'd like it even less.

I lowered my hand and tried to explain. "I'm sorry, truly, but the Master of the City is still bound by some of the same laws of metaphysics as all vampires. Your wife would have to have been bitten several times before death, and the explosion would have destroyed her even if she had been a vampire."

I put my hand back out and hoped he'd take it this time.

He stood up then, and shook my hand. He held on to my hand and gave me serious eye contact. "You could raise her as a zombie that wouldn't know it was dead, and wouldn't look dead."

I didn't pull my hand back, but let him hold it, though I didn't like it. I never liked being touched by strangers. "I could, but in a few days she'd begin to deteriorate. If her mind went first then she'd just stop being your wife, but