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."
"We don't raise two-hundred-year-old zombies routinely."
"True, but the theory's the same."
"Theory?" He shook his head. "I know we're in trouble when you start talking about theories. Can we do this?"
The honest answer was no, but the thing that dictated more than anything else what you could raise and what you couldn't was confidence. Believing you could do it. So... I was tempted to lie. But I didn't. Truth between Larry and me.
"I think we can do it."
"But you don't know for sure," he said.
"No."
"Geez, Anita."
"Don't get rattled on me. We can do this."
"But you aren't sure."
"I'm not sure we'll survive the plane ride home, but I'm still getting on the plane."
"Was that supposed to be comforting?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"It wasn't," he said.
"Sorry, but this is as good as it gets. You want certainty, be an accountant."
"I'm not good at math."
"Me either."
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Alright, boss, how do we combine powers?"
I told him.
"Neat." He didn't look nervous anymore. He looked eager. Larry may have wanted to be a vampire executioner, but he was an animator. It wasn't a career choice, it was a gift, or a curse. No one could teach you to raise the dead unless you had the power in your blood. Genetics is a wonderful thing: brown eyes, curly hair, zombie raising.