I raised my eyebrows. "The Torah contains the Old Testament, so yeah, it's like miniature Bibles."
"Would the Bible work for us Christians?"
"I don't know. Probably, I've just never been attacked by vampires while carrying a Bible." That was probably my fault. In fact, when was the last time I'd read the Bible? Was I becoming a Sunday Christian? I'd worry about my soul later, after my body felt a little better.
"Cancel the ambulance; I'm fine."
"You are not fine," Ruebens said. He reached out as if to touch me. I looked at him. He stopped in mid-motion. "Let us help you, Ms. Blake. We share common enemies."
The police were walking towards us over the dark grass. Karl Inger was coming, too, talking softly to the police as they moved.
"Do the police know you were shooting at us first?"
Something passed over Ruebens's face.
"They don't know, do they?"
"We saved you, Ms. Blake, from a fate worse than death. I was wrong to try and hurt you. You raise the dead, but if you are truly enemies with the vampires, then we are allies."
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, huh?"
He nodded.
The police were almost here, almost within earshot. "All right, but you ever point a gun at me again and I'll forget you saved me."
"It will never happen again, Ms. Blake; you have my word."
I wanted to say something disparaging, but the police were there. They'd hear. I wasn't going to tell on Ruebens and Humans First, so I had to save my smart alec comebacks for later use. Knowing Ruebens, I'd get another chance.
I lied to the police about what Humans First had done, and I lied about what Alejandro had wanted from me. It was just another of those mindless attacks that had happened twice already. Later, to Dolph and Zerbrowski, I'd tell the truth, but right now I just didn't feel like explaining the entire mess to strangers. I wasn't even sure Dolph would get the whole story. Like the fact that I was almost assuredly Jean-Claude's human servant.
Nope, no need to mention that.
Chapter 25
Larry's car was a late-model Mazda. The vampires had kept Humans First so busy they hadn't had time to trash the car. Lucky for us, since my car was totaled. Oh, I'd have to go through the insurance company and let them tell me the car was totaled, but there was something large broken underneath the car; fluids darker than blood were leaking out. The front end looked like we'd hit an elephant. I knew totaled when I saw it.
We'd spent the last several hours at the emergency room. The ambulance attendants insisted I see a doctor, and Larry needed three small stitches in his forehead. His orangey hair fell forward and hid the wound. His first scar. The first of many if he stayed in this business and hung around me.
"You've been on the job, what, fourteen hours? What do you think so far?" I asked.
He glanced at me sideways, then back to the road. He smiled, but it didn't look funny. "I don't know."
"Do you want to be an animator when you graduate?"
"I thought I did," he said.
Honesty; a rare talent. "Not sure now?"
"Not really."
I let it rest there. My instinct was to talk him out of it. To tell him to go into some sane, normal business. But I knew that raising the dead wasn't just a job choice. If your "talent" was strong enough, you had to raise the dead or risk the power coming out at odd moments. Does the term roadkill mean anything to you? It meant something to my stepmother Judith. Of course, she wasn't pleased with my job. She thought it was gruesome. What could I say? She was right.
"There are other job choices for a preternatural biology degree."
"What? A zoo, exterminator?"
"Teacher," I said, "park ranger, naturalist, field biologist, researcher."