"One good enough to make me disturb the dead."
"I’m willing to pay your rather exorbitant fee, Ms. Blake; I would think that would inspire you."
"Money isn’t everything, Mr. Bennington. Why do you want her raised from the dead? What do you hope to gain from it?"
"Gain," he said. "I don’t know what you mean by that."
"I don’t, either, but you keep not answering my original question; I thought maybe if I rephrased it you would."
"I don’t want to answer either question," he said.
"Then I won’t raise your wife. There are other animators at Animators Inc. who will be happy to take your money, and they don’t charge my rates."
"Everyone says you are the best."
I shrugged. I was never sure what to say to things like that, and found silence worked best.
"They say you are a true necromancer and have power over all types of undead."
I kept my face blank, which I’d gotten better at over the years. He was right, but I didn’t think it was commonly known. "You’ll turn a girl’s head with talk like that."
"You have the highest number of executions of any member of the U.S. Marshals preternatural branch. Most of them were rogue vampires, but some of them were wereanimals."
I shrugged. "That’s a matter of record, so yeah, but it has no bearing on what you want from me, Mr. Bennington."
"I suppose it has as little to do with my request as your reputation as a sort of female Casanova."
"My love life really has nothing to do with my ability to raise the dead."