It made my stomach clench to realize what she was anticipating. "Let me test my understanding, Ms. Zell, just so we’re clear. You want me to raise your husband, Chase, from the dead so that he will think he’s alive and be able to feel terror and pain while you chop him up with an axe. Do you realize that an axe won’t kill a zombie, so he’ll keep thinking and being afraid even if you chop him to bits? He’ll be afraid until I lay him to rest again."
"I don’t want you to lay him to rest. I want his pieces buried as they are, so that he’ll be buried alive and aware until he rots away."
I did the long blink at her, the one I reserve for moments when I can’t think of a damned thing to say. I finally found something to say: "No."
"What?" she asked.
"No, as in no, I won’t do it."
"Three million," she said.
"No," I said.
"How much will it take?" she asked.
"You don’t have that kind of money."
"Yes," she said, "I do."
"Jesus, woman, if you are sane enough to understand what you are asking me to do, then it is maybe the worst thing I’ve ever heard of one human being doing to another. That should frighten you, Ms. Zell. It really should if you knew the kind of crimes I’ve worked."
"You do a lot of serial killers and rogue monsters. I did my research on you, Anita Blake."
"Good for you, but you are a nasty piece of work."
"I don’t care what you think of me as long as you do what I want."
I pushed back from my desk. "No." I stood up.