I nodded.
"That makes sense. We can only raise zombies after the souls have flown. It would make sense that vampires can only be raised during the day. When darkness falls, their souls return."
I wasn't even going to try and argue about whether or not vampires had souls. I wasn't as sure of the answer as I used to be.
"I can't raise zombies during daylight hours. Let alone vampires," I said.
Dominic motioned at all the waiting dead of both kinds. "But you did it."
I shook my head. "That's not the point. I'm not supposed to be able to do it."
"Have you ever tried to raise normal zombies during daylight hours?"
"Well, no. The man who trained me said it wasn't possible."
"So you never tried," Dominic said.
I hesitated before answering.
"You have tried," he said.
"I can't do it. I can't even call the power under the light of the sun."
"Only because you believe you can't," Dominic said.
"Run that by me again."
"Belief is one of the most important aspects of magic."
"You mean, if I don't believe I can raise zombies during the day, I can't."
"Exactly."
"That doesn't make sense," Richard said. He leaned against one of the intact walls. He'd been very quiet while I talked magic with Dominic. Jason, still in wolf form, lay at his feet. Stephen had cleared some of the broken stones and sat beside the wolf.
"Actually," I said, "it does. I've seen people with a lot of raw talent that couldn't raise anything. One guy was convinced it was a mortal sin so he just blocked it out. But he shone with power whether he wanted to accept it or not."
"A shapeshifter can deny his power all he wants, but that doesn't keep him from changing," Richard said.
"I believe that is why lycanthropy is referred to as a curse," Dominic said.
Richard looked at me. The expression on his face was eloquent. "A curse."
"You'll have to forgive Dominic," Jean-Claude said. "A hundred years ago, it never occurred to anyone that lycanthropy could be a disease."
"Concern for Richard's feelings?" I asked.
"His happiness is your happiness, ma petite."
Jean-Claude's new gentlemanly behavior was beginning to bug me. I didn't trust his change of heart.
Cassandra said, "If Anita didn't believe she could raise the dead during daylight hours, then how did she do it?" She had joined in the metaphysical discussion like it was a graduate class in magical theory. I'd met people like her in college. Theorists who had no real magic of their own. But they could sit around for hours debating whether a theoretical spell would work. They treated magic like higher physics, a pure science without any true way of testing. Heaven forbid the ivory tower magicians should actually try out their theories in a real spell. Dominic would have fit in well with them, except he had his own magic.
"Both occasions were extreme situations," Dominic said. "It works on the same principle that allows a grandmother to lift a truck off her grandchild. In times of great need, we often touch abilities beyond the everyday."
"But the grandmother can't lift a car at will, just because she did it once," I said.
"Hmm," Dominic said, "perhaps the analogy is not perfect, but you understand what I am saying. If you say you do not, you are merely being difficult."