That almost made me smile. "So you're saying that I could raise the dead in daylight if I believed I could."
"I believe so."
I shook my head. "I've never heard of any animator being able to do that."
"But you are not merely an animator, Anita," Dominic said. "You are a necromancer."
"I have never heard of a necromancer that could raise the dead in broad daylight," Jean-Claude said.
Dominic shrugged gracefully. It reminded me of Jean-Claude. It takes a couple hundred years to make a shrug pretty. "I don't know about broad daylight, but just as some vampires can walk around during the day, as long as they are sufficiently sheltered, I believe the same principle would apply to necromancers."
"So you don't believe Anita could raise the dead at high noon out of doors, either?" Cassandra said.
Dominic shrugged again. Then he laughed. "You have caught me, my studious beauty. It may well be possible for Anita to do exactly that, but even I have never heard of such a thing."
I shook my head. "Look, we can explore the magical implications later. Right now, can you help me figure a way to put the vampires back without screwing them up?"
"Define screwing them up," Dominic said.
"Do not joke, Dominic," Jean-Claude said. "You know precisely what she means."
"I want to hear it from her lips."
Jean-Claude looked at me and gave a barely perceptible shrug.
"When darkness falls, I want them to rise as vampires. I'm afraid if I do this wrong, they'll just be dead, permanently."
"You surprise me, Anita. Perhaps your reputation as the scourge of the local vampire populace is exaggerated."
I stared at him. Before I could say something that sounded like bragging, Jean-Claude spoke. "I would think what she has done today is proof enough of how very much she deserves her reputation."
Dominic and the vampire stared at each other. Something seemed to pass between them. A challenge, a knowledge, something. "She would make an amazing human servant if only some vampire could tame her," Dominic said.
Jean-Claude laughed. The sound filled the room with echoes that shivered and danced across the skin. The laughter swept through my body, and for the briefest moment, I could feel something touch me deep inside where no hand belonged. In another context Jean-Claude might have made it sexual; now it was simply disturbing.
"Don't ever do that again," Richard said. He rubbed his bare arms as if he were cold or trying to erase the memory of that invasive laughter.
Jason trotted over to Jean-Claude, to butt his head against the vampire's hand. He'd liked it.
Dominic gave a little bow. "My apologies, Jean-Claude, you have made your point. If you wished to, you could cause the damage that my master caused by accident at your office."
"My office," I said. Personally, I didn't think that Jean-Claude could cause damage with just his voice. I'd been in situations where if he could have done it, he would have. No sense telling Dominic that, though.
Dominic gave an even lower bow in my direction. "Your office, of course."
"Can we cut the grandstanding?" I said. "Can you help us?"
"I am more than willing to try."
I walked up to him, picking my way over the broken stones. When I was standing as close as was polite and maybe an inch or so more, I said, "These three vampires are not an experiment. This is not some graduate study in magical metaphysics. You offered to teach me necromancy, Dominic. I think you're not up to the job. How can you teach me when I can do things you can't? Unless, of course, you can raise vampires from their coffins?"
I stared into his dark eyes the entire time I spoke, watching the anger narrow his eyes, tighten his lips. His ego was as big as I'd hoped. I knew he wouldn't disappoint me. Dominic would do his best for us now. His pride was at stake.
"Tell me exactly how you called the power, Anita, and I will build you a spell that should work--if you have the control to make it work."
I smiled at him, and I made sure it was just this side of condescending. "You come up with it, I can pull it off."
He smiled. "Arrogance is not a becoming trait in a woman."