"You can't heal the dead," I said, "but I can make them more lifelike."
Dominic nodded. "That would do very nicely."
"I usually do that during the initial rush of power. I've never tried to fiddle with my dead once they were raised."
"Please try," Dominic said.
"We could raise the power between the three of us, then try it," I said.
Dominic shook his head. "I am not sure what that would do to the spell. I think it would be taking a great risk with your companions."
I stared at him for a heartbeat or two. "You'd risk leaving Sabin to rot to save our friends?"
"You asked for my help, Anita. I think you are not a woman who asks for help often. It would be poor payment of such a compliment if I let you risk your friends for mine. If you can heal your dead cold, as it were, so be it. If you cannot, we will proceed to save these three vampires."
"A very honorable sentiment," Jean-Claude said.
"There are moments when honor is all that is left," Dominic said.
The vampire and the man seemed to have a moment of near perfect understanding. A wealth of history, if not shared, then similar, passed between them. I was odd woman out.
I looked to Richard and we had our own moment of perfect understanding. We valued our mortal life span. The fatalism in Dominic's voice had been frightening. How old was he? I could usually tell with a vampire, but never with a human servant. I didn't ask. There was a weight of years in Dominic's brown eyes that made me afraid to ask.
I looked at Jean-Claude's lovely face and wondered if I would be as honorable, or would I have risked anyone, everyone, to heal him? To see Jean-Claude dead would be one thing, but rotted away like Sabin... It would be worse than death in many ways. Of course, Sabin was dying. Powerful as he was, he couldn't hold himself together forever. Or maybe he could. Maybe Dominic could sew him up in a big sack, like the gloves the vampire wore on his hands. Maybe Sabin could go on living even after he'd been reduced to so much liquid. Now that was a hideous thought.
I stared at the standing dead. They looked back. One of the zombies was almost intact. Grey skin clung to the bones, more like clay than flesh. One blue eye stared at me. The other eye had shriveled like a raisin. It reminded me of what had happened to Sabin's eye.
It would make more sense to say I touched the eye and healed it. Or that I thought at it and smoothed the flesh like clay. It wasn't like that. I stared at the zombie. I touched that spark inside me that allowed me to raise the dead. I drew that part of me outward, coaxed it like feeding a small flame, and threw it outward into that one zombie. I whispered, "Live, live."
I'd watched it before, but it never ceased to amaze me. The flesh filled out, plumping, smoothing. A warm flesh tone spread like heat across the grey skin. The dry, strawlike hair grew and curled, brown and soft. The dead eye blew up like a small balloon, filling the socket. Two good eyes looked back at me. Even the tattered clothing mended itself. He wore a vest with a gold watch chain. His clothes were a hundred years or more out of date.
"I am most impressed," Dominic said. "If you changed his clothes, he could pass for human."
I nodded. "I make great zombies, but that won't help your master."
"Call one of the vampires from the coffin room."
"Why?" I asked.
Dominic drew a small silver knife from a sheath at his back. I hadn't known he had a weapon. Careless of me.
"What are you going to do with that?" Jean-Claude asked.
"With your permission, I will cut one of the vampires and ask Anita to heal the wound."
Jean-Claude considered the request, then nodded. "A small cut."
Dominic bowed. "Of course."
The vamps could heal a small cut on their own eventually. If I couldn't heal it, no harm done. Though I wasn't sure the vampires would agree with me.
"Anita," Dominic said.
I called, "Damian, come to me."
Jean-Claude raised his eyebrows at my choice, I think. If he expected me to call Willie, he didn't understand. Willie was my friend. Even dead, I didn't want to see him cut up.
Damian had tried to mind-rape a woman tonight at the club. Let him get cut up just a little.