Micah - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,35

Salvia again, "why does Marshal Blake need a protective circle?"

Laban, our friendly neighborhood prosecutor, said, "Is my esteemed colleague going to question every step of the ritual?"

"I think I have the right on behalf of my clients to ask why she needs a protective circle. One of my objections to this entire procedure was the worry that something else could animate the corpse, and what is raised will be merely Mr. Rose's shell but with something else inside it. Some wandering spirit could--"

"Mr. Salvia," Laban said, "your fanciful worries did not convince the judge to grant your motion. Why bring it up again?"

Truthfully, one of the reasons we put up protective circles was to keep wandering spirits, as Salvia put it, from animating the corpse. Though I'm not sure spirits were what I'd worry about. There were other things, nastier things, that loved getting hold of a corpse.

They'd use it for walking-around clothes until someone made them leave it, or until they'd so damaged it that the body no longer functioned well enough to be useful. I did not say this out loud. To my knowledge, no animator had volunteered this part of the reason for the protective circle. It would open too many legal problems when we were still striving to have animation be accepted as standard practice for court cases. The circle also helped raise power, and that was the main reason for it. The whole corpse-being-highjacked thing was so rare that I actually didn't know anyone who had ever had it happen to one of their zombies. It was one of those stories that always seems to happen to the friend of your uncle's cousin, who no one actually ever met. I wasn't going to help Salvia keep us here all night.

"Mr. Laban is right," the judge said. "There is nothing in the literature about zombies being taken over by alien energy." His voice held distaste, as if Salvia had actually proposed some sort of alien possession theory.

For all I knew, he had. I guess if the prosecution's star witness can be raised from the dead to testify, then the defense is allowed to look for unusual help, too. Aliens seemed a little far-fetched, but hey, I raise the dead for a living and slay vampires. I really couldn't throw stones.

"Marshal Blake, once you have your protective circle, how much more ritual will you need?" I think the judge was tired of the delays, too. Good--me getting impatient didn't help much. But the judge getting impatient--that could be very helpful.

I thought about it and was glad he'd phrased the question the way he had. How much ritual would I need? A very different question from, What comes next in animating the dead? Once the circle was up, I deviated so far from normal animating ritual that it was like comparing apples to watermelons.

"Not much more, your honor."

"Can you be more exact?" he asked.

"I'll call Emmett Rose from the grave. Once he's above ground, then I'll put blood on or in his mouth, and he'll be able to answer questions very soon after that."

"Did you say you put blood on the zombie's mouth?" Salvia again.

"Yes."

"You're going to have the zombie suck on the chicken?" This from one of the agents who had been waiting with the judge.

We all looked at him, and he had the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Not suck on the chicken, no. But I'll spread the blood across the mouth."

"Mr. Rose was a good Christian. Isn't painting him up with chicken blood a violation of his religious freedom?" Salvia said.

The judge said, "As much as I appreciate your concern over Mr. Rose's religious freedom, Mr. Salvia, I have to point out that he isn't your client, and that the dead have no rights to violate."

Of course, I had to add my two cents' worth. I just couldn't help myself. "Besides, Mr. Salvia, are you implying that you can't be a good Christian if you sacrifice a few chickens and raise a few zombies?" The anger was creeping from my shoulders and into my voice. Micah started rubbing his hand up and down my arm, as if to remind me that he was there, and my temper was, too. But his touch did help make me think. I guess sometimes I needed an "assistant" for more than sex and blood. Sometimes I just needed a keeper.

I got a few startled looks. Salvia wasn't the only one who'd assumed I wasn't Christian. I don't know why it