Edwin Alonzo Herman was regaling his audience with a story of how he'd tricked someone into signing away a small fortune. In these modern times it would have been considered swindling, but not back in the late 1800s or even early 1900s. Many of the laws on the books about money and how you can legally acquire it stem from the old robber baron days when almost anything was fair game. Most of the ways that the first millionaires in this country won their fortunes would be illegal today. But Herman had them laughing. He looked positively rosy-cheeked, and very much the center of attention of the group of lawyers and descendants. Everyone was willing to be happy, they'd won, and the man telling the story had helped them win. If someone had saved me millions of dollars, I'd like them, too, I guess.
He finished his story to laughter, and shining faces. "I'm ready to complete the contract gentleman, and ladies," I said.
Some of them had to shake my hand.
"Splendid job, Ms. Blake, splendid job."
"Wow, I mean, like wow."
"Honestly, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen you do it."
Apparently, I was included in the good feelings. Most people get a little uncomfortable when it's time to put the zombie back, if he looks alive enough.
Requiem stopped the compliments. "Ms. Blake has had a difficult night, gentlemen, if you could allow her to finish her work, then she can rest."
"Oh, terribly sorry... We didn't know. Thank you... worth every penny." And they began to drift away.
Edwin Alonzo Herman looked down at me, and it wasn't a friendly look. "I understand that I am supposed to be dead and only your magic gave me life again."
I shrugged and asked Graham to please get the machete and the salt from the bag.
"I've also been told that vampires have rights and are considered citizens. Am I not merely another kind of vampire? If I were declared alive, I would be a very, very wealthy man. I would be willing to share that wealth, Miss Blake."
I clung to Requiem's arm and looked up at the zombie, so self-assured. "You know, Mr. Herman, you're one of the few old ones that I've ever raised that have grasped the possibilities so quickly. You must have been something special in your day."
"Thank you for the compliment, and may I return one? This must be a unique gift that you have. Together we could turn it into an empire."
I smiled. "I have a business manager, but thanks anyway." I let go of Requiem and found I could stand without falling. Good to know. I was actually feeling a little better just standing on the grave by the zombie, because no matter how good he looked, that's what he was. I took the jar of salt from Graham's hand.
"Miss Blake, if I am only another type of walking dead, then is it fair to deny me the same chance that this vampire has gotten?"
"You're not a vampire," I said.
"And how great could the difference be between what I am, and what he is?"
I did something that Marianne had tried to teach me, and I just had been too stubborn to try before. I wasn't sure I had enough energy left to walk the circle, so I just pictured it in my mind, like a glowing circle around the grave, around the great stone angel, around all of us. It closed with the same neck-ruffling power rush that it did when I walked it with steel and blood. Good, very good.
"You want a difference, try and walk away from the grave."
He frowned at me. "I don't understand."
"Just walk to the road, where you answered their questions."
"I don't see what it will prove."
"It will prove the difference between what you are and what he is."
Herman frowned at me, then took a deep settling breath and strode off of his grave, toward the road. He hesitated, then slowed, then stopped. "I seem unable to move forward. I don't know why. I just simply don't seem able to go farther." He turned back to me. "Why? Why can I not go where I just stood?"
"Requiem, walk outside the circle."
He looked at me, then he walked past the man. He hesitated for a moment, and I worried that I'd done too good a job on the circle, but it should have only kept in the zombie, and out other things. The vampire shouldn't have been affected by it. Requiem pushed through, and the circle flared. It did recognize him as a type of undead, but not the one tied to this grave. I realized that with a little tweaking I might be able to throw up a circle that bound a vampire to its grave, or coffin, or a room. It couldn't be kept up forever, but for awhile. I filed it away. It would be a sort of desperation measure, but I'd been desperate before.
Herman pushed against the circle, or rather pushed against his own unwillingness to cross it. Requiem glided back through it, and out again, and in again.
"Enough," I said, "I think we've made the point."
"Why can I not cross this point, and he can?"
"Because this is your grave, Mr. Herman, your body knows this ground, and it knows you. It holds you to it, now that I've made it do so. Now come back and stand on the grave like a nice zombie."
"I am not a zombie."
"I said, stand on the grave."
He took a step toward me, before he stopped, and fought me. He fought his body, as he'd fought to cross the circle, now he fought not to come to me. I'd never had one that could fight me when I gave it a direct order, especially not one that had tasted my blood. I watched that well-made body, that so-alive person, struggle not to move closer.
I threw power into the next command, "Edwin Alonzo Herman come and stand on your grave, now."
He walked toward me, slowly, jerkily, like a badly made robot. He had to come now, but he was still fighting me. He should not have been able to do that. Even when he stood on the grave, facing us, his body jerked and spasmed, because still he fought my control.
I had the jar of salt open. I handed it to Requiem. "Just hold it."
Graham handed me the machete, and suddenly the zombie's eyes went wide. "What are you going to do with that great knife?" He sounded uncertain, not afraid, he was made of tougher stuff than that.
"It's not for you," I said. I'd already pushed the sleeves of the leather jacket up above my wrists. Now, I started to lay the machete tip against my arm, but Requiem's hand was suddenly wrapped around the hand holding the machete.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I need blood to bind him to his grave. I'd rather do a smaller fresh wound than reopen my left wrist."
His hand stayed around my wrist. "You do not need to lose more blood tonight, Anita."
"I need blood to finish this," I said.
"Does it have to be yours?" he asked.
"Normally, it's animal blood, but I'm not going to slaughter a chicken just to lay a zombie. The chickens have survived this far. If I spill a little more blood, they can make it through the night."
"Would my blood do?" he asked.
I frowned at him. "You're seriously not going to let me do this without an argument, are you?"
"No," he said.
I sighed, and relaxed my arm just a little to save muscle cramp. He kept his grip on the arm with the machete. "I've used vampire blood by accident, but it went a little... odd. I don't need more odd tonight, Requiem."
"Will his do?" He pointed at Graham.
"Will my what do?" Graham asked.
"Your blood," Requiem said, as if it was an everyday request.
"How much blood?" Graham asked, as if it wasn't the first time he'd been asked.
"Just enough to touch the face, sprinkle or smear."
"Okay," Graham said, "I agree that you don't need to lose more blood tonight. If mine will do, then okay. Where will you make the cut?"
"Lower arm, but above the wrist, less risk of hitting something that'll bleed too freely. Also a wound in the wrist hurts more, because of all the movement that goes through it."
He stripped out of his jacket and tossed it on the ground behind him.
I looked up into his face, searched it for some sign that he felt used, or abused. I didn't see that. He looked like he said he was, okay with it.
"The look on your face," he said. "Really, it's okay. It's not like I don't donate blood on a regular basis."
"Your neck and arms are clean," I said, "no bite marks."
"There are other places to donate from, Anita, you should know that."
I blushed, which was bad, since I didn't have enough blood to spare. There were other places to donate from, most of them intimate. "You someone's pomme de sang?" I asked.
"No, not yet."
"What does not yet mean?"
"It means that some of my brethren are hesitant to commit themselves to a single wolf, when your Ulfric has suddenly decided to share such bounty," Requiem said.
"He asked for volunteers," I said.
"Oh, I'm willing," Graham said, "I just don't like going around advertising the fact. Besides," he said, and he put his hands on his hips, palms flat, "it is a wild," he smoothed his hands down his jeans, "ride," until his hands touched either side of his groin, "when they feed," and his hands formed a frame of fingers and thumbs around the bulge in his pants, "down low."
My gaze had followed his hands the whole way, like I was mesmerized. I think I was just tired. I blinked and tried to concentrate on what we needed to do. I was not going to feel well until I'd fed, but I also wasn't feeding on anyone standing here. Nathaniel was waiting back at the club, and so was Jean-Claude. I had people who were willing, now that I could say no to the ardeur until I chose, I didn't have to depend on the kindness of strangers.
"Fine, hold out an arm. I'd recommend it be your nondominant arm." I had the machete in my hand. I'd made small cuts in the arms of other animators when we shared power so we could raise a bigger or older zombie. I choked up my hold on the hilt and held out my other hand for his arm. He tried to give me his hand, and I had to say, "No, I'll hold your wrist to help steady us both."
"Have it your way," he said, and he let me grip his wrist in my left hand. Normally this was quick, but my hands were shaking tonight. It's not good to be cutting on people when your hands are shaking. I blew out all the breath in my body, as if I were aiming down the barrel of a gun, and pressed the edge of the tip against his arm. I had to take a breath and did the down-stroke as I breathed out. I was slower than I would have been if I'd felt steadier. I was working on not going too deep, rather than not causing pain.
He hissed, "Shit," under his breath.
Blood welled out, almost black in the starlight. Not a lot of blood, just a trickle along the edge of the cut. The blood began to glide out of the wound, and I rubbed my fingers through it. I turned with my fingers stained with Graham's blood, turned to the zombie still waiting on the grave.
"Don't touch me with that," he said, and he recoiled away from me.
"Stand still, very still," I said, and he froze in place, unable to move, or back away. Only his eyes showed, wide and frightened.
I had to stand on tiptoe to touch his face, and Requiem was at my arm, as I wobbled. "With blood I bind you to your grave," I said.
Herman's eyes didn't get one bit less frightened.
I raised the machete up, and he made small protesting sounds, because I'd told him not to move and he couldn't scream. I tapped him with the flat of the machete. "With steel I bind you to your grave."
I spoke to Requiem, "The salt now."
He turned and got the open jar that he'd laid down by the foot of the grave. He held it out toward me. I took a handful of salt, and I'd used the wrong hand and gotten blood in the white crystals. All the salt would have to be dumped. Damn it.
I turned to the frightened zombie and threw the salt on him. "With salt I bind you to your grave." I waited for what should happen next, and prayed that this part, at least, would go like normal.
The fear, and fierce personality in those pale eyes began to fade, to leak away, until he stood open-eyed, but empty. His eyes were the eyes of the dead.
Relief poured through me, because if his eyes hadn't gone dead, then we'd have had more problems on our hands than I wanted for tonight. But he was just a zombie, a really good, well-made zombie, but just a zombie. Yeah, he'd fought me, but he was just dead clay, like all the others.
"With blood, steel, and salt, I bind you to your grave, Edwin Alonzo Herman, go, rest, and walk no more."
He lay down on the ground like it was a bed, and then he simply sank into the ground. I moved us off the grave, so that that heaving, shifting earth settled around him, without us having to go along for the ride. When it was over, the ground was undisturbed. It looked as it had when we'd first walked up, like an old grave in an old cemetery.
"Wow," Graham said into the silence, "wow."
"Wow, indeed," Requiem said, "you are very good at this."
"Thanks. There are aloe baby wipes in the Jeep for cleaning up. First aid kit for Graham, then get me back to the club."
"As my lady commands, so shall it be done."
I looked at the tall vampire and frowned at him. "There's going to come a time between us when I'm going to ask you to do something and you won't say that."
"How can you be certain of that?" he asked, and offered me his arm for the walk back to the Jeep. Graham was already packing everything up, except the machete, which I had cleaned with a rag for that purpose, and was oiling down with a cloth that I'd bought for the occasion. The two rags lived in the same bag, until one got bloody. Then it went in the trash. Organization is the key.
"Because, eventually, everyone says no."
"You are terribly young to be so cynical," he said.
"It's a gift," I said and put the machete back in its sheath, and that went on top of the bag that Graham had waiting. He was awfully efficient for a werewolf.
"No," Requiem said, "it is not. It is something learned through harsh experience."
Speaking of harsh experience, I had to check something. I knelt on the now pristine grave. I laid a hand on the hard ground.
"What are you doing, Anita?" Requiem asked.
"This zombie fought me more than most. It seemed more... real. I'm just checking to make sure that it is back to being bones and rags."
"Why, what happens if he isn't?" Graham asked.
I closed my eyes and opened just a little of that metaphysical hand that I'd had to squeeze back into a fist. "Then the zombie would be trapped down there, thinking, aware, but imprisoned. He won't rot. He can't die." I thrust my power into that cold ground. It was quiet down there, peaceful again. Bones and rags were all that lay underneath. Good.
"Could you really trap someone like that?" Graham asked.
"I don't know for sure, but I don't want to take the chance. I wouldn't want to leave anyone down there like that." I dusted my hands off.
"Is it okay?" Graham asked.
"Yeah, just bones."
"Vampires do not die when buried, either," Requiem said. "There have been accidents where new vampires were buried too deep, or those that were appointed to retrieve them failed."
Graham shuddered. "That's just creepy."
I stood and I almost fell. Requiem caught me, steadied me. "Is that buried alive stuff what they tell bad little vampires?"
He looked at me, and there were suddenly centuries of pain in those eyes. "I, too, have learned from harsh experience."
"Just get me to Guilty Pleasures, and we'll try to avoid adding tonight to the harsh list."
"As my lady commands," he said, smiling, and offering his arm. I took his arm and let him walk me to the Jeep, because I wasn't sure I could have walked that far without falling over. I didn't feel well enough to mark Nathaniel in public. I felt weak and ill, and didn't want to be part of the show, but I also needed to feed, and he'd be furry after the show. Choices, choices, too many damn choices, and not enough options.