Dead Ice

“Don’t the coveralls need to go on before the hiking boots?” Nicky asked.

“I was going to walk over and make sure they’d read the handouts I sent home with them, or give them a refresher on what to expect. People never listen in the office and then sometimes they freak out during the zombie-raising, and I hate that. The coveralls are hot, even in spring, so I’ll talk to the clients and then get changed.”

“And the boots are so you can walk on the gravel,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Good plan, because I came to tell you that your clients did read the literature you sent home with them, and one of them is having an attack of conscience.”

I frowned at him. “An attack of conscience, what about, disturbing the dead?”

“No,” he said, with a slight smile.

“Are they upset about the whole voodoo angle? If they read the handouts they know it’s not black magic.”

“Not that either.”

“Then what is it?”

He grinned, shook his head, and said, “It’s the cow.”

11

TWENTY MINUTES LATER I still didn’t have the coveralls on, because I hadn’t been able to convince our reluctant client that killing the cow was a necessary part of raising the zombie for them. I finally had someone to aim my anger at, except that I wasn’t angry anymore thanks to Nicky and Nathaniel. Some nights you just can’t hold on to the mad long enough to use it.

“Yes, Mrs. Willis, the cow does have to die so I can raise the zombie for you,” I said.

She peered up at me, which wasn’t something that most people had to do. She was tiny, less than five feet, but somehow didn’t seem that small; attitude can make up for inches. Her eyes swam behind some of the thickest prescription glasses I’d seen in years. Her eyes glinted behind them in the moonlight. The moon was only two days past full, so there was plenty of light for my night vision. Nathaniel, Nicky, and Dino probably didn’t even think it was dark, because wereanimals had a heck of a lot better night vision than I did, even in human form. We hadn’t advertised the fact that the only full humans here tonight were the clients. They seemed nervous enough without that. One of the younger men with them kept gazing around the cemetery as if he expected something to jump out and eat him. Some people just weren’t comfortable in cemeteries after dark; go figure.

“I was fine in theory, but now that the animal is standing in front of me, it seems wrong to slaughter it because we want to do historical research.”

“Do you want the zombie raised, or not?” I asked.

“Of course we do.” Mr. Owen MacDougal came up behind her, much taller, much broader, not fat, but solid like an old-time linebacker gone a little heavy around the middle. He looked like an older version of my other bodyguard, Dino, except Dino was darkly Hispanic and MacDougal was Middle America white bread. I knew Dino was six-two, so MacDougal was at least that tall, maybe an inch or so more. Neither of them was as broad through the shoulders as Nicky, but then I knew Dino didn’t go for bulk as much as he did, and MacDougal obviously hadn’t been keeping up with the gym, but he was still a big, solid guy.

“Of course we do,” he repeated. “Ethel, it’s a cow. You eat steak.”

“I eat meat out of the grocery store,” she said. “I don’t watch the poor animals slaughtered in front of me.” She motioned at the brown-and-white Guernsey tied to a nearby tree. It was munching the fresh grass and chewing whatever cows chew contentedly. If it knew why it was here tonight it seemed calm about it, but it was a cow. They puzzle me. I’ve never looked at one and thought, I know what it’s thinking. Cows aren’t like dogs, or cats, or even certain birds. Cows are mysterious things when it comes to motives, and this one was no different as she grazed among the weathered tombstones.

Nathaniel had surprised me by being nervous of the cow. All he would say was, he’d had a bad experience with a cow once. He was standing well away from it by the clients’ cars, while we talked business.

I tried to think my way past the PETA-esque attack of conscience, and finally said, “Mrs. Willis, I have other appointments tonight”—which was a lie, because raising something this old would exhaust any animator powerful enough to do it, but Ethel Willis didn’t know that—“so you need to decide if we’re raising this zombie within the next fifteen minutes or I’m calling it, and you can figure out what to do with the live cow.”

“What?” she asked, and MacDougal echoed her.

“I mean I’ve made arrangements with a disposal company to come get the cow carcass. It’ll be made into pet food since humans aren’t allowed to eat anything killed in a religious ritual, but the disposal company does not deal in live animals, so if we leave here and the cow is still alive, then it’s your problem.”

I heard Dino chuckle behind me, and try to turn it into a cough.

“But I don’t know anything about cows,” Mrs. Willis said. “Whatever would I do with it?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. You paid for the animal to be sacrificed when you agreed to the price for the zombie, so in effect it’s your cow. If you don’t want me to kill it and raise the zombie, fine, but it’s still your cow dead or alive. I’ll dispose of its corpse, but if it’s still alive when I leave here tonight it’s no longer my problem, it’s yours.” I glanced behind me at the narrow road that ran through the graveyard. “The biggest car I see over there is a Cadillac. It’s a big car. You could probably get a goat in the backseat, but I don’t know about a cow, especially not a full-grown Guernsey. They’re a big animal. I don’t think it’ll fit, and this municipality doesn’t let you keep cows except as short term for blood sacrifices or other religious observances, so no just letting the cow loose, because that would be breaking the law and when the police contact Animators Inc. asking why a cow that we purchased is roaming loose, I’ll tell them it’s your cow.”