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Guilty Pleasures :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 121 из 205You'll have to tell me what to do.”
“No problem,” I said.
28
The goat lay on its side. The bare white of its spine glimmered in the moonlight. Blood still seeped into the ground from the gaping wound. Eyes were rolled and glazed, tongue lolling out of its mouth.
The older the zombie, the bigger the death needed. I knew that, and that was why I avoided older zombies when I could. At a hundred years the corpse was just so much dust. Maybe a few bone fragments if you were lucky. They reformed to rise from the grave. If you had the power to do it.
Problem was, most animators couldn't raise the long-dead, a century and over. I could. I just didn't want to. Bert and I had had long discussions about my preferences. The older the zombie, the more we can charge. This was at least a twenty-thousand-dollar job. I doubted I'd get paid tonight, unless living 'til morning was payment enough. Yeah, I guess it was. Here's to seeing another dawn.
Zachary came to stand beside me. He had torn the remnants of his shirt off. He stood thin and pale beside me. His face was all shadows and white flesh, high cheekbones almost cavernous. “What next?” he asked.
The goat carcass was inside the blood circle he had traced earlier; good. “Bring everything we need into the circle.”
He brought a long hunting knife and a pint jar full of pale faintly luminous ointment. I preferred a machete myself, but the knife was huge, with one jagged edge and a gleaming point. The knife was clean and sharp. He took good care of his tools. Brownie point for him.
“We can't kill the goat twice,” he said. “What are we going to use?”
“Us,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“We'll cut ourselves; fresh, live blood, as much as we're willing to give.”
“The blood loss would leave you too weak to go on.”
I shook my head. “We already have a blood circle, Zachary We're just going to rewalk, not redraw it.”
“I don't understand.”
“I don't have time to explain metaphysics to you. Every injury is a small death. We'll give the circle a lesser death, and reactivate it.”
He shook his head. “I still don't get it.”
I took a deep breath, and then realized I couldn't explain it to him. It was like trying to explain the mechanics of breathing. You could break it down into steps, but that didn't tell you what it felt like to breathe. “I'll show you what I mean.” If he didn't feel this part of the ritual, understand it without words, the rest wouldn't work anyway.
“No problem,” I said.
28
The goat lay on its side. The bare white of its spine glimmered in the moonlight. Blood still seeped into the ground from the gaping wound. Eyes were rolled and glazed, tongue lolling out of its mouth.
The older the zombie, the bigger the death needed. I knew that, and that was why I avoided older zombies when I could. At a hundred years the corpse was just so much dust. Maybe a few bone fragments if you were lucky. They reformed to rise from the grave. If you had the power to do it.
Problem was, most animators couldn't raise the long-dead, a century and over. I could. I just didn't want to. Bert and I had had long discussions about my preferences. The older the zombie, the more we can charge. This was at least a twenty-thousand-dollar job. I doubted I'd get paid tonight, unless living 'til morning was payment enough. Yeah, I guess it was. Here's to seeing another dawn.
Zachary came to stand beside me. He had torn the remnants of his shirt off. He stood thin and pale beside me. His face was all shadows and white flesh, high cheekbones almost cavernous. “What next?” he asked.
The goat carcass was inside the blood circle he had traced earlier; good. “Bring everything we need into the circle.”
He brought a long hunting knife and a pint jar full of pale faintly luminous ointment. I preferred a machete myself, but the knife was huge, with one jagged edge and a gleaming point. The knife was clean and sharp. He took good care of his tools. Brownie point for him.
“We can't kill the goat twice,” he said. “What are we going to use?”
“Us,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“We'll cut ourselves; fresh, live blood, as much as we're willing to give.”
“The blood loss would leave you too weak to go on.”
I shook my head. “We already have a blood circle, Zachary We're just going to rewalk, not redraw it.”
“I don't understand.”
“I don't have time to explain metaphysics to you. Every injury is a small death. We'll give the circle a lesser death, and reactivate it.”
He shook his head. “I still don't get it.”
I took a deep breath, and then realized I couldn't explain it to him. It was like trying to explain the mechanics of breathing. You could break it down into steps, but that didn't tell you what it felt like to breathe. “I'll show you what I mean.” If he didn't feel this part of the ritual, understand it without words, the rest wouldn't work anyway.