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“Why tonight? If it's waited seven years, why not a few more nights?”
I kept putting things in the gym bag. “He insisted. He's afraid he'll lose his nerve if he has to wait. Besides, I may not be alive a few nights from now. He might not let anybody else do it.”
“That is not your problem. You didn't raise his zombie.”
“No, but I am an animator first. Vampire slaying is … a sideline. I am an animator. It isn't just a job.”
He was still staring at me. “I don't understand why, but I understand you have to do it.”
“Thanks.”
He smiled. “Your show. Mind if I come along to make sure no one offs you while you're gone?”
I glanced at him. “Ever see a zombie raising?”
“No.”
“You're not squeamish, are you?” I smiled when I said it.
He stared at me, blue eyes gone suddenly cold. His whole face became different. There was nothing there, no expression, except that awful coldness. Emptiness. I'd had a leopard look at me like that once, through the cage bars, no emotion I understood, thoughts so alien it might as well have inhabited a different planet. Something that could kill me, skillfully, efficiently, because that was what it was meant to do, if it was hungry, or if I a
I didn't faint from fear or run screaming from the room, but it was something of an effort. “You've proved your point, Edward. Can the perfect-killer routine, and let's go.”
His eyes didn't revert to normal instantly but had to warm up, like dawn easing through the sky.
I hoped Edward never turned that look on me for real. If he did, one of us would die. Odds are it would be me.