Flirt

She gave me a name.

I nodded. “He’ll have to sign a waiver that he really thinks it’s a good idea for you to see your husband raised as a zombie. We’ve had a few clients who didn’t react well to it.”

“I understand that people could be traumatized by a normal animated zombie, all rotted and awful.” She made a face, then leaned a little toward me. “But you raise zombies that look like real people. My therapist says that Chase will look like he’s alive, that he’ll even believe he’s alive at first. If that’s true then how will it be traumatic?”

I was betting that if I called the therapist he’d back her story. Maybe it was her therapist’s confidence, but something felt wrong about her reactions. You usually saw grief even through a brave face. Either she was a sociopath or she didn’t give a damn about Chase Zell, her late husband.

“So, I raise your late husband as a zombie that can talk and think, and you talk to him and say good-bye, is that it?”

She smiled happily and leaned back in her chair again. “Exactly.”

“I think you should ask one of the other animators at Animators Inc.”

“But you’re the only one that everyone says can raise a zombie that thinks and looks and acts alive.”

I shrugged. “There are one or two others in this country who can do it.”

She shook her head, the expensive haircut bobbing as she moved. “No, I’ve checked. You are the only one that everyone agrees can guarantee that a zombie will be completely lifelike.”

I had a bad thought. “What do you want your late husband to be able to do one last time, Ms. Zell?”

“I want him to be alive one more time.”

“Sex with a zombie, no matter how lifelike, is still considered a crime. I can’t help you do that, not legally.”

She actually blushed under the nice makeup. “I have no intention of doing that with him ever again, and especially not as a zombie. That’s… that’s just… disgusting.”

“Glad we agree on that.”

She recovered, though I had shocked her; nice to know I could. “Then you will raise Chase from the dead for me?”

“Maybe.”

“Why won’t you just do this? If it’s the money, I’ll double your fee.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of money.”

“I have a lot of money. What I need is my husband back among the living for a few more minutes.”

I couldn’t tell you what it was that went through her eyes just then, or why I didn’t like it. I’d spent too much time around bad people not to look for it in most faces, and I had my share of clients whose lies had created some really awful nights. I’d even had one client who had me raise a husband that she had killed, and he had done what all murdered zombies do-killed his murderer. Until he throttled the life out of her I couldn’t command him to do a damn thing. Things like that had made me suspicious of the stories that the nice people across my desk told me.

“What will you do with him for those minutes, Ms. Zell?” I asked.

She crossed her arms over her thin chest and scowled at me. She wasn’t trying to be pretty anymore, or soft. Her eyes were suddenly more gray than green, and it was a steely gray like a polished gun barrel. “You know, who the fuck talked to you?”

I shrugged and gave a little smile, letting her pick a name.

“It was that bastard gardener, wasn’t it? I should have tried to sharpen the axe myself.”

I kept the vague smile on my face and gave her an encouraging look. It was amazing what people would tell me if I just kept quiet and seemed to know more than I did.

“I’ll pay your regular fee, plus a million dollars tax-free so that no one knows but you and me.”

I raised both eyebrows at that. “That is a lot of money.”

“It’s not about the money; what I want is revenge.”

I fought my face not to look surprised. I needed her to believe I already knew most of it to keep her talking. “You can’t take revenge on the true dead, Ms. Zell. They’re dead. It doesn’t get much more revengey than that.”

She leaned forward again, hands out, almost pleading. “But you can make him alive again for me. He’ll believe he’s alive, right?”

I nodded.

“You can do that without a human sacrifice, right?”

“Most animators can’t do it with one,” I said.

She gave me a look. “Are you that arrogant, or that good?”

“That wasn’t arrogance, Ms. Zell, just the truth.”

She looked strangely satisfied. “Then raise him for me. Raise him and let him be alive. He will feel emotions, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Fear? Can a zombie feel fear?”

“One that thinks it’s alive and looks alive will be afraid. Most of them are afraid when they realize they’re in a graveyard. Some of them freak when they see their own tombstone. It’s actually best if you don’t let them see that. It can make them begin to lose focus on your questions or your vengeance.”

“But he’ll see me, know me, and when I hurt him, he’ll be afraid of me, right?”

I nodded. “Right…”

“That’s perfect. So, you’ll do it?”

“Are you honestly going to use an axe on your deceased husband?”

She nodded, and her face was very firm and sure of itself. Her eyes glinted and the gray seemed to get even darker, like clouds before it storms. “Oh, yes, I am. I’m going to chop the bastard up while he begs me to stop. I want him to think I’m killing him for real.”

I studied her face and wanted to ask if she was joking, but I knew the answer. “You want the last memory you will ever have of your husband to be you chopping him up?”

She nodded.

“How long were you married?”

“Almost twenty-five years,” she said, which made me put her on the almost-fifty side of forty, though she didn’t look it.

“A man who you married, lived with, slept with, loved at some point, for twenty-five years, and you want to play axe murderer all over his ass?”

“More than anything in the world,” she said.

“What did he do to piss you off this much?”

“That’s none of your business,” she said, and her face said she believed I’d accept that answer. Apparently now that we’d agreed on a price she thought she could be arrogant.

“It is if you want me to raise him. Some crimes, some magicks, some problems in life can affect a zombie, make it harder to control. What did he do that was so terrible?”

“He told me he never wanted children. That they would interfere with his business and our social circle, and because I loved him I abided by his rules. Other friends would skip a few pills and come up accidentally pregnant, but I played fair. Chase didn’t want children so we didn’t have them.” Her eyes were distant as if seeing something other than my office, something sad and faraway.

“If you wanted children then I’m sorry that he cost you that chance.”

She focused on me again, and now the rage was in her eyes, her face. God, she was angry. “Two weeks ago a young man came to my door. He told me his mother had recently died and that he found letters. He showed me letters from my husband to his mother. There were pictures of them on vacations together. He took her to Rome, but wouldn’t take me. He took her to Paris, but wouldn’t take me. He once told me that I was one of the least romantic women he’d ever met; it was one of the reasons that he wanted me to be his wife and partner, because he knew that I wouldn’t let sentiment get in the way of getting wealthy and successful, because I wanted it as badly as he did.”

“You’ve always been wealthy?” I asked.

She nodded. “It was my money that he used to start his company, but he made even more. There was a letter to this woman where he literally said that if he hadn’t signed a prenuptial agreement where he’d have to give up controlling interest in his company and have no money that he would have divorced me and stayed with her and their son.”

The look on her face was bleak, like someone who had seen the worst possible thing and lived. She knotted those slender, perfectly manicured hands in her lap and continued to stare past me at things I couldn’t see.