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You have the choice to go to the police station to make a statement or to pursue your own interests.

A) Tell Sanchez everything you know about the victims. B) Do your own thing.

I seriously thought about spilling the whole can of beans as soon as possible. It was pretty important information... if it actually amounted to anything and wasn't just a coincidence, like Mikki thought. It was then that I realized there wouldn't be much the police could do until tomorrow anyways.

I'm picking B this time. I thought, a little selfishly.

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It was getting pretty late at night, so going to the police station to make a statement was out. What I really wanted to do tonight was go to the cemetery and visit the ancestor for Mr. Anders. I almost had an ache in my bones to do it. It was like that itch on your back that no matter what you did, you just couldn't scratch that one spot. I needed to scratch it, so I made a few calls.

One was to Mikki's pack of were-cats, with her enthusiastic backing of course, and I arranged for a couple of were-cats to accompany us to the cemetery for guard duty. Jillian offered and said that she would bring another, and Charlie was Mikki's normal bodyguard and would be coming, too. I also convinced Natalie to come along, just for some company.

The next call was to a lawyer that was on retainer for my old resurrection company. It wasn't unethical for me to contact Joe, since he had handled a few things for me in the past. He wasn't exclusively tied to the business and taking me on as a client for a police consultation was right up his alley. I let him know about the statement I needed to make the next day, asked if he was available, and could he meet me there. He said that he wasn't busy and would meet me. I thanked him profusely and hung up.

The last call was to Nina. It was after dusk and she was wide awake, thankfully. I filled her in on my plans for tonight and she said that she would happily come along. So, after loading up with my gun on my lap and a knife in my boot, Mikki, Nina, Natalie, and myself were headed out to the cemetery with three bodyguards. How could Mr. and Mrs. Anders not know something was up if I appeared with seven people, just to let me visit a grave? I almost laughed at that, because if I still had the use of my legs, I would have gone all by myself.

We pulled out of the driveway amidst two other cars. Mikki barely avoided hitting them. I winced and closed my eyes for the few moments it took for us to get out onto the open road. I opened my eyes and quickly glanced at her. She turned her head away with a small smile on her face. My anger threatened to burst out at her for antagonizing me, because she drove recklessly on purpose.

I pushed the anger down and suppressed it with the thought that I was envious, since I couldn't drive like that myself. It wasn't much comfort, even though it was all I had as a defense. It was going to be a bit of a drive to the cemetery and I didn't have anything that could keep me occupied during the drive. Today had been a long day, so I figured I would just close my eyes and give them a rest for a few minutes.

I opened my eyes and noticed that I wasn't sitting in the car anymore. I looked around to see exactly where I was and all I could see were dark grey walls, almost like a basement... no, not a basement. Actually, it looked more like the inside of a crypt. With that thought, I stood up and turned around to look. Sure enough, there was a casket in front of me. I felt a bit of unease and a little scared, which was odd, since neither a casket nor a crypt had ever bothered me before.

I reached up for my gun in the holster as an automatic reaction and it wasn't there. Neither was the knife in my boot. I had absolutely no weapons and that was very bad. A dark shadow moved at the edge of my vision and I went toward it. I could hear a slight whispering; but, I couldn't make out the words, no matter how hard I tried to listen. I turned around at a slight creaking sound and noticed the casket was now open.

I took a step towards it, then another. I felt like I had to see who... or what... was inside it. I peered over the edge of the casket and looked inside. Nothing was there.

Whatever was inside it was now out and in the darkness with me. I turned around too quickly at another sound and fell to the floor. My legs had stopped working. I rolled over onto my back and tried to sit up.

Oh, no! Not again! I thought in desperation and punched myself in the leg. It didn't hurt. NO! I can't feel anything!

I laid there and prayed to God for my legs to work and to let me get through this. A loud sound came from my right side and I turned my head to see a gigantic wheelchair rolling toward me. I quickly flipped myself over onto my stomach and scrambled across the rough concrete, dragged my useless legs behind me, and I knew that I wasn't going to get out of the way in time.

The instant the wheelchair rolled over me and crushed my legs, I screamed. Then I woke up.

Mikki shook my shoulders and I was back in the passenger seat of the jeep. “David!”

“I... I'm awake.” I said and blinked my eyes several times.

“Are you alright?” Natalie asked, her voice full of concern.

“I'm fine. It was just a bad dream.” I said to reassure them. “Where are we?”

“We're at the cemetery.”

I had been asleep for the whole drive. What had felt like a few minutes was actually an hour. I didn't think much of it, since most dreams happened for the few minutes just before waking up. Then my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“David? How are you feeling?” A soft woman's voice asked.

I recognized it right away, because her voice always seem to resonate with me. It was Angelica. She was one of the most powerful clairvoyants in the country. We had met a year before I was kicked off the force, during a brutal murder case. When a clairvoyant comes to you out of the blue and tells you that you needed her help, by God you had better accept it. I had, without question, and we had been friends ever since.

“I'm fine, Angelica. I just had a bad dream.”

“Not according to my vision.”

Angelica had a tendency to get visions at the oddest moments, like now. I asked her why once, and she said that she was given them for a reason. I never asked her who had given them to her, because I really didn't want to know the names of the voices that talked to her.

“What did you see?” I asked.

“According to my vision, someone is after you. Now I can't say what they want or when they will reveal themselves, only that your dream was a part of it. Oh, and I have a message for you. He said not to worry and that everything will work out in the end.”

“Oh. Thanks, Angelica. You know, I haven't heard from either of you in a while.” I joked. “What's new?”

“I can't speak for Him, but nothing is new on my end. I would apologize for not contacting you with my sympathy and condolences about your accident; but, we both know that what you really want is for it to be business as usual between us.”

After a second, we both laughed.

“Thanks.” I said, gratefully. “I think you're the only one who hasn't treated me differently. I appreciate it. Of course, you already knew that, didn't you?”

“Yes. Now go and raise that zombie.”

I was kind of dumbstruck, even knowing who she was. “Angelica, I'm only checking out the cemetery tonight.”

“I know you are. I just have a feeling that you are going to achieve something you've never done before. This is one of the oldest zombies you have ever tried to raise, so I can only assume that is what I'm picking up on. You might not be raising it tonight, but... you will eventually. Have a good night.”

I was almost at a loss for words. “You, too. It was nice hearing from you.”

Angelica laughed and it made me shiver, in a good way. “Such sweet truthful lies.” She said. “Goodnight, David.”

“Goodnight.” I said.

When she hung up, I felt much better about... well, everything. Angelica always seemed to have that effect on me. Even though she was a powerful clairvoyant, she always tried to lead me to answers, rather than just give them to me. She just advised me on my choices and told me to make one. It can sure be annoying sometimes.

While I was on the phone with Angelica, the rest of the group had piled out of the vehicles and assembled their weapons for bodyguard duty. I recognized an MP5 and an AK47, then one of my impromptu guards had a make of gun that I hadn't seen before. Jillian said his name was Miguel.

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“Miguel, if you don't mind my asking, what is that?” I asked and pointed to the odd looking weapon on his back. He smiled and pulled the thing from its holster. It had a shiny metallic sheen and reflected the light like a mirror. It had a long double barrel that was perforated with small holes like an uzi, held two clips on the underside of its stock, and had what looked like a shoulder mount.

“This here's a custom job. A double magazine connected to two air filtered barrels for quick firing. It fires fifty rounds per second from each barrel, and can hold either two straight clips from a regular uzi or a large mushroom clip. The guy I had do it up for me called it a ‘super-uzi'. Yeah, I know it's a stupid name, but hey, it was his idea.” Miguel said as he smiled.

“Jesus Christ.” I said and admired the thing. “What do you use it for?”

“Crowd control.” Miguel said with a toothy grin and that made the other two bodyguards laugh.

If I was still in the business, I would surely be tempted to get one of those. It had to be painted completely black to get rid of that metallic sheen, though. You would never sneak in anywhere with something that flashy if you didn't conceal it. Considering my current situation, there wasn't much chance of that, so I didn't ask him where he had it made.

I opened my car door and let Mikki put me in my wheelchair, then she told everyone to gather around. I waited for them to come over to me before I spoke. “Listen up everyone, because I'm only going to say this once. I haven't done this in almost two months and I'm a bit out of practice. I'm not planning on anything to go wrong tonight; but, if anything does, I don't want you to shoot everything in sight unless I tell you to. Understand?”

All the bodyguards nodded their heads while Mikki and Natalie shook theirs in disbelief.

“Your treating this like an incursion into hostile territory.” Mikki said teasingly.

“Of course I am. That's because it is.” I said and pat her hand. “I would be stupid if I didn't treat it that way after being away from the job for so long, not to mention wasting the time of my bodyguards.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the bodyguards I just mentioned, Jillian included. I had Mikki move me towards the graveyard and the others fanned out around me. When the tires of the wheelchair rolled onto the sanctified ground, a shiver went through me.

I sat there and inhaled a huge breathe through my nose and let it out through my mouth. It had been a long time since I smelled the fresh night air and the pungent smell of gravestone mold at the same time. I looked around at my entourage and I think I was the only one that was comforted by it. The were-cats were a little jumpy, being in a graveyard at night, and they seemed a little unnerved by the eerie calm.

Nina however, being a vampire, was like me and revelled in the night. Even though I was alive, I have always had more in common with the dead than with the living. I wasn't sure if it was because of the necromancy in my blood or just my personality. One of the reasons I had brought Nina along was because the living interfered with my connection to the dead.

Mikki had offered to carry me around the cemetery, so I could do my thing, and I knew that I couldn't do it with her. I needed to touch the dead and that was where Nina came in. I asked her to pick me up, which surprised her for a moment, then delight covered her face. She carefully picked me up and cradled me in her arms like a child. I looked absolutely ridiculous, proven by the amused looks on the were-cats, then my hand touched Nina's bare neck.

My power flared at the simple touch and a small burst of it flowed over everyone present. It was much stronger than it had been the last time I had used it and Nina stood still as a statue as she adjusted to the cool power flowing out of me and into her. The were-cats shivered as it touched them and asked me to try and ease off.

I held in my sigh as I explained that I didn't do it on purpose. My power was strongest at night and with this many dead around me, it was like a Molotov cocktail. The problem was, I was about to light it and throw it.

I always imagined my necromancy was like a large fist and that I had to unfold my ‘fingers' to use it. Until recently, that was literally true. Now? All I had to do was let my new self know it had a job to do, and there it was. No calling of power, no lengthy rituals, it was just there.

I think I'm going to like this new me.

I had assumed that I needed Nina to walk me around the cemetery like I used to do, which was impossible now that I had a wheelchair; but, I felt like that particular action was no longer needed. I let my power out and it floated down into the earth, then it flowed through the ground and searched over the remnants of caskets and bodies.

After a few minutes, I was a little surprised that I could feel every grave in the entire cemetery. I could even ‘taste' them in my head, which was a new experience. There wasn't a grave in this place that was under a century old, and I knew them all. If I concentrated on a specific one, I was sure that I could learn about who they were without having to look at their gravestone.

A lot of cemeteries have ghosts, spirits, remnants, or presences that just hang around like they don't know what to do with themselves, now that they were dead. No one had been able to tell if they were parts of souls, psychic abilities, or just faint memories that were too stubborn to abandon the mortal realm when the physical body died.

This cemetery had about a dozen of them that were spread all over. I told everyone to keep their eyes forward and to ignore anything that tries to grab them, then I told Nina to walk. The new bodyguard, Miguel, didn't quite believe me until he was tripped by a semi-solid ghost hand and fell flat on his face. Now he believed me and kept his eyes scanning for threats and ignored everything near the ground.

Not surprisingly, I didn't need the directions Mr. Anders gave me, or the name on the headstone. I knew where the plot was that held his ancestor. I could also tell if there was a ritual performed, or if the grave was ever disturbed, or even empty, and now I could confirm that I could tell who was in the graves.

It felt so right, like I had been playing the role of a necromancer my whole life, without really being one, and now I finally understood what it meant to really be one. I couldn't see my own eyes; but, I knew that they must be glowing black as my power flowed out. Everything was in sharp focus and I could see all the details around me, and not just the ones you could see with the naked eye.

I pointed in the direction we had to go and Nina took me over to Mr. Anders' family plot. She carried me and the rest of my entourage followed us. My power flowed all around us and I could feel everyone like they were rocks in a stream, only I was the stream and they looked like they were standing in shivering cold water.

Natalie was the first to say anything. “Good god, David. I've felt you do this kind of stuff before, but... this is...”

“Totally freaking you out?” I asked with a smile.

“Yeah.” Natalie said and rubbed her arms. Everyone nodded slightly in agreement, except Nina. She loved the feeling and I could feel one of her nipples poking my side. Despite what had happened the last time we had been together, she had pushed the incident aside and had forgotten it. Vampires seemed to be like that. A scary thing happens, then they get over it quickly and move on.

I wish I could do that. I thought.

We came up to the plot in question and I felt the pull of centuries. I could tell you the age of this grave almost to the day. It was almost fifty years older than what Mr. Anders said; but, I knew I could still do it. I wouldn't require a cow or a lame horse, either. A goat would do it, or even a couple of chickens.

Good God, I could do it. I thought, shocking myself. Just wait until Hank finds out about this. He'll be salivating at the minimum hundred grand per job!

I started to wonder how long it will take for the other workers at the company to vote me back in once they found out. I laughed in my head and I eased off the flow of power, then I chuckled at the chorus of relieved sighs from the were-cats.

“I'm done here.” I said and they all turned and prepared to go back to the cars.

I wanted to do the job right now. I really wanted to. I held in my sigh and convinced myself that I didn't have what I needed and pulled my power back to only a trickle of what it just was. I don't think I have ever seen bodyguards so relieved to have a job over so quickly, so I half jokingly told them that I would need them tomorrow night as well.

Only Jillian said she would come back, with some new help of course. It wasn't good when you could rattle the guards trying to protect you. Charlie, Mikki's bodyguard, just laughed and said that he would come back too, just so he could see the whole show. We all piled back into our respective cars after some brief farewells and the other two cars drove away.

Nina was especially affectionate as she sat me in the passenger side of the jeep. She thanked me for using her as a medium for my ability, which was something she hadn't done before. She gave me several tender kisses, whispered that she wanted to do a lot more than that, then disappeared from sight.

“I don't know why she keeps doing that.” Mikki said.

“Because she can?” I asked.

Mikki shook her head and shut my door while Natalie got in the back. We left the cemetery and drove home. I didn't fall asleep and stayed awake this time. I did not want a repeat performance of whatever it was that had happened before. Because of that, I definitely had a long overdue appointment with a hot bath and cuddling with two of my main squeezes.

We got home to a blinking light on the answering machine. I wasn't going to answer it, then Mikki had to be all practical and said that it might be for her or Natalie. I sighed and pushed the button to start the messages on my way to the kitchen. I needed a quick snack and went to the refrigerator. While I checked for food, the messages played.

*Whirrr. Click.*

“Hi, this is Mikki's dad, Carl. I just wanted to make sure Mikki was available for work tomorrow.” The voice paused for a moment. “Goddamn, I hate answering machines. They make me sound stupid.”

*Beep.* Mikki and Natalie laughed at their dad.

“Hi, David. This is Luke. I got the other coroner reports. You aren't going to believe it! The other crimes had the organs missing too! We got our serial killer! I've already passed on the relevant info to the police, just in case you didn't get the chance. I did it anonymously, of course. I can't give up my sources like that. So... can I publish it now?” He paused for a brief moment. “I hope you said yes, because it's in the morning edition with my name on it. You didn't expect me to sit on it forever, did you? Bye!” He chuckled and hung up.

*Beep.* Well, at least he gave it to the police instead of surprising them with it. I thought and made several sandwiches. What a slap in the face that would have been to the police, especially since Luke had been right about it being a serial killer and they didn't agree.

“My darling, I know things have been... uncomfortable between us lately. Please call me as soon as possible. Thank you.” Jeanette's voice said, and you could feel that she was being magnanimous.

*Beep.*

*Click. Whirrr.*

The tape stopped and rewound itself. No actual cop business, were-cat business, or anything else that needed to be done right away, which meant that it was time for that much needed relaxation I so desperately craved. We ate our sandwiches and then we went to the bedroom.

Mikki drew the bath and added a few bubbles. I didn't want too many bubbles, now that I had to keep a close eye on the sides of the tub. The three of us got undressed and Natalie climbed in first, then Mikki slipped me into the tub to Natalie's waiting arms. The water was just on the good side of hot, exactly the way I liked it, and then Mikki joined us. She slid in close like we were puzzle pieces and the three of us settled down into the water and cuddled. I was warm and comforted, which was the best feeling in the world, and fell right to sleep.