The Resurrectionist. Sierra Woods
tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. Laughter is nearly as good as sex as a tension reliever. There has been little of either in my life of late, but then sex was what got me killed in the first place. Not mine, my ex-husband’s. He’s the one who couldn’t keep it zipped. “Did she have a dog like Fluffy?” I asked. I knew his grandmother had passed into the beyond, but other than that, I knew little about her.
“No.” He shook his head and put his hands on his hips. The laughter was still with him, and it was good to see. I love police officers, and our men in blue have little to laugh about on the job, so a snicker here and there does them good. “Oh, no. She’d have never had a dog like Fluffy.”
“She liked big dogs then, like the killer Dobie?”
“No.”
“Then what?” I couldn’t see what was so funny now.
“The irony of the underappreciated. Like you. Like her. I never told you, but she was like you,” Sam said, and all humor between us came to a screeching halt.
My smile faded. “What do you mean, just like me?”
“A resurrectionist.” Sam removed his sunglasses. I saw his eyes, so I knew he spoke the truth. “That’s why I volunteered for the liaison post with you. I have some experience with it.”
“Are you kidding? Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled and slugged him in the chest. Touching people gives me too much information about them, but now and then I put up with it if I get to punch someone. Like now.
“What was the point? She was gone already, and I don’t know how to do that stuff.”
“The point was that...well, hell, I don’t know, but I would have liked to have known.”
“She was gone, Dani, years ago.”
I sighed, not satisfied with that explanation. It was as if he had insider information and had kept it from me. “I would have liked to have known, that’s all. Maybe you could have helped me in the beginning. Maybe you could help me now get some things figured out.” I know there are others out there like me, but finding them is not easy. It’s not as though we have an online newsletter or a blog like other, more populous states do. I’m going to have to work on one for New Mexico, because no one else is doing it.
“I don’t know anything about what goes on during the rituals, other than what I’ve seen you do.”
“Didn’t she raise you?” As if that meant he knew everything about her life.
“Yes, but she kept that part of her life very secret when we were kids. It was only by accident that I found out.”
Sam put his glasses back on, and we walked to his car. It was an unmarked police vehicle, and it looked like one. In the dark, no one would know, but in the daylight it screamed cop car. Just needed a cherry on top. The dashboard was outfitted with more technology than a small plane, and the two hundred antennae on it was a dead giveaway. It looked like an insect on steroids. But I got in anyway. I had to unless I wanted to walk back to the office, some forty miles away. I didn’t. “How did you find out?”
“She didn’t think my sisters and I were old enough to understand. Our family and the neighborhood were very superstitious. If there had been any implication of witchcraft in her house, the state would have taken us from her. It’s different now that there are others out there.” He shrugged. “So I did what every kid does. I followed her.”
“So following people has been a lifelong endeavor?” Explains why I didn’t hear him sneak up on me the other day. Bastard.
He didn’t answer that and just gave me a look. “I was about twelve, but looked older, so I could be out on the streets and no one said anything. Back then the courts hadn’t sanctioned resurrections and life-swaps, so it was very underground. Only the family of the victim was present, and the killer of course.”
“You were such a wiseass, even at twelve, weren’t you?” The image I had of him at that age was funny, all legs and feet and not quite grown into his attitude yet.
“Yeah. I was a piece of work. Got into more trouble than I was worth. Until the Rangers, anyway.” He looked away. That’s where his secrets lay, in his past, but here was an opportunity to find out a little more about him.
“Did she have a fit when she found out you had followed her?” I could just imagine. My grandmother would have kicked my ass from here to Sunday.
“Oh, yeah. My ears rang for a week. She could carry on like no one I’ve ever known.” He grinned as if it was a good memory. Having good childhood memories is a sign of a balanced life. “Kinda miss that now.” That was good. We usually have too many bad memories from childhood that are stuck in our brains. I never understood why the bad ones always come through first and the good memories are left behind. It would be nice to have that in reverse. If I’m ever elected Queen of the Universe, that’s the first thing I’m changing. “I had to clean the chicken coop for three months after that.”
“Oh, man.” I pinched my nose shut. “Just the sound of that stinks.” I released my nose with a giggle, then remembered why we were talking about her. “Do you know how she came to have her powers?” I’d heard stories that were different from mine. People who weren’t murdered, but born with the abilities.
“No.”
“I wonder if you could have inherited something from her.” Could this affinity for raising the dead be passed from one generation to the next? Would Sam develop powers of his own? If he hadn’t already, it was unlikely that they would surface now. Dammit.
“I don’t think so.” Sam maneuvered the car through the desert on the dusty, rutted road with casual ease, his long-limbed body relaxed, yet in control. The jiggling of the vehicle over the ruts was about to shake my liver loose, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. “There’s never been any impulse for me to do what you do.”
“You have three sisters, right?” Maybe there was some hope in them. Some traits were passed from female to female.
“Yeah.”
“Any of them?”
“Not to my knowledge. They’d have told me.”
“Oh.” It would have been nice to know that there was someone else I knew well who could have helped me.
“Sorry.” He reached out and patted me on the arm once, then returned his hand to the wheel.
“I’m thinking about Roberto’s case. I don’t know if I have what it’s going to take to bring him back. In all of my other cases, I’ve always had intact bodies. Not as far gone as this one is.” Something in me just knew this was going to be one of the toughest cases I’d ever been involved in, emotionally as well as physically. Admitting that to myself, let alone to Sam, is a big step for me. Admitting vulnerabilities only makes you responsible or gets you a weekly date with a therapist.
“Have you checked with the hospital lately? What’s Filberto’s condition?”
“Same. Brain-dead. Waiting on the court order.” Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it takes days.
“What happens if you can’t bring Roberto back?” He gave me a glance.
That was a good question. A really good one. And one I didn’t know the answer to. I hated admitting that. In the world of nursing you must know the answers for every question. Saying I don’t know isn’t acceptable. It’s no more acceptable to me now than it was then, but I said it anyway. “I don’t know.”
I just hoped we didn’t have to find out. Thankfully, Sam didn’t give me any meaningless reassurance to make me feel better. It wouldn’t, and he knew it.
There are days when the past haunts me entirely too much, and this