“Why don’t any of the files on Dominga Salvador show the verve like we have here?” Gillingham asked.
“I told you, she had to literally whitewash everything and destroy her creations when she realized she was going to be raided by the cops.”
“So we only have your word for it looking identical to this.”
“Yeah, as your boss keeps pointing out.”
“I’m sorry for that. Jarvis is usually really excited about meeting new psychic talents.”
“I think he likes meeting new bright and shiny straight-out-of-the-academy talent, because you’re still willing to drink the FBI-flavored Kool-Aid. I’m a little past waving the company flag and saying, go, team.”
“I think I’ve been insulted,” she said, but smiled to take the sting out of it.
“It’s not your fault that Jarvis recruited you for his pet program when you were young and impressionable. I remember being a rookie and thinking I could save the world.”
“You don’t believe you can save the world anymore, Anita?”
“No, Teresa, I don’t. Some nights just saving myself takes everything I got.”
The door opened and Very Special Agent Jarvis walked through. He was tall, athletically thin, with dark hair cut short and neatly, with eyes that seemed to see everything and approve of maybe half of it; the rest he distrusted completely. I fell into the half of the world he distrusted.
“When are you going home, Marshal Blake?”
“When I feel that I’ve got no more to contribute here, Special Agent Jarvis.”
His face made that little moue like he’d tasted something sour. “I think you’ve given us all the information that you have to offer.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that he’s still out there?”
“Of course.”
“Then why do you keep trying to give me the bum’s rush, when I’m probably the best you have at dealing with the undead, which is his specialty?”
“I have one of the most powerful touch clairvoyants to come down the pike in a decade, all she has to do is find something he’s touched.”
“Touched often,” I said.
He nodded. “I grant you that.”
“He took everything, Jarvis. Beck can’t find any common item that belonged to our missing man,” Gillingham said.
“I can’t believe we don’t even have a name,” I said.
“Sir, he’s just sir,” Gillingham said.
“It’s like he treated them all as if he were their dominant and they were all submissive to him. He was on a serious power trip.”
“No one will argue with that,” Jarvis said.
“Wait, did you say your clairvoyant is trying to find common items to touch?”
“Yes.”
“What about the zombies he made?”
“We tried that, but she got the impressions from the bodies themselves. Their lives, not his.”
“Beck was hysterical for hours after that,” Gillingham added.
“No need to overshare, Agent,” Jarvis said.
“Sorry, sir.”
“Damn it, we can’t lose him like this.”
“They say he took one zombie with him, the most lifelike. He only let her do two films with actors, and he never took her soul out and let her rot. She was special to him, they all agree on that,” Gillingham said.
“Do we have the videos of her?” I asked.
“Yes, they weren’t put out online, but they have them.”
“Do we have a still frame for a picture?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“If she was special to him, maybe he knew her when she was alive?”
“We do know our job, Marshal.”
“Sorry, I’m just brainstorming.”
“Well, we don’t really need your brainstorming, we’re pretty good at it ourselves here at the FBI.”
“Why don’t you like me, Jarvis?”
He looked startled. “I don’t dislike you, Blake.”
“I didn’t ask that, I asked why don’t you like me?”
“I heard you were direct.”
“Yeah, now are you going to answer the question?”
“You are uncontrollable. Your powers seem to have grown exponentially and no one knows what the limit of that power is, or if you have limits to your necromancy. You have your uses for helping the common good and keeping the peace, but your gift has been misused for centuries. Necromancers always seem to be creating armies of the undead and trying to conquer countries.”
“Actually, everyone says that, but I can’t find a single historical account of it really happening; can you?”
He was caught off guard for a moment, but he recovered his surety and his prejudice rapidly. “I don’t have to debate with you, Marshal. You can go home and leave things in our capable hands.”
“You mean in the hands of people you can control, with talents that don’t scare you.”
“The man we’re chasing, this Sir, is a necromancer like you. Will you argue that he’s not evil?”
“He’s evil, but he’s not necessarily a necromancer. He could just be a powerful voodoo practitioner. I hesitate to call him a priest, because that implies followers and I think he’s solitary.”
“His powers are still over the dead and he has abused them.”
“I don’t abuse my powers.”