“You’re not supposed to invoke until we know for sure someone’s hurt, or there’s a hostage situation,” Perry said. He was all about the rules, our Clive.

“We have to assume the officers are hurt, or worse, Clive,” Zerbrowski said. “Anita’s within her rights to invoke the Preternatural Endangerment Act, which means she, and anyone with her, can use lethal force to save human lives without waiting for a warrant of execution.” Zerbrowski was the highest-ranking officer on site, and he was backing me. Clive did what the rule-lovers do, he followed the rules. Later he could tell himself he’d tried to prevent the bloodshed, but he was technically clean on it. He nodded, and said, “You’re in charge, Sergeant.”

Zerbrowski let it go at that, and turned to me. “Sic ’em, Anita.”

I raised an eyebrow at the phrasing, but let it go. His grin was enough; he’d make a joke with his last breath, and after a while you had to let the smart-ass remarks go, or he wore you down.

“Give me a minute,” I said. If we’d been trying to sneak up on the vampires I couldn’t have searched for them using my necromancy because they might sense the power, and then they’d know we were coming, but with the marked police cars, it wasn’t like we were hiding.

In the interrogation room it had been an accident, a little power leaking out, and only after that on purpose. There was nothing accidental about this. Most people who raise the dead-animators if you’re being polite, zombie queens or kings if you’re being rude-have to do ritual to raise the dead. They need a circle of power, ointment, ritual tools, a blood sacrifice, and even then, they’re lucky to raise one zombie a night. I used a circle of power to keep wandering bad powers out of my zombies, and the blood sacrifice just meant I could raise more and better zombies, but with nothing but my power I could raise the dead. If I used all the accoutrements of the profession I could raise cemeteries. I’d kept that part to myself as much as possible, because no one, absolutely no one, should be able to do that-not even me.