Brutus did not require any artificial aids to see well in the dark; when shadows pressed in, his eyes grew a deeper, smolder shade of red, and he went wherever he pleased, as if it were broad daylight.
“We should split up and take one row each, compare notes when we get to the end, then go on to three more rows,” Jessie said. “The stones seem to be in relatively straight lines, for the most part, in harmony with the contour of the yard.”
“Split up?” Helena asked.
“Why not?”
She had changed to jeans, a sweater and a thin wind-breaker; now, she pulled the jacket’s nylon collar up around her neck. “We’re in an alien graveyard at two o’clock in the morning, planning to dig up a corpse,” she said. “That’s why I don’t want to split up.”
“Be reasonable, Helena,” Jessie said. “We can get done three times faster if—”
“I’m being perfectly reasonable,” she said. “I was more than reasonable in agreeing to come at all. I’m your Girl Friday, not your partner.”
“You’re not going to leave, are you?” Jessie asked. “Look, Helena, I need your help. Brutus has a powerful set of claws on him, but he can hardly help me dig open a grave. You’re a big, strong girl, and you can take the shovel, at least a little bit, to give me some rest.”
“If that’s all I’m needed for,” she said, “you could have brought the company robot.”
“And have him store the whole illegal affair in his microdot memories? Besides, he’d have made a hell of a clanking racket coming over the wall.”
“Well, if you need me so badly,” Helena said, “you’ll just have to give up the idea that I’m going to go off, in here, by myself and prowl around a bunch of tombstones.”
“Look,” Brutus said, “nothing can happen to you in here, Blue Eyes.”
“Don’t be condescending with me,” Helena snapped. “I’m not fearful simply because I need to play any female role. I’m just being sensible. How can you know what sort of—thing may be lurking about?” She studied the trees, the larger stones, anything that might be large enough to conceal a dangerous adversary.
Jessie said, “If you encounter a vampire, it has to read your bill of rights and question you according to the Kolchak-Bliss Decision, and it has to gain your explicit approval of the bite. Pretty much the same thing goes for a werewolf. And most other creatures are required to provide you with a contract… In short, you aren’t going to be attacked, ruthlessly, as you might have been in the old days.”
Helena switched on her flashlight and pointed it at the nearest stone, played the beam quickly along a row of markers, the splash of yellow luminescence flitting here and there like an agitated specter moving with the currents of the night air.
All was still.
And quiet.
Not even a drying palm frond rattled in the gentle stir of air.
“I’ve made up my mind,” she said.
The detective sighed and said, “Okay, Helena. Brutus will take one row by himself, while you and I look at the second.”
“That’s better,” she said.
“Let’s get going,” the hound growled.
The moon went behind a dense expanse of clouds; both Jessie and the woman used their flashlights as they started down the avenue of monuments, reading the names.
“This one’s blank,” she said, pointing at the fourth stone. “Why would they put up a blank stone?”
“The plot’s being rented by a vampire who likes his privacy,” Jessie said. “Look. Stand back a minute.”
When she stepped aside, Jessie searched the base of the tombstone until he found a switch, which he threw.
The sod in front of the stone lifted up, smoothly, silently, revealing a fancy metal coffin in an open grave. “When he goes inside there, during the day,” the detective said, “he’ll lock this outer door to keep any playful kids from letting the sunlight in on him.”
Helena shuddered. “Close it, Jessie, please.”
The detective pushed the switch back the other way and watched as the slab of hand-sewn sod moved into place once more, leaving a smooth expanse of wiry grass and no evidence at all of the hollow spot that lay directly underneath.