“I was told you wanted to meet with me,” I said.
“And Damian,” the man said, and his voice was a deep bass. You didn’t meet many men with voices that low.
“He can’t come inside a church,” I said.
“I wasn’t certain that you would be able to walk inside a church,” the man said.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a necromancer, all evil and ungodly. That’s me.”
He blinked those huge liquid eyes at me. I didn’t think he’d gotten the sarcasm. Apparently neither had Nicky, because he added, “Anita’s joking. She gets tired of people assuming that she’s evil just because she can raise the dead.”
“My apologies then, miss, but I had to be certain you weren’t in league with her.”
“How does the fact that I can enter a church prove that I’m not?”
“Do you believe in God, miss?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “I have prayed for God to send us someone to help destroy the mad creature that rules us. I believe that person may be you, miss.”
I shook my head. “I’m no one’s savior. That job belongs to the man hanging on the cross over there.”
“Don’t you believe that we can all be instruments of God’s will?” he said.
“I believe that God calls us to do His will, but free will means we can say no.”
“Saying no did not work out so well for Jonah,” he said, smiling that gentle smile of his.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of whales in Dublin,” I said.
He smiled wider. “We are a seaport, miss. You would be surprised what swims in the waters here.”
I smiled, realizing that I’d treated him as if he didn’t turn into a seal part of the time. “I’m Anita Blake. What’s your name?”
“Moran.”
“Well, Moran, are you ready to go outside and talk to Damian?”
“Not yet. I need to know if it is true that you freed Rafael and his wererats from the Master of St. Louis, who had enslaved them.”
I licked my lips and thought about what to say, because I had freed the wererats by killing the old Master of St. Louis. I hadn’t had a warrant of execution for her, but I’d killed her to keep her from enslaving me like the wererats. I didn’t regret killing her, but I didn’t want to confess to murder to a stranger either.
“I don’t know you well enough to answer certain questions.”
“Can you free us, Anita Blake, like you did the wererats?”
“I might be able to free individual Roane, but to free all of you would mean your mistress would have to be dead.”
He nodded very solemnly. “Yes, that would be the only way.”
We sat there and stared at each other. “Why does everyone in Ireland think that I’ll just kill people here?”
“Perhaps your reputation precedes you,” Slane said, peering around Moran. I frowned at him. He shrugged and leaned back so I couldn’t see him around the other man.
“Would you be willing to tell the police what she’s done to you and your people? Would you be able to help me prove her crimes to the police?” I asked.
“There is no death penalty in Ireland,” Moran said.
“So I keep being told,” I said.
We looked at each other for another long moment.
“I’m not an assassin,” I said.
“Of course not,” he said, but he looked at me with Riley’s eyes, and there was a silent demand in them: Help us, save us, kill the monster for us. “Will you help us, Miss Blake?”
“It’s Marshal Blake. I have a badge. I’m a police officer. I cannot assassinate someone for you.”
“She is evil, Marshal Blake.”
“I understand that, but it doesn’t change the fact that Ireland doesn’t have a death penalty, and if it did, you’d need a trial to get to it.”
“We cannot afford the time a trial would take, Marshal Blake. You know that for something like M’Lady you either kill it or you leave it alone. You do not try and put it on trial.”
“I’m not arguing with your reasoning.”
“But you will not help us?”
“I can’t agree to assassinate her for you. I’m sorry, truly sorry, but I can’t tell you, ‘Yes, I’ll do it,’ because if I said that, you might count on it. You might make plans based on her being dead.”
“We would.”
“And if she didn’t get dead, then those plans would get you killed. I won’t be responsible for that.”
“I am told that if you slay the animal to call of a master vampire their death can drag the vampire down to true death at last. Is that true, Marshal?”
“It can be,” I said, and I didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“I thought that the death of their animal or their human servant was a guarantee of their destruction.”
“Most of the time the death of one causes the death of the other, but I’ve known vampires powerful enough that it didn’t work that way.”
“You give me no hope, Marshal Blake.”
“I thought you were going to give us some hope about Riley and his girlfriend,” I said.
“If someone told you that, then I truly am sorry, for I have no hope to offer for Riley and his lady. He was young and foolish, but a good boy.”
“He seemed like a nice person,” I said.