"Laurell K. Hamilton - Strange Candy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

my only completed science fiction story, “Here Be Dragons.” You also get the only story I’ve ever
written in Anita’s world that has none of the main characters in it, “Selling Houses.”

I have dozens of other short story ideas, and most of them are very unlike Anita and Merry’s adventures.
My unwritten short ideas are vacations of the mind. The last thing you want to do on vacation is your
normal job. So how does a girl get to a point where normal is vampire hunting, fairie princesses and
private detectives, and some of the most erotic relationships on paper? Just lucky, I guess.

THOSE WHO SEEK FORGIVENESS
This is the first time Anita ever walked onto paper for me. The cemetery in this story is based on the
cemetery where my mother is buried. It was a place I knew very well, because my grandmother, who
raised me, took me often. I guess it was inevitable that I would write about the dead; my childhood was
haunted by death. Not real ghosts, but the ghosts of memory and loss. Anita raises the dead in this story,
which was all I had planned on her doing. The idea of her being a legal vampire executioner actually
didn’t hit my radar until quite late in trying to write the first book. Originally this story represented what I
thought Anita would do: raise zombies. How different things would have been if I’d stuck to my original
plan. No Jean-Claude, no Richard, not much of anybody except Anita. What a bleak world it would
have been, with just Anita and me in it.

D EATH is a very serious matter, Mrs. Fiske. People who go through it are never the same.”

The woman leaned forward, cradling her face in her hands. Her slim shoulders shook quietly for a few
minutes. I passed another box of tissues her way. She groped for them blindly and then looked up. “I
know you can’t bring him back, exactly.”

She wiped at two tears, which escaped and rolled down flawless cheekbones. The purse she clutched so
tightly was reptile, at least two hundred dollars. Her accessories—lapel pin, high heels, hat, and
gloves—were all black as her purse. Her suit was gray. Neither color suited her, but they emphasized her
pale skin and hollow eyes. She was the sort of woman that made me feel too short, too dark, and gave
me the strange desire to lose ten more pounds. If she hadn’t been so genuinely grief-stricken, I could
have disliked her.

“I have to talk to Arthur. That’s my husband…was my husband.” She took a deep breath and tried
again. “Arthur died suddenly. A massive coronary.” She blew delicately into a tissue. “His family did have
a history of heart disease, but he always took such good care of himself.” She finished with a watery
hiccup. “I want to say good-bye to him, Miss Blake.”

I smiled reassuringly. “We all have things left unsaid when death comes suddenly. But it isn’t always best
to raise the dead and say it.”

Her blue eyes stared intently through a film of tears. I was going to discourage her as I discourage every
one of my clients, but this one would do it. There was a certain set to the eyes that said serious.

“There are certain limitations to the process.” My boss didn’t allow us to show slides or pictures or give
graphic descriptions, but we were supposed to tell the truth. One good picture of a decaying zombie
would have sent most of my clients screaming.

“Limitations?”

“Yes, we can bring him back. You came to us promptly. That helps. He’s been buried only three days.