Someone I occasionally work with through the police department, named Holmes. Brilliant mind.

Are you a doctor?

I'm an officer here, anyway. Back home, I'm just on retainer. Anita Blake, preternatural specialist.

What kind of doctor?

Ms. Blake, if you don't mind.

It serves me well. I haven't had to put it to use as much as I would at home, but it still comes in handy now and then.

Really? I'm sure there will be plenty to interest you in this place, then.

All sorts of people to analyze.

You don't seem at all surprised about the preternatural part. Aside from being yanked into a whole new world, any experience with that kind of thing?

Oh, I won't. That just sounds exhausting, honestly.

I couldn't help being curious. With so many different people here, it's always interesting to hear about what our places of origin do and don't have in common. Some people are shocked to hear about the existence of zombies or magic, for others, it's all old hat.

I raise them for a living. Or I did.

They do. Usually they're used for legal reasons, or because a client wants a last chance to say goodbye to a loved one. It's a great way to solve a contested will or something of that nature. They retain their memories, so as long as you ask them very specific questions, they can usually answer. Sometimes they can testify in court, but that's tricky.

Murder victims and magic users are no-go, though. They need to stay in the ground.

Vampires, lycanthropes, ghouls, spirits, you name it, I've probably seen it. I'm the licensed vampire executioner for St. Louis, though that doesn't mean much here.

Murder victims usually just freak out when you raise them and go on a rampage, aiming directly for the person who killed them. They're almost impossible to control, and people always get hurt. It would be nice if they could be raised and simply point out their killer, but it's inhumane to try, in my opinion. If you raise a magic user, specifically another animator, they rise as a flesh-eating zombie that can't be controlled, even by the most powerful necromancers. They have too much power of their own.

You make an excellent point.

It does take training, but you have to be born with the innate ability. Even people with the capacity for other magic won't be able to animate the dead if they're not born with it. It's an inherited "gift."

It skips a bunch of generations sometimes, but my grandmother can do it, too. She handled my early training.

Enjoy it? I'm not sure anyone's ever asked me that before. I'm good at it, so there's that, and it's the kind of thing you have to either use or lose control, so my career options were limited. But sure. When I can use it to help people, I enjoy it. For some people, it's an embarrassing curse, but I don't mind it. Some of the perks are nice, too.

The partial immunity to vampire mind tricks is pretty great. Saved my ass a few times.

Yeah. Not even a little bit. The extent of their power is pretty impressive. It doesn't take much for them to roll someone's mind. The older they are, the easier it is for them to influence you. Just a bad business all-around.

I've never met any that could actually shapeshift, pretty sure that's a myth. I'm sure if they got control of your mind, though, they could make you think they were a bat.