Hit List ab-20

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  The grin faded a little, to almost his normal smile. It was a colder smile.

  I had a thought. “What would you have done if I’d said that I’d need to feed the ardeur when I woke up?”

  He lay down, spilling the sheet over him. I already had the sheet over me. He turned and looked at me with the lamp still on. “Dealt with it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we would have dealt with it.”

  “Edward . . .”

  “Let it go, Anita,” he said, and then he reached up and turned off the light. And just as he was one of the few people in the world that I would let back me up, he was one of the few that I would let drop this particular topic. He was right; we’d deal with it, the way we dealt with everything else.

  I lay on my back in the dark. He was doing the same. “Edward,” I asked.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “Are you a side sleeper, or a back sleeper?”

  “Back.”

  “I’m a side sleeper, so no spooning, I guess.”

  “What?”

  I laughed and turned over on my side. “Good night, Edward.”

  “Good night, Anita.”

  We slept.

  7

  I WOKE TO country music and my arm flung over someone’s stomach. That someone was wearing a T-shirt; no one I slept with wore clothes to bed. I felt that someone move as he rose up and said, “Yes, morning.”

  The moment I heard his voice I knew it was Edward, and the night came flooding back. Without rising up, I said, “Who is it? Is it another murder?”

  “It’s Donna,” he said.

  That made me lift my head and blink at him. It also made me take my arm off his stomach and scootch a little back from him so we weren’t touching, as if his fiancée could see as well as hear us.

  “It’s Anita,” he said.

  Donna’s voice was suddenly loud enough for me to hear it. “What’s she doing waking up beside you?”

  “There was only one bed.”

  I buried my face in the pillow. That was so not the answer he should have given.

  “Hold on,” he said, and he used his phone to take a picture of the mattress and box springs against the window. “I’m sending you a picture that shows what happened to the other bed.”

  “This better be good,” she said, voice still loud with anger.

  I glanced at Edward’s calm face as he listened to her angry breathing. A few minutes later she asked, “Why is the bed in front of the window?”

  “So that if the vampires and wereanimals we’re hunting tried to break in, the bed would slow them down enough for us to start shooting.”

  “What happened?” she asked, but her voice was already calmer.

  “Anita and another marshal were attacked last night. The other woman is in the hospital. I didn’t trust anyone else to guard Anita but me.”

  “Of course not, you’re the best at what you do.” Her voice got soft enough I couldn’t hear her side of the conversation.

  Edward handed the phone toward me, saying, “Donna wants to talk to you.”

  I shook my head vigorously, No.

  He gave me the hard look, which let me know I wasn’t going to win this fight. I took the phone carefully and tried for cheerful, or at least not nervous, as I said, “Hey, Donna.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “How badly was the other marshal hurt?”

  “She’ll live. She’ll heal, but we’re still waiting to find out if she’s got lycanthropy.”

  “It was a shapeshifter?” And I could hear the fear in her voice.

  I cursed myself for being careless. Donna’s first husband had been murdered in front of her by a werewolf. Peter, who was then only eight, had picked up his father’s dropped gun and killed the werewolf, saving both his mother and his little sister. Peter was seventeen now, and in a lot of ways he seemed more Edward’s son than Donna’s.

  “Yeah, it was, but we’re okay. I mean, the other marshal isn’t, but she was new on the job, and . . .”

  “How new?”

  “It was her first real hunt.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “Take care of Edward for me and the kids.”

  “You know I will.”

  “I know you’ll bring him home to us safe, and he’ll do the same for you.”

  To that the only thing I could say was, “We will.” She wanted to talk to Edward then, so I handed the phone back to him. I also went into the bathroom to do morning stuff and give them some privacy. Since when did Donna and he talk every morning? But hey, it wasn’t my relationship.

  When I came back out he’d hung up. He looked at me. I looked at him. “That went way better than I thought,” I said.

  “Donna trusts you.”

  “She trusts me to keep you alive. She doesn’t trust me with you.”

  “She doesn’t trust any woman with me. She’s a little insecure in that area.”

  I frowned at him. “You give her reason to be.”

  “No, insecure people don’t need an excuse to distrust. It’s just what they do.”

  “I couldn’t live like that,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “You’re polyamorous, which means many loves?”

  “I’ve never actually called myself that.”

  He gave me a look. “You’re living with multiple men, and sleeping with more, and everyone knows about it—that’s about as poly as you can get, Anita.”

  I wanted to argue, but couldn’t. I shrugged. “Fine.”

  “None of your men can be insecure or they couldn’t be poly with you.” I laughed. “Oh, no, don’t believe that there’s no insecurity. There is. The hardest part about having this many loves in my life is the emotional upkeep. Trust me, we all have our issues.”

  He looked at me, studying me for a moment.

  “What?”

  “I guess I just thought that you had to be completely secure to be in a relationship like that.”

  “No one is completely secure, Edward.”

  “Not even your Master of the City?”

  “No, not even Jean-Claude,” I said.

  He looked thoughtful, then stood up and took his shirt off. “Are you getting dressed?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do I go in the bathroom, or do you?”

  He frowned at me. “Why?”

  “I’m not comfortable with you dressing in front of me.”

  He gave a half-laugh. I think I’d surprised him. “You live with shapeshifters, and they go around nude all the time.”

  “Seeing my friends and lovers nude is fine, but seeing you nude, no.”

  He studied my face. “It really would bother you.”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned again. “Why?”

  “If I’m having sex with someone it’s okay to see them nude, but if sex isn’t an option, then no nudity.”

  He laughed, abrupt and surprised. “You’re still a prude, and you always will be.”

  “It wouldn’t bother you to strip in front of me?”

  “No, why should it?”

  I sighed. “Fine, I’m a prude. I’ll go into the bathroom while you dress.”

  “No, I’ll dress in the bathroom.” He was still smiling, his face shining with the remains of his laughter, as he gathered up his clothes.

  “Glad I could amuse you after less than two hours of sleep,” I said, arms crossed under my breasts in his oversized T-shirt.

  “I guess you’re right,” he said, as he walked past me. “Everyone has their issues.”

  I had no idea what to say to that, so I didn’t try. He went into the bathroom to get dressed, and I realized all my clothes were still in the other room. I hoped forensics would let me back in; otherwise I was going to have to send Edward shopping for clothes for me. Edward had a lot of talents, but I was betting that shopping for women’s clothing wasn’t one of them. />
  8

  THE GOOD NEWS was that forensics cleared my room enough for me to get dressed and get my weapons. The bad news was that the powers that be gave Karlton’s vacated warrant to another new marshal who had about as much experience. Ironically, his last name was even Newman. It was a little too heavy-handed on the whole fate thing for my taste.

  Sadly, Raborn was still the go-to man in the field. I didn’t have a lot of faith that he’d listen to me, but when it went bad, and it would, I wanted my protest on record. “Nothing personal to Newman, but he’s exactly what his name says, Raborn. He’s new. What I saw last night would make me afraid to just take fresh meat on the hunt, but to put the fresh meat in charge is dangerous both to him and to the rest of us.”

  Raborn leaned his shoulder against a tree on the edge of the parking lot. His arms were folded across his chest, which made his shirt bunch and emphasized that he had enough stomach that his arms were sort of resting on it. It wasn’t a flattering look, but maybe I was prejudiced.

  He looked at Edward, who was at my side, where he’d pretty much plastered himself all day. He’d gone from fellow marshal to bodyguard head space after last night’s “incident.” The other police seemed to take it for devotion after the sex they assumed we’d had the night before. No one had said anything directly. It was the little eye flicks, the expressions, the soft voices that quieted as we walked up. Fuck them all, or rather, not fuck any of them.

  “What do you think, Forrester?” Raborn asked.

  “Now, Raborn,” Edward said in his good-ol’-boy Ted voice, “you know that no other operation like this would have a rookie in charge. Veteran marshals won’t follow him, or trust him. No reflection on Newman, but it’s not just us that have a problem with it.”

  Raborn sighed enough that his stomach rose up and down. He unfolded his arms and spit onto the parking lot, as if it had all left a bad taste in his mouth. “You aren’t the first marshals to come to talk to me. Hell, the local PD has asked for a more senior marshal to be in charge of the hunt.”

  “Then why is Newman still in charge?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed when he looked at me; just because he agreed with me at this point didn’t mean he liked me any better. “Tilford is in charge of the other warrant, so he’s partnering Newman.”

  “I know that Tilford requested that the other warrant go to Ted or me,” I said.

  Raborn nodded. “He did, and it was duly noted.”

  “Why give the other warrant to a rookie?” Edward asked again. “Especially, why give the senior warrant to a rookie so that he can be in charge of the operation?”

  “It’s the older warrant, and new regulations say that the oldest warrant of execution on a joined case becomes senior officer.”

  “It’s a bad rule,” I said.

  Raborn just nodded. “But it’s still the rule.”

  “It’s the same killers, they’re both the same warrant,” Edward said.

  “Used to be, you’d be right, but you got too many marshals in your branch getting their toes stepped on, so they changed it.”

  “They’re wanting to phase us old-timers out,” Edward said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “They think the new marshals will be easer to handle, but first they have to prove the newbies can do the job.”

  “Stupid,” I said.

  “Politics in the field always is,” he said.

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if Newman would let Tilford lead, but he’s not. He’s taking that I’m-in-charge-so-I-have-to-be-in-charge attitude. He’s never been on a real hunt. At least Tilford has, not many, but I’ll take some experience over none,” I said.

  Raborn tried to frown at me, but in the end he just shrugged. “Agreed.”

  It was the first thing he’d ever simply agreed to with me. It made me hopeful. “What can we do to keep this from going pear-shaped?” I asked.

  “Try your powers of persuasion on him, Blake. I hear you can convince most men to do just about anything you want ’em to do.” He looked at Edward then, and it wasn’t a friendly look. More a guy look, and I wondered if there was just a touch of sexual jealousy there. It wasn’t that Raborn wanted to sleep with me, but there is a type of man who feels if a woman is sleeping around he shouldn’t be left out. It’s almost not personal to the woman; it’s just a guy thing.

  “You sound jealous, Raborn,” I said. I’ve found a direct assault is best on shit like this.

  “So you admit it.”

  “Accuse me of something and maybe I will admit it, but don’t make snide remarks and tiptoe around the question; just fucking ask, or don’t.”

  He glared at me and Edward. “Fine, you want me to ask, fine! Did you fuck Forrester last night?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Bullshit,” he said.

  “We shared a room so he could keep me alive and safe, because I trust him to do that more than any other person on the planet. But you and every other son of a bitch here is going to believe what they believe, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I learned a long time ago that I can’t prove a negative.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “It means I can’t prove that I didn’t sleep with someone. It’s easier to prove you did something than that you didn’t. You know that from court cases, every cop does, but cops love rumors, they fucking love ’em, so either way, believe what you want, but if you’re not going to believe the truth, don’t ask.” I finished the last sentence pretty much up in his face, as much as the height difference would allow. I was perilously close to touching him, and hadn’t realized it. I was angry, that fine burning anger that made the tips of my fingers tingle. It was disproportionate to the situation.

  I took a step back, took a few deep even breaths, and said, “I need some air.”

  “You’re outside,” he said.

  “I need away from you, then,” I said, and I walked away. Why was I this angry? And down low in my body, lower than a gut, deeper than anything a surgeon would ever reach with a scalpel, I felt something stir. My beasts, the animals I carried inside me, were moving, responding to my rage. I couldn’t afford to lose control of myself like that. I didn’t actually shift form, but I still carried the beasts inside me, and they could still try to tear their way out of the prison of my body. I had almost gotten to the point where it didn’t happen, but now I felt the beginnings of it, and realized I’d skipped everything but coffee. Feeding the physical body helped control all the hungers, the beasts, the ardeur, and the anger, because I’d learned to feed off that, too. It was something Jean-Claude, my supposed master, couldn’t do. I needed to eat something, and soon.

  Edward caught up to me. “Why’d he get to you like that?”

  “I forgot to eat real food. I need protein and I need it now.”

  “Beasts?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll get breakfast,” he said. He walked toward the car we were sharing, and I followed him. We’d have to make it quick and unhealthy, going through some kind of drive-up, but anything would help.

  9

  I WAS EATING my Egg McMuffin as Edward drove. He’d gotten the breakfast burrito, which always puzzled me, but hey, it wasn’t my stomach. He’d eaten his before he put the car in gear. He still had that guy and cop ability to inhale food because you might not get to finish it otherwise. I’d never mastered it. If I’d been a regular cop I’d have starved by now.

  “I know the food helps,” he said, as he watched the road and drove carefully, precisely, as he did most things, “but you need to feed the ardeur soon, or am I wrong?”

  “You’re not wrong,” I said, between bites.

  “You could go into any bar in the city and find someone.”

  “No,” I said.

  “You complicate your life, Anita,” he said, as he turned onto the street that the motel was on.

  “I just can’t do casual. I don’t think I ever will.”

 
“I thought the ardeur wiped out all that, and you just had sex.”

  “It can, but it can also be addictive, and some people are more susceptible than others.”

  “You mean like drugs—some people get addicted quicker than others.”

  “Exactly. I’d hate to pick some stranger and he turns out to be one of those. He’d be addicted to something he might never be able to find again, and I’d feel guilty, and have to take him home with me like a stray puppy.”

  “You would, too,” Edward said, like he found it a character flaw.

  “You wouldn’t feel guilty, would you?”

  “You mean could I fuck someone, addict them to the ardeur, and just walk away?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You’re one of my closest friends, but I totally don’t understand that.”

  “I know.” He pulled into the parking lot with all the other police cars.

  I finished the last bite of my breakfast and took another sip of Coke, because coffee tasted bad with Egg McMuffin. I wiped my hands on napkins.

  He turned off the engine but didn’t get out. I waited.

  “You’re not as ruthless as I am, but you kill as easily as I do.”

  “Thanks,” I said, because I knew it was a compliment.

  He gave me a small smile, I think to acknowledge that I was one of the few people on the planet who would have known it was a compliment.

  “But if anything goes wrong, I know you’ll see Donna and the kids right.”

  “You know I will, but it’s not like you to be this morbid, Edward. You have a premonition?” I asked, and I was serious, because cops get those sometimes. A lot of them are a little bit psychic; it’s one of the ways they stay alive.

  “It’s Peter. He needs me or someone like me to finish training him.”

  “You know I still don’t approve of you training him to follow in the family business,” I said.

  “Being a marshal, you mean?”

  “No games, Edward, not between us,” I said.

  He nodded. “He wants me to take him out of the country on a job when he turns eighteen, if I think he’s ready.”