I smiled at him and said, “Thanks, Newman.”
“If I believed it all, I wouldn’t be here helping the two of you,” Livingston said.
“You’d really let an innocent man be executed rather than help the Whore of Babylon out?” I asked.
“I never used that word or anything like it,” Livingston said.
“And I really appreciate that,” I said.
“Are you saying that other officers have called you that to your face?” Kaitlin asked.
“I am,” I said, and I smiled when I said it, because sometimes you have to smile when you say the bad stuff out loud, or it gets too deep a hold on you. Smile and think Fuck you as you say it.
“Wow, that’s . . . awful,” she said.
“Agreed.”
“I’m sorry you experienced such a lack of professionalism at the hands of other officers,” Livingston said. He seemed to mean it, so I thanked him.
“Weirdly, the insults have gotten fewer since we announced the wedding. If they were upset I was sleeping with monsters, I thought marrying one would make it all worse,” I said.
“You’re marrying him,” Livingston said. “We don’t bad-mouth one another’s spouses. That’s sort of off-limits.”
“I’ve never had a spouse before, but good to know. Now, what do you need from us to take the prints from Bobby?” I said.
“I want Kaitlin safe while she gathers evidence, and I’d like to avoid killing the prisoner to keep her safe since that would defeat the entire purpose of why we’re doing this.”
“I’m sorry I had to break the chains,” Bobby said.
“You were trying to take cover while someone shot at you. No apology needed,” I said.
“I don’t have anything stronger to chain him up with,” Duke said.
“I have cuffs rated for preternaturals,” Newman said.
“It’s a start,” Livingston said.
“I can get more chain to go around the cuffs,” Duke said.
I shook my head. “It won’t hold him.”
“Well, then, Ms. Expert, tell me what will hold him.”
“That’s Marshal Expert to you, and the cuffs that Newman and I have are it.”
“I thought silver chains worked,” Livingston said.
“One, you got any silver chains that big?” I asked.
Livingston looked uncomfortable, and it took me a second to r
ealize that it was his embarrassed look. “No.”
“Second, silver rubs their skin raw like a mild corrosive agent, or a metal allergen, but it doesn’t actually make the chains any stronger against them.”
“I thought silver burned them,” Kaitlin said.
“No, nothing that spectacular. It takes time for the silver to damage the skin unless it’s the edge of a silver blade or a bullet with high silver content. Then the weapons work against them as if they were plain human.”