Leduc was there from wherever he’d gone. He opened the cell, and I moved in with my gun aimed at the wereleopard on the floor. It was lying in a pool of Rico’s blood, and if it so much as twitched, I was going to shoot it again.
The blood slowed its spraying into the cell and then stopped. I gave the smallest eye twitch to see a tourniquet on the arm, but Rico was unconscious and sagging in the bars. Leduc was on the outside of the bars holding him up for some reason. Maybe there was a good first aid reason for it. I didn’t know. I fought to keep my attention on the leopard.
Voices came back in pieces with some parts louder and then farther away like some kind of special effect. I’d had my hearing come back from shit like this before, so I wasn’t worried. I didn’t look around, trying to figure out if people were moving closer and farther away or if it was just my ears. It would pass.
I yelled, “Where were you, Duke?”
“I took Troy down to see a lawyer.”
I realized that Troy wasn’t in the other cell. Fuck, that was all Rico had needed.
“It was your job to keep Bobby safe, damn it!”
I knew I was yelling louder than I thought, because my hearing wasn’t quite right yet, but honestly, screaming sounded like a great idea. All the effort to save Bobby Marchand and it was all for nothing, for nothing.
The ambulance arrived, but the crew members wouldn’t go in the cell with the leopard. I couldn’t blame them. The body on the floor moved, drew a breath that made the pale gold and black-spotted fur rise and fall. That one clean spot in the bloody mess of the rest of the body moved. It was alive, but if the paramedics and the firemen with the Jaws of Life didn’t get in here soon, Rico wouldn’t be. The leopard stirred enough that the first responders saw it. I felt rather than saw their panic in the hallway. I couldn’t see it, because I couldn’t afford to look away from the leopard at my feet. I shot into that body, making the change in angle for the heart in leopard form. I did my job. I did the job that Newman was supposed to have done before I ever got on a plane. Had Bobby been framed for the first murder? Yes, but that wasn’t going to be much comfort to Rico if he lived.
The body turned human, which probably meant that Bobby was dead, but not always. If you’d have asked me if Bobby was powerful enough to heal from this much high-content silver ammo, I’d have said no, but I’d also have sworn that he wasn’t a danger to anyone. I’d been wrong once. I didn’t want to be wrong again.
Olaf was in the cell with me, his gun pointed at the body. I got my ear protection out of the pouch I kept it in and put it on. I covered the body while Olaf did the same. He didn’t question me. He didn’t try to ask to decapitate the body or take the heart with a blade. He didn’t do anything but back my play. I stared down at Bobby’s body. Mercifully he was lying on his side so I couldn’t see the front of him, and his head was turned so that I could see only the edges of his face. I didn’t have to stare into his eyes as I shot into his skull until it cracked and burst, spreading gore and brains all over the floor. I put my boot against the shoulder and rolled the body more completely onto its stomach and then shot where the heart would have been. I clicked empty and stepped back to reload while Olaf moved over the body and started firing into the chest. I covered the body while Olaf shot through the chest until the body was almost bisected.
Olaf clicked empty, and I kept my gun on the body while he reloaded. It was a formality, me watching the body like that, because it was as dead as we could make it unless we wanted to burn the body to ashes. But it wasn’t a vampire, so burning was overkill, both metaphysically and legally. The warrant was complete.
78
I STOOD OUTSIDE in the sunlight trying not to think, not to feel, and failing. Olaf was there almost blocking out the sun.
“We killed together after all,” he said.
I turned my head slowly to look at him. Anyone who knew me well would have moved away or stopped talking. Apparently Olaf didn’t know me that well.
“But it was not satisfying.”
“Not satisfying? Not satisfying! What the fuck, Olaf? What the fuck!” I yelled, and realized I’d used his real name in front of the other cops.
I took a deep breath, trying to swallow the anger down enough to think and not just react, but I kept seeing Bobby’s blond hair and his brains on the floor. I wanted to scream, not words—just scream wordless, hopeless, enraged. The only thing that kept me from it was knowing if I started to scream, I wasn’t sure I’d stop. I didn’t mean I’d say things to Olaf I would regret. I meant that I’d just scream until my voice was raw, and when the screaming stopped, maybe I’d cry, or maybe I’d think of something more useful to do.
Olaf said, “I am sorry.”
I stared at him, because of all the things he could have said to try to calm me down, that was a good one, especially coming from him. I stared at him, speechless. His face was still the empty serial killer calm. It wasn’t the face that went with I’m sorry.
I felt Nicky’s energy before the SUV pulled up behind all the emergency vehicles and the gawkers. There’s always an audience for tragedy. I hated them all today. But it had been the crowd and the lights that let Nicky and the others know to come find me. So maybe I shouldn’t have hated the crowd, but I did. They weren’t here to help; they just wanted to see the circus. Bread and circuses. Jesus.
Nicky was suddenly beside me. I’d missed some time somewhere in there. Shit. I had to do better than this. He was careful not to touch me, because he could feel what I was feeling, which meant he knew that hugging me now would either make me start screaming, crying, or hitting something. Touching was bad for the next few minutes.
“Anita, I’m so sorry.”
I looked up at Nicky, and Olaf was still close enough that I could see him past Nicky’s shoulder. They’d both said almost the same thing, and they were both still blank-faced and sociopathic.
“What are you sorry about, Nicky? You didn’t kill him. I did.”
“You didn’t make . . . him kill Rico,” Nicky said.
He’d been about to say didn’t make Bobby, but he didn’t want to remind me of names. It’s never good to think of names after you’ve shot someone to pieces. They’re bodies, meat, not real, not the people you knew or thought they were. It’s just an it. It’s just dead meat. You can’t personalize it. I swallowed the scream that seemed to be stuck at the back of my throat. Nothing I had said had cleared it, as if I hadn’t made the right noise yet.
I licked my lips; my mouth was dry.
> Pierette dropped to her knees in front of me. “I have failed you, my queen.”