Hit List (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 20)

EDWARD FOUND ME leaning against the cleanest part of the alley wall I could find. I was crying, not a lot, but still doing it. He didn't say anything. He just leaned against the wall beside me, having to tip his cowboy hat forward so it didn't bump the wall. He looked very Marlboro Man with the hat hiding most of his upper face.

"I still can't get used to you doing the whole Ted cowboy thing." My voice was steady; if the tears hadn't been visible you couldn't have told I was crying.

He grinned. "It makes people comfortable around him."

"Talking about Ted in the third person, when he's you, is a little creepy, too."

He grinned wider, and drawled in that Ted voice, "Now, little lady, you know Ted isn't real. He's just a name I use."

"He's your legal identity. I think it's your birth name."

The grin began to fade around the edges, and I didn't have to see his eyes to know they were going cold and empty. "If you want to ask a question, ask it."

"I've asked before and you wouldn't answer."

"That was then, this is now." His voice was very quiet, very Edward.

I tried to read what I could see of his face. "Okay, is Ted, or rather Theodore Forrester, your birth name?"

He moved the hat so he could look me in the eye as he said, "Yes."

I just blinked at him. "Really, just like that, you finally give me a yes?"

He gave a small shrug, his mouth quirking.

"It was because I was crying, wasn't it?"

"Maybe."

Then I just went back to the fact that I finally had confirmation that Edward had been born Theodore Forrester. In a way, Ted was the real person, and Edward the secret identity.

"Thank you," I said.

"For finally answering the question?"

I nodded and smiled. "And for giving a shit that I was crying."

"What did Raborn want?"

I told him, ending with, "I know it was a stupid reason to cry. You'd think I'd get used to being called a monster."

"It's only been a month since you had to make the hardest kill of your life, Anita. Give yourself a break."

Edward hadn't been with me for the kill, because it hadn't been a legal monster hunt. It had been Haven, our local Rex, lion king, going apeshit and shooting Nathaniel, my live-in sweetie, wereleopard to call, and one of the loves of my life. Haven had meant to kill him, but Noel, one of the weakest of our werelions, had put himself between Nathaniel and that bullet. He'd lost his life to save Nathaniel's, and I'd barely known Noel. Haven had been jealous, and wanted to hurt me as badly as possible; that he'd chosen Nathaniel's death as the most painful thing he could do to me was something I still hadn't looked at too closely. I had enough pain, because Haven had been one of my lovers. I'd never killed anyone that I'd cared about before. It hadn't felt very good. In fact, it had sucked.

"You're saying I'm still raw from killing Haven?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever had to kill a lover?"

"Yes."

I glanced at him. "Really?"

He nodded. "Now ask me if I cared about her."

"Okay, did you care about her?"

"No."

"And I cared about Haven, so it hurts more."

"I think so," he said.

We leaned against the wall some more in companionable silence. Edward and I didn't need to talk - we could talk, but we didn't need to. "We're going about hunting these killers all wrong. Even if we didn't know what was killing them, and sort of why, we're still doing it ass-backward."

"We need to consolidate the warrants of execution from the first three cities and just make it one hunt," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"But the first three warrants are all in the hands of marshals who were book-and-classroom trained. They were cops, but no one has a violent crimes background. I'm not sure why they're recruiting some of these kids."

"We were all kids once, Edward, but we need to take over the warrants before some of the other marshals get themselves killed. Raborn said that you, me, Jefferies, and Spotted-Horse are the cleanup crew. We come onto a warrant after other marshals have been killed or injured."

"It's the law, Anita. The warrant is theirs until they are unable to execute it, through death or injury, or they sign it over to another marshal for some other reason."

"Let's make them sign it over to us now."

"How?" he asked.

"We could just ask," I said.

"I asked two of the marshals. They both refused."

"You asked the men," I said.

"Yes."

"So I'll ask the female marshal," I said.

"A little girl talk?" he asked.

I frowned at him. "I don't really do girl talk, but I'll try to persuade her to sign the warrant over to me. If just one of them signs off, then we can hunt the monsters. Stop the crimes by killing the criminal, not by solving them."

"I like it," he said.

"You know and I know that we're legal assassins, not cops. Sometimes we solve crimes and catch the bad guys, but at the end of most days we kill people."

"You sound like that bothers you," he said. He looked at me as he asked it.

I shrugged. "It does, and we already discussed that it doesn't bother you. Well, fucking bully for you, but it's beginning to get on my nerves."

"I think I've figured out a way to use you as bait to lure them out, if it's really you they're wanting."

I studied his unreadable face. "But first we'll need someone to sign a warrant over to us, right?"

"That would help, and you getting some bodyguards from home, and maybe calling in Bernardo and Olaf now, before anyone's dead, as backup wouldn't be a bad idea."

"Olaf still thinks I'm his girlfriend or something."

"The couple that slaughters people together stays together."

"That wasn't really very funny," I said.

"Yes, it was, but I apologize anyway. We both know that someday you, or I, will have to kill Olaf because he's decided to kill you."

"If he really plans on killing me he'll kill you first, Edward, because he knows that you won't rest until he's dead."

"You'd do the same for me."

"True, so he'd kill us really close together, so neither of us could go all revenge on his ass."

"Probably," Edward said.

"And yet, you'll call him in to back us up on this case."

"He's a good man in a fight."

"He's a crazy psycho killer, is what he is," I said.

"Technically he's not psychotic."

"So just a crazy killer," I said.

"Yeah." He smiled and it actually reached his eyes; it was a real smile, not Ted's smile, but Edward smiling. I didn't get to see the smile often, so I valued it when I did. I had to smile back.

I shook my head, still smiling. "Fine, I'll try to get the other marshal to sign off, and then you call in Bernardo and Olaf, but I can't get bodyguards from home to come help us. We're marshals, they aren't, and being able to deputize people isn't a power the Marshals Service has been granted in a very long time."

"You haven't been keeping up on current events."

I frowned at him. "What?"

"Last month a marshal died, because backup didn't arrive in time, but a soldier just home from Iraq was able to take the marshal's weapons and finish the shapeshifter off."

"I did hear about that. It was tragic and brave and, so what?"

"You really don't check the official emails, do you?"

"Maybe not as often as I should; what'd I miss?"

He got his phone out of his pocket and used his finger to roll through emails, then held the tiny screen up to me. I read it through twice. "You're joking me."

"It's official."

"We have the right to deputize not only if we are without backup, but if we feel that an individual's skill set is of benefit to the execution of our warrant and will save civilian lives. Mother of God, Edward, this gives us carte blanche to form a fucking mob."

"There's potential for abuse, yes."

"Potential for abuse, there's potential for pitchforks and torches," I said.

"Anita, come on, no one would use pitchforks or torches anymore. It'd be flashlights and guns."

"This isn't funny, Edward; this is a civil rights problem waiting to happen."

"I didn't know you cared about that, or did that change when you helped get the law passed to spare little vampires when their master is the bad guy?"

"I'm just saying that this little amendment to the law could get out of hand really fast."

"It could, it probably will, but for us, right now, it's useful."

"Are you saying we deputize some of the bodyguards from St. Louis?"

"It's a thought," he said.

I opened my mouth, closed it, thought about it, then said, "Damn, great for us right now, but . . ."

"Take that it helps us right now, Anita. We'll worry about legal rampaging mobs later."

I nodded. "Deal."

"Get her to sign the warrant over to you and I'll call Olaf and Bernardo in, and you pick bodyguards from home."

"You know most of them now; you want to help pick?"

"I trust your judgment," he said.

"High praise coming from you."

"Deserved," he said.

I tried not to look too pleased, and probably failed. "Thanks, Edward."

"Don't mention it, but first you need her to sign the warrant over to you. Get the warrant, and then I have a plan."

He wouldn't tell me the plan, but since he'd actually admitted his "real" name to me, I could let him keep his secret plan - for now.