Laurell Hamilton - Hit List

Edward and I looked at him.

Ethan smiled, quick and surprised. “Are you saying that the two of you are better than all of us?”

I shrugged, not always the most comfortable thing in the shoulder holster. It made me have to resettle the straps with a shoulder movement that looked like what it was, adjusting a strap on a holster that wasn’t quite comfy.

“I think it’s more that Ted and I trust each other more than we trust a bunch of men we don’t know.”

“What she said.”

“You’re human,” Ethan said. “You saw what just one of these people did to a hallway full of weretigers. They’re trained guards, Anita.”

“They’re not as well trained as you are,” I said.

He shrugged, and had to do his own version of resettling the straps; without his own marshal Windbreaker it was very obvious. “The other guards wouldn’t agree with you.”

“You held your own with George. Hand to hand with him armed with a gun and a blade, and you kept him at bay.”

“He was toying with me, Anita. He was keeping me enough in the fight so my body was blocking your shot.”

“When did you figure that out?” I asked.

“When he had an opening for the knife and didn’t take it.”

“If you hadn’t sacrificed your arm to his knife and thrown yourself backward, I’d have never been able to shoot him.”

Edward motioned at the bandage on Ethan’s arm. “So you let him cut you, knowing it was a silver blade, and threw yourself back onto the floor so Anita could shoot him?”

Ethan nodded.

Edward gave a small smile. “You trusted her to shoot him before he could fall on you and finish you.”

Ethan nodded again.

Edward studied the other man. “You trusted that George was more worried about Anita shooting him than about killing you?”

“Yes,” Ethan said, and he was frowning now.

“Why?” Edward asked.

“Why what?”

“Why would you trust Anita that much? You’d just met her.”

Ethan frowned. He seemed to think about it for a moment or two. “Her reputation, and the fact that one of the greatest fighters to ever walk the face of the earth was that worried about her. He was that convinced that she would not only shoot him, but kill him. He was way more worried about her than me.”

“So you trusted that the bad guy had researched Anita, and if he was scared of her, then you’d trust her to be scary?”

Ethan thought about that for another moment or two. Then he nodded. “I guess so.”

“You decided all that in the middle of a fight,” Edward said.

“While healing a wound in his side,” I said.

Edward looked at me. “What?”

“When the bad guy made Alex go crazy with rage, he shoved Ethan into the machinery.”

“I got that,” Edward said.

“Did you also get that one of the broken pipes got shoved through Ethan’s side?”

Edward raised eyebrows just a little at that. “No.”

“He dragged himself off the pipe while I was trying to calm Alex.”

“Dragged himself off the pipe?” Edward said.

“Yep.”

Edward looked back at Ethan, and it was a considering look. He finally gave a small nod. “That’ll do.”

I smiled, because I knew what that meant.

Ethan frowned at both of us. “What’ll do?”

“You,” I said.

He frowned harder. “What?”

“You’ve passed inspection,” I said.

Ethan looked at Edward. “His inspection?”

“Our inspection,” Edward said.

He looked from one to the other of us. “You guys have worked together a long time.”

We glanced at each other and then back to Ethan. We both said, “Yes.”

EDWARD’S PHONE RANG. When it wasn’t Donna, apparently his ringtone was an old-fashioned ring. Good to know. “Forrester here.”

I heard a man’s voice like a rumble over the phone. I wondered if Ethan could actually hear the other side of the conversation.

Edward went straight into his Ted voice, all cheerful and aw-shucks. “Tilford, that’s good thinkin’ if ya got a good enough psychic.”

Ethan raised eyebrows at the change in Edward’s voice, but it wasn’t just his voice. Edward stood a little differently; his facial expressions matched the voice. There was more than one reason that he’d been so good at undercover work. He wasn’t just good at killing people; he was, in his way, as good at hiding among his prey as the Harlequin.

“Really, Morrigan Williams.”

The moment I heard the name, my stomach tried to drop into my feet. She was a very good psychic. A little too good if you were keeping as many secrets as Edward and I were.

“So Morrigan Williams was here visiting. You lucked out, Tilford.” Edward grinned at the phone as if Tilford could see him. He could do the Ted voice without the whole body and face going with it, but he tended to stay in character if we were with more law enforcement, as if he were more concerned about not dropping the act when he knew he’d be “Ted” for a long time.

He’d mentioned the name twice so I’d be sure to get the point. Neither of us would want to be spending much time near her. She was entirely too good, and her specialty was things that dealt with death. She specialized in serial killer cases and other violent death. Violence spoke to her psychically, the way it drew Edward and me in real life.

Edward got off the phone. The moment he was off, his face began to close down, go from smiling Ted to blank and serious. His blue eyes were cold when they looked at me. “You heard.”

“Neither you nor I can be anywhere near her,” I said.

“Why? She helps the police solve cases and talks to ghosts. Why should that be a problem for you guys?” Ethan asked.

“I’ve had psychics tell me that I’m covered in death. That my energy was so stained with all I’d done that they couldn’t be near me. They were gifted, but like most psychics they got impressions more than anything else. From all accounts Morrigan Williams gets much more detail.”

“You’re afraid she’ll see something about you two and tell the other policemen,” Ethan said.

“Yes,” I said.

“She’s that good?” He made it a question.

“If her reputation is deserved, yes,” I said.

“Can you avoid her?” Ethan asked.

I liked that. We’d told him the situation and he went straight to testing for a solution. “I don’t know.”

“Tilford has her at the first murder site now.”

“You mean the first murder site in this city,” I said.

Edward nodded. “You’re right, it’s not even close to the first, but yeah, he’s at the softball field.”

“That was fast,” I said.

“Apparently, she contacted the police. She was told that she could help them find what they seek.”

“That sounds like the regular psychic stuff,” Ethan said.

“True,” I said. I looked at Edward. “Maybe her reputation isn’t deserved.”

“Maybe,” he said. We looked at each other for a minute.

“What does Tilford want us to do?”

“He’s got a feeling that she’ll give them a direction to hunt in, so he wants us back to help finish the hunt.”

“That’s a lot of faith,” I said.

“I think Tilford trusts you and me at his back more than Newman.”

I grinned. “Well, who wouldn’t?”

“Is Newman bad at the job?” Ethan asked.

“No,” I said.

“We don’t know yet,” Edward said.

“He is literally the new man on the team,” I said.

“So untried commodity,” Ethan said.

“He’s fresh out of the training and he’s never been on a real vampire hunt.”

“I wouldn’t want him at my back either,” Ethan said, “or at least not just him.”