Laurell Hamilton - Hit List

Edward was on his feet; I climbed up the other side of the ditch to stay by his side. He had his gun up and ready and was moving in that shuffling, bent-legged walk that most of the special forces and especially SWAT used. It was supposed to help you move well, but keep you as steady as possible for shooting. I’d never been trained, but I’d grown up in the woods, and hunting. I knew how to move in trees.

I heard the other police behind us, crashing through the trees like a herd of elephants. I knew they weren’t actually that loud, but they seemed thunderous behind us, so that the noise seemed to make it even harder to search the shadowed trees for the Harlequin, as if the noise masked everything. I fought the urge to turn and yell at them to be quiet.

“Cover me,” Edward said.

I moved until I was almost over him, looking out into the ever thickening shadows as he knelt down. “Blood,” he said.

I glanced at him, still trying to keep a peripheral sense of the trees and the growing darkness under the trees. There was more light on the road behind us, but here in the thick trees night would come early.

“You wounded them?” This from Tilford, as he came up on the other side of Edward. He had his own M4 pointed out into the trees.

I said, “Yes.”

Edward said, “We follow the blood trail.”

“It’ll be dark soon,” Tilford said.

Edward stood up. “It will.”

Newman was with us now. “I’ve never seen anything move that fast.”

“We need them dead before full dark,” I said, and was already moving through the trees.

“Why?” Newman asked.

“Because the vampires will rise,” Edward said.

“How do you know there will be vampires?” Newman asked.

Tilford answered, “Wereanimals don’t wear masks and cloaks. They don’t sneak around. They just attack. The only thing that makes them behave like this is a vampire master. Night means we get to meet their masters, and I’d rather the shifters be dead before we have the vampires to deal with.”

Edward and I exchanged a quick look. We both thought better of Tilford in that moment. I said, “What he said.”

We followed the blood trail in the ever-growing dark. We followed the fresh blood even though every molecule in my body was screaming for me to run. Run before dark. Run before the vampires came. Run. But I didn’t run, and neither did the other marshals. We followed the trail, because that was our job. We followed the trail because if they got away and killed more people, none of us wanted to look down at the body and explain why we’d let shadows and maybe a threat of vampires scare us off. We were U.S. Marshals. We hunted and killed the monsters. We did not run from them.

IT GOT DARK enough that Edward and Tilford turned on the flashlights that were attached to the barrels of their M4s. It was a mixed blessing. It allowed us to follow the blood trail but ruined our night vision. I finally kept my gaze away from the lights. One of us needed to be able to see what the deepening shadows might hold. Following the blood trail was important, but if the Harlequin that were bleeding found us first, there’d be more blood, and some of it would likely be ours. Was that pessimistic, or realistic? I had trouble telling sometimes.

Newman followed me ahead into the creeping gloom. “Do you see something?”

“Not yet.”

“Saving your night vision from the lights?”

That made me glance at him. “Yes, how’d you know?”

“I was raised in the country. I’m okay in the dark most nights.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“Country girl?”

“Something like that.”

“I’d have pegged you for a city girl,” he said. All the time we talked we looked out into the coming dark, searching the trees for movement. He had his gun at his shoulder just like I did. I was beginning to like Newman and I didn’t want to, because I’d liked Karlton and now she was in the hospital breathing with help. The shapeshifter had collapsed one of her lungs. They were waiting to see if her body would heal it without operating. If she had caught some version of lycanthropy then she’d heal as good as new, so they waited. The waiting meant they thought her blood tests were going to come back contaminated with the virus. With deep puncture wounds, lycanthropy was usually a given.

“I’m a city girl now,” I said.

Edward came to us, the light pointed at the ground, and finally turned it off before he got to us. Even that much light for that small an amount of time seemed to make the thick twilight thicker.

One look at his face and I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The blood pattern has changed. One of them is carrying the other, and he’s running with him. He’s been running through the woods while we crawled after them; that’s why we haven’t heard them.”

“They’re gone,” I said.

“Good as,” he said, and there was still enough light for me to see how disgusted he was with it all.

“If we can’t trail them, then Tilford is right—we need to get out of here before full dark.”

“We don’t have enough people to move the truck, Anita.”

“We can move the tree,” I said, “and we can all fit in our SUV.”

He nodded. “Done.”

Tilford didn’t argue, and Newman didn’t try to argue with the three of us. He was learning. If we could keep him alive, maybe he’d actually be good at the job.

THE TREE WAS an old deadfall. It wasn’t as heavy as a fresh tree would have been, but it was heavy enough, and big enough that the four of us had to think about how best to use the muscle we had available.

Tilford keep glancing up as well as out into the trees, while we decided where best to grab hold. “Why do you keep looking up?” Newman asked.

“Sometimes they fly,” Tilford said.

Edward and I just nodded.

Newman started glancing up, too. He was a quick study; I hoped he didn’t die. And the moment I thought it again, I realized I was being morbid. Crap.

We put Tilford and Newman at the front of the tree, and Edward and I took the back. That part was bigger, a little heavier, but there was less of it to shove across the road. Edward counted, “One, two, three,” and they pulled, and we shoved. I’d never really tried to use every bit of the new strength I’d gained through vampire marks and lycanthropy. I tried now. Our end of the tree moved, really moved, and it startled me and Edward. He slipped in the leaves a little. I slipped forward and scraped my arm on a jagged root. It was sharp, and immediate, and I knew it was going to bleed before I felt the first trickle. I cursed under my breath.

“How bad?” Edward asked.

“Keep shoving,” I said.

He took that to mean it wasn’t bad, and we shoved. The tree trunk was onto the road completely now. I felt the vampires wake like a jolt down my spine. It was still light enough that they couldn’t come for us, not yet, but we were minutes away. I dug my feet in, put my shoulder down, and prayed. I prayed that if I had any super-strength, I would use it now. I prayed, “God, if I can move this tree, let me move it now.”

I breathed out in a yell, the way you do sometimes in the gym when you’re lifting something heavy, something that you’re not sure you can move. But it moved. Edward put his shoulder beside mine, and the other men pulled, and the tree moved. I yelled again, and the tree slid across the road as if it were on wheels. It just gave. I fell to my knees, because I hadn’t expected it to move like that.

“Anita . . .” Edward started to help me up.

“Car, start it now.” I said.

He didn’t argue with me. He just did what I said. I liked that. I moved my gun around on its strap so it was in my hands and ready.