Laurell Hamilton: Hit List

“You are a little bitty thing. You look dainty as my youngest daughter. I’ve read your cases. I know what you’ve managed to kill. You’ve been called in on cases where the first marshals were hospitalized, or killed outright. You, Marshal Forrester, Marshal Spotted-Horse, and Marshal Jefferies are the go-to guys for cleaning up the mess.”

The “Otto Jefferies” identity was to Olaf what “Ted Forrester” was to Edward. Olaf was scarier than Edward, though, because among the mercenary stuff his hobby was being a serial killer. He’d promised Edward and some part of some government that he wouldn’t do his hobby on American soil. It was one of the ways he kept his day job helping train some uber-secret unit. His victims of choice were petite dark-haired women. He seemed to have a crush on me now, and had flat-out told me he’d be willing to try for normal sex with me, or at least sex that didn’t involve my being tortured and dead. Edward wanted me to encourage the attraction, because it was the closest to healthy Olaf had ever been around a woman, but we both agreed that the line between being Olaf’s serial killer girlfriend as we killed vampires together, and triggering his own serial killer needs toward me, was probably a thin one. Bernardo Spotted-Horse, like me, just had one name, our real names. Neither of us had ever made a living doing things as harsh as Edward and Olaf.

“We do what we can,” I said.

“They all have military backgrounds, special forces. They’re all big, physically imposing men.”

“Ted is only five-eight, not that imposing,” I said.

Raborn smiled. “Marshal Forrester seems taller.”

I smiled, too. “That he does.”

“Sometimes, so do you.”

I just looked at him. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Do the vampires really call you ‘the Executioner’?”

I shrugged. “Nicknames.”

“Just answer the question,” he said.

“Fine, I’ve killed more of them than any other vampire hunter. When you kill enough people, it tends to impress the survivors.”

“You can’t be as good at killing as your reputation.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because if you were, you couldn’t be human.” He gave me that flat, searching gaze.

“My blood work is on record.”

“You carry, at last count, five different types of lycanthropy, which isn’t possible. The whole idea of lycanthropy is that once you get it, you can’t catch anything else.”

“Yeah, I’m a medical miracle.”

“How can you carry active lycanthropy and not shapeshift?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” Actually, I didn’t know for sure, but we’d begun to suspect it was the vampire marks that I carried as Jean-Claude’s human servant. It was as if his control and inability to change shape were shared with me. I didn’t care what kept me from shifting; I was just happy for it. If I ever shifted for real, I’d lose my badge. I’d be considered unfit for duty due to disability.

“It makes you more than human-strong, though, doesn’t it?”

“You’ll turn a girl’s head complimenting me like that,” I said.

“I’ve seen your fitness reports, Blake; don’t be coy.”

“Then you know I can pretty much lift weight until the mass of the weight to be lifted exceeds my body mass. Any other questions?”

He looked at me and tapped his finger on the edge of the file that had held the photos. “Not right now.”

“Good.” I stood up.

“The preternatural branch of the service is becoming more and more its own unit; did you know there’s talk of forming a new branch of service altogether?”

“I’ve heard the rumor,” I said, looking down at him.

“Some of the preternatural branch marshals are just killers with badges.”

“Yep,” I said.

“Why do you think the powers that be let you all run wild like this?”

I looked down at him. It seemed like a real question. “I don’t know for sure, but if I had to guess I’d say they’re making us into a legal hit squad. They give us badges to placate the liberal left, but they give us enough room in the law to kill the monsters the way the not-so-liberal right wants us to.”

“So you think the government is turning a blind eye to what the preternatural branch is becoming.”

“No, Marshal Raborn, I think they’re setting themselves up.”

“Setting themselves up for what?” he asked.

“Plausible deniability,” I said.

We looked at each other. “There are rumors that the laws are going to change again, and vampires and shapeshifters will be easier to kill legally, with less cause.”

“There are always rumors,” I said.

“If the laws change, which side will you be on?”

“The side I’m always on.”

“Which is?” He studied my face as he asked.

“Mine.”

“Do you think of yourself as human?” he asked.

I went for the door then, but stopped with my hand on the doorknob. I looked back at him. “Legally, shapeshifters and vampires are human; that you’d even ask that of me is not only insulting, but probably illegal.”

“I’ll deny I said it,” he said.

“Well, that answers my question.”

“What question?”

“If you were honest, or a lying bastard.”

His face darkened, and he stood up, sort of looming on the edge of his desk. “Get out of my office.”

“My pleasure,” I said. I opened the door, shut it firmly but calmly behind me, and walked out through the desks of the other marshals. They’d watched the “talk” through the glass windows of Raborn’s office. They’d seen the body language, and they knew the talk had ended badly. I didn’t care. I was just walking, because my throat was tight, and my eyes burned. Was I really going to cry because Raborn had asked me if I thought I was human? I hoped not.

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?”