Laurell Hamilton - Hit List

“How’s she dealing with losing her badge?” Bernardo asked, and there was a hint that he really cared about that question.

All the preternatural branch marshals lived with the idea that we could be next. When you hunted shapeshifters, death was just one of the things you risked.

“They can’t technically take her badge yet,” I said.

Bernardo frowned. “Most marshals give it up when they come back positive.”

“But they don’t have to,” I said.

It was Olaf who said, “You told her to come hunting with us.” His voice was lower than normal, a rumbling in his chest, as if some emotion were dragging his voice down.

“Yep,” I said, and fought the urge to put my hand nearer any of my weapons. He hadn’t done a damn thing to threaten me. He was just standing there, looking at me. For him, it wasn’t even a bad look, just intense.

“I do not want another woman on this hunt, only you.”

“It’s not your call who comes. The warrants are mine and Edward’s. He’s got Newman with him now.”

“The boy has to learn,” Olaf said, “but the girl will be a werewolf in a month’s time. Training her is a waste of effort.”

He was right, as far as it went. “She needs this, Otto,” I said, remembering just in time that his official name was Otto Jefferies. Marshal Otto Jefferies.

“She will slow us down,” he said. He kept staring at me, but it was eye contact. I couldn’t accuse him of staring at my breasts or anything. I normally like eye contact, I give great eye contact, but there was something about Olaf’s attention that made holding his gaze feel like work, as if his eyes were weight that I had to hold up just to stay standing there. If he’d been a vampire I’d have accused him of doing some vampire mind shit that I hadn’t heard of, but it wasn’t that. It was just him. Just the weight of his personality and our growing shared history. Shit.

“Maybe, but she’s still coming.”

“Why?” he asked, and I think it was a real question. A real attempt to understand what I was doing and why, so it deserved a real answer.

“This has really shaken her confidence, and she feels like a monster already. Her father wouldn’t even touch her hand, as if just that would contaminate him.” I shook my head and didn’t try to keep the anger off my face.

“Why do you care about her? She is a stranger to you.”

“I’m not sure I can explain it to you,” I said.

“Once I would have thought you meant I was too stupid to understand, but I know you do not think me stupid.”

“No,” I said, “I never think that.”

“Then explain to me why you care.”

“We’re supposed to take care of each other, Otto.” I spread my hands wide, almost a shrug, showing that I just didn’t know how to say it better than that.

“If they are an asset in the field, you want them healthy so they can give you backup. That is common sense, but the new marshal will not be helpful. She is traumatized, and that slows most people down. She will make bad decisions.”

“You don’t know that,” I said.

He gave an arrogant smile. “I do know that.”

“You don’t know Karlton. You don’t what she’ll be like in the field now.”

“She is a woman. She will be weak.”

I suddenly had no trouble meeting his eyes, at all. Anger makes so many things easier. “Do I point out the obvious?” I asked.

“If you like,” he said.

“It wasn’t a man who broke your wrist.”

Bernardo stepped a little more between us, so we both looked at him. “Let’s take this outside.”

“Why?” I asked.

He leaned in close enough that his long, straight hair spilled up against mine. I had a whiff of expensive cologne, something spiced and musky, but just a hint, not too much, and you had to be close to notice it. Unlike some men who seemed to bathe in it. No matter how nice the cologne, if the man put too much on it smelled horrible; Bernardo didn’t smell horrible.

He whispered, “What you just said doesn’t match the story we told the emergency room staff.”

Oh. Out loud I said, “Sorry, yeah, let’s take it outside.”

We all moved for the big doors and the outside world. A woman in a white coat with her short brown hair in a tiny ponytail got my attention. It took me a second to recognize her from when I got stitched up. She was one of the interns. I couldn’t think of anything she needed from me, but I stopped like you’re supposed to; I was girl enough not to keep walking.

The men stopped with me, waiting. She seemed a little flustered at that, and motioned me away from them. I wondered if she was going to ask me more questions about my healing abilities, or even ask to see the wound. I’d had other medical professionals ask to see injuries that they’d helped treat.

She was only a little taller than me, maybe five-five, though I glanced down as she leaned in, and saw she was wearing at least two-inch heels on her low boots.

“Marshal Forrester had a wife and family, but how about the other marshals with you?”

I didn’t try to explain that he wasn’t legally married to Donna. They’d been living together longer than Micah, Nathaniel, and me, and only a couple of years less than Jean-Claude and I had been dating.

“The one with his hair back in a ponytail is married with kids.” I hesitated about Nicky. Technically he was free to sleep with other women. I wasn’t monogamous, so it seemed unfair to make him cleave only unto me, but he was here to feed the ardeur and guard my back, so I said, “The blond is with me.”

“Lucky you,” she said.

I smiled automatically. “Thanks. To my knowledge neither Marshal Spotted-Horse nor Marshal Jefferies has a girlfriend.” Then I realized I was talking to a petite dark-haired woman. The hair was a little less dark than he preferred, but she was close enough to his victim profile for me to think of it. If I thought of it, so might he. Crap.

“Oh, sorry, Marshal Jefferies, the tall guy, is involved with someone. It’s new, I keep forgetting.”

“How new?” she asked.

I smiled. “Trust me, what was your name again?”

“Reed, Patience Reed.”

I crooked an eyebrow at that.

She laughed, and it was a good laugh, happy, light. She seemed younger just from the sound of it. “I know it’s a terrible name for a doctor.” She rolled her eyes, and again I thought, young, innocent. So, had to keep her away from Olaf.

I smiled, and pushed it all the way up into my eyes, so she wouldn’t see me worry. “Patience is pretty funny for a doctor. Anyway, Olaf is pretty serious about the new woman in his life, but Bernardo is free and clear for dating.”

“Bernardo, is that his name?” She looked behind me as she said it, and I was pretty sure without turning around that she was looking at him.

“Yep, Bernardo Spotted-Horse.”

“He’s Native American?” she asked.

“Yep.”

She looked away hastily and blushed just a touch. I was betting that Bernardo had favored her with one of his killer smiles. The one that made the drive-through girl tell him what time she got off work.

Patience Reed said, “He’s almost too beautiful to ask out.”

“You should ask him out,” I said.

“You think he’d go out for coffee, or drinks?”

I nodded. “I don’t know if any of us are going to have time to socialize much, but you should give him your number or something. We might have some down time, you never know.”

“Oh, I couldn’t just ask him like that.” Then her eyes narrowed at something behind me. It made me glance back to find a couple of nurses talking to Bernardo. He was smiling and talking to them.

“I’d give him your number before they do,” I said.