Anita Blake - 20 - Hit List.pdf

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THE MAIN PIECE of the body lay on the ground, on its back in the middle of a smooth
grassy field. In the predawn gloom everything looked gray, but there were scuffed and paler
places around the field; I think we were in standing in the middle of a softball field. The “we”
was Edward, U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester, and me, U.S. Marshal Anita Blake. Edward was his
real name, the real him. Forrester was his secret identity, like Clark Kent for Superman, but to
the other marshals he was good ol‘ boy Ted, once a bounty hunter, now a marshal,
grandfathered in under the Preternatural Endangerment Act just like me. I‘d been a vampire
executioner, not a bounty hunter. But either way, there we stood with real badges; legally we
were real cops.
Edward still took assassination jobs if the pay was high enough, or the hit interesting
enough. He specialized in killing only dangerous things, like wereanimals and vampires.
Crime fighting had actually begun to take up most of his time. Work does interfere with your
hobbies.
There were other marshals over talking to the local police, but it was just Edward and
me standing in the middle of the scattered body parts. Maybe the others had gotten tired of
looking at them; we had come straight from the airport in Tacoma to the crime scene. The
other cops had been here longer. Dismembered bodies did lose their charm pretty fast.
I fought the urge to huddle in my Windbreaker with U.S. Marshal in big letters on it. It
was fifty freaking degrees here. Whoever heard of fifty being the regular temperature in
August? It was a hundred-plus with heat index at home in St. Louis. The stop before this one
had been Alabama.
Fifty degrees felt amazingly cold after all that heat and humidity. The light softened
around us and I could see the body parts better. It didn‘t make me like them any better.
―Is the body lying on its back, or its ass? - I asked.
―You mean because it‘s bisected at midchest and the parts are about ten feet away?
―Yeah, - I said.
―Does it matter? - he asked. He pushed his hand toward a cowboy hat that he‘d left in
the car that brought us from the airport. Ted wore a well-loved, well-creased cowboy hat, and
the fact that the hat gesture had become habitual said just how much time Edward was
spending as his legal alter ego. He settled for running his hand through his short blond hair.
He was five foot eight, which seemed tall to me at five-three.
―I guess not. - In my head I thought, Problems like that are what you think about when
you stare down at a dismembered body, because otherwise you want to run screaming, or
throw up . I hadn‘t thrown up on a body in years, but the St. Louis police had never let me
live it down.
―They can‘t find the heart, - he said, voice as unemotional as his face. The light was
strong enough that I could see that his eyes were blue rather than just pale. He had a summer
tan, light gold, but better than I tanned. It seemed wrong that the blond, blue-eyed WASP
tanned darker than I did with my mother‘s black hair and brown eyes. I was half Hispanic—
shouldn‘t I tan darker than white-bread boy?
―Anita, - he said, and he moved so I couldn‘t see the body. ―Talk to me.
I blinked at him. ―They won‘t find the heart. Just like they didn‘t find the last three
hearts. The killer, or killers, is taking the heart as a trophy, or proof of the kill. Like the
woodsman in Snow White taking the heart back to the Wicked Queen in a box, or something.
―I need you here, working this case, not lost in your head.
―I‘m here. - I frowned at him.
He shook his head. ―I‘ve seen you look at worse than this and be better about it.
―Maybe I‘m tired of looking at shit like this. Aren‘t you?
―You don‘t mean just this case, - he said.
I shook my head.
―Are you asking if looking at things like this bothers me?‖
―I would never ask that, it‘s against the guy code, - I said, and just saying it that way
made me smile a little.
He smiled back, but more like it was reflex. It never reached his eyes. They stayed cold
and empty as a winter sky. Once the other marshals joined us he‘d make his eyes sparkle, or
fill with some emotion; he didn‘t bother when it was just us. We knew each other too well;
there was no need to hide.
―No, it doesn‘t bother me.
I shrugged, and finally let myself huddle in the thin Windbreaker. At least with my main
gun at the small of my back instead of in the shoulder holster, I was able to zip it and not
compromise my gun. I still had my backup gun in the shoulder holster and a big-ass knife
down my back that attached to the specially made shoulder rig.
―It‘s more that I‘d rather be home.
―With your men, - he said, and again it was totally neutral.
I nodded. I missed the men in my life when I was away too long, and this was our fourth
crime scene in a fourth city. I was tired of planes, tired of other cops, tired of being away.
―I‘m missing Becca in Music Man . She‘s just in the chorus, but she‘s one of the
youngest they‘ve ever cast.
―She must be really good.
―She is. - He nodded, smiling, and this time it reached all the way up to his eyes. His
face was warm and happy thinking about his almost stepdaughter. He‘d been living with and
engaged to Donna for years, but never quite married, but the kids thought of him as their dad.
Becca had been only six when he and her mother started dating. Edward, whom the vampires
had nicknamed ―Death, - had taken Becca to dance class and sat in the waiting room with
the moms for years now. It made me smile just to think about it.
―It was more fun to hunt monsters before we had someone to go home to,‖ I said.
The smile faded and he turned cold eyes to look at where the head lay to one side of the
field. ―I can‘t argue that. I don‘t mind the bodies. It doesn‘t bother me, but I hope we get
home before the musical is over.
―How many nights does it run?
―Two weeks, - he said.
―Two weeks, starting today?
―Yes.
―I don‘t want to be out here another two weeks, - I said.
―Me, either, - he said, and this time he sounded tired.
The real trouble with this case for me was that I knew exactly why these victims had
been chosen. I even knew what was killing them. The trouble was I couldn‘t tell anyone but
Edward, because if I told the police everything I knew, the killers would come after me and
every policeman that I told, and everyone that they told. The Harlequin were the vampire
equivalent of police, spies, judge, jury, and executioner. They were also some of the greatest
warriors to ever live, or unlive. Some of them were vampires and some of them were
wereanimals, which was how they were slicing apart the bodies of the weretigers they were
killing across the country. The body at our feet looked like a human man. Before he died he‘d
been able to shift to a big-ass tiger, but it hadn‘t helped him against the Harlequin, just as it
hadn‘t helped any of the others. If two people were equally fast, equally strong, but one was
better trained at fighting, the better trained one would win. So far, none of the weretigers had
been anything but ordinary people who just happened to turn into weretigers.
―We‘re here to work the scene, - Edward said, ―so we do.
I sighed, squared my shoulders, and stopped huddling in my thin jacket. ―It‘s partly
that we know so much the other police need to know.
―We settled this, Anita. The . . . ones who can‘t be named— He glared at me. ―I
really hate that we can‘t even say their names out loud. It feels like we‘re in a Harry Potter
book talking about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
―You know the deal, Edward; if you mention their name without their invitation they
hunt you down and kill you for it. If I told the other police, everyone who said their name
would be hunted down and slaughtered. I don‘t know about you, but these guys are scary
good, and they seem to have knowledge of modern forensics.
―They‘re wearing cloaks, gloves, and hoods that cover their hair, Anita. The outfits
that keep them hidden from the other of these . . . guys help them not leave forensic evidence
behind.
―Fair enough.
―And the Whatevers that are on your side don‘t know the faces of the others. They
wear masks when they meet, like some terrorist cells, so they can spy on each other if they
need to.
―So we have no faces to give them, no names except nicknames, and those match the
masks they wear.
―I don‘t think assassins this good wear Venetian carnival masks in downtown Tacoma,
so the nicknames and masks don‘t help, - he said.
―So we know everything and nothing useful, - I said.
―If I‘d taken the contract to kill the Queen vampire, she‘d be dead right now.
―Or you would and I‘d be talking to Peter about why he‘s lost a second dad.
Edward gave me the full weight of his cold gaze. ―You know how good I am at my
job.
I‘d had years of practice meeting that cold gaze. I met it now. ―You don‘t understand,
Edward. She‘s the darkness, the night itself made alive.
―I wouldn‘t have just blown her body up and called the job done, - he said. -
Something that supernatural needed magic to kill it for good.
―What, you would have brought a witch along?
―No, but I would have gone to one and gotten charms, a blessed weapon, something.
The mercenaries the vampire council hired to kill her treated her like just another mark and
now we‘re all in the shit because of it.
I couldn‘t argue with him; he was too right. The Harlequin had been the law of the
vampire council in Europe for thousands of years, but their original job had been as
bodyguards to their Dark Queen. Half of them had broken with the vampire council and were
back to taking orders from the Mother of All Darkness.
―They thought fire would destroy her, - I said.
―Would you have assumed that?
I thought about it. ―No.
―What would you have done?
―I‘d have plastered myself with holy items, thrown more holy items on the body so her
spirit couldn‘t leave the body she‘s in, and taken her head and heart, then I‘d have burned it
all separately down to ash, and put the ashes of the head, the heart, and the body in different
bodies of running water.
―You really think she could come back if you put the ashes in the same body of water?
I shrugged. ―She survived the total destruction by fire of her body and was able to send
her spirit out to take over the body of other vampire council members. I wouldn‘t put anything
past her.
―So even if we find Morte d‘Amour, the Lover of Death, and destroy him, she‘ll just
jump to another host.
―She can survive as a disembodied spirit, Edward; I‘m not sure she can be killed.
―Everything dies, Anita. The universe will die eventually.
―I‘m not going to sweat what happens five billion years from now, Edward; the
universe can take care of itself. How do we stop them from killing innocent weretiger citizens,
and the bigger question, how do we stop her?
―You‘re the necromancer, I‘m just a humble killer, - he said.
―Which means, you don‘t know either, - I said.
―Why doesn‘t your boyfriend know? Jean-Claude is Master of the City of St. Louis,
and what‘s left of the European power structure is trying to make him head of a new vampire
council here in the States. Why aren‘t the vampires and all the other wereanimals you‘re
hanging out with helping to stop this?
―The other . . . whatevers are hunting these guys. They‘ll be traveling as they hear
about the bodies, but they‘re behind us, Edward. We‘ve been first on the ground in the last
three cities.
―For preternaturals that are supposed to be the greatest spies and assassins ever, they
suck at anything useful.
―We‘re not doing much better, - I said.
―So the vampires can‘t help us. We‘re cops, let‘s be cops, - he said.
―What does that mean?
―We work the scene. This is the kill site. This is where we can learn new things about
these bastards. Things that aren‘t legends, but what they did only a few hours ago. It can help
us catch them.
―You really believe that?
―I have to believe that, and so do you.
I took in a deep breath and wished I hadn‘t. There was a faint bitter smell because we
were standing near the end of the body. Death isn‘t neat, or pretty, or clean; it‘s all outhouse
smells as your body does everything it can do all at once, one last time.
―Fine, - I said, and I squatted beside the body on the balls of my feet. I made myself
look at the body, really look at it.
―This body was sliced, neat, very few cuts, very efficient.
―So why tear the body into pieces?
―Because they wanted to do it, and were strong enough to do it, - I said.
―You know that doesn‘t feel right; try again. - He stood over me, and for the first time
in a long time I felt like the inexperienced newbie and he was the mentor again, telling me
how to kill the monsters. He was one of the few people on the planet I would have taken that
attitude from.
―They wanted the bodies to match the other bodies, at least superficially. They hoped
the police would think it was the same killers.
―But it‘s not, - Edward said.
―The first body and the third were savaged. They were literally torn apart. There were
internal organs and guts everywhere. It was like a disorganized killer with maybe an
organized partner directing, or controlling him. This is all organized. He, or they, are doing
the kills like they‘ve been told to, matching the first kill, but their heart isn‘t in it.
―What do you mean? - he asked.
―This was a cold kill like the second one. The other two kills, the murderer took joy in
it.
He came down beside me on the balls of his feet, too. ―My kills are neat and clean, but
I enjoy my work.

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