Anita Blake 20 - Hit List (2 page)

“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-B e-Name d.”

“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.”

“You enjoy the planning and being faster, stronger, just better than whoever you’re hunting, but do you actually enjoy the kill?”

“Yes,” he said, and he was looking at the body as he said it.

I studied his profile. I asked him something I’d never asked him before. “What is it you enjoy about it?”

He turned those pale blue eyes to me. They’d faded so the blue was grayish. It was never a good sign when his eyes changed to that cold winter sky color.

“I like watching the light die in their eyes,” he said, his voice as cold and unemotional as his own eyes.

I met that winter gaze and said, “That’s why you like a close kill.”

He nodded, still holding that winter gaze on me. I don’t know what my face showed. We’d started out with him being my teacher, and then he’d paid me the ultimate compliment. He’d told me a few years ago that he wanted to see which of us was better. He wasn’t sure anymore, and it was a fantasy of his to have us hunt each other, so we could settle the debate once and for all.

When he first told me, I’d been convinced I’d be the one that would die; now I wasn’t so sure, maybe I would win. Maybe I could call Donna and the kids and tell them . . . Tell them what?

That their family was destroyed because Edward and I had had the ultimate guy moment and I was the better man?

“So you think the killers enjoyed the kill?” My voice was as empty and neutral as any I had, just two killers talking shop over someone else’s kill.

“I think they might have enjoyed the killing. There’s no way to tell when a killer is this controlled,” he said.

“How does any of this help us catch them?”

He shook his head and looked back at the biggest part of the body. “I don’t know.” He sounded tired again.

I looked down at the body. There was still enough of his chest and stomach left to show that he’d had muscle tone. He’d hit the gym, and it had done him no good at all. He would be another clanless tiger, a survivor of an attack rather than one born into a family group. The Harlequin were killing only the clanless right now, because they were searching for certain tigers. They were searching for gold tigers. A bloodline supposedly destroyed during the reign of the First Emperor of China, but hidden in secret by some of the Harlequin. Hidden from the other Harlequin and from the Mother of All Darkness; the fact that they’d managed to hide them from her when she was at the height of her powers said just how good the Harlequin were at subterfuge. They would have run the world’s best witness protection program ever.

We’d hoped they’d stop slaughtering the clanless tigers when the gold tigers made their public debut to the other tiger clans, but though we’d made it public that we had all colors of the tigers with us in St. Louis, the Harlequin were still hunting and killing the weretigers. It seemed so pointless.

I stood up, waiting for my bad knee to protest squatting too long, but it didn’t. I realized my “bad knee” hadn’t been bad in a while. I was Jean-Claude’s human servant and metaphysically tied to several wereanimals. I healed faster than human-normal, but I hadn’t realized I’d lost the old aches and pains from past injuries. When had that happened?

Edward stood beside me, and he favored one leg a little. He had an injury on that one from a hunt that went bad. I thought,How old is Edward? Will he age and I won’t? Will my ties to the supernatural keep healing me? It was a weird thought to think that Edward might grow older faster than I did.

“You’ve thought of something, what?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and tried to think of something else to say out loud. “Why keep killing the tigers?” I said.

“You mean now that they know you and Jean-Claude have your own gold tigers in St. Louis?”

“Yes. They were supposed to kill the clanless tigers to keep us from getting the gold tigers to bond with metaphysically. It’s too late, Edward, we’ve already done that, so why keep killing the other tigers?”

“Maybe they’re looking for a specific weretiger.”

“Maybe, but why, or who, and again why? There’s nothing to be gained by it.”

“I can think of one thing they’ve gained,” he said.

“Okay, what?”

“They’ve separated you from Jean-Claude and all the other people you’re metaphysically tied to.

In St. Louis you have enough bodyguards to make up a small army. Here, it’s just you and the police.”

“You think they’d risk attacking me with the cops around? I mean, the whole concept of these guys is that no one knows they exist. They’re really invested in being this big dark secret.”

“If Mommie Darkest told them to kill you, would they risk being outed to the human police?”

“Maybe,” I said, and then I had another idea. I wasn’t sure it was worse, but it scared me more.

“Her first idea was to take over my body. She wanted to kill me only after she realized I was too powerful for her to move into me.”

“Are you as powerful out here hundreds of miles away from Jean-Claude and the rest?”

I thought about it, really made myself look at it. “Metaphysically, no. I’m safer if I can touch my master and animals to call.”

“Maybe they’re killing the tigers to keep you out here.”

“You think they’ll try to kidnap me?” I asked.

“If she still wants your body, yes.”

“And if she just wants me dead, then that works better out here, too,” I said.

“It does,” he said. He was looking out at the edge of the field. He was checking the perimeter for danger, trying to see the Harlequin hiding in the trees along the edge of the green, summer field.

“I don’t sense any wereanimals,” I said, “and walking in full daylight is incredibly rare. I’ve only met three vampires that could do it.”

“If they’re these ultimate spies, would you be able to sense them?”

“I think so,” I said.

He glanced at me, then went back to scanning the area. “That’s pretty arrogant.”

“Maybe, but I’d still know if there was a preternatural close to us.”

He spoke without looking at me, “Please, tell me this isn’t the first time you wondered if this was a trap for you.”

“I thought they didn’t know the gold tigers were in St. Louis. They should have stopped killing the others after they learned that. It’s one of the reasons we made it public.”