Hit List(10)
“I like it,” he said.
“You know and I know that we’re legal assassins, not cops. Sometimes we solve crimes and catch the bad guys, but at the end of most days we kill people.”
“You sound like that bothers you,” he said. He looked at me as he asked it.
I shrugged. “It does, and we already discussed that it doesn’t bother you. Well, fucking bully for you, but it’s beginning to get on my nerves.”
“I think I’ve figured out a way to use you as bait to lure them out, if it’s really you they’re wanting.”
I studied his unreadable face. “But first we’ll need someone to sign a warrant over to us, right?”
“That would help, and you getting some bodyguards from home, and maybe calling in Bernardo and Olaf now, before anyone’s dead, as backup wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“Olaf still thinks I’m his girlfriend or something.”
“The couple that slaughters people together stays together.”
“That wasn’t really very funny,” I said.
“Yes, it was, but I apologize anyway. We both know that someday you, or I, will have to kill Olaf because he’s decided to kill you.”
“If he really plans on killing me he’ll kill you first, Edward, because he knows that you won’t rest until he’s dead.”
“You’d do the same for me.”
“True, so he’d kill us really close together, so neither of us could go all revenge on his ass.”
“Probably,” Edward said.
“And yet, you’ll call him in to back us up on this case.”
“He’s a good man in a fight.”
“He’s a crazy psycho killer, is what he is,” I said.
“Technically he’s not psychotic.”
“So just a crazy killer,” I said.
“Yeah.” He smiled and it actually reached his eyes; it was a real smile, not Ted’s smile, but Edward smiling. I didn’t get to see the smile often, so I valued it when I did. I had to smile back.
I shook my head, still smiling. “Fine, I’ll try to get the other marshal to sign off, and then you call in Bernardo and Olaf, but I can’t get bodyguards from home to come help us. We’re marshals, they aren’t, and being able to deputize people isn’t a power the Marshals Service has been granted in a very long time.”
“You haven’t been keeping up on current events.”
I frowned at him. “What?”
“Last month a marshal died, because backup didn’t arrive in time, but a soldier just home from Iraq was able to take the marshal’s weapons and finish the shapeshifter off.”
“I did hear about that. It was tragic and brave and, so what?”
“You really don’t check the official emails, do you?”
“Maybe not as often as I should; what’d I miss?”
He got his phone out of his pocket and used his finger to roll through emails, then held the tiny screen up to me. I read it through twice. “You’re joking me.”
“It’s official.”
“We have the right to deputize not only if we are without backup, but if we feel that an individual’s skill set is of benefit to the execution of our warrant and will save civilian lives. Mother of God, Edward, this gives us carte blanche to form a fucking mob.”
“There’s potential for abuse, yes.”
“Potential for abuse, there’s potential for pitchforks and torches,” I said.
“Anita, come on, no one would use pitchforks or torches anymore. It’d be flashlights and guns.”
“This isn’t funny, Edward; this is a civil rights problem waiting to happen.”
“I didn’t know you cared about that, or did that change when you helped get the law passed to spare little vampires when their master is the bad guy?”
“I’m just saying that this little amendment to the law could get out of hand really fast.”
“It could, it probably will, but for us, right now, it’s useful.”
“Are you saying we deputize some of the bodyguards from St. Louis?”
“It’s a thought,” he said.
I opened my mouth, closed it, thought about it, then said, “Damn, great for us right now, but . . .”
“Take that it helps us right now, Anita. We’ll worry about legal rampaging mobs later.”
I nodded. “Deal.”
“Get her to sign the warrant over to you and I’ll call Olaf and Bernardo in, and you pick bodyguards from home.”
“You know most of them now; you want to help pick?”
“I trust your judgment,” he said.
“High praise coming from you.”