“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.”