Hit List(76)

She stood, slowly, carefully, and at five-eight she was tall enough in her boots to back him up a little. She managed to loom and seem much taller just by her presence. I’ve been told I can do the same thing, but it was nifty watching it from the other end.

“Marshal Blake is within her rights as a U.S. Marshal of the preternatural branch to deputize people she believes will aid her in executing her warrant in the most efficient and lifesaving manner possible.”

“The law was written for emergency situations in the field,” Raborn said, “when a marshal doesn’t have access to other marshals for backup. It was never intended to allow us to pick and choose whom we deputize for a given job when there are enough marshals to get the job done.”

“There were three branches of the government last I checked, Raborn. We’re the branch that carries out the law as written and given to us. If the legislative and judicial branches decide at a later date that the law as written needs to be changed, they’ll change it, and then you can come bitch to me about Marshal Blake’s choice in deputies, but until then, we will uphold the law as written and act within its confines. Is that clear, Marshal Raborn?”

A hint of red was creeping up his neck—not a blush, more an angry flush, I thought. Through tight lips he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

She looked at us, “You two go do your job.” She looked back at Raborn. “You get the fuck out of my office and stay the fuck out of their way.”

Edward and I stood, and did as we were told. Raborn hesitated behind us. I heard him intake a breath and wondered if he was going to keep pushing, but it was no longer my problem. Clark had backed me, and that was good enough.

My backup was waiting in the hallway outside the office. The other people with badges watched them covertly and were probably just as unhappy as Raborn, but they were smart enough to let it go. You could pick out which of my backup was ex-military. They stood a little straighter, as if fighting not to come to attention as we stepped up. Bobby Lee had grown thinner and somewhere the sun had turned his blond hair paler and tanned him deep brown, darker than most blonds could get. His brown eyes watched me from behind gold-framed glasses. He was older than the rest of us, but it only showed in fine lines around his eyes, an extra line here and there on his face. He’d always been tall and fairly lean, but he’d been out of the country on some secret assignment for the wererats for a long time, and wherever he’d been, it had carved him down. There was a look in his eyes now, almost a flinching, as if whatever he’d seen, or done, had worn the inside down as much as the outside.

“Well, darlin’, are we staying, or going?” His soft southern accent was deeper than it had been before. I didn’t believe it was because he’d been somewhere the accent existed, more like it was a piece of home they couldn’t take from him.

I didn’t even tell him not to call me darlin’; it was nothing personal, and he seemed to need all his down-home charm like a shield against whatever had taken the shine from his eyes.

“Staying,” I said.

He smiled, and gave a small nod. Lisandro, tall, dark, handsome, with his black hair in a ponytail trailing down his shoulders, stepped up beside him. He wasn’t quite as pretty as Bernardo, but he was ballparking. He looked like the proverbial Hispanic leading man. He was married and had two kids. He coached their soccer teams. We’d had sex together once for a sort of emergency feed to keep Marmee Noir from doing bad things. To keep his wife from trying to kill us both, we’d agreed it would never happen again. Actually, we just pretended it hadn’t. Worked for me. “Why is Raborn against you?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

Lisandro gave me a look.

I smiled. “I’m not lying, I just met the man.” I turned to Edward beside me. “Tell him.”

“He took an instant dislike to Anita.”

“Maybe it’s just being a woman and being better at the job than he is,” Socrates said. His skin was the color of coffee with a little cream added. Hair was short, clipped close to his head, just long enough on top that he could style it, but today he’d chosen not to, so that the hair formed tiny little curls. It looked . . . cuter than his usual, but he’d actually explained that this was natural, and cops didn’t like you styling your hair on the job. He was an ex-cop, so he’d know. He wasn’t as tall as the other two men, less than six feet by a few inches. He tended to round his shoulders, slumping a little, as if he’d gotten his height early in life and never lost the habit of trying to hide it, even though he wasn’t the tallest kid in the room anymore.