Hit List(9)

“I still can’t get used to you doing the whole Ted cowboy thing.” My voice was steady; if the tears hadn’t been visible you couldn’t have told I was crying.

He grinned. “It makes people comfortable around him.”

“Talking about Ted in the third person, when he’s you, is a little creepy, too.”

He grinned wider, and drawled in that Ted voice, “Now, little lady, you know Ted isn’t real. He’s just a name I use.”

“He’s your legal identity. I think it’s your birth name.”

The grin began to fade around the edges, and I didn’t have to see his eyes to know they were going cold and empty. “If you want to ask a question, ask it.”

“I’ve asked before and you wouldn’t answer.”

“That was then, this is now.” His voice was very quiet, very Edward.

I tried to read what I could see of his face. “Okay, is Ted, or rather Theodore Forrester, your birth name?”

He moved the hat so he could look me in the eye as he said, “Yes.”

I just blinked at him. “Really, just like that, you finally give me a yes?”

He gave a small shrug, his mouth quirking.

“It was because I was crying, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe.”

Then I just went back to the fact that I finally had confirmation that Edward had been born Theodore Forrester. In a way, Ted was the real person, and Edward the secret identity.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For finally answering the question?”

I nodded and smiled. “And for giving a shit that I was crying.”

“What did Raborn want?”

I told him, ending with, “I know it was a stupid reason to cry. You’d think I’d get used to being called a monster.”

“It’s only been a month since you had to make the hardest kill of your life, Anita. Give yourself a break.”

Edward hadn’t been with me for the kill, because it hadn’t been a legal monster hunt. It had been Haven, our local Rex, lion king, going apeshit and shooting Nathaniel, my live-in sweetie, wereleopard to call, and one of the loves of my life. Haven had meant to kill him, but Noel, one of the weakest of our werelions, had put himself between Nathaniel and that bullet. He’d lost his life to save Nathaniel’s, and I’d barely known Noel. Haven had been jealous, and wanted to hurt me as badly as possible; that he’d chosen Nathaniel’s death as the most painful thing he could do to me was something I still hadn’t looked at too closely. I had enough pain, because Haven had been one of my lovers. I’d never killed anyone that I’d cared about before. It hadn’t felt very good. In fact, it had sucked.

“You’re saying I’m still raw from killing Haven?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever had to kill a lover?”

“Yes.”

I glanced at him. “Really?”

He nodded. “Now ask me if I cared about her.”

“Okay, did you care about her?”

“No.”

“And I cared about Haven, so it hurts more.”

“I think so,” he said.

We leaned against the wall some more in companionable silence. Edward and I didn’t need to talk—we could talk, but we didn’t need to. “We’re going about hunting these killers all wrong. Even if we didn’t know what was killing them, and sort of why, we’re still doing it ass-backward.”

“We need to consolidate the warrants of execution from the first three cities and just make it one hunt,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But the first three warrants are all in the hands of marshals who were book-and-classroom trained. They were cops, but no one has a violent crimes background. I’m not sure why they’re recruiting some of these kids.”

“We were all kids once, Edward, but we need to take over the warrants before some of the other marshals get themselves killed. Raborn said that you, me, Jefferies, and Spotted-Horse are the cleanup crew. We come onto a warrant after other marshals have been killed or injured.”

“It’s the law, Anita. The warrant is theirs until they are unable to execute it, through death or injury, or they sign it over to another marshal for some other reason.”

“Let’s make them sign it over to us now.”

“How?” he asked.

“We could just ask,” I said.

“I asked two of the marshals. They both refused.”

“You asked the men,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So I’ll ask the female marshal,” I said.

“A little girl talk?” he asked.

I frowned at him. “I don’t really do girl talk, but I’ll try to persuade her to sign the warrant over to me. If just one of them signs off, then we can hunt the monsters. Stop the crimes by killing the criminal, not by solving them.”