Laurell K. Hamilton - Hit List

Table of Contents

GUILTY PLEASURES
THE LAUGHING CORPSE
CIRCUS OF THE DAMNED
THE LUNATIC CAFE
BLOODY BONES
THE KILLING DANCE
BURNT OFFERINGS
BLUE MOON
OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY
NARCISSUS IN CHAINS
CERULEAN SINS
INCUBUS DREAMS
MICAH
DANSE MACABRE
THE HARLEQUIN
BLOOD NOIR
SKIN TRADE
FLIRT
BULLET
HIT LIST

STRANGE CANDY

THE MAIN PIECE of the body lay on the ground, on its back in the middle of a smooth grassy field. In the predawn gloom everything looked gray, but there were scuffed and paler places around the field; I think we were in standing in the middle of a softball field. The we was Edward, U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester, and me, U.S. Marshal Anita Blake. Edward was his real name, the real him. Forrester was his secret identity, like Clark Kent for Superman, but to the other marshals he was good ol boy Ted, once a bounty hunter, now a marshal, grandfathered in under the Preternatural Endangerment Act just like me. Id been a vampire executioner, not a bounty hunter. But either way, there we stood with real badges; legally we were real cops. Edward still took assassination jobs if the pay was high enough, or the hit interesting enough. He specialized in killing only dangerous things, like wereanimals and vampires. Crime fighting had actually begun to take up most of his time. Work does interfere with your hobbies.

There were other marshals over talking to the local police, but it was just Edward and me standing in the middle of the scattered body parts. Maybe the others had gotten tired of looking at them; we had come straight from the airport in Tacoma to the crime scene. The other cops had been here longer. Dismembered bodies did lose their charm pretty fast.

I fought the urge to huddle in my Windbreaker with U.S. Marshal in big letters on it. It was fifty freaking degrees here. Whoever heard of fifty being the regular temperature in August? It was a hundred-plus with heat index at home in St. Louis. The stop before this one had been Alabama. Fifty degrees felt amazingly cold after all that heat and humidity. The light softened around us and I could see the body parts better. It didnt make me like them any better.

Is the body lying on its back, or its ass? I asked.

You mean because its bisected at midchest and the parts are about ten feet away?

Yeah, I said.

Does it matter? he asked. He pushed his hand toward a cowboy hat that hed left in the car that brought us from the airport. Ted wore a well-loved, well-creased cowboy hat, and the fact that the hat gesture had become habitual said just how much time Edward was spending as his legal alter ego. He settled for running his hand through his short blond hair. He was five foot eight, which seemed tall to me at five-three.

I guess not. In my head I thought, Problems like that are what you think about when you stare down at a dismembered body, because otherwise you want to run screaming, or throw up. I hadnt thrown up on a body in years, but the St. Louis police had never let me live it down.

They cant find the heart, he said, voice as unemotional as his face. The light was strong enough that I could see that his eyes were blue rather than just pale. He had a summer tan, light gold, but better than I tanned. It seemed wrong that the blond, blue-eyed WASP tanned darker than I did with my mothers black hair and brown eyes. I was half Hispanicshouldnt I tan darker than white-bread boy?

Anita, he said, and he moved so I couldnt see the body. Talk to me.

I blinked at him. They wont find the heart. Just like they didnt find the last three hearts. The killer, or killers, is taking the heart as a trophy, or proof of the kill. Like the woodsman in Snow White taking the heart back to the Wicked Queen in a box, or something.

I need you here, working this case, not lost in your head.

Im here. I frowned at him.

He shook his head. Ive seen you look at worse than this and be better about it.

Maybe Im tired of looking at shit like this. Arent you?

You dont mean just this case, he said.

I shook my head.

Are you asking if looking at things like this bothers me?

I would never ask that, its against the guy code, I said, and just saying it that way made me smile a little.

He smiled back, but more like it was reflex. It never reached his eyes. They stayed cold and empty as a winter sky. Once the other marshals joined us hed make his eyes sparkle, or fill with some emotion; he didnt bother when it was just us. We knew each other too well; there was no need to hide.

No, it doesnt bother me.

I shrugged, and finally let myself huddle in the thin Windbreaker. At least with my main gun at the small of my back instead of in the shoulder holster, I was able to zip it and not compromise my gun. I still had my backup gun in the shoulder holster and a big-ass knife down my back that attached to the specially made shoulder rig.

Its more that Id rather be home.

With your men, he said, and again it was totally neutral.

I nodded. I missed the men in my life when I was away too long, and this was our fourth crime scene in a fourth city. I was tired of planes, tired of other cops, tired of being away.

Im missing Becca in Music Man. Shes just in the chorus, but shes one of the youngest theyve ever cast.

She must be really good.

She is. He nodded, smiling, and this time it reached all the way up to his eyes. His face was warm and happy thinking about his almost stepdaughter. Hed been living with and engaged to Donna for years, but never quite married, but the kids thought of him as their dad. Becca had been only six when he and her mother started dating. Edward, whom the vampires had nicknamed Death, had taken Becca to dance class and sat in the waiting room with the moms for years now. It made me smile just to think about it.

It was more fun to hunt monsters before we had someone to go home to, I said.

The smile faded and he turned cold eyes to look at where the head lay to one side of the field. I cant argue that. I dont mind the bodies. It doesnt bother me, but I hope we get home before the musical is over.

How many nights does it run?

Two weeks, he said.

Two weeks, starting today?

Yes.

I dont 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 couldnt 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 hed been able to shift to a big-ass tiger, but it hadnt helped him against the Harlequin, just as it hadnt 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.