"That doesn't answer the question," I said.
He smiled, shook his head. "Damn it, you are the hardest person I know, on yourself and everyone around you. You push until the truth comes out; good, bad, indifferent, ya gotta push, don't you?"
"Not always anymore, but usually, yeah, I push." I studied his face, waited for him to answer.
He frowned, sighed, and then looked at me. He was studying me back. "You're not a monster. When Dolph was having his issues and trashed a couple of rooms with you in it, you didn't report him. You let him go all apeshit on you; a lot of guys wouldn't have, not without getting his ass in a sling."
"He's better now," I said.
"We're all capable of losing it. The difference is that we get it back; we don't stay in the apeshit place, we regain ourselves."
"Regain ourselves, nice phrase," I said.
He grinned. "Katie's been reading me some of her psychology books again."
I smiled at him. "Good to have a smart spouse."
He nodded. "Always marry someone smarter, and prettier."
That made me laugh, just a little. The laugh sounded odd and echoing in the big room. I glanced back at the vampire I'd killed to save the fifteen-year-old girl he'd meant to make into a vampire. Was I sorry he was dead? No. Was I sorry the girl was still a living, breathing human being? Nope. Was I sorry that I'd scared the vampire Shelby? A little. Was I glad we had the locations of the rogue vampires that had killed the police officers? Yes.
Zerbrowski touched my shoulder again. "Don't let people like Kirkland make you feel bad about yourself, Anita."
I turned and looked at him, and there was something in his face that made me smile again. "I'll do my best."
"You always do," Zerbrowski said.
That earned him a grin, and me one in return.
"Pack up your gear; we've got vampires to hunt."
"Be right there," I said, and pulled the black cap off my hair, but I left the braid in, because sometimes the hair blew in my face and I might be shooting at people. You want to see what you're aiming at when you're trying to kill people. It's important to shoot the right ones.
Chapter Thirteen
EVERYONE AGREED THAT we'd hit the locations after dawn so the vampires would be dead to the world. We had two dead cops; we didn't need more, so we waited. Waiting is hard. It gets on your nerves. There's a chance to sleep for a few hours, and if you can do it, they'll find you a cot in the back of the station so you can rack out. Almost no one would sleep. We had two of our own dead, and we'd be hunting their killers in a few hours. It either buzzed you or made you think too hard; either way, sleep wasn't happening. Most of us had never known either officer personally, but it didn't matter. If you'd thought one of them was the biggest dick in the world while he was alive, that didn't matter either. What mattered was that he carried a badge and so did you. That meant that if you'd put out a call for help, he'd have come, and he would have put his life on the line for you. Stranger, friend, it didn't matter; you would have risked your life for him, and he for you, and if you had to, you'd have walked into a firefight with him, because that was what it meant to carry the badge. It meant that when everyone else was running away, you ran toward the problem, and anyone else who was willing to run into the shitstorm with you was your brother in arms. Civilians think that cops react like this because they're thinking, There but for the grace of God go I, but that's not it, not the major part; we're human, so there is some of that, but mostly it's an acknowledgment that we are the ones who run toward the gunshots. We run toward the trouble, not away, and we trust that if another person with a badge is nearby, they'll start running in that direction, too. They'll be beside us, and we'll hit the big, bad thing together, because that's our job; it's who we are.
The vampires hadn't just killed two cops, they'd killed two men who would have put their shoulders beside ours and hit the door. They'd taken out two of the good guys, and that wasn't allowed. Part of the energy, as we waited, was that we weren't just going to track the bad guys down; we were going to kill them, and it was all nice and legal. We'd hunt them down and we'd execute them. Technically, it was serving a warrant of execution, because now we had an official warrant, but to me it was just a vampire hunt with SWAT backup.
There were three locations, so I was the Marshal at one; Larry would be the Marshal at the second location, and our newest member of the Preternatural Branch, U.S. Marshal Arlen Brice, would go in with the third team. Brice was one of the new breed of preternatural Marshals, one who had been a regular police officer for at least two years and then trained for preternatural work in classrooms, not in the field. I had yet to meet a Marshal who had been trained this way who came from any branch of law enforcement that gave them the skill set they needed for hunting vampires and rogue wereanimals, because badge or no badge, preternatural Marshals are legalized assassins. We kill people in order to save lives, but our main job is killing. Police save lives, and most go their whole twenty without ever drawing their gun in the line of duty. Most Marshals in the Preternatural Branch kill at least one vampire their first month in the field, sometimes more. Anyone who thinks that killing vampires isn't like killing real people should try it for a while and see how it feels. I've killed human beings in the line of duty, and honestly, other than the fact that they're easier to kill, it just doesn't feel that different.
But U.S. Marshal Arlen Brice didn't know that yet.
Brice was five-eight, five-nine, short, but with nicely cut hair in one of those in-between colors that was either pale brown or a really dark blond. When I'd been a little girl I would have called it pale brown, but a girl in my class had hair almost the same color and she had informed me that it was "champagne blond." My stepmother had confirmed it was an actual color, but most people called it "dirty blond." That childhood faux pas had left its mark, so Brice's hair color was a mystery until he told me otherwise. His eyes were a pale, almost amber brown, so even the eyes weren't quite brown enough to call.
The rest of him was standard handsome, with an easy smile that went up a little higher on one side and just seemed to add to his charm, because he was charming. Detective Jessica Arnet and any other female officer who came near him reacted to him in a way that let me know that a more ordinary flavor of handsome worked just fine for them. Arnet had finally gotten over her crush on Nathaniel, my live-in sweetie. She still didn't like me. She felt that my keeping it secret that Nathaniel was my live-in lover had somehow humiliated her when she made a play for him. No pleasing some people.
Zerbrowski and I threaded our way through all the extra people who were hanging around the headquarters for the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, RPIT for short. We weren't going to sleep so we decided to catch food at a restaurant we both liked. The first hint I had that Marshal Brice was behind us was Detective Arnet's voice, high and lilting: "Hey, Brice, do you want to get a bite to eat?"
"I really appreciate the offer, Detective, but I already said I'd catch food with Detective Zerbrowski and Marshal Blake."
That stopped me and Zerbrowski in our tracks. We looked at each other, and I knew from the look on his face that this was news to him, too. We turned to look at him, giving blank cop face, both of us waiting for Brice to catch up as if we'd meant to do it all along.
Larry was the next to offer food, but Brice just smiled and said, "Thanks, Marshal Kirkland, I'll catch you next time."
Larry actually touched the man's arm and said, "What kind of Marshal do you want to be, Brice?"
The question stopped Brice, made him look more fully at Larry, and then glance back at Zerbrowski and me. Brice smiled at Larry. "One who's good at his job, Marshal Kirkland." He kept smiling, but his eyes changed. The look wasn't directed at us, so from the side it was harder to read, but whatever was in those brown-gold eyes made Larry drop his hand.
"I'm good at my job," Larry said. His words were soft, but they carried in one of those weird moments of silence that happens in noisy rooms with crowds. Everyone goes quiet at the same time and suddenly everyone can hear.
"I never said otherwise," Brice said, but he walked away from Larry.
Larry actually blushed, but it wasn't embarrassment. It was anger. "I'm a good Marshal."
Brice's face was serious, almost sad, but I think only we saw it. He got his smile back in place as he turned around to Larry and the still-silent room. "I'll repeat myself, Marshal Kirkland; I never said otherwise."