"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."
He came down beside me on the balls of his feet, too. "My kills are neat and clean, but I enjoy my work."
"You enjoy the planning and being faster, stronger, just better than whoever you're hunting, but do you actually enjoy the kill?"
"Yes," he said, and he was looking at the body as he said it.
I studied his profile. I asked him something I'd never asked him before. "What is it you enjoy about it?"
He turned those pale blue eyes to me. They'd faded so the blue was grayish. It was never a good sign when his eyes changed to that cold winter sky color.
"I like watching the light die in their eyes," he said, his voice as cold and unemotional as his own eyes.
I met that winter gaze and said, "That's why you like a close kill."
He nodded, still holding that winter gaze on me. I don't know what my face showed. We'd started out with him being my teacher, and then he'd paid me the ultimate compliment. He'd told me a few years ago that he wanted to see which of us was better. He wasn't sure anymore, and it was a fantasy of his to have us hunt each other, so we could settle the debate once and for all. When he first told me, I'd been convinced I'd be the one that would die; now I wasn't so sure, maybe I would win. Maybe I could call Donna and the kids and tell them . . . Tell them what? That their family was destroyed because Edward and I had had the ultimate guy moment and I was the better man?
"So you think the killers enjoyed the kill?" My voice was as empty and neutral as any I had, just two killers talking shop over someone else's kill.
"I think they might have enjoyed the killing. There's no way to tell when a killer is this controlled," he said.
"How does any of this help us catch them?"
He shook his head and looked back at the biggest part of the body. "I don't know." He sounded tired again.
I looked down at the body. There was still enough of his chest and stomach left to show that he'd had muscle tone. He'd hit the gym, and it had done him no good at all. He would be another clanless tiger, a survivor of an attack rather than one born into a family group. The Harlequin were killing only the clanless right now, because they were searching for certain tigers. They were searching for gold tigers. A bloodline supposedly destroyed during the reign of the First Emperor of China, but hidden in secret by some of the Harlequin. Hidden from the other Harlequin and from the Mother of All Darkness; the fact that they'd managed to hide them from her when she was at the height of her powers said just how good the Harlequin were at subterfuge. They would have run the world's best witness protection program ever.
We'd hoped they'd stop slaughtering the clanless tigers when the gold tigers made their public debut to the other tiger clans, but though we'd made it public that we had all colors of the tigers with us in St. Louis, the Harlequin were still hunting and killing the weretigers. It seemed so pointless.
I stood up, waiting for my bad knee to protest squatting too long, but it didn't. I realized my "bad knee" hadn't been bad in a while. I was Jean-Claude's human servant and metaphysically tied to several wereanimals. I healed faster than human-normal, but I hadn't realized I'd lost the old aches and pains from past injuries. When had that happened?
Edward stood beside me, and he favored one leg a little. He had an injury on that one from a hunt that went bad. I thought, How old is Edward? Will he age and I won't? Will my ties to the supernatural keep healing me? It was a weird thought to think that Edward might grow older faster than I did.