"I've heard the rumor," I said, looking down at him.
"Some of the preternatural branch marshals are just killers with badges."
"Yep," I said.
"Why do you think the powers that be let you all run wild like this?"
I looked down at him. It seemed like a real question. "I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess I'd say they're making us into a legal hit squad. They give us badges to placate the liberal left, but they give us enough room in the law to kill the monsters the way the not-so-liberal right wants us to."
"So you think the government is turning a blind eye to what the preternatural branch is becoming."
"No, Marshal Raborn, I think they're setting themselves up."
"Setting themselves up for what?" he asked.
"Plausible deniability," I said.
We looked at each other. "There are rumors that the laws are going to change again, and vampires and shapeshifters will be easier to kill legally, with less cause."
"There are always rumors," I said.
"If the laws change, which side will you be on?"
"The side I'm always on."
"Which is?" He studied my face as he asked.
"Mine."
"Do you think of yourself as human?" he asked.
I went for the door then, but stopped with my hand on the doorknob. I looked back at him. "Legally, shapeshifters and vampires are human; that you'd even ask that of me is not only insulting, but probably illegal."
"I'll deny I said it," he said.
"Well, that answers my question."
"What question?"
"If you were honest, or a lying bastard."
His face darkened, and he stood up, sort of looming on the edge of his desk. "Get out of my office."
"My pleasure," I said. I opened the door, shut it firmly but calmly behind me, and walked out through the desks of the other marshals. They'd watched the "talk" through the glass windows of Raborn's office. They'd seen the body language, and they knew the talk had ended badly. I didn't care. I was just walking, because my throat was tight, and my eyes burned. Was I really going to cry because Raborn had asked me if I thought I was human? I hoped not.
Chapter Three
EDWARD FOUND ME leaning against the cleanest part of the alley wall I could find. I was crying, not a lot, but still doing it. He didn't say anything. He just leaned against the wall beside me, having to tip his cowboy hat forward so it didn't bump the wall. He looked very Marlboro Man with the hat hiding most of his upper face.
"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."