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Deputy Anthony and Bobby both said, “Blake,” at the same time. They looked at each other, then back at me as she said, “Anita Blake?” and he said, “Not Anita Blake?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” I was the scourge of the supernatural set, so it wasn’t entirely surprising that Bobby Marchand recognized my name, but I wasn’t always on the hit parade for nonmarshal local law enforcement, especially for local law enforcement, LEOs, in more rural areas.
“You’re here to kill me, because Win doesn’t want to have to do it,” Bobby said, and he seemed completely defeated. There wasn’t even any fear that I could detect, and there should have been. Even guilty people are afraid to die. The sheriff might be right about the suicide risk after all.
“How do the two of you know Marshal Blake?” Leduc asked.
“She’s our bogeyman. If you break the law, she’s who they send to kill you,” Bobby said, voice thick with sorrow, but still no nervousness, just a hopelessness as if it were already over.
“I’m just one marshal from the preternatural branch, not the only one,” I said.
Deputy Anthony said, “You still have the highest number of successful executions in the entire preternatural branch.”
“I was part of the old vampire hunter system years before I got grandfathered into the Marshals Service, so I had a head start.”
She shook her head. “Even Death doesn’t have as high a kill count as you do, and he started earlier than you did.”
If Marshal Ted (Edward) Forrester and I weren’t best friends and partners, it would probably bother him that he, Death, was behind me on legal kills. Of course, if you added in illegal kills, he was ahead of me. Short of a true apocalypse, I’d never catch up with his numbers if you included all of them.
“Death gets everyone in the end, Frankie, so what the hell are you talking about? No one has bigger numbers than death,” Leduc said, and he sounded frustrated, bordering on angry. He was more on edge than he was showing, but then I think they all were. I was the only one without a personal stake in the murder.
“The other police nicknamed four of the preternatural marshals the Four Horsemen: Death, War, Hunger, and Plague,” she said.
Leduc made a humph sound. “I know what the Four Horsemen are called. I know my Bible, and Marshal Blake isn’t in it.”
“Of
course not, sir. I didn’t mean the real Four Horsemen.”
Leduc looked at me, and it was a slightly different look now, more appraising—not the way that a man looks at an attractive woman, but the way a man looks at another man when he’s wondering if he could take him in a fight. Leduc decided he could take me in a fair fight and didn’t try to keep the knowledge off his face and out of his body language. I was okay with him thinking he would win. I knew better, and that was enough.
“So, if someone else is Death, who are you, Plague or Hunger?”
“I’m War,” I said.
That made him frown harder and then he laughed. “You’re too small to be War, Blake.”
“Even a little war is a very bad thing,” I said, and smiled.
3
NEWMAN LAUGHED. DEPUTY Anthony laughed. Sheriff Leduc did not. Apparently, I did not amuse him. That was okay. My sense of humor didn’t work for a lot of people.
“Did anyone take pictures of the prisoner when he was brought in?” I asked.
“No need,” Leduc said.
I knew what he meant, but I took him out of earshot of the prisoner, which meant out in the office area. Newman trailed us, leaving Anthony alone with the prisoner again. I really didn’t think he was going to try to escape. He seemed to have given up completely. The thought of this jail holding a shapeshifter who hadn’t given up and still wanted to live was just such a bad idea. They’d gotten lucky this time. Hopefully there wouldn’t be another time if, like they all said, this was the only lycanthrope within a hundred miles.
Leduc leaned against the edge of his desk as I talked, so that he didn’t tower over me. “Photographs will help us get size for the wounds and stuff later, just in case there’s any questions about us going ahead with the warrant.”
“Why should there be any questions about that?” he asked.
“From what Newman told me, the Marchands are the family around here for money and power. It’s not fair, but that can mean more lawyers get involved. I’d rather cover all our asses.”
That seemed reasonable to Leduc; if it didn’t to Newman, he didn’t show it. Either he’d learned to hide his emotions in the years since I’d met him, or he trusted my more experienced call. Either way, he agreed to help me take pictures of the prisoner that we could use as reference photos at the crime scene. It was pretty much bullshit. Even in half-man form, the size of hands, feet, teeth, mouth, everything is different from the full human form. The only reason these photos would be useful was if there was a regular trial later, and they could be used as proof that someone had tried to inexpertly frame Bobby Marchand. I was almost certain that Newman understood why we wanted the extra photos. I’d ask him in private later, because if he didn’t, I’d share the info, and if he did, then his level of trust in me was a little scary. Trust but verify, even if it’s me.
It’s standard procedure in any “prison system,” no matter how small, that you never take weapons into a cell with you. You just don’t want to run the risk of a prisoner grabbing your gun and using it against you. There are exceptions to all rules, but tonight wouldn’t be one of them. I gave my .45, Gerber folder, and both wrist sheath blades to Anthony. The sheriff got impatient and said, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, you’re disarmed enough. Get in there and take your pictures or measurements or whatever so I can drive you out to the house.”
