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“Bite a man in half, yes, but the tracks don’t match any of the beasts I know.”
“Yeah, there are like Greater Trolls in Europe still that could do it, but the tracks would be totally different,” I said.
“Some ogres were even larger than the Greater Trolls,” Kaazimsaid, “and there were ogres in every country in the world that I have visited. Some would be considered giants, they could do this, but all such things in most countries are long dead, extinct you call it now.”
“If they can do that kind of damage, I’m glad they’re gone,” Ethan said; apparently he’d gotten enough glances at the pictures to spook him. He didn’t spook easy. Now I really wanted to skip the pictures. If I couldn’t help, then I didn’t need to see them, right? I started stroking my hand back and forth on Nicky’s thigh.
“Would Edward know more monsters?” Nicky asked.
I stopped petting him and said, “Wow, I am slow tonight. Edward has seen more creepy-crawlies in more countries than I have, so yeah, he might have a clue.”
I took the phone back from Kaazim so I could call my fellow U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester, aka Edward, former military, former secret squirrel, assassin to monsters because humans got to be too easy. We’d started out as enemies, but I’d been best man at his wedding and now he was returning the favor. He’d mostly given up the assassin gig for being a full-time preternatural marshal now, but I’d learned to never say never where Edward was concerned.
Of course, if I was going to ask my BFF to look at the pictures, then I had to look at them first. I couldn’t have Edward think I was losing my nerve. I sighed and sat up a little straighter beside Nicky. He didn’t try to snuggle harder this time, he just let me sit up and look at the pictures of the body, or what was left of the body. Nicky held me while I looked at them; he even looked with me. I appreciated both his arm around me and that he didn’t flinch at what he saw; I didn’t either, not visibly, but Ethan and Nicky could read my emotions and they knew exactly how I felt about seeing the bloody remains. Nightmare fuel, and out there in our city, or our suburbs, was the thing that had turned a large, adult man into bloody meat with his spine showing like the stick in a lollipop.
19
Edward answered onthe second ring; neither of us were big on just calling to chat, so if it was our ringtone we picked up. “Anita, how’s it going?” he said. His voice was upbeat and thick with an accent that was somewhere in the Southwest, maybe Texas. It was Marshal Ted Forrester’s voice when he was with people where he had to pretend to just be a good ol’ boy, or at least just one of the guys.
“Hey, Ted, need some of your monster expertise on some crime scene photos.” I matched my upbeat voice to his and was careful to use what I’d learned was his birth name. Theodore Forrester had joined the military at eighteen, and somewhere between then and when we met he’d become Edward. I didn’t know much about what had happened in between, just that he’d been chosen for some sort of supersecret soldier program. No, don’t think Captain America, think Batman. Human soldiers trained to the absolute limits with weapons, hand-to-hand, all forms of combat, and may I say that I was guessing on some of that. Edward kept secrets better than any other human I knew.
“I’ve got an armful of daughter, how bad are the pictures?”
A high happy voice said, “Hi, Aunt Anita!”
Yep, I was Aunt Anita to his kids. “Hey, Becca,” I said, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m dancing the young version of Clara inThe Nutcrackerthis year!”
“That’s amazing, kiddo! Who’s the most amazing ballerina ever?”
“I am!” she said in a high, happy voice. It reminded me of the voice she had at six when I met her. The fact that at twelve she still had that same happy voice in her with everything that she’d survived was a testament to great parenting, good therapy, and just the person that Becca was at her center.
We chatted for a few minutes about other happy, normal things. I learned that her brother, Peter, who had just turned twenty, was at the dojo teaching a class tonight, but that he had a new girlfriend.
“Becca”—it was Donna’s voice—“Peter told you that she is not his girlfriend, and even if she was he doesn’t want you talking about his personal life to Anita, or anyone else.”
“But, Mom, they make such a cute couple.”
Edward said, “That doesn’t mean they’re a couple, Becca.”
“But, Ted…”
“Would you want Peter telling everyone about your boyfriend?”
“Don’t be silly, I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m a ballerina, I don’t have time for distractions.” That serious tone, that was all Becca. Donna had tried to encourage more play and less devotion to her art, but Becca had other ideas. Donna actually regretted starting her on dance lessons when she was five, but Becca had asked like almost every little girl asks; it just turned out that this little girl had been serious about it. I loved that about Becca.
I wondered what girl she was trying to fix Peter up with; it was unusual for her to play matchmaker. I felt like I needed more information, but if I asked her questions that would encourage her to keep shipping Peter and whoever. Until I talked to Peter about it, I didn’t want to add fuel to the little-sister fire.
There were a few minutes more of family noise, which grew moredistant until Edward said, “Send the pictures.” There was still a trace of his Ted accent, but the short sentence was more Edward.
I texted the pictures. It’s not always as instantaneous as you think, so we had a few seconds of silence that once we’d have left empty, but now it was Edward who filled it. “Did you get to introduce Jean-Claude to your family before you went to the crime scene?”
“Dinner’s over, but I turned down the crime scene, told them to call another marshal. They did and Marshal Arlen Brice called me for feedback on the tracks and body.”
“I know it was hard for you to turn down the request,” he said.
Nicky hugged me a little because he literally knew how hard it had been for me. “Yeah, but like you said, if we save the day every time they call, how will the other marshals get enough practice?”
