Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “I have worked there,” Olaf said, “but I had no business with any Therianthropes while I was there.”

  “We have a few low-level people at home that don’t get that much bigger than a regular leopard, but even they’re bigger than Bobby’s beast.”

  “Then you may be correct: The African strain might be a different strain from the one we have in America,” Olaf suggested.

  “It would have to be different from most of Europe as well,” Edward said.

  “All the Therianthropes I know came from parts of Europe, so yeah, agreed,” I said.

  “I’ve seen them in Europe. They look mostly the same as they do here,” Edward said.

  Olaf nodded.

  “Why does it matter how big he gets, or any of that?” Duke asked.

  I answered, “Maybe it doesn’t matter, but then again, sometimes the esoteric shit is what makes or breaks a case, or what helps keep us alive on the next hunt.”

  “Whatever happens here, Duke,” Edward said with more accent than he’d used in the last few minutes, “we go on to other cases, other monsters. The things we learn here may help us save lives later.”

  “They are working on a cure for lycanthropy,” Olaf said. “Perhaps investigating the African strain and comparing it to others would help in that search.”

  “They’ve been looking for that for decades,” Duke said derisively.

  “They are much closer than they were,” Olaf said.

  “Really?” Bobby asked.

  Olaf nodded.

  “How do you know?” I asked before I remembered that we weren’t alone, and this should have waited.

  “I was offered to take part in some of the research.”

  I so wanted to ask more questions, but I’d wait until it was just the three of us, because we had too many secrets from everyone else here to risk it.

  “Did you try a cure?” Bobby asked.

  “No,” Olaf said.

  “Why not?” Duke asked.

  “Some of the side effects were worse than the disease in my opinion.”

  “What side effects?” Bobby asked.

  Olaf shook his head. “I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement to be considered for the program.”

  This was all news to me. I fought not to show it or to glance at Edward and see if it was news to him. I knew that Olaf talked to Edward more than he talked to me. I’d ask later.

  “Must have been some serious side effects for you to prefer being a monster,” Duke said.

  Olaf looked at the other man as he said, “I always prefer to be the monster.”

  Duke didn’t seem to know what to say to that. “Well, suit yourself.”

  “In all things,” Olaf said.

  “Spoken like a man who’s never been married,” Duke said.

  “Or in a serious relationship,” Newman and Edward said together. Newman smiled at Edward, who smiled back automatically, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. If Newman noticed, he didn’t show it.

  “I am learning that if one wants more from a woman than what I have had in the past, some compromise may be necessary.”

  “You finally find someone that makes you willing to compromise, Jeffries?” Duke asked.

  “I have,” Olaf said, and he looked at me. To me it felt like he was making it painfully obvious.

  Duke looked from Olaf to me, and then he opened his mouth to say something, but Edward stepped in and spoke first.

  “Is there a room where we could question the suspect in private? I think we’re all getting distracted,” Edward said.

  His accent was a little less thick and more him. It used to be that he lost the accent only when emotions ran strong, but lately I’d begun to wonder if he was tired of always being in character. It had been one thing when Ted was his part-time persona, but now that he was doing more marshal work than anything else, he was Ted more than he was Edward. Maybe he was ready to be himself even with a badge.

  “The only way he’s coming out of that cell is if a judge orders it or for Win to finally do his duty. We don’t have anywhere else that’s as secure as this,” Duke said.

  “Then maybe we need more privacy here,” Edward said, and there was only the faintest hint of accent.

  “You can’t kick me out of my own jail,” Duke said.

  “We’re not saying that, Duke,” Newman said.

  “It sure sounded like that was what Forrester was saying.”

  “I’m just saying that we all need to narrow our focus and concentrate on the job at hand. We can talk about African lycanthropy and other things later,” Edward said.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Olaf nodded. “Agreed.”

  Edward looked at Newman and me. “Did anyone see a deer in a tree?”

  Newman shook his head. “But we weren’t exactly looking for it either.”

  “If you still have people on-site, call and have them check,” Edward said. The words were his, but he kept his Ted accent. His own accent was middle-of-America nowhere, as if he could have come from anywhere.

  “Rico was still there when I left. I can ask him to check,” Deputy Frankie said from out in the offices.

  Apparently, she’d been standing behind the sheriff the entire time. I was too short to see her there. Though since she’d just departed from the hallway in front of the cells because there wasn’t room for all of us, I should have known she hadn’t left completely. Once she’d realized that she had three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in front of her, she’d started to sort of quietly vibrate. I’d thought she’d been excited to meet a senior female officer, but apparently that hadn’t been it. I was one of the horsemen!

  “That’d be mighty fine, little lady—I’m sorry, Deputy Frankie.” Edward even wasted a Ted smile on her, which meant he was tall enough to see her past Leduc.

  “It’s okay, Marshal Forrester. You can call me little lady if I can call you Ted.”

  “Ted it is, little lady.”

  Was she flirting with him? Or was she sort of hero-worshipping and flirting with all of us? It could be weirdly hard to tell the difference sometimes.

  Deputy Frankie laughed; it was damn near a giggle. It made me frown at Edward, but he either missed it or didn’t care, probably the latter.

  She got Rico fast enough, but then the conversation began to go downhill. Rico couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the idea of looking for a deer in a tree. “Rico, stop overthinking it and just look for a deer in the damn tree,” she said. A few moments of silence followed as she listened to him, and then she said, “Because we’re trying to check the suspect’s version of things, that’s why. Now, just go do what I asked.” She lowered her voice a little, and said, “You’re making us look bad in front of the feds, Rico.”

  Duke had moved out into the office—to make more coffee, I hoped. I was starting to need more. It meant we could see Frankie in the doorway. She hung up and sighed, shoulders slumping.

  “It’s okay, Frankie,” Newman said. “We don’t blame you because Rico is an idiot.”

  Edward and I both looked at him, but Edward remarked on Newman’s comment in his best Ted voice. “Now, there, pardner, not sure that was very politic.”

  “I know Rico personally, Forrester. Trust me. I could have said worse, and it would still be true.”

  “Win, I know you don’t like Rico, and I know why. He’s always tomcatting around after some woman, but he’s usually better on the job than this,” Frankie said.

  A laugh came from the other cell, which we were all sort of ignoring. Deputy Troy Wagner laughed like he meant it. “God, Frankie, that was the politest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about Rico and women. He’s a man whore, and everyone in town knows it.”

  “Well, at least Rico isn’t in a cell with attempted-murder charges hanging over his h
ead,” she said.

  The laughter died, and Troy leaned the top of his head against the bars of the cell. “Yeah, I guess you’re right on that.”

  “I’m sorry, Troy. I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” Frankie said.

  “Don’t be sorry when you’re right,” he said.

  “I still shouldn’t have said it to you.”

  “I don’t want Troy to go to jail,” Bobby said.

  “He tried to kill you,” I said.

  “I know, but if the only difference between it being legal and illegal to shoot me is having the right badge and the right name on a warrant, then it seems almost wrong to punish Troy.”

  “That’s mighty decent of you there, Marchand,” Edward said.

  “I don’t deserve any mercy from you, Bobby,” Wagner said.

  “I don’t think mercy is something you deserve. I think it’s just something you’re supposed to give to people,” Bobby said.

  “If you’d done your job like you were supposed to, Troy wouldn’t have gotten tempted to do something stupid,” Duke said.

  “Regardless of what I did or didn’t do, what Troy did was against the law,” Newman said.

  “I can’t make it up to you, Bobby. I can only say that I couldn’t do it. Even when I thought you had killed Roy, I couldn’t shoot you,” Wagner said.

  “I know, Troy,” Bobby said, walking closer to the shared cell bars between them.

  “He shot into your cell while you were chained to the bed, Bobby. I think he missed the first shot by accident,” I said.

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t forgive him?”

  “Yeah, I’m saying I wouldn’t forgive him.”

  Bobby shook his head. “If my life is ruined, no sense taking Troy down with me.”

  “You aren’t taking Troy down with you. He did that all on his own when he aimed at a prisoner that was already chained in a cell. If you hadn’t been able to break your chains and hide under the bed where he couldn’t get off a second shot, you might be dead now,” I said.

  “Some things you just don’t do, pardner. Shootin’ someone chained up in a cell is one of ’em.”

  “It is like a caged hunt,” Olaf said. “There is no sport in it.”

  “No,” Wagner said, “I swear I was done with that first shot. Doing it seemed to bring me to my senses. Thank God I missed.”

  “Yeah, otherwise it would be murder charges instead of attempted murder,” I said.

  “That’s throwing a lot of stones for preternatural marshals,” Duke said. He’d come back to peer over Frankie’s shoulder at us. I could smell coffee brewing, which put me in a better mood, so I actually let it go, but Newman didn’t.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Duke?”

  “You pound stakes through the chests of vampires chained up and covered in holy items in the morgue or in their coffins. That’s more of a canned hunt than any cell.”

  We looked at him. Whatever Duke saw on our faces made him hold his hands up in a push-away gesture. “If I’m wrong, I apologize.”

  “You’re not wrong,” I said, but not like I was happy about it.

  “We’re busting Deputy Wagner’s chops, pardner, because the morgue stakings are part of our sworn duty as preternatural marshals. Wagner was supposed to be guarding the prisoner, not trying to kill him,” Edward said, smiling like Ted, but his eyes were starting to fade from the bright blue they had when he was happy.

  “The morgue executions are the first kills they give to new marshals,” Newman said, his voice sounding about as happy as mine had.

  “Then isn’t that worse than Troy trying to shoot someone in a cell, even chained up?” Duke said.

  “Yeah, a vampire chained down and covered in holy items is more trapped than Bobby in the cell here,” I said.

  “But like I said, pardner, those are legally sanctioned executions,” Edward said, accent still strong, but his eyes were leaving the blue range and entering gray. You didn’t want him upset with you when his eyes got to their palest gray-blue, like winter skies before a blizzard falls on top of your head and destroys your world.

  “So, if Troy had been one of you marshals and killed Bobby in his cell, then it would have been legal?” Duke asked.

  “Yes, it would have been legal,” I said.

  “Does the legal part really make shooting someone in a cage better?” Duke asked.

  “Boss,” Deputy Frankie said as if she wanted to caution him but wasn’t sure it was her place.

  “I’ve never had a shapeshifter in a cage before. Everything about his case is different,” Newman said.

  “Are they tied down like a vampire for you, then?” Frankie asked.

  “No, and it’s always chains with supernatural prisoners. Rope is pretty much useless,” I said.

  “If they’re not chained up or in a cell, how do you usually execute shapeshifters?” Frankie asked.

  “Kill or be killed,” Edward said, and his Ted accent was still there, but the cadence of the words was all Edward.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “We’re usually hunting them while they hunt us,” I said.

  “Don’t you kill them while they’re passed out after changing back to human form?” Duke asked.

  The four of us looked at one another. “Doesn’t usually happen that way,” I said at last.

  “I have,” Olaf said, “but it is not preferred.”

  “Why isn’t it preferred? Seems like it would be the safest way to do it,” Duke said.

  I shrugged. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it. I’m saying it’s never come up.”

  “I thought they all passed out after they shift back to human,” Duke said.

  We all shook our heads like planned choreography, and I said, “If it’s a new shapeshifter that’s too green to control their beast, then they’re so apeshit that you, the local police, usually have to shoot them to save lives, long before a marshal can be called in. They’re the ones most likely to pass out after changing back.”

  “If a shapeshifter is weak enough to still pass out after they change back, they don’t usually kill anyone on purpose. We’re usually only called in after there are multiple bodies,” Edward said. His vocabulary sounded almost wrong with Ted’s accent.

  “How’d we get honored with this many of you, then?” Duke asked.

  “I invited Blake in for backup,” Newman said.

  “But that doesn’t explain why we need four of you.”

  Edward gave him a truly wonderful smile that warmed his face all the way to his blue eyes. I wondered if he knew that his eyes got bluer when he pretended to be Ted. “Now, Sheriff, you have three out of the Four Horsemen. There are cases all over the country that would be plum tickled to have us helping out.”

  “If the three of you were as hot shit as you’re supposed to be, then he’d already be dead.” Duke threw a thumb in the direction of Bobby without actually looking at him. At least he’d used a pronoun rather than calling him the suspect, and he’d trusted him not to try to break out of the cell. Duke could say that he still saw Bobby as a monster, but he was beginning to treat him as more than that.

  “I already explained the warrant system to you, Sheriff. It’s Newman’s warrant,” I said.

  “I know, I know. It’s Win’s choice of how to do the execution until he’s too injured to do the job, and then one of you takes it over.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I thought you agreed that the footprint evidence meant we should look for other suspects, Duke,” Newman said.

  “I didn’t exactly say that, Win. I just didn’t argue that it’s peculiar, that’s all.”

  “You didn’t want to pull the trigger either, Duke,” I said.

  “It’s not my job to pull the trigger, Blake.”

  “No, it�
�s mine, and I don’t want to kill Bobby and then find out he’s innocent,” Newman said.

  “Eventually the time limit will be over, Win, and then you’ll be out of options.”

  “Not if we find other viable suspects first.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  “Then they can have my badge. I will not execute Bobby unless I’m sure.”

  “Newman,” I said.

  “No, Blake, no, this is wrong. It’s so fucking wrong. I’ve wondered before if the supernatural citizen I killed was the one that should have been executed, but at least I didn’t know them. I know Bobby, and I will not have his face added to my nightmares.”

  I thought he’d say something else, but then I caught a shine in his eyes that might have been tears, or maybe it was just the lights in the cells. Either way he turned abruptly and pushed his way past Leduc and headed out. I heard the outer door open and close. There was a moment of silence while I debated whether to go after Newman or give him some room.

  Edward surprised the hell out of me by saying, “I’ll go check on him.”

  “I’m supposed to be his mentor,” I said.

  He gripped my shoulder and smiled at me. “Think of it as tag-team wrestling. My turn.”

  Was it cowardly to let Edward go after him? No, because I was running out of ways to comfort Newman.

  “He is not meant for this work,” Olaf said.

  “He’s too soft for it,” Duke said.

  “No,” I said, “it’s not soft, not like you mean. Newman isn’t a coward when the bullets are flying and the monsters are hunting us, but killing under fire is different from this.” I motioned at Bobby.

  “How is it different?” Olaf asked.

  I thought of several replies, but finally settled for “It would bother me more to kill someone who wasn’t a danger to me.”

  Olaf nodded. “Why?”

  Once I would have thought he was trying to be irritating, but now I realized he honestly didn’t understand the difference.

  “I’m not sure I can explain it to you.”

  “Try. I want to understand why it is important to you.”

  “I’ll think on it and try to explain later. Right now I don’t really know how.”

  Olaf thought about what I’d said and finally accepted it with a nod. “I look forward to the discussion.”