Anita Blake 20 - Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

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    I kept an eye on the doorway as I searched for Laila’s pulse. Edward was in the doorway: shirtless, boxers, with a gun in each hand. I let him watch for bad guys and looked down at Laila.
    Her arm was broken at the wrist and maybe higher up. There was blood, too, and it wasn’t from the arm. Fuck.
    I heard the other marshal go back toward the room. “I’ll call for an ambulance, and then will someone tell me what the hell just happened?”
    Edward kept watch out into the night, but said, “Her warrant is vacated. I guess we have our warrant of execution.”
    “I didn’t want it this way,” I said.
    “She’s alive, Anita. It could have gone the other way.”
    He was right. I knew he was right, so why did I feel so shitty? “I don’t know where the blood is coming from, but somewhere on her back. I don’t want to move her, but there’s too much blood.
    We need to find the wound and put pressure on it. If she bleeds out, nothing else matters.”

    He knelt down to help but kept his side toward the door so he could still see movement. “We can hunt them now, Anita, our way.”
    He helped me lift her and try to keep her neck from moving. It probably wasn’t a spinal injury, but back wounds can be tricky, and cautious was better than being wrong. He helped me lift her just enough so I could search for the wound. But it wasn’t just a wound, it was several. I found at least three. “Shit!” I said.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “It’s multiple wounds, which means it wasn’t a blade. He used claws.”
    “Powerful enough shapeshifter to change just his hands,” Edward said.
    “Yes.”
    “They’re all going to be that powerful,” he said.
    “I know.” I got towels from the bathroom to press against the wounds. “These are punctures. If they’re deep, her chances of catching lycanthropy are higher.”
    “You’ll have to tell the EMTs when they get here.”
    “I know.” I pressed the towels against the wound and tried to stop the bleeding. Edward kept holding her up and trying to keep her neck from moving. It was the best we could do until the medics got here.
    “What’s our way?” I asked.
    “What?” he asked.
    “You said we’d be able to hunt them our way now. What’s our way?”
    “Violent, and very, very final.”
    I looked at him over Laila’s unconscious body. My hands were already soaked with her blood. I was kneeling in it. “Did you see the speed of the thing?”
    “Incredible.”
    “How do we kill that speed?”
    “Wound it, then chop it up.” He sounded eager.
    “I’m scared, Edward.”
    He looked at me, his eyes empty and cold as a winter’s moon. “I’m not.” I guess he meant it to be comforting, and I guess maybe it was.

6
    ONE OF THE good things about wearing the tight, tiny jammies was that no blood had gotten on them. Edward had had to give up his boxers to go into a baggie for the lab. They had let him put on shorts and a T-shirt since his room wasn’t a crime scene. Until the techs were done, my room was off limits. But neither of us had gotten to clean off the blood yet. My jammies were blood free, but the rest of me wasn’t. I had blood on my legs from the knees down, and on my arms nearly to the elbow on one side. Forensic techs had taken samples of the blood on little swabs but hadn’t let me clean up yet. The blood was drying and had that crinkly feeling to it like it always did, as if I could feel it adhering to my skin. I was never sure if that was a sensory illusion or if I could really feel it drying. Either way, I could feel the blood almost catching on my skin every time I moved just right. I wanted a shower. They had given me a blanket to hold around my shoulders in the chill of the night air, but the cement of the open balcony area was damn cold under bare feet. It was also awkward holding my gun in one hand while trying to hold the blanket in place. Detective Lorenzo had offered to let me put my gun in Edward’s room since the