Free Anita Blake 20 - Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

also be addictive, and some people are more susceptible than others.”
    “You mean like drugs—some people get addicted quicker than others.”
    “Exactly. I’d hate to pick some stranger and he turns out to be one of those. He’d be addicted to something he might never be able to find again, and I’d feel guilty, and have to take him home with me like a stray puppy.”
    “You would, too,” Edward said, like he found it a character flaw.

    “You wouldn’t feel guilty, would you?”
    “You mean could I fuck someone, addict them to theardeur , and just walk away?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “You’re one of my closest friends, but I totally don’t understand that.”
    “I know.” He pulled into the parking lot with all the other police cars.
    I finished the last bite of my breakfast and took another sip of Coke, because coffee tasted bad with Egg McMuffin. I wiped my hands on napkins.
    He turned off the engine but didn’t get out. I waited.
    “You’re not as ruthless as I am, but you kill as easily as I do.”
    “Thanks,” I said, because I knew it was a compliment.
    He gave me a small smile, I think to acknowledge that I was one of the few people on the planet who would have known it was a compliment.
    “But if anything goes wrong, I know you’ll see Donna and the kids right.”
    “You know I will, but it’s not like you to be this morbid, Edward. You have a premonition?” I asked, and I was serious, because cops get those sometimes. A lot of them are a little bit psychic; it’s one of the ways they stay alive.
    “It’s Peter. He needs me or someone like me to finish training him.”
    “You know I still don’t approve of you training him to follow in the family business,” I said.
    “Being a marshal, you mean?”
    “No games, Edward, not between us,” I said.
    He nodded. “He wants me to take him out of the country on a job when he turns eighteen, if I think he’s ready.”
    “Will he be ready?” I asked.
    He pursed his lips and then nodded. “I think so.”
    “You sound sad about that.”
    He nodded again. “You know how it is on hunts like that, Anita. Being good isn’t enough.”
    “You have to be lucky, too,” I said.
    “I’m afraid that I’ll be so worried about him I won’t be careful enough.”

    “You’re afraid if you take him that you’ll get yourself killed protecting him and once you die, he’ll die, too,” I said.
    “Yes,” he said, and turned in the seat to look at me. His face was very serious, not blank, not angry, not threatening, just serious.
    “Don’t take him,” I said.
    “I can’t back out on him now, Anita. It would destroy him.”
    I frowned at him, sipped my Coke, and tried to think. “What do you want me to say?”
    “I’m about to ask a favor, one that I don’t have the right to ask.”
    That surprised me, and it must have shown on my face. “What could you possibly ask that you don’t have the right to ask?”
    “Come with me on Peter’s first hunt.”
    I blinked at him. I thought about a lot of things, but finally said, “When?”
    “Next year, probably fall.”
    I nodded. “Just like deer season,” I said.
    “Yeah.”
    I nodded again. “I’ll probably have to bring some of the bodyguards for me, and you know that I don’t approve of what you’re doing with Peter.”
    “But you’ll still come,” he said.
    “Yes, I’ll still come.”
    “I know that if you die, you risk pulling everyone you’re metaphysically tied to down to the grave with you, everyone you love, and you’ll still come.”
    I sighed. “I should talk to them first, to be honest, and I will, but we can’t keep each other from living our lives; then we become prisoners, and none of us want that.” I started putting all the trash in the little bag. “Besides, I think Jean-Claude is powerful enough to keep everyone alive.
    But if I’m going to risk all that out of the country, then we have to defeat the Mother of All Darkness and