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

the Harlequin before next fall. I can’t risk dying and letting her win.”
    He nodded. “Okay, I help you solve your problem first and then you help me with mine.”
    “Agreed.”
    He smiled, and it was a mixture of Edward’s fierceness and Ted’s good ol’ boy. “I get to help you kill the oldest vampire on the planet who is just spirit, so we’ll need magic to kill her.”
    “She may not be killable. We may only be able to trap her magically, but honestly no one’s come up with anything that will work.”

    “So I help you do the impossible, and then you come on a much more mundane kill with me and Peter.”
    “I know you’ll pick something tame for Peter’s first hunt, so yeah, that about sums it up. You help me kill the unkillable, hunt and slaughter the most fearsome warriors and assassins known to either vampire or shapeshifter, and then I’ll help you do something much easier.” I smiled, I couldn’t help it.
    He shook his head. “It isn’t the killing that will be hard with Peter, it’s the emotional stuff.”
    “How’s he doing?” I asked.
    “He’s my son,” he said, but he didn’t sound happy about it.
    “You mean he’s a ruthless, cold-blooded killer?”
    “No, I mean he wants to be.”
    “Worse,” I said.
    “Much worse,” he said.
    “He’s killed before when he needed to. He’s saved my life and risked his own. He’s a good man.”
    “He’s a boy.”
    “Anyone who can stand shoulder to shoulder with me when the monsters are trying to kill us, and not flinch, isn’t a boy, Edward. He’s just young, and time will fix that.”
    “I hope so,” Edward said.
    I realized then what the real problem was. “You don’t want to see him die.”
    “I don’t want to get him killed.”
    “You won’t get him killed, Edward.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “I know that you won’t take him unless you think his skills are up to the job. I know how good you are at training people for this; you helped train me. He’s got good instincts and he’s a shooter. He doesn’t hesitate. He’s brave as hell.”
    He looked at me. “You like him.”
    “We talk on the phone at least once a month, sometimes twice. He’s a good kid.”
    “You called him a man earlier.”
    I smiled. “When he’s shooting, he’s a man; on the phone, he still sounds like a kid.”
    “He still has a crush on you.”

    I nodded. “I’ve noticed.”
    “It used to bother you that he liked you.”
    “A little, but he needs a friend he can talk to about the stuff that the two of you are doing to train him up.”
    “I didn’t know he talked to you about that.”
    “I decided I’d rather know what you’re doing with Peter than have to guess.”
    He looked at me. I looked back. We had one of those guy moments. He knew I didn’t approve, but I’d still support him and Peter. The silence said it for us, all that and more. “What do you think of his training?”
    “I think that you’re a scary son of a bitch, and he’s lucky to have you in his life.”
    Edward looked down at the steering wheel, his hands sliding over it, as if he just needed something to do with them. “Thank you for that.”
    “It’s just the truth,” I said.
    He looked up, that serious, almost sorrowful look still in his blue eyes. “Let’s get out and find Newman and try to reason with him.”
    “Reason how?” I asked.
    Edward gave me Ted’s grin, but it was his own words, “I’m a scary son of a bitch, let’s see if I can spook him.”
    I grinned. “I like it. Scare him into giving up the lead.”
    “Tilford will listen to us; Newman won’t.”
    “Let’s go scare the rookie,” I said.
    He grinned. “Let’s.”

10
    NEWMAN WAS TALL, as in over six feet tall, but slender, in that way that’s all genetics. He was probably one of those men who had trouble putting muscle over an otherwise athletic frame.

    He ran his fingers through his short brown hair and put his hat back on, setting it on his head like he