“If half your reputation is real, Marshal Blake, we aren’t making do.”
I looked away from his too-intense eyes. He wanted me to solve this. He wanted me to help them catch the thing that had killed their people. I wanted to help, but I hated that feeling of pressure. The sensation that if I missed the clue there was no backup. I thought about calling Edward in, but wasn’t sure I could call in part of my backup without getting the rest of it back. I was done with Olaf for the day if I could manage it.
I peered as close to the wounds as I could. “It looks like the claws were driven in around the groin, deep, but straight in and out, no tearing.” I stood up and gestured at the thigh wound. “Not like that.”
“Was it more than one shapeshifter?” Rose asked.
It was a good question. “Could be, but I don’t think so. This up close and personal, there just isn’t room for two to fight. I’m not discounting it, but all these wounds are so debilitating that once it happened, there wouldn’t be any need for two shapeshifters to fight this man.”
“His name was Randall Sherman, Randy,” Memphis said.
I shook my head. “No names in the morgue. I function because it’s a body. I’m sorry that he was your friend, but I can’t think of him that way and do my job.”
“I thought you had to have a name to raise the dead,” Patricia said.
“Yes, but none of these bodies will be able to be raised.”
“Why not?” Patricia asked.
“Murder victims tend to go after their murderers, first and foremost. They maim or kill anything that gets in their way, including innocent civilians.”
“Oh,” she said.
I stared down at what was left of Officer Randall Sherman and cursed Memphis for giving me a name. I don’t know why it can make such a difference, but suddenly I looked at him, not at a body. I noticed that he was tall and athletic, and had spent a lot of time staying in shape. He was probably on the other side of thirty, but it had been a good early thirty. All that work, to be strong, to be fast, to be the best, and some monster comes by and is stronger, faster, and better, just because of a disease in its blood. No amount of weight lifting or jogging would ever make a human being the equal of a shapeshifter. So unfair, so true.
“What kind of hair did you find on the body and clothes?”
“We found human hair, but no animal hair,” Memphis said.
I looked at him.
“Yes,” he said, “you can look surprised. I’ve seen two other shapeshifter kills, and we found a lot of animal hair at both. You can’t get this close to someone and not shed on them, but this shifter cleaned the body of hair so we wouldn’t know what it was.”
I shook my head. “Not necessarily, doc. You can police your brass, but not the little bits and pieces of your body. I saw the crime scene. It was a hell of a fight, and there was no time to clean up like that.”
“Then what did the creature do? Did he wear a suit?” He touched his own suit.
“I doubt it,” I said, “but a really powerful shapeshifter can do a partial shift.”
“I know a manwolf or mancat form,” Memphis said.
“No, I mean the really powerful ones can shapeshift just the hands into claws, and the feet. I saw a werewolf climb the side of a building like that.”
“That was one of your cases?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but I saw the bastard do it.”
“He used claws to shove into the building?” Patricia asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Wow, shades of Spider-Man,” Rose said.
“More Wolverine,” I said, “but the principle’s the same.”
“He got away,” Memphis said.
“Temporarily,” I said.
“How did they catch him?” Patricia asked.
“I got them to approve werewolves to track the rogue werewolf, then I killed him.”
“What do you mean you killed him?” she asked.
“I mean, I walked up to him and put a bullet between his baby blues.”
Her mouth made a little soundless
“No,” I said.
“Back to the case; you can listen to war stories from the marshal after we’ve caught our man.”
“Sorry, doctor,” Patricia said.
“Sorry, doc.”
“So you think we have a very powerful shapeshifter that did this.”
“I’m pretty sure, and that means that it’s a very small pool of suspects. There aren’t that many shifters in any city that can do it. Maybe five in a large animal group. Maybe one in a small.”
“Do you think the shapeshifter cut up the other men?”
“No, it’s almost like whatever did it had multiple arms. An arm for every blade.”
“Do you know any preternatural creature that has multiple arms, Marshal?”
I thought about it. “There are a lot of mythologies with many-armed creatures, but none native to this country. And frankly, Dr. Memphis, none that I’m sure are real and in existence today.”
“So hard to tell fact from fiction when we live in a world where myth is real,” he said.
“Some of it’s extinct,” I said.
“Whatever killed Randy Sherman wasn’t extinct,” he said.
I felt that unpleasant smile curl my lips and was glad it was hidden behind the half mask. I wouldn’t want to scare the civvies. “We’ll work on making it extinct.”
“You’ll need a warrant of execution,” Memphis said.
“Four dead police officers. One obviously dead by wereanimal attack. Getting the warrant won’t be the problem.”
“I suppose so,” Memphis said, not like he was entirely happy about it.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“It’s just that I signed the petition that they took to Washington to try to get the Domestic Preternatural Endangerment Act repealed. I believe that the warrants for your job are too broad and violate human rights.”
“You’re not alone.”
“Now, all I want is for you to get the bastards that did this; I don’t care that the warrant is based on bad law. So that makes me a hypocrite, Marshal Blake, and I’m not used to thinking of myself that way.”
“You’ve seen vampire and shapeshifter victims before,” I said.
He nodded. “Not here, though. Vegas has one of the lowest rates of murder by preternatural means of any city in the United States.”
I widened my eyes. “I didn’t know that.” In my head I thought,
“No, first friend, though. I guess if I really believed my convictions, that wouldn’t make a difference.”
“Emotion always makes a difference,” I said.
“Even for you?” He looked at me when he asked it.
I nodded.
“I’ve heard the screams when the executioner has to stake the vampire during the day. They beg for their lives.”
“Everyone on death row is innocent, doctor; you know that.”
“It doesn’t bother you then?”
I had to look away from that searching gaze. The moment I had to look down, I forced myself to meet his eyes and said the truth. “Sometimes it does.”
“Then why do it?”
Was it mean to say the next? I couldn’t tell anymore; maybe it was just true. “I’m sorry for your loss, doctor, I truly am, but this moment is a perfect example of why I do my job. Look at what they did to your friend. Do you want that to happen to someone else’s friend, husband, brother?”
His face hardened, and it was back to the original hostile look. “No.”
