"No, most dogs won't track a shape-shifter, they're too scared of them."
"We're not animals, Anita."
"No, you're not, but in animal form you have the nose of one, but you still have the brain of a person. You can track and think."
"Me, you expect me to do this?"
I shook my head, and laid the photo down on the pile. I stood and spread the pile out across his table. "No, but Jason would, and Jamil would if you asked him to. I'd say Sylvie, but she's not well enough to do much of anything."
"She challenged me, and she lost," Richard said. His eyes kept flicking to the photos on the table. "Get those off of my table."
"He's out there right now, about to turn another woman into so much meat."
"Fine, fine, take Jason, take Jamil, take whoever the hell you want."
"Thank you." I started gathering the photos up.
"You didn't have to do it this way, Anita."
"What way?" I asked, shutting the file over the gruesome photos.
"Harsh. You could have just asked me."
"Would you have said yes?"
"I don't know, but those photos are going to haunt me."
"I saw the real deal, Richard, your nightmares can't be worse than mine."
He moved in one of those blurs of speed and grabbed my arm. "Part of me thinks they're horrifying, just like I'm supposed to, but part of me likes the pictures." His fingers dug into my arm, bruising. "Part of me just sees fresh meat." He let a growl trickle out from between his even white teeth.
"I'm sorry you hate what you are, Richard."
He let go of me so fast, I almost fell. "Take the wolves you need, and get out."
"If I could wave a magic wand over you and make you human, purely human, I'd do it, Richard."
He looked at me; his eyes had bled to wolf amber. "I believe you, but there isn't a magic wand. I am what I am, and nothing will ever change that."
"I'm sorry, Richard."
"I've decided to live, Anita."
I looked at him. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"I've been trying to die. I'm not going to die anymore. I'm going to live, whatever that means."
"I'm glad, but I wish you sounded happier about the choice."
"Go, Anita, you've got a murderer to catch."
I did, and time was not on our side. But I still hated leaving him like this. "I'll do what I can to help you, Richard, you know that."
"Like you help all your friends."
I shook my head, gathered up the folder, and went for the door. "When you want to talk, and not to fight, give me a call, Richard."
"And when you want to talk, and not catch murderers, you give me a call."
We left it at that. But I didn't have time to hold his hand, even if he would have let me. Van Anders was out there, and there were so many people he could hurt. What was a little emotional desolation between friends compared to getting Van Anders off the streets?
60
Jason and Jamil stayed in human form, while Norman and Patricia stayed in wolf form. I'd seen Norman in human form before, but I couldn't put a face on Patricia. She was just a big shaggy wolf, pale, almost white. We had to put the two pony-sized wolves on leashes. Today of all days I did not want the police seeing a giant wolf running loose on the streets. I was thinking they'd be in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of mood.
I'd unzipped the two bags that I'd collected from Van Anders's rented apartment. The wolves sniffed it, growled, and on the end of leashes, they tracked him from the sidewalk around his apartment building, and all through the city, and finally to a mall.
The police had been watching the airports, the bus stations, the highways. Van Anders was sitting in the freaking food court of Eastfield mall. He'd piled his hair up under a billed cap and added a cheap pair of sunglasses. As disguises went it was okay. Besides, I couldn't complain, much. I was wearing a billed cap with my hair up under it, and sunglasses. I hate it when the bad guys copy. I was also wearing a baggy T-shirt, and baggy jeans with my Nikes. Short as I was, I looked like a thousand teenagers wandering any mall in America.
I'd deputized Jamil and Jason. They stayed out of sight, but warned me that he'd smell them sooner or later. I'd already flashed my badge at mall security. I'd made the decision that we wouldn't call the police, and we wouldn't try to evacuate. I had a court order of execution. I didn't have to give him a warning. I didn't have to do anything but kill him.
It was mid-afternoon, so the food court wasn't too busy. That was good. There was a group of teenagers at the table nearest Van Anders. Why weren't they in school? At the table next-closest to him was a mother with a baby in a stroller and two toddlers. Two toddlers, neither of them in baby seats, but running free, while she tried to help the baby eat soft-serve yogurt.
Van Anders was still more than fifteen feet from the rampaging toddlers. The teenagers were frightfully close, but I couldn't figure out how to get them to move. I was working up my nerve to wind my way through the daytime moms and kids, when the teenagers got up, left their trash on the table, and walked away.
Van Anders was as isolated as I was going to get him here in the mall. I wasn't willing to let him escape again. He was too dangerous. I made the decision in that moment that I would endanger all these nice people. That the mother with her yogurt-smeared baby, and the two screaming toddlers were going to have to take their chances. I was fairly certain I could control the situation well enough to keep them out of it, but I wasn't completely certain. All I knew for sure was that I was going to take him, now. I wasn't going to wait.
I had my gun at my side, safety off, round-chambered long before I got to the table with the mother and her children. I had my federal marshal badge hanging out over the pocket of the large T-shirt, just in case some brave civilian decided to try and save Van Anders.
I had the gun up and pointed as I passed the woman's table. I think it was her soft gasp that made him turn. He saw the badge, and he smiled, taking another bite of his sandwich. He talked with his mouth full. "Are you going to warn me not to move, tell me to freeze?" He sounded Dutch.
"No," I said, and I shot him.
The bullet spun him out of his chair, and I fired again before he'd hit the ground. The first one had been rushed; not lethal, but the second one was a solid body shot.
I fired into his body twice more before I got close enough to watch his mouth open and shut. Blood blossomed from his lips, and turned his blue shirt purple.
I circled wide, so I could get a clear head shot. He lay on his back and bled, and managed to cough blood, and clear his throat enough to say, "Police have to give warning. Can't just shoot."
I let out all the breath in my body, and sighted on his forehead just above the eyes. "I'm not the police, Van Anders, I'm the executioner."
His eyes widened, and he said, "No."
I pulled the trigger and watched most of his face explode into an unrecognizable mess. His eyes had been bluer than in the photos.
61
Bradley called me at home that night. Strangely, after blowing a man's brains out in front of a lot of suburban moms and kids I just wasn't in the mood to go into work. I was already tucked into bed with my favorite toy penguin, Sigmund, and Micah curled beside me. Usually Micah's warmth was more comforting than a truckload of stuffed toys, but tonight I needed that choking grip on my favorite toy. Micah's arms were wonderful, but Sigmund never told me I was being silly, or bloodthirsty. Neither had Micah, but I kept waiting for it.
"You made national news, and the Post-Dispatch is running a front-page picture of you executing Van Anders," Bradley said.