'The only reason I couldn't kill them tonight was because of the law that she' and she pointed a finger at me without really looking at me 'helped create.'

I resisted the urge to grab her finger and break it as it pointed in my face, but her face stayed toward Edward. 'If you kill the two vampires we have, then what, Hatfield?'

She finally deigned to look at me. 'Then we'd have two less vampires walking around.'

'So you're more about killing the vampires than solving cases,' I said.

'Once they're dead, it is solved,' she said.

I looked at Jonas. 'The two vampires in custody only went missing as humans about a month ago, or that's what the locals have told me. I'd come down here tonight to read over the files, but are they about a month missing?'

'About,' Jonas said.

'So who made them vampires? Who made the rotting vampires that we killed in the woods?'

'The bastard that runs the bloodsuckers in this city made them!' Hatfield said, her voice strident and just this side of yelling.

'They were rotting vampires. That means that your Master of the City couldn't have made them, because he's not a rotter.'

'They're all walking corpses, Blake; they all rot in the end.'

'Everyone rots in the end, Hatfield,' I said.

'Fredrico has disavowed all knowledge of the vampires in the woods,' Jonas said.

'Of course he has,' Hatfield said. 'What else could he say? That he lost control of some of his bloodsuckers and they slaughtered people?'

'Entire families are missing,' I said. 'Vampires don't take out families. It's illegal to make children into vampires.'

'I've killed kid vampires,' she said.

'How many?' I asked.

She looked sullen and finally muttered, 'Two.'

'They were older than they looked, though, weren't they?'

'What's that supposed to mean?' she asked.

'I mean they looked like kids, but they weren't,' I said.

'They were kids,' she said, and sounded so certain.

'Did you talk to them at all?' I asked.

'Talk to them? Talk to them? Who talks to the vampires? Oh, wait, you do, and a hell of a lot more than just talk.'

Edward said, 'Have you spoken to any of the vampires before you killed them?'

She wouldn't meet his eyes full on before she said, 'No, they don't do much talking during the day.'

'Have you ever even served an active warrant?' Edward asked.

'Once you serve it, it qualifies as an active warrant,' she said.

'Have you ever been on a vampire hunt?' I asked.

She just stood there glaring at us.

'Have all your vampires been morgue kills?' I asked.

'No, I've tracked the bloodsuckers to their lairs and killed their asses in coffins and fucking sleeping bags. I've been lucky and found them in daylight most of the time, so there wasn't a lot of talking happening; besides, they're not afraid of me. I'm not the Executioner.'

I exchanged a look with Edward. Hatfield wasn't exactly a newbie, but she wasn't us. Maybe it showed on our faces, because she said, 'I am a legal vampire executioner; I do my job, I'm just not the Executioner,' she said. 'The vampires haven't given me some cute pet name yet.'

'They don't hand those out to every marshal,' Edward said.

'Yeah, I know you're Death,' she said.

For a second I thought Hatfield knew about Ted's big secret identity as Edward, because he'd been Death as long as I'd been the Executioner, but the nickname had been his before a badge and falling in love with Donna had tamed him down some. But the vampires had dubbed Edward Death once as an assassin/bounty hunter and once as a bounty hunter/marshal. It was convenient of them to use the same name twice.

I fought to keep my face blank as Edward drawled in his best Ted voice, 'If you know I'm one of the Four Horsemen, then you know that Anita has two earned names among the vampires.'

She looked sullen. 'Yeah, I know she has two pet names.'

'I don't,' Jonas said. 'Enlighten me.'

We both looked at Hatfield. She glared at both of us, then finally back at Jonas. 'Forrester is Death and Blake is War.'

'Who are the other two Horsemen?'

'Otto Jeffries is Pestilence, and Bernardo Spotted-Horse is Hunger.'

'I've met Spotted-Horse and I know Jeffries by reputation; they're both ex-military, and so are you, right, Forrester?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then why is Blake "War"? She's never been military.'

'She has a higher kill count than I do,' Edward said, 'and the vampires see Death as a one-on-one killer, whereas War kills a lot all at one time.'

'You asked the vampires,' Jonas said.

'I did.'

'But why not Jeffries, or Spotted-Horse?'

'You've met Bernardo, right?' I asked.