“You’re the necromancer, I’m just a humble killer,” he said.

“Which means, you don’t know either,” I said.

“Why doesn’t your boyfriend know? Jean-Claude is Master of the City of St. Louis, and what’s left of the European power structure is trying to make him head of a new vampire council here in the States. Why aren’t the vampires and all the other wereanimals you’re hanging out with helping to stop this?”

“The other . . . whatevers are hunting these guys. They’ll be traveling as they hear about the bodies, but they’re behind us, Edward. We’ve been first on the ground in the last three cities.”

“For preternaturals that are supposed to be the greatest spies and assassins ever, they suck at anything useful.”

“We’re not doing much better,” I said.

“So the vampires can’t help us. We’re cops, let’s be cops,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“We work the scene. This is the kill site. This is where we can learn new things about these bastards. Things that aren’t legends, but what they did only a few hours ago. It can help us catch them.”

“You really believe that?”

“I have to believe that, and so do you.”

I took in a deep breath and wished I hadn’t. There was a faint bitter smell because we were standing near the end of the body. Death isn’t neat, or pretty, or clean; it’s all outhouse smells as your body does everything it can do all at once, one last time.

“Fine,” I said, and I squatted beside the body on the balls of my feet. I made myself look at the body, really look at it.

“This body was sliced, neat, very few cuts, very efficient.”

“So why tear the body into pieces?”

“Because they wanted to do it, and were strong enough to do it,” I said.