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“Dolph said the crime scene was on the main road. You won’t miss it, Jason.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Trust me.”

He flashed me another grin, his own blue eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. “I do trust you.”

“What went wrong?” I asked again.

“What were you doing when dawn broke?” he asked, speeding back up and taking the next curve a little faster than I would have liked.

“The ardeur, Asher was feeding, and . . .” I hesitated only for a second, “having sex.”

“With both of them at once,” he said, voice mock serious, “I am so disappointed in you, Anita.”

“Disappointed why?”

“That I wasn’t invited.”

“You are so lucky you’re driving right now.”

He grinned, but didn’t turn away from the road this time. “Why do you think I said it while I was driving?” He slowed. “I see what you meant about not missing it.”

I turned my attention from Jason’s face to the road. Police cars, marked and unmarked, were everywhere. Two emergency vehicles were parked on the edge of the road, which effectively blocked traffic. If we’d been planning to drive farther on, we’d have had to find another way around. But lucky us, we were stopping here.

Jason pulled the Jeep over, driving into the grass in a vain attempt to leave some space for anyone else that might be coming behind us.

A uniformed officer started walking towards us before Jason had turned off the engine. I got my badge out of my suit jacket pocket. I, Anita Blake, vampire executioner, was technically a federal marshal. All vampire hunters that were currently state licensed in the United States had been grandfathered in to federal status, if they could qualify on a shooting range. I’d qualified, and now I was a fed. They were still arguing in Washington, D.C., about whether they’d be able to give us anything more than the pittance that each state pays us per kill, which is not enough so you could afford to do it as a day job. But then, luckily the vampires haven’t gotten so out of hand that any state needed a vampire hunter full time.

I wasn’t getting any more money, so why had I wanted the badge? Because it meant I could chase the vampires, or other supernatural bad guys, across state lines, different law enforcement jurisdictions, and not have to ask anyone’s permission. I also wouldn’t be up on murder charges if I killed a vamp on the wrong side of a state line where I wasn’t licensed.

But for me, more than most vampire hunters, there was an extra benefit to having a badge of my very own. I no longer had to rely on policemen friends to get me into crime scenes.

I didn’t know the uniformed officer that was about to knock on our Jeep window, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t keep me out of the crime scene. I was a federal marshal—I could stick my nose into any preternaturally related crime I wanted to. A real federal marshal could have intruded into any investigation, and technically my badge didn’t specify that I was relegated to preternatural crime, but I know my limitations. I know monsters, and monster-related crime. A regular cop I am not. What I’m good at, I’m very good at, but what I don’t know shit about, I don’t know shit about. Take me away from the monsters and I wasn’t sure how much use I’d be.

I was out of the Jeep and flashing my badge before the uniform got to us. He sized me up the way men will do from shoes to face—in that order. Any man who starts at my feet and then goes up has lost pretty much any chance he has to impress me.

I read his name tag, “Officer Jenkins, I’m Anita Blake. Lieutenant Storr is expecting me.”

“Storr isn’t here,” he said, arms crossed over his chest.

Great, he didn’t recognize my name—so much for being a celebrity—and he was going to play ‘don’t want the feds pissing in my pond!’

Jason had gotten out on his side of the Jeep. Maybe I looked a little disreputable in my slightly wrinkled suit, with a run in my hose that went from toe to thigh, but Jason didn’t look like a fed, or a cop. He was dressed in blue jeans that had faded through enough washings to be comfortable, a blue T-shirt that almost