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Usually, when there’s a body on the ground, the police of whatever flavor are inside at the scene walking on the evidence. But there were too many people out here. There couldn’t possibly be that many more inside the house. The house was big, but not that big.

Only one thing would keep them out in the New Mexico heat. The scene was a bad one. Gory, piteous, frightening, though no one will admit out loud to that one. Pick an adjective, but the police milled around the yard in the heat with their ties, the women in high heels on the loose gravel. Cigarettes had appeared in a lot of hands. They talked in small hushed voices that didn’t carry above the crackle of radios. They huddled in small groups, or sat alone on the edge of cars, but not for long. Everyone kept moving, as if to remain still was to think and that was a bad thing. They reminded me of the horses nervously running in circles.

A uniformed police officer was sitting at the open doors of the ambulance. The emergency medical technician was bandaging his hand. How had he gotten hurt? I hurried to catch up with Marks. If he were the man in charge, he’d know what had happened. Edward just fell into step behind me, no questions, just following my lead. He had ego problems with me sometimes, but on the job there was nothing but the job. You left the shit outside the door. You could always pick it up on your way back out.

I caught up with Marks on the long narrow wraparound porch. “What happened to the uniform that’s getting his hand bandaged?”

Marks stopped in mid-stride and looked at me. His eyes were still a hard, pitiless green. You always think of green eyes as being pretty or soft, but his were like green glass. He had a big hate on for me, a big one.

I smiled sweetly and thought, fuck you, too. But I’d learned lately to lie even with my eyes. It was almost sad that I could lie with my eyes. They really are the mirror to the soul, and once they go, you are damaged. Not beyond repair, but damaged.

We stared at each other for a second or two, his hatred like a fine burning weight, my pleasant smiling mask. He blinked first, like there’d been any doubt. “One of the survivors bit him.”

My eyes widened. “Are the survivors still inside?”

He shook his head. “They’re on their way to the hospital.”

“Anybody else get hurt?” When you ask that at a scene where vics are down, you almost always mean other cops.

Marks nodded, and some of the hostility drained from his eyes leaving them puzzled. “Two other officers had to be taken to the hospital.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“Bad. One nearly got his throat ripped out.”

“Have any of the other mutilation vics been that violent?”

“No,” he said.

“How many vics were there?”

“Two, and one dead, but we’re missing at least three other people, maybe five. We’ve got a couple unaccounted for, but other guests heard them talking about a picnic earlier. We’re hoping they missed the show.”

I looked at him. He was being very helpful, very professional. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“I know my job, Ms. Blake.”

“I never said otherwise.”

He looked at me, then at Edward, then finally settled his gaze on me. “If you say so.” He turned abruptly and walked through the open door behind him.

I looked at Edward. He shrugged. We followed Marks in, though I noticed we’d lost the uniformed officer somewhere in the walk across the yard. No one was spending more time inside than they had to.

The living room looked as if someone had taken white liquid and poured it down to form the sloping walls, the curved doorways leading away into the house, the freeform fireplace. There was a bleached cow skull above the fireplace. A brown leather couch wrapped a huge nearly perfect square in front of the cold fire. There were pillows with Native American prints on them. A huge rug that looked almost identical to one of Edward’s took up most of the center of the floor. In fact the entire place looked like an updated version of Edward’s place. Maybe I still hadn