Cerulean Sins   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Zerbrowski started to give directions, and I had to tell him to wait until I had a pen and paper. There was no pen and paper anywhere in the room. I was finally reduced to writing directions in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. Zerbrowski was laughing his ass off by the time I found the lipstick and started drawing on the mirror.

He gasped a little, and finally managed to say, "Thanks, Blake, I so needed that."

"Glad I could brighten your day." I crawled back on the bed.

I thought about what Jason had said about a werewolf being able to follow the scent trail. I bounced the idea off of Zerbrowski.

He was dead silent for a minute. "There is no way I could get anyone to agree to letting another shape-shifter near this scene."

"You're the man in charge," I said.

"No, Anita, you bring another shifter around, and they're going to end up being questioned just like Schuyler did. Don't do it. This whole thing is going to turn into a witch hunt soon."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they're starting to bring in all known shape-shifters for questioning."

"The ACLU is going to be up in arms," I said.

"Yeah, but not until they've held a few people over, and questioned them."

"It isn't one of the local lycanthropes, Zerbrowski."

"I can't tell the upper brass that our perp doesn't smell like the local werewolf pack, Anita. They'll say that of course the local wolves would say that, they don't want to be blamed for this shit."

"I believe Jason."

"Maybe I believe him, too, maybe I don't, but it doesn't matter, Anita. It really doesn't matter. People are fucking terrified. There's a rush bill in the state senate right now to declare varmint laws legal again in Missouri."

"Varmint laws, Jesus, Zerbrowski, you don't mean like some of the Western states still have on the books?"

"Yeah, kill it first, then if a blood test proves it's a lycanthrope, it's self-defense, not murder, and there's no trial."

"It'll never get into law," I said, and I was almost certain when I said it.

"Probably not right now, but Anita, we get a few more women torn up like this, and I don't know."

"I'd like to say people aren't that stupid," I said.

"But you know better," he said.

"Yeah."

He sighed. "There's something else." He sounded really unhappy.

I sat up a little straighter against the headboard, forcing Nathaniel to recuddle.

"You sound like you're about to give me really bad news, Zerbrowski.