Cerulean Sins

His eyes flashed wide. He was speaking fast and frantically to his friend.

"Bobby Lee," I said, "have someone on that side of the car press the barrel of their gun against the passenger side window."

"You want them to shoot?"

"Not yet, and if they do have to shoot I don't want to chance hitting the blond with the same bullet." I looked up at him. "Aim accordingly."

It was Claudia who stepped forward and put her gun against the window, she angled it slightly down so she'd miss the man on the other side. Bullets have a nasty tendency to travel farther than you want them to.

She asked, without looking at me, never taking her eyes from the man she was aiming at. "Do I get to kill him?"

"We only need one of them to question," I said.

She smiled, a flash of white teeth, and it was fierce and frightening framed by all that dark hair, that lovely face. "Great."

"I won't ask again, put your hands where we can see them, or else," I said.

He didn't put his hands up. He was either stupid or... "Bobby Lee, does anyone have our backs?"

"You mean backup?" he asked.

"Yeah, he's awful stubborn, unless he thinks help is coming."

He said something quick and harsh, it sounded German, but it wasn't, and his Southern accent vanished when he said it. Some of the wererats turned outward, watching the perimeter. We were in the open, no one was going to sneak up on us. The only real danger would have been if someone had a rifle and scope. There was really nothing we could do about snipers, and because there was nothing we could do about it, we had to let it go, pretend it couldn't happen, and take care of what was happening. But a spot from between my shoulder blades to the top of my head ran with goose bumps, as if I could feel the scope on me. I was pretty sure it was imagination, but my imagination's always been a problem when I got overly excited. I tried to think of something else, like why the man wouldn't put his fucking hands up.

I aimed one-handed so I could free up my left hand. I held a finger up, one, then another finger, two.

The blond was speaking frantically. I could hear snatches of his voice, do it, God, do it.

I actually started to put up that third finger, when the bill-cap man put his hands up, slowly. Empty hands, but I was betting any amount of money that he had some nasty piece of hardware in his lap. Oh, yeah.

Claudia kept her gun against his window. I think because she hadn't been told to move away. Frankly, I liked her there, close enough to fire if he went for whatever was in his lap.

I made the universal sign for roll the window down, rolling my hand in the air. They were in an old enough car that they actually had to crank it down. The blond unwound the window, slowly, carefully, and kept his other hand glued to the steering wheel. He was a cautious man. I liked that.

He rolled the window down, put his hands back on the steering wheel, and said nothing. He didn't try to plead i

I was short enough that with a little stooping I could see into the other man's lap. It was empty, which meant whatever he'd been cradling was on the floorboard. He'd dropped it so we wouldn't see it. What the hell was it?

I raised my voice a little. "You in the cap, put your hands slowly on the dashboard, flat, and if they move from there, you will be shot. Is that clear?"

He wouldn't look at me.

"Is that clear?"

He began to move his hands towards the dashboard. "It's clear."

"Why were you following me?" I asked, mostly to the blond, because I was begi

"I do not know what you are talking about." He had a faint German accent, and I had too many relatives with the same accent not to recognize it. Of course, they were all over sixty, and hadn't seen the old country for a few decades. I was betting blondie was a more recent import.

"Where'd the pretty blue Jeep go?" I asked.

His face went very still.

"I told you," the bill-cap said.

"Yeah, we spotted you," I said. "It wasn't all that hard."

"You would not have seen us if you had not been swerving all over the road," Blondie said.

"Sorry about that, but we had some technical difficulties."

"Yeah, like one of you turned furry," the guy in the cap said. He definitely was middle American, middle of nowhere, no accent.

"So you wondered what was wrong, and got close enough to see," I said.

Neither of them said anything to that.

"You are both going to get, very slowly, out of this car. If either of you goes for a weapon, you may both die. I only need one of you for questioning, the other is just gravy. I'll do my best to see that one of you lives, but I won't break a sweat to save you both, because I don't need you both. Is that clear?"

The blond said, "yes," the other one said, "Crystal fucking clear." Oh, yeah, he was American, only we have that poetic turn of phrase.

Then I heard the sirens. They were close, very close, like in front of the building close. I'd have liked to think they were just passing through, but when you're holding this many guns out in the open, you can't count on that.

"Never a cop when you need one," Bobby Lee said, "try to do anything illegal, and they're all over ya."

The billed-cap man said, "If you put all your guns away before the cops get in sight, we'll just pretend this didn't happen." He was smiling as he leaned across, so I'd be sure and see the smug expression.

I smiled back, and his smile wilted because I looked too damned pleased. I wasn't smooth at digging my badge out of my pocket yet, not one-handed anyway, but I managed. I flashed the metallic star in its little case. "Federal marshal, asshole. Keep your hands where we can see them until the nice policemen arrive."

"What are you arresting us for?" the blond asked in his German accent. "We have done nothing."

"Oh, I don't know. We'll start with carrying concealed weapons without a permit, then suspicion of grand theft auto." I patted the side of the Impala. "This ain't your car, and whatever your friend over there dropped on the floorboard is going to be illegal. Just call it a hunch."

"Bobby Lee, we don't need this big a crowd."

He grasped my meaning and barked another order in that odd guttural almost-German.

The wererats melted away in that too-quick-to-follow-with-the-eye blur of speed I'd seen them use once or twice.

Claudia stayed at her post, and Bobby Lee refused to leave, but it was just the three of us when the first policeman saw us. Well, five if you count the bad guys.

Two uniformed officers came up the alley, walking, because the truck that was blocking the road hadn't moved, but the wererat that had been driving it was walking just ahead of them with his hands laced on the top of his head. With his hands up, it flashed that his shoulder holster was empty. They'd taken his gun.

I made sure my badge was held up as high as I could manage. I was yelling "federal marshall" as they came around the corner.

The cops used the few cars on that side of the lot for cover, and yelled, "Guns down!"

I yelled, "Federal Marshal Anita Blake, the rest of these people are federal deputies."

Bobby Lee whispered, "Deputies?"

I spoke out of the corner of my mouth, "Just agree with me."

"Yes, ma'am."

I stepped back from the car enough to flash my badge better and yell, "Federal Marshall Blake, glad to see you officers."

The officers stayed behind the engine blocks of the cars, but had stopped yelling at us. They were trying to figure out how much trouble they'd be in if we really were federal and they messed up what we were doing, but they weren't worrying about politics so hard as to risk getting themselves shot. I approved.