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“Funny how one hate group feeds into another,” I said.
“Funny that,” he said.
“I hear that the deacon program at the Eternal Life was your and Jean-Claude’s idea.”
“The church was firebombed once before all this new round of hate started. Training up some of the members to do basic security issues just made sense,” I said.
“Zerbrowski says they were pros about it all.”
“I’m really glad to hear that; we had our people train them up, but training isn’t the same as a real emergency.”
“Well, they helped calm all the newest vampires down; not a single one of them attacked a human. In fact, I’ve been talking to police all across the country and there are almost no regular vampire attacks on unwilling humans. It’s almost a zero-crime stat since Jean-Claude took over, not just here but all over the country.”
“I’ll tell Jean-Claude that we’re making progress.”
“We all are, but as the violence committed by vampires goes down, the violence committed against them seems to be getting worse.”
“You think it’s because the hate groups aren’t as afraid the vampires will fight back?” I asked.
“That’s one theory.”
Ethan said, “I hate that vampires being nicer paints a bigger target on their backs.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“The thought that they could target Darren and Erica’s house like this, just because she’s a vampire, scares the hell out of me.”
“I don’t have any comfort on that point, Dolph. The main vamp in my life was already attacked and two of my people are hurt.”
“I’m not looking for comfort, Anita, I know better.”
I realized that everything he’d told me could have been done over the phone, so why on a night when his unit would be spread the thinnest of all was he here in person? Then I realized he was here to check on me. If we’d had that kind of friendship I’d have hugged him, but since we didn’t I smiled and asked, “How is the second surrogate working out for Darren and Erica?”
He smiled then, the cop weariness fading. “So far so good, they keep telling us not to get excited this early in the pregnancy, but Lucille is already shopping for baby clothes and talking about putting a car seat in one of our cars.” They were hopefully going to be the first grandparents with a vampire daughter-in-law, thanks to a surrogate who thought it was awesome to give vampires a chance to have their own children. We’d managed to keep it out of the news so far, but eventually it would get out. The hate groups would hate it lots. Dolph had never been a member of any group, but a few years back he’d certainly been one of the haters.
“That’s great, I can’t wait to get to call you Grandpa.”
He grinned, but said, “You don’t get to call me Grandpa, but I’m looking forward to being one.”
“You know it’s all that Zerbrowski’s going to call you once it happens,” I said.
He just smiled. He wouldn’t care. “How did the dinner with your family go?”
“You remember how you felt about vampires a few years back?”
The smile vanished. “I do.”
“My dad is that bad, but with less hands-on violence and way more religious zealotry.”
He looked grim. “You promised me that if anyone else ever laid hands on you like that again, you’d report them, get their asses arrested for assault and battery no matter who it is.”
If I’d followed that advice when he was at his most unstable from hating the monsters, he’d have lost his badge and maybe seen jail time. He’d been put on unpaid leave and forced anger management, and had been encouraged to get more therapy and basically get his shit together or else. He and I had finally talked it out with Lucille’s urging. Dolph had never hit me, but when a man his size grabs you in anger you know you’ve been grabbed. I could have ruined his career and I even had witnesses, so why didn’t I? Because only a few years earlier I’d believed what he believed, that vampires were just evil walking corpses. I understood that to Dolph, his son’s vampire girlfriend was going to kill his son by turning him into a vampire. She was about to murder his son. Who wouldn’t want to destroy the world to stop that?
“My dad never laid hands on me, he left that to his mother.”
“She doesn’t get to lay hands on you either,” Dolph said.
“No, no, she doesn’t,” I said.
