Dolph ignored him and kept those cool cop eyes on me. If I'd been sure how the federal marshal program would have handled my being Jean-Claude's human servant I might have just said yes, but I wasn't sure, so I had to lie, or distract him. "You know, Dolph, I've tried to be professional here, but you've asked me if I've fucked someone, you've persistently asked personal and sexual questions. Did you miss the day they covered sexual harassment?"
"You are, you really belong to him, don't you?"
"I don't belong to anyone, Dolph. I'm so my own woman that I'm chasing some of them away. Requiem wants to own me; that's the vampire who just left, if you didn't catch his name. I don't want to be owned, not by anybody. Jean-Claude understands that better than any human I ever dated. Maybe that's what your son sees in his fiancée, Dolph. Maybe she understands him in ways you never will." That last was mean, and meant to be, but we had to end this conversation.
"You leave my family out of this." His voice was low and careful.
"I will if you will. Your obsession with vampires and my personal life started about the time your son got engaged to a vampire. It's not my fault. I didn't introduce them. I didn't even know he'd done it, until you told me."
"The Master of the City knew. He just didn't tell you," Dolph said.
"Is that what you've been thinking, that Jean-Claude somehow sicced a vampire on your son, so she'd seduce him?"
He gave me a look. "You're not the only vampire hunter in this country now, Anita. You're not even the only one with a badge. They tell me that the Master of the City has absolute authority. That no local vamp does anything without permission."
"If only that were true, but your son's fiancée belongs to the Church of Eternal Life. She's Malcolm's problem right now, not Jean-Claude's. The Church of Eternal Life is its own little universe in vampireland. Frankly, the other vamps are a little puzzled on how to deal with the Church when its members do stupid stuff like dating a policeman's son."
"Why was it stupid?"
"Because most police still hate the vampires. It's just better policy to leave the cops alone if you can. None of Jean-Claude's vampires have gone near a police person of any kind for anything."
"He's gone near you," Dolph said.
"I wasn't officially a cop when we started dating."
"No, you were a vampire executioner. He shouldn't have come near you, and you should have known better than to go near him."
"Who I date is not your business, Dolph."
"It is if it affects how you do your job."
"I do my job better because I'm up close and personal with the monsters." I struggled to sit up a little, tired of him looming over me. My stomach was tight, but it didn't hurt. "You count on me knowing more about the monsters. Hell, every cop that comes near me for help counts on me knowing more about the monsters than they do. How the hell do you think I found all that out? By keeping them at arm's length and hating them the way you do? They don't like talking to people who treat them like shit. They don't volunteer information to people they know hate them. If you want someone's help you have to reach out to them."
"How many have you reached out to, Anita?" Such innocent words, but he made it sound ugly.
"Enough so I could help you every time you called."
He closed his eyes then, balled his fist around his notebook until something in it ripped. "If I'd left you where I found you, raising the dead, Jean-Claude would never have met you. You went into his club on police business the first time. On my business." He opened his eyes and there was such pain in them.
I reached out to touch his arm, but he moved back, out of reach. "We did our jobs, Dolph."
"When you look in the mirror, is that enough, Anita? At the end of the day, is that enough, that we do our jobs?"
"Sometimes, sometimes not."
"Are you a lycanthrope?"
"No," I said.
"Your blood work says different."
"My blood work is puzzling the hell out of the lab, and it'll puzzle the hell out of any lab you send it to."
"You know you're carrying lycanthropy."
"Yeah, I'm carrying four different kinds of lycanthropy."
"You knew."
"I found out when I ended up in the hospital in Philadelphia, after that zombie case with the FBI."
"You didn't mention it to anyone here."
"You hated me for dating shapeshifters; if you found out I was carrying it"—I spread my hands—"I couldn't depend on how you'd react."
He nodded. "You're right. You were right not to tell me, but you could have told Zerbrowski or someone."
"It doesn't affect my job, Dolph. I've got a disease that I'm mostly asymptomatic for. It's no one's business unless it impacts the job." In my head I wondered what would happen if the almost-beasts that I carried inside me got out of control on a case. That would be bad. I almost had the ardeur under control, and now I had something else that might keep me from being able to do my police work.
"Anita, did you hear what I said?"
"I'm sorry, no, I didn't."
"I said, how do you know it doesn't affect the job? How do you know that your ties to the monsters don't color your choices?"
"I'm tired, Dolph. I'm tired, and I need to rest." Why hadn't I thought of that before? I was in a hospital, I could have just cried hurt. Damn, I was slow tonight.
He uncrumpled his notebook, tried to smooth it out as best he could. He tried to fit it back in his suit pocket, but he'd damaged it so bad it wouldn't fit. He finally just took it in his hand. "I'll want to talk to you when you've rested. There comes a point, Anita, when you have enough secrets from your friends that they begin to wonder where your loyalties lie."
"Get out, Dolph, just go."
"But he gets to stay," and he pointed at Edward.
"He hasn't insulted me. He's been nothing but professional."
"I guess I deserve that." He seemed about to say something else. He held his hand out. Edward hesitated, then gave Dolph back his gun. Dolph just left, closing the door softly behind him.
Edward holstered his gun and we waited a few seconds, then looked at each other. "You are not going to be able to avoid answering him for very long, Anita."
"I know."
"It's not just you that's going to be in trouble."
I nodded. "Richard."
"He was hinting."
"If he knew, he'd do more than hint."
"Lieutenant Storr isn't stupid."
"I never thought he was."
"His hatred makes him stupid in some ways, but it also makes him very determined. If that determination gets turned on you and your friends, well…"
"I know, Edward, I know."
"What are you going to do?"
"There isn't a law on the books that says I can't date the monsters. Legally it would be like telling a federal agent he can't date someone who's not white; it would be a public relations nightmare."
"But the human servant bit, that's an area they haven't covered in the federal regulations."
"You've checked?" I asked.
"Before I took the badge, yeah, I read up. Nothing says you can't be Jean-Claude's human servant and a federal marshal."
"Because the laws haven't caught up to themselves."
"It doesn't matter, Anita; it still means even if Dolph finds out, you're covered."
"I'm covered legally, but there are other ways to be gotten rid of, if cops want you gone."
"Like not calling you in on cases."
"Dolph's already doing that."