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a_sporking_rat- I feel an absurd amount of motherly pride over how Oatmeal has demolished her chew treat stick
- Well, Boz finally bit me. He didn't draw blood though. Since I can't let him think biting gets him what he wants (not getting picked up) or he'll do it every time, I just went ahead and picked him up anyway, and he made the brattiest face. Dad congratulated him on it, saying he's finally acting like a real hamster. I think he was just sick of me emptying his cheek pouch hoarde and thought I was gonna do it again, the stinker.
WE ARE 90% DONE WITH THE NOVEL AT THIS POINT ACCORDING TO MY KINDLE
KEEP THAT IN MIND AS YOU SLOG THROUGH ALL THIS CRAP STILL WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER FORTY FIVE, PART ONE
"Claudia and Pride had to hand over their weapons and the nice desk officer locked them away for them." Anita says Claudia has done this before already but that time Anita had claimed that she and her were just "two girls going out for some shopping and range time, and then I got that emergency call. This time I couldn't pretend that they were anything but what they were: bodyguards, my bodyguards." So she's brought bodyguards in with her to the police station before, and lied about it to the other cops at that. A dumb lie too, since why would her friend have had to go with her from the shooting range to the station when she got that emergency call? Also, I love how Anita specifically added that bit about shopping. All she would have needed to explain why Claudia was armed so much was the shooting range bit, and we know Anita herself hates shopping since she stated earlier she doesn't want to do it with Yiyu, so I can only conclude she thinks it adds authenticity because WE'RE GIRLS TEEHEE. When actually it just makes it much more of an obvious lie to anyone who actually knows her.
Zerbrowski lets Claudia sit by his desk and "made suitably lechers comments to her." Wow, good way to get fired, Zerbrowski! It's extra gross because he's a cop, and in a place where he has the home advantage to boot, so it's that much harder for his victim to speak back at him even if they would normally. All Claudia does is glare, but he "grinned and teased her until her mouth quirked and she almost smiled." Yeah, having a stranger make disgusting comments to me always makes me smile, especially if they're an authority figure and I'm not! Claudia says to Anita "He doesn't mean a word of it, does he?" and Anita is like nope and Zerbrowski jokes "I resent that, I mean everything I say. I am a pervert, I swear!" Claudia and Anita laugh at him and "he grinned at us, and it was just Zerbrowski." This isn't funny. It's really not. I could be okay with Zerbrowski making pervy comments at Anita because they're friends and thus it's probably just some game they have together. I do that with my friends. But Claudia is a stranger to him; she pretty clearly didn't meet him on her last visit. And as I said, it just gets worse when you consider he's a police officer, and surrounded by other police officers that will very potentially take his side if Claudia tries to tell him to shot his gross gob.
Making disgusting comments is not okay just because he is joking. His intent does not magically telepathically transfer to someone else and somehow change how his words are going to come across to a stranger. Most women are going to be uncomfortable at the very least, and that's no fucking joke. Maybe he delivers it with some 'clearly joking' type of tone, but that's not mentioned, and even if he did, IT IS STILL NOT OKAY. For those of you lucky enough not to have experienced this, a lot of guys will use 'jokes' as a way of being able to say gross stuff to a woman and then be able to say "it was just a joke" so she can't get upset lest she be labeled as oversensitive, no sense of humor, etc. Ditto for anyone else who speaks up. They will say the nastiest shit in a perfectly joking tone, but the only thing that's actually 'funny' about it to them is 'lol, I get to say this junk to her and no one can say anything if I just say it's a joke!' The same applies to racist, homophobic, etc. jokes. Humor is a tool frequently used by bullies, and LKH is endorsing it here by having everyone react as they 'should' and being a-okay with Zerbrowski and laughing along with him. Because it's so funny....how? Seriously, why does he even think this is a funny thing to do? "I make perverse comments to women but I don't mean it"...what's the punchline there? There is none. Because it's not funny. Because it's still somebody making inappropriate comments to somebody else. I've been a fucking victim of this, y'all, and lemme tell ya, it's no joke.
Tammy Reynolds invites Pride to sit with her. Anita is surprised by this since she is Larry's wife "but Tammy hadn't been as mean to me as Larry was" MOMMY HE WAS MEAN TO ME "partly because she'd been gone for a while." Had to add that caveat in there, lest it be thought that any woman just might be nicer to Anita than any man. Anita fills us in that "Tammy was a natural witch, a psychic, and the Church had made room for people like her as a kind of holy warrior. They used their abilities to defeat Satan in all his forms. A lot of the witches went into police or social work." That's all really interesting to know, but what I want to know is if she's saying a natural witch is the same thing as a psychic, or if she's saying Tammy is a psychic AND a natural witch? We learned in Skin Trade that a natural witch is, if I recall right, someone born with their magic versus someone who simply had the capacity to learn it and did so (a regular witch) and, I think, can use it mostly intuitively. But that's still magic, witchcraft, and psychic abilities have been made clear from that, such as earlier in this very book where Anita was rambling about how her necromancy is better because it's a psychic ability so she can just do it, whereas animators who rely on magical ability need lots of props. But in other books, witches and psychics are the same thing. PLEASE PICK ONE, LKH, PLEASE! Maybe "natural witch" is just another word for psychics? But that contradicts some of what was in Skin Trade where a natural witch summoned a demon, which is definitely magic ability and not psychic...ugh I don't even with this mess. I'm just gonna leave it at it being cool that the Catholic Church incorporates witches and psychics despite their stance on animators. I guess that comes from resurrecting the dead being seen as evil, maybe because it makes a mockery of Jesus raising the dead? And there's a line about stoning necromancers in the Bible. There's a line about sorcerers, but in this universe that word refers specifically to witches who got their powers from a demon, not all witches. I wonder, do they only take in natural witches and psychics, and not learned witches? Since it doesn't state anything about learned witches, just naturals. If so, do they believe that being born with it is a gift from God, whereas those who learned it gain it from other (evil) forces?
We're also told she's only been back from maternity leave for a few weeks, has long brown hair in a ponytail, has on a sensible skirt suit that "wouldn't have flattered anyone" even though she is "still pretty" in it, and how she's 5'8 and Larry is 5'4 and "I'd always liked that she hadn't had a problem being taller than Larry." I'm kinda baffled on how Anita would know if she did, given all their interactions, if I can recall right, have involved Anita being rude to her. It doesn't seem like they'd ever talk about something like that. Meanwhile "Dolph had sort of loomed behind me" and Claudia and Pride come to shake his hand and Anita likes seeing a woman is almost as tall as the 6'8 Dolph (Anita really, really has some weird issues about height) and "Did I feel tiny standing there with them all? A little, but I was used to it." SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP ANITA I AM TIRED OF EVERY GODDAMN LITTLE THING LEADING BACK TO YOUR PERFECTLY ORDINARY HEIGHT SHUT UP! Dolph leads her to the back to look at the video of the "supposed human servant" and asks if she can tell anything from a distance. She looks at the "grainy black-and-white image" and describes the man as having short dark hair "cut very traditionally" and wearing a "dark and conservative" suit. Anita says he looks "almost too ordinary" and Dolph says he looks like "a thousand businessman in this county" and Anita agrees. Dolph asks if he's a human servant. Anita says she can't tell from here since "the point of a human servant is to appear human." and that she'll need to get closer. Dolph says so far almost everyone associated with this group has tried to kill her. Anita says she's not gonna be able to tell or not if she isn't in the room with him. Dolph asks if him being a human servant means he's stronger/faster than normal, and Anita responds "a bit, but mainly he's harder to hurt, harder to kill, just tough." I thought that being a human servant actually did make you stronger/faster, so I checked the wiki I use and it says "The first mark grants the human servant greater endurance, healing, speed and resistance to vampire mental powers" But it doesn't say to what degree they get these abilities so they could indeed be only "a bit" stronger/faster than normal as Anita says.
Anita continues and says that human servants share the "near-immortality" of their masters, Dolph asks why she uses that term, Anita says they're not really immortal just harder to kill, he agrees. Gee, how insightful. Dolph says he doesn't like her going in there with the guy, Anita asked if he was searched for weapons and explosives, he was, she says she trusts they did their job, then Anita gets a text from Pride that "She's trying to convert me to her version of Christianity. Rescue me, or I'm going to be rude." Does Tammy ever actually have an appearance where her being a Christian witch isn't brought up and shat on in some way? Anita swears, Dolph asks what's wrong, Anita says Tammy is "back to trying to recruit the preternaturally talented for the Church." Back to? So she's done this for? It seems the sort of thing that would get you reprimanded at the least for doing on the job, especially when that job is a government position (police officer) due to separation of church and state. But according to a scowling Dolph "Religious freedom allows her to do it, but I have talked to her about concentrating more on saving lives than souls." I'm pretty sure that her freedom of religion does not extend to being able to trying to proselytize while on duty as a police officer. It just means she can do it on her own time. And if she's at the station I'm pretty sure she's not on her own time. Anita asks if Tammy is more zealous since she came back, Dolph thinks so, Anita says she's gonna go rescue Pride and then go in with the human servant. GREAT, ANOTHER DELAY, JUST WHAT US READERS WANTED! Dolph tells her to do just that and then "I'll walk you to our business man." Anita decides not to argue that she doesn't need Dolph to do that because she knows that there are people who, even knowing her reputation, would jump at her but hesitate to do so if she had "someone male and Dolph's size beside me."
She then goes "to rescue my tiger." He's a man, not a tiger, and he's not yours in any sense besides that he was trafficked/given to you like a slave, which just makes it MORE sickening of you to refer to him as belonging to you, not less. "Pride's face was darkening under his pale gold tan." Um, LKH? When people say that someone's face is "darkening" they mean expressing a dark emotion, they do not mean their coloration is literally turning dark as you seem to here. She also describes him as looking like he is tense "bordering on anger." because she's redundant like that. Anita tells us how Tammy had tried to recruit her at first too. Anita then tells us what I have been wondering about every time the phrase "Gods" is uttered by a weretiger:
"Pride wasn't [Christian], none of the golden tigers were; they all followed a pantheistic religion that had originated in China centuries before Jesus Christ had been a glimmer in the Creator's eye. Their religion had evolved from centuries of being in other countries and having to hide that they hadn't all been slain during the reign of the First Emperor of China in the early two hundreds BC, yeah, as in 259 BC to 210 BC. But the golden tigers were very devout to their faith; they didn't see it as inferior to the upstart religion that had started as a Jewish rebel sect."
OH MY GOSH I WANT TO KNOW ALL ABOUT THIS
ALL ABOUT IT
One thing though, pantheistic? Doesn't that mean belief in *all* gods? So wouldn't that include incorporating Jesus Christ as being as valid as any other god no matter how new? But I've also heard that pantheism can mean that everything in the universe is what makes up an all-encompassing god, so maybe that's what's meant here. Except that given how they say "Gods" instead of "God" I'd think they did recognize individual deities, which isn't a feature of the latter definition of pantheism. Can someone more theologically-savvy than I help me out here with this?
"I was almost to him when Arnet blocked my path." Arnet asks if Pride is another boyfriend, Anita says he's just a guard, Arnet asks her to swear with her "arms crossed across her small, neat breasts. I could never do that; my breasts were too big, I had to go under them" JUST SO THE READERS KNOW, GUYS. Seriously I will never get over the ridiculousness of Anita's supposed boobitutde and how she compulsively has to bring it up almost as much as her height. Anita swears, and Arnet says "I'll rescue him from the Minister then" and "It took me a moment to realize that "the Minister" was Tammy's nickname." Anita is so shockingly dense, I swear. Since Arnet is a skanky skanky skank-ho and we're all supposed to hate her, she doesn't just walk over to Tammy and Pride, she "swayed toward them" and we are told how "her skirt suit was cut to show off her ass, and though she was thin, she had a figure." And she's wearing makeup too, what a slut! Worse yet, she "made an effort" to look pretty, when everyone knows you're supposed to just be automatically beautiful like Anita, only bad girls actually try! So we've got Tammy who is dressed in something unflattering and frumpy, and Arnet who is all sexy-sexed-up, and both of whom are enemies to the naturally-sexy-but-reluctantly-so heroine. Welcome to the World of Women in Anita Blake, where if you're not our heroine you're either a prude or a whore...or both, which I think happened in Affliction with some fundie Christian woman who was calling Anita a slut. Also, Anita, why are you staring at the asses of your female co-workers and evaluating how well their suits show off their figures and how they did their makeup? Since I think we can count icky icky lesbianism out, there's only two other reasons that someone would do this, and that would be either that they're interested in fashion and cosmetics (despite all protests) or that they're looking for reasons to judge the hell out of these women. I'm gonna guess both.
Arnet touches Pride's arm and smiles at him and Tammy and "got him up and moving to her desk" Pride knows Anita must have sent her because he looks at Anita and Anita nods and he nods back and "let Arnet pull him up a char. He was safe from Tammy's recruitment drive, and he knew my background with Arnet, so he was as prepared as I could make him."Yeah, he's been told that this woman suspects Jean-Claude is a controlling abusive fuckhead and wants to get a therian under his control (Nathaniel) away from him. Pride, as someone who was trafficked to Jean-Claude and didn't seem happy about it, would surely not see any opportunities here! I hope they team up and start a rescue system for people who have been hurt and exploited by JC, Anita, Micah, and their lot. Damian can help! Meanwhile "Zerbrowski was pretending to be scandalizing Claudia" but is in fact showing her pictures of his kids on his phone "not naughty pictures." So...he's pretending to the rest of the office then, not to Claudia? What's his deal? Why do you want your office to think that you're showing porn to a stranger while you're at work? "He pretended to be a terrible lech, but in reality he was one of the happiest, and most devoted family men I'd ever met." So...what's with the act then? Because I get clowning around and pretending in a way so that everyone KNOWS you are pretending, I've already said that I do that, but the way this is phrased it seems Zerbrowski sincerely wants his co-workers to think he's a vile slimeball who needs to be kicked off the force for sexually harassing civilians. The fact that he also pulled the slimeball act with Claudia when she was a stranger to him, and thus wouldn't know he was kidding/he didn't know if she'd be okay with that type of kidding, also suggests he wants to be taken for real (and doesn't give a shit about making someone else uncomfortable for it, which is pretty slimy in itself). What the hell is going on with that?
According to Anita, "Katie, his petite and lovely wife" told her that "she thought his outrageous flirting was an outlet he needed." An outlet for what exactly? And when they first met "she'd thought he didn't like her because she was the only girl he didn't flirt with; go figure." So he's only horribly disrespectful to women he's not attracted to, that's nice. No, I don't think flirting is horribly disrespectful, but I think the way Zerbrowski does it is, just to clarify, so when the word "flirt" is used in context with him, I think it's safe to say what is actually meant is gross comments and harassment. BUT HE DOESN'T MEAN IT SO THAT MAKES IT OKAY FOR HIM TO SAY IT ANYWAY! Seriously, this dude clearly has some issues and it's not cute or funny and should neither be allowed nor encouraged. The fact Anita seems to think it's adorable and charming is a pretty big warning sign in itself, actually. Back to the human servant dude, "Dolph sent two uniforms into the room ahead of me" and they stand in the corners. Dolph says "Mr. Weiskopf, this is Marshal Blake." Weiskopf smiles at Anita like he is genuinely glad to see her (bet that's a first for Anita) and says he didn't expect to see her like this and that he and his Master are very disappointed that it's come to meeting in an interrogation room. Anita offers him a handshake, he hesitates and then takes it and Anita thinks about how "most people will, ever vampires" Well, those vamps are stupid then, with all that's been said about how touch makes vampire powers stronger and we've seen Anita be able to use her own vamp powers to control someone after she just touches them "but he wasn't a vampire." She can tell he's human, and "I could have put some power into the touch, but he might take that as an insult so I minded my manners." Then this is the only way in which Anita ever does have manners, and only ever sometimes.
Anita asks just what exactly it has come to, she sits down, Dolph pushes her chair in for her and she thinks about how she'd prefer he not do that "because I still hadn't figured out the timing on that. I sat down too early, as usual, and got the chair shoved into the back of my knees, which sort of hurt" and that prompts her to have the very suggestive thought that "Dolph, like most of the men who insisted on the chair thing in my life, was strong enough to push me into place at the table." UM. IS ANYONE ELSE GETTING SOME 'VIBES' OFF THIS? YEAH. And then Dolph is "looming over both me and the man" and is "trying to be intimidating" and normally I'd think that's just part of the police thing but with Anita's just-previous comment I wonder if it's meant to come off as ~protective~ of her ugggh. Weiskpf smiles against says that "My master does not approve of the violence done in the name of our cause." Anita asks what the cause is, and thinks that a "crackpot human" couldn't have managed to get the name Benjamin from their interrogation but then again "I'd learned to never underestimate the crazy" and how some crazy people can be really smart and "Sometimes I wondered if you had to be a certain level of intelligent just to go crazy in style." Yeah, you know what, the less you talk about the mentally ill the better, Anita.
"He smiled at me, his brown eyes filled with a gentle chiding." I'm not sure how/why she reads that since she's done nothing (to him) that requires chiding, so I think this is yet again just Anita reading intent into things that have none. He asks if he may call her Anita, she asks if she can call him by his first name if he has one and smiles back at him and thinks about how she can even make her smile "fill my eyes" and how she can now "lie with the best of them" these days. Wow, you made a convincing smile, congrats, truly you are a master of deceit along with, like, every server person in the world. He says that "I've been Mr. Weiskopf, or just Weiskopf, for so long that it will do." and Anita, master of incomprehension, asks "Weiskopf, just that?" even though that is exactly what he just says. He smiles and nods (best way to deal with her) and she says "Then you can call me Blake. Last name for a last name." Anita, this is a terrible way to enter any kind of negotiations. Don't worry though, folks, she's gonna go way worse! Weiskopf says she probably figures if she can get a first name from him then she can trace it and it will lead to his master, she says it's her job to figure things out, he says her job is to kill vampires, Anita says yes if they broke the law, and he says "No, Anita, I mean Blake, you've killed vampires for petty crimes. Things that humans would never have been executed for." OOH, CALL-OUT! And she's also killed them without warrants for her personal convenience, can he add that too?
Anita says that "Three-strike rules for vampires were very harsh." Wait, there are three-strike rules? As in the vampire has to commit *three* crimes and then they're executed, it's not just shoplift-once-and-you-die? I think this is a retcon, but then again I also think I've heard the three-strikes thing brought up before...can any of y'all tell me? Also, note that she says 'were' which suggests this has changed. He gives a "bitter laugh" and asks if harsh is the best she can say, Anita rattles off "Unfair, inhuman, monstrous, barbaric; stop when you like one of them." If Anita thought all this of those laws, I wonder why she remained a vampire executioner while they were in operation? I guess maybe she felt her saving lives balanced it out? Weiskopf feels monstrous is the best description because these kinds of laws "made the humans into monsters. You became the bogeyman of all little vampires everywhere, Ms. Blake." Anita corrects him that she's Marshal Blake, he says okay then call me Mr. Weiskopf, she says she didn't call him anything, and then he's like oh you're right you didn't. I have no idea what the hell that was about or why it was included. Anita thinks about how his suit is black, not navy, and how he tries to go back to smiling "but it didn't quite fill his eyes now. He was angry, and he didn't like me, or my job." GEE, WONDER WHY.
Weiskopf says that "My master and I do not believe in an eye for an eye. We advocated nonviolence, though you offered only violence." Anita counters that "I helped get the three-strikes rule for vamps changed. Petty crimes don't add to the three strikes anymore. A vampire has to harm people to get a warrant of execution now." I know that it was mentioned that she helped with some kind of law after Skin Trade but I don't remember if this was it or not. Anyway, I'm kind of torn. On one hand, it's nice that she does show at least this much interest in the welfare of vampires BESIDES her sweeties. On the other, it just seems another Mary-Sueism to make Anita the saintliest person who does everything and is the only one who ever gets things done. On yet a third hand, I'd be equally as critical if she never tried to do anything for vampire rights, so I don't think I should turn around and say Mary Sue when she does, as was my knee-jerk reaction. Weiskopf says that they do appreciate it and that "your testimony in Washington was instrumental in getting the law modified, Marshal Blake. It gave us hope that Jean-Claude would be different from all the ones that have come before him." Wait, what would those two things have to do with each other? Does he think that, since she's Jean-Claude's Human Servant, that she did this on his behalf? And previous masters were opposed to lighter laws on vamps for some reason?
Dolph gets this answered for me by asking "All the what that have gone before Jean-Claude" and Weiskopf looks "all the way up" Dolph (cuz he's tall, y'know?) and says "Leaders of the Vampire Council, of course. It's been in the news, Captain Storr; surely you don't want me to believe you are ignorant that there is talk of the first American head of our council." WHOA WAIT, HOLD THE PHONE! Firstly, the human populace knows about the Vampire Council? And they know that an American one is being formed? With JC as head, and thus far the sole member aka basically king? And wait, the way it's been stated from Bullet to now, JC is setting up his own council in America, but the way Weiskopf is saying "the first American head of our council" it sounds like JC is not setting up a new one, he's becoming head of the old one. WHAT IS GOING ON AAAAAAH?!?!?!? Dolph says he's heard the rumors (then...shouldn't he be trying to stop it, what with the whole 'vamps are supposed to be beholden to human law and not their old leaders/laws' thing in America?) and Weiskopf says it's fact not rumors.
Anita must realize that Dolph has reason not to like this news because she is trying to be really still and not make any expression to suggest "that Weiskopf might know things that weren't in the news and that I might not want my fellow police officers to know." You know what, her entire career as a cop would make so much more sense if she were there as a plant on JC's orders to keep tabs on how much the cops know and to lead them on false trails, etc., than her supposedly being 'sincere' in it like we're presented. Weiskopf continues "The fact that Jean-Claude tolerated the Church of Eternal Life, and did not insist they all take oath to him, gave us great hope" Didn't Anita get them all bonded/enslaved/raped or something in The Harlequin anyway? She feels relieved that he just said 'oathed' and not 'blood-oathed' because "I really didn't want to go into details on that with Dolph. He might know, but he might not understand, what it meant for a vampire to take oath to the Master of the City." Yeah, I expect a police officer might frown on a civilian being forced to enter a magical contract that puts them under the control of someone who is essentially a supernatural mob boss, and who then can (and likely will) magically control them to do illegal acts against their will, the consequences of which they (rather than the mob boss aka JC) will end up facing instead because ANITA KEEPS INFO LIKE THIS TO HERSELF.
"But then, Jean-Claude did demand it, and we lost hope" and Anita says that's why they decided to try to kill him and Weiskopf says no, that they never advocated violence, which he swears "on my honor, and the honor of my master" and that "We were most aggrieved to see the dead police officers on the news." Anita says that they chose vampires that looked like children and the elderly to appeal to media, and he says that "We suggested that we show the media that vampires are not all beautiful and sexy like your vampires. We wanted to show that vampires are truly people in many shapes and sizes, so yes, we chose a group, but we never meant for them to be used in such a vile way." Anita argues that it was his master Benjamin who was their master too and that "he had control of them while they did this vile shit." What vile shit? We know a couple of vamps that looked like teen boys abducted a teen girl and were trying to forcibly turn her, for reasons still unknown, but all the others found in the brewery didn't do anything, and might well have not even known what those guys were up to. And there was absolutely no sign earlier than any of them were under the control of anyone.
Weiskopf says that no, his master is not their master, and that "We have purposefully not tried to control any other vampires except through speech and the persuasion that any normal human could use." to which Anita responds "Bullshit" again showing her brilliance at tactical negotiations. Weiskopf responds by letting her "see that slash of anger again" and he says he's given her his word of honor. Anita says "He's a master vampire, and they didn't belong to any other master; it means that a powerful enough vampire exerts more control over them than any human ever will" and Weiskopf says that's only if his master wills it and that Benjamin has been careful for centuries to control nobody. Whoa, CENTURIES? Anita claims that "Vampires are all about the food chain, the hierarchy; everyone owes allegiance to someone." Hey, Anita? This guy has clearly been around a lot longer than you, and you really only have experience with one vampire Kiss and its leader. The vampires from outside JC's Kiss that she's met (Augustine, Belle Morte, etc.) have largely been either people that he was politically/personally tied to, or that she was sent after because they were causing trouble, so that also should be considered when making a judgment on how 'all' vampires supposedly are.. Plus, he's talking about ONE individual vamp here. Just one. I hardly think he's arguing for the impossible at all, and I think even less of Anita trying to play like she knows soooo much more about all vampires ever than he does.
She continues that "Your master didn't just spring into being, he came from a bloodline of some vampires, so he owes allegiance to that line, and whoever created him." I really, really don't like how she words this because it doesn't sound like she's saying this it how it is in vampire culture, it sounds like she's saying this is how it is period, and that's bullshit. But let's go on the assumption she means it as in that's how it is in vampire culture--what if Benjamin got powerful enough to break free of whoever created him? Or killed them in a vampire duel? We know both to happen and not be that unusual. And as for being beholden to the master of his bloodline, well, why would that mean that he would choose to control other people? He could just live his life as Weiskopf says he does and as long as he checked in with his fountainhead now and again and they never had use for him to do anything that involved controlling people, he could live a nice law-abiding life. Hell, he might not even need to check in; I got the impression that the bloodline-heads (aka the Council) aren't regularly monitoring each and every one of their numerous descendants all over the globe. His scenario does not at all sound as impossible as Anita is painting it, and actually kind of reminds me of how I've got it going with my OC Ruthven---he was no good at vampire politics and would have gotten eaten alive despite his raw power, so he used the fact he was a really powerful vampire *and* could control swanmanes to just opt out of the entire system and does his own thing out on his moor and nobody gets to bother him and he's at no risk of losing anything through said vampire politics anymore. He still answers to Oliver as his fountainhead and the Council in general, but besides that he gets to avoid the entire mess. Not out of morals like Benajmin, granted, but yeah.
Weiskopf says that Benjamin's master was killed a long time ago by a vampire hunter, and that "we were told that if the master of our bloodline died, then we would die with him, but we woke the next night. It had been a lie to keep us from attacking the head of our order." Anita says she only knows of one line whose head was wiped out and whose members are still around and Weiskopf is like yeah, your Wicked and Truth. I would just like to note that the rest of Wicked and Truth's bloodline died out because *they* killed them, not because their fountainhead died, since the phrasing here is making it sound like they died because their fountainhead did, which wasn't the case. Weiskopf says that "our bloodline sprang into being and fled into the wilderness." Okay, cool, I am all about learning about new bloodlines, this sounds neat, what are their special qualities/powers? I hope we learn! "He did not want to be part of the hierarchy of blood and depravity, but of course, by being a master and acquiring followers he began to value the growing power over his own good intentions, and they were good intentions once." Wait, is he talking about Benjamin, or about Benjamin's master/fountainhead? I'm not sure "He meant us to live as holy a life as the cursed could." From this, Anita somehow concludes that "He was talking of some unknown bloodline that had basically tried to run a monastery in some isolated are." I don't know how she gets 'monastery' just because he said 'holy' but when she asks "A vampire monastery?" in disbelief, he says "Exactly"
WELL HOLY SHIT HOW ABOUT THAT?
I CANNOT WAIT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS LINE OMFG
- Well, Boz finally bit me. He didn't draw blood though. Since I can't let him think biting gets him what he wants (not getting picked up) or he'll do it every time, I just went ahead and picked him up anyway, and he made the brattiest face. Dad congratulated him on it, saying he's finally acting like a real hamster. I think he was just sick of me emptying his cheek pouch hoarde and thought I was gonna do it again, the stinker.
WE ARE 90% DONE WITH THE NOVEL AT THIS POINT ACCORDING TO MY KINDLE
KEEP THAT IN MIND AS YOU SLOG THROUGH ALL THIS CRAP STILL WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER FORTY FIVE, PART ONE
"Claudia and Pride had to hand over their weapons and the nice desk officer locked them away for them." Anita says Claudia has done this before already but that time Anita had claimed that she and her were just "two girls going out for some shopping and range time, and then I got that emergency call. This time I couldn't pretend that they were anything but what they were: bodyguards, my bodyguards." So she's brought bodyguards in with her to the police station before, and lied about it to the other cops at that. A dumb lie too, since why would her friend have had to go with her from the shooting range to the station when she got that emergency call? Also, I love how Anita specifically added that bit about shopping. All she would have needed to explain why Claudia was armed so much was the shooting range bit, and we know Anita herself hates shopping since she stated earlier she doesn't want to do it with Yiyu, so I can only conclude she thinks it adds authenticity because WE'RE GIRLS TEEHEE. When actually it just makes it much more of an obvious lie to anyone who actually knows her.
Zerbrowski lets Claudia sit by his desk and "made suitably lechers comments to her." Wow, good way to get fired, Zerbrowski! It's extra gross because he's a cop, and in a place where he has the home advantage to boot, so it's that much harder for his victim to speak back at him even if they would normally. All Claudia does is glare, but he "grinned and teased her until her mouth quirked and she almost smiled." Yeah, having a stranger make disgusting comments to me always makes me smile, especially if they're an authority figure and I'm not! Claudia says to Anita "He doesn't mean a word of it, does he?" and Anita is like nope and Zerbrowski jokes "I resent that, I mean everything I say. I am a pervert, I swear!" Claudia and Anita laugh at him and "he grinned at us, and it was just Zerbrowski." This isn't funny. It's really not. I could be okay with Zerbrowski making pervy comments at Anita because they're friends and thus it's probably just some game they have together. I do that with my friends. But Claudia is a stranger to him; she pretty clearly didn't meet him on her last visit. And as I said, it just gets worse when you consider he's a police officer, and surrounded by other police officers that will very potentially take his side if Claudia tries to tell him to shot his gross gob.
Making disgusting comments is not okay just because he is joking. His intent does not magically telepathically transfer to someone else and somehow change how his words are going to come across to a stranger. Most women are going to be uncomfortable at the very least, and that's no fucking joke. Maybe he delivers it with some 'clearly joking' type of tone, but that's not mentioned, and even if he did, IT IS STILL NOT OKAY. For those of you lucky enough not to have experienced this, a lot of guys will use 'jokes' as a way of being able to say gross stuff to a woman and then be able to say "it was just a joke" so she can't get upset lest she be labeled as oversensitive, no sense of humor, etc. Ditto for anyone else who speaks up. They will say the nastiest shit in a perfectly joking tone, but the only thing that's actually 'funny' about it to them is 'lol, I get to say this junk to her and no one can say anything if I just say it's a joke!' The same applies to racist, homophobic, etc. jokes. Humor is a tool frequently used by bullies, and LKH is endorsing it here by having everyone react as they 'should' and being a-okay with Zerbrowski and laughing along with him. Because it's so funny....how? Seriously, why does he even think this is a funny thing to do? "I make perverse comments to women but I don't mean it"...what's the punchline there? There is none. Because it's not funny. Because it's still somebody making inappropriate comments to somebody else. I've been a fucking victim of this, y'all, and lemme tell ya, it's no joke.
Tammy Reynolds invites Pride to sit with her. Anita is surprised by this since she is Larry's wife "but Tammy hadn't been as mean to me as Larry was" MOMMY HE WAS MEAN TO ME "partly because she'd been gone for a while." Had to add that caveat in there, lest it be thought that any woman just might be nicer to Anita than any man. Anita fills us in that "Tammy was a natural witch, a psychic, and the Church had made room for people like her as a kind of holy warrior. They used their abilities to defeat Satan in all his forms. A lot of the witches went into police or social work." That's all really interesting to know, but what I want to know is if she's saying a natural witch is the same thing as a psychic, or if she's saying Tammy is a psychic AND a natural witch? We learned in Skin Trade that a natural witch is, if I recall right, someone born with their magic versus someone who simply had the capacity to learn it and did so (a regular witch) and, I think, can use it mostly intuitively. But that's still magic, witchcraft, and psychic abilities have been made clear from that, such as earlier in this very book where Anita was rambling about how her necromancy is better because it's a psychic ability so she can just do it, whereas animators who rely on magical ability need lots of props. But in other books, witches and psychics are the same thing. PLEASE PICK ONE, LKH, PLEASE! Maybe "natural witch" is just another word for psychics? But that contradicts some of what was in Skin Trade where a natural witch summoned a demon, which is definitely magic ability and not psychic...ugh I don't even with this mess. I'm just gonna leave it at it being cool that the Catholic Church incorporates witches and psychics despite their stance on animators. I guess that comes from resurrecting the dead being seen as evil, maybe because it makes a mockery of Jesus raising the dead? And there's a line about stoning necromancers in the Bible. There's a line about sorcerers, but in this universe that word refers specifically to witches who got their powers from a demon, not all witches. I wonder, do they only take in natural witches and psychics, and not learned witches? Since it doesn't state anything about learned witches, just naturals. If so, do they believe that being born with it is a gift from God, whereas those who learned it gain it from other (evil) forces?
We're also told she's only been back from maternity leave for a few weeks, has long brown hair in a ponytail, has on a sensible skirt suit that "wouldn't have flattered anyone" even though she is "still pretty" in it, and how she's 5'8 and Larry is 5'4 and "I'd always liked that she hadn't had a problem being taller than Larry." I'm kinda baffled on how Anita would know if she did, given all their interactions, if I can recall right, have involved Anita being rude to her. It doesn't seem like they'd ever talk about something like that. Meanwhile "Dolph had sort of loomed behind me" and Claudia and Pride come to shake his hand and Anita likes seeing a woman is almost as tall as the 6'8 Dolph (Anita really, really has some weird issues about height) and "Did I feel tiny standing there with them all? A little, but I was used to it." SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP ANITA I AM TIRED OF EVERY GODDAMN LITTLE THING LEADING BACK TO YOUR PERFECTLY ORDINARY HEIGHT SHUT UP! Dolph leads her to the back to look at the video of the "supposed human servant" and asks if she can tell anything from a distance. She looks at the "grainy black-and-white image" and describes the man as having short dark hair "cut very traditionally" and wearing a "dark and conservative" suit. Anita says he looks "almost too ordinary" and Dolph says he looks like "a thousand businessman in this county" and Anita agrees. Dolph asks if he's a human servant. Anita says she can't tell from here since "the point of a human servant is to appear human." and that she'll need to get closer. Dolph says so far almost everyone associated with this group has tried to kill her. Anita says she's not gonna be able to tell or not if she isn't in the room with him. Dolph asks if him being a human servant means he's stronger/faster than normal, and Anita responds "a bit, but mainly he's harder to hurt, harder to kill, just tough." I thought that being a human servant actually did make you stronger/faster, so I checked the wiki I use and it says "The first mark grants the human servant greater endurance, healing, speed and resistance to vampire mental powers" But it doesn't say to what degree they get these abilities so they could indeed be only "a bit" stronger/faster than normal as Anita says.
Anita continues and says that human servants share the "near-immortality" of their masters, Dolph asks why she uses that term, Anita says they're not really immortal just harder to kill, he agrees. Gee, how insightful. Dolph says he doesn't like her going in there with the guy, Anita asked if he was searched for weapons and explosives, he was, she says she trusts they did their job, then Anita gets a text from Pride that "She's trying to convert me to her version of Christianity. Rescue me, or I'm going to be rude." Does Tammy ever actually have an appearance where her being a Christian witch isn't brought up and shat on in some way? Anita swears, Dolph asks what's wrong, Anita says Tammy is "back to trying to recruit the preternaturally talented for the Church." Back to? So she's done this for? It seems the sort of thing that would get you reprimanded at the least for doing on the job, especially when that job is a government position (police officer) due to separation of church and state. But according to a scowling Dolph "Religious freedom allows her to do it, but I have talked to her about concentrating more on saving lives than souls." I'm pretty sure that her freedom of religion does not extend to being able to trying to proselytize while on duty as a police officer. It just means she can do it on her own time. And if she's at the station I'm pretty sure she's not on her own time. Anita asks if Tammy is more zealous since she came back, Dolph thinks so, Anita says she's gonna go rescue Pride and then go in with the human servant. GREAT, ANOTHER DELAY, JUST WHAT US READERS WANTED! Dolph tells her to do just that and then "I'll walk you to our business man." Anita decides not to argue that she doesn't need Dolph to do that because she knows that there are people who, even knowing her reputation, would jump at her but hesitate to do so if she had "someone male and Dolph's size beside me."
She then goes "to rescue my tiger." He's a man, not a tiger, and he's not yours in any sense besides that he was trafficked/given to you like a slave, which just makes it MORE sickening of you to refer to him as belonging to you, not less. "Pride's face was darkening under his pale gold tan." Um, LKH? When people say that someone's face is "darkening" they mean expressing a dark emotion, they do not mean their coloration is literally turning dark as you seem to here. She also describes him as looking like he is tense "bordering on anger." because she's redundant like that. Anita tells us how Tammy had tried to recruit her at first too. Anita then tells us what I have been wondering about every time the phrase "Gods" is uttered by a weretiger:
"Pride wasn't [Christian], none of the golden tigers were; they all followed a pantheistic religion that had originated in China centuries before Jesus Christ had been a glimmer in the Creator's eye. Their religion had evolved from centuries of being in other countries and having to hide that they hadn't all been slain during the reign of the First Emperor of China in the early two hundreds BC, yeah, as in 259 BC to 210 BC. But the golden tigers were very devout to their faith; they didn't see it as inferior to the upstart religion that had started as a Jewish rebel sect."
OH MY GOSH I WANT TO KNOW ALL ABOUT THIS
ALL ABOUT IT
One thing though, pantheistic? Doesn't that mean belief in *all* gods? So wouldn't that include incorporating Jesus Christ as being as valid as any other god no matter how new? But I've also heard that pantheism can mean that everything in the universe is what makes up an all-encompassing god, so maybe that's what's meant here. Except that given how they say "Gods" instead of "God" I'd think they did recognize individual deities, which isn't a feature of the latter definition of pantheism. Can someone more theologically-savvy than I help me out here with this?
"I was almost to him when Arnet blocked my path." Arnet asks if Pride is another boyfriend, Anita says he's just a guard, Arnet asks her to swear with her "arms crossed across her small, neat breasts. I could never do that; my breasts were too big, I had to go under them" JUST SO THE READERS KNOW, GUYS. Seriously I will never get over the ridiculousness of Anita's supposed boobitutde and how she compulsively has to bring it up almost as much as her height. Anita swears, and Arnet says "I'll rescue him from the Minister then" and "It took me a moment to realize that "the Minister" was Tammy's nickname." Anita is so shockingly dense, I swear. Since Arnet is a skanky skanky skank-ho and we're all supposed to hate her, she doesn't just walk over to Tammy and Pride, she "swayed toward them" and we are told how "her skirt suit was cut to show off her ass, and though she was thin, she had a figure." And she's wearing makeup too, what a slut! Worse yet, she "made an effort" to look pretty, when everyone knows you're supposed to just be automatically beautiful like Anita, only bad girls actually try! So we've got Tammy who is dressed in something unflattering and frumpy, and Arnet who is all sexy-sexed-up, and both of whom are enemies to the naturally-sexy-but-reluctantly-so heroine. Welcome to the World of Women in Anita Blake, where if you're not our heroine you're either a prude or a whore...or both, which I think happened in Affliction with some fundie Christian woman who was calling Anita a slut. Also, Anita, why are you staring at the asses of your female co-workers and evaluating how well their suits show off their figures and how they did their makeup? Since I think we can count icky icky lesbianism out, there's only two other reasons that someone would do this, and that would be either that they're interested in fashion and cosmetics (despite all protests) or that they're looking for reasons to judge the hell out of these women. I'm gonna guess both.
Arnet touches Pride's arm and smiles at him and Tammy and "got him up and moving to her desk" Pride knows Anita must have sent her because he looks at Anita and Anita nods and he nods back and "let Arnet pull him up a char. He was safe from Tammy's recruitment drive, and he knew my background with Arnet, so he was as prepared as I could make him."Yeah, he's been told that this woman suspects Jean-Claude is a controlling abusive fuckhead and wants to get a therian under his control (Nathaniel) away from him. Pride, as someone who was trafficked to Jean-Claude and didn't seem happy about it, would surely not see any opportunities here! I hope they team up and start a rescue system for people who have been hurt and exploited by JC, Anita, Micah, and their lot. Damian can help! Meanwhile "Zerbrowski was pretending to be scandalizing Claudia" but is in fact showing her pictures of his kids on his phone "not naughty pictures." So...he's pretending to the rest of the office then, not to Claudia? What's his deal? Why do you want your office to think that you're showing porn to a stranger while you're at work? "He pretended to be a terrible lech, but in reality he was one of the happiest, and most devoted family men I'd ever met." So...what's with the act then? Because I get clowning around and pretending in a way so that everyone KNOWS you are pretending, I've already said that I do that, but the way this is phrased it seems Zerbrowski sincerely wants his co-workers to think he's a vile slimeball who needs to be kicked off the force for sexually harassing civilians. The fact that he also pulled the slimeball act with Claudia when she was a stranger to him, and thus wouldn't know he was kidding/he didn't know if she'd be okay with that type of kidding, also suggests he wants to be taken for real (and doesn't give a shit about making someone else uncomfortable for it, which is pretty slimy in itself). What the hell is going on with that?
According to Anita, "Katie, his petite and lovely wife" told her that "she thought his outrageous flirting was an outlet he needed." An outlet for what exactly? And when they first met "she'd thought he didn't like her because she was the only girl he didn't flirt with; go figure." So he's only horribly disrespectful to women he's not attracted to, that's nice. No, I don't think flirting is horribly disrespectful, but I think the way Zerbrowski does it is, just to clarify, so when the word "flirt" is used in context with him, I think it's safe to say what is actually meant is gross comments and harassment. BUT HE DOESN'T MEAN IT SO THAT MAKES IT OKAY FOR HIM TO SAY IT ANYWAY! Seriously, this dude clearly has some issues and it's not cute or funny and should neither be allowed nor encouraged. The fact Anita seems to think it's adorable and charming is a pretty big warning sign in itself, actually. Back to the human servant dude, "Dolph sent two uniforms into the room ahead of me" and they stand in the corners. Dolph says "Mr. Weiskopf, this is Marshal Blake." Weiskopf smiles at Anita like he is genuinely glad to see her (bet that's a first for Anita) and says he didn't expect to see her like this and that he and his Master are very disappointed that it's come to meeting in an interrogation room. Anita offers him a handshake, he hesitates and then takes it and Anita thinks about how "most people will, ever vampires" Well, those vamps are stupid then, with all that's been said about how touch makes vampire powers stronger and we've seen Anita be able to use her own vamp powers to control someone after she just touches them "but he wasn't a vampire." She can tell he's human, and "I could have put some power into the touch, but he might take that as an insult so I minded my manners." Then this is the only way in which Anita ever does have manners, and only ever sometimes.
Anita asks just what exactly it has come to, she sits down, Dolph pushes her chair in for her and she thinks about how she'd prefer he not do that "because I still hadn't figured out the timing on that. I sat down too early, as usual, and got the chair shoved into the back of my knees, which sort of hurt" and that prompts her to have the very suggestive thought that "Dolph, like most of the men who insisted on the chair thing in my life, was strong enough to push me into place at the table." UM. IS ANYONE ELSE GETTING SOME 'VIBES' OFF THIS? YEAH. And then Dolph is "looming over both me and the man" and is "trying to be intimidating" and normally I'd think that's just part of the police thing but with Anita's just-previous comment I wonder if it's meant to come off as ~protective~ of her ugggh. Weiskpf smiles against says that "My master does not approve of the violence done in the name of our cause." Anita asks what the cause is, and thinks that a "crackpot human" couldn't have managed to get the name Benjamin from their interrogation but then again "I'd learned to never underestimate the crazy" and how some crazy people can be really smart and "Sometimes I wondered if you had to be a certain level of intelligent just to go crazy in style." Yeah, you know what, the less you talk about the mentally ill the better, Anita.
"He smiled at me, his brown eyes filled with a gentle chiding." I'm not sure how/why she reads that since she's done nothing (to him) that requires chiding, so I think this is yet again just Anita reading intent into things that have none. He asks if he may call her Anita, she asks if she can call him by his first name if he has one and smiles back at him and thinks about how she can even make her smile "fill my eyes" and how she can now "lie with the best of them" these days. Wow, you made a convincing smile, congrats, truly you are a master of deceit along with, like, every server person in the world. He says that "I've been Mr. Weiskopf, or just Weiskopf, for so long that it will do." and Anita, master of incomprehension, asks "Weiskopf, just that?" even though that is exactly what he just says. He smiles and nods (best way to deal with her) and she says "Then you can call me Blake. Last name for a last name." Anita, this is a terrible way to enter any kind of negotiations. Don't worry though, folks, she's gonna go way worse! Weiskopf says she probably figures if she can get a first name from him then she can trace it and it will lead to his master, she says it's her job to figure things out, he says her job is to kill vampires, Anita says yes if they broke the law, and he says "No, Anita, I mean Blake, you've killed vampires for petty crimes. Things that humans would never have been executed for." OOH, CALL-OUT! And she's also killed them without warrants for her personal convenience, can he add that too?
Anita says that "Three-strike rules for vampires were very harsh." Wait, there are three-strike rules? As in the vampire has to commit *three* crimes and then they're executed, it's not just shoplift-once-and-you-die? I think this is a retcon, but then again I also think I've heard the three-strikes thing brought up before...can any of y'all tell me? Also, note that she says 'were' which suggests this has changed. He gives a "bitter laugh" and asks if harsh is the best she can say, Anita rattles off "Unfair, inhuman, monstrous, barbaric; stop when you like one of them." If Anita thought all this of those laws, I wonder why she remained a vampire executioner while they were in operation? I guess maybe she felt her saving lives balanced it out? Weiskopf feels monstrous is the best description because these kinds of laws "made the humans into monsters. You became the bogeyman of all little vampires everywhere, Ms. Blake." Anita corrects him that she's Marshal Blake, he says okay then call me Mr. Weiskopf, she says she didn't call him anything, and then he's like oh you're right you didn't. I have no idea what the hell that was about or why it was included. Anita thinks about how his suit is black, not navy, and how he tries to go back to smiling "but it didn't quite fill his eyes now. He was angry, and he didn't like me, or my job." GEE, WONDER WHY.
Weiskopf says that "My master and I do not believe in an eye for an eye. We advocated nonviolence, though you offered only violence." Anita counters that "I helped get the three-strikes rule for vamps changed. Petty crimes don't add to the three strikes anymore. A vampire has to harm people to get a warrant of execution now." I know that it was mentioned that she helped with some kind of law after Skin Trade but I don't remember if this was it or not. Anyway, I'm kind of torn. On one hand, it's nice that she does show at least this much interest in the welfare of vampires BESIDES her sweeties. On the other, it just seems another Mary-Sueism to make Anita the saintliest person who does everything and is the only one who ever gets things done. On yet a third hand, I'd be equally as critical if she never tried to do anything for vampire rights, so I don't think I should turn around and say Mary Sue when she does, as was my knee-jerk reaction. Weiskopf says that they do appreciate it and that "your testimony in Washington was instrumental in getting the law modified, Marshal Blake. It gave us hope that Jean-Claude would be different from all the ones that have come before him." Wait, what would those two things have to do with each other? Does he think that, since she's Jean-Claude's Human Servant, that she did this on his behalf? And previous masters were opposed to lighter laws on vamps for some reason?
Dolph gets this answered for me by asking "All the what that have gone before Jean-Claude" and Weiskopf looks "all the way up" Dolph (cuz he's tall, y'know?) and says "Leaders of the Vampire Council, of course. It's been in the news, Captain Storr; surely you don't want me to believe you are ignorant that there is talk of the first American head of our council." WHOA WAIT, HOLD THE PHONE! Firstly, the human populace knows about the Vampire Council? And they know that an American one is being formed? With JC as head, and thus far the sole member aka basically king? And wait, the way it's been stated from Bullet to now, JC is setting up his own council in America, but the way Weiskopf is saying "the first American head of our council" it sounds like JC is not setting up a new one, he's becoming head of the old one. WHAT IS GOING ON AAAAAAH?!?!?!? Dolph says he's heard the rumors (then...shouldn't he be trying to stop it, what with the whole 'vamps are supposed to be beholden to human law and not their old leaders/laws' thing in America?) and Weiskopf says it's fact not rumors.
Anita must realize that Dolph has reason not to like this news because she is trying to be really still and not make any expression to suggest "that Weiskopf might know things that weren't in the news and that I might not want my fellow police officers to know." You know what, her entire career as a cop would make so much more sense if she were there as a plant on JC's orders to keep tabs on how much the cops know and to lead them on false trails, etc., than her supposedly being 'sincere' in it like we're presented. Weiskopf continues "The fact that Jean-Claude tolerated the Church of Eternal Life, and did not insist they all take oath to him, gave us great hope" Didn't Anita get them all bonded/enslaved/raped or something in The Harlequin anyway? She feels relieved that he just said 'oathed' and not 'blood-oathed' because "I really didn't want to go into details on that with Dolph. He might know, but he might not understand, what it meant for a vampire to take oath to the Master of the City." Yeah, I expect a police officer might frown on a civilian being forced to enter a magical contract that puts them under the control of someone who is essentially a supernatural mob boss, and who then can (and likely will) magically control them to do illegal acts against their will, the consequences of which they (rather than the mob boss aka JC) will end up facing instead because ANITA KEEPS INFO LIKE THIS TO HERSELF.
"But then, Jean-Claude did demand it, and we lost hope" and Anita says that's why they decided to try to kill him and Weiskopf says no, that they never advocated violence, which he swears "on my honor, and the honor of my master" and that "We were most aggrieved to see the dead police officers on the news." Anita says that they chose vampires that looked like children and the elderly to appeal to media, and he says that "We suggested that we show the media that vampires are not all beautiful and sexy like your vampires. We wanted to show that vampires are truly people in many shapes and sizes, so yes, we chose a group, but we never meant for them to be used in such a vile way." Anita argues that it was his master Benjamin who was their master too and that "he had control of them while they did this vile shit." What vile shit? We know a couple of vamps that looked like teen boys abducted a teen girl and were trying to forcibly turn her, for reasons still unknown, but all the others found in the brewery didn't do anything, and might well have not even known what those guys were up to. And there was absolutely no sign earlier than any of them were under the control of anyone.
Weiskopf says that no, his master is not their master, and that "We have purposefully not tried to control any other vampires except through speech and the persuasion that any normal human could use." to which Anita responds "Bullshit" again showing her brilliance at tactical negotiations. Weiskopf responds by letting her "see that slash of anger again" and he says he's given her his word of honor. Anita says "He's a master vampire, and they didn't belong to any other master; it means that a powerful enough vampire exerts more control over them than any human ever will" and Weiskopf says that's only if his master wills it and that Benjamin has been careful for centuries to control nobody. Whoa, CENTURIES? Anita claims that "Vampires are all about the food chain, the hierarchy; everyone owes allegiance to someone." Hey, Anita? This guy has clearly been around a lot longer than you, and you really only have experience with one vampire Kiss and its leader. The vampires from outside JC's Kiss that she's met (Augustine, Belle Morte, etc.) have largely been either people that he was politically/personally tied to, or that she was sent after because they were causing trouble, so that also should be considered when making a judgment on how 'all' vampires supposedly are.. Plus, he's talking about ONE individual vamp here. Just one. I hardly think he's arguing for the impossible at all, and I think even less of Anita trying to play like she knows soooo much more about all vampires ever than he does.
She continues that "Your master didn't just spring into being, he came from a bloodline of some vampires, so he owes allegiance to that line, and whoever created him." I really, really don't like how she words this because it doesn't sound like she's saying this it how it is in vampire culture, it sounds like she's saying this is how it is period, and that's bullshit. But let's go on the assumption she means it as in that's how it is in vampire culture--what if Benjamin got powerful enough to break free of whoever created him? Or killed them in a vampire duel? We know both to happen and not be that unusual. And as for being beholden to the master of his bloodline, well, why would that mean that he would choose to control other people? He could just live his life as Weiskopf says he does and as long as he checked in with his fountainhead now and again and they never had use for him to do anything that involved controlling people, he could live a nice law-abiding life. Hell, he might not even need to check in; I got the impression that the bloodline-heads (aka the Council) aren't regularly monitoring each and every one of their numerous descendants all over the globe. His scenario does not at all sound as impossible as Anita is painting it, and actually kind of reminds me of how I've got it going with my OC Ruthven---he was no good at vampire politics and would have gotten eaten alive despite his raw power, so he used the fact he was a really powerful vampire *and* could control swanmanes to just opt out of the entire system and does his own thing out on his moor and nobody gets to bother him and he's at no risk of losing anything through said vampire politics anymore. He still answers to Oliver as his fountainhead and the Council in general, but besides that he gets to avoid the entire mess. Not out of morals like Benajmin, granted, but yeah.
Weiskopf says that Benjamin's master was killed a long time ago by a vampire hunter, and that "we were told that if the master of our bloodline died, then we would die with him, but we woke the next night. It had been a lie to keep us from attacking the head of our order." Anita says she only knows of one line whose head was wiped out and whose members are still around and Weiskopf is like yeah, your Wicked and Truth. I would just like to note that the rest of Wicked and Truth's bloodline died out because *they* killed them, not because their fountainhead died, since the phrasing here is making it sound like they died because their fountainhead did, which wasn't the case. Weiskopf says that "our bloodline sprang into being and fled into the wilderness." Okay, cool, I am all about learning about new bloodlines, this sounds neat, what are their special qualities/powers? I hope we learn! "He did not want to be part of the hierarchy of blood and depravity, but of course, by being a master and acquiring followers he began to value the growing power over his own good intentions, and they were good intentions once." Wait, is he talking about Benjamin, or about Benjamin's master/fountainhead? I'm not sure "He meant us to live as holy a life as the cursed could." From this, Anita somehow concludes that "He was talking of some unknown bloodline that had basically tried to run a monastery in some isolated are." I don't know how she gets 'monastery' just because he said 'holy' but when she asks "A vampire monastery?" in disbelief, he says "Exactly"
WELL HOLY SHIT HOW ABOUT THAT?
I CANNOT WAIT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS LINE OMFG
