“So, if he wasn’t a vampire, what was he?” And how could any of it possibly be true if he was related to me? There was absolutely nothing supernatural about me, unless the ability to plow through an entire pint of ice cream in a single sitting counted as magic.
“I never found out, but I gathered he was friendly with vampires because he made it clear that he wasn’t a supporter of our club and didn’t approve of our hunting.”
“Why didn’t you just take him out then and there?” I asked Richard. “You could have told one of your hunting buddies to take care of him, if you didn’t want to do it yourself.”
“Because of Greta,” he said simply. “I know you may find this hard to believe because of the way things turned out, Olivia, but we loved our daughter very much.”
He was right. I did find it hard to believe.
“I feared some of the more fanatical members of my hunting club might hurt Greta if they knew the sort of child she was carrying,” he said.
“Exposing him would also expose your daughter.”
“Correct. I couldn’t have cared less about the mutant fetus?—”
“Who was my mother.”
“Right,” Richard said, smiling thinly. “The boy also said that any harm to the fetus or him would also harm Greta, because they were all connected. Of course, it did cross my mind that he was lying, but I couldn’t prove otherwise. I refused to gamble with Greta’s life.”
“So, you sent her away.”
Richard nodded. “But it was only a last resort. Greta refused to give up the baby.”
“Did she know what the father was—supernatural, I mean?”
“No,” Richard answered. “Which is why he and I made a deal. We agreed that he’d stay away from Greta to keep her safe. I vowed not to reveal his identity to the club, ever, if he left and didn’t come back. After our conversation, he vanished like a ghost.”
“What was his name? My grandfather?”
“I have no idea,” Richard said.
“We figured it was safer to remain in the dark,” Maxine added.
It was a lot to process. “Did he love Greta? The boy?”
Richard shrugged to show exactly how irrelevant he thought love was. “He said he did, though everything bad that’s happened is because of him.”
“You mean Greta getting pregnant?”
Richard brought his fist down on his thigh heavily. “I mean all of it, Olivia! Don’t you see how vampires destroy everything?”
“But you said he wasn’t a vamp?—”
“Quibbles,” Richard sputtered with a wave of his hand. “Close enough.”
So, in a nutshell, my great-grandfather hated anyone who wasn’t classified as a full human—excluding the various types of humans he hated as well.
“Did it ever occur to you that your daughter wouldn’t have been in danger had it not been foryourassociation with vampire hunters?” I asked, sounding as furious as I felt.
“And why had I joined forces with the hunters to begin with, hmm?” Richard countered. “Because one of their vile kind attacked me. It istheywho are culpable, Olivia, not I.”
“We kept tabs on Greta,” said Maxine, trying to diffuse the tension. “And your mother. And you. We may not have always known where you were and what you were doing, but we did know about your life.”
“Why didn’t you make contact, then? All these years and you never even called.” I swept my hand out. “And here you were the whole time, a short drive away from me in Napa.”
“This isn’t our house, dear,” clarified Maxine. “This belongs to a friend of ours.”
A friend with a functioning prison cell in their back yard. Because nothing weird about that.
