Face it, her findings would be ripped apart as specieist by the lawyers in court.
Striding into Ronnie's office, we learn that her office is full of windows. Causing it to be like a solar heater, because no amount of air con can apparently conquer that much sunlight.
This women seriously wouldn't last five seconds in an Australian summer... Just sayin'
We then learn that if one can be bothered to stain their eyes with the sight of the district they could, but Anita is too lofty for such affairs.
So after being waved into the almost blinding glare of her office. Anita spots that they are not alone, a small, delicate looking Asian women is sitting across from Ronnie, her hair is carefully styled back from her face and, well lets just insert it shall I?
A royal purple jacket, which matched her tailored skirt, was folded neatly on the chair arm. A shiny lavender blouse brought attention to the up-tilted eyes and the faint lavender shading on the lids and brow. Her ankles were crossed, hands folded on her lap.
Stereotype is very stereotype.
So it turns out her name is Beverly and she has history with Anita, which Ronnie is surprised to learn about since 'Bev' didn't mention anything of the sort to her.
insert some boring dialogue on if Anita has permission to fill Ronnie in or not and we get down to the meat of this exciting new mystery.
So, it turns out that Bev's family was attacked by vampires and Anita rode into the rescue, sounds pretty straight forward right? Well you'd be wrong, it turns out that Anita really does suck at her job since Bev saved her from being vampire chow by smashing in her attackers head with a silver candlestick, which.. I guess American's always just have lying around or something.
Beverly then swore Anita to secrecy since she didn't want people to find out that she brained a vampire, Anita I guess happily went along with it because then she wouldn't have to explain how she was saved by the victim.
Don't get me wrong, I can see what LKH was trying to do here. The quite lady-like female has a dark side that she wants to keep hidden, if we didn't hear about all the times Anita has fucked up and needed to be saved this would work pretty well. Unfortunately right now it just makes Anita look even worse at her job then we even thought.
Oh, and random gore for gore's sense since Anita goes on to think that the sound of Bev screaming as the vampires brains and blood was spilled haunted her dreams for months.
Apparently saving someones life outlasts friendships since those fade but the obligation you feel towards your savior sticks with you for life, I have yet to save/be saved by anyone so I can't exactly comment on this fact, but the way it is worded makes it come across as pretty pretentious since you know, she has an exciting life where all this sort of shit is commonplace and you don't.
Ronnie asks if anyone would like a drink, Anita and Bev tell her they want non-alcoholic drinks at the same time and laugh about it, I admit I was only like 7 when this book first came out, and I have no doubt that times have changed a great deal. But do business people in America really offer their partners and customers alcoholic drinks during meetings???
Ronnie brought us two diet cokes. I made a face but took it anyway. I knew that was all she had in the office's little fridge. We had had discussions about diet drinks, but she swore she liked the taste. Liked the taste, garg!
Bev took hers graciously; perhaps that was what she drank at home. Give me something flattening with a little taste to it any day.
Ok, I get the whole diet vs real coke joke, Jim Butcher pulls it off. Hell, even I've pulled it off. The thing that bugs me is that if Anita knew that Ronnie only had diet why accept the drink offer is she's just going to bitch about it? And maybe Bev just isn't a total bitch like you are Anita, that's why she's not pulling faces like a fucking five year old at receiving a drink someone gave her for free!
They now get down to business, asking Bev if the HAV (I'm sorry, this sounds like some sort of sexually transmitted disease) really does have a terrorist group of fanatics running around killing people right under everyone's noses.
Bev seems hesitant to give them a straight answer as she evades as much as possible, enforcing the fact that she has no proof and has only heard rumors of this mystery group, which is apparently formed from those whose families have been slaughtered by vampires. She then goes onto admit that she's heard people brag about slaying vampires (see, having these guys attack the freak party would have made more sense and tied this plot-line in a lot better as a red-herring, right now it's just kinda pointless and clearly thrown in for the word count)
Anita then asks if Bev has any details on how they killed the vampires since the police has withheld some of the details from the media regarding the current onslaught of murders. Bev claims she doesn't know, but then shoots herself in the foot by claiming that putting dangerous animals down shouldn't be illegal, which, when you actually stop and think about isn't illegal because Anita goes around killing those who go rogue, so unless vampire hunters in this world are pretty slack the need for this sort of vigilante movement should be pretty unnecessary.
But wolf! I hear the two or so people who read my flogs frequently cry out, I'm pretty sure that I've read that in your world that while vampires and such are legal you have cults and vigilantes that are out to kill your vampires, what makes this any different?!
Well, in my story monsters have exactly the same rights as humans, so no killing them unless absolutely necessary, and they serve jail time so a killer vamp could end up back on the streets which would lead to this sort of action. Where else in Anita's world they are killed as soon as their kill count gets high enough, which would pretty much rule out people needing to go around and stack vampires who are doing nothing but live their undead lives.
Anita is shocked to discover that while once she would have once agreed wholeheartedly with Bev on her outlook, she no longer does so. No, we're never really told why.
Instead she asks Bev why she's telling her this info, which comes back to the fact that Bev feels like she owes Anita her life for some reason or another.
Bev gets to her feet, places her can on Ronnie's desk, saying that if she comes across anymore information she'll leave a message with Ronnie.
Anita thanks her since for once she's stopped thinking about herself long enough to realize that Bev is probably betraying her cause by telling them these rumors.
Bev shakes each of their hands, which manages to cause Anita to think about how by looking at her you would never known she had been touched by extreme violence. Maybe that's the way she wanted it. Who was I to argue?
Now, I've been 'touched' by some pretty extreme violence in my life, but until recently (I shaved my head so you can see my scars) you wouldn't have guessed at it, violence unlike the current media trope doesn't follow you around like some dark cloud everyone can see, you chose to let people see that much of you or not, you shouldn't judge people on how they chose to present themselves, which makes Anita not only look once again like a desperate wannabe tough guy but also extremely judgmental, again...
Ronnie asks Anita what she's found out, Anita demands to know how she knew she had anything to tell her. Ronnie points out that Anita looked pretty green around the gills (Gods, I haven't heard the expression in bloody years) and that was enough to tell her that Anita probably had come straight from a crime scene.
Anita bitches that she thought she had hidden it better, Ronnie strokes her ego a bit by claiming that she only noticed because she knows her so well.
I nodded, taking the explanation for what it really was, comforting crap. But I took it anyway.
So... Having someone know you so well that they can instantly tell when something isn't right is a bad thing? Ok? I have issues with strangers being able to read me, but not friends. At least this book is making me feel a lot less paranoid.......
Anyways, Anita fills Ronnie in about Theresa's death but not about her current dreams involving JC since those are private. Honestly, unless she thought Ronnie would be able to explain what the fuck was going on I can understand why she's not exactly spilling her beans about that aspect of this fairly fucked up situation.
They go on to wonder if the HAV death squad is really behind the sudden rash of vampire slayings, Anita goes on to point out that if it is humans she has no idea how they are managing to pull it off since you know, vampires suppress humans in pretty much every way.
Ronnie points out that in extreme situations grannies have been known to lift cars and such, what that has to do with going out and killing vampires are beyond me, once I could get seven times? Not so much,..
On a sudden change of tack Anita asks if Ronnie would like to tag along while she talks to the church of eternal life.
Ronnie gives her a light ribbing about signing up, backing off pretty quickly when Anita starts glowering and thinking homicidal thoughts.
When Ronnie asks why, Anita points out that they attacked the party she was at last night and maybe accidents happen (again, seven or so times. Coincidence this is not!)
Apparently raiding parties means that you are more then happy to murder people, when Ronnie points out that the majority of members are in fact vampires, Anita jumps all over that saying that they would have the strength and powers to successfully sneak up on and murder another vampire.
Wouldn't vampires be able to hear other vampires? They have super hearing after all......
Instead of pointing this fact out, Ronnie strokes Anita's ego by telling her that its actually a good point. Anita bows her head modestly claiming that they now just need to prove it. Somehow this amuses Ronnie enough to cause her eyes to get shiny with humor while pointing out that maybe they aren't involved at all.
They have another pointless banter session before deciding that neither of them have any idea what the fuck is going on.
We're on page 185 out of 265 and the main character is still running around in circles, this is going to be a classic LKH case of 'drag your feet until the last two or so chapters then cram as much shit into it as possible before wrapping it up in a unsatisfactory way'
Get excited kids!
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