Ugh how I've missed these weirdly non-specific descriptions! It's just great to be back!
Right so the dead guy has apparently been murdered by vampires, Anita can tell because he has fang marks on his neck and right elbow. His left wrist has been mangled so badly that she can see bone.
To prove that Anita tots needs to be at the crime scene, she measures out the teeth marks and finds out that they're different. She goes on to say that three vamps were involved, but right after says five... Even though there are only three obvious wounds on the body... Ok?
Oh and a group of vamps doesn't actually have a technical name, as Anita points out ... A master and his pack, or flock, or whatever the hell you call a group of vampires.
Randomly she then natters on about the grass being wet and what she's wearing, she also mentions that she doesn't wear white nikes anymore as the blood showed up too easily or some shit.
Anita then spreads the bodies legs, thinking that rigor mortis hasn't set in yet so the body is less then 8hrs old.
Well I just did A quick google search and that tells me that rigor mortis sets in around 2-8hrs, full rigor kicks in around 8-12 which lasts up to 18 hours. So really he could have already gone though rigor and just been dumped here.
We then learn that the corpse has semen on his groin and that there is a another bite mark on his upper thigh, while not as bad as the wrist it's still not exactly neat.
There's no blood on or around the corpse, Anita wonders if they cleaned it all up (uh... If they're drinking from him, why would there be a lot of blood lying around?)
And then thinks that if they could find out where he actually died they could find more clues and shit.
Ah ok then, so he WAS dumped here, which means pretty much everything Anita has told us is useless as she doesn't know when he died, or even how he died yet she's leaping to all sorts of conclusions.
Bad investigator, no cookies!
Sigh, so now we learn that there is a low mist, what the house looks like, that this is taking place in October... You know, things that could have organically been mentioned elsewhere instead of lumped together in a large useless block of text.
We learn that while it's too early for most people to have left for school or work, it's not early enough for them not to be gawking at the corpse. Cops and the yellow tape is clearly the only thing holding them back from rushing over and poking the body with sticks.
A boy of about twelve had managed to push his way to the front. He stared at the dead man with huge brown eyes, his mouth open in a little "wow" of excitement. God, where were his parents? Probably gawking at the corpse, too.
Wow, her distain fairly oozes off the page. And well yeah, tell me one person who wouldn't come out to see what the fuss is all about? There's a reason life savers on our beaches call a circle of people around an injured or dying person the 'circle of death'
People are naturally attracted to anything that is different from the humdrum of average life.
WAIT!
The next paragraph she goes on about how the body is paper-white and that all the blood has blood at the bottom of the body... Only to then go on and claim that due to the lack of blood in said body no bruising or lividity marks BECAUSE WHOEVER KILLED HIM DRAINED HIM OF ALL HIS BLOOD!
One or the other Anita, one or the fucking other!
Good to the last drop? I fought the urge to smile and lost. If you spend a lot of time staring at corpses, you get a peculiar sense of humour. You have to, or you will go stark raving mad.
The goddam 'humour' in these books, gods I've forgotten how funny this series is...
Whatever, Zerbrowski wonders over to see what's so funny. Anita scolds him for sneaking up on her, he jokes about the big bad vampire hunter jumping at shadows. We learn that his hair is uncombed, tie not done up properly and looks to be wearing what looks suspiciously like PJ top under his suit, you know. The height of professionalism, I get that it's implied that he was called out of bed for this job, but you'd think as a cop he'd be use to this sort of shit. Hell, I'M use to being on call and rushing out the door and I'm no cop.
They 'banter' back and forwards a bit, you know. The hight of comedy that this series is and then we get this...
He shrugged. "I've got a pair with little choo-choos on them. Katie thinks they're sexy."
"Your wife got a thing for trains?" I asked.
His grin widened. "If I'm wearing 'em."
I shook my head. "I knew you were perverted, Zerbrowski, but little kids' jammies, that's just sick."
No LKH, just... No.
Whatever, Anita asks him where Dolph is, Zerbrowski replies that he's in the house with the lady who found the body. Commenting that she's taking it pretty hard and this is probably the first body she's seen outside of a funeral.
It's annoying how characters in this series seems to get such a huge kick out of looking down on other people. Of course she's shook up, there's a naked dead man on her lawn! I know my day would be completely ruined if I walked out to that.
They have a bit of a back and forth about how it'd be nice to be normal, before Zerbrowski continues with his professionalism by pulling out a piece of crumbled paper he was using instead of his notebook.
Now, I'm no American, and I'm no cop. But I DO know that those notepads cops have are actually legal documents that are used in court. It's the same setup security guards use, all pages are numbered, no skipped lines and you're not allowed to erase anything, everything must be written in pen, one line through a mistake with your initials above it. You'll be surprised at what the defence will try and claim to make your notebook non-compliant.
As he's taking Anita's professional statement here, could you imagine trying to hold this up in court? I dunno, maybe your cops and legal system is crazy different to ours.. Well, more so then I thought anyways.
Anita bitches that she doesn't want to have to repeat herself and can't they just wait for Dolph as she wants to get home to bed. Another 'joke' about Zerbrowski wearing jammies (I'm sorry, do adults actually call their PJs Jammies in America? How do you not feel like a 5yr old?) and Dolph ambles out of the house saving us from more of this banter.
Insert usual description/background about our burly head cop and then the plot resumes, so glad it came to a grinding halt for this, this scene is so fast paced I needed the break.
Anita gives the run down that there was at least 3 vampires, but she thinks (for some reason) that there were more. Dolph interjects to point out that vamps are solitary hunters, Anita responds that usually that is the case, but this time they're hunting in a pack and that there is most likely a master vampire with a few babies and that as he's outright killing humans he has most likely gone rogue.
We learn that some master's kill as a group to solidify the pack's unity or something, also that most groups wouldn't be stupid enough to leave the body out in the open like this, which means the master has gone batshit crazy which somehow relates to them being rogue?
Does, does Anita actually know what that word means??
Whatever, Anita then points out that slaughter like this is bad publicity for the vamps trying to mainstream so they can probably rule them out almost instantly. She then goes rambles about vampires being ruthless, Dolph questions her on this, she responds that they're practical, they kill to keep secrets yadda yadda, Zerbrowski points out that they're run like the mob. Whatever, can we get on with it already?!
Zerbrowski asks if they panicked, Dolph states that the body was found at 0530, apparently there's still hours before sunrise? Really? Even in winter the sun rises around 0600 here, how long do you guys sit around in darkness?!
But, also didn't they dump the body here? So why would sunrise make them panic and dump it? It'd make sense if the guy was actually killed here.. But whatever, I need to stop overthinking these books. Ha, like that'd ever happen, there wouldn't be a point to this blog if I did that.
Blah blah, Anita should be able to raise this guy as a zombie, Dolph thought vamp killed people couldn't be raised, Anita points out that's only true if they're going to be a vampire themselves, Dolph asks what makes her think that this guy won't be a vamp (Uh... So anyone who's drained by a vamp can become one? Really? That doesn't make sense...)
Oh, Anita goes on to explain that the process takes several days of the vamp feeding off them, three bites and you're a vamp.
WHAT? Haha, then shouldn't the majority of vampire lovers become vamps if three bites is all it takes? By the Gods this is the stupidest method I've ever heard of! Hahahahaahahaha
Anita agrees to raise the corpse in two nights (as the night he was killed would somehow count...Even though they don't know when he was killed) but points out that it might not do them much good as the zombie might not remember much of the crime.
Zerbrowski gets all indigent, even though just before he agreed that witness testimonies are a bitch as everyone seems to remember shit differently.
Anita then explains to THE COPS, that the zombie may be confused, and not remember much of the incident from you know... SHOCK and the fact the he DIED FROM THIS AND PROBABLY HAS PTSD OR SOMETHING!
We learn then the there's two Master's currently in the city, Malcom, head of the church of eternal life (CEL) and the master of the city, and that they would probably know if anyone else of their power decided to waltz into their city.
Dolph say's that they'll take Malcom, Anita say she'll take the Master and refuses cop backup claiming that if she let a cop know where he's staying he'd kill them both. Meeting in a neutral location is apparently not allowed to happen?
Uh, Anita isn't a cop, so how would any information she gathers stand up in court?
Dolph asks how dangerous this will be for her, Anita doesn't feel like telling him that the master has the hots for her so she'll probably be fine as long as she dodges his come ons. So simply tells him that she'll be fine, everything is fine.
Dolph naturally doesn't believe her, but since he sucks at his freaking job, just agrees that they can't do this without her and how soon can she set up a meeting. Anita says she can do it tomorrow night as she'll just get Bert to foster her work onto someone else.
Seriously, why is everyone in this universe so goddamn unprofessional and laidback about their freaking jobs?!
The chapter ends with more banter between Anita and Zerbrowski and holy fuckballs I'm glad this is over with,
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