I sighed. “What I mean, Karlton, is anytime someone asks me, ‘Can I say something without you taking it wrong?’ it usually means it will be something insulting. So say it, but I can’t guarantee how I’ll take it.”

She thought about that a minute, serious as a small child on the first day of school. “Okay, I guess that was a stupid thing to say, but I want to know the answer enough to be stupid.”

“Then ask,” I said.

“We had some of the other vampire executioners come and give lectures. One of them said you’d been one of the best before you got seduced by the master vampire of your city. He says that women are more likely to be seduced by vampires than men, and you’re proof of that.”

“It was Gerald Mallory, the vampire hunter assigned to Washington, DC, wasn’t it?” I said.

“How did you know?”

“Mallory thinks I’m the whore of Babylon because I’m sleeping with vampires. He might forgive shapeshifters, but he hates vampires with a depth and breadth of hate that’s frightening.”

“Frightening?” She made it a question with a upward lilt of her voice.

“I’ve seen him kill. He gets off on it. He’s like a racist who has permission to hate and kill.”

“You say race because I’m black.”

“No, I say racist because it’s the closest thing I can imagine to his attitude toward vampires. I’m not joking when I say after seeing him stake vampires that he scares me. He hates them so much, Karlton. He hates them without reason, or thought, or any room in his mind for a reason not to hate them. It consumes him, and people consumed by hate are crazy. It blinds them to the truth, and makes them hate anyone who doesn’t agree with them.”

“He also says that you should always stake a vampire. He doesn’t approve of using silver ammunition.”

“He’s a stake and hammer man.” I knelt by my backpack and came up with the Mossberg 500 Bantam shotgun.