Caleb rolls his eyes knowing that she had been silently comparing Aurelius to himself.

“Aurelius is always nice, that’s what makes him a dick.” he informs her acerbically.

“O-oh, okay. Um, I guess this isn’t any of my business, but I’m going to ask anyway: why exactly do you not like him?”

“Tell me something, if you had to choose between saving your mother or your father who would you choose?”

“I couldn’t just-” Sophie immediately tries to protest answering the question, but Caleb cuts her off.

“It’s hypothetical just pick one.”

“Um, I guess I’d save my father. I don’t think my mother could live without him.”

“Okay. In that situation Aurelius would come to you, apologize and try to comfort you, and then he’d execute your mother and leave you with the corpse to bury.”

“Jesus…” She murmurs at the picture painted by Caleb.

Caleb has been asked many times why he left his family and why he hates them so much, but the truth is Caleb has never seen them as his family. All of the purebreds have a strong sense of loyalty to one another, but Caleb had only felt that with one person. He wishes that he still had that type of bond with someone, anyone, but time had taken everything from him and left him hollowed out and empty. The people he refers to as his family are just strangers to him. He doesn’t hate them, he barely even knows them, and leaving them had been the easiest thing he’d ever done.

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The precinct is abuzz as many of the officers have their eyes glued to their computer monitors or huddled together over a phone as they listen with rapt attention to Aurelius make an announcement about the deceased familiars. As Sophie and Caleb enter many of them look up and stare at them before going back to their screens.

“What’s going on?” Sophie asks already pulling out her phone to see what she’s missing.

Before Caleb can answer her, though, Andrew comes at him. He grabs Caleb by the collar of his shirt and shoves his phone in his face, “This is what you had my memory erased for?” He growls out angrily. Aurelius has just started talking about the status of the infant and its miraculous survival.

“And?”

“And is it true? Is the baby still alive?”

“Well first let go of me and second you can ask Miss Free about that.”

Andrew exhales slowly and finally releases Caleb before turning to Sophie.

“Oh, yeah, she’s fine.” Sophie assures, “She’s really cute and so small. I actually got to hold her.” Sophie starts to gush as she recalls the baby.

“You three!” The group suddenly pause as Fredrick yells at them from his doorway, “In my office now.”

There’s a moment of awkwardness as the three all simultaneously feel like children being called into the principal’s office for misbehavior, but then the bunched up group breaks apart and quickly hurry to the captain’s office not wanting to make him wait.

There are only two chairs for people to sit in leaving Andrew the odd man out and standing by the door.

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“Why the literal fuck is my active investigation being blasted all over the news and social media by this goddamn prick, Caleb?!” Fredrick fumes.

“It was my idea to try and draw out the killer.”

“How does this draw out anything besides a fucking shit storm?! This could start a fucking riot as the news spreads! We’ll have every vamplover across the nation protesting for equality and then the human supremist are going to protest their protests and all the while every familiar will now be walking around with targets on their backs because this shit” Fredrick jabs a finger at a crime scene photo, “is what inspires the whackjobs in the city!”

“Then I guess you should have your officers out patrolling and actually doing their jobs while I do mind.”

Captain Batting’s face goes from flushed red to a dark red before sinking into an almost purplish color, “You son of a bitch.” he says with tight lips, “Do you give a shit at all? About anything?”

“Not particularly. I guess I kinda care about catching the halfling who murdered all those familiars, but mostly I’m just doing it because I’m bored.” His words cause Sophie and Andrew to hold their breath waiting for Captain Batting to explode at him.

Fredrick stares hard at Caleb trying to figure out if he’s being serious or just pretending to be indifferent. Despite knowing him for years even Fredrick has a hard time seeing past Caleb’s emotionless face. He decides to give Caleb the benefit of the doubt though and tries to calm himself and so quietly asks, “Since when has the suspect been a half vampire? All the victims were shot and only the first victim had signs of blood being taken.”

“Since I pulled a blood sucking baby out of a corpse that had been dead for five hours.”

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Fredrick rubs his hands across his face, “Jesus Christ, Caleb why the hell wouldn’t you inform me of something like that?”

“Didn’t have a reason to.”

“Bull-fucking-shit. You just didn’t want the embassy erasing my thoughts like they did Andrew. I can take care of my own shit, though, Caleb, okay? I’d hoped that we’d known each other long enough for you to give me at least an ounce of trust.”

Caleb sighs, “Maybe I should make myself clear: I don’t trust anyone and I’m not friends with anyone. I’m here because I have nothing else to do with my incredibly long life.”

“Fine.” Fredrick throws his hands in the air in defeat with a scowl on his face, “You wanna be that way then that’s fine. How does humiliating the police force and inciting protests and riots help you catch a killer?”

“The killer is trying to create offspring. Aurelius is going to hint during the press conference that the baby was successfully turned in his experiment. Hopefully that will make him want to recreate the experiment as soon as possible and we’ll be providing the familiars.”

“Who? What are the names of these familiars?”

“Andrea, Medea’s familiar.”

There’s silence as Fredrick waits for Caleb to continue, but then he doesn’t, “And!?” Fredrick shouts.

“And Aurelius is going to try and get in contact with some retired familiars…”

“You’ve got one familiar to help you find one guy who could be anywhere in the city?”

“We’re lucky we got even that.” Caleb mumbles. “No one else is going to volunteer their pets for this.”