“Like sex slave zombies; I remember, Manny.” I shuddered, which made passing cars in traffic a little challenging, but I managed.

“She saw you as a way to forge a dynasty of undead.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“She wanted you to have a baby with her nephew.”

“The one you described as not right?”

“No, not Artie, his brother, Max. He was always a polite boy, good student, a gentleman to his brother’s bad boy.”

“Artie and Max; Arturo and what?”

“Maximiliano.”

“That’s a new one to me.”

“You have the Latino genetics, but not the culture. It’s actually a fairly popular name right now.”

“How about Arturo?”

“Not so much,” he said, smiling.

“So if I had agreed to work with her she’d have tried to set me up with her nephew?”

“Almost certainly.”

I shook my head. “It’s just weird to think that she wanted me to breed with her family.”

“Why is it weird?” Nicky asked.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. “It just is.”

“It’s how we breed a good working horse, or hunting dog.”

“I’m not a horse, or a dog,” I said.

“Yeah, but it’s still the same principle, Anita. Most of the horses that have won the Triple Crown are from bloodlines that have other champions in their pedigree. We don’t like to admit that people are just smart animals, but you see the star athlete marry the athletic cheerleader or gymnast, and most of their kids are great at sports, because it’s in their genes. Why can’t necromancy be the same?”

“I didn’t say it couldn’t work, Nicky, I said it was creepy.”

“You said it was weird that she wanted you to breed with her family, but it’s actually really logical if you want to get some uber-necromancer out of it.”

I glanced back at the next light and found his face calm, peaceful, because it was all about logic. I’m not saying all sociopaths are logical, but not having to deal with many emotions seemed to help Nicky be very clear about things that bothered me more.

“I wonder if having a vampire father would help your child be a more powerful necromancer?” Manny asked.

“Don’t you start,” I said.

“I think it’ll be about Jean-Claude’s original human genetics, so it shouldn’t matter to Anita’s magic,” Nicky said.

“I’m not planning to have a baby with Jean-Claude, we’re just getting married.”

“You don’t want children, ever?” Nicky asked.

“No,” I said.

“I know you think it wouldn’t work with your job.”

“It wouldn’t,” I said.

“But you’re actually not having sex with anyone who’s psychically gifted. We’re all just vamps, or shapeshifters, but the preternatural stuff isn’t native gifts; it’s add-on parts.”

“Why are we having this discussion again?” I asked.

“Because I said Dominga wanted you to breed with her nephew.”

I glared at Manny. “All right, I know what started it, but I’m just saying, I’m done with this conversation.”

“Tell me to stop talking about it, and I have to do what you say,” Nicky said.

I glared at him in the rearview mirror. He knew that I didn’t like telling him not to talk about things, because once I did he actually couldn’t bring the topic back up unless I told him it was okay, and I kept forgetting what I’d told him to drop as a topic. Nathaniel and Cynric had actually come to me with a list of things that Nicky couldn’t discuss with me, because of offhand comments during everyday conversations. Do you know how many times a person tells someone to drop something, or don’t talk about it anymore? A lot, right? Now imagine that the person you said that to could never, ever bring the topic up again. I’d started being very careful about using certain phrases around Nicky.

“Damn you, you know I won’t.”

He smiled at me, so pleased with himself that I could see his eyes crinkle even around the sunglasses and the long triangular fall of his hair. “Your dad is blue-eyed and blond, right?”

“Yeah.” I said it all suspicious-like.

“Then you carry the gene for both, so if you pick someone who’s blond and blue-eyed on both sides of their family you might end up with a baby that is, too.”

“You volunteering?”

He shook his head. “My mother is a diagnosed psychopath, and I’m a diagnosed sociopath; I don’t think my genetics is what you want to mix with yours. I’m just saying, you could pick and choose some of it, because of how many men you have in your life; that’s all.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why, because you agree that babies would be a bad idea with me, or that my family tree is such shit?”

“That your mother was an evil bitch, I think.”

He smiled. “It’s a shame that Jean-Claude doesn’t have parents to be your in-laws.”

The change of topics was too fast for me. “What? Why?”

“You’d be a blunt hell on wheels as a daughter-in-law.”

Manny gave a loud, surprised laugh. “Oh my God, she would be! She so would be!”

“Micah’s parents like me,” I said.