“Not after you manifested your talents, no. And you were six months old when it was clear what they were. Oh, he loved you, and he hated himself for not being there. He heard stories from your parents, heard things off the streets. The fights you were getting into. The anger. He so wanted to help you. Because that’s how he’d been at that age.”

“But every time he came near me he’d have a panic attack,” I say.

“That’s putting it mildly. We’d taken you off your parents’ hands for a day when your talents manifested at six months old. You made a roadkill rabbit get up and dance. You were delighted. Laughing and clapping.”

“And, what, he rolled up into a ball and shook?”

“No,” she says. “He tried to kill you. I had to hit him over the head with a rock several times before he stopped strangling you and cleared his head enough to realize what he was doing.”

Jesus. What the hell had he seen? A lot of necromancy is really fucked up, I won’t pretend it isn’t, but to do that to him? I can’t even imagine what he saw. And if he tried to kill me . . .

“Did he know an old Nazi in town named—”

“Neumann,” she says. “Yes, they knew each other from the war. Your grandfather tried to kill him so many times. And the other way around. But they never could. Finally, your grandfather stopped trying, and instead made a point of stopping anything he tried to do.”

“I heard somebody finally got him.”

“Yes. A zombie, if you can believe it. Well, not a zombie exactly. I’m not clear on the details.”

“Sounds like poetic justice.”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Robert knew that he couldn’t be trusted to be entirely rational with you. He tried. Therapy, drugs, hypnosis, magic. But he couldn’t get past his nightmares. When he looked at you he saw a monster, not family.”

“Yeah, I tend to bring that out in people. They thought it would be better if I just didn’t know?”

“Yes. It wasn’t my decision. Your father never liked me much, so when Robert finally died I was largely shunned. Told not to seek you out. Robert and I never married, so I wasn’t technically family. There were wards on some places and things that would only open up to family. I thought about getting hold of you anyway, but then I thought it would be better not to. I did leave you a couple of things your grandfather wanted you to have, though. I pulled them out of storage before he died and I was locked out of those warehouses your family kept all that stuff in.”

“A pistol and a pocket watch?” I say.