i really can’t believe i sat through the entirety of merrick waiting for merrick to turn on/double cross david only for it to never happen and actually she’s now in a vampire polycule with him! like i was CERTAIN that a novel that bounces between louis and his feelings of guilt over claudia’s vampiric life and death and david reflecting on how HE and another man became surrogate fathers for a young girl and whisked her away from her family into the world of the supernatural, but one that isolates her from others, would like… make that parallel explicit? claudia’s ghost stabs louis through the heart after berating him for how he used her for his own selfish desires, and merrick doesn’t even get to maliciously curse david a little bit? after he engaged in a sexual relationship with a woman he refers to as a daughter? i don’t know why i was surprised this deep into my tvc dive that the predatory father-figure does not get properly chastised by the narrative, but i was just certain this was an intended parallel that would pay off and finally give david a narratively-meaningful character flaw. anyways in my rewrite merrick gets to torture david with spirits until he dies <3