Bree Part 1

Let’s see if Otis learned anything. Oh who am I kidding? You can’t teach an old Otis new tricks. I think even Pavlov would have a hard time applying operant conditioning to her using a cattle prod.

We start off in the middle of things and Otis is writing in first person perspective. And just like in Eclipse, Otis tries to use a Newspaper to hint at what’s going on.

The first thing Bree talks about is seeing a newspaper headline inside a vending machine that says “Seattle Under Siege—Death Toll Rises Again”. And just like before, Otis doesn’t seem to understand how newspapers or anything works. Bree doesn’t read the article or anything but if she did I’m sure it would be filled with stupidity fit to choke a donkey.

Now I’m not a journalist and I’ve never written news articles for anyone, and probably never will, so I could be completely wrong in what I’m about to say. Newspaper editors don’t like to engage in hyperbole, especially in headlines. Yes, the editors will arrange shocking stories first, typically because “if it bleeds, it leads”. But using words that might incite a panic or could be considered fear mongering is pushing one of the rights of theU.S.’s first amendment.

Besides, another murder doesn’t need an eye catching or melodramatic headline. People tend to pay attention to murders anyway. The headline could simply read “Another Vampire Murder”. Because that’s the kind of thing that journalists would call it because they’ve heard of Dracula.

Secondly, when lots of murders start happening and only at night, officials start encouraging people to stay indoors and instituting curfews. Also, the FBI gets called in because they have experience in dealing with serial killers, better equipped crime labs, and the ability to call in additional support if they need it.

And lastly, who the hell pays attention to newspapers? This is supposed to take place in “modern times” with no specified date. Otis never says when this is but we’ll pretend it was happening a year or two before Eclipse was published, say two thousand five. Even then, newspaper subscription was on the wane and younger readers weren’t picking up the printed word to get their news. Bree is a younger woman, probably only seventeen or so like Bella and that age group is the least likely to bother with newspapers. So even if they happened to be standing near a vending machine she’d probably just ignore it.

Apparently Riley would be pissed if he saw the headline. Remember him? He’s the consort of Victoria, the one that the other werewolf killed while Ed murderedVictoria. I don’t think he said anything in the two pages he existed. Anyway, apparently he’ll be mad if he reads the headlines. It’s a good thing he doesn’t use the internet or he’d be angry all the time what with the way these stupidSeattlekillings keep making the headlines.

Bree is thirsty and she’s pissed because Riley sent her out into the world with three morons. Two of which are having a “nerd” argument about whether Spiderman or Hulk would make a better vampire. Right, because those are the two characters that they’d discuss. Or maybe it’s the only two characters that Otis could remember being as Hulk came out in oh three and Spider-Man 2 was out a year later.

It’s not like there are actual vampires in comics already that comic book nerds might argue about who’s cooler versus who’s more accurate. Luckily there aren’t any well known vampire comic characters from numerous comic media like; Alucard from Hellsing, Moribus from Spider-Man, Angel from the Buffy series of comics, Blade or others. Yup, it’s a good thing they don’t exist or else Otis would just look like she’s trying to pander to a crowd she doesn’t understand. Can you imagine the embarrassment if that happened?

The other “nerd” does a “Hulk smash!” and flips a passing car over. Which is kind of stupid because Hulk usually says that when he’s about to hit something not pick it up or flip it over. Then him and the other pull the passengers out and eat them while Bree and Diego take off. They have a brief conversation and, even though this avatar dies, Otis has to tell us how special she is. See, Diego is almost a year old and he’s impressed that a three month old vampire could leave the scene with free blood. After this little ego trip for the author, they find someone to suck off, I mean on.

Half-hidden around the edge of a purple-black alley, a man was cussing at a woman and slapping her while another woman watched silently. From their clothes, I guessed that it was a pimp and two of his employees.

Right, even Otis’s “bad” characters can’t just be bad. No, they have to feed on “bad” people to give them the moral high ground. Which makes no sense. After a year of random murders where the victims are left with no blood in their body, just who the hell has the guts to be outside at night? Especially if some of them are so brazen that they flip cars over. I’d think the streets would be empty by then and people would be starting to fleeSeattle. Fresh frappuccinos and grunge music aside, it’d be time to pack up the old wagon and move someplace a bit safer likeMexico City.

Oh and apparently there’s some loose cannon vampire called Raoul who gets pissed and randomly burns other vampires to death. Then Riley goes around, whaps Raoul on the nose and confiscates everyone’s lighters and matches. Because if I had a psychotic jerk in my army who kept killing off my underlings I would just yell at him rather than running him through a mattress shredder and burning the pieces in a grill while cooking bratwurst.

They go and kill both the pimp and the two prostitues, with Bree feeding on both of the hookers. Bree complains about how one of the hookers has dirty blood that comes from drug use but that she’s used to it. Right, because drugs stay in the system and aren’t excreted, hence why drug tests are usually blood samples rather than urine or hair. And being as drugs fill up such a large part of blood I can see how it would affect the taste versus something like blood glucose, ph or even water content which are so small and barely affect a person that doctors, not specializing in hematology of course, don’t worry about such things.

Diego let’s Bree have the girl with the clean blood even though she’s sure he can smell what he’s missing out on. Then they decide they have to clean up their mess by dumping the bodies in the sound. I’m assuming they mean the Puget Sound inWashington. Which is brilliant because you can just keep dumping bodies in the water and the police will never think to stake out the docks and surrounding areas to watch for suspicious activity.