Untamed Chapter 9

So now we have a vampire god and a vampire satan. That’s just great. PCK is one of those authors who thinks she’s clever because she said dark isn’t always bad and light isn’t always good. In a cap to this terribly original move, Nyx is darkness and that means the evil god-thing will be light/white. Yup, never seen that before, ever. Lucky for me I’ve never read Neverwhere, Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings or any number of books or else I’d be able to declare this a stale idea.

I just get sick of the lazy good versus evil. One minute PCK is trying to show us how deep she is by telling us darkness isn’t all bad and then she just draws a line straight down the middle and declares everybody on one side good and everyone else evil. We go from an attempt at subtlety to simple binary choices. I’m not angry that there’s just good and evil, I’m mad because PCK pretended moral complexity.

And why does everyone have to do things because a bad person/god/spirit told them to? Even if there is a vamp-satan why did Neferet need to be tempted by it? Why couldn’t Neferet just want to do bad things because it gives her what she wants? Instead it’s ‘I wants to kill the humans!’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because the voices in my head told me to!’

Oh yes, and one last annoying nitpick. If Nyx is the goddess of night and darkness and all that nonsense, then why did she disappear in a flash of light at the end of the last chapter? Shouldn’t she have faded to a shadow or something? Perhaps vanished in a puff of black that stole the light from the room for a moment before returning? That’s what I would have done but I like being thematically consistent. I didn’t replace my brain with wheat germ though. If I did, I might find an opening paragraph like this acceptable.

“Well, crap. Chaos and love are the same, but not. Neferet still has her powers, but she’s not listening to Nyx anymore. Oh, and she’s trying to wake up something dangerous. What does that mean? Is it an abstract wake up, like ‘waking up’ danger in the form of a war with humans, or is she literally trying to wake up some horrible, scary thingie that could eat us all? Like that creepy thing that scratched me earlier, which I didn’t even get a chance to ask her about. Crap again!” I babbled as Aphrodite and I hurried from the girls’ dorm. Sadly, it appeared we were going to be late for the Council Meeting.

Wait, how does Zoey figure Neferet is trying to wake something dangerous? All Nyx said was that Neferet wasn’t listening to her anymore. How is this evil thing talking to Neferet if it’s asleep? And what is it with the whole “waking evil” thing? Who put it to sleep in the first place? The last one was PCK with her prose in the dining room.

Aphro says she doesn’t understand either. She wonders how her humanity can be so big if she doesn’t like humans. That’s because PCK thinks humanity is comprised of greed and lust while vampires are angelic pure creatures, untainted by desire. Unless they really, really want to be. Or when they’ve been tricked by manwhores.

Aphro whines about not looking good enough. Zoey tells her she’s being shallow and not looking at the big picture since they were visited by the author. Aphro says that was great and all but so what? Zoey says that, after meeting god, she should care about more than looking good. Aphro proves she’s smarter than Zoey and says that Nyx loves her for who she is and who she is, is someone that obsesses about her looks. Score one point for Aphro.

They go to the “council room” which is across from the library. Zoey says she’s never been inside which is why we’ve never heard of it before now. She has, however, peeked inside and tells us that there’s a huge, beautiful wood table and blah blah blah. Everything inside is perfect and the details don’t matter. Never mind how much it has to cost, or how stupid Zoey’s comments on it are.

Zoey and Aphro say hello to Darius and sit down. Zoey goes over the people in the room, reminding us that PCK has a cast of characters. There are a number of people Zoey doesn’t know, because they’re beneath her, and Aphro helpfully fills in at least one person. She points out the leader of the “sons of erebus”, Ate. Yes, Ate, the past tense of eat. Aphro says he’s really hot then Neferet makes her appearance.

Before I could answer that he was more like several hunks of many large guys, the back door to the room opened and Neferet entered.

Several hunks of many large guys? I supposed that would explain why he’s named Ate for that’s what he did to all those others. Zoey says she knew something was wrong because Neferet was normally cool and collected. She looks strained and there’s a beautiful woman following after her. Do you really need to tell us she’s beautiful, PCK? You’ve already established that all vampires always look like they could pose for glamour shots at any moment. Let’s just assume they’re all good looking and you tell us when they’re ugly, okay PCK?

PCK then describes this new lady and it takes almost three hundred words for her to do so. Special mark, dark skinned, “impossibly long hair” and she’s old. Though PCk is quick to say she doesn’t look that old though she appears to be in her forties which means she’s ancient in vampire years. Been reading a bit of Robert Jordan too, PCK? Did Paolini lend you his copy? She greets everyone and Zoey can’t place her accent. Not a surprise as the only accent Zoey can identify with any accuracy is Bela Lugosi imitator.

“She reminds me of Nyx,” Aphrodite whispered to me.

Everything reminds you of Nyx. Meeting the author in universe would put any character in that mind set. Neferet introduces her as Shekinah and Aphro passes Zoey a note which says she’s the high priestess of all vampires. This is the kind of thing you’d expect the kids to know. It’s like how in elementary school they teach kids who the president is and even some basics about the government. So Chaka Khan is kind of a big deal. Like any leader, she talks a lot and it takes her well over a paragraph to tell them why she’s there. Neferet starts to explain but is instantly silence when Charkra Khan raises a hand.

I couldn’t figure out which freaked me out more—Shekinah’s powerful, goddesslike presence, or the fact that she shut Neferet up so easily.

I like how power in this series is the ability to shut people up. I’ll tell you what, PCK. If Shellac tells Zoey to shut the fuck up and it stops her narration, she’ll have my respect and I’ll never misspell her name. In fact, I’ll add it to the dictionary in Word so it’s never underlined. For some reason, she then addresses Zoey directly.

Shekinah’s dark eyes went from the Twins to Damien, Aphrodite, and finally came to rest on me. “You are Zoey Redbird,” she said.

Of course she’s heard of Zoey. It’s pretty much all the other characters in cold storage talk about. Not like there’s much else to do besides brush up on superlatives which apply to Zoey. She says that Zoey’s servants must be the kids with the elements and that Neferet wants to use their power. Neferet says she’ll use whatever she can to protect her people.

“Ah, and this is exactly why I am here.” Completely unruffled by Neferet’s attitude, Shekinah turned her gaze to the Council Members. “It was fortuitous I was making a private, unannounced visit to the House of Night in Chicago when word of your tragedies reached me. Had I been home in Venice, the news would have reached me too late to act upon, and these deaths could not have been prevented.”

There’s something awfully amusing about her living in Italy. I don’t know what it is about hack romance/YA authors and their love for anything European. My guess is that it’s a holdover from the romance books they’ve read where the main character meets an exotic Greek billionaire or something. They seem to forget that Europe is more than just Britain, France and Italy. Why couldn’t she be from Estonia or Moldova or even Luxembourg? Besides the obvious that they’re not big tourist destinations.

Lenbia says she’s confused about preventing deaths because Loren and Nolan are dead. Sheik-a-chan says that she didn’t mean she can prevent their death just more deaths. Then she says that she’s also there to prevent war with humans. Neferet gets angry and asks if they’re to let humans escape unpunished. Shekel-can then asks if Neferet bothered to call the police. Neferet then starts blustering about trusting humans and Shekel asks if she’s certain that she won’t find justice with the humans she wants to start a war with which shut Neferet up.

“Zoey Redbird, what do you know about this?”

This is because Zoey was thinking about the detective from two books ago. I guess the Colombo knock off gets to be defrosted for a chapter or two this time around. Zoey says she knows an honest human cop, Shock-n-awe says that’ll do and Nefert begins to protest way too loudly that they can’t be trusted and they won’t find the killer. Snack-n-gnaw—I can do this all day, PCK—says that humans have done exactly that for decades and she’s so powerful and respected that Neferet starts arguing with her.

President vampire says that not all humans are bad, even if Neferet had a bad experience with her daddy. Zoey then remembers how Neferet said she was abused. Shrek says that the council of Nyx, aside fom Zoey’s I suppose, has called off the war with humans. Neferet is angry some more and they argue. Skittles says that if they don’t back down it’ll be the “Burning Times” again and handily reminds everyone that is their name for the Salem witch trials. Because there’s no historical event that PCK can’t retcon as vampires getting picked on.

Because Neferet is stupid, she keeps arguing and blahing. Eventually she admits defeat and says that, yes, she was too close to the vampire who were murdered and that she’s just being emotional. Her perfect plans dashed, she excuses herself from the council table and leaves. Because that’s exactly how it works when you’re done talking with the boss.