Chapter 19
With this series, I’m often left mulling over a dilemma. Are they worse from a technical sense or are they more offensive from a general story perspective? Are they bad because they espouse equality while enforcing racism and sexism or is it because the characters lack that exact thing?
Perhaps one of the more subtle things they do is ram their hand up the ass of history and make it their puppet. Like with the whole Cherokee tribe and them being the ones that trapped Kalona in what is now known as Oklahoma. I’m sorry, PCK, that just doesn’t add up within our universe.
I may have gone over this in another post so I’ll keep this short. But here in the real world, which this series uses as the template for, the Cherokee were based around the southern Appalachian mountains. That’s around Tennessee and Georgia. They didn’t end up west of the Mississippi river until the forced relocations that resulted in the Trail of Tears.
It’s insulting to history to use the modern world as your template but then ignore shit that’s inconvenient. It’s also incredibly disrespectful to take a real group of people and then mangle their beliefs and history for your fiction. ‘Oh, they don’t really have a loose organization of beliefs without strict dogma. Instead, they worship a vampire god who names herself after a Greek poem and have very rigid rituals.’
There’s nothing wrong with an author taking creative license with the world we live in to rewrite it around their story. So why didn’t PCK do that here? Why not invent a now forgotten tribe that lived in the area? There have to be at least a few groups that split off and died out undiscovered which would be plausible enough.
We’re still with Kalona who’s finding the fact that shadow tentacles are attacking him more of a nuisance than an actual hindrance. He’s breaking the “necks” of the shadows and telling Neferet that he did this for centuries before he was evil and can keep it up for centuries more. Neferet then mutters a new spell to kill Grandma. Now that the darkness is fueled by Kalona;s blood, it should be able to overcome the turquoise.
Grandma then begins singing. Kalona doesn’t understand the words but knows it’s her death song. Of course, Kalona is an expert on the Cherokee to where he dominated their people a thousand years ago but he never bothered to learn their language. Even back then, Kalona knew this was ‘murica and to speak English.
The tentacles then whip at Grandma and hurt her more before backing off. Neferet taunts him that he will make it easier to torture and kill Grandma if he stays around. Grandma tells him to go and Kalona knows exatly where he has to go. He flies back to the school and “then dropped with inhuman speed”. Which is has got to be faster than Mach one. That’s how fast humans can fly with our wings so Kalona has to be faster. He’s upset that he failed to save Grandma, not realizing that if he did the book would be over.
Kalona then wanders over to a statue of Nyx, which is naked of course. Can I ask an obvious question here? This mayb be a vampire school but it’s still a school. That means a naked statue, regardless of sex, probably has shit carved and or written on it. Kalona asks it why she allowed him to fail.
Thanatos apparently has the same latent power all these characters borrow from Batman. That is, the ability to suddenly appear when the plot requires them to explain something to Commissioner Gordon. She says it’s because of “free choice”. PCK is going to use free will as the same get out of jail free card “works in mysterious ways” that crops up in religious fiction.
Thanatos says that he did good and he stayed on the side of good. Kalona says they can’t leave Grandma to suffer at Neferet’s hands. Why not? No one had to come to the rescue of Linda when she was dying? She was bleed out like a pig, alone and afraid. Aurox then shows up and Kalona asks why he’s not locked up. He says Aurox was made from darkness and cannot fight his nature. I like how every character, excepting Zoey, suddenly turns narrow minded when PCK wants some cheap drama.
Thanatos then says that, yes, Aurox is of darkness but he also likes Grandma. That may somehow help Grandma. Over to Zoey who is so worried about Grandma that she can’t sleep. Sure she can’t be bothered to do anything, that is what servants are for after all, but she’s missing sleep. She’s very sad and told Stark she can’t lose Grandma. Stark told her to stop thinking about it because Kalona would have to try.
Deciding that her being restless isn’t good for Stark, Zoey steps away from the room. She gets herself a snack and soda then sits down to cry about Grandma again. She then beats herself up, saying if she’d cut off contact from her family they’d have been safe from Neferet. This is just so god can message Zoey directly, telling her to grow up. Nyx then appears in an image and says that Zoey’s ancestors would know her as “earth mother”. Zoey is shocked to learn that Nyx is the god of many faces that’s totally original and has never appeared in any fiction before.
Zoey having the brain of a kumquat after football practice, asks Nyx if she can save Grandma. Nys says, no that’s Zoey’s job what with all the powers she’s got. With that Nyx fades into the earth again. Now that she’s gotten another pep talk from god, Zoey decides to get her friends together and do something. Like make a circle. If there’s a problem I’ve met that can’t be solved by just throwing circles at it, I’d like to see it. Even then, I’d bet the answer is another circle.
They also get Kalona to come down underground. Stark chastises him for not saving Grandma and Zoey has to yell at Stark. It’s all very dull and repetitive. Zoey demands that he tell her everything. Kalona does in agonizing conversation reserved for the tenth circle of hell. The one where you’re strapped down to a table and read the status updates of a narcissist. Thanatos says they have to have a creature of darkness break through the cage holding Grandma. While the audience can assume this will prevent the darkness from feeding on the rescuer, PCK has to explicitly state that in the next chapter
Chapter 20
Let’s see, explanation of why Aurox can rescue Grandma. Stark has doubts as a PCK, dick measuring alpha always does. Aurox is safe as long as they can teach him emotional control. Then he’ll go up there and throw Grandma out the window where Kalona will catch her. They figure they have a few hours to try and teach Aurox the ways of self control. Considering Zoey mastered her magic with zero training, I can’t imagine that will turn out to be hard.
Over to Aurox who’s being surrounded by Stark, Darius and Kalona. They all want to beat the shit out of him because he’s evil. Thanatos tells the boys to get angry because the beast feeds on it. Aurox tells himself he will not lose control, at least not until he gets to the dance floor. Then all bets are off when his pelvis goes nuclear. Also, they have to fight him and he has to fight back.
Shaylin offers the advice to think of moonlight. Look, not everyone can see the same stupid auras you can, dollar store Daredevil. They slice and stab at Aurox and he starts hulking out, even going so far as to talk monosyllabic “I control”. With that done, they make a circle around him.
Zoey says they’re going to let him fight again and when he gets close, to let her know. But it has to be just before or it’ll get in her hair and she won’t be liable to do this again. Also, Shaylin is now able to stand in for water because why the fuck not? The boys resume bullying Aurox and Zoey has her slave “fill” him with the elements. Aurox is then able to fight without turning evil. Wow, it took him a grand total of ten minutes.
Nothing quite like having a side character conquer his demons in the time it takes to watch an episode of Sealab 2021. Sure, I might have made that an important plot point that’s been building through the entire book. Maybe milk a little actual drama out of it by exploring Aurox as a character and making the audience care about him. Then again, I’m not a collection of feathers glued a body of serpents with an epoxy-like bile.
Aurox then runs over and hugs Zoey, saying he did it. Everyone then wonders how this will work as magic apparently has a remote limit. They figure they don’t need to see him for it to work, they just need to be close. Why? Uh, stop asking for details and remember that it’s ironic Zoey love Count Chocula.
Aphro says there’s a rather nice restaurant in the hotel they can eat at. They’ll make their magic circle and seal it with salt. This will allow it to keep working as long as Zoey is in the center of it. Also, the tables are lit by candles and Zoey’s elemental one will blend in.
And as if this is a bad heist movie, they have to go over the plan one more time. Hey, PCK, they’re going to rescue Grandma from the villain. Zoey and crew aren’t exactly stealing millions of dollars out of a casino here. But yes, it’s all very excruciating. Aurox will go inside while strengthened with magic and thrown Grandma out the window. Kalona will be distracted and allow Grandma to fall to her death and Zoey will be rendered paralyzed with grief just in time to be stabbed to death. Sounds perfect to me.
Vivisector's Writ 