Written by Falconempress. Posted on May 20, 01:34 PM.

"You Slay Me" Spork - Chapter 10

Before we start today, I just want to point out one thing – in Acknowledgments, MacAlister thanks her “witty editor”.

I was just kidding with the mock dialogue of them creaming themselves over Drake! But the real world is proving to be much more absurd than anyone can imagine. This is also the point where I wonder whether this torment will ever end because we are only around the halfway mark at this point.

This is also where I beg for the swift release of death.

Anyways, moving on to Chapter 10

The Venediger is dead. Long live the Venediger….?

Assling, being the twerp that she is, throws a hysterical fit, so much so that Jim offers to slap her. Since that happening would be way too awesome she puts herself together, going on about how strong and confident she is. Out loud. Again, Wow, I only started this chapter and I’m annoyed already.

The setup suggests one of the Demon Deaths we learned about earlier in the book and Jim informs us that the smell of the place is the same as the one form earlier in the book. Being the forensic genius she is, Assling uses her L337 skillz acquired through Detection Channel and just by touching the dead body she determines Venediger has been dead for a half an hour tops.

Just a note – people spend six years in medical school and untold hours of slicing dead bodies before they can make statements like that on the spot. As I have recently come to learn in my Forensic Medicine class, the dead body does not cool at a constant rate. A number of things influence the heat loss such as temperature of the surrounding, whether or not the body is one piece or in several and what part of the body are you checking, since different parts lose heat at different rates. And after a half an hour the temperature drop should not be so significant you can notice it by mere touch anyways. So unless she is an accomplished coroner, there is no way in hell that she would be able to determine for how long the Venediger had been dead. Stop it, MacAlister, or I am not responsible for what happens.

There is something in the Venediger’s hand and turns out it’s a silver little dragon pendant with gold decorations that is magical because it’s heavy and thrums with power and whatnot. Assling observes the silver trinket is crafted in the same style as her lost golden statue and a chalice she saw at Drake’s and remembers him saying that the statue comes from a set of three. Upon arriving at this conclusion, she tugs the pendant into her bra for safekeeping.

She tugs it in her bra.

Who does that?

Do you know how uncomfortable that has to be? What is the point? Why can’t you just slip it in a pocket or your purse? Oh wait, she can’t put anything in her purse in case she runs into some of those sinister BROOMS! and trips and loses it. But seriously – who does that? The only time I saw a chick hide something in her bra was in high school when my classmate stashed some weed in her brassiere during a ski trip. It was a teeny little plastic bag and you should have seen how much she squirmed the whole time. A soft, tiny plasic bag with some plant parts. Can you imagine what a hard silver pendant would do? Assling should be going nuts.

And just for the record – I despise marijuana, never tried it, never plan to and I just said that to illustrate the absurdity of the situation, and that was the only example that came into mind.

But surely Assling has to have moral qualms about stealing from the dead, the bra thing aside.

If it was valuable, perhaps I could use it to charm Drake into helping me. “Besides, the Venediger’s dead, so it’s simply a matter of finders keepers.”

Finders keepers.

You are stealing from the dead. No red flags coming up in your mind? Nothing? Okay then, moving on.

Using her newly found and realized powers, Assling discovers it was Bafamal again, who was there and just as in the first case, no demon was actually summoned. She tries to determine who drew the circle and its power seems familiar to her, like it’s somebody she met in Paris, somebody she knows. She tries to narrow it down using… Drake’s fire? What?

He isn’t even there and she is not a dragon herself. How can she possibly channel and control dragon fire then? It makes no sense! There are many absurdities in this book but so far this is the most baffling one.

HOW DO YOU DO THAT?!

And since she loses herself in the moment, she sets the whole place on fire. Again:

HOW DO YOU DO THAT?!

The gazebo is consumed by flames. Assling thinks about cutting the dead Venediger down, but when it comes to deciding between not desecrating a dead body and ruining a crime scene and saving her fireproof hide, she goes for the latter.

Here’s a hint – if you are the one controlling the flames, how about, oh I don’t know, DOUSING THEM OUT?! How about at least trying?

Oh but she has the time to stop and wipe her prints off the doorknob. And what do you know – the cops arrive at the very moment. Hooray! Maybe we will see some waterboarding after all! Yay!

Assling orders Jim to stop the police officers that are after her and proceeds to make her escape. They lose the cops but before they do as much as get across the street, a sleek black limousine pulls over, a man steps out and without a word shoves Assling and Jim into the car. And there – surprise surprise! – is Drake.

I followed the feet up to legs, then higher to well muscled thighs. I knew that voice. I knew those thighs— sort of.

Hey, kids! Sexual objectification is funnn!

And yes, this nauseating example unleashed another bout of the awful, awful purple prose that appears whenever Drake is involved.

It’s just that I was really looking forward to the waterboarding, you know?

They drive past the disaster that is the Venediger’s German – proof garden and Drake asks whether Assling set the little Fortress of Lameness on fire. She has no spine, so she tries to pin it all on Jim. Jim denies the whole thing and Assling starts making excuses at which point Drake is just about annoyed with her as I am because he asks if she would leave if he got her passport back. Which, apparently wouldn’t be that hard since he is “the wyvern of green dragons” and therefore a master thief by default.

Assling considers the offer, but she refuses to leave because of things like honor, justice, solving murders and Drake being a beefcake of a man. Yes, she actually lists Drake as a reason not to leave the country in which she is wanted for murder.

Newsflash, sweets – if they are suspecting you of murder, I think the second you would set foot on an airport, their security system would light up like a fucking Christmas tree. These things are not as easy as “I’ll just get my passport back and get out of the country”.

Assling flips out because Drake somehow knows that Venediger is dead and also how he was found and thinks Drake killed him, in her own way, of course:

“No. I wouldn’t go home if you gave me my passport, not so long as Mme. Deauxville’s murder is unsolved, and now the Venediger… Hey! How did you know he was dead? How did you know I found him? How did you know I was even there?

Yeah, Drake, HOW did you know?

OHMIGOD, you killed him, didn’t you?”

Drake says he didn’t because he was working for the guy and with the Venediger dead, he is not going to be paid.

Buuut enough of all this ridiculous “plot” business. It’s been a while since we had some grinding and groping!

Drake smells gold and immediately goes after Assling’s cleavage… really? That was the whole point of her hiding the silver pendant there? So that he can sniff her boobs? I think this book just reached a new low point.

Without using her hands she slips the silver pendant deeper into the bra and underneath her boob – BOOBS DON’T WORK THAT WAY! They are glands nestled in blobs of fat, not muscles! You cannot do that! Dammit, MacAlister, you are a woman! One would expect youd be much more knowldgeable in the physics of your own fucking body!

But back to our happy couple.

Having hidden the silver pendant under her boob, Assling pulls out the jade dragon pendant instead – the one she got from Amelie, claiming it is hers. Drake inspects it, comes to a conclusion its nothing extraordinary and allows her to keep it. Let me say that again. He lets her keep her own jewelry.

Is it just me or is that a warning sign?

Drake asks her what she was doing at the Venediger’s.

“Ironically enough,

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

You are a writer, dammit – get a fucking dictionary!

I was just going to ask you that very same thing, along with half a dozen other questions, beginning with why you have snatched me off the street when I was making a perfectly acceptable getaway, and ending with why you were lurking outside around the Venediger’s gazebo if you didn’t kill him.”

Drake waved the questions away. “The answers to your questions aren’t important.

“Damn woman! Stop bothering me with your unimportant questions about silly womanly things!”

Haha

“Now let me see that fabulous little bling you got there”

I am sorry, I am way too easily amused.

Why did you go to see the Venediger? Did you not know he had placed a bounty on your head?”

I reached over and pinched the skin on the back of his hand. Hard. “I see you are confused about how this game is played. Conversation consists of give and take—”

Whoa! Somebody grew a pair! Metaphorical only, of course.

He twisted in the seat and grabbed me around my waist, hauling me up to his chest.

Drake has found Assling’s weakness – whenever he makes an advance at her, her brain stops working. Good way to stop her from questioning him further.

But nooo.

facepalm

Do you really have to? Do you really have to do this every single time Drake enters the scene? Can we skip over the disturbing limo sex? Please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

“Oh, goody,” Jim said from where it was lying on the floor. “I get to see another show. I just love it when he gets all manly with you. You think maybe he’s going to rip your bodice or something?”

GODFUCKINGDAMMIT. Somebody kill the dog. Kill it! KILL IT! KIIIIIILL IIIIIT!!!!

Jim then thankfully shuts up.

Sadly though, the two start getting it on, because Assling is temporarily even more brainless than usual, but then this happens:

“Damn,” he swore, pushing me back onto the seat.

“What?” My body, so close to going up in his flames, protested the rejection.

Drake rubbed his nose. “It’s that gold you’re wearing. It’s distracting me. Take it off.”

BAHAHAHA! The pretty is cockblocking Drake! Gold is the new kryptonite! Well, sort of. Drake can’t get it up when there is gold near him – thats the most hilarious thing I have read since the whole “sparkly vampire” thing.

And since Drake no longer has his hands all over her, Assling’s higher cognitive functions kick back in and she proceeds to blackmail him with the silver dragon thing into giving her the info she wants. What follows is a brief explanation of what the three pieces – the Tools of Bael, part of which is the aquamanile and the pendant – are and what they do. Apparently they let you tap into the power of the Big Bad himself – Beelzebub. But that requires a ritual. And blood of innocents – children. When Assling hears this she loses it and throws up into a sewer. Which is precisely the reaction I usually have to this shlock. And that, thankfully concludes this chapter.

Thank you for reading,

Falconempress

Tagged as Falconempress, Paranormal Romance, Spork, You Slay Me.

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