Written by Falconempress. Posted on Jul 9, 05:34 PM.

"You Slay Me" Spork - Chapter 19

Chapter 19! Whee! We made it all the way here! The penultimate chapter! Only one more left after this! Only one more chapter and all his will be done, done, DONE forever and ever!

Okay, what happens now?

Jim and I came in from doing his before-bed walk to find Ophelia sitting at the tiny blue-and-white-tile kitchen table, sobbing over a teapot.

This just irks me so very, very much every single time the suethor does this – we have an intense, important or emotionally heavy scene and what does MacAlister do? She debases the emotion, nay, they very concept of emotion and suspense by dragging the focus, kicking and screaming, to an entirely pointless detail that does not contribute to or affect the overall feel of the scene in the slightest. Yes, the twins are very rich and they live in a sickeningly over – embellished apartment. You shoved this down our throats plenty of times already, with both the initial description, and the remarks that followed afterwards. We get it. Their place is pritteh. Consider us informed. Now shut the fuck up.

Ophelia is sadfaec because her sister is dead, so Assling pours her a cup of tea and they talk about how wonderful and amazing Perdita was, how everybody loved her except for Drake, who is “evil, very evil” and that Assling should reconsider before she commits herself to him.

Something is telling me it’s a tad bit late for that.

“You’re so good to me,” Ophelia sniffled.

Aw come on. It’s Assling, Jeezus of the Sues we are talking about here. OF COURSE she is all wonderful to everybody!

“You don’t know what a comfort it’s been to have you take up the banner of justice for Perdita. I don’t have even half the power she had. I wouldn’t stand a chance against Drake, but you—you are a powerful Guardian, his mate, the one person he cannot destroy. You can defeat him and force him to admit to the murders.”

Who talks like that?

She shivered, rubbing her arms as if she were chilled. “He’s so frightening, his eyes so dark and cold. I don’t know how you stood being around him.”

Well, she didn’t have to stand herself. He supported her by pinning her against a wall.

Drake? Cold? Dark? My steamy, sexy, bright-eyed bringer of flames?

How does she know Drake is not Evil ™? Because he’s hot and amazing in bed and whatnot. Blergh. Too bad the intelligence agencies around the world haven’t figured that out yet. There would be a lot less large – scale crime, just sayin’.

So Assling wonders out loud what it will be like once she defeats Drake, how she will become the leader of the green dragons – the Reds have a female wyvern, how awfully progressive of them. She also notes that maybe she could even go for the Venediger position, since she has no ties to anyone, not really:

“Home?” I said, pinning a bright smile on my face. “Why would I want to go back to a mundane courier job when I have the opportunity to rule a dragon sept here? In fact, I’m thinking I might just take over as Venediger, too.”

Why wouldn’t you want to go back? Umh, could it be that you are in a strange country, completely broke, without any real connections whatsoever? Maybe? Just maybe? What are you going to do? Squat in the houses of your subordinates? Yeah, I’m sure everybody will be absolutely ecstatic about that.

“What?” Ophelia choked on her tea. I patted her back helpfully before taking a seat and pouring myself a cup of tea. “You want to be the Venediger? But—but—”

“Yeah, well, I know you said that the wyverns are too bound up in their septs to be Venediger, but that’s where I’m perfect for the job. I don’t have any ties to the green dragons, so I’m sure I’ll be able to do both jobs just fine.” I blew on my tea before taking a sip. “Unless you know of a reason why I couldn’t?”

What do you think “bound to the sept” means? From what we know so far the dragon septs are very complex communities. There are rules to obey, things to manage if you are a boss. You are the one with most responsibilites and the most work on the shoulders. That, in the real world, at least, is what „bound“ means.

But it is at this point when I called Assling’s ranting a bluff and realized she is just provoking Ophelia because she believes her to be the killer.

Assling notes that it was actually Ophelia’s talk about how Perdita could become the Venediger that gave her the idea. Ophelia almost breaks down again upon hearing her dead sister’s name and lets herself be escorted to her bedroom.

Jim and Assling exchange a bunch of unfunny quips, Assling is being all mysterious about how she suspects somebody of murder, but has a plan to draw them out and even though she says nothing its all so very obvious I could just cry.

It’s a good thing Dr. Schwarzsteiner operated my tear ducts out.

Anyways, Assling goes to sleep and is almost disappointed that Drake didn’t show up to boink her in her dream, but she does have this odd hallucination when she thinks a man is in a bed with her and they rub all over each other in their sleep.

In the morning, Ophelia is gone and Assling just assumes she was abducted.

Wait, what?

“How could I have been so wrong?” I asked Jim as I paced down the length of the apartment. “How could I have been so stupid? Ophelia wasn’t guilty of anything more than being a bit shallow and trying to protect Perdita. How could I think she was guilty of murder? Triple murder?”

“You had me convinced,” Jim said. “It’s always the sweet, innocent ones that you have to watch out for.”

A few things:

One – you know what the purpose of a first – person POV is, MacAlister? China Miéville explained it beautifully in one of the interviews for his book City and the City which is a crime mystery novel written in a first person – he wanted the reader to become so intimate with the thoughts of Inspector Borlú that in the end, they would be „happily inhabiting his head“, get his very own perspective on things and reason and ponder some of the things, just as Borlú ponders them. I did read City and the City and despite my deeply rooted dislike for a first person POV, it’s one of my big favorites, because it was just that well executed – I felt like I really got to know the guy, when he was thinking about something, it was almost as if he was bouncing his ideas off me, it was almost creepy how real he felt. Here, Assling remains just as vacuous and just as much of a mystery (not in a good way) as when we first met her. Although she does have cryptic nonsense to spout here and there, the fact that she seriously considers Ophelia as a suspect did not become clear until now. I just assumed that all the things about wanting to become a Venediger once she’s defeated Drake were a bluff because otherwise the exchange would cause me another fit of violent rage. If you are writing in a first person POV and the reader goes „wait, what the hell“ at the actions of your main character, you are in trouble.

Not that I know anything about how to write in first person, but it’s just an impression I got upon reading this.

Two – how does she know Ophelia is kidnapped? Seeing as how lovingly this apartment is described – over and over again – one would think that Assling has arrived at the conclusion because the place was a mess. But there is nothing – she just says Ophelia is gone without supporting this claim with any evidence. Even a toppled – over lamp would do the job. But no, the entire issue is completely glanced over. Assling just knows Ophelia was taken. It does not occur to her that the woman she has been suspecting of three murders whom she also taunted quite openly the night before, would just take off to take care of the necessary business. Which also begs the question why she hasn’t suffocated Assling in her sleep, so that’s no brownie points for Ophelia.

Also Assling knows that Perdita and Drake were never involved. How does she know this?

“The night I first met her she made a comment about dragons being different sexually. They’re not. She’d have known that if she had slept with Drake.”

With MacAlister, everything boils down to sex. Also, this is significant to the main plot how…? Oh, right, she wanted to direct her suspicion towards Drake, silly me. But why would Drake want to kill an ex – girlfriend? If they were involved and he dumped her for some air – headed tramp, I imagine she would have been quite pissed.

Am I trying to make sense of this? Silly me, what am I doing?

Jim smells Bafamal all over the place and Assling decides to go and rescue Ophelia because she got into the whole mess because of Assling. Assling and Jim bounce some ideas off each other, whether to call the cops or go to Fiat (snicker) – she can’t see Drake because of the challenge. None of it is particularly interesting or important, just this little tidbit amused me:

All right then … mmm … what if you track her scent—”

“I’m not a bloodhound!” Jim protested.

“You’re a dog. You can follow a trail, can’t you?”

It gave me a look of profound censure. “In Paris? City of a million smells? No.”

AHAHAHA! Somebody call the K – 9 units in all the world’s major cities to tell them that MacAlister says they are not supposed to be able to function.

Blah blah blah, they decide to summon the Big Bad himself – Bael – for answers. They can do it because Assling has one of the Tools in her bra. She wants to do it because demons on the same level of demon hierarchy can’t rat on each other – oh how delightfully convenient – but their bosses can. And the Tool in Asslings bra can be used to summon Bael without destroying the world or something. Isn’t that just wonderful. Jim is actually the one to figure this out, because he can feel the presence of the Deus Ex Machina silver trinket in Assling’s bra. If that is true, why couldn’t Bafamal sense it? Why couldn’t the twins – they could sense that Jim is a demon, a very powerful artefact from HELL should not be that far off. But I digress.

Since she can’t do it alone, she decides to call Rene to be her backup:

Hi, Rene, it’s Aisling. Are you up for a little excitement tonight? I have a feeling I’m going to need a bodyguard, and since you offered when you brought me home yesterday, I’d like to take you up if you’re still willing.”

“But yes, of course! I will be happy to guard you. I am very dangerous, you know? No one messes with me. They used to call me the Rambo before I was married.

headdesk

Isn’t it just the craziest coincidence that the second she got off her transcontinental flight she stumbled upon the one biggest, baddest taxi driver/bodyguard in the country?

I want to strangle kittens.

“Oui. Eh … what is it we’re going to do?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just challenge a wyvern, summon a demon lord, and figure out who the murderer is. Bring your gun,” I said pithily, and hung up.

…

Too dumb for words.

Nothing too interesting happens afterwards, Assling does some reading (gasp!), but Jim comes in and they discuss Drake’s potential for teh Evil ™:

Because Bafamal was lying when he said Drake murdered everyone, I know he was. I couldn’t have—” I waved my hand around vaguely. “—with Drake if he was a murderer. I would have felt that sort of evilness in him, wouldn’t I?”

Do you want to know of somebody is Evil™? If you feel Evilness ™ around them, then they are! Also, Evil ™ people secrete a type of hormones through their skin which basically cockblocks anyone who would want to have sex with them, so if you want to know just ow Evil ™ somebody is, ask how much action they’ve been getting. If it’s all cobwebs down there – DINGDINGDING! You have your winner!

“Answer my question—would I or wouldn’t I know if Drake had killed those people?”
bq. Jim shrugged. “That depends on how tightly bound you two are.”
bq. “We’re not bound at all. A little fling composed of… of… unadulterated lust is not binding in any way, shape, or form.” Jim muttered something as I buttoned up the tunic and ran a comb through my hair. “I just have to as-sume the evidence is false. Bafamal lied.”

“Yes, the fact that we are all over each other all the time and that he has marked me as his bitch for all the world to see does not mean we are bound in any way. Any way at all.”

Now I want to dip those kittens in some acid.

Oh, aren’t you so cuuute? INTO THE BUCKET OF ACID YOU GO, HAHAHA!

So they decide that they need to talk to Amelie again, since maybe she could provide some insight on the whole matter. For some reason. Just go with it. They meet at night in “Jardin du Luxembourg”, although why couldn’t the author just call it “The Luxembourg Garden” is beyond me, maybe it would sound less pretentious or something. Haha, and they meet at night in the one place that most notoriously known in all of Paris as being a rape, prostitution and drug trade hotspot. Sorry, I just found that funny.

Assling recaps everything for Amelie and we are there to read it in all of it’s glory. Then we get…what?

A Guardian draws her power from her understanding of the possibilities, not in linear order. You must shake yourself of the desire to see only those things that can be arranged to match what you know, and learn instead to embrace all the possibilities that exist.”

“That sounds strangely like a quantum physics class I once took,” I said warily.

This woman has higher education? What? WHAT? I think my mind was just completely blown.

Blah blah blah, talk about how Assling sees things too linear – which would actually make her the first woman to ever achieve that (oh come on girls, search your feelings – you know it to be true) and Amelie takes her green dragon talisman and they do an exercise…

Wait, hold your horses here. They do an exercise? Now? We are almost done with this book – and we are doing mind trick exercises? Exploring the powers of the main character? This is the one chapter before the last and it’s almost done – the book is almost over. And Amelie is pulling an Obi – Wan Kenobi? Why? Why would any writer do that? Why would you murder any sense of urgency, any kind of suspense your book could have with a TRAINING EXERCISE? And it’s not one of those “this is a vital skill that I would need to defeat my foes” type of thing. It’s just there. It does not relate to anything, does not contribute to anything in any way. There is no sense of urgency to any of this. It’s long, boring and frustrating and if I didn’t want to finish this spork, this would probably be the biggest breaking point at which I would snap the book closed and throw it across the bloody room. Why would a writer do that to their own work?! Just as a comparison, one of my all – time favorites, Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson, has a mind – blowing, page – turning, edge – of – your – seat, violent 150 page climax which kept me up until 3 AM, since I would rather gouge my own eyes out than go to sleep without knowing how it all played out. I doubt anybody would be losing any sleep over the excitement of this book’s stunning finale.

But it’s the table thing from earlier in this chapter again. And I just realized that I used the names of Steven Erikson and China Miéville in the same paragraph as Katie MacAlister. What is happening to me?

So the exercise somehow makes Assling not think linear and she realizes that Ophelia can indeed be the killer, which is somehow a manifestation of her super Speshul™ Guardian powers, in almost exactly the same words.

Which makes everything that happened between the morning Assling realized Ophelia was gone and now completely pointless.

You had a Wise Old Mentor ™ moment just for the purpose of establishing what we already knew.

How in the name of God did this get published? Oh, I forget. Cocaine.

To sum up the rest – Assling tells Amelie about the challenge and summoning Bael, Amelie throws a fit saying Assling has no idea what she is doing and that a n00b Guardian such as herself could not so much as hope to do that. Also turns out that she cannot back out of the challenge to Drake, that there are no ties, no forfeits, no throwing the game – one of them has to end up dead. Because those are the rules. And since Assling is Drake’s One and Only True mate, it means both of them will be dead. Drake, who is an immortal knows this and will never back out of the challenge because he is way too noble and rule – abiding to not to basically commit suicide.

Gee, no wonder dragons are an endangered species. They deserve an award for being able to stay around for this long. Actually, I think that Drake himself deserves an award of his own:

Of course, only if he dies during this challenge.

Amelie shouts and yells at Assling, Assling pretty much disregards all of what Amelie has said and counters with „I am only doing this to draw the real murderer out and I don’t care for anything else that happens“. This for some reason endears Assling to Amelie so much that she agrees to be her backup and help her and together they go to meet up with Rene and this chapter is over, it’s over and the only one left is the last one.

Gee, I can barely contain my excitement.

PILLS!

Thank you for reading,

Falconempress

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

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