Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue-Chapters Two and Three: They Form a Plan

When the chapter opens, Heather is lying on on a bed in an inn in Knebworth. Which is apparently a real town name. She assesses her situation so we can learn what it is. The kidnappers in general look very believable as well as smart. Oh, and Fletcher has a forged letter from Heather's “father” telling them to bring his daughter home. So, a piece of paper and a man's voice against a woman's means that she can be kidnapped. Just so we're all on the same page about this.

Anyway, back in the present, the lady kidnapper, Martha, is in the room with Heather, in a different bed. Martha helped Heather out of her dress to sleep in. Then Martha locked the door, put the key in her pocket, spread all of the clothes out on her bed, and lay down on them. Of course, it was at this point that Heather realized that she was in a thin slip and even thinner stockings, so if she did manage to escape, she'd be pretty much naked.

That sounds like a good entrance line for a guy. There's a noise at the window and a man-shaped shadow. Heather wraps a blanket around herself before going over to it. Oh, hello Tim. Nice to see you at the window. Or, it is for Heather. Once she sees him there, her panic vanishes. Martha snores when she sleeps, and she snores through this whole exchange. I don't think she's really asleep, but that's just me.

Anyway, Tim asks the intelligent questions that we've already answered, and then tries to get Heather out of there. He's always trying to get her to leave places. Rude. She mentions that she's pretty much naked under the blanket she's wrapped around her and Tim's interest definitely peaks. See what I did there? Anyway, Heather also argues that she won't leave her sisters and cousins under this same threat until she figures out what it is. Once she figures that out, she'll escape and if Tim is around, he can help her with that. She had tried to send him back with a message to her family, but he already took care of that. Then Heather realizes that Tim might want to just haul her out of there, but she, again, threatens to scream, so Tim leaves her be. He'll keep following her to help when she does decide to escape. Oh, and they'll have to meet every night before then. You know, to plot and stuff. Tim even says he'll hire a maid once she escapes so their return journey won't be a scandal.

Agreed, Heather closes the window and heads to bed. I'm glad we get the narration that Tim doesn't look at her when she takes off the blanket to get into her bed. Otherwise I would have wondered. Then he climbs down the wall and heads off to the inn where he's gotten a room for the night, thinking about what he'll have to change to be more inconspicuous. Oh, he also thinks about how he realizes that family is super important because, as nearly as I can tell, he was adopted into his. Heather, meanwhile, is very glad to see that he climbed down the wall unhurt. She totally doesn't like him, not at all, but it's good that he's around.

Yeah, that's it. This chapter was 9 pages long.

Chapter Three

The next day, Martha gives Heather the round dress they bought for her and Heather manages to snag her scarf from the maid as well. I'm not sure what a round dress is, but I'm assuming it's more of an everyday dress, as opposed to the party dress Heather had been wearing. Anyway, they get on the road again and Heather hopes that Tim gets up early enough to follow them. She also decides to behave like she's not going to try anything. Because that will make it easier to try something later. Oh, she also gets a chance to grab a horse and ride South back to London, but she doesn't take it for the reasons she told Tim. Also, a woman alone on horseback wasn't really a good idea.

So, as the miles slip away in the carriage, Heather asks them questions. They won't tell her where they're taking her, but she knows it's further north. They have a contact who helps line up these jobs for them and they met the guy who's paying them for this in a bar in Glasgow. I learned a word here. Apparently, the term for someone from Glasgow is Glaswegian, which is kind of awesome. Anyway, Heather wonders if they're making a run for the border with her, but they won't tell her that much. Oh, also they won't double cross their employer for double the money because, firstly it's bad for their rep, and secondly they're kind of in awe of their employer. Heather figures it's because he's super buff or something. Seems legit.

Eventually, they stop for lunch in Stretton. While Martha and Heather go inside, the guys stay outside and stare at the road. Heather asks Martha about this and she replies that they're making sure no one followed them. Heather is concerned, but eventually the guys come inside and report that no one is following them. Hah. So, a little while later, Tim walks in and sits at the booth just behind the male kidnappers. So, Heather does a whiny, scared girl act implying that something in the North terrifies her and gets them to say where they're stopping for the night. Which she repeats. Twice.

In the yard outside, Heather sees Tim in not his normal clothes and she also sees him leave. Hey, as long as they stop where Fletcher said they would, he may as well get there first. Heather's group leaves a bit later and she reflects on how her nemesis has turned into her savior, a thought that makes her want to laugh.

Then we switch to Tim's POV. He raced ahead of Heather's group and he trades horses at Newark-on-Trent. While they're getting the horses ready for him, he goes to a tailor and gets two more disguises made. Thinking ahead. Good idea. So he's gets to the bar/inn in the town where Heather is stopping for the night early. There's a wooden partition so he can't see anyone in the foyer and they can't see him, but he can hear them, for example when Heather and her captors get there. Heather manages to convince them to let her take a brief walk with Martha. She's supposed to be kept in good shape, and that involves stretching her legs. Tim enjoys her wit now that he's not on the receiving end of it.

While Heather is on her walk, she thinks of how she's going to convince Tim that she doesn't need to leave yet. She knows that whatever her opinion, if he thinks she's in danger, he will get her out of there, which is kind of comforting. Anyway, she marshals her arguments while she and Martha walk and, on the way back to the inn, she sees Tim, but just for a second. When she looks away, he pulls a Batman and disappears.

So, plot point, the doors at this inn don't have locks. Heather convinced them to give her a cloak, to keep her warm at night, so when she slips out of her room, she wraps that around herself and ties it in place with her scarf. It leaves her ankles and calves exposed, but she's not super worried about that since she has stockings on. And it's not like she has a choice anyway. So, while she's slipping through the hallway, she collides with someone, who crushes her to him and smothers her cry before she can make it. Then he curses and she realizes it's Tim. Oh. Well then. That makes her super relived, which makes her tense up all over again. The two of them argue a little, there's a little sexual tension, then Tim ushers her to his room. It's the only place they can have privacy for a conversation. ...or other things.

Once they make it to his room, where he left a lamp burning dimly, he sees what she's wearing and stops himself from cursing again. The only place to sit is on the bed. So, Tim pulls back the coverlet, directs her to sit down, and throws the coverlet over her once she's sat. Thank God he covered up her ankles and calves. They were so distracting. I'm glad that Ms. Laurens has Tim criticizing himself in the next paragraph. He's seen lots of women nekked, so it doesn't make sense that some legs would bother him. Unless, you know, they're Heather's.

He sits on the bed, with plenty of space between them, and asks what she's learned. Heather tells him. Oh, the employer gave a false name, McKinsey, so that's how I'll refer to him for now. Because I really have no idea who the guy in the prologue was besides the son of a revenge-filled jerk. Anyway, Tim still wants her to leave and she still won't. They're under orders not to harm her, so she'll probably be fine. Oh, Heather also says that when she escapes, she can always hide behind Tim. “God knows you're large enough.” Thank you?

Anyway, Tim is super concerned about her safety, but he can't argue with her logic and he isn't going to carry her off by force. ...from her kidnappers. He'd be trying to kidnap the girl they've rightfully stolen. Anyway, he says they can do this “letting Heather be kidnapped” thing for another day, but he asks her to promise to run away as soon as she learns what she needs to. She agrees to give him a sign so they can meet and talk as soon as she learns what she needs to. He notices the difference but decides not to push it.

Then she gets out of his bed and starts walking to the door. The book mentions that Tim keeps his gaze on her face as he stops her to check that the hallway is clear. Wow. The power of a pair of ankles and a bit of calf. Anyway, he walks her back to her room, makes sure that Martha isn't awakened by Heather's reappearance, and heads back to his room. He slips out of his clothes and slides into bed...which smells overwhelmingly like Heather. He wants her really badly, by the way. I'm not sure why he doesn't just masturbate, but maybe that's not a thing they did back then. Or this is a romance novel and it's no fun to decrease the tension. Anyway, to distract himself, Tim thinks about how he'll try to blend in and deal with Heather on a logical level. The chapter ends on him thinking that this is no ordinary kidnapping.

So, these two have been crossing verbal swords for forever and Heather, at least, seems to think it's going to be very difficult for her to marry. Since Tim is also unmarried, I assume he has a similar opinion. Is anyone else nerdy enough to see the parallel with Much Ado about Nothing? It's not a very large parallel, really, but it amuses me anyway.

Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue-Chapter One: Meeting the Couple

Hello again, readers! For the curious, I did win National Novel Writing Month by writing just over 50,000 words in the month of November. If you weren't curious well...now you know anyway. I'm sorry I didn't post last week. I was still doing a victory dance.

So, for this next book, we're headed back in time where the worst thing that was likely to happen to a woman in a romance novel was boinking the man of her dreams before they were married. The scandal!

Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens opens with a family tree, which I didn't bother looking at, and a list of the fifteen previous books in this series, which I skimmed. I hope I'm not missing anything important by jumping in here, because I have no intention of hunting down the other books. Also, can we just talk about the title for a moment? Seriously, I wonder what happens. Does Viscount Breckenridge save the girl? It is a romance novel, after all....

The book opens with a prologue that really doesn't help me know what's going on at all. Some guy is sitting in his castle cleaning his guns. No, not like that. Literally. He thinks about how he and some of the guys went out and killed some stuff so the castle will have enough food for the week. He's glad he can provide meat, but that's all he can provide..... Then his mother enters the room and he ignores her for a bit, which is apparently something he does to everyone. We get a little about how her husband didn't see her for the bitter, angry woman she is and also that her husband is dead now. Also, also, this woman wants her son to bring one of the “Cynster sisters” to the castle so she can have revenge. He reflects on how he's in her power and that sucks before agreeing to bring one of these ladies to this apparently remote castle. Who are these people? Why are they so angry and so bent on power games? No idea. The only name we have is for the folks we follow in chapter one.

Chapter one opens from the point of view of the beautiful heroine of this story. Her big goal in life is to find a great husband. Yeah, that's it. Hello, 1829. Anyway, none of the super-fancy parties she's gone to so far have anyone worthy of her. She's holding out for a hero. She actually uses the word hero. Anyway, she wants to meet new people here, but as soon as she steps in the room she meets the eyes of a beautiful man and that makes her swear. She's going to pretend that she hasn't seen him. Then Heather Cynster, the beautiful protagonist, thinks about who's at this party. She's probably the only unmarried woman there and the youngest, although at 25, she considers herself old. As we learned in The Devil Earl, a woman becomes a spinster if she's unmarried after 21. Or something. Oh, we also get the detail that Heather snuck out to go to this party. Her momma thinks she's at home with a headache. What a rebel.

Heather starts getting chatted up by this guy, Miles, which she seems to be pretty okay with, when someone grabs her elbow from behind. Let me give you her reaction: “Heat washed over her, emanating from the contact, supplanted almost instantly by a disorienting giddiness.” Yes, it is Viscount Breckenridge, or Timothy Danvers, grabbing her arm. I'm going to call him Tim because Viscount Breckenridge is a ridiculous name. Oh, also, they're going to bang. A lot. Also, also, this is the same guy whose eyes she met as soon as she walked in. Just so you know.

Tim manages to get Miles away from Heather. Then Tim basically drags her to the door. We do get this interesting inner thought when Tim tells Heather that she's leaving that party right now. Somebody reflects, “Hale, whole, virgin intacta.” It's kind of hard to tell whether it's Tim or Heather thinking that because the POV shifts all over the place, but I'm guessing it was him. She wouldn't think of herself that way. Probably.

Heather is pissy that he's sticking his nose in her business, and he tells her that her male relations would beat him up if they knew he hadn't stopped her from this madness. Which is never explained, except that Tim calls this party “a den of iniquity” so I'm going to assume there's orgies happening in the back room. Or maybe naked croquet.

Then we get an intimidation scene on the front porch where she threatens to scream if he makes her leave and he threatens to knock her out and throw her in her carriage. Lovely. I'm not sure why he doesn't tell her what's so awful about this party since he's trying to convince her that staying there is a bad idea. I guess because she's just a frail little woman and he's a man who can handle that kind of knowledge. Never mind the billions of other women in that house. Oh, just before he intimidates her, he thinks about how her face and body are all so beautiful and wonderful and whatnot. Yup. Totally going to bang.

Anyway, Heather finally agrees to leave but only if he lets her walk to her carriage alone. He agrees, but watches her walk the whole way. It's a good thing he does because someone leaps out of a carriage, snatches her up, and they drive away. For once, I'm not making the exciting thing up. Hooray! Tim races to Heather's carriage, tells the coachman that he's a family friend, and they head off. Apparently Tim is friends with Heather's brothers and cousins. Huh. Okay then. They follow the carriage for awhile, but they lose it near an inn. Tim sends the coachman and footman to ask where the carriage of their pursuit is going while he borrows the inn's fastest horses and a different kind of carriage. It's a phaeton, if that means anything to you. The carriage they were following is headed North out of London. Tim scribbles a note for the servants to give to one of Heather's big, burly relatives, and then he takes the carriage out of the yard to track down his lady love. I mean nemesis.

Meanwhile, Heather has been bound and gagged in the carriage, but they haven't done anything else to her. Good, I'm not ready for anything worse to happen this early in the book. Or at all. Anyway, they explain to her that screaming and trying to leave the carriage are no good because there's no one around and they're going really fast, so she agrees to behave if they untie and ungag her. They have the lady untie Heather's legs, which makes Heather realize how careful they've been of her modesty. Weird. Anyway, they chat a little and we learn kidnappers' plan: they'll tell anyone who is curious that they're taking this girl back to her father because she ran away to the immoral London. Apparently, no one would bother listening to Heather telling them that she was being kidnapped. Oh, and her reputation couldn't take being caught with kidnappers. Yes, because my reputation is what I'd be worried about when I was being taken somewhere against my will by strangers. Well, different times and different amounts of equality for women.

Oh, also the kidnappers have been stalking the “Cynster sisters” for about a week looking for their chance to grab one of them. So...Sinister Sisters? Is that a tribute band for Twisted Sister? Before Twisted Sister had formed?! Ahem. Sorry. Romance novel with no time travel in it. Right.

Heather considers her options, but she wants to see why they kidnapped her and she thinks that even if she gets away, the rest of her family will still be threatened by these people and their mysterious motivation. I mean, I'm connecting the dots here, but I have no idea why that lady in a castle wants revenge on folks she hasn't met. This is all seeming very Wuthering Heights to me. So, the kidnapper coach stops at an inn and the main kidnapper guy, Fletcher, asks Heather if she'll behave or if they have to tie her up again before taking her into the inn. Okay, really? This wouldn't bother anyone? Not a single person? Ugh. I'm so over the 1800's. Heather agrees to cooperate. She's not under any threat, yet, and she's going to find out what's behind this before escaping. Somehow, I don't think she'll escape on her own. Perhaps she needs....a hero! Or that guy, Tim. Either one.

Sparkling Vampires Revisited: Part 2 of 2

This is the second half of my short story exploring what's wrong with the rules of vampirism in Twilight.  We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming on December 5th.

She lived, although nowhere near the luxurious standards to which she had become accustomed. She had stopped being able to smell the stench that arose from the corner where she answered calls of nature. Her food and water looked like it would hold out for quite some time yet, but were bland and threatened malnutrition. She was only grateful that she hadn't noticed vampires skulking around for the past few days.

“Just because I don't see them doesn't mean that they aren't out there,” she told herself, shivering. This knowledge did not make the promise of sunlight less alluring. She had been mostly starved of it for weeks. The thin sunlight that filtered in through the plant-choked windows was barely bright enough to see by. That might have been a blessing.

As the days passed, she tried to convince herself that it wouldn't matter if she left the basement, just for an hour or two, or even half an hour, to enjoy the sun. She didn't really know if the vampires could smell her blood, the way many people had claimed they could, or if the basement blocked this sense. “But I've survived this long, so being in this basement must do something,” she thought.

Finally, one day she had had enough. “I know people need sunlight,” she thought, “and I would hate to die because I didn't get it when I could.” She crept up the stairs, listening at every step for sounds she knew she wouldn't be able to hear. She opened the door slowly and crept into the forgotten yard of this strange house. She looked around. She was alone.

She breathed in the sun-warmed air and felt her shoulders relax. It was heavenly to relax for once after weeks of uninterrupted tension. She felt all her cares draining away in the marvelous sunlight.

“Hello there.”

She whipped around as fast as she could, but the face that had been next to her ear was already several feet away. The bright, almost mesmerizing glitter on his marble skin was an obvious indicator that he was a vampire. Although, her accelerated heart beat was also a good clue.

“Stay away from me!” she yelped. She thought, “I knew I should have stayed in the damn basement. Now I'm going to die!”

He cocked his head. “You're not going to die,” he informed her. “Well, you humans all die someday but it won't be today for you.”

“How did you know I was thinking that?” she asked, wondering if her basement hideaway had been given away by her own thoughts.

“I can read minds,” he said to her. “Don't worry, I won't tell the rest of them where you're hiding.”

“Why?” she asked, her blood drumming in her ears.

“There's something special about you,” he said. Suddenly, he was closer, one finger tracing the edge of her cheek. His pale hand wasn't simply tepid, it was freezing.

Involuntarily, she jerked her head away.

He lowered his hand. “Sorry,” he said.

“If you're going to kill me, then just do it!” she said, tipping her head back to expose her neck. She knew that she couldn't run from him, couldn't hide anymore, and had no hope of fighting him. Dying peacefully seemed to be her best option.

“I'm not going to kill you,” he said so softly that she lowered her head to look him in the eyes.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him, glancing at his marble-like skin, then looking away, briefly embarrassed.

“I'd like to get to know you,” he said. “I've looked all my life for a girl like you.”

“A girl like me? How do you know what I'm like?”

“I can read your mind,” he reminded her. “Don't worry, I haven't looked at anything private.”

“Just my thoughts,” she pointed out.

“It's from your thoughts that I know you and I should be together forever.”

“Wow. Most men run from commitment. You're racing towards it. Why? It's not like you have a deadline.”

“I don't,” he said, “but you're a limited time offer.”

She shook her head and opened her mouth to say something. Before she realized what was happening, his mouth covered hers and she was caught up in his kiss.

“What's your name?” he asked her, when he pulled away.

“Angela,” she said woozily. Then common sense returned. “Or maybe it's Rosemary, or Maria. Why should I tell you?”

“Angela,” he said, testing the sound of it on his tongue. “My name is Daivat.”

“Day-vat? That's a weird name.”

“Angela would have been a strange name during my...human time,” he told her.

“Which I'm sure was long ago,” she said, the remark not the product of a lot of thought. Her mind kept returning to his kiss, not an entertaining prospect when there was a mind-reader around.

“We become stronger with age,” Daivat told her. “If I were not so old, the mere smell of you would have intoxicated me past the point of reason by now.”

“Unwashed female is a great smell,” Angela agreed sarcastically.

“That just means your scent comes through stronger.”

“Thanks,” Angela said, “I'll add 'taking a bath' to my list of how to avoid vampires.”

“That list wouldn't help anyone else anymore,” Daivat said, looking down.

“I'm the last human on Earth?” Angela asked incredulously. She was a fairly good survivor, but she hadn't thought she was that good.

“My kind haven't thought ahead very well,” Daivat admitted. “We had never had so much blood before. It...went to our heads.”

“You wiped out billions of people because some blood went to your heads?!” Angela asked. “Remind me never to hang around a drunk vampire.”

“I'm drunk on your scent.”

Angela turned around (while her mind screamed, “Never turn your back on a vampire!”) and walked back inside the house. She stalked down the stairs.

“Angela,” Daivat called, standing at the top of the stairs.

Involuntarily, she turned and looked. The light at the top of the stairs had been bright, but his shining, marble skin made it almost blinding.

“Can I come again tomorrow?”

It must have been the memory of the kiss that made her treacherous lips say, “Sure.” By the time she had realized what she had said, he was gone. Cursing herself, Angela returned to her squalid room.

The next day, Angela stubbornly stayed in her basement.

Daivat appeared next to her. “Don't your prefer being outside?”

“I prefer not being next to a vampire,” she retorted, her blood beating out a complex drum solo in her ears.

“What is it about me that you find so distasteful?”

Angela found herself thinking seriously about this question. She realized that she might as well say what she was thinking. It would be nice to get it off her chest, and since he could read her mind, he would know anyway. “I was one of those who thought it would be fun to have vampires around when your kind first became known,” she stated. “I marched several times for all of us to have equality and to make vampires citizens. I can't believe how stupid I was. As soon as it was possible, your kind rose up and killed everyone except me. How can I not find you distasteful?”

“It may be true that I killed a few people,” Daivat said slowly, “but I haven't killed you. I've had more chances than I think you realize, but I haven't taken any of them. Can't you see it, Angela?” Her name sounded almost like a song coming from his mouth. “I love you.”

For a moment, Angela's mouth simply hung open. “What?” she asked.

“I love you,” Daivat repeated. “From the moment that I saw you, I knew that you were the one for me.”

Angela couldn't help but doubt him and yet, she had been away from humans for so long and had only felt fear and stress. Love seemed like an emotion that she should run after with open arms. A small voice in the back of her mind said, “Maybe your first thoughts about vampires were right.” Angela shook her head. “I don't even know you,” she pointed out.

“Then let me tell you about myself.”

“Are you going to tell me the human part or the vampire part?” Angela asked with a raised eyebrow.

“There are things I'm ashamed of in both,” Daivat admitted.

“A vampire with shame? I never thought I'd see the day.”

“I didn't either. Most of the other vampires, well, all of the ones that are left are such beasts. When I saw what was happening to my friends who felt the same way I did, well...”

“What did you do?” Angela asked in spite of herself.

“I pretended to be like them,” Daivat said quietly. “I can't think of all the things I did to prove myself to them without shuddering. I have done terrible things to survive.”

 

Angela thought about the people in the helicopter she didn't even think of saving when they went down. People whose names she realized she didn't even remember. “I know the feeling,” she replied.

Daivat was silent for a moment and nodded. “We've all had to do things we don't want to get by in this world, but I swear from this moment on, you will never have to worry about survival again. No one is going to hurt you.”

Angela laughed. “Saving me for yourself, are you?”

“Yes, but not in the way you're thinking,” he answered with a smile.

Angela shook her head. “Come again tomorrow,” she said. “I can't handle any more of your charm today.”

“As you wish,” Daivat said. He left the basement so quickly Angela almost couldn't see him.

He kept his word. Daivat showed up every day, but no other vampires ever did. After a time, Angela began to wait anxiously for him to arrive, and she worried if he was late.

“Does this mean you care about me?” Daivat asked her.

“Only enough that the one person I can talk to doesn't die,” Angela said, but she smiled. Slowly, she began to let her guard down around him. The first time they kissed was wonderful. “Good thing you don't have any fangs,” Angela said later.

“Even if I did, I would be sure never to hurt you with them,” Daivat replied.

Day by day, she grew even more attached to him and felt incredibly fortunate that he had approached her and kept on trying to win her. She thought she had known love before, known what devotion was. She knew that this was true love and the deepest devotion she had ever felt. It was a love that should last forever.

“Daivat,” she ventured one day, “I want to love you forever. Could you turn me?”

He looked at her for a moment. “I don't think I could do that to you. The process is very painful and you don't realize what you have, being human. Being alive.”

“I don't care,” Angela asserted. “I never want to lose you. Please. I know you never want to lose me either.”

Daivat considered. “Are you sure you want this?” he asked her. “The pain leading up to it is unimaginable. Nothing you've ever felt can compare to it.”

“I'll do whatever it takes to be by your side forever.”

“Very well. I'll leave you one more night to treasure. Then, tomorrow, I will make you a vampire.”

That night passed far too slowly for Angela. She didn't share Daivat's concern about losing her humanity. As far as she was concerned, humanity was a handicap, not something to be treasured. Somehow, she fell asleep that night.

The next bright day, Daivat's sparkling took on a new quality for her. Now it was not only his beautiful, marble skin sparkling, but it was the way she would look soon. She smiled as soon as she saw him, her heart pounding like it always did, and she was glad that he could move so quickly. That meant that she would be turned sooner.

“Are you sure you want this?” he asked her, again.

“Yes,” she asserted. “No matter what the pain is, it would be worse if I lost you.”

He nodded. “I'll need to hold you down while I do this. Otherwise you might hurt yourself.”

“All right,” Angela said, lying down for the last time in the severely overgrown backyard. Daivat pinned her limbs in place. Then a horrific smile took over his face.

“Want to know a secret?” he asked her.

“Sure,” she said, a little scared by his facial change. She told herself that it must be because he was about to turn her.

“I can't read minds.”

“What?”

“I can't read minds. My power is telekinesis. Did you notice that I asked you for your name instead of knowing it? I wouldn't have expected you to. Humans are so stupid and predictable. I've done this...” he considered, “thirty times now and every time, the girl reacts the same. It's almost laughable.”

“Why do you do this?” Angela asked, her heart about to break. She was desperately trying to convince herself that he did love her, the way she loved him-that he needed her as she needed him.

“Have you heard of playing cat and mouse?” Daivat asked her. “With so few people left, I have to have some sort of gambit in place or else I would simply kill all of the humans in one night. If I play with my food, it lasts longer and I give my food supply a chance to grow.”

“I'm not the last human?” she asked quietly.

Daivat barked out a laugh. “Hardly. We keep the remaining humans out of contact with each other so that we can terrorize them more easily. That is, except for the breeders. Did you really think that we would be so stupid and human as to waste all of our resources?”

“Is there another vampire nearby?” Angela asked, inspiration blooming. That must be why he was acting this way!

Daivat laughed harshly. “Even if there was, I wouldn't be worried. I am the most powerful vampire in this sector. All of the other vampires know better than to bother me when I'm about to eat.”

“But... but,” Angela struggled for some reason that this could be happening.

“Did you really think that a vampire would stoop so low as to love a human? There are so many differences between us. If I had tried to tell you anything about how I perceive life, you would only be confused. Your sense are just too limited. Fools have tried, but it is impossible to completely relate to someone who is on another plane entirely.”

“Hasn't it ever worked?” Angela asked, trying to plead for her life.

“I suppose that if, for some reason, I decided to fall in love with my food, I could try. However, where would the point be in that? If I loved you, I would have turned you as soon as I realized it. Then we could have bonded over you learning our way of life. Although how I could ever fall in love with something as afraid and gibbering as a human, I couldn't guess.” He shook his head. “In any case, the combination of sorrow, heartbreak, and fear gives blood such a heady taste. I think you've about reached your capacity for feeling. Bon voyage.”

With that, the vampire began to feed.

Sparkling Vampires Revisited Part 1 of 2

 Hello, readers. For those of you who didn't read the bit at the end of the last chapter I posted, I'll summarize for you:  November=National Novel Writing Month=I won't have time to do this blog, but there's three weeks before November=let's make fun of Twilight.  Because who doesn't like making fun of Twilight? ...besides people who actually like it, of course.  In my last post, I had though I would break this short story up into three pieces.  Well, it turns out that it's a little too short for that.  So, I'll give you two more blog posts, and I'll take Halloween off.  It's a holiday, after all.  So, in story form, here is everything that is wrong with the rules of vampirism in Twilight.  It is a little bloody, and I do apologize for the abrupt change in tone of this blog, but you can't have vampires without having blood.

It had been inevitable, really. They had been hiding on the underside of humanity's subconscious for years, taking shelter in the modern notions of disbelief and antiquated superstitions, letting humanity explain away the odd body as the work of one of their own, or a complicated accident. However, one of them slipped up.

When a woman in the middle of a crowed street loses copious amounts of blood through a rather large gash in her neck to a very pale man who glitters in the sun's revealing rays, people were bound to raise eyebrows. However, when the mysterious, very cold, pale, yet sexy man began drinking her blood and wrestled off his would-be restrainers with an inhuman strength that seemed alien to such a wiry body, the implications were unmistakable.

He was a vampire.

Of course, police arrived on the scene quickly, but there was little they could do to restrain the vampire. Tazers did nothing and the vampire was too quick for them to shoot it. The story went viral on the internet. The articles all had quotes from the witnesses and the woman's family, but none from the perpetrator of this crime. Finally, someone tracked him down and got him in front of a camera.

The vampire was interviewed on more talk shows than most people watch. All of the hosts asked the same question: “Why did you do it?” He never gave the same answer. To the first host, he replied, with what sounded like honesty, that he had been tired of his people having to live in shame of what they were. Humanity was ready, he said, to take in another side of themselves. “Think of us as the cousin that hasn't been seen at the family reunion for a couple hundred years,” he suggested. On that first show, he had brought in a cross, holy water, and a clove of garlic to show that these did not affect him in the slightest. He had taken out a mirror to use it for styling his hair. The show had been filmed during the day to prove that he did not need to do anything like sleep. He had even gone so far as to ask the host to drive a stake into his heart with a mallet. The stake had shattered on his pale, marble skin, much to the host's surprise. “Only other vampires can kill a vampire,” he had told her, laughing at her puzzlement. He had dashed to various points around the stage at super-human speed. Each time, the host had reminded viewers that they were showing this live.

Perhaps bored with his first answer, he told the second talk-show host that he had been hungry and he hadn't cared about the consequences. On this show as well, he showcased his imperviousness to most thing that had been thought to deal effectively with vampires. Another host got the answer, “Because, like you, she just looked too delicious.”

Of course, there were calls to hunt down all of the vampires, like the people in the olden days would have. The people on this side would often call shows that were hosting that first vampire and ask why the hosts were being such fools and putting their lives in danger. Although the hosts would never say it, they allowed a creature who feasted on human blood on their shows because this would drive their ratings through the roof.

People on the other side of the argument declared that they would not adapt such outdated approaches that hadn't worked. These people declared that making friends with the vampires was the best choice. They also asked what method the wanna-be vampire hunters would employ, since nothing humanity had thought up seemed to work. In fact, it seemed that humans could not kill vampires at all. A few people simply joined the pro-vampire side for fear of the vampires-either having to hunt them or being hunted by them for speaking up to kill the blood-suckers.

Soon enough, various world leaders saw the overwhelming perks of having troops with superhuman strength, speed, and who were generally impossible to kill. In almost every country, vampires became legal citizens to facilitate them being drafted. Buildings popped up all over for those who were willing to give some of their blood to the vampires. The blood was removed in the same way as if it were going into another person.

The anti-vampire groups had multiple problems with this. One of the more popular problems was the fear that once a vampire had sampled a certain human's blood, the vampire would want more. The vampire might then find the human and take the rest, either all at once or by taking as much blood as possible as often as possible, without killing the person, much like how people milked cows. The only promise humanity had that this would never happen was the glinting smiles of the undead.

Then people discovered that vampires each had a unique superpower in addition to incredible agility, strength, and life span. Vampires with foresight quickly became employed to people who often gambled. Those in charge of the various gambling places tried to put a stop to this, but there was little they could do to stop people coming in with the results of chance known. Then the owners of the gambling places found vampires who could project shields. The betting field became sharply tilted in the other direction again, at least for the gambling places who could afford the vampires' exorbitant fees. The places that were poorer had to come up with other means of trying to block out those with knowledge of what would happen. Frequently, these people was taken care of in the same way as other cheaters had been previously: the management pulled the person in question out of the club, had a thug beat on the winner and the management would take as much money off the unconscious body as they felt reasonable. The use of this method decreased considerably when rich people sent the vampires themselves to bet at the poorer gambling places.

For a time, at least in the world that most people inhabited, everything was fine. Many scoffed at humanity's former hatred of vampires. After all, as long as they were kept sated, vampires were not much of a problem. Just as that first vampire had declared, they were like humanity's estranged cousins.

This illusion was much easier to maintain when the bodies drained by vampires were never seen again.

A war soon erupted, shattering the illusion of peace. Two nations found something that they couldn't agree over and it became pivotal enough that they deployed armies. The first entirely vampiric army marched on their foes in lock-step and soon had ripped out all of their enemies' throats. The vampires were all glutted with blood, with plenty left over. Human troops were replaced entirely with vampire troops in a matter of months.

At this point, it should hardly be surprising that a catastrophe occurred.

Maybe it was because the vampires wanted a higher pay than the top brass wanted to give. Possibly the vampires became tired of fighting for countries whose problems they didn't share. Scariest of all, perhaps the vampires simply realized what they could do and decided that it might be fun.

Two opposing vampire armies joined together one night and marched on the populace of the country some of them had been employed to protect. By morning, there was no one left alive in the vampires' path.

Vampires with more affectionate views of humanity swarmed the murderous army but the smell of human blood in the air made those who had sworn not to drink it woozy. Those who did not succumb and change sides were easy prey for the other vampires. Pieces of vampire dotted the landscape in a garish display. The remaining vampires quickly gathered the pieces and burned them in bonfires. It was not long before the only vampires left were those who actively pursued human blood.

The humans raised a resistance, of course. At first, many simply stayed home. Sadly for them, vampires did not need an invitation to enter anyone's home. These humans were, publicly, among the first to be turned into vampires or simply drained of their blood.

Many of the people realized that there was nothing they could do. Some walked out to the vampires and simply bared their necks. Many committed suicide, taking their families with them so none of them would become vampires. Others tried surviving by staying on the move.

Vampires could run as fast as or faster than any land vehicle that people used. Because breathing was not necessary, vampires could pry open submarines or the bottoms of boats and take their meal with the exercise of fighting sharks afterward. It seemed that taking to the air was the best option because vampires couldn't fly. The only problem with flight was that all vehicles needed to land at some point to take on more fuel. The few vehicles that evaded vampires for several months soon found that they could not locate any more fuel; vampires had no need of vehicles nor the fuels that powered them. The humans who had survived because of flight soon began to die out.

One woman, who had been quicker than her companions in the helicopter when it went down, managed to get away. She had raced into a basement near where the vampires had found them and had been lucky enough to find some canned food and a can opener. If she stayed away from the few windows in the single room her world had become, and did not make much noise, perhaps she would be safe.

A Matter of Marine-Chapter Ten: I'm Going to Punch Conrad in His Smug Face

Sorry about the delayed chapter, readers. I'm the worst.

When we last left Conrad and Marine, they were on the beach and Conrad had told Marine that he'd been waiting for her. In this chapter, Marine finally replies to him by pretty much asking him, “Really?” with big doe eyes. Then she looks him over and notices the loosened tie, unbuttoned top button of his shirt, and how he's not wearing his jacket any more. I'm pretty sure they're going to bang soon. So, Conrad picks Marine up, carries her to another sand dune, lays her on his jacket and finally replies to her question with a yes. He also tells her that he's been wanting to hold her all night. Well, maybe you should break up with your gold digging girlfriend. Then he kisses her. It's, “a gentle, loving kiss and one which made no demands on her.” Wait. He's capable of doing that? Huh. I had no idea. The two snuggle closer together and listen to each others' beating hearts. Life is so peaceful and wonderful.

Suddenly, the world is on fire! I got really excited when I read this sentence. Maybe some plot was about to happen! But no, sadly it was just the sunrise that Marine was talking about. Damn it. Marine disentangles herself a little from Conrad to look at the sunrise, but she quickly turns back to him. He looks so much younger and more vulnerable and whatnot when he's asleep. Then Marine bends down and kisses him awake. This is so sweet; it almost makes me forget that Conrad is an abusive, cheating jerk.

The two canoodle for a bit and then Marine has to freak out about how they'd better get back to the house. Conrad asks why and Marine says that she doesn't want folks to get the wrong impression of them still being in their clothes from the night before and together. Remember that girlfriend you have, Conrad? Finally, Conrad agrees and the two stand up. Conrad tells Marine that she looks beautiful in the morning: “All soft and rosy.” Marine tells him that he does too and they tease each other a little. Okay, Ms. Badger, can we have a little talk? This is adorable behavior actually suitable for folks we're supposed to believe are in love. For your future work, can you do more of this and less of the abuse? Kthanks.

Oh, they also joke about skinny dipping and why Marine won't. The pelicans or sea gulls might tell on her, you see. They're actually being cute. It's weird. So, then they finally go back to the house and Marine is freaking out. Conrad tells her she has nothing to worry about and that she should go to her room first. He'll go to his in a bit. Marine dashes up to her room without seeing anyone, takes a quick shower, and lies down for awhile. Or...until noon. Annie is bringing Marine breakfast in bed and is super pissed about it. She also notices that there's sand in Marine's room and that Conrad is only just now getting up as well. Then she tries to imply that Marine and Conrad banged in the sand last night. Well, they didn't! ...much to my surprise.

Marine gets Annie to leave her alone and finishes her breakfast. Then she remembers the night she spent on the beach in Conrad's arms and how nice it was. I'm still digesting that something so sweet happened in this novel. Then I remember that Conrad has a girlfriend and it dispels the illusion. Anyway, Marine gets dressed and, just like always, we get a look at what her outfit is and how it looks on her. It's pretty. She rambles downstairs and joins Eva and some nameless party goers in some polite conversation. Awhile later, Marine is helping Eva upstairs when Eva asks if Marine has found the diamond pendant yet. Oh. Yeah. That. After Marine gets Eva to her room, Marine heads out to the box of wrapping paper which they were going to burn. Why are they going to burn it? I can only assume it's part of a ritual or something.

Anyway, while Marine is digging through the wrapping paper, Conrad and Helena the Hunter walk up. Marine doesn't want to admit what she's doing, but Helena the Hunter asks if Marine is saving wrapping paper, so she uses the convenient lie. She wanted a specific piece...this one! When she shows them the paper she wanted to keep, Marine realizes that it's the wrapping from Conrad's present to her. Oops. Then we jump into a time warp. No, really, the next paragraph talks about how it's two days later.

You see, Marine, somehow, finally told Conrad that the diamond pendant was missing. Conrad is pissed that she didn't tell him earlier. She's just a woman, after all. She needs to tell the man these things so he can deal with them. Ugh. Now it clicks for Conrad what Marine was doing digging through the wrapping paper. He thought she was being sentimental about them. Marine offers that she kept the wrapping paper, but it doesn't mean as much now. Then Conrad brings up the possibility that someone stole the pendant and Marine throws back at him that only his guests were there and asks if he thinks any of them would have taken it. Then she leaves before he can answer.

Over the next few days Marine blames herself for not telling Conrad that it went missing right away. What would he have done that you didn't do, Marine? Short of asking his guests to turn out their pockets and have their rooms searched, there's not much more to be done here. I mean, we know Helena the Hunter took it, but Marine doesn't seem to. Anyway, Marine hangs out with Eva and they spend New Years together, which is nice. We also get a bit on how Marine is sickened at how Helena the Hunter plays for Conrad's attention all the time. I'm glad we just get this in summary. I'm so done with Helena the Hunter.

Also, always the teacher, Marine reflects on what this place has taught her: love, neglect, pain, and how she had thought Conrad was falling in love with her but now she realizes that he totally isn't. Oh, hey, look! More character interactions. Annie wants to vacuum out Marine's room. Marine tells Annie that she just cleaned her own room as well as Eva's, but Annie is insistent that she needs to do it too or Flora will be mad. Conrad opens his door and notices this scene, but doesn't do much about it. Well, fine then, Annie. Just clean it again. Whatever.

So, they're about halfway through a lovely breakfast when Annie has to burst in and ruin it. She found the diamond pendant in Marine's room, you see. Yeah, okay. Helena the Hunter is still here, for some reason. She commends Annie for finding the necklace and accuses Marine of stealing it. Then Conrad and Helena the Hunter stare down Marine. She squares her shoulders and tells them that she didn't take it. Eva believes her and basically says, “Screw them. Let's go hang in the garden and let them figure their shit out.”

Then we get another summary of passing time. Conrad still isn't speaking to Marine, but she feels like he wants to tell her something. Helena the Hunter isn't around much. Then one morning, Conrad is in the kitchen making breakfast happily. Marine still isn't speaking with him and his incessant humming and singing means that she can't ask him where Flora and Annie went. Eva doesn't know either. Conrad also makes lunch happily and there's no sign of Helena the Hunter. Odd.

As has become her custom, after Marine has gotten Eva settled for her nap, Marine heads out to the beach to get shells for her class. She isn't as excited about teaching as she used to be and we get some emo comparisons of Marine's emotional state to a sea shell. Then Conrad is suddenly next to her and acting like everything is okay. He mentions that Marine's aunt called, but it's several paragraphs of shell-gathering more before they actually talk. Marine ask how he knew where she was. He tells her that he always knows where she is and what she's doing. Creepy. So, when Marine was hanging out at her aunt's in Sydney and he didn't get the message, he was going crazy with worry. That's why he had to take her keys. To keep her there with him forever. And ever. Oh, and then he tells her that he loves her and has since she challenged him in his office at the beginning of the book.

Really, you've loved her for that long? Then why the hell were you dating Helena the Hunter for all this time? Seriously. Conrad, you're a dick. Sorry, I'm ruining the moment. Conrad asks Marine to marry him. I love his excuse for not asking her earlier: “...there were several things I had to clear up first...” Like that woman you were dating, or your treacherous maids? Conrad goes on to say that he hopes Marine feels the same way about him. She's crying and he asks about that. She tells him that he's too late. He thinks that she's a thief and it's awful. Then Conrad explains the situation that makes me like him even less.

OK, so, he had an idea that something was up with that diamond pendant. Then when Annie insisted on cleaning Marine's room, he knew that Helena the Hunter was in cahoots with Flora and Annie and that Annie was going to “discover” the pendant in Marine's room to try to force them apart. His reason for not letting on that he knew? “...I wanted to find out the whole story.” Jerk. Also, I win everything because I predicted this too: Conrad found out that Helena the Hunter believed that the only thing standing between her and the altar was Eva, so Flora and Annie were supposed to get Eva committed to a home. Then Marine shows up and not only messes that up, but also falls in love with Conrad. Then Conrad begs for forgiveness for hurting Marine like this for days and asks her to marry him again.

Marine, please, act counter to your archetype of the female lead of a romance novel and tell him no. Please? She replies by asking where Helena the Hunter and her minions are. Conrad put them on a plane back to Melbourne last night. I guess that explains why, in his crazy mind, he couldn't talk to Marine until today. Anyway, Marine reprimands him for getting too caught up in his work and Conrad replies that he's glad it happened because that's how he met Marine and how he didn't think the right girl existed for him. Oh, also his head is in her lap and the POV shifted unexpectedly. So, we hear from Conrad how it's okay that Marine is sometimes tugging at his hair because he totally deserves it. Um. Okay.

Then Marine gives the most nonchalant reply to a proposal: “Well, I guess I had better marry you.” No, please. Don't be so emotional. Then Marine jokes about having a dozen kids to keep Conrad from getting wrapped up in his work and he freaks out a little. I would freak out too. A dozen? Marine, think of your lady bits! Anyway, they declare their love for each other and promise to work to make the other one happy. Eventually, they even leave the beach to tell Eva that they're engaged. End of story.

Well then. I hope we all learned something. Beauty and the Beast is not a dead story and Stockholm syndrome has a place in romance novels. Oh, were you wondering about what Helena the Hunter did after Conrad dumped her? Well, she had that conversation about saving the world with Marine's parents a few days prior to that. They had not revealed who they were, so Helena the Hunter has no idea. She decides that, since her meal ticket has dumped her, she'll try this “world saving” thing and see how well it pays. Maybe having a magical diamond pendant will give her everything she wants. Marine's parents see that they'll have their hands full managing Helena the Hunter. They're just glad they were able to convince Helena the Hunter to part from her minions. They don't want to add more people than necessary to their quest. They meet her at the Melbourne airport to fly back to Africa and defeat this great evil.

So, now that that's all tied up, let's have a talk about the future, readers. As some of you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Participants try to write 50,000 words in 30 days which, if you do the math, is an average of 1,667 words a day, more or less. I'm going to try to do this again this year. Sadly, this means that I'm taking a hiatus from this blog for a month. “But wait!” I can hear you say, “there's still three Fridays until November. What will you do until then?” I'm glad you asked, reader. Awhile ago I wrote a piece poking fun at a particularly popular love story about shiny people with really weird diets and how the rules of vampirism just don't work in this series. So, I'll put that up for the next three weeks. Then, I'll be back here on December 5^th with the first chapter of the next novel I make fun of. Unless I get distracted. Like I did last week.

Also, this is my 69th post.  Oh baby.

A Matter of Marine-Chapter Nine: A Christmas Special, Part 2: The Penultimate Chapter

So, sadly, we never find out who, exactly, moved the turkey. I mean it was probably Flora or Annie. Anyway, Conrad apparently can't stay away from Marine for too long, so he wanders into the kitchen to get himself coffee. He and Marine look in the fridge for the turkeys, but don't find them. Flora suggests they look in the freezer. Well crap. You can't cook frozen meat. Apparently, there's a risk of food poisoning then. I had no idea. Anyway, Marine is able to overcome this by defrosting the turkeys in the microwave.

Oh, and remember that ham they got? Yeah, me neither. It's been cut up into pieces for cold cuts and such and not saved for the fabulous Christmas dinner than Marine wanted to provide. Well, shit happens. Marine spends most of the day working on dinner, while occasionally checking on Eva. She's got a secret recipe for the stuffing and she's chopping all of the fruits, veggies, and bread for that today. Apparently, Flora and Annie are kind of nice to her. They make her tea and a sandwich for lunch. Huh. Interesting. Oh, and while Marine is working, many of Conrad's guests come in and chat with her. Some even help chop things. She's a bit bewildered by this, but I'm guessing that Conrad's friends know what's going on and they want to vet this new woman he's attracted to. I still have an issue with Conrad cheating on Helena the Hunter, even though she's a bitch. But that's another matter.

We jump ahead to the late afternoon when Marine is setting the table, using the best linen, china, and silverware. All told, there will be twenty-four for dinner. Remember that number, folks. Marine also chats with the gardener and finds some flowers that are perfect for the room, time of year, etc. It's all so perfect, clean, and beautiful. Marine is excited to give Conrad and Eva the Christmas dinner they should have been having for all of these years. That's sweet of her. What about everyone else? I kid, I kid. She barely knows everyone else.

Marine checks on the turkey and veggies one more time, then heads upstairs to get Eva and herself ready for dinner. They've already picked out Eva's dress and bathed her, so they just have to put her in her dress and put just a touch of makeup on her. Then Marine goes to her room to take a bath with Conrad's bubble bath and dress herself up all fancy. She gives herself a once-over in the mirror and thinks, essentially, “Damn, girl. You look good.” I'm reminded that this was a different time by this sentence: “She was delicate and fragile looking but she was far from thin.” Ignoring the probable contradiction here, I had almost forgotten there was a time when beauty wasn't seen as being able to count women's ribs. It's kind of nice.

Anyway, after checking herself out, Marine heads into the kitchen and the dining room one more time to look everything over. Everything looks good in the kitchen. As Marine surveys the dining room, she is overtaken by the beauty. Then, she is struck by something amiss. There are only twenty-two place settings. Remember how earlier there were twenty-four? Marine plays the scenario out in her head: everyone files in for dinner, they're short two places, Eva offers to sit out, which means Marine would offer to sit out, Conrad would get mad and demand they add two more places, and the whole thing would be ruined. Also, Conrad would blame Marine. So, Marine quietly adds two more place settings and hangs out in the dining room for as long as she dares.

Then she heads upstairs, not minding the faceless guests who are coming to the lounge for pre-dinner drinks. Oh, hi Conrad. Yes you look fantastic, and so does Marine. Oh, he makes this interesting comment: “'Every male in the house will have his eyes on you,' he growled, not sounding very pleased at the prospect.” Well, someone's a little insecure. Then again, she has no obligation to Conrad so it's not her problem if guys flirt with her and if she feels like flirting back. Gee, if only there were some way that Conrad could reasonably expect Marine to turn down people's advances. Some sort of commitment they could make to only be intimate with each other. Huh. Too bad Conrad doesn't know of anything like that.

Oh, also he's struggling with his tie and Marine ties it for him. Then he's worried about who she learned that from. A boyfriend!? Dude, calm yourself. Also, she learned it from her mom to help her dad in case Mom wasn't home. Wow. I'm impressed at Marine's knowledge. I've worn ties a few times, and I still don't know how to tie them. Anyway, Conrad gets over his jealousy fit, but only for the moment. He offers to escort Eva downstairs and Marine is very happy about this because she knows Eva will love it. Sometimes I forget that Marine is genuinely worried about Eva's happiness, as well as making goo-goo eyes at Conrad.

As Marine is about to open Eva's door, Helena the Hunter leaves her room and she looks absolutely amazing. Like, she could be a movie star, apparently. Sick with jealousy, Marine resolutely doesn't look at them and has to actually calm herself down after she steps into Eva's room. Also, she apparently didn't notice that she was jealous before. Gee, if only there were a way she could expect Conrad to be true to her. But there doesn't seem to be.

Also, much to my surprise, Eva missed Marine's whole reaction. She comes out of her dressing room, obviously upset. The diamond pendant that they made such a stink over in the morning? It's gone. Raise your hand if you think Helena the Hunter took it. Eva hates to think that anyone took it and Marine can't imagine anyone who would. Helena the Hunter's friends all like gaudy jewelry and Conrad's friends totes have the money to buy five of those things if they wanted. Marine advises Eva not to bring this up until after they've done a thorough search. No sense in ruining the occasion. Just then, Conrad knocks on the door.

Eva tries to send Conrad ahead, saying that she and Marine will catch up shortly, but he does that thing where he says they look great and they need to go with him now. What if Eva genuinely wasn't ready yet? Goodness. Anyway, Conrad compliments them both on their appearance and Marine wonders if he said the same words to Helena the Hunter just now. Probably. No need to come up with a billion compliments if the ladies in question won't hear you saying it to both of them. Marine, by the way, is ashamed of feeling jealous. The feeling is fine, as long as you don't act spitefully because of it.

They head down to the lounge and once they're there, Marine tries to hang back, well aware that she's there as an employee. But then Conrad has to go and grab her hand, talking about how people love their tree. Helena the Hunter sees the gesture and gets super pissed. Okay, here's the thing I don't get. She either suspects Conrad of cheating on her, or just doesn't like the attention he's giving Marine. Why doesn't she blame him for this? Marine isn't particularly inviting this behavior, well not in front of Helena the Hunter, anyway. Conrad is the one with the wandering eyes and such, so she really should be talking with him about this. Then again that's assuming that they can talk about anything serious with each other. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they can't.

Marine ponders the disappearance of the pendant some more, still unable to come up with a suspect, and guessing that it's under the chair and Eva just couldn't see it. Also, most of Helena the Hunter's guests have left. Odd. I wonder if they just had somewhere else to be, or if they were asked to leave. Anyway, in the hour before dinner, Conrad hangs out with his grandma and Marine, and pays very little attention to Helena the Hunter. You don't have to hang on the person you're dating, but Helena the Hunter is more high maintenance than this. Marine looks over and sees Helena the Hunter look like she's gloating several times. Marine mentally resolves to watch Helena the Hunter when she realizes there are twenty-four place settings again.

After a bit, Marine steps out of the lounge into the kitchen because it's about time to serve dinner. Flora is about to cut up the turkey in the kitchen, but Marine insists that Conrad carve it at the table. Flora accuses Marine of wanting to glory in her turkey, asking if she's been telling everyone that she made the turkey. The way she phrased it makes it sound bad, but why not take a little glory in something you spent all day making? Marine replies that she hasn't needed to because folks have come into the kitchen all day and helped her make it. Boom. Flora, I thought you were becoming more likeable, but I guess not.

Marine places the turkey at the head of the table, where Conrad will be sitting, and counts the place settings again. Still twenty-four, although not the TV show, because that would be too much plot for this book. Marine heads back into the lounge and sees that Conrad and Helena the Hunter are talking. She reflects on how she automatically looks at Conrad all the time and she can't help it. Also, I found this detail odd. After Conrad walks away, Helena the Hunter starts talking with one of her male friends. Well, the part I found odd was that the book specified the gender of her friend. Does Helena the Hunter not have female friends? Is this guy a possible replacement for Conrad? Am I thinking about this too much?

Marine lets Conrad know that they're ready for dinner. But while they're talking, he puts his hand to her flushed cheek and asks if she's overdone it even though he told her not to. Is that an “I told you so”? Marine lies and says she's fine. You see, he's touching her so she's crazy happy. Can you just level with him, Marine, and tell him he needs to make a choice about you and Helena the Hunter? Please? Oh, Conrad bends his head down to her level and says that he knows how she's feeling. For a moment, Marine thinks her feeling might be mutual, but he looks away before she can be sure.

Everyone heads into the dining room, with Conrad and Eva in the lead. Helena the Hunter's face goes from wickedly happy, to surprised, to pissed off. Marine smiles innocently at her. This. This is the best kind of getting back at her. Fixing the damage she's done and pretending like you don't know a thing about it. Much nicer than sniping and name-calling. Oh, also, Conrad is the one who brags about Marine cooking the turkey and making the meal with only a bit of help. No need to brag when others do it for you. So, everyone toasts Marine, and then Eva because why not, and then the turkeys themselves. That's enough toasts, let's bring on the turkey!

The meal is awesomely wonderful and delicious. People ask Marine for her recipe for the stuffing, but she won't tell them. Everyone agrees that this is much better than a barbeque. At the end of the main course, they toast Marine again. Helena the Hunter is, as you might expect, uncomfortably pissed off. They move to the patio for dessert because Christmas happens in the summer in Australia. (Sorry, I keep forgetting this and then being surprised.) As you'd expect from how everything else is going, it's beautiful outside! And they've got a flaming Christmas pudding. Perfect. People are relaxing and having a good time and whatnot. Then Helena the Hunter has to open her big mouth: “'Conrad,' Helena [the Hunter] said in a falsely worried tone. 'Don't you think your grandmother looks tired?'” Well, if that question can topple a Prime Minister in England (at least, more generally phrased and in a TV show), then it can certainly take the wind out of the sails of the S.S. Christmas Party.

Eva, unwilling to burden herself on the party, starts to leave, saying that they probably don't want someone so old hanging around. Conrad says that's bullshit and that Eva can totally stay. Some other folks chime in and Eva sits back down. Good. Thank you for actually caring about your grandma, Conrad. Then some dude sitting next to Marine puts together that her father was a professor at Hamilton. A professor of philosophy. The philosophy of fighting? They don't specify, so I'll assume it's more general. Anyway, he ends his and Marine's short exchange with: “'Fancy him having a beautiful daughter like you!' he exclaimed to everyone's delight.” Firstly, why is everyone listening and delighted that he called her pretty? Secondly, not everyone is delighted. Marine brushes his compliment off as no big deal, but Conrad is super jealous. Really, double-standard man? You've got a girlfriend and whatever goes with that, and Marine can't have dudes saying that she's pretty? Also, did I mention Conrad's insecurities earlier? Because they're showing again.

Anyway, because of this compliment, Conrad moves the party inside. Marine doesn't like the move, because it's so nice outside and in the lounge everyone's cigarette smoke will just settle instead of being blown away. Apparently, moving into the lounge makes Eva tired. Interesting. Wasn't she totally fine about five minutes ago? Whatever. Marine notices this, so she tells Conrad in an aside that she's a little tired so she and Eva are going to head upstairs. Conrad asks if she's all right and Marine tells him that she's fine, but for a little headache. Then he tries to help Eva upstairs and leave Marine downstairs. I can't tell if he's trying to be polite and not have Eva's tiredness end Marine's evening prematurely, or if this is more of “I can't let you out of my sight no matter how you feel about it” -itis. Probably the second one.

Marine knows that Eva is tired and that “nothing would be gained” by staying. What would she gain from a party? I'm honestly confused. Anyway, some folks are dancing and Helena the Hunter picks her way over to them to ask Conrad to dance with her, but just by saying “Dance?” and wrapping her arms around the back of his neck. I don't know if she's drunk or just a victim of lazy writing, but either way Marine and Eva take the opportunity to hightail it out of there.

Eva heads to bed without any description. Marine hangs out in her room for awhile, waiting for the party to die down. It does, sooner than she thought, and she heads out onto the beach to “try to unravel the mysteries of her heart.” Good plan. You need to figure yourself out, Marine, and a beach at night is one of the calmest places to do that. Marine closes her eyes and lets herself sink into the night around her. The peacefulness. The calm. Oh, hi Conrad. Can you leave her alone for any length of time? Marine seems to be okay with it because she walks into his hug and hugs him back. The chapter ends with his dialogue: “Oh, Marine, I've been waiting for you. I knew you would come.” Waiting where? She didn't see you when she walked out onto the beach to begin with. Whatever. We just had to have a cliffhanger before the final chapter, I suppose.

Possibly not any warning signs of Conrad being abusive in this chapter. He was obviously jealous of that guy's comment, but he didn't do anything too extreme about it. I mean, with everything else, it's a warning sign, but on its own, it's not too bad, I guess.

In the next chapter, I predict that Conrad and Marine will finally admit their undying love for one another, Helena the Hunter will leave in a fit of hysterics and Conrad and Marine will make sweet, sweet love on the beach. All right, now for the interesting story line. The true reason Eva is worried about the diamond pendant is because she now knows the mystical power it possesses. If one of Marine's parents can get the pendant to share its power with them, they should be able to defeat their foe. However, the trail of the magic leads them into Helena the Hunter's room, where she's sleeping off her drunkenness. They realize that Helena the Hunter has taken the power of the amulet. Now they've got to figure out a way to get her to use this power to defeat the evil that wants to take over the world, and not to attack Marine. (As they learn, Helena the Hunter is used to dangerous situations because she used to be a fire juggler.) Once they convince her of what's happened, Marine's parents and Eva are not sure how many times Helena the Hunter can use the pendant. If she has any magic left over after she defeats their great foe, they'll have to figure out what to do about that, too.

A Matter of Marine-Chapter Eight: A Christmas Special, Part 1

I know they've been building up to Christmas this entire novel, but this bit still feels like a Christmas special from some TV show. This chapter ended on a cliff hanger, but when Christmas is done, I feel like I'll have learned a deep lesson about loving people. Or something.

Marine wanders through Conrad's house, looking at how pretty everything is. She offered to help Flora and Annie clean and the three of them did a great job, apparently. Now, if only Flora and Annie could be bothered to clean normally, it wouldn't take so much to make the house gleam on special occasions. Anyway, Marine is thinking of the tree which, last time she checked, hadn't been decorated yet. The door to the lounge is closed, so she opens it and discovers Conrad testing bulbs for Christmas lights. He looks “for all the world like a small boy who had been reunited with his toy box.” Of course, when he realizes he's not alone, all of this tension lines come back.

Marine invades his sanctuary and looks at the ornaments. He warns her not to break them and she does not. I mean, kinda rude that he felt the need to tell her that, but she doesn't seem to mind too much so, whateves. Anyway, after she handles a few ornaments, Conrad puts her to work untangling the tinsel while he finishes testing light bulbs. They put the lights and ornaments on the tree, humming and singing along to the Christmas carols playing on the stereo. The tree looks oh so pretty now, but wait! There's no topper on the tree! Conrad smiles at Marine and begins unwrapping another bundle, almost reverently.

It's a star, you see, made out of real gold, at least partially. The star has a deep symbolism for Conrad. His great-grandfather brought it with him from England to Australia and it was a symbol of his and his wife's love for each other and their hope for the future. Then Conrad says, in a super emotional voice, that he never understood what that meant until now. I'll just give you their dialogue here because I'm not sure I want to summarize it. It starts with Marine talking.

“'It's....It's beautiful.'

'And what it stands for?'

'Yes, yes, especially what it stands for!'

'Marine?'

'Y-yes?'

'Marine, I...'”

And then Helena the Hunter has to burst in and ruin the moment. What a bitch, going to find the man she's dating when he's trying to proposition someone else. Anyway, Helena the Hunter is mad that Conrad spent three hours working on the Christmas tree, instead being of at the party with her. People were talking about how he spends more time with Marine than with her. Maybe that's because you're a pain to be around, Helena the Hunter. So, while Helena the Hunter is mid-sentence, Conrad picks her up, flings her over his shoulder, and leaves the room. Woah, there buddy. Calm down.

Marine takes a moment to compose herself. Then she sees the star on the floor. She picks it up and hugs it to her, hoping that Conrad was trying to say that he loved her. After all, it must be hard for him to say. He probably hasn't even said it to Eva! Yes, because people who love you should want to control you. It's healthy. Anyway, her moment of reflection ends when Conrad returns. She can hear him coming and, for some reason, she thinks that reading his face at that moment will tell her if he loves her or not. After he's just had to put up with Helena the Hunter. So, of course, he looks mad. Well, I'll give you the direct quote: “...his face telling her that he was fed up with women!” Marine turns her face away so he won't see her tears. Oi vey. And the struggle continues.

Marine asks about Helena the Hunter, and Conrad explains that she was drunk, but that he should have been at the party keeping an eye on her. He doesn't sound happy at all as he's talking, by the way. Marine asks if he's going to the party now, and he says no; it'll be ending soon. Marine reflects on how Helena the Hunter ruined their magic moment. Then Conrad puts the star on the tree, and we get a bit more about its symbolism as they pick up the room. Now, of course, they're not as carefree and happy as they were before.

Then we return to Planet Conrad when Marine remembers that Eva wants to go to the midnight Christmas Eve service at her church. Conrad is tired and Marine offers to drive Eva to church. Conrad tells her that there are plenty of drunks on the road and that he has no intention of giving her back her keys. Good that you're worried, awful that you're such a controlling jerk. I'm also wondering if Christmas Eve is really that ridiculous in Australia. I don't live there, so I have no idea. Anyway, Marine tells Conrad that if they hadn't run into each other, she and Eva would have taken a taxi and not told him they were leaving. That's inconsiderate. Especially since he threw such a hissy fit about it last time. Marine reflects how she wouldn't want to have to find Conrad in the party and ask for her keys. It'd be so embarrassing. Maybe he shouldn't have taken them in the first place. Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked from their conversation with all of the thinking. I'll try to do better.

So, Conrad says that he wanted Marine at the party with him, and Marine admits that she knows that but... She doesn't say it's awful to see him and Helena the Hunter together, but she's definitely thinking it. Anyway, Conrad will totally drive her. Then he mentions that he would have been worried if he'd come home to find her missing. Marine admits that she didn't think he would notice. Honey, even if he didn't notice you missing, he would notice his grandmother's absence. He admits that he would know if Marine weren't in the house. Marine asks how and he replies with, essentially: “Because I would, okay? God!” I mean, that's the gist of it. Then he pets Marine's cheek and tells her that she'd better get Eva ready so they can make it in time. We also get this line, “...his eyes still resting on the delicate beauty of her perfect features.” Either we changed point of view here, or Marine is incredibly vain. Or both, I suppose.

Eva is ready to go when Marine gets to her room. Marine reflects on how Eva's new found self-confidence makes her look years younger. They chat a little, and Marine tells Eva that there's a surprise for her downstairs. Eva is incredulous that the tree would have been decorated, but Marine isn't giving anything away. Eva also wishes that Conrad would go to church with her, but she hasn't been able to convince him before. They gather up their Christmas presents and head downstairs. Conrad meets them at the foot of the stairs, takes Marine's presents from her, and accompanies them to the lounge. The lights are off except for the tree and it's beautiful. Eva sees the star on the tree and starts crying. I get the feeling that star hasn't come out in years. Oh, the Christmas special part? Marine feels like Conrad and Eva are having memories of Christmases past, but she doesn't feel excluded. Because she touched the star, she feels like she's part of the chain of Christmases that happened with it. This book just hasn't been serious enough up until this point to pull off this kind of thing.

Anyway, Conrad sees an oddly shaped present from Marine for him. He tries to figure out what it is and Marine scolds him like the school teacher that she is, which I had forgotten. Shouldn't she be figuring out lesson plans at some point? If school is starting up again, she's going to need those. Unless she already made them and didn't mention anything about them. Whatever, she teases Conrad and he teases her back. It's a good time.

They get to the church just before the carols start and Marine reflects on how her soprano, Eva's alto, and Conrad's baritone are all so pretty. The carols take on a new meaning for Marine and she vows never to forget that night. When they come back, Eva is super tired, so Conrad carries her up the stairs. Halfway up, he sees that her eyes are closed and comments that she's asleep. Marine knows better, but uses this opportunity. She asks a few leading questions like, “She's beautiful, isn't she?” and “You love her, don't you?” Apparently, Conrad's childhood would have been hell without her. Huh. I knew his dad was a drunk, but I didn't know how much that impacted him. Anyway, Eva falls asleep right after this so that, after Conrad sets Eva down on her bed, he and Marine can have a private conversation.

They kiss, several times, and talk about how it's Christmas. Marine contemplates telling him that she loves him and what his response would be. They're holding each other so close and everything. She chickens out and Conrad breaks the silence, and physical contact, by saying that she looks tired and she should get to bed and letting her go. Marine acknowledges that she's tired and then remembers the turkey that she'll be cooking tomorrow. She's looking forward to it and hopes that Conrad will offer to help just so they can hang out more. I mean, he's got guests and a gold digger to entertain, so he really can't, but Marine isn't thinking about them right now. Oh, then Conrad tries to get out of her what his present is and she refuses to tell him. After all, then he wouldn't have anything to look forward to tomorrow. He looks her up and down and says, “Oh, yes, I would.” Oh baby.

Marine manages to fall asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow and she wakes up refreshed the next day. Conrad is walking toward her room with an awake and chipper looking Eva, and a hung-over and unkempt looking Helena the Hunter. Serves her right. Oh, also, apparently their guests are staying at their house. It makes sense. They've definitely got the room. However, Conrad and Marine might not want to be making out in the hallway if there's folks around who could catch them. Just a thought.

Anyway, they all troop down to the lounge and start opening presents. Eva gets the first, a leather bound poetry from Marine with a thoughtful inscription. Helena the Hunter goes next. She's opening the diamond pendant that Eva worried over. Without any interest, Helena the Hunter remarks that Eva got her the same thing last year and asks Conrad if he's worried about Eva's mind. Eva offers to return it and get Helena the Hunter a sweater or something, but the gold digger says not to worry, and pockets the necklace. Conrad catches her in the lie by actually looking at the pendant and noticing that it's unique. So, finally, Conrad is starting to realize that Helena the Hunter is a gold digging, backstabbing bitch. At least, that's what I'm assuming from the phrase, “...Helena wasn't all that he believed her to be.” Oh, Conrad had given the box back to Eva and she eventually puts it on a side table near her. It's a super awkward moment, but we can brush that away with some Christmas cheer!

Conrad actually got Marine a gift, which was unexpected. It's bubble bath. You know, from the beginning of the book when he put way too much bubble bath in the tub? I had to think for a moment to remember that, too. Oh, and Marine's gift to Conrad? A child's yellow surfboard with a card reading: “In memory of all those bruises...!” Helena the Hunter snaps at their gift choices and Conrad hands her a subtle burn that she doesn't seem to understand about jokes being for the pure of heart.

So, when they're done unwrapping gifts, they pick up all of the paper. Helena the Hunter goes upstairs to sleep and Eva to read. Conrad and Marine are alone so of course, Conrad pets her cheek. Anyway, they chat a little about how great the turkey will be, how, no of course no one would suspect anything from the bubble bath. Helena the Hunter would think it was a cheap gift, even though it's the expensive kind and Eva would think it practical. They talk about breakfast and Marine says that she'll get something from the kitchen. Conrad admonishes her to make sure she does, then kisses her. Neither of them want to leave, but they have to so the plot can move on. I mean, they're not going to declare their undying love for one another, so we've got to separate them.

Anyway, when Marine does leave Conrad smacks her ass, which is apparently okay with her. I'm still having a problem with him dating Helena the Hunter and behaving this way. Often, if a guy cheats with one girl, then he'll cheat on her if they get in a relationship. Just putting that out there. Anyway, Marine heads into the kitchen in a happy haze, only to discover that the turkey is gone.

Well, Helena the Hunter either did it, or told Flora and Annie to do it. Mystery solved. I'm sure they'll get there in the next chapter. Hopefully.

So, really, the only sign of abuse in this chapter was Conrad's continued refusal to give Marine back her car keys, which is not okay. He did get a bit physical with Helena the Hunter when she stumbled into his heart to heart with Marine. It would have been much nicer to help her stagger to her room, rather than sling her over his shoulder, but I'm not sure if that one counts. Of course, that could be just because I don't like Helena the Hunter.

My prediction for the next chapter: Marine's parents have been meeting with Eva in secret when everyone else thinks Eva is resting. She is going through her old books and trying to figure out what would be best to stop this menace they're fighting. The couple beg her to come with them and fight but Eva replies that she can't leave now. Her thick-headed grandson is about to make an important decision and she knows she'll be a big part of that. Also, they tried a spell and there's something or someone in this house that will be integral to their cause. The question is: who or what?