easol

Link page for the wiki

2009-12-18T17:06:58Z

While I work on the next chapters...

http://easolinas.wikispaces.com/Links+To+Other+Sources+of+Snark

Sweeties in the Night

2009-12-12T23:11:48Z

An old spoof I wrote a long time ago. Basically it's the awesome Monty Python sketch "Strangers in the Night," but rewritten for the Anita Blake cast.

Sweeties in the night
As featured in the Anita Blake TV Show - Episode 1,450

The sketch:
(Cut to Anita Blake's bedroom, complete with giant porn-style bed, mirrors on the ceiling, a disco ball and a few "Playgirls" scattered around. Anita and Micah are both lying on their backs, fast asleep and stark naked. Anita has her hair in curlers and face cream on.

Someone climbs in through the window and creeps across to Anita. It is Jean-Claude in leather swim trunks, a bright orange beret, a twirling bow-tie, and a dog harness around his chest, which would look silly on anyone else, but on him it looks so masculine etc etc. He is carrying a loaf of French bread, and wakes Anita with a snog)

Jean-Claude: Anita ... Anita ... ma petit! Wake up ma petit lemon. Come to my arms.

Anita: Jean-Claude! What are you doing here?

Jean-Claude: I could not keep away from you, ma petit. I must have you all the time.

Anita: But you DO have me all the time.

Jean-Claude: Well, I meant literally. As in, more than just a few shags every day.

Anita: Oh, that is most inconvenient.

Jean-Claude: Don't talk to me about convenience, ma petit! Ardeur consumes my naughty mind! I'm delirious with desire!
(He snogs her repeatedly, then starts removing his trunks. Micah wakes up with a start, sits upright and looks straight ahead.)

Micah: What's that, Anita?

Anita: Oh nothing. Just a trick of the light.

Micah: Right-o (he goes straight to sleep again)

Anita: Phew! That was close.

Jean-Claude: Now then ma petit banana, ma petit fruit salad, I can wait for you no longer. You must be mine utterly ...

Anita: Oh, Jean-Claude! Uh, does "utterly" include sharing me with half the penis-carrying inhabitants of St. Louis, including all the gay ones who just need to meet a sexy enough woman?

Jean-Claude: If it'll get me laid, then apparently it does.

(Suddenly beside them appears a young public-school teacher with very short hair.)

Richard: Anita! How dare you!

Anita: Richard!

Richard: What's the meaning of this?

Anita: I don't have to explain anything because I'm the author's avatar, and if you don't accept me then you don't accept yourself, so you must be mentally ill- (she rambles angrily for awhile).

Richard: Who is this?

Anita: This is Jean-Claude ... Richard Zeeman ... Richard Zeeman ... Jean-Claude.

Jean-Claude: How do you do.

Richard: (stiff) How do you do ... (to Anita) How could you do this to me, Anita ... after all we've been through? (kneels) Dammit, I love you. I have no idea why, considering that you treat me like garbage, but I do.

Anita: That would be because you're the avatar of the author's ex-husband, and this is her idea of revenge.

Richard: Oh. That explains it.

Jean-Claude: Anita! Don't you understand, it's me that loves you. Frequently! Messily! Using the word "spill" a lot!

(Micah wakes up again.)

Micah: What's happening, Anita?

Anita: Oh, nothing dear. Just a twig brushing against the window.

Micah: Right-o. (he goes back to sleep)

Richard: Come to me Anita!

Anita: Oh ... not now, Richard. I've got some major ardeur to feed.

Jean-Claude: Anita, ma petit hedgehog! Don't turn me away!

Anita: Oh it cannot be, Jean-Claude.

Jean-Claude: I don't see why not. You're shtupping everybody else who has the right equipment.

(Enter Nathaniel. He wears a leather S&M harness, has freakishly long hair and smells like vanilla. He wears a notice round his neck: 'Will Have Sex for Bondage'.)

Nathaniel: Hands off, you filthy bally vampire! (kneels by the bed)

Anita: Oh Nathaniel!

Nathaniel: Yes. Asher's here as well.

Anita: Asher?

(Into the light comes Asher, with teary eyes. He wears a notice round his neck which reads: "Asher's here as well'.)

Asher: That's right... Anita ... (he chokes back the tears) Oh God, you know we both still bally love you.

Anita (checking the name tags): Oh Nathaniel! Asher. Oh, but how wonderful! Not that I'd expect anything less than total adoration, ya know.

(Micah wakes up again.)

Micah: What's happening, Anita?

Anita: Oh, er, nothing. It's just the toilet filling up.

Micah: Right-o. (he goes to sleep again)

(By this stage all the men have pulled up chairs in a circle around Anita's side of the bed. They are all chatting amongst themselves. Nathaniel is reading "Charlotte's Web." Jean-Claude has produced a bottle of wine, Richard is sulking, and Asher is being all brooding and traumatized with his hair over his face. At this moment four were-rat musicians appear on Micah's side of the bed. The leader of the band nudges Micah awake.)

Rafael: Scuse me, where is Miss Anita Blake please?

Micah: Right and right again.

Rafael: Thanks...

Micah: Right-o.

(He goes back to sleep again. The wererats all troop round the bed and enter the group. Rafael conducts them and they start up a little conga on guitar, trumpet and maracas, then comes to Anita with a naughty little grin.)

Rafael: Oh Anita ... you remember St. Louis in the springtime ...

Anita: Oh. The Wererat Four! Wait a second, this IS St. Louis in the springtime...

Rafael: Well, you don't go anywhere, so I had to improvise.

(Suddenly Micah wakes up.)

Micah: Anita! (all the men go silent) I distinctly heard a Mexican rhythm combo.

Anita: Oh no... it was just the electric blanket switching off.

Micah: Hm. Well I'm going for a tinkle.

(He gets out of bed and walks off.)

Anita: Oh no, you can't do that. Here, we haven't finished the sketch yet!

Nathaniel: Come on, there's only another page.

Richard: I say. There's no one to react to.

Jean-Claude: Don't talk to the camera.

Richard: Oh, sorry.

(Enter a huge werepenguin dressed as an Aztec god. He stretches arms open wide and is about to speak when he is cut short by Anita.)

Anita: Here, it's no good you coming in. He's gone and left the sketch!

Asher: Yes, he went for a tinkle.

(Cut to close-up of Micah and Ronnie snogging in the bathroom. She starts to flush the toilet when he stops her.)

Micah: Sh! I think the ol' ball and chain is beginning to suspect something...

Vampire kisses chapter two

2009-12-12T22:56:22Z

In which Gawthe Sue gets basic architecture wrong, whines a lot, and has a gothic orgasm over the awesomeness of Anne Rice.

The official welcome sign to my town should read, "Welcome to Dullsville—bigger than a
cave, but small enough to feel claustrophobic!"

Then Gawthe Sue should feel right at home there -- it's larger than her brain, and far wider than her mind. Of course, her ego is easily the size of Philly, so I doubt THAT would fit.

A population of 8,000 look-a-likes,

… rather than people who show their awesome individuality by dressing, looking and acting just like her.

a weather forecast that's perfectly miserable all year round—sunny—

Because a gawthe cannot thrive except in the blackest midnight darkness, or a gloomy overcast day at the very LEAST.

fenced in cookie-cutter houses, and sprawling farmland—that's Dullsville.

So basically it's an average little American town… so I can see why Gawthe Sue would hate it, since she fancies herself to be unique and different. Then again, I doubt she'd be satisfied in any actual city on earth, because it would mostly be filled by normal people with JOBS and non-gawthe clothes, rather than a giant spooky castle drenched in eternal night, bats and Hot Topic posters.

I think the town has it backward. How can land that grows corn and wheat be worth less than
land filled with sand traps?

Whoooooaaaaaa… Gawthe Girl is deeeeeeeeeeeep and smaaaaaaaart. She like totally doesn't buy into the crap that the rest of the town does, for she is GOTH and UNIQUE and they're just a bunch of sheep. WORSHIP HER.

The hundred-year-old courthouse sits on the town square. I haven't gotten into enough
trouble to be dragged there—yet.

… because she's a bad iconoclastic break-the-rules type! Of course, this statement sounds much more impressive until you realize that the heroine basically follows all the rules all the time, and just mouths off at people… which means that almost everybody else in the town is better qualified to be a "rule-breaking bad girl" than she is. Including some of the boys.

Seriously, get back to me when she's sniffing cocaine off a bat's wings and dancing naked on the highway.

I wish our house could lie on the railroad tracks, on wheels, and carry us out of town, but
we're on the right side near the country club. Dullsville.

And since her entire personality is defined by trying to be as "different" as possible (and thus being the same as every other teenage "rebel"), she will react like every other teenage rebel and whine about being near "conventional" people… who probably have deliciously scandalous seedy secret lives, unlike her.

The only exciting place is an abandoned mansion an exiled baroness built on top of Benson
Hill, where she died in isolation.

I'm sure this is intended to be super-duper significant, since obviously there wouldn't be an abandoned mansion in the middle of nowhere unless it was intended for vampiric occupation. FORESHADOWING…. dun dun dun! Of course, I don't know why said abandoned mansion hasn't been torn down for something more profitable, since abandoned buildings tend to fall apart in relatively short order.

I have only one friend in Dullsville—a farm girl, Becky Miller, who is more unpopular than
I am.

So in other words, the only way the pathetic sullen loser could get a single friend was by finding someone even more pathetic and loserish than she is, and taking pity on her so she can lord it over someone else. Truly, this is a friendship bards will sing of.

Sitting on the school steps waiting for my mom to pick me up (late as usual) now that she was trying to be a Corporate Cathy,

Obviously her mom should never have gotten a real job -- she should just have stayed home all day, watching old Hammer Horror movies and stuffing herself on Hostess crap. Evidently the implication is that her mom would swoop in right on the dot in a hippie van if she hadn't SNEER SNEER gotten a NORMAL job.

I noticed an impish girl cowering at the bottom of the steps, crying like a baby. She didn't have any friends, since she was shy and lived on the east side of the tracks. She was one of the few farm girls in our school and sat two rows behind me in class.

Apparently Ellen Schneider doesn't know what "impish" means, because it generally means mischievous and devilishly gleeful. You can't really look or act that way while "crying like a baby." And it seems unlikely that there are only a few "farm girls" in the school, if Dullsville is surrounded by farmland -- yo, Schneider, farm kids no longer stay on the farm to do chores for their hayseed parents all day.

"What's wrong?" I asked, feeling sorry for her.
"My mom forgot me!" she hollered, her hands covering her pathetic, wet face.

Evidently she doesn't feel too sorry for her, because talking about her "pathetic wet face" sounds like the sort of thing you reserve for people you're mocking.

Anyway, this dishrag of a character sits there howling about how her mom is never this late and generally acting like an unusually weepy five year old, all so Gawthe Sue can be sensible and reassuring.

No one had ever invited me to their house before. I wasn't shy like Becky but I was just as
unpopular.

Wow, I wonder why. Could it be her scintillating personality? Her intellect? Her kind nonjudgemental nature?

I was always late for school because I overslept, I wore sunglasses in class, and I had
opinions, all atypical in Dullsville.

Overslept and late for school -- most kids do that.
Wore sunglasses in class -- more stupid than edgy, since it would impair your vision.
Had opinions -- I have yet to notice an actual opinion from Gawthe Sue. Whines and complaints don't equal valid opinions that are worth listening to.

Sorry, but none of those are enough to cause even a ripple in an actual rural small town. Having actually lived in a region more homogeneous and remote than the one Schneider describes, I can tell you that there are plenty of people like that and NOBODY GIVES A DAMN. But then, if nobody gave a damn, Gawthe Sue couldn't be edgy and speshul. So I suppose she has to interpret people's dislike of her constant "I'm so gawthe you're all boring stupid intolerant meanies I like vampires hate school I'm edgy super speshul gawthe" whining as being a dislike of her oh-so-opinionated nature.

Becky had a backyard as big as Transylvania

I suspect Schneider doesn't have the faintest idea how big Transylvania is. And Gawthe Sue would be deeply disappointed in Transylvania anyway, since it's a beautiful rustic region with exquisite landscapes, culture, castles, and loads of history… and no, most of it has nothing to do with vampires at ALL. Even the castle Bram Stoker used for Castle Dracula is not at all dark and gloomy -- it's very pretty, as well as being red and white.

eat all the fresh apples a growling third-grade stomach could hold.

I'm shocked she didn't insist that she'd only eat blackberries, since they are the color of death and night and GOTHINESS. Apples are so… red and cheerful! EW!

I was the only kid in our class who didn't beat her up, exclude her, or call her names, and
I even kicked anyone who tried.

Cue transparent attempt to make the self-absorbed, snotty Sue seem like a good person by rescuing a sad-sack character who will then be pathetically grateful to her forevermore. Also called the Anita Blake maneuver.

She was my three-dimensional shadow. I was her best friend and her bodyguard. And still am.

So basically Becky is GawtheSue's subservient little lackey, primarily because she presumably won't question anything GawtheSue says. I'm shocked GawtheSue didn't demand that she wear all-black and feign an interest in the undead… but then again, that would diminish GawtheSue's speshul uniqueness.

When I wasn't playing with Becky, I spent my time applying black lipstick and nail polish,

Yes, obviously this is a worthwhile hobby -- putting on makeup. Man, does it get any more cliche than that?

I knew where I was going: I wanted to visit the house of Anne Rice's birth, the historical homes she had restored, and the mansion she now called home.

At what age does creepy fannishness comes across as stalking? I could understand visiting her mansion (which she no longer lives at, by the way), but to visit every house she ever lived in? CREEEEPYYYYY...

I stood mesmerized outside its iron gate, a Gothic mega-mansion,

Actually, it's a Greek Revival mansion with Italian influences. Nothing could be LESS gothic without having fluffy bunnies on the roof.

I could sense ravens flying overhead, even though there probably weren't any.

…. so our repulsive heroine is now hallucinating. Truly we are supposed to be swooning with her.

Several girls who looked just like me stood across the street, taking pictures. I wanted to rush over and say, "Be my friends. We can tour the cemeteries together!"

And then they'd laugh and tell the delusional little freak to get a life, because actual friendship is based on something other than wearing black nail polish.

It was the first time in my life I felt like I belonged.

… just like every other emo teenager alive when they see somebody waaaaaaayyy cooler than they are.

I was in the city where they stack coffins on top of one another so you can see them,
instead of burying them deep within the earth.

Hate to shatter your illusions, Schneider, but there are many old cities with visible crypts -- Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and so on. I have actually sat on one facing Edgar Allen Poe's grave. Beat that.

There were college guys with two-toned spiky blond hair.

And that is SO rare and SUCH a sign of hipster coolness! NOBODY would ever do that unless they were truly cool! Except, you know half the annoying has-been former teen stars in existence.

Funky people were everywhere, except on Bourbon Street, where the tourists looked
like they'd flown in from Dullsville.

Because of course New Orleans is entirely populated by WEIRD PEOPLE. There aren't any people who have real JOBS or wear NORMAL clothes… no! They all look like Hot Topic shoppers! Sounds like what hell would be like for actual cool people.

And then Anne Rice actually turns up on the spot, causing GawtheSue to have a gothic orgasm on the spot. Apparently she lives under the delusion that Rice is and has always been as much of a pathetic Hot Topic poser as she is, and thus has to constantly reemphasize her Super Vampirey Self at all times.

She glowed like a movie star, a Gothic angel, a heavenly creature. Her long black hair
flowed over her shoulders and glistened; she wore a golden headband, a long, flowing silky skirt,
and a fabulous vampirish, dark cloak.

I can only assume that Ellen Schneider and her Gawthe Sue wept tears of blood and tore apart bats with their plastic vampire teeth upon finding out that Anne Rice has given up writing about vampires for good, and now writes stories about Jesus' childhood. Oh, and she lives in California. I can just imagine Gawthe Sue cutting herself to express the pain of her idol deserting all the poser goths everywhere, and daring to be such a comformist by… doing what she wants regardless of what others think! THE NERVE!

And why is Anne Rice's hair glistening? Is it wet?

So Gawthe Sue's mom tries to get the whole thing over with, so she can whisk her daughter home and make her change her underwear. Anne Rice signs a post-it note, takes a picture with Gawthe Sue, smiles at her, and gets the hell out of there, one presumes.

Why didn't I tell her I loved her books? Why didn't I tell her how much she meant to me?
That I thought she had a handle on things like no one else did?

So she writes about vampires, therefore she has a "handle on things like no one else did?" I like some of Anne Rice's books, dislike some, and consider "Queen of the Damned" to be a horror classic. But I don't think her books are a reflection of How Things Truly Are, or that they reflect a true understanding of the world. Most people don't, if they have the slightest grip on reality.

Gawthe Sue then runs around screaming and forcing her dad and brother to pantomime the entire encounter. She must have a really tolerant family, because neither of them tells her to shut up and quit bugging them.

Who cared about a stupid aquarium, the French Quarter, blues bands, and Mardi Gras beads when I'd just seen a vampire angel?

In other words, Gawthe Sue is a culture-free philistine who doesn't give a damn if the rest of her family wants to see stuff. The trip is all about HER and her mission to stalk Anne Rice! Everybody else, the rich culture of New Orleans and everything non-gothy can just go to hell.

And then OH HORRORZ her photo of herself and Anne Rice doesn't come out! Time for us to lie around moaning in emo woe.

could it be possible that the combination of the two vampire-lovers couldn't be captured on film?

More likely that Gawthe Sue's astronomical ego blocked the camera lens.

Or rather it was just a reminder that she was a brilliant bestselling writer, and I was a screamy, dreamy child going through a dark phase.

That is probably the first accurate statement that Schneider/GawtheSue has made in the entire novel thus far. It'll probably be the last, too.

Or maybe it was that my mom was a lousy photographer.

Maybe mommy didn't want to reward such a bratty kid who ruined the vacation for the rest of them.

Skin Trade Chapter 6

2009-12-12T22:45:09Z

Aaaaaaand we're back to talking. A lot. Seemingly forever and ever.

ROCCO AND I slipped our shields back up the way others would have shrugged their jackets on. We were both professionals; nice.

Somehow I don't remember all these references to "shields" in books past, and the necessity of SuperspeshulSue having them. Hmm, can being "queen of the psychics" be far behind?
So they go tooling into a "really big" garage filled with superawesome trucks, and Anita practically wets herself because of all the MANLY MACHO toys lying around.

I would say the garage was full of trucks, but the word didn’t do them justice.

… so, what are they then?

I’d seen the equipment that St. Louis SWAT had, and I was suddenly filled with serious equipment envy.

First of all, trucks aren't really called "equipment," at least as far as I know. Secondly, the actual stuff referred to as "equipment" presumably wouldn't be lying out in a GARAGE so Anita could gawp at it. Third, she's not a part of the St. Louis SWAT -- she just buys lots of guns. So why would she be acting as if she's one of them and is jealous of another SWAT'S awesome toys.

And yes Anita, we've figured out that you have "equipment envy." It's blatantly obvious.

I recognized the Lenco B.E.A.R., because St. Louis had one, but the rest were new to me.

I can only assume that Hamilton horned in on the SWAT team and gathered as many buzzwords to utter as possible. She won't talk about what they actually are, just tosses off the terms like an expert.

I mean, I could guess what they did, but I didn’t know the names.

Which is of course deeply important. How can you feign expertise without knowing the names?

The vehicles alone were intimidating and strangely masculine.

Followed by a sex scene involving a stick shift.

but there was nothing feminine about anything sitting in that garage.

Translation: They're utterly and completely girly in every way, short of having pink glitter on the windshields. Whenever she says something is masculine, it means that they're basically girls with penises.

Anyway Anita is busy drooling on all the macho-man vehicles, and finally Grimes tries to get her to snap out of it. He's being pretty nice, but the fact that he's a human cop means he's inevitably gonna be crapped on. And while they drag her off to the conference area, Anita stops to gawp at the big beige lockers with locks. She starts thinking about how they'll cram her thousands of phallic weapons in there, and how Sonny's gun safe is "dandy." Yes, she actually used the word "dandy," by Jupiter!

The briefing room was a largish room with long tables and chairs in rows. There was a whiteboard at the front of the room. It was all very classroom.

Frankly, this isn't exactly screaming, "I'm a super professional who knows it all!" It sounds like this is the first time Anita's ever seen a conference room… and yes, they often have whiteboards. Sometimes they're removable, but they are usually there.

I couldn’t decide if I felt ambushed or would have done the same thing in their place. Would I have trusted me?

Of course she wouldn't have trusted her, and of course she would have done the same thing in their place. Anyone more powerful than Anita is obviously evil, and she will immediately level up in time to obliterate them.

And since she's utterly obsessed with hair, Anita starts prattling about their haircuts.

They all had the same short haircuts as the rest, as if they went to the same barber, but I had Shaw’s high and tight to compare them to, which meant they all had plenty of hair, it was just short.

So the men don't have flowing waist-length hair. Most people who work in dangerous action-packed professions keep their hair short, and most normal people don't sit there analyzing the follicles of said people.

Since obviously Anita has never seen a military/cop/SWAT guy before, she sits there contemplatin that the SWAT guys are all tall and muscular and physically fit (unlike the short flabby doesn't-exercise-because-she's-too-busy-screwing Anita).

The main difference between them all was the color of hair, eyes, and skin tone.

So what, nobody has a big nose or a cleft chin or a birthmark? Nobody has any scars? Nobody has lean muscle rather than bulky? Naaaahhh, they're all just there to have pissing contests with Anita, so they don't need characteristics.

Even just standing there, doing nothing, they were very much together, a unit, a team. Did I feel left out? Naw.

And if she did feel left out… who cares? They ARE a team and a unit, who have to work together or run the ultimate risk. She's not part of the team and she wouldn't work with anyone else as equals anyway… so why would she feel "included" with the traditional band o' brothers?

Did I feel like I was the exhibit for show-and-tell day? A little.

Imagine! Actually asking her questions! The NERVE! Don't they know they should be peeling her grapes and fanning her?

So somebody (she doesn't make it clear who) starts introducing the guys, half of whom have silly nicknames for no discernible reason. I suspect somebody on a real-life SWAT team was having fun with LKH -- "Yes, this is Bilbo, and this is Tigerpaw, and this is Madonna...."

Davey was yellow-blond, with clear blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that helped frame a nice mouth. Should I have not noticed Davey’s mouth? Probably.

Nah, she'll never boink him unless he becomes a vampire or weresomething. And seriously, she's there to deal with an evil serial-killing vampire. So what does she do? Ogles the pretty blond mens in the SWAT team.

I offered my hand; he took it and shook it nice and solid. Since his hand was at least twice the size of mine, it was nice that he didn’t hesitate on the shake. Some big men have trouble with my small hands, as if they’re afraid to break me.

…. as a woman with quite small hands, I can honestly say that no man has ever done that to me, because nobody shakes hands with intent to crush. What does she think he is, the Hulk?

Mercy had medium-brown hair and large, pale eyes that couldn’t decide if they were blue or gray. Looking right at me as he shook my hand, they were blue, but it was an uncertain color, as if the light would change it. He had a good handshake, too. Maybe they all practiced.

Yes, I'm sure they regularly practice squeezing water balloons, lest a teeny tiny hobbity woman with little breakable doll extremities should want to shake hands with them. It's totally worth wasting time on that!

Anyway there's some dude with curly brown hair and brown eyes, whose nickname is "Spider." It probably isn't important, which is of course why Anita makes a point of noting it as if it is.

Next up was Sanchez, who matched the name, but still managed to look so much like all the other men that it was like looking at Army Man, now in new Hispanic.

If you weren't offended by the sexism, please be offended by the racism. Lest you notice, Hispanic people all look alike.

It wasn’t just that they were all tall and athletic, but there was a sameness to them, as if whoever hired for the unit had a type he liked and stuck to it.

Funny, that's what I have to say about the type of men LKH likes -- they're all basically short delicately-pretty girly-men with flowing locks and anime-colored eyes and hair.

Sanchez’s name was Arrio, and I wasn’t sure if it was his real first name or another nickname. I didn’t ask because, frankly, it didn’t matter.

If it didn't matter, why does she bother to reflect that she doesn't know if it's his real name or a nickname? Why not just give the guy a damn name and leave it at that.

Sanchez’s hand in mine gave a little spark, like a small jolt of electricity as we touched.

Most people wouldn't make a fuss about a bit of static, but this is Anita. So of course the smallest thing must be fussed over. And generally sparks on people's hands ARE a small jolt of electricity, because FIRE sparks are harder to generate.

“You spiked her, Arrio; bad practitioner, no cookie,” Spider said.

It's hard to see why anyone would be so worked up by this, or even if it was intentional. And "Bad practitioner, no cookie" is the sort of awkward stilted line that LKH clearly thinks is spare and grittily realistic.

The other men gave that masculine chuckle that women, even butch women, can never quite imitate.

And I'm sure Anita would know, since she probably spends hours trying to imitate said masculine chuckle.

He smiled and nodded, but he was embarrassed. I realized that the handshake had been a test not just for me but for all of us. Just as the men would test their bodies in weight training, the gun range, drills, this was a test, too.

… okay, I might be able to understand why they might want to test Anita. But pray, why are they trying to test themselves and each other? Is it that Anita is sooooooooo awesome that if the Awesome Executioner of Sex And Darkity-Darkness can't tell what they are, nobody can?

And for that matter, apparently this entire team is made up of psychics. Why do they have a SWAT TEAM full of psychics? Why not have a regular SWAT team, and the psychic practitioners in another team? It's like taking highly skilled artists and using their talents by having them join the Marines!

He was Theodoros, very Greek sounding and looking, but he was Santa,

Well, here's a weird idea: "Santa" can mean "saint." But then, Anita apparently takes pride in ignoring her Mexican heritage, so I can see why that wouldn't occur to her first off the bat.

though Santa never looked like that when I was a little girl.

Yeah, that Santa is old and ugly and red-faced and fat. She'd never screw someone who looked like that.

His hair was straight and as black as Sanchez’s and my own. He was the proverbial tall, dark, and handsome, if you were into jocks.

Unless you're like Anita. She's a GAWTHE and only likes unathletic prettyboys.

I wondered how in hell he’d earned the nickname “Santa.” It was Spanish forsaint , but somehow I didn’t think that’s what they were going for.

I'm amazed that she actually knows that basic linguistic fact. Of course, apparently she also doesn't know that "Santa" in Spanish refers to a FEMALE saint. "Santo" would be the male equivalent, unless I'm mistaken. "Santa Claus" actually derives from "Sinterklaas."

And of course Anita doesn't think that he could possibly be a "saint" type. He's attractive, and everybody knows that attractive people must be sluts.

Santa didn’t have any trouble shaking my hand and not letting me feel anything but a firm handshake.

Again, what world does LKH live in that she thinks that women with small hands can have your average strong guy crush them without meaning to? Maybe she assumes that a big guy automatically wouldn't be able to control his giant pulsating muscles, and they would leap out to hurt people at random.

It would be a point of pride for him and the last man. Sanchez had blown it; they’d work harder because of it.

Because of course etiquette dictates that if you accidentally zap someone when shaking hands, everyone in your team must commit seppuku.

The last man was also ethnic, but I wasn’t entirely sure what flavor.

… that is my cue to have my brain explode from the casual racism.

1. Ethnic? I find it hard to believe that Hamilton belongs to the same general age group as my mother, because she's casually tossing around dated racist terms that divide the entire world into "white" and "ethnic"… she can't just say that he isn't Caucasian, she has to lump him in with members of every non-lily-white ethnicity in the world.

But what am I saying? This woman wrote her Sue as calling someone a "dago" earlier in the series. I'm shocked she didn't lose her readership then and there.

2. What "flavor"? This is apparently Hamilton's new favorite word, but in this context it just makes the whole sentence even more offensive.

His short hair was curly enough to be African American, but the skin tone and facial features were not quite that. He, too, was tall, dark, and handsome, but in a different way. His eyes couldn’t decide if they were dark brown or black. They were somewhere in between my dark brown and Rocco’s almost black. But either color, they were framed by strangely short but very, very thick lashes, so that his eyes looked bigger and more delicate than they were, like something edged in black lace.

Well, here's a shocking idea, LKH -- sometimes black people and white people get married, they have kids, and those kids end up having characteristics and features that are in-between those of their parents. They're called "biracial." Ever heard of them?

Rocco motioned me to follow him to the front of the room. We stood in front of the whiteboard. “I’m Cannibal.” Like Spider, Cannibal made me wonder why that name.

Hopefully it involves running Anita through a meat grinder, but I'm not holding my breath.

“The Executioner.”
I nodded. “The vampires call me that, yeah.”

And when people refuse to acknowledge her awesomeness, she has no problem waving around her gun and using it herself. Anyway, there is yet another mention that Anita is SUPER-SHORT SHORTY SHORTSTUFF LIKE A HOBBIT. She also doesn't want to be called that because it's such an unhappy name.

“Are you embarrassed by the name?” he asked.
“No, but it’s like Ivan the Terrible. I doubt seriously that anyone ever called him that to his face.”

Yeah, but in Anita's case, calling her the "Executioner" is treated as a badge of prestige -- oooooo, she's SOOOOOOOO smart and soooooooooo cool and deadlier than anybody cuz she's sooooo ruthless. If she were referred to as "Anita the Terrible," she'd just pitch a bitchfit.

I sighed. “I’d rather you didn’t, Sergeant. I’ve had too many bad guys call me that while they tried to kill me. They look at the package and call me Executioner to make fun of me. How small, how delicate, how not deadly looking.”

Marvel at how scary and amazing and TUFF she is! She looks like a wittle tiny china doll, but she can KILL you! And by "kill," I mean she'll flop on her back and kill you with the power of sex/lurve/kisses and whatever power she's pulled out of her butt.

And lest anyone forget, she's tiny and not scary looking. And she can go for book after book without legally slaying a single vampire. And if you've read the comics, you'll notice that she keeps having to be rescued by big strapping men. And she falls down and faints a lot. But she's tuffer than anyone else! WOOOOOOO, be afraid!

“And after they make fun of you?” he asked, voice serious, eyes studying my face.
I met his gaze. “Then they die, Sergeant, or I wouldn’t be here.”

Last time a villain made fun of her, Anita got gutted while somebody else killed the bad guy. I guess she can't say that, or her whole attitude of "I is tuff and killz baddies!" would shatter like her wafer-thin "morals." This is especially funny since the same thing happens later in this book -- somebody mocks Anita, so she sexes him with the ardeur and then sits there while somebody else kills him.

“I promise never to call you short again,” Davey said.

Ooooo, please don't hurt me, Hobbity Queen of Darkness!

“Anita, then, if you go out with us.”
“Whether you let me go with your team depends on how this little test goes, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”

Maybe it's to make sure that when a bad guy comes charging in, Anita won't instinctively react by falling to the ground and spreading her legs.

So anyway, Grimes starts infodumping about how there are lots of psychics and they need to check out her abilities and make sure they don't "clash" with the guys on the team. Anita, of course, can't let anyone else take the spotlight, so she starts rambling on about how Cannibal is also testing the men at the same time. I'm not sure why she's saying this, because it doesn't actually mean anything and it doesn't tell Grimes anything new.

“You hunted this vampire before, and we need to know what you know.”
“It’s in the reports,” I said.

Including the parts where she let the guy escape because she was too busy "rainmaking" on her office carpet, grinding on the clones of Legolas and Aragorn, and boinking a fifteen-year-old gay vampire stripper while an emo poet-goth got off on the ardeur? I'm sure she mentioned THAT.

He shook his head. “Cannibal’s abilities will tell us whether your reports were accurate.”
“You mean, if I lied.”

I'd be worried about that. Anita's already demonstrated that she'll lie, murder and evade whatever laws she wants to if it means she can continue being the vampiric mob boss of St. Louis.

He smiled and shook his head. “Left out things, not lied. You’re dating the master of your city, Marshal, living with him; we need to know if that has compromised your loyalties.”

Which is exactly the sort of attitude you'd expect. She's a Federal Marshal who is literally and figuratively in bed with all sorts of extralegal organizations who employ rape, murder, torture and coercion on anyone they have a problem with, and who are massive potential threats to local and national security (except that they're all too busy thinking about Anita to mind-control the president or whatever). What's more, their ultimate loyalty is to a power pyramid without ethics or structure except "might makes right" -- and Anita is the Mostest Powerfullest of them all, even sentencing a man to death for daring to stay faithful to his wife.

Damn right they should be concerned about her loyalties.

Amazingly, Anita doesn't fly into a harpylike rage at having her loyalties justifiably questioned, and just sneers:

“Thanks for the politeness, Lieutenant; the last Vegas cop who asked me accused me of fucking everything that moved.”

How dare he! Doesn't he know that she only fucks everything that moves if it has seven feet of rainbow hair, garnet-colored eyes, lily-white skin and has supernatural powers?

“Wizard was Cannibal’s second-in-command for this squad.”
“Wizard was the man you lost,” I said.

She's like Sherlock Holmes with boobs. The deductions simply astound me. No wonder the Anita Blake books are considered the epitome of twisty-turny whodunnits.

“If I don’t pass your test, what then?”
“I won’t endanger my men,” Grimes said, “if you are the danger, Marshal Blake.”

Well, the biggest risk is of being dragged into her Ma Petite Fissure De Ruine, which resembles that giant kraken beast at the end of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2." Fortunately these guys aren't pretty, feminine or easily enslaved, so they're safe.

And Anita starts getting pissy when they basically say that if she doesn't pass, they'll get a vampire hunter who doesn't screw them up psychically, which is a perfectly reasonable decision. How dare they not consider her to be essential! She insists that the other ones won't be psychic enough to be any help, despite the fact that she hasn't legally killed a vampire in eons, and she let this one prance right out of town while she was perfecting her orgasmic shrieks.

“Can any of you sense the living dead?” I asked.
“None of us has a talent with vampires in particular, no.”
I stared into Cannibal’s dark eyes as I said, “The dead come in lots of flavors, not just vampires, Cannibal.”

… but they're not up against other types of undead. Just the vampire and his minions. I suppose this is Anita's transparent attempt to seem super-important and vital to the mission, but honestly… they don't need her superspeshul psychic powers to hunt a vampire, and her physical contribution is nil. So…. they really just need her legal presence.

“Just as vampires come in different flavors, too.”

I'm sure she's intending to point out that HE'S a psychic vampire… but that would be a lot more striking if it weren't coming from somebody who feeds off sex/anger, and has every vampire power…. and then some.

So she and Cannibal start trading witless repartee, and it's established that people who mentally fight him might end up being hospitalized. Anita tries to one-up him by announcing that without her shields she'll be like a giant Statue of Liberty that alerts all the undead in the area that a tiny, shrewish klutz with penis envy is in Las Vegas.

“Okay, how do we do this?”
“Sitting down,” he said.
“In case one of us falls down,” I said.
“Something like that.”

This is sounding more and more like one of her overnegotiated, talk-filled sex scenes. Except this time it's all psychic stuff, which actually makes it even more boring.

“You really do believe you’re the strongest psychic in this room, don’t you?” I asked.

Haha! It is to laugh! Doesn't he know that Anita is the best at everything -- and that if she isn't yet, she will magically level up in this story?

So they sit down opposite each other, and Anita demands that he fuck her while she's tight. Wait, no, that's one of those awful sex scenes. Instead she starts feeling Cannibal's energy, which (of course) goes over her skin like every other supernatural thing in this series. Just once, I'd like someone to feel magical power in their coccyx.

“It works better if I can touch you,” he said.
I gave him a look.
He smiled. “So young to be so cynical.”

Well, in Anita's world "touch" means a prelude to nude cuddling and supernatural orgies, so of course she's gonna be suspicious that an EWWWWWWWW human wants to touch her.

Only then did I realize that touch makes all vampire powers worse, more, even if the vampire in question wears a uniform and has a heartbeat.

I suppose we're supposed to boo and see Cannibal as being oh so sinister and mean because EEEEEEEK he's a living vampire. Oh wait, that's also what Anita is… except apparently we're supposed to temporarily forget that. FAIL.

UP NEXT: Anita's more powerful than YOOOOOOUUUUUU... again.

This is....

2009-12-12T22:29:16Z

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