Fabian’s keeping court with his minions (his word) by letting them drink from some woman. I don’t think it’s the same one from chapter 3 because he specifically notes this woman is attractive, while the other just got the label of plump, which is a mortal sin around Sunnydale. He muses on what he knows about people, which includes the connection between sex and cannibalism, beauty standards and youth worship that make some victims more desirable than others (he’s thinking only in the context of women here), that drinking from a relative is equivalent to incest, and he doesn’t share Azrael’s sentimental attitudes toward children, who he finds “tantalizing” as donors. But his biggest thrill is forcing his followers to obey, just like Wesley thrills at forcing his will on Azrael and Azrael thrills at asserting her dominance through violence.
He calls the attractive woman a whore, which is the favorite term of abuse for women in this series. We don’t know if she’s an actual sex worker or if it’s just more of the misogyny that permeates the narrative. I wish I had a dollar for every time the word was used in this series, and two for every time Azrael uses it.
Anyway, Fabian clues in his followers about the need for a new hideout, since Azrael led the police to the last one, and wants to make the house they’re in now the new permanent base. I guess he must have some of Azrael’s asspull powers to find a convenient house in a nonspecific manner this quickly. And one that suits all his needs, too, since the property was abandoned but he knows its provenance and the previous owner didn’t have family. The utilities are on and there’s a solid basement that will do for a dungeon in a pinch, and it’s in an isolated location. It couldn’t have been better suited to him if he were a character in a novel and the writer created the place just for his purposes.
If Foster were a better writer, I’d assume the elderly woman who owned this house was Dry Cleaner Dead Woman, and this would be how Wesley would track him down, but we can dismiss that out of hand right now. That would involve Wesley working and unimportant characters proving themselves important, not just fodder for the Memory Hole.
Nobody argues, and he compares them to a dog pack in his mind. It’s observed that he finds followers among “the mentally challenged and the psychotically cruel.” Among many other things, I’m sick to death about the prejudiced attitudes toward neurodivergent people, but me being sick of it won’t change a single letter on the page, so moving on.
He then gives orders about cleaning the place up and dismembering Georgie’s body—wait a minute, are we still in that scene? This completely screws up the timeline with the previous chapter, when Azrael was attracted to the tattoo shop because of the presence of a “crazed sociopath.” This implies that Fabian was at work or at least inside that building, but if we’re still in the same scene with Fabian and Georgie’s corpse is still there, that indicates that no time has elapsed since the end of chapter 3 and the start of chapter 5. I flipped ahead to the next section, which is in Azrael’s POV, and she’s at Morty’s comic book store. At the end of chapter 4, she told us that it would take an hour for her to get there. This could be Quentin Tarantino-esque nonlinear storytelling, or it could just be sloppiness. I’ll let you decide which explanation I believe.
So this proves the “attractive” woman being fed on and set up for future torture by Fabian and his droogies is the “plump” woman from the previous chapter who was slut-shamed by the narrative. That proves sloppiness—there’s no way the fatphobia of this series would allow a plump woman to be attractive.
Foster plugs a plot hole about how Fabian gets hold of anticoagulants and drugs by having one of his droogies be a nurse’s aide. Did the writer know you can buy anticoagulants online? As for the narcotics, hospitals control drugs hardcore and you can’t just be walking off with them without a thorough lockdown and investigation.
Then he alludes to a “special treat” but doesn’t tell them what it is because he wants to corrupt whatever morals he thinks they may have left, so he’s going to bring a child back to the lair. This isn’t stated but is pretty obvious. It will probably be Surrogate Daughter or a friend of hers because the universe revolves around Azrael.
He cleans up and intends to go to work—this still doesn’t help the timeline—and we get some exposition about how he’s handsome, with a good body, and looks like a respectable businessman that does nothing to hook people in for his next appearance. Ending on the “special treat” business would have done more in that respect.
This section needs to be at the end of chapter 3 or the beginning of chapter 4 to keep the reader from becoming confused about where they are in the timeline of the story.
Like I said, we’re in Azrael’s POV after the section break and she’s looking through the “pristine” front window of Morty’s comic book store. Here’s how Wesley described it in Awakening.
Enough filth marred the windows to impede a view beyond the bent, stained, and faded signs crookedly hung.
Wesley also calls it “ramshackle.” Back then the writer couldn’t shit on Morty often enough because he wasn’t an alpha male, but since he killed Dr. Chiles and started fucking Ann Kennedy, which proves he’s a man, he’s now worthy of simple human respect. It’s also a good illustration of the filth phobia that was on display throughout the series.
Anyway, Morty’s waiting on customers and Azrael decides to let herself into the house (the apartment building has phase-shifted once more) through the door between it and the comic book store. You know, the door she doesn’t have a key to. In the first book, she had a key to the outside front door, which wasn’t locked for half the book, and a key to her own apartment door. This door between Morty’s building and the comic book store didn’t exist until almost the end of the second book and since she didn’t live there anymore she didn’t need a key. Besides, since this door is also inside Morty’s apartment, she would have needed a key to his place as well to access it, which we saw in the second book she doesn’t have either, since she got pissed off his door wasn’t open before Ann answered it.
It’s these small things—the writer not being able to decide if Morty’s home is an apartment building or a two-family residence, and the key(s) that we’ve never been told she has, among other small details—that really demonstrate the writer’s contempt for anyone who reads this series. I definitely get Amberlynn Reid “my fans are fucking idiots” vibes from her writing here. An editor could have tightened up her writing, fixed the numerous problems I’ve listed in these posts, and probably helped her expand her fanbase to a new genre, if she’d been willing to listen to critique. Apparently she wasn’t. It’s just sad.
So Azrael wants to see Bliss again, and here we get to see her after she’s given up her prostitution job and is earning a living…we don’t know how, but Azrael’s very satisfied with forcing Bliss off the street because she’s wearing decent, modest clothing (specifically noted as looking like Martha Stewart), has stopped dyeing her hair (what color is it naturally? In the second book it was brown. Did the writer forget Bliss wasn’t a stereotyped hooker bleach blonde?), and isn’t wearing makeup. Not at all the Slutty McSlutterson Azrael considered her to be before she took charge of the younger girl’s life. Wow, she almost looks like a pure untouched flower of a girl who has never been kissed on the cheek or even touched by a man! Better keep Wesley away.
None of the sex workers in this series are fully fleshed-out human beings, including Bliss, but then again there isn’t a single character here who’s anything but cardboard. Despite the Azrael/Wesley sex scenes, this is a very sex-negative series which could never have a character like Elaine Mardell from Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series, introduced in Eight Million Ways to Die and later becoming Scudder’s lover and wife. This is a woman who became strong as a high-end call girl, worked as long as she wanted and quit when she wanted. Every sex worker in Eight Million Ways to Die is a rounded character, a believable human being, and that’s something that isn’t presented as possible in this series.
Anyway, Azrael sees from Bliss’s aura that something’s wrong, but Bliss is nervous and won’t admit anything. Then she gives Azrael stew and they sit down to eat. Bliss also figures out something’s up with Azrael, who then unwraps her bullet graze.
Bliss, who is presented with a consistent unworldliness that doesn’t jibe with her status as a street sex worker, is horrified and goes to get a first-aid kit that Morty has. Azrael starts eating the stew (her first meal of the book and the only one she’s ever received from a woman) and does a little musing about her personal life and, as far as I can tell, having sex and friends is enough to cure her anorexia. That is stupid beyond belief, so moving on.
After Bliss fetches bandages, Azrael waves off her offer to help, telling her to make coffee instead, and dresses the wound herself. We then find out that Ann’s teaching Bliss to cook. I guess Bliss thinks that’s better than getting an actual paid job, but whatever. That’s the opening for Azrael to say, “She’s a fucking saint, isn’t she?”
That doesn’t sound like you believe it. It didn’t sound like you believed it when she broke up your sexytimes with Wesley either. Part of the musing she did in the above paragraph was pointing out how odd it was that Ann was her friend. I agree, but for different reasons.
Foster seems to be setting Ann up as a villain here. It makes sense since she’s the only cop in Sunnydale who’s smart enough to figure out that Azrael’s a murderer, so she’s got to die. She’s also better-looking than Azrael and “hugged up to” and “cuddled up to” Wesley at the end of the first book, so she must have designs on him. Her fate is sealed.
So Bliss is shocked for a second time at seeing the bullet graze, and an editor would have cut that because it isn’t needed as she was already shocked about two minutes ago. She wants to know what happened and Azrael tries to claim accident but Bliss breaks her down by continuing to question her. I can see why Wesley doesn’t want her anywhere near other cops. She’d confess to murder if someone asked her if she wanted a Coca-Cola.
When Bliss asks if she killed the person who shot her, Azrael denies it. All three of those guys are as dead as Ghostface Killer in the second book. She never called for medical assistance and took off as soon as she heard a siren. Middle-class people might assume, if they’re doing something illegal, a siren would be for them, but those are pretty common occurrences in the slums, where Azrael has lived for years. She wouldn’t assume this was for her any more than Morty would have assumed the siren when she killed KY Lady and the child abuse victim was for her. But we aren’t going to be told they’re dead because they aren’t God-approved kills and kind of undercut her whole divine mandate without her suffering any consequences. Dog-killing bitch–I hate you.
Anyway, Bliss is all nervous because she’s had another convenient premonition. After some pulling of teeth wherein Bliss seems to have all the maturity of a six-year-old, she finally tells Azrael that she’s had a vision of her with a little girl and a man who “wants to consume her.”
Azrael instantly goes incandescent with rage and Bliss elaborates that “someone” (although she said “he” just before) wants to drain her blood and then eat her flesh” and is a cannibal. Then Azrael throws up after she’s described as “a powerful paladin, a mortal with untold powers and astonishing abilities.”
(Future Me: I missed this on the first read because the chapter was just such a dull slog I was committed to powering through, but the above does touch on the themes of Azrael’s unacknowledged anorexia and the daddy-daughter relationship with Wesley.
Up to this point in the series, she’s had five meals that we’ve seen. Morty cooked breakfast for her once, Azrael bought food from a restaurant once, Wesley bought her a meal at the dine-in revival theater, Wesley bought her another meal at the casual restaurant with linen tablecloths, and Bliss just cooked stew for her. Azrael couldn’t eat the meal she bought for herself because Wesley prevented it by harassing her. She threw up the meal Morty cooked after butchering Murdered Mutilated Grandpa and she’s now thrown up the food Bliss made. The only meals she’s been allowed to consume fully and keep down are the ones that Wesley’s bought for her. Not only can she only get nutrition through a man, it has to be Wesley specifically in his role of daddy who is the only source of nourishment for her. Because Daddy’s gotten her food, it’s okay for her not to have anorexia anymore. QED. )
Number one, the writer told us God won’t let her die, which means she’s effectively immortal. Number two, the only reason her powers are untold is because the writer won’t tell us about them. Number three, I can’t argue with, as it is astonishing when someone can pull powers out of their own ass as needed.
Then we get a section break that puts us into Wesley’s POV. Ann’s driving and harshing his buzz with her rational assessment that Azrael’s involved in the Chained-Up Guy and Dry Cleaner Dead Woman business, because how the hell else would she be able to find them. Wesley’s defending her and makes a statement that should trouble Ann greatly.
“She crosses the line—”
“Our line, not hers.”
Right about now Ann should be thinking that maybe Wesley’s an accomplice, based on this allusion to the rules not applying to Azrael. She asks him for the truth, trying to draw him out. He tells her that Azrael is “otherworldly” and knows things and he trusts her and she senses things and it’s a hot mess of incoherence that Ann doesn’t like. Since he isn’t even thinking about her being God’s paladin in his own mind, I have to believe he hasn’t been told this yet, which doesn’t match what we got from his thoughts in the first chapter.
Wesley makes a desperate attempt to jerk us off about Azrael being all that is good and attributes the changes in Morty and Bliss to Azrael’s influence. Whatever gets you through the night, I guess. Ann isn’t buying it, even though she previously said she doesn’t believe Azrael would kill “innocent people,” and he picks up on it.
When she asks how Azrael met Bliss, he tells her that Rapist Guy was “abusing” Bliss (interesting word choice, Wesley) and “sank her knife into his shoulder and threatened to castrate him if he ever again hurt a woman.”
Okay, Wesley, so you just told your partner that your girlfriend committed assault with a deadly weapon at the least and murder at the worst (we don’t know whether Rapist Guy died). I think the author has Azrael throw knives into people’s shoulders because she thinks that’s a harmless place to get hit. She’s not alone in that, because that’s Hollywood’s favorite target for an unimportant wound to an action star so they can seem human. Hey, you know what you can find in the shoulder? The brachial artery and vein! If that’s cut, you can bleed to death in less than a minute.
Ann considers that Wesley knows this information and hasn’t breathed a word about it or taken any legal action and says, “Wow.” I agree with you. Your partner’s corrupt as shit. Then she says, “Effective,” so he’ll keep talking. She’s a much better interrogator than he is. They key to keeping someone talking so they incriminate themselves is to make them think you sympathize with them and just want to help.
It seems to work, as Wesley then tells her, “Gaby does what we’d like to do.” So, a fan of the Judge Dredd school of law enforcement. It also echoes the Death Wish worldview about the law being impotent and vigilante justice being a positive thing. And the writer calls him “a man of the law.”
He also lets it slip that Morty was with Azrael when this happened and tells Ann that Morty will always cover for Azrael, with the implication that Ann will always take second place. She wants to know how he’s going to be a cop when he’s with a criminal and he doesn’t know but tells her he has some plans that he won’t tell her about because she’s a dangerous vagina-haver. He says she won’t get “caught in the backlash,” which he doesn’t have the power to promise.
If these were real people, Ann would be taking her suspicions about Azrael and Wesley up the chain of command to their superior officer. Since Wesley is an alpha male, though, there can be no male in a position of authority over him, and thus no superior officer and no opportunity to get a morally compromised officer off the street.
So Ann has driven him home and Azrael isn’t there for the cunnilingus, which makes Wesley feel sad. Because he called his house a dozen times after he left and no one picked up and she doesn’t have a cell phone, he bought one for her, along with some movies on video. This is a sensible purchase that she should have thought of herself in the first book. And then he completely ruins what could have been a nice, genuinely thoughtful gesture.
…but for him, it was like a leash, a way to stay in touch with her for his own peace of mind.
See? See? First the dog collar, now a leash. She is a pet! She is his bitch! If the writer had cared about making this seem born out of genuine concern, she would have used the word “lifeline.” But he only wants to control, so leash it is.
And we find out he’s brought home a couple of horror movies. Too on-the-nose? I would think so, but the writer didn’t. And she took pains to note that these are “popular” horror movies. No Tombs of the Blind Dead or Martyrs or Hostel or What Have You Done to Solange? for Pastor Wesley. Maybe he got The Exorcist in hopes the dirty talk would get her horned up.
Wesley’s now mad she isn’t home when he told her to be and goes upstairs to take a shower in hopes of calming down. The “vampires” intrude on his thoughts—don’t know why, as he hasn’t given them a thought in hours because it’s not like they’re dangerous or anything–and that takes him onto one track of his two-track mind: protecting Azrael.
The section break takes us into Azrael’s POV, since we only have three choices for POV and Fabian doesn’t show up again in this chapter. Uncharacteristically, we’re given enough information to know how much time has elapsed, as Wesley got home after eight o’clock and in Azrael’s section it’s after nine. And here the writer takes pains to tell us it was cold enough for goosebumps if you’re normal, but the cold doesn’t bother Azrael. Yeah, I guess she forgot about the first sex scene in this book, when Wesley was so very very worried about Azrael getting hypothermia that he had to sex her up.
There’s a badly overwritten melodramatic monologue about how this place is such as important clue, based on nothing but the bad vibes she got from outside. Since it’s been a while since we got any of Azrael’s usual internalized misogyny,
In a small, secret, pathetically wimpy and female part of her, she wished she had Luther with her.
Becoming a proper demure female seems to involve becoming less effective at your job, as witness the diminution of Ann Kennedy from the first book. Notice wimpy and female go together in Azrael’s mind and wimpy is pathetic, so pathetic and female also go together.
There’s some uninteresting detailing of her thoughts before one of the tattoo artists comes out, and she’s surprised he has a shaved head and “tattoos everywhere.” I don’t know why—if you ever watched Inked, you know tattoo artists tend to have lots of tattoos. And he leaves on a motorcycle because of course he does, as tattoos and motorcycles go together like a peanut butter and jelly cliche sandwich.
A tattooed “girl” comes out and is scared when Azrael pops out of the shadows and wants to know if anybody’s still in the shop, which is weird because nine o’clock seems a little early for the place to be closing. I’d be scared too, because my first thought would be that she’s going to rob the place. Tattooed Girl’s got dark eyes too and supplies the information that Fabian owns this shop. And now we get Azrael asspull superpower number—eighteen? Nineteen? I think we’re still under twenty, even though in the first book she said she didn’t have any powers other than knowing the intentions of mentally ill people, evil people, and demons.
Her new superpower is the ability to taste a name and determine if its owner is evil. I don’t care if the writer meant that metaphorically; I’m way past the point of giving the benefit of the doubt. The text says she tasted the name, it produced a vision, and she knew he was the villain. So much easier than having actual evidence, amirite?
Anyway, Azrael asks Tattooed Girl when Fabian’s working and she says afternoon the next day. I thought he was there earlier today because Azrael’s GPS triggered on the bus since “a crazed sociopath” was inside the shop. In terms of the timeline, does this mean everything with Fabian was yesterday? Or it is tomorrow? My brain hurts.
The next line indicated that Tattooed Girl thought Azrael was going to kill her but is reassured by the other woman’s question about getting a tattoo over her fresh bullet graze, which no tattoo artist would do as it could cause an infection and make it scar.
And—chapter! This chapter was complete and total filler, a whole bunch of nothing. When I got to this point, I actually had to go back and read the start of this post because I couldn’t remember what happened in the first part of the chapter. The Fabian stuff should have been in another chapter, the Azrael-Bliss stuff should have been cut completely, and the Wesley-Ann interaction could have been in the previous chapter. This was just exceptionally boring, but at least Azrael didn’t murder any more dogs.
Next time, chapter 6, in which the pure untouched flower of a girl that is Azrael loses her flower. And nothing else. Not one plot-related thing. You’re welcome.
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