Erika vs Burnt offerings, chapters 7 to 11

We last left Anita training some puppies to play fetch, after pulling rank to make them come take care of their own injured because he was bad and helped a werepanther (against the interim leader's orders). She might be getting some of these werewolves killed in the process, but, eh, these things, they happen.

Anita rushes home to change and read over the file on the arsonist, making her late for her super sexy date. Off Anita goes for her hot vampire date, where we are given fanfiction levels of description about her clothes and makeup. The word "blusher" is used to describe blush, which I don't think I've heard used by people who speak English as a first language under the age of 70. I will give credit: it is at least at first centered on "how do you stash a gun in formal wear" and "this is why I'm wearing a dress I am definitely going to flash in, so I can get to my gun".  Because god forbid she just... flash the gun? She's licensed to carry the thing. People are already staring at her for all her scars. Just--just embrace your lack of fucks, Anita. Strap the gun to your fucking face.

Also, after about three paragraphs of "it's so hard to hide a gun in a dress which is why I need to dress revealingly", I'm wondering why she isn't just wearing something with an A-line skirt, or fit and flare, or with ruching... All of those would work great to hide a gun in a thigh holster without too much risk of flashing and easy access, but it's the 90s, I guess. Those styles didn't exist yet. Nor did jackets and shoulder holsters.

Then we get a description of her vampire babe boyfriend:

Jean-Claude's hair is black and curly, but he'd done something to it so it was straight and fine, falling past his shoulders, curled under at the ends. His face seemed even more delicate, like fine porcelain. He was beautiful, not handsome. I wasn't sure what saved his face from being feminine. Some line of his cheek, bend of his jaw, something. You would never mistake him for anything other than male. He was dressed in royal blue, a color I'd never seen him in. A short jacket of a shining, almost metallic cloth was overlaid with black lace in a pattern of flowers. The shirt was his typical frilled, a la 1600's shirt, but it was a rich, vibrant blue, down to the mound of ruffles that climbed up his neck to frame his face and spill out the sleeves of the jacket to cover the upper half of his slender white hands.

I don't know about you, but I'm positively dripping.

Pictured: A hilariously ugly royal blue metallic lacy shirt.

The blue matches his eyes.

We're told like, two paragraphs later he's not wearing underwear. This has swerved wildly from "lots of action, even if some of it is hamfisted" to "time to fist some ham".

He keeps calling her ma petite and slipping in occasional French words. My French is bad.  Like, super bad. I'm basically illiterate in French. Also the French I do speak is Canadian French which is a strange and different beast onto itself. It's like the equivalent of Cockney to the rest of the English language. Hilarious and sometimes indecipherable to people who don't speak the dialect and often made fun of. Despite that, I bet I speak better french than Laurel K Hamilton. For instance, he just keeps calling her "my little". To me, this stuck out. I assume it's supposed to be "ma petite cheri" but he's been calling her that since like, book two. So I did what any reasonable adult with a question does. I called my Mommy.

My mother is Very French. But again, Canadian French (I can not spell the slang name for the dialect my family speaks, but it roughly translates to "mutt" according to her). I asked her if calling someone "ma petite" was weird. She informed me it was super old fashioned, and is generally something you would call a child. If the person in question was super little it was... ok. Yeah, she could see it. It made sense, she guessed? She also proceeded to tell me some more local versions of the term. "Ma petit crotte or". Rough translation? My little golden turd. Or simply "my petit crotte" and drop the golden entirely. I know what I'm assuming Anita is a little of.

This is why the rest of the world makes fun of Canadian French.

There is also one other factor I feel the need to mention. All my sources? Canadian. Canadian French is known for (besides being hilarious and the ugliest sounding version of French in existence) being very informal. Parisian French, which is what Jean-Claude would be speaking, is very formal. So (and if someone who speaks "proper" French wants to correct me please do) him calling her this is overly familiar (when he started) and makes him sound like a grandpa. Sexy.

They banter; it's actually not awful, aside from the fact that she is so incredibly turned on by his mere presence that they had to get her a fresh chair twice now. As part of being Jean-Claude's human servant, he can now taste food through her, and he hasn't been able to taste food for ages, so, this is great for him. He missed food. Strangely, we are told very specifically that this isn't a fetish, but it leads to this exchange:

"No, no more of this tasting shit. I've gained weight. I never gain weight."

"You have gained four pounds, so I am told. Though I have searched diligently for this phantom four pounds and cannot find them. It brings your weight up to a grand total of one hundred and ten pounds, correct?"

"That's right."

"Oh, ma petite, you are growing gargantuan."

I looked at him, and it was not a friendly look. "Never tease a woman about her weight, Jean-Claude. At least not an American twentieth-century one."

I'm not sure if this is "my body doesn't do this, so no, it means I'm doing something wrong" or "but I'm getting faaaaat" followed up with her actual weight to reassure us she's not. Anita is about 5'01, 5'02. Same height range as me. At my smallest adult size, I was about 115 lbs, and that wasn't healthy. I mean, she could have a super slender delicate frame, but given the fact that she goes around punching vampires and I think her tits are waxed poetic about, I don't think she'd be that delicate. I am now curious how she was going around staking vampires before getting super powers, like, at that size wouldn't she get dizzy halfway through? Presumably she's mostly muscle, which is actually heavier than fat, so, where are her organs? Does she have hollow bones?!

Ahem. Anyways.

They spend 20 minutes "negotiating" what to get for dinner--which: really? How large was that menu? They started off agreeing on the entree, so it was what? "I want an appetizer." "I don't." "Fiiiine. Soup or salad? I want soup." "Well I want salad."

Like..? How did that take 20 minutes? It's implied this whole time was negotiation over it. That sounds tedious. However, unlike in 50 Shades, we don't have to actually see said negotiation, so, not so bad I guess.

We then get this:

"Would you like wine with dinner, then, sir?" 

He never missed a beat. "I do not drink wine." 

I coughed Coke all over the tablecloth. The waiter did everything but give me the Heimlich. Jean-Claude laughed until tears trailed from the corners of his eyes. You couldn't really tell it in this light, but I knew that the tears were tinged red. Knew that there would be pinkish stains on the linen napkin when he was done dabbing his eyes. The waiter fled without having gotten the joke. Staring across the table at the smiling vampire, I wondered if I got the joke or was the butt of the joke. There were nights when I wasn't sure which way the grave dirt crumbled. 

But when he put his hand out to me across the table, I took it. Definitely, the butt of the joke.

Pictured: A very unimpressed puppy

Wat. I don't even know. That waiter better be getting such a good tip. Jean-Claude was drinking wine when Anita got there, and now he has to deal with these two laughing like jackals. Jean-Claude now isn't ordering anything, so the bill will be smaller, and therefore his anticipated tip. Anita was rude, and has probably flashed him when he had to get her a new chair because she soaked the last one, and they took forever to order. Unnamed waiter dude, you are not being paid enough to deal with this shit.

Also yeah. Vampires cry bloody tears in this world. Which he is dabbing away with the table linen. I mean, blood happens, but this seems like it could be a potential biohazard. The blood tears, not him using the napkin specifically. What if a vampire goes to a sad movie? These are questions I will never get answers to.

They order dessert, continue eye fucking and antagonizing each other before Van Damme notices some vampires walk in. Well, one vampire and one human servant (not her own), dressed all fancy in white. Because Anita and JC are in black/dark colors. Subtlety. They vaguely menace at Van Damme and Anita, who nearly shoots the human in the middle of a fancy restaurant, because that's how she do, and go off. They were sent by members of the vampire council, there about a vampire they killed a book or two ago who was hella old something something be scared of them for reasons. Anita and JC are In Danger because they killed a former council member and now anyone and everyone that they care about is also maybe in danger. OH NO ANITA JUST ADOPTED A BUNCH MORE DOGS AND SOME CATS!

They go out to Anita's car, and Jean-Claude's ex is there. Asher, super hot vampire dude with horrible scars over half his face. He and Jean-Claude used to have a threesome going with Asher's human servant before she got inquisition'd. He wanted to murder Anita as revenge, because he blames JC for... reasons? Either way, he's there to drag them to the council and has been promised revenge. It's all very overwrought and melodramatic.

"You've finally given me what I need to hurt you, Jean-Claude. You love someone else at last. Love is never free, Jean-Claude. It is the most expensive emotion we have, and I am going to see that you pay in full." He stood in front of Jean-Claude, hands in fists by his side. He was trembling with the effort not to strike out. Jean-Claude had stopped crying, but I wasn't sure he'd fight back. In that moment I realized he didn't want to hurt Asher. 

Guilt is a many splendored thing. Problem was, Asher wanted to hurt him.
I stepped between them. I took a step forward. Asher was either going to have to step back or we'd be touching. He stepped back, staring down at me as if I'd just appeared. He'd forgotten me for just a second. 

"Love isn't the most expensive emotion, Asher." I said. I took another step forward, and he retreated another step. "Hate is. Because hate will eat you up inside and destroy you, long before it kills you." 

"Very philosophical," he said. 

"Philosophy's great," I said. "But remember this: don't ever threaten us again. Because if you do, I'll kill you. Because I don't give a fuck about your tortured past. Now, shall we go?"

 See what I mean by overwrought? Although I will give credit to Anita. I enjoy how few fucks she gives. She will murder you if she thinks she has to, and she won't lose too much sleep over it. It's one of her main character traits, and it's consistent so far. Although she is going to start losing sleep because she's not more bothered, and that will become a weird and vicious cycle.

 We find out in the car that the vampire council members that have popped up have taken over JC's stomping ground and wrangled his people. So all their people and toys are hostages which really leaves them with their hands tied. The vampire council think since he killed the other guy and didn't take his place he's trying to start a new council. A cooler one. One where they have smoothies. The reason he didn't join the council is because he knew he wasn't strong enough to not get his ass murdered. Asher believes him, and alternates between angsting and trying to be coy with Anita in the back seat. It's like he's a surly teenager hitting on his dad's new girlfriend.

This is all naturally a test of the two: they don't want them dead, because they're afraid they'll be seen as martyrs. They just want them, you know, physically and emotionally scarred into submission. Because that can't be turned into anything sympathetic either. Still, today, probably not going to do anything too horrible, they want to see what they've got. Because the ruling group of vampires can't start a smear campaign and kill him when he's disgraced and they brought no one here to see what the hell they're going to do to these two.

Before going into the Circus of the Damned--oh, yeah, that's the name of the place. JC also owns a strip club called Guilty Pleasures.  Anita takes a moment to marvel at how pretty JC and Asher are, and wonder how one vampire found both of them at the same time and place when they're not related.

Asher, horribly scarred, stretches out his scars trying to make himself more gross and asks "DO YOU THINK I'M SEXY NOW ANITA? HUH? DO YOU?"

And Anita just kinda shrugs. "I dunno, I'm into hair and eyes, and your hair looks like some spun gold fairytale shit, and you have very pretty eyes."

Asher rips his shirt open to show his torso and scars off: "STILL THINK I'M BANGABLE?"

"Yeah. I'd still tap it."

"IT GOES DOWN TO MY PENIS, ANITA."

"Listen, I already said I would hypothetically ride that shit, why are you trying to sell me harder on it?"

Asher, confused because everyone has looked at him like he was disgusting and scary since this happened (holy water wounds, man, they are the worst) and vampire skingrafts aren't an option, is confused and distressed. He manages to get Anita a bit spooked at one point, but that was because he was So Angry, which also confuses him.

So he screams "NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME" and flies away.

You might think I'm exaggerating the scene in my rewriting it here, and I am, but barely. He literally tells Anita his dick is scarred too and flies away in rage because she isn't bothered by his scars.

I'm 69 (heh) pages into this book, and I have lost track of how many people Anita Blake has threatened to harm or kill. It's been like, maybe 8 hours so far. There are also the werecritters, the whole fire thing, and vampire murders going on too. After 50 Shades and Wheel of Time I don't know what to do with all these things happening in less than 800 pages.

Tune in next time to see who Anita shoots first!

Erika VS Anita Blake (Burnt Offerings chapter 1-6)

I was in the tenth grade when a friend of mine excitedly handed me the first Anita Blake book. Those of you who know anything about Anita Blake are probably a little alarmed at the idea of a 15-year-old picking it up. The first book isn't that messed up, and actually only ever gets as far as a kiss. The story does not spiral wildly out of control into a non-stop train of orgies and violence (sometimes violent orgies) until further into the series. Those I was definitely too young to be reading, but the first few books were okay.

...I think. It was awhile ago, okay?

Still, I'm curious and afraid, so, I'm grabbing the seventh book in the series, Burnt Offerings, and seeing how badly I get burned reading it. Wow, that joke was awful. I'm so sorry. Not sorry enough to edit it out, but it's close. I'm starting with the seventh because, honestly, why should we all have to shuffle through the less weird and fucked up books when I can probably remember enough to keep us all up on what's going on? Well, maybe not... up, but, you know. Not totally lost.

For those of you who have never heard of the Anita Blake series, it's the prototypical urban fantasy about a necromancer-detective-vampire slayer who is also the (human) female leader of the local werewolves. Well, sort of werewolf Queen? She was boning their "alpha" (or what ever they're called) so he knighted her or some shit? They broke up because he ate a person. Like you do. Listen, I read these books over a decade ago. Give me some slack. Oh, she also has sex with vampires and there are were-critters and stuff. She has sex with those too. The books are also all in first person. Because this blog has apparently not seen enough first person books.

We're dropped in with Anita in some sort of work meeting with a convenient bit of character building that shows her as thoroughly professional and even-tempered.

My right arm had been sliced open twice by a knife. One scar was white and old. The second was still pink and new. My left arm was worse. A mound of white scar tissue sat at the bend of my arm. I'd have to lift weights for the rest of my life or the scars would stiffen and I'd lose mobility in the arm, or so my physical therapist had said. There was a cross-shaped burn mark, a little crooked now because of the ragged claw marks that a shapeshifted witch had given me. There were one or two other scars hidden under my blouse, but the arm really is the worst.

Bert, my boss, had requested that I wear my suit jacket or long-sleeved blouses in the office. He said that some clients had expressed reservations about my ah . . . occupationally-acquired wounds. I hadn't worn a long-sleeved blouse since he made the request. He'd turned the air conditioner up a little colder every day. It was so cold today I had goose bumps. Everyone else was bringing sweaters to work. I was shopping for midriff tops to show off my back scars.

So mature and professional. Then again, her boss also seems like a tosser, so, fight petty with petty I guess. She's in a meeting with a firefighter, McKinnon, who's a friend of her cop-boss, Dolph (not her necromancer boss). McKinnon and Anita get into a pissing contest over who's the manlier man by showing off their scars, until Anita puts an end to it by grabbing the glass off of her desk and maintaining eye contact as she eats the whole thing. There are a lot of pissing contests like this, and honestly, I'm not sure there is ever a time in the series where they don't end with Anita just ending them. We know McKinnon is a tough but good dude because rather than pee on more things, he cuts to the chase of what he wants.

He tells a story about a scary pyrokenetic that went around burning down buildings with people in them and how messy and horrific that was (how he got his scars) before going on to explain he thinks he has another firebug on his hands. It's still early, but he wants to catch this before the bodies start piling up again.  So yeah, Anita isn't officially on this yet, but once people start dying she obviously will be, so, uh, maybe look over the file? Anita, a woman who works with cops in her spare time, shrugs, isn't sure what she can do--pyrokenetics aren't monsters, just people with a rare skill--but she'll look it over. A strange touch of world building, just, yeah, magic happens, it's weird, but, wevs. Then again, if I was shagging a vampire, I would probably have a very different thresh hold for weird.

Before she has a chance, her vampire-slaying apprentice calls. He had been sent to stake some dead bodies that would, in a few days, rise as vampires (it's cool; it was in their will to stake them if this came up).  Basically he's all "Hey mom, can you pick me up from school the hospital" and she's all "Did you lose a fight again? As your slayer mom I'm not mad but I am disappointed; I told you to wear your 'I'm little and cute but I'll fuck you up' shirt until you build up your reputation" and he's all "I'M TWENTY-ONE I'M AN ADULT" and she's like "Do you want me to bring you a juicebox or not?"

He explains that someone tried to get him to stake a vampire but "lost" the paperwork. He refuses, because staking a vampire without paperwork is just murder, which he isn't super keen on. (As opposed to notarised murder, which is fine.) The orderly went looking for it while he went to grab a smoke, but came back to find this woman trying to murder this dude and got mangled with one of his own stakes when he tried to stop her. No one is dead, but this is a handy way to do some world-building and bring new readers up on the setting. She was a member of a splinter group (splintered from what?) called Humans First, which is going around trying to kill vampires like they're abortion providers. There's also Humans Against Vampires who are annoying but operate within the law. There was also a vampire mayor in Michigan who got staked recently, which Humans First is taking credit for. Anita doesn't think they're organized enough to have pulled that off. I assume this will be relevant information later. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Hamilton is just throwing around random world events for funsies. I don't remember if she's actually a good writer or not!

Anita gets her baby sidekick home and tucks him into bed after scolding him for leaving a vampire unattended in a morgue and leaving his vampire murdering kit unattended.

This is why you got mangled, Larry. You're too careless, Larry. You should shoot more people, Larry. Larry, in a great deal of pain, isn't too thrilled with being lectured, but he takes it because what else is he gonna do, get out and walk? His back has been replaced with stitches.

Once he's properly drugged and tucked into bed, Anita returns a call from a mystery number on her pager. I am cackling because googling the number isn't even an option to find out what it is. Also she has a pager. I know, I know, at the time this book came out it was a big deal, but to be honest, I thought pagers were funny when they made sense. Turns out it's a werewolf friend of hers, Stephen, who needs her help. Some were-panther is hurt and he needs her help to keep him from being dragged off by his irresponsible pimp. We get a quick fill in of how things are with the were-panthers: Not Good. (Anita killed their alpha because he was planning to make a snuff film starring the two of them.) It's deeply fucked up, which she owns, and admits she's forcing herself to be blasé about it because otherwise she's gonna lose her shit and she has things to do today still. Like, go make sure no one is pimped irresponsibly, apparently. This series is very pro safe, responsible pimps and sex workers. (Although most of the sex workers we meet are male if memory serves.)

Anita's response to Stephen's phone call is basically "I don't wannaaaaa" and Stephen is like "This guy has the worst pimp, Anita!  STRIPES AND ANIMAL PRINT, ANITA!" and then the villain drops in like "Are you phoning for help?  I have like one rule and it's 'no phoning for help', man" and Stephen begs off with "Please don't violence me I AM A SNUGGLING WOLF not a fighting wolf".  Villainous dude grabs the phone to threaten Anita as well, she yawns for a while and then asks his name (Zane) because she is an old-fashioned lady to likes a proper introduction before she breaks a man.  Zane does some "Grr, I'm a werepanther" posturing, Anita is just "Fool, by hurting my dog you activated my limit break" and hangs up.


She loads her gun with a few lead bullets in preparation. Silver bullets: werekitten is dead. Lead? Just a really bad day. Obviously, telling him "Dude I can literally kill you if I have to so knock this shit off" is not an option, but hurting him is. Anyways, into the hospital we go. Shockingly, Zane is causing shit. He keeps trying to use orderlies as hackeysacks. Not like, murdering anyone, but, you know, really one sided games of catch. She shoots him because hello is for losers, and makes it very clear he needs to stop this shit or she will murder him and feel very little about it. At this point he starts crying, relived that someone has come to be the new alpha of the werepanthers.

That is both my response, and Anita's. She figures if it avoids more people being used for ring toss, she can play along, but this is absurd. She isn't even a were-critter, and also, uh, she's like, the werewolf Queen and also something within the vampire community because now she's riding the local vampire leader on the regular. Also to keep her from exploding or some shit in a previous book the vampire had to mark her, therefore bonding the two and giving her some extra superpowers but also status in the vampire community? If Anita listed all her jobs and supernatural ties on her business card it would need to be two-sided and very small font.

The police come, cart off Zane, and Anita is left in the hospital room with her mangled werewolf friend, Stephen, while marveling at the deeply fucked up shit that happened to Nathaniel (the previously-mentioned werepanther who was being pimped out). I just--I don't even want to summarize it, because I feel like it's gross for the sake of shock value and disgusting, not because it actually adds anything. The only credit I will give is that Anita underlines "It doesn't matter if he's a sex worker, he could still be raped, and that is definitely part of what happened here".

A werewolf reporter pops up to check on Stephen and fill us in on werewolf politics. Richard, Werewolf King and Anita's ex, is out of town working on his Master's degree. While he's gone, since while Anita is Lupa (what they call Werewolf Queen I guess) she is decidedly removed from pack politics, another werewolf has stepped up to the plate to take care of the pups while he's gone. Her name is Sylvie and she is a naturally lovely and kind woman. Hah just kidding. She killed her way into the position to prove a point, and because the werepanthers under their old leader were a sack of shit, she has forbidden the wolves from helping. Cats and dogs, right?

Oh, Sylvie is also planning to like, double murder Richard to become the new Wolf King. We think. Anita still has Feelings for him, even if she made her choice to dump him because he eats people sometimes. For a vampire. Because drinking blood is fine I guess? She's aware that this logic is fucked up. So now she has to bully some werewolves to come watch their mangled friend who broke the rule by helping the pretty boy kitten, and probably have to fight Sylvie to do it. Being a normal human, that fight is going to end in Anita trying to murder her. Anita isn't thrilled with this, but eh, whatcha gonna do? Even Anita is getting concerned at her rapidly dwindling reserve of fucks. (Not the physical kind. She has many of those. So many.)

To keep things moving, Dolph, police dad, comes in to talk to Anita about what the ever-living fuck just happened, and there's this whole scene of them glaring at each other because she's fucking a vampire. He then blames himself for her having to hang out with monsters so much, and wonders if it's his fault, because she does it For Cases. The whole scene is kind of masturbatory, telling us how awesome and tough Anita is, but also that she's Damaged.

"You think like a cop, Anita. It's what makes you good."

"I think like a cop and like a monster. That's what makes me good."

He nodded, closed his notebook and slipped it into an inner pocket of his jacket. "Yeah, that's what makes you good."

THIS IS NOT WRITTEN AS A JOKE OR IRONICALLY, THIS IS ALL BEING PLAYED STRAIGHT. WE GET IT, SHE'S A TINY DELICATE FLOWER WHO BLEEDS MOTOR OIL SHE'S SO TOUGH.

That scene is followed up immediately by some werewolves coming to babysit the injured and a whole show of her being the pack dominant, the Lupa, and accidentally tapping into her ex's power to do it. Her vampire apparently bound them all together to keep them alive last book? (Look, none of us want me to wade through the whole series. Just trust me on that. So we're just going to have to accept some things are going to be question marks.) Anyway, it's the first time she felt his magic since they split, and she can tell even though he's very far away it pissed him the fuck off that she touched him that way. Which pisses her off and... you get the idea. Rage boners all around. The wolves then crawl around on the ground worshiping her a bit, trying to get belly rubs, and a nurse walks in before walking out very quickly.

Tuesdays, right?

This book is going to spend a lot of time with people being submissive to Anita, or her fighting to prove she shouldn't be submissive to them.

Tune in next time for Anita to go on a Hot Date with her vampire boyfriend, Jean-Claude Van Damme!

If anyone has read this series within the last decade and wants to point out anything important I've missed so far, please, chime in in the comments. Or just chat there anyways. It makes me feel good about myself.