Eternal Prey chapter 9

So. How does Lia react to being told Christine is not a vampire?

Lia thought her head would explode. Too many life-altering events crammed together. She couldn’t get a handle on the bam, bam, bam effect. Sort of like a giant pileup on the interstate during a fog.

You know, when you're fishing for a word you're kind of sort of supposed to actually find a word. That said, never change Nina. I am entirely and completely entertained.

Utah finally stumbles through the obvious--Christine is Seven--and this leaves our heroes still trapped in a vampire storage room. Only with no magical telepathy, and Lia still becoming a vampire because Plot (and also because I don't think I could take another half of a book where the heroine's main motivation is to change species due to Mommy issues)

“Fin had a vision of me. At some point, I’ll be in a position to touch Christine with something symbolic of her number. Fin didn’t see the where or what of it. He did see that I’d be someplace outside with smoke rising behind me.” She took a moment to curse the vagueness of his stupid vision.

WOAH WOAH WOAH BACK THE FUCK UP.

I’ll be in a position to touch Christine with something symbolic of her number.

THAT is how you defeat Zero's immortals? THAT? THAT MAKES NO FREAKING SENSE. 

First of all, since we're now in the universe of symbolism and metaphysics (AKA This Means Whatever You Want It To Mean land) the word "seven" itself is symbolic of the number. There is no connection between "seven" the word and (.......) (count the dots) or, for that matter, 7 the numeral. It's all an agreed-upon symbol for that thing you have when it is one more than six. So you could argue that touching Seven with, IDK, THE WORD SEVEN would do the trick. If this is how these things are beaten Lia could drop a Seven-Eleven sign on Seven and solve everyone's problem.

But there's a bigger problem.

FIN NAMED THE IMMORTALS. Seir and Zero both acknowledged that the names they're using are Fin's invention. He's got this number obsession. Which means that basically you're killing the bad guys with the names the OCD brother gave them that they've agreed to use this time around because they want to humor their fellow immortal.  

WHY WOULD THIS WORK.

  And finally--up until now this was not the vision. The vision was that Lia would be there, she would defeat Christine/Seven and there would be a Thing in her hand, and they needed to find the Thing. NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN the Thing is something symbolic of the number seven, and Lia only has to touch her with it.

Lia tries to convince Utah that her becoming vampire is the best thing to do. Utah does not take this well. Lia has to ask Christine to put Utah in restraints so he doesn't kill somebody, probably Jude, trying to keep Lia human.

Well, she's not changing all her plans for a guy, but she's feeling really guilty. Replace "Vampire" with EVERY OTHER CAREER CHOICE EVER and you can see why Utah is still, true to form, a flaming bag of dicks.

Christine freezes Utah in place, and we've got another continuity error when Lia remembers Eight doing the same thing to Kione back in Philly. SHE BARELY REMEMBERED KIONE. It was like "Oh yeah, you were kind of there" when he was introduced. NOW she remembers somebody else putting him in the magical version of Thorazine? REALLY?

Christine takes them to the garden center in her hardware store. No. REALLY.

They were in the store part, surrounded by gardening tools, pots, and other stuff.
 

"Stuff". That is a very eloquent description. Please continue.

Christine has an altar straight out of a Vincent Price movie. She makes Lia put on dramatic clothing. Lia is more than a little put out by this, but she does.

Oh, and Christine? Is utterly batshit insane:

“I took it over three weeks ago. The first thing I did was drink to the former owner.” She put her fingers over her mouth and giggled. “Oh, wait. I meant that I drank the former owner.”

ALSO: NOBODY TALKS LIKE THAT.

Christine is obsessed with plant life. It is everywhere. And she really likes vampires and demons and were-whatevers, assuming this universe has them. She just doesn't like humans because...oh look, horrible dialogue!

“Don’t block my view when you drain her. I don’t want to miss a single drop. You don’t get this on HBO.”

...obviously you need to get caught up on TrueBlood.

Lia melodramatically looks at Utah one final time...about fifty times, because it's every time she turns around, and she LOVES him and she just MET him and she can't LOVE him and let's look at him again. Jude sinks his teeth in and we cut to Utah's POV.

This is worth noting. It's the first in-chapter POV switch that actually gets its own scene break to indicate it.

 Utah is angry. Utah has rage. Lia has acheived the major goal she's had ever since she was a kid and now Utah is pissed that this should happen and ruin his sexy fun times. Utah smash.

Seven tells him he ought to be happy.

These are both worthless characters and I'd hope they kill each other if I hadn't already finished the book.

Seir shows up, randomly, and says that Seven has ordered him to take Utah to his room. Utah actually pauses to ask him what the hell he's doing.

Which is apparently breaking Utah and Jude out, because this was not his plan.

I am beginning to doubt Seir has a plan. Jude shows up, Utah starts to ask him how they're gonna get out of there, and Seir freaking teleports Utah and Jude to Fin's Condo.

What. You couldn't plot a running fight to escape? Utah could have flung Lia's undead body over one shoulder. It would have been something closer to awesome than this.

I don't think I've ever seen a backfiring Deus Ex Machina before.

Utah realizes he has no fucking idea where Lia is, and decides to go talk to Fin to see if Fin can get Seir to show up and IDK, TELEPORT THEM BACK. Fin is grumpy. The chapter ends with Fin announcing that Seir is going to show up for a family conference in a few minutes, and that he's a little miffy about it.

...I still love this book.