Ever wish you had an almanac?

Why, Harry? Do you mean that if you knew you probably wouldn’t get there in time, you’d just walk the other way? Because really, with all your talk about wishing you knew exactly how long it was, I’m pretty suspicious.

He also reminds us that he doesn’t really know what to expect from the loup-garou flavor of werewolf, because as a magic geek, Harry really isn’t up on magical creatures. But he can definitely make the circle no problem unlike dumb bitch Kim.

The book tries to appease me by making him talk about how magic works.

I checked the bucket, to make sure I still had the chalk and the stones I would need to construct the greater circle around MacFinn. You didn’t necessarily have to make them out of silver and gold and whatnot. Mostly, you just had to understand how the construct channeled the forces that were being employed. If you knew that, you could figure out how to make it out of less pure materials. The very best wizards don’t need much more than chalk, table salt, and a wooden spoon to pull off some remarkable stuff.

But it’s wrecked by the fact Kim is dead and everything about this makes it sound like it was because she was just so inferior to manly Harry. Plus the actual discussion of magic continues to treat power and knowledge as interchangeable. Can weaker magic users do higher quality work if they start with better materials? Could Kim have pulled it off if she’d repaired the pure materials of MacFinn’s original wrecked circle, substituting increased purity for lower power? Did Kim fail simply because Harry never told her how the third circle works, so both materials and power were irrelevant?

He walks by Murphy who’s furious that apparently Harry somehow to his apartment and back without being seen, though how they know he got in at all is unclear.

I hurried on past the door and down the hall. Tempting as it was to listen to a conversation about myself without the participants knowing, I just didn’t have time.

Bear in mind that given Harry’s powers, he can do this pretty much whenever, so if he’s the sort of person who only doesn’t when he’s about to die, then he must do it all the time. That’s why combining incredible power with asshole entitlement does not make for a good hero.

Okay, you know what I keep thinking about as I read this? The asshole green lantern, I think he’s Guy Gardner. Anyway, I read a trade where a bunch of the not-A-list gang were hanging out being superheroes, including Mary Marvel. So, Guy is the sort of asshole who gropes women, and Mary Marvel is a kid who happens to be a superhero, but it’s okay because in this, Guy didn’t have his ring so she could just deck him if he decided to play boobs inspector. Still pretty horrifying he actually wanted to in the first place, but at least we can be assured it’s immediately followed by violent comeuppance and he won’t actually get to do anything that bad.

But then like two issues in we get the ~surprise reveal~ where he tells one of the other superheroes (also a woman, also skeeved out by him being a horrible guy who enjoys sexually harassing women) that somehow he does have his power ring back and he was just letting her get a free punch because I guess he thought the teenage girl fighting back was cute, but that’d better not keep happening or he’s going to punch back, and by the way green lanterns are some of the heaviest hitters in the DC universe.

I think you can argue the pros and cons of having a womanizing character around in the first place – is it normalizing this, or is it a power fantasy for women who already deal with this and like seeing woman who don’t have to put up with it – but the surprise reveal that no actually he can beat the shit out of them if he decides to, that it’s only his own sense of morality that’s keeping him from raping them, a morality that’s already okay with sexually harassing all the woman and a teenage girl? There’s really no reason for that but the writer straight up hating women. They looked at a situation where women had enough power on their side to reliably defend themselves and thought that was unfair.

Anyway, that’s Harry and this book in general – Harry needs to be able to do whatever he wants for things to be considered mildly unfair toward him. The only thing actually preventing him from spying on Murphy all the time appears to be laziness, and that just further proves how the universe is out to get him by not just handing it to him outright.

I went to the first barred door, kept my head down, and rapped on the metal slats. I waited for a while, but nothing happened, so I rapped on the bars again. It occurred to me that it would add a nice touch of irony if the same blending potion that got me into the building also kept me from being noticed by the jailer and let inside.

To continue the discussion of how this doesn’t work, Harry doesn’t actually need to be let inside. He can get through doors. It’d certainly be more convenient to be let inside without a fuss, but much like your given D&D wizard, when the non-direct magic fails there’s always fire.

And it doesn’t matter that actually exploding the doors might break the no-notice thing, because what I mean is he can also just quietly melt the lock or something, or use a door opening spell, or anything else that isn’t a big deal and would require someone paying attention to him in the first place to notice.

Harry has way too many ways of solving any given problem.

This is why plotting out magic or super abilities in general is so important. All it takes is one bout of poor plotting where you give Harry the ability to fireball and windblast things into oblivion and now Harry always has at least that much force at his disposal to solve any problem. If Harry actually had to be subtle rather than hadokening stuff he doesn’t like, then maybe the issue is that door opening spells only work below a certain level of technology and he’s worried trying it on this fancy electronic door will break it, and then it’s stuck locked until someone comes by to fix it and he really doesn’t have the two hours that’d take.

But anyway, he does manage to get the guy’s attention eventually, but because the police continue to be so significantly better than Harry, even with the potion, even when he fades back to grey, he still looks to the calendar next to him and notices that the janitor isn’t supposed to be here today.

“Out of town on Friday. Trying to get done sooner,” I replied. I kept my voice in a monotone, as grey and boring as I could manage. To my surprise, it came out as I intended it. I’m usually not much of a liar or an actor, so the potion must have been helping me on some subtle and devious level.

YOU SPENT THIS ENTIRE FUCKING BOOK BEING A LIAR YOU FUCKING LIAR

Anyway the guard then flips back to his porn magazine.

showing me a picture of an athletic-looking young woman doing something anatomically improbable with an equally improbable young man.
I hesitated. How in the hell was I supposed to sign in and out?

Right, Harry, that’s the only reason you hesitated there. Also, not sure why the guy himself is improbable while the woman is “athletic” but I’m sure it’s probably some hateable reason.

Harry’s brain eventually manages to regain some blood and he does the obvious of just scribbling on the sheet.

I frantically scanned the bank of monitors until, in the lower corner, I found the one that said MACFINN. I looked at his monitor. The video was blurred, flecked with snow and static, but I could see well enough what had happened.
The cell was empty.
Concrete dust drifted in the air. The wall of bars was missing, apparently torn from the concrete and allowed to fall away.

Yeah, maybe if you hadn’t fucked about staring at porn magazines and Tera’s dancing. Or if you’d just gone with Murphy originally.

Let’s see if you even care about the incoming death toll.

a starved-looking, unshaven man in a sleeveless white undershirt and blue jeans could be seen curled up on the bunk, his back pressed to the rear corner of the cell. His mouth was open and his chest straining, as though he was screaming, but I could hear nothing through the thick security door and the concrete walls. There was a flicker of motion, a huge and furry shape on the camera, out of focus, and Matson threw up his skinny arms to protect himself as something huge and quick shoved its way between the bars, like a big dog going through a rotten picket fence, and engulfed him.
There was a burst of static and violent motion, and then a spattering of black on the grey walls and floor of the cell, as though someone had shaken up a cola and sprayed the walls with it. Then the huge form was gone, and left behind was a ragged, quivering doll of torn flesh and blood-soaked clothing. Matson stared up at the security camera, his dying eyes pleading with mine-and then he jerked once and was gone.

How horrible. Are you going to help?

My eyes swept over the other security monitors as a sick sort of fascination settled over me. Prisoners were straining to the front of their cells, shouting things out, trying to get enough of a look to see what was going on. I realized that they couldn’t see what was happening-they could only hear. They wouldn’t be able to look out and see the transformed MacFinn until he was at the bars of their cell.

Such heroism. Much goodness.

As people continue to die Harry looks at a mangled body and the shattered bars and is terrified.

Stars above, Harry,I thought to myself. What the hell are you doing in the same building with that thing?

This is like the bit about bravery being doing it even though you’re afraid. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s even okay to want to do something but be too afraid and fail.

Harry watches another person torn apart while screaming for help. He thinks a whole lot more about being afraid. He finally decides that I couldn’t let it go on. I had to do something.

It’s time for Harry to leap into heroic action!

“Look,” I said and pointed at the monitor.

He sure did just do something, didn’t he. That sure was a something that occurred.

My finger trembled, and my voice came out as a ghost of a whisper. I tried again, jabbing my finger at the monitors and half shouting, “Look!” at the jailer.
He glanced up at me, tilted his head, and frowned. I saw some colors start to bleed into his face, but that didn’t matter now. I continued to point at the monitors and tried to step closer to them. “Look, look at the screens, my God, man!” By now my voice was coming out in a high, panicky tone. I pressed as close to the monitors as I could, yelling, excited.

This just serves to make them all glitch out because wizard. Harry’s supposed techbane continues to only fuck over other people.

I frantically backed up from the monitors. “They’re dying,” I said. “God, you’ve got to let those men out of there before it kills them.”

Harry heroically asks another person to save people, but due to the potion the guy can’t pay attention. It doesn’t even occur to him to try to leave in the hopes the guy will be able to notice then.

“Look at the monitors,” I screamed in frustration and fear. “He’s killing them!”
“The monitors won’t stop you doing your job,” the guard assured me. “I’ll just buzz you in.”

Harry doesn’t ask to be let in to save them. Harry doesn’t try to break in to save them. Harry doesn’t even leave in the hopes the guard will be able to notice what’s going on. It’s only the fact the guard opens the door on his own that allows the spell to break:

Screams poured out of the cells, high sounds that you wouldn’t think could come from a man’s throat, panicked and terrified. There was a horrible, wrenching sound, a screech of protesting metal, and one of the screams peaked at a shivering, violent point-then dissolved into a strangled mishmash of sounds, of tearing and snapping and popping, of gurgling and thudding. And when they were finished, something, something big, with a cavernous, resonating chest, snarled from not ten feet beyond the security door.

That’s what’s been going on this whole time.

Now it’s time to see what makes a hero:

I shot a glance to the guard, who had stumbled to his feet and was grabbing for his gun. He headed out of his station, opening a door that led into the antechamber, presumably to investigate.
“No!” I shouted at him, and threw myself at the security door.

One person hears screams and begging and dying and he goes toward it, the other tries to slam the door.

The evil person is not quite fast enough, and the monster manages to get a paw through. It begins to push the door back open.

“Help me!” I shouted at the guard, struggling to force the door closed. The jailer blinked at me for a second, then flooded with color.
“You!” he said. “My God. What is happening?”
“Help me close this door or we’re both dead,” I snarled, continuing to push forward with every ounce of strength I could summon.

Better it tear apart the rest of the trapped muggles than engage the one and only person in the building who has any chance of actually fighting it.

To the guard’s credit, he doesn’t help close the door. Perhaps he would’ve if given more time, but perhaps he wouldn’t have chosen safety over condemning everyone else to death.

then the creature that had been Harley MacFinn came through the doorway. The loup-garou was a wolf, in the same way that a velociraptor is a bird

So you’re saying it’s the easy mode version of a wolf?

It must have been five or five and a half feet tall at the tip of its hunched shoulders. It was wider than a wolf, as though a wolf had been squashed down with an extra five or six hundred pounds of muscle.

I just want to point out that Harry is even dumber than a regular person for making this mistake, because regular people catch showings of Jurassic Park on their TV while Harry should be reading books for his entertainment and books know how big velociraptors and terror birds are.

 

Terror bird is their actual name, by the way. Terror bird!

But sorry, you were saying this was a big deal. So, what is it?

Its pelt was shaggy, jet-black and matte, except where fresh blood was making it glisten. Its ears were ragged, upright, focused forward. It had a muzzle that was too wide to belong to anything natural, a mouthful of teeth, and MacFinn’s blazing eyes done in monochrome grey, the whole stained with blood that looked black beneath the influence of the blending potion. Its limbs were disproportionate, though I couldn’t say whether they looked too long or too short-just wrong. Everything about it was wrong, screamed with malice and hate and anger, and it carried a cloak of supernatural power with it that made my teeth hurt and my hair stand on end.

Oh come on now, do you really want more pictures?

So basically it’s a slightly bigger than usual black mastiff. The weirdest thing about it sounds like the part where it’s healthy.

I mean seriously! Wolves have narrow muzzles.

Then we smushed that down in half the dog breeds. I mean, I agree that it’s not especially “natural”, but I refuse to believe it’s especially terrifying how this wolf-thing’s face is changed in the way we did to make dogs cuter.

And Its limbs were disproportionate, though I couldn’t say whether they looked too long or too short-just wrong. is the most cop-out bullshit ever.

That crippled thing’s legs, while technically even in length, will look disproportionate when viewed from the front.

For a version of this that can actually walk, here’s the noble hyena. Note how someone flipping out about how the “dog” “looks wrong” would still be able to give the more specific comment that its front and back legs are different lengths and not just that somehow super long or super short, can’t narrow it down to a specific issue.

Giving this thing enormous muscled front legs and stubby back ones would emphasize that it’s a thing of brute force and mauling rather than speed, as well as producing a somewhat gorillalike shape to fit with the idea werewolves should have some humanlike features to them. It can also probably manage quick bursts of speed using its front legs to propel it, so it would still manage to catch a given person trying to run away. And wrecking its ability to run or even walk smoothly would make it clear this is not a proper wolf, since that’s their whole thing, and also something humans are great at as well. It’d produce the effect of something enormously dangerous if it manages to grab you and yet warped, crippled and suffering. I mean really, just picture gorillas trying to move around in an area without any trees. There’s a reason our monkey ancestors stopped looking like that. So combine that shape with non-grasping paws and you have a miserable but still brutally powerful creature.

It’s still not the very worst monster here.

The loup-garou with its too long or too short legs comes through, looks past Harry and attacks the guard.

The guard manages to get out of the way of the first lunge.

He crawls behind the counter.

The loup-garou follows, but can’t fit and is slowed as it pushes in.

The man stands again and shoots it. The bullets do nothing and it keeps coming.

The man screams.

It keeps coming.

He tries to run.

It bites through his back.

He grabs for the console.

It shakes him like cat playing with a mouse.

It throws him.

Blood goes everywhere.

Harry continues to stand there and not do anything to help anyone. Harry, knowing the potion prevents the thing from focusing on him so it can barely even defend itself from any attack he makes right now, stands there are just watches all of this.

I felt silently grateful when the bent and warping panes of Plexiglas became obscured with scarlet.

How nice of you to feel slightly unhappy about actually seeing a person die.

terrified prisoners screamed and cried out to God or Allah to save them

So another note to make, before we get back to the main horrorshow, this and the fact one of the prisoners was identified as black is, I believe, the only bit of multicultural anything to this book. Is it good that Butcher isn’t totally whitewashing everything or bad that he lets up on that only when talking about criminals in cells?

Oh, also Harry makes no move to release them so they can maybe escape. He told somebody else they were in trouble, how dare you ask for more than that from him.

Anyway, The guard had tipped off the alarm when he had scrambled at the console Harry says carefully to avoid actually saying the guy did it on purpose to try to warn others. It just happened somehow, who knows really, whatever.

But this is going to get Harry into gear. Why?

Cops were going to come running, and one of the first was going to be Murphy.
The loup-garou was still savaging the jailer’s body, and I hoped for his sake that the man wasn’t still alive.

Harry is so disinterested in saving the guy he just says he hopes he’s dead already, but he still hasn’t seen Murphy in a dress. His precious dolly can’t die now.

He tells us that he could head into the cell area, close the door and maybe try to set up a ward.

So he’s going to attack it now. Not when it was actually killing people, because who gives a flying fuck. Not while it was chasing down a person in front of him. Not in the hopes that maybe he can save the life of the guy it’s currently attacking. Because Murphy and how he wants her alive to leer at another day – or, at least, more intact than the wolfmonster is likely to leave her corpse.

Anyway, having resolved to do…something, he uses wind magic to grab his staff so he can flee. Doing so simultaneously closes the door to the cells in what may have been intentional or may not.

Before he can quite get out, the potion finally wears off and it gives chase.

Do you know what’s worst about all this? He didn’t have to be a horrible person to make the plot work. Although he described the potion as working so long as he didn’t attract attention, we see it actually works to prevent anyone from paying attention no matter how much of a fuss he makes. Harry could’ve been trying to save people this whole time. He could’ve flung spells at it when it came only for those to have no effect rather than standing there. It still wouldn’t have attacked him until the potion wore off.

But now that he has to do things, he tries the tornado magic again and for some reason suddenly physics applies to magic:

My aim was to reflect the loup-garou’s own power and momentum back against it, force equals mass times acceleration, et cetera, but I had underestimated just how much power the thing had. It overloaded my limits and we split the difference. The creature slammed against a solid force in the air that canceled its momentum and flung it to the floor.
Approximately equal force was also applied to me-but I was probably a fifth of the mass of the loup-garou. I was flung back through the air like a piece of popcorn in a sudden wind, all the way to where the hall turned the corner to lead down to Special Investigations. I hit the floor before I hit the wall, thankfully, bounced, rolled, and slapped into the wall at last, grateful to be at a stop and aching all over.

I hate everything too much to even appreciate Harry getting tossed into things.

I was in so much pain that I could appreciate the pure beauty of it, the savage, unearthly grace and speed with which it moved. It was a perfect hunter, a perfect killer, fast and strong, relentless and deadly.

Okay so before it was nightmarishly warped but now it’s awesome. Cursed monsters shouldn’t be perfect and full of unearthly grace.

It was no wonder that I had lost to such a magnificently dangerous being. I hated to go, but at least I hadn’t gotten beaten by some scabby troll or whining, angst-ridden vampire.

That isn’t even how vampires worked last book.

But then Murphy shows up. No, Murphy! Wait for it to kill Harry first!