Narcissus in Chains Chapter Sixty One

Because I bet unicorns don't sign up to do insane things like review hellishly awful books chapter by chapter.

Bacchus, the not dead after all werehyena recently sticking all willy nilly through Anita's windshield, turns out to be not that helpful after all. Well then what's the fucking point of this little plot wrinkle? Anyway, Narcissus introduced this new dude named Chimera to all the hyenas, implying that Narcissus holds Chimera in high esteem despite Chimera literally not once appearing in this entire novel. Maybe it's just me but I think this would be more effective if the reader were allowed to see Chimera worming his way in to Narcissus' affections over the course of the story. Hell, considering we haven't even seen Narcissus since the beginning, let's just say this all just seems nonsensical instead of stunning.

So turns out Chimera is actually torturing Narcissus. For really real, not for play play. He's also chopped of Ajax's arms and legs and burned the stumps with silver, presumably meaning Ajax can't just shift and get all his limbs back. Though once wonders why they couldn't just cut off the cauterized bits and then get him to shift. I mean, it's not as if being burned with silver should wholly remove that ability, right? Well, maybe there's a mystical explanation. Though I have no fucking idea, because no one ever explains anything in these books. You'd think with Anita's constant what's that supposed to mean refrain the reader might occasionally learn something useful. Nope.

Anyway, it's no wonder Ulysses was having a nervous breakdown earlier, considering Ajax is his long term lover. But Anita just had to keep those guns, you guys. The struggle is real.

Anita is grateful for being a sociopath because she can keep herself from visualizing the horror. That ability does not make a person a sociopath. It could mean the person in question is good at compartmentalizing, or disassociating, both characteristics that can come about for a variety of reasons. Also Anita is an idiot because: "...if so, let's hear it for dementia." Dementia and sociopathy aren't even in the same axis. They're certainly not interchangeable. Though dementia would explain why Anita can't retain simple information for longer than a couple of hours.

Bacchus tells Anita that Chimera only has like twenty five guards, probably less now considering Anita likely shot and killed some of them. She quite reasonably wants to know why five hundred werehyenas couldn't take out twenty five usurpers. In short, they got ahold of Ajax, and Ulysses as acting alpha told everyone else to cooperate. Bacchus tells Anita that since the rest of the hyenas are just followers, they went along with it. God, but this alpha shifter shit is tiresome. It makes no sense. You mean to tell me that no matter what animal you're based on and no matter what the social structure--and keep in mind, Narcissus is already going against hyena tradition because he's not cis female--you get such a complete lobotomy upon changing for the first time that you turn in to a creature about as effective as a plate of particularly wobbly Jello cubes?

Turns out Chimera wants Anita for his mate. O...kay. I don't even know what kind of creature Chimera is or even why I should care about him but the fact that he wants a shot at Anita's magic hoo ha is apparently more important information. Of course I can hardly blame him since Anita's vagina is one of those carnival games where if you can get the object in the hole a prize falls out.

It is implied that because Narcissus couldn't physically tell the hyenas to attack the bad guys, all the hyenas just milled about and let twenty five people move in and take over. This is very, very dumb. Just in case any of you were wondering? Dumb.

Bacchus reveals that they have his lover too, a werehyena named Dionysus (can someone please explain this Greek shit to me? No?), and that the bad guys cut out Dionysus' tongue. Anita thinks one of the most repulsive sentences in this entire book when she realizes she feels bad for him: "Maybe it was a girl thing, or maybe I'd been oversocialized as a child." 

What. the. fuck. If this were all intentional this book would be American Psycho levels of brilliant. Spoiler: It's not.

Anita asks Bacchus to draw a floorplan of the club for her. She thinks that if taking the club back would put too many people she cares about in danger, she won't do it. Right, because that makes sense. Just leave it as it is, even though this Chimera dick wants her specifically and will come after her if she doesn't handle this now.