#real alphas blow up their rivals with. magic powers

[hotdrinks]

Jon rescuing Martin from the Lonely while covered in Peter's blood 🙂

[Image ID: A digital drawing of the scene from episode 159 of The Magnus Archives where Jon rescues Martin from The Lonely. The drawing depicts Jon and Martin kneeling in the sand in an embrace. Martin is dressed in a tight suit, and Jon is wearing an oversized hoodie and jeans. Jon's hands are covered in blood, and there are blood spatters on his clothes. The blood smears and stains Martin's suit. They are surrounded by fog which clearing away from them. A beam from a lighthouse in the distance illuminates them. End ID]

:3

[booksummarieswithkatz]

Inquisitor by R.J. Blain, a summary

Okay, first we need the basic terms for this world.

Feneric: Werewolves, they’re weak to silver and must constantly keep their animal selves under control. There are three types of Feneric separated into four social strata.

TYPES

-Born Feneric: the children who are born Feneric to Feneric parents.

-Made Feneric: Humans who became Feneric through a special ritual, this usually requires the person’s consent but it can be forced upon them.

-True Feneric: Feneric born under one of two circumstances- a human baby born to wolves, or a wolf pup born to human parents- they are extremely rare, valuable, and powerful Feneric

STRATA

-Alphas: Protectors of the pack, they are the strongest and most dominant in their packs.

-Dominants: Feneric that have instincts pushing them to take control of their surroundings and protect those they see as reliant on them.

-Submissives: Feneric who do not feel the need to be in charge, they are valued in their packs because dominant wolves are soothed by their presence, since they don’t see them as rivals.

-Omegas: Feneric who do not feel the need to be in charge yet still have all the same protective instincts of dominants; they are the rarest and can play any role necessary to stabilize their pack.

Witches: Humans who have connection to a specific element of nature; fire, water, air, or earth. They gain powers based on that element as well as boosted health and lifespan. They can also form a pact with Feneric to help preserve their humanity.

Wizards: Humans who can basically break most of the laws of magic so long as they are able to afford the price. They are killed by other supernatural beings on sight.

The Inquisition: A shadowy group that is part of most modern government and was born from the Catholic Church. They “protect” normal people from the supernatural. They often demand witches join them and wolf packs register themselves in exchange for the lives. They kill almost all other supernatural beings on sight, and offer massive bounties for same, as well as “rogue” witches and wolves.

The Shadow Pope: this person with a dumb-ass name is the head of the Inquisition, below him are the Archeons and below them are the Cardinals.

Now that that’s out of the way let’s get on with the story.

Our main character this time around is Victoria Allison Elisabeth Mayfield Hanover, and she is old as fuck. Born in 1851 levels of old. However she is still looking romance novel levels of “oh im not that great but the boys still drool because lol self-esteem issues” because she, surprise, surprise, is both a Feneric and a witch. Now of course you can’t be immortal, attractive, and magic without some bullshit to rain on your parade, so dear Victoria (or as her current driver’s license says “Allison Ferdinan”) is also a rogue on the run after being held captive by the Inquisition and kept in a cage until they needed her to kill someone. Also, because protagonists need to be special™ she is also the Keeper of the Seasons, which is fancy talk for “I am a wolf who sometimes goes nuts and kills people who try to fuck with nature.”

Needless to say, she doesn’t like to draw attention to herself. Which is why she became one of the most powerful CEOs in the U.S. of a corporation called Marrodin Enterprises and then created the fake persona, Allison Ferdinan, who works as an accountant and travels around the country to stop herself from going stir crazy. Because becoming rich and powerful is the first step to making sure no one knows or cares about who you are. As you do.

And thus we begin with Allison (Victoria) standing in NYC’s Central Park having a chat with her client and acquaintance, Markus Dupree. You see, its Halloween and Mark needs to find a woman who (despite his handsome face and oodles of money) is willing (lol) to pretend to be his lover at a gala for the rich and powerful to impress his mother. Allison (Victoria) of course says “absolutely no-” “Pretty please I’ll owe you a favor and we’re friends and I already got us a room at the Plaza and-its-definitely-not-the-Honeymoon-suite-and-I-definitely-don’t-love-you-woudn’t-that-be-wierd-right hahahaa.” To which she says “yeah I guess.”

So after going to a jewelry store dressed like a hobo, being accused of credit card theft when she tried to buy a multi-million-dollar necklace, and scaring the shit out of the store manager because when he called the credit card company, her assistant and friend Samantha shows up to slap the manager with a stack of Benjamins. Also she bought the necklace. Allison and Samantha have a nice chat about how buying a necklace that costs more than some small country’s GDP when she’s supposed to be a middle-class accountant may have been a tactical error, to which Allison replies “fuck that I need a purse to match my dress” and they go buy a purse before taking her to the party.

Now at the party we learn a few important things, one: Mark’s mom is a witch and also a huge bitch, two: Mark’s mom works for the Inquisition and straight up kills a woman named Caroline at the party and disguises it as a Halloween murder mystery, three: the Inquisition used a Feneric as a party favor for the rich guests, and four: Allison is allergic to canines, including Feneric… and herself… yeah. All of these serve to tilt the shit out of Allison and after Mark’s mom straight up calls her a slut after Mark’s money she bolts out of there and kidnaps Samantha for a “time to disappear” roadtrip.

They drive to some woods and Allison shifts for the first time in about two decades (a really big no-no when you risk going insane by trying to not shift for one full moon) and as she forgets her humanity and runs off into the woods she kills a bunch of witches who were trying to turn Autumn into Winter early. Then after a brief encounter with an odd wolf, Samantha says Allison’s true name (Victoria Allison Elisabeth Mayfield Hanover) and gets her to change back before going on the road again.

On the road they get a call from Samantha’s boss, who says that Allison was spotted with a giant dog in front of a lawyer’s house and mauled him to death. So the “time to disappear” trip became a “time to fake our own deaths” trip and after paying a guy Allison new from when she and Samantha went on a wild bender in Saigon during the Vietnam war, Allison gets two bullets to the chest (only for the camera of course) and they blow up Samantha’s car. It’s then that Samantha takes off her soccermom illusion and reveals that she’s in her seventies. WOW! So surprising after the whole, 150+ year old wolf-witch thing right? So they drive down to Atlanta and do a big song and dance to swap Allison’s identity to that of Victoria Hanover, CEO of Marrodin Enterprises – a company so strictly controlled by her that only people who pass a harsh evaluation and can be called good people will ever be hired or promoted. She also hires Samantha (now old) to be her new secretary.

At Marrodin we meet a few important people, Elliot Anderson (CEO of a subcorporation of Marrodin and overall cool dude) and Amelia (Head of the legal divisions and former judge). So we then find out that the lawyer people thought Allison killed worked for a Marrodin law firm, and that a bunch of employees around Marrodin are getting routinely and professionally iced. So Victoria does what she does best, run out on her own and adopt some kids left behind by one of the dead employees. Then Samantha dies, and Victoria just about loses her shit. After “convincing” a doctor to do a full toxicology report on Samantha’s body, we find out that Samantha had a weird virus in her system that looked similar to ebola -er- sorry- *ehem* looked similar to ebola, and *gasp* say it ain’t so but it’s the plague! A disease that killed an assload of Feneric when Victoria was young! So Victoria calls up the guy who fake shot her and says “yo someone murdered my witch” to which he said “I know a guy, also if you dance naked on their graves when you’re done I want pictures.”

So Victoria buys a house, drives -by herself- to pick up the kids she adopted, and picks up a British hitman guy named James who decides to chill with her. Also the kids turn out to be Feneric. And they’re both omegas. And the boy (they are a brother and sister between 3 and 7y.o.) is a true born. Also it turns out that Victoria Allison Elisabeth Mayfield Hanover is actually a true born Feneric and part of the British royal family and was sold as a breeding bitch to a Feneric pack in Canada. That’s a thing. Also there is a huge bounty to capture her, because she’s ancient and magic and royal and shit.

Then Victoria becomes a cool mom and take the kids to a funeral for one of the employees in Washington D.C. and then someone lobs a bunch of grenades into the crowd and Victoria goes into a coma, and is brought to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota (land of lakes represent) where she wakes up two weeks later. After going back to Atlanta, Victoria realizes that all the dead employees are Feneric, so she looks up their bank statements and realizes that they all bought stuff at a gas station in Alabama around the time of the full moon. So she decides they were a pack and brings Elliot Anderson (remember him?) and the two kids out to the place.

We then find out that some dumb motherfucker has been going around randomly forcing people into becoming Feneric and then abandoning them without any guidance. She then decides to admit to Anderson what she is (only the wolf part though) and then they go and wolf out in the woods. Cuz werewolves. Victoria then circles back and finds SURPRISE it’s Anderson, James, Mark, and Mark’s mom having a chat in the open about killing rogue wolves. SWEEEEEERVE! 

So Victoria, now real shook, jumps out of the bushes and rips Mark’s mom’s throat out. Lovely. Everyone takes this really well, and they bring her to the Inquisition’s nearby base, and get her tested for the plague, cuz she’s ancient and shit. It’s pretty clear too since modern Feneric look like modern wolves kinda but she looks like the way extinct dire wolf species. Also the boss of the place is a Feneric named Devonshire who SURPRISE is the one who keeps forcing people into becoming Feneric because he wants an alpha or some shit. The book really just nosedives from here so I’ll try to condense it further.

They lock Victoria in a room and force her to turn human again, but she actually decided “fuck all of you” and summoned a hurricane and a blizzard to simultaneously strike the Inquisition base and she starts getting hypothermia. She is then awakened by James and Mark who have very different reactions to the revelation of what she is; mainly Mark goes “I-THOUGHT-YOU-WERE-DEAD-I-LOVE-YOU” and James the Brit goes “OMGOMGOMGOMG YOU’RE THE SHIMMER! THE ROYAL WOLF! I. AM. A. HUUUUUGE FAN!” And so she says “yeah ok bye” and commands the snowstorm to toss them out of the base. Then Devonshire and Anderson burst in and Devonshire goes “shoot her” and Anderson shoots her – really shoots her this time. Then Amelia (remember her?) busts in, shoots Anderson, and grabs Victoria. Then the two of them get captured by an Arab woman and some mercs who are like “sick, kill the witch and sell the bitch, lady wolves are big business.” But when the Arab woman gets antsy about the silver chains poisoning Victoria, the other mercs kill her and then Amelia goes “take the chains off bro she’s the Shimmer bro” (also Shimmer is a name for the Keeper of the Seasons i.e. Victoria) and the mercs are like “sweet” and then Amelia says “close your eyes Victoria” and she does and then the mercs are dead and then SURPRISE BITCH it was all an illusion and Amelia is evil and the whole thing where Anderson shot Victoria was a lie and also Anderson and James show up and so does Mark and they shoot Amelia and it turns out that EVERYTHING that happened in the book was Amelia’s plan to take over Marrodin and kill Victoria because Samantha was her coven sister and Victoria corrupted her or some shit. So everyone decides to act like all of this never happened, except that Anderson and Victoria might be swiggity swooty going for each others’ booty on the down low and Victoria promised Mark that if he still wanted to marry her in ten years she would consider it and James got nothing because he is a limey bitch. Also Anderson is the Shadow Pope.