Diana has been
captured by Satu. Who can fly - this is apparently a witch thing. And she has
been delivered to Gerbert the evil vampire
Honestly, Satu,
you’ve got Gerbert the evil vampire and Knoxx the evil witch - you need better
friends.
When she arrives
Gerbert starts getting all gropy but Satu steps in - she’s her’s first before
Gerbert
She then tries to
convince Diana she’s a friendly kidnapper, appeal to her witch solidarity
(though she seems shaken when Diana reveals her parents were killed by witches
before falling back on the witches must have had a good reason) before getting
to the core - she wants to see Diana’s power.
And Diana throws some witchwind about but it’s not all that impressive and Satu isn’t going to be moved by it. She tries to frame it as a chance to help - if she teaches Diana magic she can then protect herself from Gerbert and Matthew. Of course Diana objects to the idea she needs protecting from Matthew and Satu’s attempts to convince her that a) Matthew is using her for the book and b) that Matthew killed Gillian are also not exactly convincing
It’s not like Diana
even likes Gillian and disparages her as just another puppet of Knoxx’s - just
like Satu. Well… she’s not wrong Satu.
Satu keeps magicing
at Diana which involves some fire effects, lots of throwing her around and some
glowing lines on Diana’s back while she screams and Satu demands to know her
secrets. She also has an ominous box
Gerbert is
interviewing his headless witch: beware the witch with the blood of the lion
and the wolf which will destroy the children of the night. Can someone write
this down so she can stop repeating. It. Gerbert would quite like to know
whether Diana or Satu is the witch of prophecy (probably Diana I think)
More screaming and
woo-woo and Satu collapses, apparently not getting what she wants, so she drags
Diana to an oubliette and drops her in (they’re in Gerbert’s ruined castle).
Gerbert arrives to demand he be tagged in and Satu needs to get Diana out
- but she can’t. Using woo-woo on Diana has cost her her powers.
Welp, Knox did warn
you Satu.
Knox locks her up in
a room with the severed witch head which duly freaks Satu out that an ancient
powerful witch has been kept in such an appalling condition for so long. The
witch is apparently Meridana (THE Meridana - so clearly important) - and Satu
borrows some of her magic so she can escape - with the head.
While Diana dreams
about her parents who take a long time to explain that to get out of a room
with a hole in the ceiling one has to fly
I would say it
shouldn’t take this long to explain things to her but given her decision making
to date… maybe.
Of course the rest of
Team Good Guy aren’t standing around. While Matthew snarls and manhandles his
brother Baldwin and even bites him for the actions of the Council, Marthe
investigates and discovers a flying witch must be behind the abduction
(something Knoxx cannot do). They call Knoxx anyway and he lies and claims Satu
is with him - it’s not a convincing lie. But a witch invading vampire lands is
justification for a war...
Marthe puts in that
flying witches don’t exactly have huge ranges while Sarah and Emily call with
some visions that Diana is being held in a ruined castle. Ysabeau pipes up that
Gerbert has a ruined castle nearby that really they didn’t think of before
now?! Baldwin is all leery at the idea of invading another vampire’s territory
and is a witch really worth starting a war over?
Hey, maybe not - but
everyone’s treating your territory like it’s a free-for-all Baldwin. If other
people’s territory is a big deal you might want to get on that.
The gang take a
helicopter and fly to the rescue to face absolutely no opposition at all… which
is rather anticlimactic. And yes, Diana learns to fly because of the power of
love
Really?
Apart from the sheer
saccharineness of it all, SHE HARDLY KNOWS HIM
Back home they all
reunite and discover Satu has branded Diana with a gnarly scar which is
unpleasant. But Diana also feels better because she’s been unbound… except the
only reason witches are bound is when they’re insane or dangerous to others… so
who bound her. Diana falls into the classic “I’m a monster!!!!” angst
While Baldwin would
still very much not like to drag his whole family into a war over a witch when
he’s not that big a fan of witches so could Matthew stop it already. Matthew
says no and involves Convoluted Bullshit Plot Contrivance
This Bullshit Plot
Contrivance is the Knights of St Lazaraus. Apparently an order their dad led
which he passed on to Matthew which once defended the Cathars in southern
France during the Albigensian crusade. Which is a nice bit of history - but
still kind of weird that the modern Grand Master can just invoke it for any
damn reason and expect Baldwin to just obey. Someone needs to check the fine
print on that
So Baldwin is heading
back to the Congregation fo focus on Satu invading his lands rather than Diana
and Matthew schtupping (honestly you’d think he’d do this anyway). And Matthew
declares his loyalty to Diana and how he totally should have murdered Gillian.
Which she doesn’t object to but she wants to be the one to deal with Satu
Another potential
source of help is Agatha from the Daemon congregation - she joins her son
Nathaniel and daughter-in-law Sophie so Sophie can explain why it’s so
important she get her statue to Diana and why she thinks her visions are so
closely linked to her: because Sophie was born of witches
Which is apparently a
thing? Sophie is a Daemon but apparently with an entirely witch family? Someone
needs to explain to me how Daemons work or what they are or what they do.
This also means her
baby by Nathaniel may be a witch and probably is and they didn’t tell the
Agatha because she’s congregation and that whole interspecies mating thing
which makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE is Daemons can literally be born entirely from
non-daemon parents and those Daemons can have a witch baby because of 2 of four
grandparents… How can you have a society that is totally against interspecies
mixing when one of those species just mixes it up every which way?
Agatha is angry -
because they didn’t trust her and screw the Congregation, her first loyalty is
to her family - and she tells Sophie about Diana
And Satu burns up
Meridana’s head to grant her release… she also hears the prophecy. And, I
assume, gets her powers back
