Hunted (House of Night) Chapter 17: They’re Finally Back at the House of Night and Kalona is Walking Around Shirtless

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House of Night: Hunted Chapter 17

The gang’s car is stopped by Aristos (a Son of Erebus now apparently working for the bad guys) and a gang of Raven Mockers. Darius steps out of the vehicle by himself to deal with the situation.

“Greetings, Aristos,” Darius said. Though he clenched his fist over his heart in a quick salute, I noticed Darius did not bow. “I have several fledglings, including a young priestess, with me. The priestess has been severely wounded and is in need of immediate medical attention.”
Before Aristos could respond, the largest of the Raven Mockers cocked its head to the side and said, “Which priestess returns to the House of Night?”

OH MY GOD. JUST LET THEM GET TO THE FUCKING HOUSE OF NIGHT ALREADY.

Slowly and deliberately Darius shifted his attention […] “Creature, I do not know you.”
The Raven Mocker narrowed its red eyes at Darius. “Son of man, you may call me Rephaim.”
Darius didn’t blink. “I still do not know you.”

I genuinely love how Darius is the collected and calm character, but he’s somehow way sassier than any of the characters that are supposed to be sassy.

Aristos asks Darius himself, and Darius confirms that Zoey is with them. The Raven Mockers have no chill.

Rephaim said, “Is the Red One with you?”
Darius glanced back at him. “I do not know what you mean by the Red One,” he said blandly.
In an instant Rephaim had spread his massive black wings and leaped on the hood of the Hummer. […] “Do not lie to me, ssssson of man! You know I sssspeak of the red vampyre!” As his temper spiked, his voice became less human.

I don’t want to overuse this meme in my criticism, but I mean…

…how are the Sons of Erebus and the vampyre fledglings just sorta chill with this? I’m not asking why they’re going along with it (power structures slowly slipping into the banality of evil and people just sorta going along with it are psychologically complicated and beyond the scope of my criticism here). But how is everyone at the school just kind of chill about the existence of their brand new angry bird-people overlords that just showed up overnight? Chill bird-people overlords, maybe. But always angry ones? I know Kalona’s got some mind control business going on, but this feels weird.

And I know we just got back to the House of Night (finally) so maybe we’ll learn that the Sons of Erebus were secretly evil the whole time, or that not everyone at the school is super on board with this. (It’s almost like spending half of the book in a tunnel away from where the plot was happening was not good for the story?) Hell, so much as one scene with a nameless background student not totally falling in (or so much as having a “these exist?” reaction that is… strangely totally absent so far) and getting their shit wrecked for it would do wonders for this book. That’d be great! Anything other than the assumption that everyone looked at these angry bird-people suddenly existing and being in charge and going, “Yeah, this is normal.”

ANYWAY. It’s not like that “nobody thinks this is weird and maybe they’re the bad guys now, but historically human societies often just kinda go along with it anyway, but then again there’s no historical precedent for angry bird-people so IS THIS WEIRD OR NOT????” caveat is going anyway any time soon. So, uh, back to actually summarizing this chapter.

Darius explains that Stevie Rae is not with him, he only has blue fledglings with him, and – like he’s been saying – one of them needs immediate medical attention. They finally let them proceed.

WE’RE FINALLY BACK AT THE MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE OF NIGHT, YALL. ONLY TOOK HALF THE BOOK.

As soon as they exit the car, the cats take one look at the Raven Mockers and “slunk out and seemed to melt into the icy shadows.”

Please let the cats be safe, I sent a silent plea to Nyx.

I’m super jealous that the cats can just choose to not participate in this story.

Soon enough, they come across Neferet. Zoey quickly reminds the others to use the elements to protect them from Neferet’s mind-reading powers, which is a thing that the elements can apparently do as of a few chapters ago in the fifth book in this series.

But that’s hardly the biggest change at the House of Night…

a door a few feet down the hall from where Neferet stood opened and he stepped out of it.

Casual reminder that the villain’s main superpower is – and I’m being 100% serious right now – that he’s really fucking hot.

“Oh!” Shaunee breathed.
“Shiiiiiit!” Erin said on a long sigh.
“Don’t look at his eyes!” I heard Aphrodite whisper. “Stare at his chest instead.”
“Not a hard thing to do,” Damien said softly.

BAHAHAHAHA. Oh my God, Damien wins for funniest joke that was intended to be a joke. Damien, you’re alright.

Kalona was wearing pants that looked like they were made of the same creamy brown deerskin real moccasins were made of. His feet were bare, and so was his chest.

THE PRIMARY ANTAGONIST IS JUST WALKING AROUND SHIRTLESS IN THIS FUCKING HIGH SCHOOL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL, THIS IS REALLY HIS DEAL.

Strangely, House of Night actually does something very smart and intriguing: Zoey’s narration starts to feel the effects of the mind control.

It sounds stupid to say it— that he was standing there in the hallway half-naked— but then it didn’t feel stupid at all. It felt right. It’s just that he was so incredible!

I’m being totally, totally serious. This is actually really good! It’s also a cool benefit to first-person narration, because we’ve spent so much time in Zoey’s head (regrettably) this helps us immediately get how serious a very abstract concept is.

Neferet intimidated me. She was just so perfect and powerful. Kalona made me realize my insignificance. The two of them together dwarfed me, and my head swam dizzily with a cacophony of thoughts. I was just a kid. Hell, I wasn’t even a full vampyre yet. How could I hope to stand against these two amazing beings? And did I really want to fight Kalona? Did we know for one hundred percent sure that he was evil?

Of course, it’d be better if maybe our narrator being mind-controlled meant that she also stopped doing her totally hilarious asides but no such luck.

His skin [was] the golden tan that white girls try but always fail to get by roasting in tanning beds.

Guess we can’t have everything.

Zoey is drawn towards making eye contact with Kalona, despite Aphrodite’s warning, and Kalona immediately demands to know why she’s not receiving medical attention. Rephaim (the raven mocker who got dialogue earlier this chapter) shows up and lies that he was trying to take care of that. Aphrodite immediately steals yet another scene she’s in, even though the shirtless hunky bad guy is finally actually in the book.

Albeit just because she’s the only character who gets shit done. Not because her dialogue is magically written any better…

“Oh, bullshit!” Completely shocked, I stared openmouthed at Aphrodite, who was giving the Raven Mocker her best bitchy sneer. She tossed back her thick blond hair as she continued, “Bird boy kept us out there in the freezing rain while he yammered about the Red One this and the Red One that. Darius got Zoey in here despite his help.” Aphrodite air-quoted over the word “help.”
There was utter silence in the hallway, and then Kalona threw back his beautiful head and laughed. “I had forgotten how amusing human women can be.”

Kalona, so far the most disagreeable thing about you is what constitutes “amusing” for you.

Aphrodite’s problems continue to be more interesting than Zoey’s, when Neferet immediately, bluntly asks Aphrodite if she’s a human now (which I guess she found out at some point? I do not remember this at all) and then tells her to leave the school. Zoey asserts that Aphrodite still receives visions from Nyx, therefore “she belongs here”.

“Visions?” Kalona’s deep voice cut the air between us. […] “Neferet, my Queen, you did not tell me you had a prophetess at the House of Night.” Before Neferet could speak, he continued, “Most excellent, most excellent. A prophetess can be quite useful.”

Zoey notes that everyone is at least somewhat affected by Kalona except for Aphrodite, which doesn’t make sense. Probably because we haven’t introduced brand new rules about what the elements can and cannot do yet. If I had to guess.

Neferet eventually wins an argument that everyone needs to actually leave so she can give Zoey medical attention. Aphrodite tells everyone to give Zoey “your strongest get-well wishes”, which leads to such a weirdly protracted scene with everyone secretly giving Zoey their elemental protection that even the characters in the book get annoyed with how fucking slow it is.

“Enough sentimentality. I’ll take her now.”

Then the Casts realize that, shit, a scene with Zoey requiring medical attention from the two primary antagonists, leaving her all alone at their mercy after she had very obviously disobeyed their last orders sounds really hard to write. So Zoey just loses consciousness for it instead.

Then I did something I’d only done twice before in my entire life. I fainted.

How convenient.