Chapter sixteen of Cauldron Borne, and one of the things about this book--this series, really--is that it's just incredible because one minute we're piggy-backing on a 14-year-old demigods precognition abilities to try to thwart a death prophecy AND avoid zombies, and the next minute we get something so contextually heart-wrenching that you just have to stop and catch your breath a little:
I can't say that I have any particularly strong feelings about Halloween, but sometimes reading and holidays match up, and if Joanne is spending her Samhain wishing like hell zombies weren't a thing she has to deal with, I can yammer about how awesome it is to watch her hate on dealing with zombies. Let's talk Cauldron Borne.
This is your obligatory SPOILER WARNING. No fair saying I didn't warn you that there would be zombies and spoilers past this point.
So after having taken the promotion Morrison offered her at the end of the last book, Joanne's social life has exploded and we open with a Halloween party that she's co-hosting with her fencing instructor, is attended by most of the SPD, and also includes Edward "Thor" Johnson, Joanne's boyfriend with a big sexy truck. Put a pin in the boyfriend, we're gonna need to come back to that. The other big key point about this book is that it's where Joanne realizes that she is getting a handle on her shamanism. She's got a better sense of her abilities than in past books, and she has more than the little bit of knowledge it takes to be dangerous. So when she and Billy catch a homicide that has some spooky origins, she's actually making plans and acting instead of just reacting. It's a great change, and honestly this is where Joanne really starts coming into her own.
This is ALSO the book where Joanne figures out that of all the spooktacular creatures she could be dealing with, Zombies are her least favorite. And given all the sensory details we get about them from this book? They're my least favorite too. Monsters should have the courtesy not to SMELL if they're going to murder you.
However, that gets a bit ahead of myself. Let's start with Joanne and Billy, because he is undoubtedly our MVP secondary character in this book. Detective Billy Holliday sees dead people, and has since the tragic, accidental death of his sister Caroline when she was eleven. That's all fine, it makes him a damn good homicide detective, and he has built himself a happy, stable life with his wife Melinda--who is literally days from giving birth to their fifth child. It is this gift of seeing ghosts that lets Billy know that a whole bunch of very pissed off ghosts erupt from the party cauldron and try to possess people.
One of those ghosts is Matilda Whitehead, and 13-year-old who was murdered in 1900. She leads Billy and Joanne to a string of semi-centennial child murders that connect somehow to the murder of a security guard who was securing the Cauldron of Maltholwch--better known as the Black Cauldron--which has of course been stolen. So Joanne and Billy have to a) solve a bunch of related murders and b) find the dang Cauldron. With the help of a lot of ghosts and Suzanne Quinley--grandaughter of Cenunnos, leader of the Wild Hunt--they do. But not before the guy who stole the Cauldron tries to use Joanne as a test case to make sure he can bring his wife and daughters back to life.
Joanne tries to self-sacrifice by jumping into the Cauldron to destroy it, but Billy cold-cocks her and jumps in instead. At which point it is revealed that Caroline's ghost has stayed with Billy his whole life to protect him. Which is lucky, because only Caroline can destroy the Cauldron by finally going to her rest. Billy and Joanne are yote from the exploding Cauldron, and Melinda goes into labor. Our bad guy has a grief heart attack, and everyone is happily ever after at that point.
So let's dig in a little, shall we?
Joanne, Thor, and Morrison
So. For those of you playing along at home, Joanne had a choice at the end of the last book. She could take a promotion to detective or she could take a chance on a relationship with Morrison. In one of the most heart-wrenching but correct decisions I have ever seen a character make in a book, she took the promotion. And sometime between books, she started dating the guy who was hired to replace her all the way back in book 1.
Morrison is deeply cool about ALL of this (so much so that it got its own post), while still carrying one hell of a torch.
Unfortunately, it takes less than five chapters for it to be really, really damn clear that Thor is not cut out to be the side of the relationship that runs for cover or trusts the other side to protect themselves. In fairness to him, at over six feet tall, good with cars, and ripped as hell, he probably hasn't HAD to walk away from many fights in his life. He's probably very used to being protective. But if you don't have magic, you can't face down the magical enemies and win.
This sits poorly with him, and the miniute Joanne says she is walking into an objectively dangerous situation, he pitches a tantrum because he can't go badass with her. They literally break up over this, and everyone but Joanne saw it coming. I'm pretty sure THOR saw it coming. He wanted to be the protector, but that was just never going to be the dynamic.
Which is something Morrison SUPER understands, because Joanne goes to say a "just in case" goodbye to him before she walks into danger. And I don't honestly know what possessed Morrison to push the issue and ask WHY she was really in his office. He could absolutely have let her hide behind "Billy told me I had to ask your permission before walking into a dangerous situation" because it's plausible deniability for everyone involved. Hell, I'm fairly sure BILLY was expecting Morrison to forbid her from going. But Joanne walks into the office and goes, "Hey, so, I'm walking into this situation. It'd be better if you didn't order me not to. Cool?"
Morrison is just barely cool with it. He, in fact, turns purple about it, but he lets her go. He trusts that she's got this. And when she gets sucker-punched and hung over the cauldron by a serial killer, he strong-arms Cernunnos himself to get him, Billy, Gary, and Suzanne to Joanne this very second. (God I want to see that scene...we don't get it, but it would be INCREDIBLE.)
Morrison knows how to stand beside and trust a partner. He also knows when protection and help are useful rather than infantilizing and actively detrimental, so points.
And he somehow manages to do ALL of this while respecting Joanne's choice. Even when she is having trouble with her own choice, he's just...there. Letting her figure it out, and stepping in when it's necessary to make sure she doesn't end up sacrificed to an ancient Celtic cauldron.
Suzanne Quinley
Miss Suzy Q. is back! Our girl was a minor character in book 1, and since the events if that book has been living with her aunt in Olympia and coming into the powers that are her heritage as a demi-god. She can see through time, guys, and it's as awesome and terrifying as you might expect.
This new precognitive ability is why Suzanne turns up in Seattle: She has seen Joanne's death and she wants to prevent it from.coming true. Along the way, Suzanne ends up revealing herself to just be RELENTLESSLY impressive. In the face of waves of zombies (starting with insects and graduating to small animals and finally to humans) and an adult who is curled in a ball on the ground shrieking (Joanne REALLY is not ok with zombies), Suzanne picks up the shotgun full of rock salt, fires into the crowd of zombies, and orders Joanne up. She also threatens to shoot Joanne to buy herself time to run, but she's 14 and being chased by zombies, so I genuinely do not blame her. Luckily, Joanne gets the hell up, so Suzanne gets to just keep blasting zombies as they make their way back to Petite.
Honestly, this whole scene in the cemetery is freaking incredible. A+, no notes.
Suzanne also gets to ride with the Wild Hunt to Joanne's rescue, where her magic gets EVEN CREEPIER. Billy and Morrison have guns with which to shoot undead Celtic warriors, Gary body slams one before nabbing Joanne's sword to use. Suzanne just straight up Benjamin Buttons them out of existence. It's the creepiest thing I have ever considered in terms of ways to dispatch zombies, but it is damn effective.
Archie Redding
Our big bad for this book is way, way more tragic and human than I had been trained by the series so far to expect. Archie Redding was a homesteader in the 1800s who took.his wife and two little girls and trekked across the continent toward California. Tragedy strikes when they're traveling out of season and get caught in an avalanche. Redding is thrown clear, but his family does not survive.
And who happens upon him in this moment of tragedy and vulnerability? A freaking banshee with a magical solution to preserve the bodies until they can brig them back to life. And all its going to take is murdering a kid every fifty years to buy the lifespan and preservation. So Archie full-on murders kids every fifty years until he sees his chance to steal the Cauldron of Matholwch and use it to reanimate his family.
He murders his fellow security guard to get it out of the museum. He tries to murder Joanne as a test case to see if it'll work on his family. There are literally dozens of bodies buried under the pool in his back yard.
And all of it ends up being for naught, because the cauldron only gives his family a minute of life. On top of that, it's not even his family's souls that come back, it's three new ones. Archie got played by the banshee and it's master, and a bunch of people died over the one hundred and sixty-odd years this saga took.
Archie ends up dying of a heart attack while Joanne and Bily are busy destroying the cauldron. While Joanne could have brought him back to face justice, Morrison leaves the choice to her, and she leaves him be. There was nothing about forcing him to live and endure the criminal justice system that would have made anything better, so she leaves him dead. It's probably the kinder option, but that doesn't make it an easy choice. Especially since Archie is more tragic than evil.
The Freaking Cauldron
Ok, so for being an inanimate object, the Cauldron of Matholwch has a hell of a presence in this book. Death magic tends to have more attitude than other types of magic in fantasy in general, and this is no exception. It's seductive and creepy, and it does FUNKY things to your free will. Like funky to the point of being its own anti-destruction loophole, because the very nature of its magic means that no living human goes in of their own free will, which is how you do a sacrifice to destroy the thing.
Billy and Caroline are the loophole for the loophole, but holy cow there's something...sticky and oppressive and heavy about the cauldron's magic.
It's a REALLY cool item, and the fact that it gets us headed toward the Celtic side of Joanne's magical heritage--plus some foreshadowing about Brigid and the Morrigan--is a ton of fun.
Daniel Doherty
Ohhhhhh Daniel Doherty...this poor little insurance adjuster really goes THROUGH it this book, and he almost deserves it. He pops us early on in the book because he's trying VERY hard to deny Joanne's claims about the damage Petite suffered in the last few books, or even accuse her of insurance fraud. Since this is Petite on the line, Joanne has no patience and seriously almost gives Doherty up to the zombies in the cemetery.
He is a skeezy, sanctimonious, dyed-in-the-wool corporate stooge, and frankly he deserves the scare of his life. Literally one of the highlights of this book is once Joanne gets Doherty and Suzanne out of the cemetery and safely back to the police precinct, Doherty asks her what the hell happened. Joanne's response is, and I quote:
"What do you want, Mr. Doherty? Do you want the truth? If I tell you it's what you want it to be, an incredibly well-realized film production, are you going to go home and write up our madcap race out there as a liability and refuse me my insurance claim?"
Like...damn girl, I'm with you on insurance men being the absolute worst, but even I think that's cold. Although if my baby's well-being was on the line, I'd probably be that blunt too.
For fans of the series who want to see how Doherty handles this long term, there is a free short story called "Ghost Rider" that handles this and low-key crosses over with a pair of brothers who also have a car fetish and monster hunting legacy...
There wasn't a ton of Gary in this book, or even as much Morrison as I'd have liked, but this is one of my favorites in the series purely for how well it handles zombies and for how it handles death magic. Not to mention the always fun dynamics between Joanne and Billy, and a bit of a wrap to the arc Billy's had going for these first five books. As per usual, I cannot recommend this series or this author enough!
Chapter 5 of Cauldron Borne and holy cow it did not take Thor long to prove that he and Joanne weren't going to work long-term. The protective instinct is only good if it doesn't smother the other person's competence and the facts of reality. Joanne has LITERAL ACTUAL MAGIC, and he doesn't. Ergo, he has to trust her to protect herself, and he literally just said, "I can't run when things get weird or dangerous if we're going to make this work. I want to be there to help. To keep you safe."
SIR. Do you have magic? Can you even SEE the monster sprinting toward us across the Astral plane? No? Then RUN WHEN THE PERSON WHO CAN TELLS YOU TO RUN. You're helping no one if you get your ass killed or distract the person with the magic.
Ok, I'm just at the end of chapter 4 of Cauldron Borne, and like...
CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT THIS FOR A SEC:
Joanne set a boundary at the end of the last book. She took the promotion instead of the relationship. And Morrison is respecting the HELL out of that boundary. He's politely and publicly acknowledging and supporting her choice. He's good to Thor. He doesn't make it weird.
But. Butbutbutbutbut. He has not turned away when she looks back. This man respects the door that Joanne shut. But he's also going to be fully on board if she ever decides to reopen it. And even if she never does, he's still her captain and he's still always going to have her back because as long as she's a member of the force, she is his people.
Seriously, Captain J. Michael Morrison is the best and this man makes me swoon like few other fictional characters.
