Guilty Pleasures

What’s yours?

 

***

*all page numbers this section taken from the 1993 edition of Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K Hamilton. (it has Jean-Claude’s face and Anita holding a gun on the front)

*most quotes will be highlighted in red

*most short factoids will be highlighted in violet

 

***

 

“Don’t shoot. It’s Edward.”

 

Death’s first words. The greatest character in the history of Anita Blake came to light in person, in chapter 15, on page 81. And naturally, Anita’s reply? “You bastard. You knew I was out here.”

 

Within their first encounter in GP Edward is already testing Anita, curious if she would pick up on his presence in her apartment upon returning from the Circus.

 

He is described as such: “He was not an imposing man, not frightening, if you didn’t know him. He was five-eight, slender, blond, blue eyed, charming. But if I was the Executioner, he was Death itself.” GP, pg 82

 

¨            Began life as a hit man

¨            Humans became too easy, so he switched to vamps and lycanthropes

¨            “Edward had no conscience. It made him the perfect killer.”

 

Two years ago from GP Anita and Edward worked together to kill six vamps, and two human servants. That was when Anita was branded by the cross, and her collarbone savaged by the vampire Valentine. Edward burned the house down around them with a flame thrower.

 

We find out Edward has two sides early on. The sociopath killer, and the disarming innocent. “He grinned at me, brilliant, heart-stopping. The grin was his very best harmless good ol’ boy smile. I could never decide whether the smile was real or just another mask. Would the real Edward, please stand up? Probably not.” GP, pg 84

 

Edward subtlety threatens to torture Anita on page 84, if he can’t find the location of the master’s lair from anyone else.

-

Mrs. Pringle sees Edward go into Anita’s apartment around 2 in the afternoon, and thinks he’s Anita’s beau. She describes him as a “Nice young man, and very handsome.”

 

Pg 129, Edward leaves Anita a sawed-off shotgun with two boxes of ammo. Its accompanied by a note that says “Anita, you have twenty-four hours.”

 

¨            He has neat handwriting.

¨            Edward doesn’t strike Anita as a “morning person.”

-

Edward shows up for the freak party looking for Nicolaos, and thoroughly surprises Anita.

 

While thinking about the repercussions of Nicolaos discovering Anita knew Edward, if Edward decided to go up against the vampire that night, she decides, “A human being does not turn another human being over to the monsters. Not for any reason.” GP, pg 143

 

Even though Anita knows Edward is a sociopath, she also knows she’s the closest thing he has to a friend. “I think I was the closest thing Edward had to a real friend. A person who knows who and what you are and likes you anyway. I did like him, despite or because of what he was.”

 

¨            Edward is good at undercover work, and a great liar.

¨            His alias at the freak party is Teddy.

 

“This is Teddy. Isn’t he scrumptious?” Darlene the freak on Edward. I’m sure he was.

 

¨            Anita learns “Teddy” has been to other freak parties.

-

pg 173 Edward leaves a message on Anita’s machine. “The clock is ticking, Anita.” He likes to toy with his prey.

-

In chapter 40, pg 218, Anita’s 24 hours are up. Edward collects her after she retrieves her weapons from Guilty Pleasures, from a previous foray with the powers of darkness.

 

“There’s nothing haphazard about Edward. It’s the reason he’s still alive.”

 

Edward sees her bite from Nicolaos, and agrees to help her cleanse it. “Here I was going to cause you pain to get information. Now you ask me to help you pour acid on a wound.”

“Holy water.”

“It’s going to feel the same.” 

 

Chapter 41, pg 220, Edward helps Anita cleanse the bite in her bathroom. “I had jumped, yelled, and whimpered. I had also called Edward a son of a bitch. He didn’t hold it against me.”

 

Edward is impressed by Anita’s reserve, when she decides to clean the bite all the way, no matter how painful. “You will never lose your nerve. Your life, probably, but never your nerve.”

  It was a compliment, and meant as one.

“Thank you.”

 

Anita can’t walk to bed because she’s too weak. Edward tries to carry her, but she won’t let him. So he helps her walk. “I hate being helpless!”

“You’re one of the least helpless people I know.”

 

Edward sits in a chair by the door with his Mini-Uzi, guarding Anita while she sleeps.

 

Anita has a violent dream, with Jean-Claude and Nicolaos. Edward wakes her from it. Acting on instinct and not realizing it was Edward, she draws the Browning from the wall. He restrains her. “I had a nightmare.”

“No shit.”

 

Anita is offered a job from Bert, to lay to rest the Jenson zombie. Edward wants to tag along to protect Anita. (“Ever see a zombie raising?”

“No.”

“You’re not squeamish, are you?” I smiled when I said it.

He stared at me, blue eyes gone suddenly cold. His whole face became different. There was nothing there, no expression, except that awful coldness. Emptiness. I’d had a leopard look at me like that once, through the cage bars, no emotion I understood, thoughts so alien it might as well have inhabited a different planet. Something that could kill me, skillfully, efficiently, because that was what it was meant to do, if it was hungry, or if I annoyed it.

I didn’t faint from fear or run screaming from the room, but it was something of an effort. “You’ve proved your point, Edward. Can the perfect-killer routine, and let’s go.”

His eyes didn’t revert to normal instantly but had to warm up, like dawn easing through the sky. I hoped Edward never turned that look on me for real. If he did, one of us would die. Odds are it would be me.) GP, pg 229-230

 

At the cemetery Anita and Edward are set up, and attacked by ghouls.

 

¨            Edward doesn’t smoke.

 

“Great. We’re going to be eaten alive because neither of us smokes.”

 

They hide in the service shed of the cemetery. Edward says he doesn’t intend to be eaten alive, and offers to “do” Anita first. Instead Anita sets the shed on fire to scare the ghouls away. They make a torch out of Edward’s shirt. Shed blows up. No more ghouls.

 

Pg 238- Anita sees Edward rattled by something for the first time.

 

“What are you thinking?”

“That I love a challenge.” Then he smiled, a beautiful spreading smile. Shit. Death had seen his ultimate goal. The biggest catch of all. He wasn’t afraid of her, and he should have been.

 

Edward goes with Anita to the meeting with the wererats. He stakes out Denny’s to make sure it was safe. They crash at his hotel room later.

 

“I love my work.”

 

Edward and Anita go in through the cave to kill Nicolaos. He gave her a derringer for the hunt. “It kicks like a sonofabitch, but press it under someone’s chin, and it will blow their fucking head off.”

 

Edward shows Anita how to kill a sleeping vampire with silver nitrate, on Valentine.

 

Aubrey almost chokes Edward. Anita blows Aubrey’s head away with the shotgun.

 

¨            Edward is a gun freak

 

Nicolaos orders Edward to kneel, but of course he doesn’t. She has to kick him in the bend of the knee. She breaks his arm.

 

Edward distracts Nicolaos from attacking Anita by shooting her with Zachary’s gun. N bites him.

 

After Anita dismembers Nicolaos, Anita and Edward sing “Ding dong, the witch is dead, the wicked old witch,” and fall into a fit of laughter.

 

The final count of GP: Edward: dislocated shoulder, two broken arm bones, one vampire bite

    Anita: fourteen stitches