xxSkullxx

Order of the Skull, Chapter X. We start this chapter with the view from Calloway, since Hawkins went unconscious. They end up trapped underground, flooded by one of Eigenstulf's villainous traps. Carson ends up drugged, so her dialogue actually ends up being pretty funny, a lighter note when teh characters are surrounded by certain doom.

The writing in this chapter seems to be quite good, at least from a technical standpoint. Hawkins manages to do something incredibly stupid, the kind of thing you might expect from Willie of Temple of Doom instead of a generally competent sharpshooter. I think the underwater, underground escape scene could use a little more work, since I can only imagine it would be a terrifying ordeal. As a writer, I'd enjoy writing it properly, since typically in movies there's way too much light (like 13th Warrior). Make it a frantic experience of navigating by touch and current alone, against the clock of the dwindling oxygen in your lungs. Really, the kind of scene that only a book could do properly.

The characters then try to deal with Hawk's evident possession. Tabor does something clever as hell here. I'm not quite certain how well it would work in real life, but it's a cool enough trick that I'd let it slide as a reader.  The characters decide that to cure Hawkins, they need to kill Eigenstulf. I do notice that the police have yet to be involved during their time in Boston, which seems a little interesting since they did beat up that cop on the way there.