Got a short attention span? Me t— hey! Look! Squirrel!
Obviously this page contains spoilers for Book Two.
In the second instalment of Almost Eternal, we pick up with the four runaway vampires who are hopping between grotty motels attempting to avoid detection as the media frenzy comes to a boil.
A few more people die. There are more news stories. The screenshots are marginally less terrible; I learned how to make poses properly so I can show as well as tell. I still draw my special effects in MS paint.
After drinking Chuck unconscious, Seth dumps him on Lilith’s doorstep. The poor human eventually comes round and forms a tentative relationship with Lilith as he proceeds to look for his runaway daughter.
Caleb and a heavily-disguised April think it’d be a great idea to go on a movie and dinner date. And it is, until he accidentally drains a man and they have to hide the body.
We’re introduced to Police Chief Ralf Widdlefinkle and Officer Jessica Spoon of the Woodland Borough Police Department (WBPD), who have been tasked with investigating a case of assault at a bar in Forgotten Hollow. Over the course of their first scene, we learn that the unidentified man that Caleb and April rolled into the river is none other than Officer Chase Crooks of the WBPD. But I’m sure that has no bearing on anything.
Seth tracks down Faith, but she rebuffs him.
He is not cool with this.
With all the high-profile disappearances and seemingly unexplained events happening around Forgotten Hollow, the Glimmerbrook Truth Society (GliTS) an eccentric group of tinfoil-hatted investigators burst on to the scene, disturbing the peaceful forest life and forcing Lilith from her favourite bar.
She also abandons her surgery when the interest in the missing police officer comes a little too close for comfort.
With no brother to nag and not even a behatted twat of an ex popping up to bother her, Lilith considers surrender, but is saved by a knock at the door as Chuck returns, armed with a revelation about what exactly Lilith, and his daughter, really are. With nothing to stay for and no reason to hide from him, Lilith sets off with Chuck to find his daughter and her brother.
Fed up with dingy bedsits, Caleb manages to get a suite at a fancy hotel.
But in true Caleb style, his own poor judgment comes back to bite him in the arse.
He flees with the girls to Windenburg, to an old cottage that he once resided in with Lilith. Tensions grow between Caleb and Melinda as she starts to fully understand the brevity of Caleb and April’s ‘relationship’ – a dynamic that is further tested when April gets a positive pregnancy test.
Meanwhile, Broof the former butler of Sandy and April Moss is released from prison where he has been held since Sandy’s death. It is revealed that he is a witch although not a talented one.
He and his much more magically inclined buddy, Wyatt, join forces to track down April and friends.
With a baby on the way, Caleb decides to seek work to support his family, taking a job in a local flower shop that is run by a harmless-seeming old lady by the name of Sage and her son, Wyatt. Not realising that this guy and the vampire who stole April are one and same, Wyatt takes a liking to Caleb and befriends him with the help of some mind-bending tea.
Seth attempts to win Faith over by divulging the teenaged horror fan’s darkest fantasies and taking her along on a murder spree.
It works swimmingly.
Lilith and Chuck turn up on the doorstep of the cottage, but the reunion ends in bloodshed as Melinda can’t resist the warm feast that is daddy-dearest. Following a bust up, Faith and Seth run off together. Lilith is left to pick up the pieces and wait for her brother to get home, as April slowly withers without him and Melinda is wracked with guilt.
Jessica and Ralf begin to weave together the multiple threads and clues to form a theory that something beyond criminal is taking place in their sleepy town. Their investigation is abruptly halted when Ralf is mysteriously found dead and Jessica is forcibly restrained in the Tower. There she discovers that the GliTS are fighting her corner and that Chase left her with something other than bad memories.
Wyatt may be in the dark about his cold new buddy, but Sage is not. She reveals herself to be a witch and vampire hunter and has Caleb trapped, using him as bait to tempt a bigger prize.
Having been plagued by fragmented emerging memories throughout the two books, a moment of closeness with Faith causes Seth to experience an almighty flashback of his pre-vampire life.
Will Lilith find Caleb before April disappears? Will Jessica escape the Tower to solve all the mysteries? Will Broof ever conjure toast that isn’t rubbery?
Find out in Book Three.
“Actually this sounds fun and I wanna read Book Two!”
Almost Eternal 