Bo dresses up for a doctor’s appointment, with Miss Hotpants, herself, Dr. Lauren. She’s dressing her best, for the test that will see if she’s mastered any control of her powers.

This week’s monster is a cook that serves up human feet. Mmmm tasty, but she gets more than she bargained for when she’s awakened by a severe case of indigestion and some nasty eye bleeds.

Dr. Lauren and Bo go for a test drive. Bo gives Lauren a little insight to her powers, and reading of sexual energy.  Lauren tells Bo to use her powers on her, and Bo almost gives into giving Lauren a kiss. But Bo fears that if she gives in to feeding, she won’t be able to stop. I say just eat her already, I'm tired of her.

Bo and Kenzi visit Lauren’s office, and Kenzi is more pessimistic about Lauren’s intentions, whearas Bo doesn’t even register that she could be getting played. I mean its not like Dyson has been warning her to be careful about who she trusts or anything, but the girl is still letting her libido do the thinking. Lauren tries to reschedule, but lets Bo tag-along on her emergency case. The girls accompany Lauren on a house call. Kenzi is icked out by the sickness, but she still follows. An Aswang, an eater of the dead, is ill. While the Doc and Bo look in on the patient Kenzi pokes around in the kitchen, grabbing bits to eat. Aswangs help humans by eating their diseased dead, which keeps contagions out of the population. Who sees Kenzi’s snacking as a huge problem now? Especially as she starts scooping out a bowl of soup. Oh, Kenzi, that's foot soup.The Aswang, Helema, has eaten everything from cancer to the black death and never been on the brink of death herself. Lauren decides to go check out the Helema’s food supply, and finds Kenzi slurping down some soup. Kenzi is less than pleased to find out what she’s been eating, and she goes on with some rigorous brushing. Lauren is going to check out the foot, and Bo is going to check out the supplier. Poor Kenzi, she either “ate toxic soup or (she’s) a toe sucking cannibal.”

Trick is getting some a secret ingredient for soup from (Supernatural’s Death) Arval, who’s interested in the Gleipnir that held Fenrir. But Trick isn't looking to let that pretty out of his possession any time soon.

Bo talks with the funeral home where Helema got the feet. The funeral home seems to run a tight ship. The body had been marked as Aswang only, even though the man died of a hit and run. And Bo gets the corpse’s former address. Bo and Kenzi go check out the place, and it’s been well tossed. A tattooed man grabs Bo, Kenzi creates a diversion. The man gets away, and Kenzi falls ill with eye bleeds.

Lauren is looking under the microscope at some nasties, when Bo brings in Kenzi. Lauren doesn’t have a cure, only a way to prolong Kenzi’s life. She’s caught a hemorrhagic fever unlike anything Lauren has ever seen. Though the man died of a hit and run, he may have had the fever, even if he wasn't showing onward signs, which is probably why the funeral home tagged him for Aswang consumption, they can eat anything. Helema is getting worse, and Bo is off to find the source of the fever.

Bo turns to Dyson for help finding about the infectious corpse, because she always turns to the sexy wolfman for help,and I'm not complaining as long as it gives him a reason to appear. I'm going to go hide my Team Dyson shirt now, and try to calm down my excitement. Bo identifies the guy who was tossing the apartment by his tattoos. Dyson takes her to the local biker gang, where Bo strong arms the guy for information.

Bo checks in with Kenzi, and Kenzi asks Dyson to stay with her. Because sarcasm finds comfort in gruff, its a universal rule just in case you didn't know. And finally, looks like someone is back on Team Dyson, membership in that club should have some pretty rocking privileges. He even pinky promises to stay by her side, since he amuses her. Bo tells Dr. Lauren her suspicions of Barren chemical, but she needs Lauren’s help. Lauren balks at first, but then sees the light and even finds covers for herself and Bo. Bo just needs to convince the director she’d make a good assistant.

Enter Bo, all sexed up assistant, while Dyson detains the Dr. that Lauren plans to pose as on trumped up charges. He gives Lauren what she’ll need to get into Barren, and there’s a bit of tension between the two. I’m just not thinking Dyson likes her. I agree wholeheartedly with him. I don’t trust her either, and it has nothing to do with being Team Dyson.

Kenzi awakens, scared and alone, Helema is brought in on the verge of death, and they’re forced to tranq a panicked Kenzi, as they try to save a fellow fae.

Lauren finds where they’re likely keeping what infected Kenzi and Helema. They formulate a plan.

Kenzi has a few choice words for her attending doctor, not feeling confident in their care after they failed to save Helema, and she makes him her bitch by scaring him with an infected needle. She intends to break free, and plans on wearing his clothes while doing it. Lauren puts her plan into motion.

Dyson is unhappy of Kenzi’s escape, and plans to keep her escape under wrap while he wolfs out and searches for her. Bo gets her boss to give her the two items she needs, a voice recording of his name, and his security badge, without going all succubus on him. I don't give her any extra points though, she nearly gave him a lap dance, which to a cooped up lab rat is the same as a succubus hit.

Dyson finds Kenzi in a cemetery. She came here to think, and she tells him she’s not going back. Dyson promises to take her someplace else, where she’ll be safe.7:00, and it’s action time. Lauren gasses out security, and its go time. Dyson takes Kenzi to the Dal. He brings her to Trick’s room underground, and Trick can buy her some time, but not save her.

The plan hits a snag, and Bo tries to seduce a guard without her powers, but she’s not his type, she is so not his type and she’s forced to pull the succubus card. She takes a little, and stops before she kills him, unfortunately she left him with enough that he draws his gun on her. Lauren is forced to traq him.

Trick calls Arval back to get him a difficult item to procure. I love seeing Death twice in one episode. Trick gives him the Gleipnir for it and a future trade, see everyone loves Kenzi. She's one of my favorites. He grates the Abith horn into tea for Kenzi to slow the bleeding and help her regain strength.

When Bo and the Doc reach their room, all they find is a single tank. And a Basilisk, a dying one.

Kenzi can’t keep warm, and asks Dyson to wolf out, and lay on her feet. Kenzi asks Dyson to make her a promise on her death bed. She sees what no one else realizes since everyone else is focused on Bo. She asks him “how can you help her if helping her makes you weak?” He doesn’t have a good answer for it. She asks him to have Bo’s back even if it means cutting her loose. Dyson makes no promises, but its what he’s been doing all along. And this scene hurts my heart just a little, because we all know what's coming. I mean don't we?

Lauren goes to get a tissue sample from the Basilisk’s poisonous skin. Lauren spots the Basilisk and Bo does the poking. But Lauren doesn’t just stop there, she and Bo kill the Basilisk, and the girls make a run for it as alarms sound.

Kenzi gets the antidote, and awakens hungry. Bo gives her thanks to Lauren, and although it seems Lauren is a little more open to Bo, with Dyson so near Bo isn’t so open to her. Kenzi gets her meal, Bo shares the good news with Dyson she can finally control herself. And although Dyson says he doesn’t mind if she sees other people, it very clear that he does. Hopefully Bo can pick up what he's putting down, because I don't think there's a monkey thought translator nearby to help.

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Released: 7/12/84           293 pages

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Format: Hardcover

ISBN: 978-0345313140

From the present, or parallel time, the second book in the Incarnation of Immortality series jumps to the future, the past and a few places in between to bring Norton’s story. The nomadic Norton is convinced to help a ghost, Gawain, father a child on his widow, Orlene, and he does, but the ghost interferes, having Gaea, Mother Nature, make the child from his own bloodline. The child dies, and the widow takes her life.

To make things right Gawain tells Norton how he can be with Orlene again, by becoming Chronos, the keeper of Time. Chronos lives his life in reverse, so his future would be her past, and Norton takes the hourglass, but gets more than he bargains for.

Not only are the concepts of good and evil explored, so are the concepts of time and space. All of the Incarnations are dependant upon time in some capacity, and the hourglass is the most powerful of all instruments. Norton’s journey to understanding is a great one, and even though it is a part of a series, there is more than enough explained that it can be a stand alone. Zane plays a key role, as does Satan, who is still bent on Luna being destroyed before his plans are foiled by her.

With the world firmly in place, there was some traveling about to other planets, and the temptation for finding a “home.” But I found some of it a little hard to follow, so while the story was still very good, it wasn’t as good as the first one, but only barely.  

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Released: 10/12/83         325 pages

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Format: Paperback

ISBN: 9780345309242

What happens when you kill death? The first book in the Incarnation of Immortality series explores that and more. Zane, a desperate and lonely man decides to kill himself, but when he sees Death approach he panics and kills him instead, which opens his eyes to a world he never knew. One where humans take on the roles of deities such as Death, time and the Fates, and where it’s his job to gather up the souls and place them in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. He finds that he was actually manipulated into killing Death so that as Death he could save the life of Luna, but Satan has other plans.

Piers Anthony is a master of creating worlds and filling them with characters that realistic, where they are just as petty and cruel and redeemable as they are in real life.  Zane’s journey is not only magical it’s logical. Being the first book in the series it does a very good job of introducing the world without making it feel like work. And the characters are well balanced with drives and needs. Satan isn’t inherently bad, he’s driven by prophecy, by fear, by needs instead of just jealousy and daddy issues.

But the book isn’t all serious philosophy, there’s a perfect balance of heart and hilarity. A well plotted, book with virtually no holes, and no lulls, plenty of adventure. It’s one of the best reads out there.  

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To resoul or not to resoul, that is the question. And both boys are working extra hard this time, to get their way.

The distance turned out to not last so long, as Dean tells Bobby and Sam his plan to resoul his brother.

With the help of his father’s old friend, Dr. Robert aka Freddy Krueger, Dean dies so he can have a little chat with Death. Before he dies, he gives him a note for Ben, just in case he doesn’t come back, but has nothing for his brother Sam.

Death offers Dean the option of bringing back Adam, who is also his brother, and Dean asks for both. But when Death tell him to choose one, its clear who he’s going to choose. He only has eyes for one brother, which I’m sure Death already knew, cause he was prepared with a deal. He’ll retrieve Sam’s soul and even put up a wall to block of the hell Lucifer and Michael have inflicted upon it, and in exchange Dean must don the ring, and be Death for a day.

Dean agrees, and Tessa returns to be his death dealing guide. The first death he has to deal is to a guy who robs a convenient store. That death was simple. The guy was scum and deserved to die.

Next up was the fat guy scarffing down pizza. Dean comments that he’s a heart attack waiting to happen, and well he was. Dean takes him just as easily as the first.

The next is a 12-year-old girl in the hospital. She’s been sick for a long time, but the doctors are optimistic, too bad Death has come calling.  Dean cannot bring himself to take her life. Tessa urges him, but still he refuses.

And his actions have consequences. The girl’s nurse goes home early and gets into a car accident, and Dean is forced to take her when she should have lived a very long life. The woman’s husband, distraught over her death tries to kill himself, and Dean takes the ring off early so that he can save him.

Even though he’s broken the deal, he’s learned a valuable lesson about not messing with the natural order, and so he goes back to the hospital to complete his last act as Death, taking the 12-year-old girl.

Meanwhile, Sam is ready to do whatever it takes to ensure that he remains soulless, so he contacts Balthazar to see how to make sure that his soul will reject his body. The sexy rogue tells him about a spell, but he’ll need to resort to patricide. Bad news, since John’s been dead for a few seasons now, but it need not be his actual father, just a father figure, poor Bobby.

There are some great Shinning-esque moments of Sam chasing Bobby around, trying to hunt him down, and when its all done Bobby ends up tied to a chair. Dean shows up just in the nick of time, and knocks Sam out, taking care to tie him up.

Death comes for his ring, and he and Dean have a little heart to heart. Death wanted to teach him a lesson, and Dean picked up what he was putting down. Death agrees to restore Sam’s soul, because the boys are onto something big. He’s cryptic, but just as Balthazar did, he refers to the high value of souls, which can only mean that there is something major going with Purgatory.

It ends with Sam getting his soul back, and death erecting the wall to protect him, that’ll sure fall before the season is out, as Death tells Dean not to him scratch at it, like that’s gonna happen. And so begins the hiatus…

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An elderly woman is visited by her doctor, Dr. Green aka Pestilence. She sick, and dying, infected with three diseases when he infects her with a fourth. She’s been his petri dish, blending his diseases, and he watches as she dies.

Dean and Sam meet at Bobby’s and Dean is unhappy with Sam’s plan to let Lucifer take him as a vessel. They get a call from Castiel, at a hospital with no memory how he got there, only that his powers are all but drained. He needs money for food, travel and pain medication. He also apologizes for losing faith in Dean.

The boys go after Pestilence where Brady said he’d be, at the Serenity Valley retirement Home. They find him posing as a doctor, but a demon nurse spots them first and warns Pestilence. Pestilence is willing to disobey Lucifer’s orders in order to dispose of the boys. So he activates his ring and embraces the nurse.

The illness spreads through the hospital, affecting everyone including Sam and Dean. They collapse before they can do anything. The demon nurse brings them before Pestilence, and he’s boastful, taunting them with a slow and painful death. Castiel arrives and Pestilence strikes him down, but Cas manages to cut off Pestilence’s finger and kill the nurse. They recover but Pestilence warns them it’s too late before he flashes out.

With Pestilence’s last words still in their heads, they’re back at Bobby’s going over the latest disasters and Death’s whereabouts. When the boys press Bobby to explain how he tracked Death so fast, Crowley appears and makes him come clean. Bobby admits that he traded his soul temporarily to find death, and Crowley has the picture of the kiss that sealed the deal to prove it. They also find out that Crowley refuses to return it until after the Apocalypse is adverted.

As they leave, Sam tells Dean he fears he is too weak to take on Lucifer, but he can’t just do nothing. Crowley breaks up the pity party by showing them a newspaper article. Niveus Pharmaceutical is getting ready to release a vaccine nationwide, and they know it’s really filled with the Croatoan virus.

Death arrives in Chicago, a man rudely shoves past him, Death kills him with a simple gesture of brushing away the dirt from his suit.

The boys split up. Castiel and Bobby, now able to walk thanks to an extra clause Crowley added in their bargain, go with Sam to stop the virus. And Crowley and Dean go to find death. Crowley gives dean a rusty mythical scythe that can kill anything, even death.

Bobby and Sam discuss with Cas, Sam’s plan to overcome Lucifer. Castiel is proud of the boys, they constantly exceed his expectations for them. He warns though that Michael has chosen Adam as his vessel, and that if Sam fails it will be a major catastrophe. To succeed Sam will have to consume massive amounts of demon blood to survive Lucifer merely in his body.

The next morning at Niveus, they stop the first truck from leaving. Sam works to get the humans out, until he realizes that the demons have already infected them, leaving the trio with no choice but to kill the humans. Sam takes off deeper into the building alone.

In Chicago, Crowley goes to locate death via the reapers nearby. When he fails, Crowley eager to leave before the trouble assures Dean he will return Bobby’s soul since he couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain. Dean wonders how he can clear the entire city, when Crowley locates Death in a pizzeria, he tells him the location and high tails it out of there.

Meanwhile Sam clears the building of all but one final infected victim. Bobby is out of bullets when Cas arrives taking the last person down.

Dean enters the pizzeria to find all inside dead. The scythe heats in his hand, and he’s forced to drop it, not that he ever thought he’d have a chance to really use it, once dropped it appears next to death. Death invites him to sit and have pizza with him. Death explains that he is old, perhaps older than God, and that one day he will reap God. When Dean asks why Death hasn’t killed him yet, Death explains that Lucifer, petty child that he is, has bound him by a spell. Death wants Dean to free him, to let Sam jump into the pit, and he will give him his ring. Dean agrees, but Death warns that he cannot cheat his way out.

Dean brings the four rings together, they’re attracted to each other like magnets. Bobby admits that he’s glad to be able to walk again, even if it isn’t forever, and Dean wonders what Death will do when he finds out Dean lied, if they can even trust Death. Bobby tells Dean he believes Sam may be able to pull this off, or die trying and ask Dean if he’s scared of losing, or losing his brother.

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Lightning strikes, and a corpse rises. A man watches Animal Planet in his trailer, when there’s a knock at the door. He gets up to answer it, but no one is there so he goes back to his TV. The door flies open, he goes back to shut it. He turns, and the cemetery corpse is there, it grabs him and chokes the life from him.

Sam and Dean arrive in Bobby’s hometown posing as FBI agents to investigate, but Bobby isn’t answering his phone. They head into the diner to talk to Digger Wells, a local witness. He saw Clay Thompson, aka the corpse, climb into Benny’s window and leave a few minutes later. Digger claims that Benny shot Clay a couple years back killing him, and covered it up making it look like a hunting accident. Sheriff Jody Mills comes in and asks for the boys’ IDs, demanding to speak with their supervisor. They give her a card with Bobby’s number on it, when she calls it, she recognizes Bobby’s voice before he can hang up. She lets the boys off with a warning that Bobby is a con artist and that they should steer clear of him and his half-baked plans.

The Winchesters head to Bobby’s. Bobby claims he’s been out of contact while searching for a way to beat the devil, but Dean is not buying it. Bobby’s also too quick to note that he’s checked into Benny’s death and that Digger is a drunk who made the whole thing up.

They decide to leave town, but on the way out, something is eating at Dean and they stop by the cemetery,  just in case Bobby missed anything. Clay’s coffin shoes signs that he did indeed claw his way out. So they head to Clay’s house, where everything seems normal.  Clay attacks Dean, but he’s quickly subdues. The brothers slip into their FBI personas and Clay agrees to turn himself in for Benny’s murder. He killed the man who killed him, but he is willing to pay for it. Clay’s wife calls the police, insisting that her husband is harmless, but the boys escort him out. Ad Dean prepares to shoot him, Sam stops him, believing that Clay isn’t a monster. Sheriff Mills responds to Clay’s wife call, and arrests Dean and Sam for threatening a town citizen, claiming they have no right to shoot Clay.

In their cell, the boys try to figure out what the heck is happening and how the sheriff is involved. Bobby bails them out, and tells them to go. Five days ago the dead began to rise, but there is nothing they can do about it, at his house he introduces them to Karen, his wife who passed away long ago.

Karen makes them breakfast, Dean sucks it down as Bobby explains the situation. He’s tested Karen for magic and demonic possession and there is no evidence of either. After her death her body was cremated, and the ashes buried in the cemetery where fifteen to twenty others also arose, including Sheriff Mills’ son. It may be a part of the Apocalypse, he isn’t sure, but it may be the Pale Horseman, Death’s work. Dean and Sam both agree nothing good can come from these resurrections.  But Bobby can’t help but to disagree since Karen is here and she doesn’t remember that Bobby killed her after a demon possessed her. They can hear her humming from the kitchen, and Bobby admits that in their place he’d kill her, but still he begs them not to.

They go back to the diner, trying to process the information at hand and come up with a game plan. They split up Sam to do more research and Dean to keep an eye on Bobby.

Sam checks into the Mills’ house first, and Dean does what he does best. He eats pie. Karen tells him that she knows that they’re hunters, and so is Bobby, she even knows that she is dead and the Bobby killed her. She remembers it all, but she refuses to let Bobby know, she doesn’t want him to go through that pain.

At another formerly dead’s house, Sam sees Ezra choking on the couch. He goes in to help her, and she attacks him. As they fall Sam see her husband nearby, with his stomach missing. Sam has no choice but to kill Ezra. He reports back to Bobby and Dean, but Bobby doesn’t want to believe it, saying that Ezra was never right in life, and that she was the first one to return. Dean and Sam prepare to kill Karen, but Bobby pulls a gun on them, saying that he’ll take care of her. Dean stays for Bobby, but Sam is off to warn Sheriff Mills and the rest of the town.

Owen Mills becomes ill, with a high temperature, and Jody calls the doctor. Karen too begins running a high fever and collapses.

Jody hears a scuffle, and goes to investigate, and finds her son eating his father. Distraught she backs away, as her dead child advances on her. Sam arrives just in time getting her out. He tells her what is happening and urges her to get everyone to the jail for protection, while he disposes of Owen.

Karen’s appetite begins to swell, and she begs Bobby to kill her, but he refuses and she tells him she remembers how she died the first time. Still he hesitates. A tall skeletal man brought her and the others back, and he has a message for Bobby. Dean hears the gunshot, and sees that Karen is dead.

At the jail, the townspeople are being armed by Sam and Jody. They tell them to shoot anyone who should be dead, and arm for the head.

Bobby and Dean head out to the van when Dean is attacked by Clay. As they struggle more zombies come and attack Bobby. He shoots several of them, including Clay, but its quickly apparent that there are more zombies than there are bullets and they make a break for the house, only to realize that they loaded the bullets in the van. They retreat to a closet as a last resort, when Sam and Jody come to the rescue and kill the rest of the zombies.

Later Sheriff Mills, and the boys collect the corpses to burn in the graveyard. She assures then that no one will believe the traumatized people, herself one of them. Bobby, at his wife’s funeral pyre apologizes for threatening them. Dean points out that at least he got a few more days with his wife, but Bobby admits that it worsened his sorrow and guilt. Bobby finally delivers Deaths message: Anyone that helps the Winchesters will suffer.

Sam tries to offer assurances, and confirm he’s still with them, but Bobby doesn’t give him an answer, and maybe that’s an answer in itself.

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