70 pages are left before the end of my book. So far, the story has been bloody entertaining. (Pun intended) The character of Dexter Morgan isn’t really the killer I was expecting throughout the book. At the beginning, he killed a hippie in cold blood. Then, he was stalked by a mysterious being named The Watcher. The fact of being constantly observed scared his Dark Passenger, the alter-ego related to Dexter’s hunger for murder. The story is more about how Dexter is able to cope with the disappearance of his evil companion. He lost his desire to kill and he found emotions he never imagined of having, fear and compassion. He cared for his new family and wanted to protect them at any cost from anything related to his work.
The conflict that I’m about to develop is related to the case of the “Bull Heads’’ where two girls are found burned with theirs heads switched with a ceramic bull’s head. The first major conflict of the book was similar to a real crime investigation. With bodies badly burned such as them, it would be difficult to recognize the identity of the victims. While Dexter and his sister Deborah were eating at a local restaurant, Chutsky, Deborah’s boyfriend, gave them an idea where the bodies might have been burned at the university. In fact, if it weren’t for Chutsky, the investigation would lead to nowhere. Dexter and his sister wouldn’t have met one of the victim’s boyfriend who happened to be close by the alleged scene of the crime. Kurt Wagner, a tattooed man, helped Dexter to identify the two bodies, his girlfriend Jessica and her roommate Ariel. They were party girls that traded sex with their teacher, Professor Jerry Halpern, for good grades. Later in the book, it was revealed that Halpern had killed the two students while being in an unconscious state of mind caused by an unknown power, probably the source that Dexter’s alter-ego was afraid of. As you can see, everything is connected. The missing Dark Passenger and the “Bull-head’’ killings are related to each other. I don’t think the situation could’ve been handled differently. Sometimes you need an epiphany to continue the investigation.
The next conflict of the book is about the origin of the Dark Passenger’s disappearance. What caused it to go AWOL? When Dexter took his search on Google, he found disturbing evidences of a cult worshiping a God who liked kids as human sacrifice. (What a book!) The ancient spirit named Moloch sends music with drums and trumpet as a warning for a sacrifice; the same music that Dexter heard in his dreams. Eventually, he gets a confirmation from an art history teacher that Moloch was also a part of the “Bull-head” killings and that the victims were burned in a giant furnace in form of a bull-headed statue of the mighty Moloch. It also proves that Halpern actually killed the two students, Jessica and Ariel.
I think the use of internet was the safest way to find out about the cult. Dexter couldn’t confront his stalker directly without his Dark Passenger. He felt naked and unprotected without his alter-ego. If he was scared of The Watcher, how could he investigate the chilling sect of Moloch without being terrified?
There is still no resolution to the problem, because the presence of The Watcher hasn’t been explained yet. He is still hunting for Dexter and his family. The Watcher even tried to break in Dexter’s house. Things are getting interesting. I can’t wait to know how it will all end.
