Chapter 44 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 44 — The Recital

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Unhinged Child · Previous: Chapter 43 — The Midnight Epicure · Next: Chapter 45 — The sorting yard · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

Donut and Mordecai bickered back and forth as I rapidly chatted with the vampire woman.

Summary

Miriam is twenty-five kilometres east by the river bend: an elite quest ended with the elite dead and Prepotente paralysed — thirty-five hours, fifteen left — his arm locked around her waist, Bianca trapped in his inventory; she survived the day on Revive and blood potions and will not survive another. The system had blocked her messages to Carl because an elite was involved. Two dryad towns lie between; the plan is the knockout potion and Mongo's litre at the first, the Charm Animal potion at the second. Mordecai: 'You just let her die, and you collect her gear in the morning' — two sponsors just paid to protect them from vampirism and a vampire calls at sunset. 'She saved my life […] That's not what we do here.' Carl sews the Epicure patch crooked over Katia's careful stitches. Mordecai dips two potion balls in the Emberus shrine — Holy Goopers, blessed blood-water, a healing potion and a coagulant, 'like napalm to vampires' under Donut's Torch. Samantha, scrubbed and in pigtails on the counter, stays behind. In the dark hockey bar, Prudence, a level-28 barmaid with two cubs, Randy and Todd, hisses to kill the light: Big Tina is outside pulling bears from windows like an advent calendar, and 'the others can't control her anymore.' Her story: when Scolopendra struck, nearly every female Ursine was transformed into the reptilian beasts — the dinosaurs used to be bears — and only the most pious women were spared. Before the cataclysm a circle of mothers secretly taught their daughters ballet, a sin, for a recital after hours; the best dancer, eight-year-old Tina, the head cleric's daughter, was to close it with a solo and a wand that shot sparkles. Her father stormed the school as she took the stage, her mother slapped him before the congregation, and he whipped his wife nearly to death on the stage in front of the child, who fell and broke her wand; then the nine-tier attack came. Tina was the only child who turned. She does not age, cannot breed, hunts Ursine, and has grown stronger in the last few nights; her mother, one of the dancers' mothers, still tries to stop her. Her mother's name is Kiwi. 'Hey, buddy. It looks like you banged Tina's mom.' The Recital updates: Tina must be stopped or the High Elves will field their army; 'Kill her or give her what she wants.' Donut: 'This is just like the plot to Footloose! […] She wants to dance! We have to finish the recital!' Then the bear claw on the wall drops and inchworms out the door — Glamoured Fragment, Ursine Claw (Left), 4.2% of the whole, a minion of Big Tina: a vampire's kill reanimates two sunsets later, pieces seeking their bodies, seventy per cent reunited becomes something deadly. Big Tina is a vampire allosaurus ('three fingers, not two'). 'Surprise, motherfuckers […] It's about to get bumpy.'

Characters

• Miriam Dom — Trapped in Prepotente's frozen arm with ten hours to dawn.
• Prepotente — Paralysed after killing an elite; a broken thumb would shatter him.
• Carl — Will not abandon a vampire who saved him; sews badly; learns what the dinosaurs were.
• Princess Donut — 'Mongo was molested by a bear!'; solves the quest: finish the recital.
• Mordecai — Holy Goopers from the shrine; 'You just let her die, and you collect her gear in the morning'
• Mongo — Peeps at frightened cubs; Tina's mother's mate.
• Prudence — A barmaid hiding her cubs; tells the story of the recital.
• Big Tina — An eight-year-old dancer turned vampire allosaurus; her father's whip; her mother Kiwi.
• Kiwi — Tina's mother, once an Ursine.
• Samantha — Cleaned, in pigtails, left on the counter.

Locations

• Prepotente Town Number Four — A hockey bar in the dark; Tina outside breaking windows.

Motifs

• Quests — The Recital's answer: give her what she wants.
• Scolopendra — The female Ursine turned to dinosaurs; the pious spared.
• The Ursine — Piety as a whip; a recital as a sin.
• The mongoliensis — Kiwi was a mother at the recital; a glamoured claw walks home.
• The gods — A light god's shrine water as napalm.
• Staying human — 'That's not what we do here.'