Chapter 49 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 49 — Kiwi

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Unhinged Child · Previous: Chapter 48 — The Creeping Apocalypse · Next: Chapter 50 — Uncle Morty's Insta Lawn-Kill · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

There were twenty of them.

Summary

Twenty raptors at the treeline, then thirty-six, all bloodied from resisting the infection; red for Carl, white for Donut; Mongo boxed lest he negate the potion. Charm Animal is Charm Mongoliensis now: the nearest eligible target becomes Donut's minion for the floor. Carl sees the shape of it — charming Kiwi was always the answer to The Recital, and the Plenty's recipe was a shortcut to make sure Carl and Donut would be here protecting their goat. 'I'm quite practiced in the matter of taming dinosaurs.' Donut walks ten feet from a raptor fighting her every instinct — 'I'm prepared to forgive you for what you did to my poor Mongo' — and Kiwi glows: a minion of Princess Donut; the pack's dots turn white. Prepotente to the ash: 'I wish you'd never given me that pet biscuit. It's not worth it […] We'd be together.' Rules: don't molest Mongo, don't eat Carl; Kiwi sniffs at his crotch and growls, another raptor snaps inches from it, and rule one soon fails over Mongo. Some raptors carry Immortalized, a 29-hour debuff of the cured: half strength and no healing in sun, a buff in moonlight; the sky stays overcast. Prepotente collects Miriam's loot, casts a wand that makes a one-metre safe space for three minutes (one charge left), and opens his boxes in it: the legendary benefactor box holds a garden-sprayer with a tin can and a recipe — fine healing, blessed water and weedkiller, misted through the magic canister — and he takes five of Carl's fine healing potions as 'payment for the Size Up potions you stole from my mother.' Bianca appears, level 40 now, rhinoceros-sized, winged, saddled: 'We are no longer tethered to the ground or to moonlight.' 'If I can't exist in a world with my mother, then nobody even remotely responsible for her death can exist in this world, either.' Carl: 'Why do you think I wouldn't understand?' Prepotente nods: 'Thank you for being with her when she died.' He flies off with enough herbicide for twenty Creepers, level 57 to Carl's 56. 'DO YOU THINK THE PLENTY WANTED MIRIAM TO DIE?' 'Yes, Donut. I believe they did.' Carl does not add that he is almost certain Prepotente believes it too. At least Prepotente doesn't blame them, Donut says; Carl is not so sure about that, either.

Characters

• Princess Donut — Tames Kiwi with one potion and two rules.
• Kiwi — A minion of Princess Donut; the pack follows her; Mongo again.
• Mongo — Circled, presented to, and claimed.
• Prepotente — A safe-space wand, a herbicide sprayer, a winged Bianca, and a vow.
• Bianca — Level 40, winged, saddled, rhinoceros-sized.
• Carl — Sees the Plenty's hand; is asked to understand and asks why he wouldn't.

Locations

• The Selva — A clearing of thirty-six raptors and one hellspawn.

Motifs

• The mongoliensis — Kiwi charmed; Immortalized; the pack white on Donut's map.
• Quests — The Recital's real mechanism: enlist the mother.
• The Plenty — A recipe as a leash; a sprayer for twenty Creepers; a mother they wanted dead.
• The vampire outbreak — A herbicide recipe that needs a mist.
• Staying human — 'Trauma […] It's an explosion with your heart at the center.'