Motif · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Samantha's body

Half of a goddess in a sex doll's head: Psamathe's first escape from the Nothing split her, and half her essence took refuge in the nearest unoccupied naiad vessel, a Lika doll. Mordecai: the halves of a split soul 'will always try to reunite', but only in 'a proper vessel' — and when the reunion goes wrong the result is a withering spirit, not alive, not dead, haunting the object with very little power.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 8 — The Night Wyrm's web
• Chapter 13 — Elites in the trees
• Chapter 17 — The security checkpoint
• Chapter 22 — Samantha, open wide
• Chapter 25 — Fort Freedom
• Chapter 26 — Wonderwall
• Chapter 27 — Claude Sludgington the Fourth
• Chapter 29 — Blood and ink
• Chapter 34 — How to kill a mantis
• Chapter 37 — The rainbow bridge
• Chapter 44 — The Recital
• Chapter 50 — Uncle Morty's Insta Lawn-Kill
• Chapter 56 — Zerzura

Progression

A withering spirit with a single hit point and no way to die short of a black hole, able to do nothing but roll and scream (ch. 22); face down on the training-room floor until Carl walks in (ch. 17); launched on a seeking missile like a bottle rocket (ch. 22).