Chapter 33 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 33 — Vorpals

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: Havana · Previous: Chapter 32 — Minge · Next: Chapter 34 — Family business · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

» The mark is dead, my little sweets.

Summary

The Guild of Suffering pays whoever brings the body. Astrid had moved to shield Carl; he tore her wings off; her husband ordered it; and Carl does not know who her children are. Katia, wild-eyed and calling him Fannar — the name of the man who left her — pockets the body and goes up the bathroom stair, while Carl stays behind to figure something out.

Mordecai explains vorpals: a condition, not a species. As feral means touched by the Nothing, vorpal means deputised by the gods: celestial suicide bombers, hidden until a demon is near, drawn to demons and drawing their aggro, and exploding if they think they are losing ('You kill it, and everyone in the room will be dead'). The demon traps outside their door kept demons away from them rather than holding them in, and they will follow Li Na upstairs if they smell her.

Minge's arms rip away the kitchen walls; the managers have locked themselves in the offices and left the cooks outside. He arms Dr Ratchet's door bot to dismantle his bracers on the vorpal door after a sixty-second delay and sends three spider automatons into the smoke — a demon snare that glues the bot to Minge and bursts Emberus-shrine blood water, and two holy-water smoke curtains. Katia reports that she has the orchid; Job Complete. Samantha's insults draw an arm that tears Charles in half. The automatons sting the demon into shrinking back.

On the middle level the club's high ceiling is holed and the casino burns; refugees from the secret areas climb, none going down; Carl wonders how many are former crawlers. A tattered crocodilian guard, saved by the teleport trap from opening the vorpal door, learns that Miss Astrid is dead. Then shrieks like buzzsaws: the vorpals are loose, and they are worse than the demons. Samantha explains the breach: a loser at the knife-game table was pulled into the Nothing and the hole tore; Minge is Slit's little sister and was once her friend, and the hole did not pull Samantha in.

The Penis Parade is packed and silent, Damascus Steel sobbing on the floor among the dancers and gore-covered survivors of Girls of Ill Refute. Katia's box has opened and the orchid is hers; Huanxin says one more thing from Carl — Odette — and Katia will not eat it until they reach the ninth floor. Its three outcomes, driven by Huanxin through Eileithyia, are tripled constitution, pregnancy and exit from the dungeon, or the twelfth floor as an NPC intern; any but the first solves the Sepsis Crown. The main stage drops away and yellow fluid geysers through the hole as the vorpals kill Minge.

Characters

• Carl — Releases the vorpals himself; 'Fuck everything about it.'
• Katia Grim — Calls Carl Fannar, the name of the man who left her; the orchid in her inventory; won't eat it before the ninth.
• Samantha — Kegels, a boyfriend in half, Slit's sisters by name.
• Charles — Ripped in two; the part inside her burned black.
• Minge — Killed by vorpals through the floor.
• Mordecai — Explains the vorpal condition; 'Stay the fuck away.'
• Damascus Steel — Weeping on the strip-club floor.
• Anaconda — Weeping beside him.
• The Night Wyrm — 'There is always more.'
• Astrid — A crocodilian guard asks Carl: 'Have you seen Miss Astrid?'

Locations

• The Desperado Club — Trashed: a hole in the ceiling, the casino on fire, the Penis Parade as a shelter.

Motifs

• Sheol — Not named: vorpals as the gods' 'celestial guards. Foot soldiers of the deities', drawn to demons; the door traps' true purpose.
• The Nothing — The knife-game table; Slit, Minge, Gash; the tear that did not take Samantha.
• The Guild of Suffering — Job complete; the orchid; a widower's 'excellent work.'
• Samantha's body — A neck hole deeper on the inside; acid.
• Explosives — Dr Ratchet's kit turned to demon-fighting and door-breaking.
• Waking the NPCs — Managers who lock cooks out; a guard who was meant to die; former crawlers on the stairs.
• Eileithyia's boons — Opened.
• Loneliness — Two strippers weeping for a fairy.