Chapter 47 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 47 — Operation Slut Stomp

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: The Father · Previous: Chapter 46 — The Reminiscence Hydra · Next: Chapter 48 — Mass Layoffs · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

“How did you know it was Miss Beatrice’s mother and not the pitbull lady?

Summary

Carl and Donut wait for the yard to cool with the key and a Map of the Stars, an hour before Iowa falls. Carl explains how he knew the fire head: the choices were not random — Sam's death ray, Dick's nightmares of drowning, the stepmother's poison — so Bea's mother was what remained. All the heads were people now dead, collected in the collapse; his father was absent because he was already gone. Carl finds it better to know, and final. He cannot tell what the dungeon means by spending its saved-up relatives all at once. Zev is still locked out. Asked his father's name, Carl says he no longer deserves one.

His forehead hurts at the centre and his hand tattoos glow brighter. Baptism by Fire raises him to Devotee, the highest rank for a non-cleric: heat and lava environments like Sheol no longer damage him, though direct fire still does; he gains a level-10 Self-Immolation once a day, a 1.5-metre sphere of Sheol Fire that burns in every direction including down; his tithe rises to 10%.

Then Sally: she once asked Carl out on Facebook; Bea read it, told Dick she was a stalker, and had her fired, a single mother, the same day. Colder still, Donut recognised every head but the stepmother's — Asher's included, whose photo was on Bea's phone and whom Bea and her mother discussed and dismissed. Bea knew Carl had a brother and hid it; Carl works out that Tami-Lynn had written to him, probably on Facebook, and that Bea saw it and never told him. For the first time Carl is angry at Beatrice rather than himself, though part of him still wants to believe she was protecting him from his father. He tells himself: 'This is done. It's in the past, and it's blinding you […] They're trying to break you.'

The chat reports hydras everywhere. The loot holds four totems — Alpha Carl, King Croissant, Bam-Bam the level-70 Belly Acher, and Leveled-Up Frank, a level-90 Blood Assassin night elf: a dead crawler as a card, a horror the Cookbook never mentions, and Carl warns everyone at once. Elle's boss was three trolls, Li Na's a cyclops tiger-fox; Katia is fighting a hydra now; Imani lacks tokens; nothing from Prepotente or Florin. The hydra's own deck was weaker than theirs. The Champion Pack adds two reserve slots (eight totems, six active), a trophy and two Flee cards, whose mechanics will change during the final phase.

Carl refuses Frank — 'he was a person, one of us […] We have to draw the line somewhere' — and Alpha Carl. Donut torches Croissant and Bam-Bam; Frank and Alpha Carl add themselves to her cards and cannot be torn until another arrives.

Characters

• Shi Maria — 'I will not blind you. Not in the way you're thinking' — a pain at the centre of the forehead.
• Carl — Decodes the heads; learns what Bea hid; a Devotee now, angry at last.
• Princess Donut — Recognised every head but his stepmother's; tells him about Facebook.
• Bea — Read his messages, blocked a single mother, buried his brother.
• Asher — Tami-Lynn wrote; nobody answered.
• Tami-Lynn — Poison, as he guessed.
• Sam — 'Death ray' was his own joke.
• Dick — Drowning nightmares; fired Sally for boobs.
• Sally — A single mother, stalker by decree.
• Frank Q and Maggie My — Leveled-Up Frank, a dead crawler as a totem; refused.
• Emberus — Pleased by suffering; a tithe raised.
• Mongo — Groaning, overfull.

Locations

• The trailer — Ash; the vending machine bursts into dust.

Motifs

• Bea — Megatron12; Operation Slut Stomp; the hidden brother; the first real anger.
• Carl's family — 'He doesn't deserve to have one'; 'It's in the past, and it's blinding you.'
• This is what we lost — All of them dead since the first day; 'They could finally rest.'
• The gods — Devotee: Sheol-proof; Self-Immolation; 10%.
• T'Ghee totems — Frank Q in a deck; 'we have to draw the line somewhere.'
• Secrets — Zev locked out; Carl silent about Asher to Donut until now.