Chapter 86 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin
Chapter 86 — We just need to kill you
Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Peeling of Larracos · Previous: Chapter 85 — Zerzura · Next: Chapter 87 — The Nothing has been broken · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series
Opening
» 8 Minutes Until the destruction of the 9th Floor.
Summary
Eight minutes. Carl fires Samantha from the xistera toward the volcano where Emberus waits; dropping the xistera will return her and summon the god. Prepotente enters the stairwell: 'I love you.' Larracos is a pit. At the ring of stairwells the survivors part: Florin partied with Lucia, Li Na silent, Jurgen kissing both cheeks, Britney with Chris, Tuba and Selvi taking deals. Louis, gills spraying: 'She gave me divorce papers.' In the tent Carl, Donut, Elle, Imani and Louis gather over Katia. Rosetta reports that Justice Light is gone with Juice Box, and Victory that a trans-dimensional trap lies under the castle, disguised with ordinary traps. The Syndicate ship was shot down and Victory's underage nieces and nephews died in orbit, so she is eligible again: acting Prime Minister Victory. Carl would kill the Prime Minister of the Syndicate without hesitating; she knows.
Eileithyia enters in her true form, piloted by Huanxin, who taunts Victory — the Maestro is now king — and reports that Odette controls the zombies. Katia has three choices: constitution, celestial attendant, pregnancy; the goddess cannot move until she picks. Donut: 'the classics are classics for a reason' — Laundry Day at 16 rips Huanxin from the soul armour onto a circle of words of power; the goddess stands frozen. Donut, in Katia's celestial knee pads, with the Apothecary's quadruped weapon mount and Katia's Enchanted Repeating Crossbow of the Scavenger Mother of Mothers on her back, strips the shields in one blur. Mordecai brings a bolt tipped with his mother's ashes — 'My brother died because of you and because of Odette and because of Chaco. But mostly because of you' — loads it, and leaves. 'We don't need to kill the gods and goddesses to win. No, honey […] We just need to kill you.' The bolt goes between Huanxin's eyes. Victory explains that the freeze exploit needs a choice and a sponsored god, and leaves for the last time.
Katia presses the button. To the unfrozen, unaware goddess: 'I wish to be made pregnant' — to reach the children up there. The father must be human and cannot be Carl; Katia asks Louis, who asks 'Am I still human?', and Eileithyia answers 'Of course you are. And a good soul at that.' Made human, Katia is small and black-haired, missing her right arm, her left leg, her right leg to the knee and an ear — 'Just a few things I've lost along the way […] We've all become experts at hiding what we've really lost.' Bautista fits the cybernetics she built. Eileithyia: 'It will be a boy.' Ineligible. 'Katia Grimmsdottir […] Art Professor. Crawler. Hero. Human. Friend. Mother.' A puff of smoke.
Characters
- Katia Grim — Chooses pregnancy to reach the children; leaves as a mother.
- Princess Donut — Kills a CEO with Katia's crossbow and a monologue.
- Huanxin Jinx — Ripped from a goddess; dead between the eyes.
- Mordecai — A bolt with his mother's ashes; 'mostly because of you'.
- Eileithyia — Frozen, then kind; senses her daughters above.
- Baroness Victory — Acting Prime Minister; congratulations and goodbye.
- Daniel Bautista — 'Oh course I knew […] I love you'
- Louis and Firas — Divorce papers; a father.
- Samantha — 'YOUR GOD IS A LITTLE BITCH, CARL.'
- Prepotente — 'I love you.'
Locations
- Larracos — A pit of stairwells; a tent over a woman waiting for a goddess.
Motifs
- The gods — A sponsored god frozen by a choice; 'We just need to kill you.'
- The kinder facility — Katia's way up to the children.
- Scars — 'We've all become experts at hiding what we've really lost.'
- The river in Carl's head — Eris's laugh in the river the ring did not take.
- The Syndicate — Prime Minister Victory; a nova; a head on a pike.
- Odette and Mordecai — Huanxin, Odette and Chaco; a funeral rite.