Character · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Louis and Firas

Two level-22 Americans found drunk in a brothel bar on the fifth floor: Louis Santiago 2, a Pest Exterminator from Miami who drove his mother's convertible van down a stairwell and got a legendary knockout spell for it, and Firas M., a Hammersmith with a level-10 Puddle Jumper. Sobered by force, they grow into a bombing crew, the party's pilots and, by the end, something like friends.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 4 — Gloom Wraith Phase
• Chapter 5 — Dante; Sir Rendlegore
• Chapter 6 — Party Planner
• Chapter 7 — Donut Holes; the Semeru dwarf
• Chapter 8 — Larracos, City of Dreams
• Chapter 9 — Juice Box's war room
• Chapter 10 — Hamed's club; the small wedding
• Chapter 11 — Tipid; fifty thousand
• Chapter 12 — The base camp; Tina
• Chapter 14 — The flag room and the Ramp-Up
• Chapter 15 — The Rolling Battle Formation Ball
• Chapter 16 — Everly; Glory Bound
• Chapter 18 — The minor quorum; code red
• Chapter 19 — The ruling; the ceasefire ends
• Chapter 20 — Christmas Morning; the Ramp-Up
• Chapter 21 — The southern trenches; rot stickers
• Chapter 23 — Killing in the Name
• Chapter 24 — No Man's Land
• Chapter 25 — Empress, you have visitors
• Chapter 26 — Milk; the Empress marked
• Chapter 29 — The Bamboozle
• Chapter 30 — Comrades
• Chapter 31 — Drop troopers; Tripper
• Chapter 32 — King Rust arrives
• Chapter 33 — Parlay
• Chapter 35 — Volteeg; the dwarves' tunnel
• Chapter 40 — Little Günter; a dragon chain
• Chapter 44 — The Beautiful Place; Blood Hunter
• Chapter 45 — Prepotente's rant
• Chapter 47 — Tattoos, and a flower offered
• Chapter 50 — The Temple of the Dagda
• Chapter 54 — The Waffle Maker; Hellik's message
• Chapter 55 — Head Banger; Milk
• Chapter 56 — Justice Light; the Nest
• Chapter 57 — Thirty-two boxes; the last prisoner
• Chapter 59 — Operation Ruin
• Chapter 60 — Meatus; the King's Point erupts
• Chapter 61 — The War Mage Rebellion
• Chapter 62 — A non-team entity
• Chapter 63 — Into the Madness
• Chapter 65 — Bear Witness
• Chapter 66 — Rolling Battle Formation
• Chapter 67 — Hey, Dickless
• Chapter 68 — The Grease Monkey
• Chapter 69 — Interlude — Several days earlier; Interlude — Rosetta; Zarogoths
• Chapter 70 — City of Broken Dreams
• Chapter 73 — An act of fiendish cruelty
• Chapter 77 — Not yet
• Chapter 78 — The Scavenger's daughter is with us now
• Chapter 79 — Tart
• Chapter 80 — Inside the dragon
• Chapter 81 — Executive Order 11905
• Chapter 82 — Ursensus
• Chapter 83 — Psamathe confesses
• Chapter 84 — And then there were two
• Chapter 85 — Zerzura
• Chapter 86 — We just need to kill you
• Chapter 87 — The Nothing has been broken

Arc

Army Air General Louis Santiago 2, owner of Party Planner, a bomber named for what Firas wanted to call the Twister (ch. 6). He marries a changeling in a bar because they need each other, whispering vows to a cheerleader between Taylor Swift and Iggy Pop (ch. 9, ch. 10), wears a Donut Holes T-shirt (ch. 7), and flies every offensive of the war (ch. 23, ch. 59, ch. 60). Told the truth by Boomer, Carl lets him fly at a dragon (ch. 63); the drake rips the bomber in half and he lands on the Reaver castle apologising to Katia for being 'such a fuckup' (ch. 66). Snared among robot dogs (ch. 68), paralysed and bound, cut open and re-organed with a warlord's heart and lungs (ch. 70, ch. 80), he is possessed by his wife to be carried out and learns, awake, that she cannot love him without the curse showing her he is terrified of her (ch. 82). Princess Lunette's naiad heart, Loita's rebreather and permanent gills keep him alive (ch. 84); Samantha calls him cousin (ch. 84); Juice Box hands him divorce papers (ch. 86); Katia asks him to father her son; 'Am I still human?' he asks, and Eileithyia answers 'Of course you are. And a good soul at that' (ch. 86). The cop's husband at a funeral is a story he should tell himself (ch. 79).