Chapter 7 of 99 · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

Chapter 7 — The Moon Reaper

Book: A Parade of Horribles · Part: Horrible One · Previous: Chapter 6 — Spider legs · Next: Chapter 8 — Hats; the Danforth; the godslayer box · Floor: Floor 10 — Don't Come in Last · Series: the series

Opening

» Warning: Blood Bar is now in effect.

Summary

The safe room, with the Blood Bar in effect — ten hours inside, refilled by killing. Mordecai floats there as a Moon Reaper: a level-50 janitor mob of the fifteenth floor, long-armed, hooded, feared even by the princes of hell, whose gaze inflicts Jaunt sickness (each second lived as thirty years). He starts to say he is not really one, and the hood falls back on a flaming eyeball: 'Death awaits you at every turn […] You are reached for by both sides. Who will entwine you? The tree or the abyss?' — and to Donut, 'A sacrifice might save you, in the end […] How many lives? How many souls? The veil is made of gossamer […] their rage will be eternal. You should remember that, Oak Fell Champion of Nekhebit.' Then he drops his tea, glitches through the Canadian, a tuxedo cat (Donut hisses), an otter and a slug, and explains: he is a shadow mimic, not a reaper, and the form is 'an impossible combo'; shadow mimics and changelings are mortal enemies (changelings sicken at a touch; mimics find them delicious). The prophecy is a Moon Reaper thing, once per person, 'vague bullshit that can be twisted to fit whatever happens' — but he told Bigs she would drown in fire, made Samantha cry, and told Splash Zone he would die screaming while his family watched, and Rosetta wants him sequestered from anyone new. Tipid sleeps curled on the training-room floor. A spell book with legs escapes the mailbox trailing slime: Oozy Form, a special edition — a puddle, a crack, a Phase-like escape, indefinite at 15 — which Donut refuses ('Uzi Jesus?' '‘Oozy.’ With an ‘O.’') and Carl learns instead, since her Assassin of Sekhmet class brings Smoke Form, buffs to her Oak Fell tree and vermin spells, and her first aura, Healer's Grasp: 'I’m like a mini Imani!'

Characters

• Carl — Learns Oozy Form from a spell book with legs.
• Princess Donut — Refuses the book ('Uzi Jesus?'); Smoke Form and her first aura: 'a mini Imani'.
• Mordecai — A Moon Reaper — no, a shadow mimic in an impossible combo; the hood falls and a prophecy comes out.
• Rosetta Thagra — Wants Mordecai sequestered from anyone new.
• Samantha — Made to cry by a prophecy.
• Kandy Bigs Newton — Told she would drown in fire.
• Splash Zone — Told he would die screaming while his family watched.
• Tipid — Asleep on the training-room floor.
• Orren — Absent; the reaper is not his.

Locations

• Safe rooms — Ten hours inside under the Blood Bar.

Motifs

• The blood bar — In effect; refilled by killing.
• The Oak Fell — 'Their gaze, their rage will be eternal […] Oak Fell Champion of Nekhebit.'
• The Moon Reaper's prophecy — 'The tree or the abyss?'; a sacrifice might save Donut; once per person, 'vague bullshit'.
• Race and class — Moon Reaper: a fifteenth-floor janitor the princes of hell fear.
• The changelings — Mortal enemies of shadow mimics, who find them delicious.