The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #6)

by Matt Dinniman

It’s difficult to exude confidence when I am nothing but an undeserving louse burning in her glittering radiance.”

The demon was different than Slit. She was straight from a nightmare. The pink, fleshy terror occupied the center of the room. Slit had been 100 feet tall. This one was smaller, sized to fit the club. Sort of. The naked, corpulent creature was crammed into the room, and her round, bald head was pushed to the side against the tall ceiling. Her sore-covered body looked like she’d been oozed into the room from an ice-cream machine and was just now starting to melt. I didn’t see any legs, but the grotesque monster was covered with slender, multi-jointed arms with massive, kite-sized claws at the end. The arms were no wider than twigs, giving the impression I could snap them in half, but they were long, too long, some snaking across the entire room. She had at least twenty of the appendages, making her look like some sort of eldritch snow man. A few of the claws were pressed against the ceiling, a few more against the floor and walls, and the rest were all occupied, holding tightly around the necks of struggling NPCs, including a few cretins, suggesting the limbs were stronger than they looked. The large, giant face of the demon was covered in thick,

clown-like makeup, just like her sister. Her mouth was wide enough that I could drive the royal chariot right into it. The demon’s red lipstick was smeared all over her face. A scattering of black hairs, about as thick and long as my thumb covered the very top of the pink mass. She stank of diseased skin, even from here. The scent reminded me of a guy I’d once known who’d almost had to have his toes amputated because of athlete’s foot that had gotten so bad it’d developed into gangrene.

“Welcome to your salvation, motherfuckers.”

“Hvar eru buxurnar þínar? Hvar eru skórnir þínir? Næst mun ég borða sæta hold þitt.”

Kids aren’t always a product of their parents. But sometimes that doesn’t matter. Sometimes parents can cast a shadow so thick, you can drown in it.