No one touched Dekalb’s headless body. It was just so much dead meat to them. Sarah wanted to go to it, to hold her father’s hands once last time, but she knew if she tried to do so the Tsarevich’s troops would simply shoot her. There would be no warnings, no second chances. They would kill her. Without her father to protect and heal her she would just die. And then come back.
A sort of convulsion went through her, wracking her body. Her muscles spasmed and her eyes ached. A sob came up out of her throat and threatened to turn into a wail. She was surprised by the emotional reaction. She didn’t understand it. It was grief, and she had known she would feel grief, but this just wasn’t the time. It wasn’t yet time for her to process everything that had happened.
It shook her and shook her until she dropped to her knees and bowed her head and hot tears fell into the dust. It made no sense. She was tougher than this. She shoved her hands in her pockets to try to keep them from trembling. She found the noose and ran it between and around her fingers as if she were making a cat’s cradle.
Lass, I feel for you, I do. But I’m the last fellow you should be coming to for comfort. You failed me. You failed all of us.
Sarah shook her head, uncomprehending. “What is so important,” she asked, staring into the brain’s jar, wanting to reach into the liquid there and shred the grey matter inside. “What is so important that it had to bring me to my father, and then tear him away from me like this? What is so important that Ayaan had to be turned into a monster? Please, Mael Mag Och, help me. Help me understand.”
The end of the world, he told her. What could be more important than the end of the world?
She stood up, straining her legs to get up off her knees. The mummy holding the jar stood as still as death. A perfect statue, a thing to prop up the jar and nothing more. The mummy didn’t react at all when Sarah stumbled forward and grabbed at the jar with her bound hands. She had trouble grasping it so she put her chin down on its top and supported it from beneath with spread fingers. The mummy didn’t try to stop her. It didn’t even relax its arms—it just stood there, elbows bent, hands extended, waiting for her to put the jar back.
Instead she turned around and started walking. Toward the Source. Toward the event horizon.
What should have been won by strength of arms can still be won by guile, he told her. She ignored him, though she didn’t let go of the noose either. She stepped on a piece of pelvis and nearly fell over but managed to recover her balance.
She took another step and felt the jar grow warm in her hands. The brain inside had no muscles and couldn’t spasm but she could feel its consciousness bashing against the walls of the jar, trying to break free.
Lass! Don’t quit on me now. I took a chance with your Ayaan and she quit on me too soon. That’s why so many had to die. I’m telling you full truth, now. Don’t make the same mistake she did, not if you value the things I’ve given you.
Sarah took another step. Another one. A bubble appeared inside the jar and splattered apart against its lid. She felt Mael Mag Och kick at her hands. It was all in her mind, she knew that, but he was fighting her. He didn’t want to go any farther in.
“My mother. My father. Ayaan. Jack. All of my parents, all of them dead. Undead. And then murdered fucking again,” she chanted.
I feel I really must protest. Ayaan isn’t twice dead, Jack was just a false persona and your mother—
“You know nothing about my mother! Neither do I! That’s the goddamned point!”
She kept walking. The liquid in the jar grew uncomfortably hot. Her chin burned against the hot lid. Her hands ached from his attacks. She took another step and the heat was just too much. She let go and the jar fell away from her. The glass cracked as it struck the carpet of bones. The jar broke apart and half the liquid inside sloshed out. The brain sat in what remained of the jar—a kind of broken-edged cup, half-full of liquid. Steam lifted from between its two hemispheres like a ghostly crest.
Do you think this will kill me? he asked. He sounded quite calm. There’s no point to this, whatever it is you may want, lass. I have as many bodies as I like. I have as many—
She shoved the noose back into her pocket. She didn’t want to hear anymore. She watched the brain turn white and shrink down as the liquid bubbled and hissed and frothed. She watched the brain boil in its own juices. That was the point. It made her feel a little better. That was the point.
A mountain of flesh that stank like an unwashed cultist grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up into the air. She didn’t scream. Bodily she was carried back to the Tsarevich’s camp, most likely to be killed.
Life had a little surprise still in store for her, though. Ayaan was waiting near the scaffolding. Sarah was dumped at the lich’s feet. Ayaan helped her stand up.
“You’re extremely lucky that the Tsarevich was done with that brain.” Ayaan shook her head fiercely. “I hate to play at being the adult and telling you not to meddle in things you don’t understand.”
“Then don’t. And I’ll return the favor.” Sarah refused to meet Ayaan’s eyes.
The two women who had attended Nilla as she approached the Source returned. Their wires lead across the valley and up the ridge on the far side. Their faces and hands were covered in a fine powdering of white and yellow dust. A boy with a bucket of water and a ladle ran up to them and let them drink and wash up.
The Tsarevich, still sitting in a wire shopping cart, was wheeled closer to the scaffolding. His head dangled over the side and his knuckles twitched against the bones as he was brought bumping and rattling to the base of the construction.
“This is the master you serve,” Sarah said. She lacked the energy to really belabor the point but she couldn’t let it go without comment, either. “The monster’s monster.”
“He’ll be transformed in a moment. If physical beauty is all you look for in a leader then I’ve taught you poorly.” Ayaan sounded pissed. Sarah wondered how far she would have to go to make the lich attack her. If she was doomed, if she had no more chances, maybe it would be worth it. Maybe she could anger Ayaan so much that her former mentor would destroy her so completely her body, or rather her corpse, would be of no use to the Tsarevich.
Sarah’s blood went cold at the thought. Not the thought of becoming a ghoul. At the thought of dying at all. She knew it was just her biology speaking, her ingrained survival instinct, but it didn’t seem to matter. Her body didn’t want to die, no matter what her mind might decide. It would rebel against her if she tried to commit suicide.
The electronic boxes bolted to the scaffolding started to buzz and the exposed vacuum tubes came to life, glowing a cheerful orange. One of them flared white and then burst into darkness, then another. Cultists were ready for this and switched out the bulbs with remarkable speed. They must have been training for this for months, Sarah decided. Drilling for their one big moment, their contribution to the Tsarevich’s ascendance.
Under the power of his own unequal arms the arch-lich dragged himself up a ladder on the side of the scaffolding. Rung by torturous rung he hauled himself upward. The air smelled of ozone and real heat was coming off the machinery by the time he reached the top. He waved at the crowd, who cheered in return. Then he threw himself forward, right onto the twin giant metal spikes.
He sank downward with a gurgling scream. The spikes transfixed him. Impaled him. Pure energy rushed through them like water down high-pressure hoses. It flooded into him. Sarah could see it crackling around him like electricity crawling over his skin. His one visible eye went wide with it, his mouth opened in a perfectly round O. A stench of burning hair rushed down off of him and flowed across the spectators. Sarah raised her bound hands to her face.
“You can be part of the future, Sarah. You can come with me and build something. Wouldn’t that be nice? To stop destroying, to stop killing, and build?” Ayaan was shouting in her ear. Sarah hadn’t realized how noisy the little valley had become with all t
he popping vacuum tubes and crackling skin.
Every bone in the Tsarevich’s left arm cracked with a series of pops like muffled gunshots. The skin of his deformed hand flowed and flexed like a piece of rubber under stress. His face was changing shape, its contours shifting, rebuilding themselves.
“You don’t have to die today. It will be difficult,” Ayaan told her, “but I can convince them. I know I can. I only need you to say yes. I need you to agree to be a part of what we are working for.”
Sarah opened her mouth to reply. Then she closed it.
The Tsarevich’s mouth was moving, his jaw flexing. It looked like he was trying to say something. His right leg, the short one, flapped like a sheet on a clothesline.
The fingernails on his hand curled and bent around themselves. They split the flesh of his fingertips. His hand tried to close in a fist but the fingers spat out wet, dark sparks. His body twisted and shook and pulsed with noisy explosions. Sarah could only imagine that his internal organs were exploding one by one like potatoes left too long in the coals of a campfire.
Something was wrong. So very, very wrong.
With a wet splash his good eye burst in its socket. The green phantom hobbled forward and tried to smash at the vacuum tubes with his femur staff. There was no on/off switch on the machinery. Energy slashed out at him and he staggered back. He tried again and got knocked back again. It didn’t matter, after a moment.
Up on the spikes the Tsarevich’s face split open in a horrible grimace as steam built up inside of his head. It shot out of his ears, his nose, his eyes. With a noise of air being sucked into a vacuum his entire body caught fire. He went up like a torch.
17
The Tsarevich’s body burnt like a log soaked in gasoline. His dry tissues, overloaded by the energy of the Source, hissed and spat and started to break down. A chunk of jagged bone flew from one spasming leg. Patience was standing just below him—it fell on her and cut open her cheek. She reeled back in horror and pain, a scream pushing out of her lungs even as she dropped to her knees to retrieve the bone fragment. She clutched it to her breast like a holy relic.
Above her the Tsarevich’s head slumped to one side and fell off. It hit the ground in a splatter of sparks and flame. A lot of people screamed then, and almost all of them moved backward, away from the scaffolding.
At the back of the crowd a male cultist in a blue paper shirt screamed bloody murder, much louder than any of the spectators at the Tsarevich’s grisly demise. Ayaan grabbed Sarah’s arm and yanked the girl along behind her as she rushed to see what was going on.
Through a gap in the crowd she could see the screaming cultist, his face a mask of agony. Four spikes of filed bone burst from his chest as a ghoul sank its exposed teeth deep into the back of the cultist’s neck.
The dead were attacking the living.
Ayaan shook her head. No, that wasn’t acceptable. The ghouls couldn’t disobey their orders. Their minds were too simple—they couldn’t overcome the Tsarevich’s command. The Tsarevich was keeping them under control.
The Tsarevich was dead.
A new ghoul, one of Gary’s victims, came stumbling through the crowd, her face and hands bright red. She grabbed at Sarah but the girl twisted away. Ayaan swiveled around on one boot heel and blasted the ghoul’s face with dark energy. The undead features cracked and peeled away from smoking bone. Ayaan didn’t bother to watch her die a second time. “Are you alright?” she demanded.
Sarah nodded unhappily.
Enni Langstrom, the green phantom, appeared at Ayaan’s elbow. “Enough of the concern for her well-being,” he shouted over the screams. “Just kill her already!”
“No,” Ayaan said, “no, that’s unnecessary. she’s harmless.”
Enni shook his head. “She came here to kill him. Now he’s dead. You can call it a coincidence if you want but I want her dead. Jesus Christ, look at this! This is Armageddon. We can sort out who did what later. Just kill her. Where’s Erasmus?”
Ayaan frowned. “Didn’t you see? Gary ate half of him. He’s dead. I’m sorry, I know you two were friends.”
The skull-like face turned even paler than usual. “Then it’s just you and me. We have to save as many of the believers as possible. They served him well, they don’t deserve to die like this, not in this place.” He stared deep into Sarah’s eyes and grabbed her face in one thin hand. “Anyone we can’t trust dies, now. I’ll let you do it, but kill her! She’s an unknown factor. She could ruin everything.” He knocked Sarah into the dust with a backhand slap. Then he stomped away, his femur staff clicking on the rocky ground. As he moved through the crowd he touched each ghoul he passed and they slumped to the earth, the life force drained out of them.
Ayaan wasn’t sure what to do. She had turned on Sarah and all of her past. She had found a new cause to believe in. Yet if the Tsarevich was dead, who would rebuild the world? What was she giving her allegiance to? If Enni could remake the world and save the human race, if she truly believed he had it in him, then she had no choice but to obey and kill Sarah.
Langstrom didn’t have the ability. She knew it.
She grabbed Sarah’s bound hands and helped her stand up. There were ghouls everywhere, their eyes dead, their lipless mouths open wide. “He’s not a good man,” she shouted into Sarah’s face. “But I saw him show compassion once, for some people who were barely even human. I don’t like betraying him, but that’s what it’s come to.” She tore at the knots that held Sarah’s hands. Her fingers were too dead and clumsy. She gasped in frustration—then realized that the rope was made of organic fibers. Careful not to damage Sarah in the process she fed a little of her energy into the rope and it withered in place until it was so thin and insubstantial Sarah could just pull her hands apart.
Sarah rubbed at her wrists for a moment—they had chafed so much she had bled a little—then threw her arms around Ayaan and held her tight.
“I didn’t expect a hug from the girl who crossed half a continent just to put a bullet in my head,” Ayaan said, laughing a little.
“When I do it, when I sanitize you, it will be an act of love,” Sarah muttered. “Can we not talk about it now? We have a mini-apocalypse to worry about.”
It was true. There were hundreds of ghouls in the valley and perhaps half as many living cultists. The ratio was getting steeper with every second. Enni was cutting swaths of destruction through the undead forces but he was just one lich. The cultists were fighting back and their firearms filled the air with noise but they were disorganized and as much danger to one another as they were to the ghouls—especially since the latter were all wearing bulletproof helmets.
It had all happened so quickly—the instant the Tsarevich had perished the ghouls had become their own creatures again. They had reverted to their violent, mindless selves and once again succumbed to their terrible hunger.
If someone didn’t get the situation under control it was going to be a massacre. Ayaan lead Sarah over to the flatbed and crawled up on top of it. “This way,” she shouted, and at least a few of those still alive in the valley heard her and looked up. “Come on, retreat, out the way we came. Come on!” she shouted it again and again, as loud as her undead lungs would let her.
A teenage boy broke from the crowd and ran toward the flatbed. Ghouls chased after him but they were slow and clumsy without Enni’s power behind them. The boy ran right past the flatbed and into the pass beyond, back the way they’d come. The road was down there. If he could find it maybe he would survive long enough to find some shelter.
It was the best solution Ayaan had. “Come on,” she shouted again. “Fall back!”
One by one the living broke away from the dead, their legs pumping, their eyes wet with horror and shock. They had been promised so much. Now they had to start over again, from scratch, in a country few of them had ever seen before. “This way,” Ayaan screamed. It was better than being eaten alive.
A band of ghouls ca
me at the flatbed but Sarah was ready. She brought the heavy machine gun around and cut them to pieces before they could climb aboard.
Ayaan kept shouting even when the flow of living cultists had all but stopped. When she realized she was just wasting her breath she looked and saw that the valley was full of nothing but ghouls. They faced her like a ragged army, their helmets shading their eyes, their wicked arms held at their sides. She had stolen their prey. And yet it wasn’t her they wanted. Enni stood in the midst of them. He had lost his staff somewhere. His hands lifted and swung at the air as he tried to dampen the ghouls’ energy but he was clearly exhausted. He had used up everything he had, and even while the Source was radiating life energy from no more than a thousand yards away he was about to collapse.
One of the ghouls came up behind him and swiped at his back. The sharpened bone of its arm tore off a strip of green cloth. Two more ghouls flanked him, coming at him from the sides. He couldn’t seem to resist them in even the most basic way. They tore his robe from him in rags.
Exposed to the air his emaciated body was as white as bleached bone. He looked like something carved out of soap. He had big ears that had always been hidden before by his cowl, at least in Ayaan’s experience. He had a few long strands of hair plastered to his otherwise bald head.
He turned, his body swooning backwards, to look at Ayaan. She couldn’t read his eyes. Then the ghouls fell on him and tore him to pieces. Sarah fired wildly into the seething mass of bodies but there were just too many of them.
“Why are they attacking him?” Ayaan demanded. “He’s already dead!”
When it was over the ghouls fell back out of Sarah’s range and stood in an orderly formation like soldiers in a parade. It didn’t make any sense. There was no one around to control them, no lich who could command them. Their attack on the living had been predicated on that simple fact. Now the living were gone they had nothing to command their attention. Yet there was no reason for them to line up like that, either, just as there had been no possible explanation why they should attack Enni.
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