Monster Planet(35)

'I don't know how''

'Then learn. I gave you your gift for a reason. Use it, now. You've got to find things out, you have to learn a lot between now and the end of this.'

'...Learn things?'

'Yeah. And some of them are going to make you cry. I'd go do it for you but, well. Since I'm just a disembodied consciousness cut loose in the void, I figure you're going to have to do the heavy lifting. Understand?'

'Yeah.' This time she thought she did understand. She'd just grabbed the shitty end of the stick. Sarah poured herself a glass of water. Her mouth had gone very dry.

'Okay. So I'll try to find out more, give you a better idea of what you're up against as we get closer. For now I'm going to let this body go. Once I'm out you know what to do.'

Jack rocked back and forth a few times and let his torso crash forward onto the deck. Sarah looked down at the knobby back of its neck, the places where the skin of its back had been nibbled away. It turned its ruined face up toward her and its jaws clacked shut, looking more like a horribly wounded tortoise than a human being. Clearly Jack was gone. She picked up the pistol Magna had left for her and thumbed the safety. The gunshot passed right through Jack's deliquescent flesh and pranged off the submarine's hull, making it ring like a bell. And then Sarah was alone, completely alone on the rolling water.





Monster Planet





Chapter Eighteen


Bobbing before her the Least's face looked like a huge bag of skin dangling in folds from his tiny skull, the eyeballs floating inside, the teeth lost in the great wet flapping curtain of his mouth. He tried to smile when she opened her eyes. It looked more like an exposed muscle jerking spasmodically.

'Mine, now,' he said, his voice dribbling out of him like syrup. 'My blood, my meat, my bones.' He reached out one hand, the fingers swollen and torn like hot dogs cooked too long in a microwave, and touched her breasts, pushed them around, smeared them across her chest. There was no sex in his eyes. Just hunger.

'If you eat me,' she said, 'at least I won't end up a ghoul.'

It was the closest thing she could manage to real defiance. It was also a fond wish.

Ayaan's clothes had been changed. She wore a white sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of drawstring pants. Surgical scrubs'most of the Tsarevich's army, both living and dead, wore the same. They were easier to find than real uniforms. Her feet were bare. Her hands weren't tied, which surprised her a little. She supposed the green phantom could put her back to sleep if she tried to get away.

'Where are my clothes?' she asked, figuring the Least would either answer her or eat her. Either way she would have one less thing to worry about.

It was Cicatrix who replied, however. 'We had them to burn. You got little too close to Lady Amanita so they went to mildew.'

Ayaan looked up and saw a small crowd made up of living zealots and most of the liches had gathered around to watch her die. The werewolf, the lipless wonder, the green phantom were there. Amanita was conspicuously absent but the Tsarevich himself stood in a place of honor, directly behind the Least. His pale, pale skin and hair, his dark enameled armor held her gaze. She figured it was probably another projection. He didn't seem the type to take the risk of being near an unbound prisoner even when she had no weapons but her bare hands.

'Mine,' the Least said, his mouth chewing on the word like a horse chewing cud.

'Yes, very soon now,' the green phantom crowed. He looked like he could barely contain his excitement. He waved his arms around and everyone moved back, clearing a wide space on the deck leaving Ayaan and the Least alone in the middle. Ayaan's heart sank. She knew exactly what came next.

'Your highness,' the green phantom said, and bowed in the Tsarevich's direction. 'Ladies, gentlemen, creatures out of perdition and loyal drones. I give you the event you've all been waiting for. Hark back with me to the days of most ancient Rome, to the thrills, the spills, the kills of the Coliseum. To the day of the gladiator, who lived'and died'by the pleasure of his Emperor. To the days when blood was spilled, when bodies were butchered, when lives were thrown away all for one brief round of applause. The greatest show on this earth! Shall we try to regain some of that glory? Shall we celebrate the ritual of death once more? Shall we begin?'

There was a roar of agreement. Ayaan remembered what Cicatrix had told her, once upon a time. 'Our kicks are never so simple.' Apparently she'd been incorrect. This was the simplest kind of entertainment there was, and one of the oldest. A battle to the death. Public execution made public sport.