Monster Planet(51)

He nodded. 'He's not human anymore, I think he's dead so many times over he's forgotten what a living human body is like. He's healing, and he's growing, in ways I can't anticipate. He doesn't seem to be able to just die. I've tried everything, I even had the mummies smash him to bits with a sledgehammer. The next day he had put himself back together the way they used to put broken vases back together with superglue. I locked myself in here, I sealed myself away because I needed to watch him. To make sure he didn't get loose.' He stared at the skull bug then as if it had changed colors. 'No, I don't think that's appropriate,' he said, and she frowned at him until he looked back at her face. 'He and I can communicate, sort of. He wants to talk to you, he'Gary, don't make me crush you again, or maybe we could boil you in a pot... no. Never. You will never get near her, do you hear me? Never!'

'I'd like to hear what he has to say,' Sarah told Dekalb.

'Oh, alright,' the lich said, his hands at his throat. 'I'll have to translate, though. He doesn't have any lungs or vocal cords or a tongue or anything, and''

She stopped him in mid-sentence. 'I know a trick,' she told him, thinking of the soapstone in her pocket. She'd speculated often on how it linked her to Ptolemy. 'I just need something of his, something close to him. Like a piece of jewelry he always wore, a wedding ring, or a favorite shirt, or''

One of the mummies'silent and invisible until that moment'glided forward and picked the skull up off the ground. With a casual snap it tore one of the teeth out of Gary's upper jaw and then dumped the rest of him on the platform. The mummy handed her the long yellow tooth, complete with spiky roots, and stepped back into the shadows.

Sarah bit her lip. 'I don't know if this will work,' she said. She made a fist around the tooth and frowned.

That f*cking hurt, you prick,Gary said, using her own internal voice. The words blasted through her mind and made her ears ring in sympathy.Come back here and I'll bite your goddamned prick off! Or did they already put it in one of those f*cking jars? She squinted her eyes and tried to turn down her own mental volume.

It didn't work.So you're Sarah, huh? You're skinnier than I expected. I also thought you'd be white, like your old man. Don't get me wrong, I'm no racist. I'd gladly take a bite out of you if I just had a mandible to call my own.

She could feel him grinning in her head, his tongue lapping at her grey matter, at the convolutions of her brain. She nearly let go of the tooth. Then she realized she couldn't, that the buzzing, stinging energy in the tooth had actually paralyzed her hand. She couldn't let go. She tried to open her mouth to speak and found she couldn't do that, either.





Monster Planet





Chapter Eight


Barakatugged at Ayaan's calcified veins. It had saved her life and now it wanted to be repaid. The power itched inside her, burnt her guts. It needed fuel, it needed meat. She knew exactly what it wanted. She also knew it would never be satisfied, never again, no matter how much meat she ate. No matter how much living human meat.

Nausea ballooned in her stomach, filling it like hot rocks. She dropped to one knee and spat on the boardwalk. When she wiped her mouth and looked up the naked man was there. The one with the blue tattoos and the noose around his neck.

'I know what your next move is, lass,' he told her.

'Then you're one ahead of me,' Ayaan said. She lowered her other knee, knelt and touched her forehead to the eroded wood. She was pointed out towards the sea'as close to being oriented toward Mecca as she could hope for. Silently she began to pray. She stopped in mid-dua.'You,' she said to the man. She lifted her head. 'You must know something of evil. Am I a monster now? If I speak God's name, will He smite me?'

The ghost closed his eyes and a look of blessed relief came over his face. 'Finally,' he sighed, 'one of them believes!' which didn't answer her question. When she stared at him long enough he shifted on his feet and actually addressed her problem, though he provided more of an opinion than any hard facts. 'Are you a monster, now? Oh, aye. But your god made you so, didn't he, lass? He made you what you are and he did it for good reason, you can be sure of that. Pray all you want. I'll wait here.'

The urge had left her, however. She stood and looked at him, truly looked at him. He wasn't there. He looked real enough, she could even feel the heat of his hands when she grasped them, but there was nothing behind the image. No energy, neither living or dead.