Monster Planet(52)

'I know what your next move is,' he said again, once she had stopped touching him. 'You're going to go on a bit of a tear. You'll run inside there,' he said, pointing at the open door, 'with your death ray blasting and you'll ask questions later. Hopefully you'll get the Tsarevich, but even if you just get the green phantom fellow, well, that'll be a good day's killing. They'll slaughter you, of course. But who mourns a pawn when its loss takes a bishop?'

She had used those same chess terms when thinking to herself. She had spoken of them to no one. 'You can read my mind.' Ayaan let her hands fall at her sides.

'Is a little bit of good worth it when so much potential goes to waste?' he demanded. 'There's a deeper game, here, if you're willing to be a little patient, lass, and there's more to win than you think. You play nice for now. Don't go in there pretending to be one of them. They're too smart for that. Act like you've been broken, though, broken like a wild horse, and they may want to believe it so bad they don't ask so many questions. Then you just do as they say. Bide your time. Wait for the real opportunity to come along.'

What he said smacked of prudence. She nodded. 'Alright,' she began, but he was gone, without so much as a fare-thee-well. Ghosts were supposed to be like that, she knew, but it was still unsettling.

She shook her head and walked through the open door. She stepped into a cavernous, dark space, and then squinted in pain as brilliant red light attacked her eyes. A sign'a neon sign in English that read 'MAD-O-RAMA' buzzed into life in the dimness, showing her its corners and casting everything in a hellish glow. To enter MAD-O-RAMA she had to pass through the mouth of an enormous sculptural head, complete with giant triangular fangs.

Beyond this opening lay a serpentine length of small-gauge railroad track and piles of mannequins painted in glowing yellow-green. Some looked like witches, some like maniacs with knives. Skeletons were well-represented, as were vultures and bats. A spiderweb made of fishing line hung from the ceiling and brushed the top of her hair. MAD-O-RAMA must have been a carnival ride, she decided. A dark ride.

At the back of the room stood the liches, gathered in eerie conference. The green phantom, the lipless wonder, the werewolf. They waited for her, she could tell'their attention, their energy, was directed at her. One of the ride's cars stood at the end of the track, its high back turned toward her and shielding its occupants from her view. With the vision of the dead she could see right through the wood and metal, however. She could see two figures there, their energy bright with excitement, their auras intertwined. One was dead, a lich. The other was alive but hurt.

Ayaan's stomach rumbled experimentally. Hurt... living... flesh. Desire tried to bend her double but she fought it down.

Cicatrix stood up, untangled her limbs from the car's dead occupant. The scarred woman looked almost bashful as her eyes met Ayaan's. Or perhaps she was flushed for other reasons. An open wound on her chest oozed blood that ran down in clots to stain the plunging neckline of her white linen dress.

The living woman stepped down from the car and walked at her leisure toward the exit. As she passed Ayaan she reached out to touch the Somali's arm. She whispered, 'Is fun life, if you can make you to like it.' Without further explanation she left the way Ayaan had come in. Ayaan guessed it was some kind of warning.

Ayaan moved forward to meet the car's occupant. It was the Tsarevich, she was sure of it. She would get around in front of the car, see what he really was. She had to know.

Before she could reach the car, however, a projection of the beautiful little boy in his filigreed armor appeared out of thin air, directly in her path. 'You come too close. Stay there, yes?' he said, and she could only nod in agreement. She could see now that it was just a projection, just as Sarah had said back at the beginning. There was no energy in the boy, no darkness or light. He might as well have been hollowed out like a pumpkin. He was just as the ghost outside, an illusion. A fakery.

The boy gestured with his skull wand and the werewolf moved forward. He had a strange little machine in his hands, a metal ball studded with vacuum tubes and black bakelite dials. A long telescoping antenna emerged from its center. Its purpose was not immediately clear.

Ayaan remembered the ghost and his words. Don't pretend to be one of them. They won't believe it. The device the werewolf held must be a weapon. Ayaan knew one when she saw it.

'Semyon Iurevich,' the Tsarevich said. 'Is trustable, this one?'

The lipless wonder came forward. The dry skin of his face had drawn away from his smallish features, making his eyes very wide. His nose turned up like a pig's. He wore a stained white bathrobe and a pair of slippers. He came up to her and ran his hands over Ayaan's arms and hips. She wanted to kick him away but she controlled herself. Like a broken horse, she thought. She let her shoulders slump, let her neck bow. Let them think it was too much, that she was overwhelmed, dazzled by their evil.