Monster Planet(54)

Sarah squirmed against her confinement.

God! Just because I lack the organs doesn't mean I don't feel the itch. Don't be such a prude, Sarah. I bet you do it. I bet you do it all the time. Hmm... but we're getting distracted. There's a point to my little story. I talked, and Marisol listened. Get it?

Sarah kept her silence.

Good. So let's be civil to each other. Let's be nice, even if we can't be friends. There's no reason to spoil Daddy-Daughter Day. It's him I want to talk about, of course. Your father: my jailer. Look at him. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but he's a gibbering idiot.

Sarah bristled, but said nothing. Gary could feel her emotions. He seemed to find them amusing.

This is the most fun I've had since I lost my appendages. But anyway, it's true. Your father's a moron. A sub-intellect. I know he has a brain'you can't be undead without one'but we're talking walnut-size here, at best. This whole time he's been confronted by just one mystery, just one little puzzle to solve and he's never worked it out. He's had twelve years to figure out just who keeps rebuilding my aching bones every time he breaks them but he hasn't got so much as clue one. You can tell, though. You knew it just by looking at me.

Keeping her mouth in a tight grimace she subvocalized, 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

Come on, sweet tart. You can see the energy, I know you can. Your friend, what's his name... Jack? Sure. He told me all about it. You can tell who's protecting me. You would have seen it eventually, so it doesn't matter if I give the game away. Stop playing dumb. Unless it's hereditary and you got your old man's slack jaw.

Ah. Sarah let her vision relax, paid attention to the skin behind her ears, to the way the air felt. And then she saw it. Stretching away from Gary's skull like invisible hair, long ropy tendrils of dark energy draped around the room, snaked along the platform, tying Gary right back to... to Dekalb himself.

Hot bile hit the back of her throat. Sarah wanted to scream. She wanted to smash the skull to fragments. Of all the f*cked up things'this was not what Ayaan had taught her about how the world worked. Good people fought the bad things. They didn't heal them. It was wrong, it was so wrong'

It's not his fault.

Sarah turned to face the skull with venom in her eyes. How dare he? How dare Gary make her see that her father, the one man in the entire world she'd ever thought was worth a damn, the only human being, frankly, that she had ever loved, was in league with the monsters?

He thinks he doesn't have any powers. He think he's the least useful lich that ever was. He's been healing me for over a decade, and he has no idea. Every time he develops the balls to kill me, his guilt overpowers him and subconsciously he puts me back together again.

She forced herself to calm down. 'That must be... unpleasant.'

It's f*cking agonizing, is what it is. I've been crushed, I've been burned, I've been impaled on a spike. But it's better than the alternative. I have a right to exist, sugar shorts. I have a right to live, whatever you may think of my current status. I don't know. Maybe you're thinking you'll just tell Daddy what you've learned. Maybe you think that if he knows what's going on he can fight it, and he can finally do me in. And maybe, just maybe, he can. Then again, maybe his subconscious is stronger than you think.

'You expect me to keep your secret,' Sarah spat through gritted teeth.

Yeah, I do.The skull grinned up at her.Oh, not for my sake. You probably hate me. That's alright, it comes with the job. I expect you to keep your f*cking hole shut for him. Because, snack pack, he's spent the last twelve years pretending that he's a hero. That he brought down the nefarious Gary, the lich king of New York City. You see, there's not much else to do in this place except sit around talking about what used to be. After a while, memories are all a man has. That and the occasional slack that wanders by in the tunnel down there. If he knew how much time he's wasted, playing at the vigilant guardian up here, if he knew what he'd done, well. It might just break his heart. Granted he isn't using it right now, but I expect you'd rather keep it in one piece. Do we have a deal?

He released her, as easily as that, without any kind of agreement on her part. Obviously he thought he knew her answer already.

It burned a little that he was right.

'Did you have a nice chat?' Dekalb asked. She saw worry written on his face. On the rest of him she just saw weakness. She'd forgotten how fragile he must be. That he was one of the people from the old time, from before the end of the world. Nobody had been tough back then. The slightest emotional shock could destroy them.