Monster Planet(66)

yes and found instead i found yes herThe mummy raced ahead and grabbed something out of a tree. Sarah stopped and leaned forward, catching her breath.more there is more, he said, but she needed to process this one piece at a time.

'Just a second. So the Tsarevich didn't even send her here to take over Governors Island. He sent her for these relics? What kind of relics?'

Ptolemy held an undead squirrel in his hands. Its tail would never be bushy again and it was missing one leg. When it saw Sarah it grabbed at her with its tiny paws, gnashed its teeth at her. Lovely. The mummy turned away from her and crushed the animal to oblivion. Had he not grabbed it when he did it probably would have jumped down onto Sarah's neck. It would have torn open her throat. It was desperate for her energy. For life.

'Thanks,' she said, and then repeated herself. 'What kind of relics?'

a sword armlet a rope a sword an armlet

Sarah sighed. He could be so literal. She lifted her legs, trying to keep them from stiffening up, and looked behind them. Scattered movement a couple blocks away got her moving again. 'A sword. A rope. And an armlet,' she huffed. 'What does he hope to do with them?'

make magic,Ptolemy answered, as if she had asked what a soldier did with a firearm.he ghost will make ghost he will magic.

Ghost magic. Yeah. She knew how useful that could be. Maybe they should have kept the squirrel around. Maybe Jack could have used it to give them some pointers.

She could use some. She was running uptown, away from the mushroom queen, but also away from her boat. The survivors on Governors Island had assured her that Manhattan was almost free of ghouls, that they had all headed west. She wasn't about to trust that, though, since she was already further up Broadway than any of Marisol's people had been in twelve years.

There were some ghouls in Manhattan that she knew about. Weird, surgically maimed things in helmets that were hunting her like a deer. And they were lead by a female lich who could kill just by being near her.

the i spoke more something more i spoke of,he said from behind her, not even panting for breath. Well, of course, he didn't need any, and anyway she didn't know what effect breathing would have on telepathy.

it is ayaan about ayaan is it

That made her stop short. She just stared at him until he began speaking again.

lich she is dead a lich deadThe words made Sarah's head spin. Dead. Lich. Ayaan. Lich. Dead.

She couldn't make them stop. 'Shut up,' she said, to herself. He didn't respond. She couldn't make the words stop.

Ayaan was dead. Her rescue mission had failed.

When she had time she would think about that. In the meantime Sarah kept running. Ptolemy kept up with her easily. He could have run circles around her, frankly. Still, she was faster than the ghouls and that was what mattered.

Then she heard an air horn from the streets to her right and she knew that mere speed wasn't going to save her. She had been about to head in that direction, hoping to circle back to the harbor and find some way back to Governors Island. She tried to sense where the dead men were but the buildings blocked her arcane vision. She spun around in a slow circle, looking at the streets that seemed to head in every direction, searching the windows of the dead and hollow buildings as if they could tell her. 'Which way?' she asked Ptolemy, but he didn't even shrug.

Uptown again. Into the belly of the beast, and farther from safety than ever. She raced uptown and listened for horns behind her, for any sign of pursuit. When her lungs cramped and her body doubled over, unable to run another yard, she stopped. Ptolemy stared at her with his painted eyes. They never showed anything but a cool, intellectual repose. She wanted to smash in the plaster over his real face, his real skull. Wait, she thought, as breath raced in and out of her. There was something...

A dark stain had appeared across Ptolemy's facial portrait. A smoky trail of mildew curled across his cheek like a worm eating its way through his flesh. She grabbed his hands and saw spots on the linen that wrapped his finger, big colorless spots with paler rings around the edges, smaller spots like a spattering of some dark fluid.

Sarah dropped his hands and rubbed at her own fingers. A fine dusting of dark spores had come off on her skin. Her fingers started to itch and she scratched at them mercilessly. She backed away from the mummy as if he could somehow infect her, somehow make her'

SLAM!

Sarah's body spasmed with fear. She looked behind her and saw a little store with a plate glass window. What had made that noise? She couldn't see anything moving, she could only see a kind of greasy stain on the window and'