Monster Planet(87)

There had been quite a bit of debate over what should be done with the apostate lich. It had been suggested he should be fed to ghouls'the ultimate insult paid to the most vile of traitors. Yet ghouls did not eat their own kind. The dark energy repulsed them far more than the decomposing, suppurating flesh enticed them. It had been noticed that ghouls would quite happily eat dead human meat as long as it wasn't currently being animated. It would have been simple enough to smash in Semyon Iurevich's brains and then feed him to the dead, but that lacked an element of dark justice, as far as the Tsarevich was concerned. It lacked torture.

Behind her on the flatbed Ayaan could have watched, if she so chose, what the Tsarevich had finally deemed fit. Semyon Iurevich was hanging from a gibbet by his neck, his eyes turned upward to the sky. Stripped of his bathrobe it had turned out he was quite fat. Now a living man with a machete was slicing off thin strips of the lich's body, starting with the soles of his feet and working his way up. As each slice came off he would drop it in a blender and puree it until its dark energy had completely dissipated. The resulting slurry was dribbled into the mouths of the ghouls who worked so hard hauling the flatbed across New Jersey.

The best estimate held that Semyon Iurevich would be nothing more than a screaming skull long before they reached Indiana.

The bastard lich had diddled with her head, he'd gotten his rotten little fingers in her brain. Ayaan, who had never believed in revenge, did not enjoy listening to his screams. At least not too much.





Monster Planet





Chapter Five


In the dark Sarah lay in bed and tried not to look across the room. Not more than four feet away, sitting in a chair because he did not sleep, was a corpse. A walking corpse, a hungry, dead, ex-human being with broken nails and ruptured skin and a face stretched as tight as a mask across his skull. The feeling had started to slide over her like a cold wet blanket at dinner the night before. He had sat apart. He had put people off their food. She had realized, while she gnawed on a stalk of celery, that he disgusted her, too. That this particular corpse was her father made less difference than she might have hoped. He was dreadful in appearance. Lesions filed every crease of his skin. Fluid had pooled in one half of his body and left dark patterns of bruising down one arm, one cheek. His eyes had sunk into his skull, his nose had shrunk down to little more than a scrap of leather. Even just by moonlight it was hard to look at him and not feel her skin crawl.

Dekalb stood up against the light coming in the window. He tapped at Gary's skull with a finger no thicker than a pencil. In silhouette he looked terribly thin. More like a stick figure than a man. The terror drained out of her, little by little. It was her father, she told herself, it was the man who used to hug her and feed her pieces of carrot out of a plastic bag and who would carry her canteen for her when it got too heavy.

It was also a dead thing, a withered, sad thing. Just like Jackie had been, the little boy she had helped bury.

Too many thoughts. She rolled over and pretended to be sleeping.

Sarah wondered if everyone went through this. At a certain age did everyone look at their father, that being who had once been so tall and strong, and see just a frail old man? Of course very few people would ever see their fathers like this.

Too many thoughts. She couldn't sleep. She took Gary's tooth from her back pocket and looked across the room at the crab-legged thing on top of the dresser. The skull had a full set of teeth, both top and bottom. The tooth in her hand was an incisor but he wasn't missing any. He must have regrown the tooth the mummy had pulled out of his head. Instead of shuddering at the thought she curled her hand around the tooth and made contact.

Why, look who's dropped by for another chat.The skullbug didn't move or react in any way. It looked preternaturally like a sleeping cat basking in a ray of moonlight. In her head Gary sounded a lot more excited.

'Let's get one thing clear,' Sarah told him, the words staying in her throat so her father wouldn't hear. 'If you try any of that paralysis bullshit again I will personally take you out to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and drop you in. Dad might subconsciously heal you but I don't think he can teach you how to swim.'

I can't tell you how scared I am.

Sarah glared at the skull. 'I already have the boat.'

And I have something you need, or we wouldn't be talking. You can threaten me all you like, Sarah, but you can't do anything about it.

He was baiting her. He wanted her to get angry. He wanted her to kick him or throw him against the wall or say something cruel. Why? Maybe even that level of human contact would be something he wanted. Or maybe he just enjoyed winding her up.