Chapter Twelve

Sarah tied the dead thing’s hands with a length of electrical cord. Ptolemy kept the lich in a sleeper hold as she lead the two of them carefully out of the shack and through the streets and passages of the refinery. “It’s alright, come out! You’ve been liberated,” she shouted as bleary faces looked down at her from the catwalks. The Russians looked confused and bewildered, mostly.

A rifle shot rang out and Sarah rolled under a massive pipe. Ptolemy pulled their captive into the partial cover. Sarah was the only one breathing, the only heart beating in that little space but she made up for the other two. “I guess they didn’t want to be liberated,” she said.

“Oh, you’re doing them such a favor, little filthy. Oh, ho ho,” the lich chortled. “The Tsarevich gave these little crumbs of humanity a real life. He gave them something to believe in, and now you’re going to take it away. He fed them, clothed them—”

Sarah stared at the lich. It had already told her what she needed to know and far too much besides. “Ptolemy,” she said, “keep that thing quiet so it doesn’t give away our position.”

The mummy got her drift. It tightened its hold on the lich until the evil thing’s neck crackled and popped. Its glinting eyes stood out a little further from their encrusted sockets and some of the boils on its cheeks popped open and spilled out a little pinkish fluid. Hopefully Ptolemy had crushed its larynx.

“Alright, I’m going to try again,” Sarah told the mummy. She slipped off the safety of her pistol and ducked back under the pipe. In the shadowy street she would be nearly invisible with the hood of her sweatshirt up.

The lich had explained to her, under certain prodding, that she had arrived too late. The Tsarevich—and Ayaan as his prisoner—had left the refinery behind. He had taken all of his undead minions with him, leaving only the rotting sexless lich as a protector for the living people he had abandoned. There wasn’t a ghoul in kilometers. Which should have made her job easier.

“Listen, you’ve all been duped,” she called out, and sidled toward the dubious cover of an enclosed control stand. “He’s been using you—using your bodies, using your souls! You don’t have to believe his lies any more!”

A grenade rolled out of the darkness and Sarah barely had time to get her head down and covered before it exploded, throwing vicious shrapnel all over the street. The pipes and towers rang with a million tiny impacts.

Sarah ducked back under the pipes where Ptolemy waited patiently for her. “It’s not working,” she told him. He touched his painted mouth.

She frowned in confusion, then nodded as realization dawned. She reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt and touched the soapstone.

perhaps speak they english don’t perhaps speak english

He had an excellent point.

Once she’d gotten her composure back she shoved the lich out into the street and ducked out behind him, moving it quickly into a well-lit alley. She shoved her pistol into its back and nearly retched. Where her Makarov had touched its hospital gown yellow fluid welled up and stained the cloth.

“Move,” she told it. The lich raised its hands and shuffled forward. Sarah kept close. The people living in the refinery wouldn’t dare shoot her if they might accidentally hit their overlord. She pushed it forward like an inhuman shield until she’d reached the refinery gates, only to find that someone had preceded her—they were locked tight.

Sarah nearly wet herself. She had no idea what to do next. The Russians, she had no doubt, were far less bewildered. They were probably gathering in the shadows even as she turned in slow circles, looking for them, they were probably setting up some kind of ambush. Her eyes darted back and forth as she looked for cover—she had no chance, she knew, if it came down to a protracted firefight but maybe she could—

Ptolemy came up out of the darkness and grabbed the chain link gates in his big hands. With a sound like linen tearing he strained and heaved until the fencing tore away from its uprights with a wild metallic squeal.

“Mumiyah,” someone said in the darkness. “Mumiyah!” Sarah could hear many feet scurrying away as the Russians nearly stampeded each other trying to escape.

Sarah turned to look at her undead partner as if he’d sprouted horns. What on earth had scared the refinery’s living so badly? She reached into her pocket.

we return should go before go they should return

“Yeah. I guess we should.” She held her gaze on him for a while, then turned and bent to pass under the gap he’d made in the fence.

They made their way into the dark interior of the island where Sarah slept while the mummy watched their prisoner. In the minutes she lay curled inside a blanket, watching his painted face motionless in the starlight, she wondered what exactly she was accomplishing that he couldn’t have done himself. They had failed to save his mummies—except for one, maybe, but there was no way to know. She imagined he was probably after vengeance and nothing else. Sarah had no problem using his wrath to help save Ayaan but she had to wonder—was she even helping Ptolemy? Was she just slowing him down?

Added to what she’d learned from the lich she wasn’t sure if she hadn’t made a terrible mistake. If someone was going to rescue Ayaan, what made her think she was qualified? Who was she trying to kid? She was twenty years old. She’d never lead so much as a squad into combat. Now she had one coward pilot and one insane and vengeful mummy and she had to tell them what to do, when even she had very little idea what to do next.

In the morning they made their way to the pick up down at an abandoned fishing village. Huddled around a decaying wharf the wrecks of boats stood mute in the water that slapped against their hulls. The helicopter stood in the town square, ready to go at a moment’s notice. They found Osman standing on the pier watching rotten sails flap in the morning wind, saw him tear pieces of weathered wood away from ruptured hulls. He nodded when she approached.

“Caught yourself a prize, I see,” he told her, glancing at the lich. Flies had gathered in one corner of its mouth and it twitched unhappily. With its hands bound there was nothing it could do but swallow as many of the insects as climbed inside of its lips. “I’ve seen fresher catches. What are you going to do with it?”

Sarah grimaced. “I don’t know, tie it to a tree and leave it here or... something.” She shrugged. “Look, they’re gone,” she told the pilot, uninterested in his jokes. “At least two days ago. The Tsarevich got what he needed here—this piece of shit wasn’t sure what that might be, he knew it had something to do with a ghost.”

“A ghost?” Osman winced. “Like your Jack?”

Sarah raised her hands in dismay. “No idea. Look. They’re gone, they’re headed west. Maybe to Europe, maybe farther, the lich wasn’t privy to the exact destination There’s something out there—something the Tsarevich wants, and now he can get it. They loaded up all the ghouls and liches they could fit into an old tanker or something and set sail. At least two days ago. We need to catch them, Osman.”

He rubbed his chin. “Do we?”

“Yes. Look, this lich was left behind to kind of keep an eye on the place but even it had heard about Ayaan. She’s some kind of celebrity in the ghoul world, probably for killing Gary. There’s no telling what they’ll do to her. If she’s still alive it’s probably only because they want to make her suffer as long as possible before they kill her.”

“You know what she would say right now, don’t you? ‘It’s too damn bad.’ You can do what you like, Sarah, but I don’t plan on racing halfway across the world without a little more to go on.” He threw a piece of waterlogged wood out into the harbor, skipping it a couple of times.

Sarah couldn’t believe it. “Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that. We gave it a good try. We got here too late. Now I’m going to go back and try my luck with Fathia.” He stood his ground, arms folded. He wasn’t headed for the helicopter but he wasn’t taking her orders, either. “This is a game for grown-ups now. You had a little fun playing the hero, girl, but the world doesn’t have room for that anymore.”

“I’m not a child,” Sarah said, her teeth grinding together.

“At sixteen years old Ayaan shot her first lich. She was a child. She was a smart child.”

Sarah nodded, understanding. He was willing to help her. He didn’t want to go back to Egypt—and he probably had a soft spot in his heart for Ayaan. But he needed to see what she was made of, first. Exactly what she’d wondered herself while she slept the night before and Ptolemy stood watch.

She took out her pistol and moved to stand over the sexless lich where Ptolemy had thrown it on the ground. It looked up at her with eyes that were very, very human. It didn’t fear death, she knew, it would welcome a bullet in its brains, but that only made it harder. She had killed before, she had even shot Mariam in the helicopter but that had been self defense. This was cold blood.

She thought of Ayaan. Ayaan had taught her to act, and not think.

She lined up the shot and squeezed the trigger. Skull fragments danced across the wharf. Gray brain matter oozed from the exit wound and slithered onto the rough wood of the pier.

“Ayaan shot Gary in the head. It didn’t take.” Osman handed Sarah a thick plank of wood. One end was covered in sharp white barnacle shells. She used the plank like a club and smashed the lich’s head into pulp. She lifted her arms again and again until they were sore, bringing the wood down on the diseased flesh as if she were winnowing grain.

“Alright,” Osman said when she was merely spreading the gore around. “Alright, enough. Good. Now.” He jerked his head a fraction of a centimeter in Ptolemy’s direction. “When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.”