'There was a time when I was too weak even to read,' he told her, his mouth curved into something wistful, something approaching a smile but never quite reaching it. He was so much less horrible, less, well, disgusting when he talked. He had her father's voice and that made all the difference. Grateful, she sat up and listened attentively. 'That was before I figured out I could take energy from the ghouls like a sort of vampire. I've had a hard time of it, kiddo.'
'I'm... sorry, Dad,' she said, and put her feet down on the floor. Her shoes were lined up next to the bed, in case she had to get up for an emergency in the middle of the night. Ayaan had taught her that, not her father. She slipped into them effortlessly.
'I can't tell you how proud I am of what you've accomplished. It's not easy moving around the world these days, I should know. I came to New York back when all the ghouls were still here. I'm a little peeved with Ayaan. She said she would take care of you.'
Sarah looked down at the floor. Her head was too fuzzy to process much. 'Actually, that's kind of something I've been meaning to talk to you about.' She stood up and shivered. Her sweatshirt was in the laundry, leaving her with just a tank top. It was cold in the bed room'no central heating anymore. Wrapping her arms around her she tried to look him in the eye, like an adult. 'She's... dead. She got captured by the Tsarevich and... I've been following her, trying to save her but I waited too long, I could have, I could have stopped it, somehow, if I had taken the fight to them, if I hadn't been so cautious but now she's undead and. And. And. I have to sanitize her now. I have to save her from being one of those... things.' She stopped herself. She had been about to say that she needed to save Ayaan from being a lich. He might take that the wrong way.
He stared at her unblinking. She couldn't remember if he still had eyelids or not.
'Okay, that came out all wrong. Can I start again?' she asked.
'No need,' he told her. His head tilted backward and his eyes clouded over and she wondered if he was having the ghoulish equivalent of a stroke. Then he went to the dresser and touched the green sword. 'So you were trying to rescue Ayaan. I see. It didn't work out. You can't blame yourself for that. It wasn't your fault.'
'It's... not?' Sarah asked. She wondered what that he could know that she didn't.
'Ayaan was a devout Moslem. She hated the idea of ever becoming ritually unclean,' Dekalb said, fiddling with the sword. He was too weak to actually pick it up and brandish it. 'But she was also fiercely practical. I don't think she would like the idea of anyone going out of their way to mop up after her. Especially not if it meant putting you in danger.'
That didn't matter, Sarah thought. It wasn't a question of what anybody wanted. It was a question of duty. She went to say it out loud... and couldn't.
She left him, claiming she was going to eat breakfast with the survivors. The little house that Marisol had sorted out for the three of them (herself, Dekalb and Gary) was on the north side of Nolan Park, well away from the Victorian houses where the survivors lived. It was easy to slip away with no one seeing her. She remembered the time she'd slipped away from the camp in Egypt, scurrying over the wire. Funny that after so much time she was running away for exactly the same reason.
She went to the gardens and found a slack right away. Any of them would do. This one had been a woman and she still had breasts like empty winesacks that dangled down every time she bent over to pull up a weed. Her hair was cut with precision, perhaps done right before her death'though it badly needed to be washed Sarah could still see where it was supposed to flare out in a bob.