It was Sarah.
Ayaan was too far away and the helicopter was moving too fast for her to really get a good look. She didn't use her eyes. She sensed the energy there, as familiar as the hairs on the back of her own arm, an energy she'd lived with for years, since long before she had understood that such energy existed and could be seen with the right eyes. She knew that energy.
It was Sarah.
The whoop died in her throat and she grabbed at her teeth, literally reached into her mouth and grabbed her own lower jaw in terror. At any moment the AA missile was going to collide with the helicopter's airframe, it was going to plow right through the tender aluminum skin of the helicopter, lodge itself inside and the sexual horror of that, the violation of it wasn't lost on her, it would come inside the helicopter and then go off, detonate, its high explosive warhead would burst apart in a million tiny jagged pieces of shrapnel, each with its own trajectory, its own ballistic intent, and there would be enough of them to cut to shreds every person in the helicopter. There would be nothing left but pieces, parcels of flesh raggedly torn apart and bleeding and unrecognizable and falling out of the sky.
'Sarah,' Ayaan croaked.
'You know her?' Nilla asked, her face wide with confusion.
Ayaan got her feet under herself and she climbed back out of the defile, back up onto the roadway. The helicopter had dipped down into the trees and the AA missile followed. Ayaan's chest lurched and a horrible belch came out of her, stinking of dead things. The missile touched the tree line and exploded harmlessly well behind the fleeing helicopter.
Okay. Sarah was safe. Ayaan didn't breathe a sigh of relief. She no longer breathed. But her body sagged. Relaxed a little. Okay.
Except'if Sarah was attacking the Tsarevich, then'then'Sarah was'Sarah had chosen to become'Sarah had unwittingly aligned herself against'against Ayaan, who had'in some noncommittal way'sided with the Russian lich.
She had it an instant later but it didn't help. Sarah had to know, had somehow learned that Ayaan was now a lich herself. Sarah had attacked specifically with the intent of sanitizing Ayaan. Except she had missed.
And except for the fact that Ayaan didn't want to be sanitized. She had always believed that when the moment came she would beg for the bullet in the head. Kneel in the dirt and grovel for it. Only now'now she had something to live for, something bigger than herself. The Tsarevich was going to rebuild the world. Ayaan wanted to help him.
Sarah was fighting against them.
'For Christ's sake, woman, help me,' someone screeched behind her. Ayaan turned and saw the green phantom literally, physically pulling ghouls and living cultists toward the flatbed, pushing them towards the fires there. They grabbed up armfuls of snow and tossed them on the flames. A few had real fire extinguishers and were trying to save the yurt. They moved faster than the others, faster than human beings were supposed to move. The green phantom was accelerating them. Ayaan glanced forward, at the machine guns mounts. One of them was gone altogether. A crater in the side of the flatbed was all that remained. Molten metal had dripped over the side of the bed and formed long silver icicles.