'He'll be transformed in a moment. If physical beauty is all you look for in a leader then I've taught you poorly.' Ayaan sounded pissed. Sarah wondered how far she would have to go to make the lich attack her. If she was doomed, if she had no more chances, maybe it would be worth it. Maybe she could anger Ayaan so much that her body, or rather her corpse, would be of no use to the Tsarevich.
Sarah's blood went cold at the thought. Not the thought of being a ghoul. At the thought of dying at all. She knew it was just her biology speaking, her ingrained survival instinct, but it didn't seem to matter. Her body didn't want to die, no matter what her mind might decide. It would rebel against her if she tried to commit suicide.
The electronic boxes bolted to the scaffolding started to buzz and the exposed vacuum tubes came to life, glowing a cheerful orange. One of them flared white and then burst into darkness, then another. Cultists were ready for this and switched out the bulbs with remarkable speed. They must have been training for this for months, Sarah decided. Drilling for their one big moment, their contribution to the Tsarevich's ascendance.
Under the power of his own unequal arms the arch-lich dragged himself up a ladder on the side of the scaffolding. Rung by torturous rung he hauled himself upward. The air smelled of ozone and real heat was coming off the machinery by the time he reached the top. He waved at the crowd, who cheered in return. Then he threw himself forward, right onto the twin giant metal spikes.
He sank downward with a scream that was a little bit violent agony and a tad sexual. The spikes transfixed him. Impaled him. Pure energy rushed through them like water down high-pressure hoses. It flooded into him. Sarah could see it crackling around him like electricity crawling over his skin. His one visible eye went wide with it, his mouth opened in a perfectly roundO. A stench of burning hair rushed down off of him and flowed across the spectators. Sarah raised her bound hands to her face.
'You can be part of the future, Sarah. You can come with me and build something. Wouldn't that be nice? To stop destroying, to stop killing, and build?' Ayaan was shouting in her ear. Sarah hadn't realized how noisy the little valley had become with all the popping vacuum tubes and crackling skin.
Every bone in the Tsarevich's left arm cracked with a series of pops like muffled gunshots. The skin of his deformed hand flowed and flexed like a piece of rubber under stress. His face was changing shape, its contours shifting, rebuilding themselves.
'You don't have to die today. It will be difficult,' Ayaan told her, 'but I can convince them. I know I can. I only need you to say yes. I need you to agree to be a part of what we are working for.'
Sarah opened her mouth to reply. Then she closed it.
The Tsarevich's mouth was moving, his jaw flexing. It looked like he was trying to say something. His right leg, the short one, flapped like a sheet on a clothesline.
The fingernails on his hand curled and bent around themselves. They split the flesh of his fingertips. His hand tried to close in a fist but the fingers spat out wet, dark sparks. His body twisted and shook and pulsed with noisy explosions. Sarah could only imagine that his internal organs were exploding one by one like potatoes left too long in the coals of a campfire.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
With a wet splash his good eye burst in its socket. The green phantom hobbled forward and tried to smash at the vacuum tubes with his femur staff. There was no on/off switch on the machinery. Energy slashed out of him and he staggered back. He tried again and got knocked back again. It didn't matter, after a moment.
Up on the spikes the Tsarevich's face split open in a horrible grimace as steam built up inside of his head. It shot out of his ears, his nose, his eyes. With a noise of air being sucked into a vacuum his entire body caught fire. He went up like a torch.
Monster Planet
Chapter Seventeen