Sarah frowned. He could be clear-spoken when he wanted.
He had gathered them up while she was examining the dead lich's skull. He handed them to her and she studied them. The length of fur was matted and disgusting. The noose looked like it might fall apart at any second. She studied the sword, though, and something about it called to her. It was ancient, truly ancient, and bright green with verdigris. The blade had fused with its scabbard and showed a spot of bronze at its tip, as if someone had used it like a walking stick and repeatedly struck it against hard ground. The hilt was made of twisted cable and fashioned in the shape of a howling warrior. She grasped it with one hand, intending to wave it through the air a few times and get a feel for its balance. Before she could lift it, though'
'dare you, I've given you a command! You will do as I say, and you'll do it now, lass, because there is one fucking lot more riding on this than you think. I'
The voice in her head made her want to drop the sword, made her want to cover her ears it was so loud. It made her teeth shake. When it stopped she felt like someone was looking right into her head, like whoever it was who belonged to the sword had noticed her intrusion, had become aware that she could hear him. At the same time she realized exactly who it was. Or who he had always said he was.
Sarah,he said.Dearie, you're not supposed to be here. Not yet.
'Hi, Jack,' she replied. She let go of the sword. It clattered on the street. Her hand buzzed and shook'she had to grab her wrist to make it stop. It felt like she'd been polluted by bad energy, but the feeling faded once she was rid of the relic. She turned to her father. 'Whose sword is this?' she demanded. 'Did it belong to Jack before he became a ghost?'
Dekalb's eyes clouded over. It was a lot of memories to process at once, evidently. 'Jack? No... no, he never had a sword. And Jack's no ghost, sweetheart.'
'What?' she asked. She was still connecting the dots in her head.
'Listen, I knew Jack pretty well. We worked together, fought together. He even killed me, after all. But now he's just another ghoul. He was chained to a wall uptown from here the last I saw of him, with a broken neck, unable to move or walk or hunt. He was as brainless as any of them. Jack was never the type to become a ghost, anyway. He would have erased himself from the network before he let that happen.'
'Listen,' Sarah said. 'I have the ability to talk to'to ghosts, and ghouls, and dead people who can't speak for themselves, but only if I have something really important to them. Like Gary's tooth or Ptolemy's heart scarab. Who does this sword belong to? It was somebody the Tsarevich wanted to talk to, they called him, what was it'the Celt?' She glanced at Ptolemy, who nodded in agreement.
'There was this one guy,' her father told her. 'He was a ghost, sure. Gary knew him better than I did but he was from Orkney, up in Scotland. He was a Druid.' Dekalb picked up the sword and looked at it, then showed it to Gary. The scuttling little skull-bug jumped up and down on his six pointy little feet in excitement. 'Gary says yes, this was his sword. His name was Mael something, I remember now. He helped me at the end, he talked to the mummies on my behalf.Mael Mag Och.Why, sweety? What does he have to do with anything?'
'Well, he's lied to me, for a start. He's lied to me for years. He told me he was somebody else. He brought me here'he's been playing me for a fool. Who knows what else he set up?' She frowned at the green sword in her father's hand. 'Right now, I am willing to believe,' she told him, 'that Mael Mag Och has been playing with us all, like checkers on a board.'
The skull-bug did a little dance it was so excited.
'Yeah,' Dekalb said, 'Gary says that sounds exactly like Mael.'
END OF PART TWO
Monster Planet
Chapter One