Titan Song by Dan Stout (best english books to read txt) 📗

might have. Maybe the night was looking up. I hit the gas and rode on to whatever disturbance awaited.

The Barekusu caravan had set up camp on one of the hills at the foot of the Mount. A sheer-faced mound of stone that towered over the street below, it was the kind of place that had a great view but had defied even the most creative real-estate developer. By the time I arrived, scarlet-clad patrol cops flooded the streets, torn from their patrols by the same Dispatch call that I’d responded to. Beyond them was a cluster of stopped cars, the drivers standing to the side and staring at what looked like a wide black puddle on the cobblestone street.

I swore under my breath, irritated that I’d been pulled away from an important conversation because some tanker had a liquid cargo spill. I parked the Hasam and stuck the pill-box light on the dash to keep from being towed away. At the top of the hill were the shaggy outlines of Barekusu, a line of adults and children staring down at us.

As I got nearer, I saw a pair of bikers on scramblers pull to the side of the road. I recognized the leather jacket with a maroon band and white piping that Guyer had worn at Hammer Head’s. I guessed that she and Harris must have been listening in on the police band. I headed in their direction, then stopped and squinted at the puddle. I could’ve sworn it had grown. Even stranger, the crowd of drivers abandoned their vehicles to run away from it. I squinted, trying to see what exactly it was, as the shape continued to expand. When it reached the cars’ front tires they tipped forward with a grinding metallic sound, teetering on the edge of the puddle before upending completely and disappearing into it.

The shape in the street was no puddle. It was a hole.

I jumped on the hood of the nearest car and waved my arms in the air, badge in hand, hoping that somehow the tiny metal shield would give my words more authority.

“Get out! Get everyone the Hells out of here!” I looked at the hill, and the Barekusu staring down at the scene. “It’s not safe! Get away from the edge!”

There was simply no way I could get them to listen, to get to safety fast enough. Then a voice far louder than my own barked a command. “Evacuate the area! If you can hear the sound of my voice, evacuate now!”

Standing on the far side of the hole, DO Guyer was speaking into a megaphone, pulled from the hands of one of the patrol cops. But her voice rang out from all sides. As she spoke she scattered a handful of coins, pebbles, and small debris into the air and at both sides of the street. She’d connected the megaphone with the items and they acted as remote speakers, broadcasting and amplifying her voice further. The faces along the streets and on the hill began to disappear, responding to her volume and authority. I took advantage of the moment to rush forward and clear additional pedestrians from the hole’s edge.

Drawing closer, I realized the depth of the hole that had opened up the street, exposing the honeycombing of geo-vents, sewer lines, and utility cables that kept the city livable. The cobblestone streets and vehicles had tumbled downward into a shockingly large cavern.

Everything I knew about the city told me that the geo-vents shouldn’t have been that big. Even the deepest tunnels were suspected to only be human-size.

I turned my attention to the lookie-loos and barked orders at them, flashing my badge to the few who balked at compliance. Slowly, we pushed the crowds away. I was beginning to feel better when the hill collapsed.

The tremendous roar of the dirt and stone wave was terrible, accompanied by shouts from the crowd and the officers fighting to maintain sanity in the chaos. The entire front of the hill tumbled into the devouring hole, a landslide of rock that swept brush and vehicles ahead, sweeping it into the gaping maw of the sinkhole.

I’d seen at least one body in that initial collapse, and I knew there would be more before the night was through. Before I had time to obsess on that thought, a burst of wind shot past me, so fast and powerful that I almost lost my balance.

Down the street Ambassador Paulus emerged through the crowd, pushing bystanders aside and striding into the chaos, eyes blazing and tattoos alight with an iridescent glow as beasts scribed in manna-laced ink writhed across her arms. Slowing slightly, Paulus’s fingers wove through the air as if plucking an imaginary flower from the sky. The invisible thing that had passed me emerged from the smoke, carrying an elderly woman, her arms clasped around an appendage made visible only by the dusting of dirt and ash. I caught a glimpse of the thing’s form, and my bowels twisted at the unnatural and illogical structure of it. But if that thing did Paulus’s bidding, and she had sent it to save a life, I’d swallow all the disgust and revulsion in the world to let it happen.

The thing dropped the woman near the edge of the hole, then it pulsed, shedding the dust and eradicating even the hint of its form from my vision. Shoving aside my apprehension, I ran to her, glad I didn’t sense Paulus’s creature as I helped the woman to her feet and guided her to one of the ambulances. Medics and firefighters swarmed around us, shouting commands over the sirens and chaos as the hills and street below gave way and were swallowed.

Nearby, Guyer chanted and gesticulated, focusing her thoughts as she tied the piece of rebar she held to one of the trucks that teetered on the edge of the hole. Even at this distance I could see the sheen of sweat on her brow.

I dashed in her