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

manna was a blend of mystery and technology. Anyone could use manna-bound objects, but it took a sorcerer’s aptitude and training to create those bonds that defied the obstacles of distance and nature.

Harris squirted a fine mist of the liquid across his thumb and forefinger, which he then pressed into the dead man’s stab wounds, tracing the jagged holes left in Kearn’s back. Stepping away, Harris pressed the same manna-slick digits against his nose, the iridescence momentarily shining on his skin like the glyphs on the dark fabric of his cloak. His free hand moved through the air in rapid jerks, a mad tailor joining two pieces of invisible cloth. He was attempting to create a connection between the real world and the echo that Kearn had left behind.

I edged closer, curiosity overwhelming me. As casually as possible, I reached between the sorcerer and the corpse, feeling for invisible threads. Their absence indicated that Harris was using traditional manna, the remnants of the liquid retrieved from the bellies of whales, before those animals were hunted to extinction. DO Guyer’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, and I fell back, reminding myself that she hadn’t really come to observe Harris. She’d come to observe me, and that was dangerous.

I didn’t fully understand how I’d gotten the ability to interact with manna, how to control it, or what the implications were. But I knew that talking about it put me at risk. If the government realized I had picked up this connection, then at best I’d be exploited for PR purposes. Much more likely was that I’d disappear into a secure medical facility, like the other first responders who’d shown the slightest hint of ill effects from being present at the manna strike. There were too many unknowns to risk my own safety and the safety of those close to me. I avoided Guyer not because of what she might do, but for fear that I’d say or do something that filtered up to the powers that be.

Determined to be uninteresting, I stayed put and focused on the ritual at hand. As Harris worked his spell, the glyphs on his cloak became easier to see, each one sparking and fading, pretty lights signifying danger, a sparkling fuse burning its path to an explosive charge.

The victim’s body began to shake as though someone had run a few thousand volts through it. The stab wounds on Bobby’s back contracted and relaxed, the opening and closing moving in time with Harris’s breathing.

Harris muttered, “Bobby Kearn, I call to you from the Path.” He paused, then said again, louder, “Bobby Kearn, I speak your name. Do you hear me?”

The corpse stopped quivering, the wounds no longer moving. Then, one by one, the gaps of the wounds began to pull closed and reopen. A dozen tiny mouths on vivid green flesh, stretching open in silent cries of dismay. Beside Harris, Guyer recorded the rhythms of the pulses on a notepad. The spell was similar to sorcery I’d seen Guyer use, although hers seemed more powerful than Harris’s.

“I hear . . . I hear,” she translated. “Let me go. . . .”

Harris spoke again, louder. “Name your killer!”

He stepped closer to the body. Arms raised, voice raised, anger slipping into his words. “Name your killer, Bobby Kearn, and let justice take its path.” The body shook and writhed. This time its movements were underscored by a hiss of static.

I told myself that I was imagining it, that I wasn’t hearing the same electric buzz that haunted my dreams. I glanced around the room, searching for the source. My gaze settled on the mirror that hid the PA system. Jax must not have turned it all the way off. I moved to the mirror, running my hand along its back, searching for the volume or power control. As I did, an ear-splitting howl of feedback came through the PA system, along with a hissing whisper directly in my ear. “Reprise . . .”

Fumbling, stretching, I finally located the dial. But as I began to twist, the flesh at the base of my thumb twitched and spasmed as a sticky, invisible thread traced a line across my palm, sending a manna-driven tingle up my forearm.

The pale flesh of the dead man swelled out and released in time with Harris’s breath, slightly quicker now that something unexpected was happening. I fought to stay still, to not interact with the manna thread in any way. Again the voice, both from Guyer as she translated and the speaker on the wall, a single shattered word, “Reprisal.”

A howl of static burst from the speakers, so loud that I clapped my hands over my ears and backed away. The rushing swirling buzz of static mixed with the band’s rehearsal, disco beats and pulsing rhythms filling the air and numbing my mind. Sudden pressure cloaked my body, as if I’d plunged to a great depth, accompanied by a painful chill that bore through me. The shivering was profound and immediate. But even that paled to the hunger. I recognized the feeling instantly, the manic appetite that came with consuming manna threads. But I hadn’t drawn on the threads around Bobby—I knew I hadn’t. And Harris had been using traditional manna. Everything I’d learned told me that I should be fine. But I wasn’t. I felt angry, even betrayed, though I couldn’t say why. The whole situation was on the edge of spiraling out of control.

Desperate to ground myself, I focused on the chittering buzz that echoed all around me. The monitor continued to blare the rehearsal, but the buzz was a scalpel and the music offered no more resistance than Bobby’s silk shirt had to the killer’s blade. The sound wasn’t normal, wasn’t natural. It was a hundred whispering voices emerging from my dreams and bringing my terrors to reality. And it had rung in my ears since I first discovered my strange bond with manna. But now it was also accompanied by a perverse relief. Because for the first time, I wasn’t going through it alone.

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