Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

the floor to find the hallway crammed with spectators watching the procession from the single window affording a view. One of them held a transistor radio, tuned in to news coverage of the event. Deep-voiced, serious news anchors described each step of the Barekusu, as if the angle of any given frost-covered hair would hold untold secrets of the Path. Coming toward us now is a young Barekusu with markings similar to the early arrival, Guide Serrow. It’s an extraordinary sight, and one that—

The announcer cut off abruptly, as a rushing, swirling noise drowned his voice in static and a not-quite-melodic whine. Yanking his head away from the radio, the teenager swore and cranked the dial, but the howl was present on all stations. “What the Hells . . .” he muttered, before giving up and switching it off.

“You okay, Carter?”

I realized I’d frozen in the hall as the scene played out, Ajax at my back.

“Yeah.” I stared at the kid by the window. Maybe his radio was broken. And maybe I’d win the lottery that week.

“Let’s go,” I said, and began jogging down the hall.

We entered the crime scene fast enough to make Dixon jump out of his chair and his hand drop to his sidearm. Ignoring him, I pointed at Donna.

“Is she doing anything weird?”

Ordinarily we’d have a murder suspect contained in the back of a cruiser. Having her sit in the apartment where she’d murdered her roommate wasn’t a good idea no matter how you sliced it, but that wasn’t an option right now.

Dixon took his hand off his sidearm and blinked. He covered his confusion by pointing at the suspect. “No! She’s sitting there. Not moving or anything.”

The TV wasn’t on, nor was the radio. Apparently Dixon didn’t have much interest in current affairs. But still, I heard voices. I took two long strides to the wall, and placed it—the neighbors’ television. I swallowed, a sense of relief settling over me. Then other sound got louder.

I turned. The bedroom door was still closed, and the new sound came from behind it. A kind of blind thumping, the sound of someone stumbling to a dark bathroom after waking from a deep sleep. I pointed at the door, knowing the answer, but asking anyway. “Techs managed to get through the procession traffic?”

Dixon blinked and pursed his lips. “No. Haven’t seen ’em yet.”

A breath caught in my throat as the voices next door were lost in a roar of static. I rushed into the bedroom, followed by Jax, shouting at Dixon: “Keep her away!”

We burst into the bedroom, only to find it exactly as we’d left it. I narrowed my eyes, studying the scene. Saulie was still a mess. The dead man was mostly covered by the linens that had tumbled from the bed. His head was wedged beneath one bed, his feet stretching across the narrow gap between to touch the flannel sheets of the other. No matter what Donna and Saulie had cooked up, their plan hadn’t gone well.

“Did you hear thumping?” I asked.

“No thumping,” he said. “I heard that buzz, though, right after you asked about the techs.”

So maybe it was my imagination. I shook the thoughts out of my head, clearing the mental dust and distractions. We had a confessed killer, and a victim, and stack of to-be-filed paperwork waiting for us back at the bunker. What more could an aging cop want?

Jax muttered something about checking on Donna, then the door latch clicked shut behind me. I crouched, eyeing the dead man, and wondering what he’d seen in his last moments. I had no intention of letting this crime scene get the rushed treatment Bobby Kearn had gotten. I didn’t know Saulie, but he deserved better. Everyone deserved better.

I pulled the edge of the already-stiffening bed linens and got a long look at the dead man’s face. I’d seen plenty of deaths, from auto wrecks on the hairpin turns winding the Mount to picking apart pieces of gangsters who’d been trapped in alleyway brawls. I could tell cold-blooded, calculating murders from heat-of-the-moment rage killings. Whatever had sparked Donna’s anger, it had consumed her. She’d beaten her friend’s body long after he was dead. She’d hit him so hard that much of the skin on his face had either pulled inward with the blows or sloughed off completely, and one strike had almost snapped his jaw. In fact . . . I leaned closer. That was weird, to see a break at the chin cleft, since a blow on the side of the jaw was more common, and tended to align with a weaker joint. I pulled my pencil out and wrapped the end of the bed linen around the tip. Using it as a probe, I moved the flesh on that section of his face. It was a strange wound, and I felt the blood roar in my ears, pulsing with the rhythm of my heartbeat. I pulled back—and realized that the roaring wasn’t coming from within me.

The body twitched, then jerked. It spasmed, inching closer to me. The jaw opened, but not at the hinges. It opened at the fracture, the cleft widening until the remaining flesh fell away with a sick tearing sound. The body lunged, the new opening in its jaw mimicking a Mollenkampi’s biting mouth snapping at my fingers. Saulie’s mouth stretched and grew wider still, a jagged screech rising from his chest as the remnants of his jaw split apart, opening and snapping back together with a wet slap. His body twisted, then threw itself to the floor once again.

I rolled to my left, twisting around to face the body. I rose to my knees and reached for my weapon, calling out loud and clear: “I need backup!”

Whatever controlled the body, it wasn’t done yet. It writhed and spasmed, jerking violently to the left, hard enough that I thought I heard bones cracking as it smashed into the bed frame. It flattened to the floor as Jax and Dixon burst into the room, and I