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

to watch cops and killers. I’ve seen that you get blamed for all kinds of things that go wrong. It’s usually your fault, at least partially, but not this time. Whatever that thing is,” she jerked her biting jaws at Brandon’s transformed corpse, “it had no interest in you. It was plain bad luck you were here.”

I almost laughed. For once, the press didn’t want to make me a central figure. And for once, they were wrong. Guyer wouldn’t listen to me, Auberjois wouldn’t listen, not even the press would hear me out—not that I was going to give them a formal try.

“Does this mean the press has lost your weird fascination with me?”

“It’s not us that’s fascinated,” she said. “It’s the public. They’re fascinated with anything related to the manna strike.” She laughed, a sound like wind chimes. “But you’re not the hot item anymore. These days we’re all jockeying to be part of the press pool to talk to the Barekusu.”

“You always want to talk to the stars, don’t you?”

She whistled her derision. “It’s not like that. Glouchester’s working on something big.”

“What?”

“You’ll just have to read the papers, Carter.” Her eyes crinkled, and she shot a photo of me from hip height.

The patrol cop walked up, a strapping Gillmyn I didn’t recognize. I released Klare into his care. “Please guide our esteemed member of the press off our crime scene.” I hesitated before adding, “She’s fine to stand to the side of the tape, though. Someplace with a good field of view.”

Klare nodded her thanks and walked away, ignoring the Gillmyn’s attempt to make small talk.

Once again I headed toward the hardware store’s front entrance. Inside the store was where my job led, less sensational than the transformation, but still essential. Two more senseless deaths meant hours of work ahead of us. And just like the other killings, it felt like we were missing something.

Inside the store I caught sight of Jax standing in one corner, absently wiping his tusks. I strolled up and pointed in the direction of the destruction outside.

“I was wondering, are you going to write your memoir someday?” I asked. “Because this’d make a great chapter. You could put that college education to use and—”

“Not now, Carter.”

My attempt at empathy rebuffed, I moved on. “You want to try to get all this entered in tonight? I’d like to get a bite to eat first. We could get back to the rest of the caseload tomorrow.”

He paused. “No. I’m off tomorrow.”

“You are?”

“I’m going to the music festival.”

I winced. He’d told Dinah McIntire that he was excited to be going. “That’s a bad idea,” I said.

“We already have tickets,” he said.

“We?”

He shrugged, looking sheepish, if that’s possible for a guy whose teeth could tear through my thigh. “Talena bought them as a gift.”

I pressed the heels of my hands against my temples and held in a cry of frustration. “You saw what happened up there. Why would you go back?”

He whistled, layering a bit of sarcasm into his words. “Right. Because there’s all kinds of places you can think of that haven’t been the scene of a violent crime.”

I closed my eyes, imagining Bobby Kearn’s transformation, and wondering how that could possibly be seen as grim but not terrifying. Ajax kept talking.

“At least the concert will take people’s minds off of what’s happening.”

“Unless that’s where it all started. Until we know what causes this,” I pointed at the blood-streaked window display, “that crowd could be fifteen thousand potential killers, waiting to be driven into a frenzy.”

Jax shook his head. “It happened at the rig. It happened at Saul and Donna’s apartment. It happened at a hardware store. And those are just the events we personally witnessed. Whatever’s going on, there’s nothing to indicate it’s more or less dangerous at the concert.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned closer. “Besides, I got word from Murphy CaDell. He says he found something for me. You got me to delay talking to Captain Bryyh so long, it looks like I might actually get out of this mess with my badge.”

I frowned and turned away, looking at the sorcerers gathered around the bodies of Brandon and Alto.

“The kid, Brandon. His body didn’t care about me. Didn’t even slow down. But the others, Saul and Bobby, they charged straight at me.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Jax. “Yes, they charged at you, but try to remember where you were standing. At the festival, we were in the dressing room, and your back was to the door. And when we were with Saul Petrevisch you were—”

“Between him and the door.” I fell back a step as the real pattern became clear. “They were trying to get past me. Toward what?”

Jax looked at the dented door and shattered window of the police cruiser. “Toward revenge.”

The transformed bodies had been trying to get to their killers. I’d simply been in their way.

19

JAX MAY HAVE BEEN GOING to a concert, but I had a full day of mind-numbing paperwork staring me down. We worked together to move the hardware store mess off our plates, but the next day was dedicated to working through follow-up reports on our open and recently cleared cases. Normal, run-of-the-mill homicides deserved our attention as well. The incidentals of piecing together murders never stops. Every victim needs to be served, even in the midst of madness and uncertainty. Maybe that’s when it’s most important.

By early evening I was sitting at my desk in the Bullpen, filling out forms and thinking about the things we’d seen and heard. I pressed a finger on the photo of the young victim from the hardware store. I slid his photo back and replaced it with the one of Saul, the man beaten to death by his roommate. Saul had provided snake oil to Sheena, who’d in turn killed Bobby Kearn, the murder that had sucked us into this whole elaborate scenario. The snake oil was a connection between them,