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

barrier of steel and glass between us. Heat radiated from the hood. She’d been putting it through its paces, and judging from the direction of her arrival, she’d taken it on the narrow, winding roads along the Mount.

“Doing a little joy riding?”

“Some. Had to take a detour near the Barekusu camp. There’s some kind of traffic thing.”

“Huh. I know someone who off-roads. She said the same thing about—”

“You came here to talk about traffic?”

I sucked in a breath.

“Look,” I said. “I know you don’t want to talk to me.”

“Did you get my note?”

“Oh, I got your message.” It had been big, plush, and delivered by two furniture movers straight into my living room. The couch where we’d once bared our secrets had been turned into the largest kiss-off note in history. “But I need to tell you about a conversation with a divination officer.”

“Oh? Did they get some entrails on your shoes?”

“No, he pressed me about my social life.”

She crossed her arms. “And?”

“And he knew you and I had spent time together.” She didn’t seem put out, so I pressed on. “If he knows that, then what else does he know?” I glanced over my shoulder. Both guards were hunched around the television, oblivious to our conversation. “He might know about me and manna or about your, you know . . .” I didn’t exactly know how to say that she was a magic-infused clone who could transform into a shadowy panther. Sometimes it’s best just to trail off meaningfully.

She shifted her weight and laughed. “So you suddenly grew concerned and wanted to scamper over and make sure I was safe.”

“Okay, fine. I apologize for warning you about a potential threat. If you’ve got somewhere to be, I’ll leave you to it.”

She rolled her eyes. “I came here to watch the concert on a bigscreen TV. And you’re holding me up because you want me to know you’re worried about me?”

“I’m worried about both of us.”

“Oh, well that makes me feel much better.”

“Look, I do worry about you,” I said. “You can believe it or not, but it’s a fact. And I’m worried about who knows about us.”

“There’s not an us anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s abundantly clear.” I kept my back angled to the guard shed, to be safe. “I mean someone might know about us and our connection to manna.”

Gellica frowned, looking an awful lot like Paulus.

On her car radio the announcer cut into a commercial to breathlessly announce, “She’s on! She’s on!”

Gellica’s lips pulled back. “Great. The most exciting thing that will happen all week, and I’m missing it.”

“I don’t know how widespread this rumor is,” I said. “And I’m worried that someone will piece our connection together.”

“Hold that thought.”

She pushed away from the Lancer and walked toward the guard shack. The two guards barely noticed us standing by the window. They huddled near the television, their expressions ranging from mild interest to fascination. I stood next to Gellica, rounding out the group with my utter disdain.

We watched the televised display through the window, Gellica’s car radio providing a slightly out-of-sync soundtrack. The screen showed a misty, fog-filled main tent. The cameras were fixed, filming from a distance. No music swelled, only the screams and shouts of adoration from the crowd. Then the smoke and fog lifted rapidly, sucked up and away, I guessed by large fans.

The lifting curtains of smoke revealed the tent’s clear rear panel. Through it, the moon was a swirling blue and white orb perched directly above the jagged peaks of the Mount, a precious gem mounted on a ring. Even I had to admit that it was the perfect backdrop for a festival called Ice on Her Fingers. And there, center stage, was Dinah McIntire. One of the guards whistle-clicked her admiration. “Look at her!”

McIntire wore a bright red halter-top dress with a plunging neckline and fringe on fringe on fringe. Her hair was loose and luxurious, shockingly out of fashion. Scandalously long, it flowed over her neck, shoulders, and back. Her head was held at an angle, chin in the air, accentuating the fall of her gloriously unkempt natural curls. Raising the microphone to her lips, she announced, “We gather to celebrate life.”

The drums started. A machine or perhaps an imported drummer replacing the lamented Bobby Kearn.

“We celebrate renewal,” she said, “discovery.”

Strings swelled beneath her words. “And a city that has never known how to quit.” Horns raised their voices, pulsing brass notes. Dinah began to bounce one hip, and the layers of fringe moved as well.

“Tonight we celebrate . . . the ‘Titan’s Song’!”

Spotlights swung like searchlights in a prison yard as pyrotechnics ignited a horizontal slash across the stage. McIntire gave in to the music, bouncing, swaying, and with each beat the layers of fringe rose and fell, teasing the sight of her body, amplifying every movement. But always under total control.

There was no denying the blend of showmanship, sex appeal, and raw star power that McIntire brought to the stage. She was a diva, and all eyes were on her. Even I had to admit that she was amazing—a total transformation from the person I’d met backstage.

But as she raised her voice the static on the radio swelled, and the audio skittered beneath it, a series of screeches and muted creaks, like fresh snow under rubber boots. The security guard frantically adjusted the tuner with one hand, the antenna with the other.

The radio in my car squealed, a burst of static and rage, then Dispatch called for any available units to respond to a code 1888 in Eden Prairie, near the Barekusu camp. I wondered if I’d heard wrong. Code 1888 signaled a natural disaster.

I faced Gellica. “We’ll finish this later.”

“We’re already finished.” She walked toward her car, to unblock my Hasam. She looked mountwise, down the road she’d come from. “Not sure if it matters, but the camp is where traffic had been bad.”

I grunted and climbed into the Hasam. The conversation hadn’t exactly gone as planned, but it also hadn’t gone as badly as it