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

buzzing sound in speakers and microphones, and something is generating whatever it is that you’re sensing when you’re around manna.”

“Next gen manna,” I corrected. “Older stuff I can’t pick up on at all.”

“Right. So if it came from a whale, you can’t interact with it. But if it’s from the ground, you can.”

The elevator doors opened into the parking garage. “I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought of it that way.”

The courthouse garage sat on the top floor of the building. The heat from the geo-vents was too precious to waste on parking space and vehicles, so the majority of dedicated parking lots were situated at the top of buildings, usually accessed by tight-radius spiral ramps on one or more corners.

“The whales connection is interesting.” He glanced around as we walked toward the Hasam. “I mean, Serrow described the sound as something like a whale song.”

“Yeah, well, she also described it as a chorus of angry spirits.”

“That’s true . . .” He snapped his fingers. “Donna Raun talked about hades, and angry spirits.”

I slowed my pace. “Are you about to tell me that I’m being haunted by ghost whales?”

“No. Definitely not.” We reached the Hasam and he walked around to the passenger side while I slid behind the wheel and reached over to unlock his door. He got in and kept talking. “But to be fair, on the list of crazy things we’ve seen, ghost whales aren’t exactly tipping the scales. You know what I’m saying?”

I didn’t answer, just fired up the Hasam and pulled into the throughway.

“I mean,” he said, “if humans were hunted to extinction because you had something valuable in your bellies, you’d probably be upset too, right?”

“Kid,” I said, clenching my mutilated hand on the steering wheel, “I’m not entirely sure something isn’t doing that exact thing.”

I slowed at the toll booth and flashed my badge. The guard nodded, the crossbar rose, and we began our descent.

“Want me to drop you at your place?” I glanced over at Jax, who was staring out the passenger window. “I can take the car back to the Bunker and taxi home.”

“No thanks. I want to grab a couple things from my desk anyway.”

We rode the blocks between the courthouse and the Bunker in silence. Not until we entered the Bunker’s first-floor garage, built to accommodate vehicles too heavy to sit on a roof parking lot, did he bring up what was on his mind.

“Do you think the Barekusu know what’s going on with the buzzing? Is it why they’re here?”

“The buzzing and transformations time perfectly with their arrival,” I said. “And the fact that Serrow is going to walk away from all this with a slap on the wrist is suspicious.”

“Everything’s suspicious to us. That’s our job.”

I dropped off the keys with the service team, and signed the Hasam into inventory. “But it doesn’t time perfectly. The first transformation was well before the caravan arrived.”

Ajax nodded, but I slowed, reconsidering that statement.

“When exactly did the first Barekusu representatives get into town?” I asked. “The ones who arrived ahead of the caravan?”

“Three weeks ago,” he said.

“Anything could have happened in those three weeks.”

“I wasn’t done talking.” He glared at me. “The Barekusu stand out in a crowd. So they’d have to find some way to get around unnoticed through one of the most densely populated cities on the planet.”

“They can fit on a truck,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” He wiped down a tusk. “A box truck, maybe. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, I’m just saying—”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.”

“Something like that requires too many people, keeping too many secrets.” He shook his head. “You’ve been listening to too much Handsome Hanford conspiracy hour.”

“I didn’t say it was a conspiracy.”

“In addition, there’s already a sorcerer in this town who uses bribes and coercion to control the wheels of government. Someone who’s got everything to gain by influencing the use of next gen manna. Someone who was arrested earlier today.”

“Look,” I said, “I’m happy to see Paulus get busted as much as anyone.” We paused at the elevator lobby. “But Paulus is the status quo. I don’t see how she benefits from the chaos of these murders.”

I didn’t tell him that I knew for a fact she’d experimented with manna in illegal and deeply immoral fashion before, experiments that had resulted in Gellica’s birth. I trusted Jax, but that secret wasn’t mine to share.

The elevator opened, and we waited as a pair of patrol entered behind us. Jax and I paused our conversation, unwilling to let our brash speculation be overheard. As the doors were sliding shut, a well-manicured hand snaked between them and pushed them open. DO Guyer walked into the elevator, wearing a gray skirt and matching blouse, her manna-laced cloak carefully folded over one arm.

She jabbed the button for the fifth floor with her elbow, then faced me and Ajax.

“Surprised to run into you boys here,” she said. “I saw the two of you in the background of all that coverage of the Serrow arrest. Funny how that works.”

The two patrol held their tongues but watched out of the corner of their eyes as the DO pursed her lips and angled her head, making a show of pondering the odds. “It’s almost as though . . .” She paused, letting the implication linger in the air. “No, it couldn’t be. No one would ever want the two of you around for political points, right?”

“We go where we’re told,” I said. “I happen to know you’re not above taking orders. Especially from outsiders like Baelen.”

Guyer’s lips pulled tight. “I’m doing what I can,” she said. “And considering how I’ve helped you with her in the past, I’m surprised I have to say that.”

It was a short ride to the second floor, and the patrol stepped out slowly, as if they would have preferred to stay and watch the entertainment. I hoped that Guyer would at least have the decency to wait until the doors closed before continuing. But decency has always been in short