Kearn’s body trembled, then shook. Harris stepped forward, accompanied by Guyer, both of them weaving their hands in the air, making manna connections and chanting words of focus. Behind me came pounding, and voices raised in alarm. Then the buzzing cut off abruptly, and the resulting quiet was overwhelming and off-putting, like the sudden silence of a home plunged into a power outage.
But it was short-lived, shattered by a series of pops, like an invisible bouncer cracking his knuckles. I glanced around, uncertain of where the sound came from. A moment later it came again, an echo that was louder than the original. This time, it was accompanied by a ripple of motion across the victim’s torso. I raised my hands but stayed rooted to the spot. Something was going horribly wrong.
The buzzing swelled once more, quieter now, but sharper, more focused. There was a sound like balloons popping, and the crooked white tips of Bobby Kearn’s ribs tore out of his back. They pierced the fabric of his shirt and stretched outward in a rough circle, like ornaments on a grotesque crown. With no heartbeat to supply pressure, the blood didn’t squirt, but it did drip, and was flung from the jagged ribs as they flapped and strained. A spray of droplets struck my cheek, but I couldn’t look away. I was dimly aware of shouts and pounding behind me, the noise muffled by the waves of cold and the buzzing that echoed in my ears. The room hummed with pent-up power, and the broken ribs pushed further out, extending from the dead man’s back until it seemed their full length was exposed to the light. But even then it didn’t stop. The ribs kept growing, spreading and unfurling like skeletal wings.
Impossibly, the corpse rose off the ground. Its back rose first, as though being tugged by an invisible rope. The body hovered, the tips of its fingers and single bare foot kissing the floor. With the ribcage protruding from its back, the broken curve of the body folded in on itself. Then, with a flap of its skeletal wings, it shot upward. Another painfully loud burst of static accompanied the motion, and Harris threw back his head and howled, his voice echoing in the air and over the loudspeakers. The corpse of Bobby Kearn stretched and jerked, looming over us as he hung near the ceiling. I felt like an ice hare, frozen in place as a great bird of prey descended from the sky.
The body darted forward, arms raised, straight at me. I stood rooted to the spot, staring stupidly as the body bore down, accelerating toward me until a police baton flashed across the room, connecting with the thing’s temple and snapping the head to one side. Jax slammed into my ribs, lifting me up and dropping me to the floor as it hurled past us.
The buzzing ceased completely, and there was no noise to cover the wet thump of the body striking the floor, a toy dropped by a forgetful child. The tension in the air released, and Harris took a loud, shaky breath. It was over.
A loud crash behind me caused us to turn. The door flew open, shattered latch swinging loosely in the frame. The patrol officer and a pair of security guards filled the doorway, eyes glued on the grotesque heap of bones and blood in the corner of the room.
4
GUYER WHEELED ON THE INTRUDERS. “What the Hells are you doing!”
Across the room, Harris stared at Bobby Kearn’s twisted remains. The impossibly long ribs had folded in on themselves, draping over the corpse like the wings of a sleeping bird. Harris looked unsteady, and Jax supported him with one hand as he guided the DO away from the body.
I knew we had to get control of the situation, but I couldn’t make myself turn from the sight in the corner. As far as I knew, there was only one recorded instance of a body transforming like that after death. The previous time had been a few weeks earlier, and I’d been to blame—that body had transformed when I’d accidentally tapped into the invisible threads of magic connected to his body, so similar to the threads that now hummed in the air around us. Had I done this? Was it about to happen again? Afraid to move, I stood where I was and pressed my hands over my eyes, the stubs of my two missing fingers grazing my lips. I tasted blood. The drummer’s blood.
My stomach clenched and I stumbled toward one of the mirrored dressers. In the light-rimmed reflection, my face was speckled with red gore thrown off by the corpse’s pseudo-wings. I grabbed a random piece of clothing from the wardrobe and dragged it across my flesh, doing my best to scour away the tainted liquid. It clung to my cheeks, old acne scars holding on to the dead man’s blood. I scrubbed harder. Behind me, the argument between Guyer and the security guards was getting more heated. I wasn’t sure if the security guys had been friends of Kearn, or if they were driven by a more primitive sense of disgust at what they’d seen. The patrol cop, Worthington, did his best to lower tempers and justify his intrusion.
“There was—there was screaming,” he said. As if divination rituals normally were performed with tea and polite conversation.
One of the security guards stood staring at the body, but the other had already taken two strides toward the exit.
“Stop!” I barked it out, and the guard’s head snapped around.
“We gotta tell someone.” The man was plaintive, the desperate tone of someone who wanted to wash his hands of responsibility, and forget what he’d seen. That was fine by me.
“You already told someone. You told us, and we’re dealing with it.” I softened my voice and walked toward them with my arms out wide, like a shepherd guiding
