Hammers on Bone (Persons Non Grata, #1)

by Cassandra Khaw

You know how they say you never forget how to ride a bike? Magic’s like that. Deeper, even. The knowledge of it inks itself on the inside of your bones, as does the practice, the methodology of execution. You can’t unlearn it any more than you can unlearn the symbiosis of ventricle and aorta. I stroke the razor across my arm. Three deep welts: one for every god devoured, every world forgotten. Blood wells, bruise-green, runnelling off my skin and onto the city map, branching into a thousand smaller tributaries, a million cilia to puncture the strands of hair I’d pinched from Sasha and the foreman. I breathe. In my head, a ghost squirms and shivers. A hissing noise froths and builds, builds and froths. The follicles thrash like something alive, even as the blood continues to creep, mapping itself to the blueprint of the city, hue altering, shading to orange. “Oh, kid. What did you get yourself into?” There were entire streets outlined in ochre, neighborhoods throbbing lymph-yellow. I fumble for the cigar in my drawer and ignite the bulbous tip with a flick of my fingers. As a rule, I don’t like spending power, but the body, the body wouldn’t let me rest until I did something. Anything, rattled the man that once lived in this skull, rags and bones and memory, but somehow still stubborn as capitalism. So, I did my voodoo and he kept his part of the bargain, settling to uneasy dreams once more, even as the flesh frayed and stuttered. That’s the other problem with power. It lik...