California Bones (31 page)

*   *   *

In the following days, the remaining powers went to war. There was no official statement, and the propaganda machine kept blathering about sports and celebrity news, and the weather reports were noticeably bland and inaccurate, at a loss to explain the lightning cracking the sky apart, and the blue fires that raged in the hills, and the tremors bringing down the mansions of the Council of Six.

Yet the water still flowed, all the way from the downtown center of the kingdom’s capital to the last capillaries of the desert outpost of Lancaster, where Daniel traded his boat for a land truck.

As he drove through the night, he left behind the vague orange sky of the city for the dizzying stars. The earth, where all his magic originated, felt thin, without gravity. If Daniel let go, he’d drift, unanchored.

Gabriel Argent had called the Hierarch’s heart the kingdom’s treasure, and surely it was a treasure. Daniel could still feel the half of it he’d eaten coursing through his veins, filling his cells with its power, and whispering to him, telling him what he was capable of now. The power begged to be used.

The golem-boy slept in the passenger seat, and he was a greater treasure yet. They’d come looking for him: Council osteomancers, aspiring lesser sorcerers, foreign powers and thieves and people like Otis. Maybe they wouldn’t try to take him by force. Maybe they’d be willing to negotiate. Maybe if Daniel parted him out, piece by piece, a tooth here, a finger bone there, they’d finally leave Daniel alone.

Daniel would never do that, but the fact that he could even think of it made him push down the accelerator. He was abandoning Los Angeles, but he wouldn’t abandon the boy.

Cold air came in through the vents, rustling the boy’s hair, and Daniel smelled his fresh magic. He kept driving toward the borders of the kingdom, away from familiar ghosts, toward ghosts he didn’t yet know.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, my thanks go first to Lisa Will, for every kind of help in every part of my life.

My editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, not only made this a better book but repeatedly declared his enthusiasm for the project at times when I needed it most. Caitlin Blasdell ably represented my interests at every stage, from proposal to final manuscript submission and beyond. The team at Tor Books turned my manuscript into an actual book, and I would like to thank Miriam Weinberg, Irene Gallo, Theresa DeLucci, and Patty Garcia, among others, for their skill and hard work.

I haven’t yet published a book that wasn’t critiqued by members of the Blue Heaven writers workshop. In this case, I relied on Cassie Alexander, Paolo Bacigalupi, Chris Barzak, Tobias Buckell, Rae Carson, Deborah Coates, Charles Coleman Finlay, Sandra McDonald, Paul Melko, Sarah Prineas, and Jenn Reese. They are a solid criminal crew, and it is to them I dedicate this book.

I owe additional thanks to Deborah Coates and Jenn Reese for supportive e-mail correspondence, and especially to Sarah Prineas for a last-minute read that gave me the stomach to send in my final draft.

Sheila Williams bought the short story that gave messy birth to this novel, “The Osteomancer’s Son,” for
Asimov’s Science Fiction
. And Dave Thompson not only picked the story for the PodCastle podcast, but helped convince me that a novel-length expansion of it might have an audience. Tim Pratt, whose opinion I highly value, also read the novel and gave me a very welcome thumbs-up.

John M. Harris and Sharon Takeshita at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles answered my questions about the La Brea Tar Pits. And many people on Twitter suggested heist movies and books for research. I should have written down their names. I didn’t. I’m sorry. But please all consider yourselves Favorited.

Finally, I would like to thank Tito’s Tacos.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Greg van Eekhout is the author of
Norse Code
and two middle-grade SF novels,
Kid vs. Squid
and
The Boy at the End of the World
(a finalist for the Andre Norton Award). He lives in San Diego, California.
California Bones
is his first hardcover for adult readers.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

CALIFORNIA BONES

Copyright © 2014 by Greg van Eekhout

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Cliff Nielsen

Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

   The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Van Eekhout, Greg.

   California bones / Greg van Eekhout.—First edition.

      p. cm.

   “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

   ISBN 978-0-7653-2855-7 (hardcover)

   ISBN 978-1-4299-4685-8 (e-book)

  1.  Magic—Fiction.   2.  California—Fiction.   I.  Title.

   PS3622.A585485C35 2014

   813'.6—dc23

2013029670

e-ISBN 9781429946858

First Edition: June 2014