Read Online Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five by Justina Robson - Free Book Online Page A

stomach burning, ‘and Max and it is one hundred per cent.’
    ‘We,’ Zal said, including everyone mentioned, ‘are a . . .’
    They waited.
    ‘I don’t know what we are but we are one hundred per cent and THAT is a bit scary; was my idea,’ Zal finished.
    ‘Dragon,’ said Xaviendra’s voice.
    ‘Shikba!’ Teazle snorted, laughing almost silently, faint beery bubbles coming out of his nose.
    Lila looked up Shikba and found no human equivalent or translation, although the dictionary appended a symbol that indicated
     it was highly perverted.
    Malachi made a pfff sound with his lips. ‘It would be scary, if it added up to anything like a clear indication of trouble.
     But there’s no direction, is there?’ He waited for a second, looking around at their faces.
    When they didn’t reply straight away he faced them with a frank expression, ‘Lila, you’re fed up of serving the agency but
     you’ve no clue about what to do with your life instead.’
    Lila gave him a daggers look but she couldn’t find a riposte because this was the truth.
    ‘Teazle, you’ve become the demon who’s got a master, which is on the slippery slope to hell, although given the master (who
     shall not be named, bless her soul) it could be that she’s grooming you to assume a role with an awesome reputation.’
    Teazle glowed brighter with pleasure and rolled onto his stomach, rubbing himself on the scrap of carpet he was lying on like
     a contented cat.
    ‘Zal, you’re a has-been musician without a band . . .’
    ‘I’ve got a song in my heart,’ Zal countered, theatrically, hand on his chest.
    ‘. . . and a few million in the bank they don’t want to give you, you being officially dead. And I’m hanging around waiting
     for something to happen and trying to prevent Xavi getting any worse, which is hardly a mission.’
    Zal scowled at him. ‘Yes, when you’re here. Otherwise you’re shacked up with Jack’s wife, getting the benefits of spring and
     summer Green-man duties, and licking the cream off your whiskers. The last thing
you
want is for something to spoil that. But carry on.’
    Malachi scowled back. ‘Xaviendra is a mystery, but there’s no way I’d trust her to be out for anyone but herself. Ilyatath
     is indisposed as the Winter King until further notice, not that he can leave Winter. And Max is . . .’ Now he faltered and
     glanced at Lila cautiously, his mouth still half open in mid-sentence.
    ‘Max is undead, unemployed and unhappy about both of those things. End of,’ Lila said for him, moving her hand to her belly
     to ease a biting pain. ‘And you forgot Tatters,’ she brushed the ruffle of the blue and lilac ra-ra skirt that was sitting
     on her hips over the top of her biker’s leather trousers.
    Malachi glanced at the cloth faery and then quickly away, making a small sign of warding that everyone noticed and nobody
     commented on. ‘Tatters is as she is,’ he said with uncharacteristic vagueness.
    ‘And your point is?’ Teazle drawled, stretching his legs until one of the joints popped.
    ‘My point is that we don’t add up to much, countering Zal’s point that we add up to a hundred per cent and Xavi’s point that
     we are here as we are because of a rising dragon. Which is, incidentally also her theory for the state of the worlds ever
     since the cracking began. That’s several millennia by anyone’s calendar, so in summary, it’s hardly news.’
    ‘Perhaps it’s a rising dragon’s fart,’ Teazle said.
    Zal laughed. ‘No no, Ragnarok, like the press all say. Or Armageddon. The End-Times.’
    ‘Ragnageddon,’ Xaviendra’s voice said with withering contempt from the floor.
    ‘See, the resident speaker of prophecies says so,’ Zal said, peering to be sure that Xaviendra wasn’t about to be sick on
     his boots.
    ‘And all because of a few returning dead,’ Lila said with a shrug and mock exasperation. ‘And a few breakdowns in physical
     material laws here and there, and