I do want to get as much of this down as I can before November and the Tom Vargas sequel.
By the time she was done, Pat had unfolded and stretched the Tome until it was spread out across the battered table. “We’re sure that Leviathan incorporated at least three Tomes’ psyches,” she said as she carefully used golden pins to transfix the feebly-moving, half-severed pages. “Normally, that kind of consumption is part of the general destruction of the Tome. I presume it tastes good?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Well, it tastes like power, which is the same thing. Besides, we don’t want to keep pieces of the Tomes around. I think I know where this is going, Pat: you’re going to tell us Leviathan fed on his own kind to get the energy it’d need. Only thing is, that doesn’t work.”
Jack nodded. “The energy boost is temporary,” he said. “Good for healing, or using right away. If you don’t, it bleeds away.”
“Exactly!” Pat looked happy we were keeping up, apparently. “Your psyches have what makes you you, but they’re not what people might call ‘storage batteries.’” Odd thing about the Other Side: they never call humans ‘humans.’ They say ‘people,’ like the Other Side aren’t people. Or us either, I guess.