But she could not, and she told him as much, feeling his unhappiness like a cut across her heart—inside the shard of his soul, still bright and warm. Her sense of him was growing stronger, as though their link was a muscle flexing.
M’cal did not ask again. He pressed his mouth over hers. Kit had no time to react. She felt the rush—like before, in the sea, receiving a piece of his soul—only this time on a much larger scale, pouring and pouring, like her body was a pitcher being filled to the top.
For a moment, Kit felt afraid. There was so much fear she shook with it, and finally she understood M’cal’s concern. Her own soul felt crowded, pinched, but she fought back with vicious abandon, rearranging the witch, who tried to spread through Kit’s body and exert control.
You must listen to me,
said the witch
. This will be for nothing if you do not listen.
Then learn your place,
Kit replied
. This is my body. Not your second chance.
But Kit felt the urgency all the same, and grabbed M’cal’s hand, tugging. She could see him, as though there was an ambient light all around them, glowing. All because a switch had been turned on in her head; simple, something she hoped she would remember.
You will remember everything,
the witch told her.
Now run.
Kit did just that, dragging M’cal behind her. She did not look to see if Ivan followed, but focused on Edith and Alice, suffering a schizophrenic tumult of vying words, images, and personalities as she fought to keep herself whole inside the core of her heart. It was ugly, messy, but the music rose up like a thundercloud, and it was real this time, no holding back.
They raced through the forest. Kit’s body felt light as air; no pain in her feet, no stumbling falls. She imagined that she was flying, and knew in her heart that she was so close to doing just that, there was hardly any difference.
She led them back to the clearing, guided by the witch, and found company waiting. Kit recognized Hartlett, and inside her head his death unfolded with such clarity she knew he was already standing with one foot in the grave. The three men at his side were little better. And far on their right was Officer Yu, who met Kit’s gaze with a momentary expression of triumph—until she saw M’cal.
No headphones. None of them were protected.
Yu did not try to fight. She ran, and was gone into the forest even before M’cal had a chance to open his mouth. But he did, just as Hartlett and the others raised their guns, and his voice was sharp, biting. The men cried out, clutching their heads. M’cal twisted the melody, and all three of them collapsed. Dropped like puppets with their strings cut. Fast, clean, and easy. Breathing, but otherwise still.
The witch thought it was stupid to let them live. Kit ignored her. The dark aura that had covered the log cabin felt like a smear of hate—infectious, lethal—and as they approached, shadows peeled away from the night. Tall, slender, shaped like slips of paper dolls. They gathered like flimsy stems, some echo of creatures that could be human. And though it was dark, they stood out in stark relief as something deeper than night.
M’cal made Kit slow, his eyes hard, dangerous. He stared at the dark ghosts. Ivan, close behind, did the same. His pale gaze darted around the clearing, coming to rest briefly on Kit’s face with an intensity that she thought had less to do with her than the woman currently inhabiting her body.
The shadow men moved closer. Kit could not imagine them causing real harm. An absence of light was not the same as flesh and blood.
You are wrong,
said the witch, her voice so loud she could have been standing outside of Kit’s body.
Edith has begun the ritual. Each moment she continues will strengthen these creatures. Even now they could kill you with a blow.
How do we stop them?
Kill Edith. She had not finished the ritual. Until she does, her body is their only link to this world. Kill her, and you will send them back.
“Kitala,” M’cal said, his voice full of warning.
“I have to kill Edith,” she told him. “Otherwise, all you can do is slow these things down.”
“We have to get you in there,” he said, but before he could use his voice, Ivan picked Kit up his arms and barreled through the shadow men, tossing them aside in his wake. There were more of them than Kit had realized—and though Ivan moved fast, the sensation felt like a race on top of shallow quicksand, each step sucking, tugging. Shadows clung, arms shaped like swipes of ink—rained down, hard. She felt each blow like a slap of an open palm. Her face stung.
M’cal appeared, music pouring from his throat. The shadows fell aside. Not far—not like Hartlett and his men—but enough to clear a passage all the way to the door.
Ivan set her down, while M’cal kept singing. He tried to open the door but it was locked against them. Kit felt the barrier inside her mind—a projection from Edith—and cut it down like the first striking chorus of the Dies Irae from Verdi’s
Requiem,
slicing through another stacked illusion that Edith threw upon them—images of even more shadow men, tall as the trees. The witch exercised her limited control, guiding Kit’s use of her power with ruthless abandon, but Kit followed her own instincts, too, as the music became more frantic, rising higher and higher.
You dance that devil down,
she remembered her grandmother saying.
You dance that bastard right back to Hell.
Kit swung open the door. The earlier signs of fighting were still present, but the circle in the sand remained unbroken. At its center lay Alice. She was naked. Edith crouched over her body, a knife in her good hand. Her other was slung tight against her chest, wrapped in bloody bandages. The old woman did not appear at all slowed by the massive wound. One cut had already been made in Alice’s arm. Her blood dripped into the sand.
A conduit,
Kit heard, followed by a jumble of images that made no sense but were so disturbing she shut them away.
Edith glanced over her shoulder and snarled. Kit entered—took two steps across the sand—and the door slammed shut behind her. She started to go back, but stopped. No time. She had to do this on her own.
She turned to face Edith—and was overwhelmed with the sensation of terror and death, along with a feeling of awful hunger; a waiting hunger, like a starving man perched at the ready for a fat steak; to pounce and tear. Deeper, even; a soul hunger, starvation for life.
This life,
the witch told her.
This entire world.
Edith’s face contorted against the candlelit shadows. She raised her dagger high above Alice’s chest. The young woman’s eyes opened.
Fight,
said the witch.
Fight now.
Power swelled inside Kit. Music roaring. She ran toward Edith and broke the circle.
When the door slammed shut behind Kitala, M’cal stopped singing. It was only for a moment—the time it took to ram his shoulder against the hard wood, shouting her name—but that was long enough. The shadows, these men made of night and darkness, swarmed upon him, and while a small part of his heart still wondered if this was yet another illusion, the blows felt real enough, as did the hands around his throat, cutting off his voice.
Demons,
he thought, falling to his knees.
The shadows of them.
M’cal was dimly aware of Ivan at his back, fighting his own losing battle with the vastly greater numbers. The only thing the big man had going for him was that he was still immortal—and M’cal most definitely was not.
Golden light streaked overhead—a crow bathed in fire—and suddenly there was another set of fists pummeling the shadows holding him down. M’cal broke free, and his voice rolled into the air like the scream of high winds on ocean waves. He shifted his tone just a note, and the shadows lurched backward even more. He kept singing, still trying to open the door behind him. Ivan waded deeper into the shadows, his giant fists sweeping left and right. Koni took a stand beside M’cal; farther away, at the edge of the forest, a cheetah burst from the trees and leapt into the fray, followed by two men. Both were familiar. One of them was shocking.
M’cal’s father met his son’s gaze across the roiling shadows, opening his mouth to sing. His voice wound through the air and power rumbled, their twin melodies braiding with no hint of discord; just low, smooth tones that laid the demons down, flat and hard. As M’cal sang with his father, he had a sense, for the first time in his life, of how it must have been in the old wars of magic, the ancient battles, when armies of his ancestors—voices linked—had cut through the ranks of gathered enemies. It was a heady power, intoxicating.
His father ran toward him through the shadow men, clicks and whistles entering his song; words and meanings winding through the melody.
Go to her. I will take care of this.
M’cal did not hesitate. He turned against the door, his voice rising to an ear-shattering shriek that sent Koni stumbling away, covering his ears. The wood vibrated. M’cal, desperate, latched on to his soul bond and clawed his way across it with both voice and will, struggling to reach Kitala.
She was still alive, fighting for her life. M’cal sensed the witch inside the echo of their connection, and he said,
Open the door. Hurry.
A moment later he heard a click, and he tried the knob again. This time it worked, and he slammed through into a room of shadows and white sand, golden candlelight burning the air like some hazy fire. There was blood everywhere. Kitala stood in the center of a large circle with a naked woman at her feet and another across from her, one arm ending in nothing but ragged chunks, while her face—her
face
—
Edith.
He finally understood who Kitala and the witch had been talking about. The name had meant nothing before, though he remembered the elderly counselor. His mind simply could not put the two together—not like this.
He ran forward, entering the circle, his voice twisting. Edith snarled at him, eyes black as pitch, and his power slid off her soul like water. Kitala stood beside him, the strain on her face enough to break, sweat rolling down her forehead; but both women stood unmoving, staring, a battle of wills roasting the air between them. Edith held a long knife. The woman below was blond, with a lovely face; she looked like the witch. The resemblance was uncanny. She caught M’cal’s eyes, and hers were wild. Her body was paralyzed. He remembered the feeling. He had been in one of these circles before.
Instinct guided him, blood memory of older battles reawakening in his subconscious. He moved behind Kitala and placed his hands upon her shoulders, sinking deep into the bond, riding into her soul. She was screaming inside her mind—screaming with music— but there was a restraint there, doubt, and he saw in her mind a hunger for her fiddle, something to hold in her hands as she
danced that devil
and
cut the bastard down.
Make your own fiddle,
he told her, his palms sliding down her arms to her wrists. He picked up her hands and held them in front of her face.
Play, Kitala. Play your music.
And she did. He felt her fingers move—slow, then fast—listened inside his head as power pulsed with every mental note. The witch had never been this strong—her power was great, but music was a conduit of greater complexity, added passion, and Kitala was a master of both.
Between Kit’s hands light formed, pure and white: a fiddle made of sun and lightning. M’cal lent his voice, new insight guiding him as the monster reared inside his throat. It ripped deep into Edith’s body, and the woman cried out, skin rippling across her face. She stared hard at him—he felt fingers against his throat, digging into his eyes—but the music in Kitala’s head shrieked and cut, and the pressure eased. Edith snapped her teeth, black eyes rolling back in her skull. Her skin shriveled, splitting and cracking. Blood rolled down her cheeks, from her ears and nostrils.
It is not enough to kill her,
whispered the witch.
You must trap the spirit holding her.
Yes,
M’cal heard Kitala say, and he felt the house shake around them as she played a solo symphony inside her head, power coursing through her music as she played for death, death down to an inferno. He felt her wrap a cocoon around Edith, binding it tighter and tighter—but even as she did, he sensed a change overcome the older woman, and he finally could see the heart of what they were fighting: a shadow that oozed up from her skin like oil from the pores of the earth, writhing against Kitala’s bonds of light. A demon, M’cal realized. But nothing like the shadows that fought outside the cabin; this creature was something more, something beyond gender or description, a force of ancient desperate fury.
You cannot stop me,
rasped the demon.
If not this gate, and this vessel, then another. We are strong again. We are coming. It is only a matter of time.
Time,
said M’cal to Kitala.
Are you ready?
Yes,
she said, and it was like feeling his soul melt inside its perfect opposite as his voice wrapped around her music. He tore the dark spirit loose from its bindings inside Edith—like stealing a soul—and threw it down into the ball of light arcing between Kitala’s hands. Power roared through her, coursing along the music, and the demon, the ghost, the darkness, shrieked. As did Edith, reaching out to the dying creature that had consumed her body. Her hand touched the light; M’cal ripped into her with his voice—