This Savage Song (16 page)

“Who are we hunting?” asked August.

They were standing on the front porch of a row house, its windows boarded, its siding warped. The door had been tagged with red paint that read
STAY AWAY.

As if words had that much power here.

“Two men,” said Leo, rolling up his sleeves, revealing the short bands of black crosses that ran like cuffs around both forearms. The marks were too few in number, washed away every time he went dark. Leo didn't turn because he lacked control—that he had in spades—but simply because he
liked
the way it felt.
Like shedding a coat on a hot day
. The thought made August shudder.

“Brothers,” continued Leo. “Responsible for the deaths of six. Gang politics. Drugs. I expect they'll be armed.”

“And you had me leave my violin at home?”

Leo reached into his jacket. August assumed he was
fetching one of his own instruments. Instead, he withdrew a long, thin knife, and passed it to August.

“What is this for?” he asked.

Leo didn't answer. He was staring down at his hand, now empty, and August watched as darkness began to roll up his fingers and across his palm. August recoiled instinctively, but only Leo's hand blackened to shadow. The way he did that, slid between the two forms, that worked only because he'd torn away the walls between. August tried to imagine what Leo must have been like, back before he burned through his humanity, but he couldn't. He watched as Leo reached out his shadowed hand and gripped the rusted doorknob. The metal crunched like paper under his touch and fell away. The door swung open.

“Do what I say, little brother,” he said, his voice lower, stranger, more resonant.

“How do you know they're here?” whispered August.

“I can smell the blood on their hands,” said Leo, the darkness receding from his skin, his voice returning to its usual pitch. He strode inside, and August followed, nudging the door shut behind him.

The house was dark and smelled of stale smoke and liquor, and when they moved, the boards creaked under their feet. August cringed. Leo didn't. They reached the center of the room and stopped. Leo cocked his head,
listening. And then August heard it, too. The floorboards groaned again. They were both standing still.

The first guy came out of nowhere. He lunged at Leo, but his brother was too fast; he plucked the man out of the air and slammed him down against the rotting boards so hard they split. The man squirmed and spat obscenities, but Leo crouched calmly over him like a cat pinning a mouse, but without the playful glee.

“What is your name?” he asked, and the air vibrated with his will.

“Foster,” spat the thug. His shadow writhed beneath him, clawing at the broken floor.

“Foster,” repeated Leo. “Are you here alone?”

The man thrashed, coughed, answered, “No.”

August's grip tightened reflexively on the knife, but his brother looked unconcerned as he hauled Foster to his feet and spun him around so his back was pressed to Leo's chest. “Pay attention, August,” he said. “There is more than one way to bring a soul to surface.”

With that, Leo wrenched Foster's arm up behind his back, and the man cried out. August cringed, but Leo remained calm, unmoved. He kept twisting until August heard the tearing ligaments, and the man let out a scream.

“Why are you doing this?” asked August.

“To educate you,” said Leo simply. He twisted harder, and Foster keened. Bones broke audibly and August
watched, horrified, first as sweat broke out across the man's face, and then as his skin began to glow red. The light rose like blood to the surface, and as it did, it began to pass from Foster's body into Leo's.

“I'm sorry,” gasped the man, his confession spilling out through ragged breaths. “I'm sorry. I did what I had to do. If I didn't kill them, they'd have killed
me
.” Leo twisted further, and the man sobbed between the crack and splinter of bone. The sound turned August's stomach.

“Stop this, Leo,” he said. “Why make him suffer?”

Tears streamed down Foster's face as the life seeped out of him. “I'm sorry,” he cried. “Please, I'm sorry. . . .”

Leo was unmoved. “Why
shouldn't
he suffer?” he challenged, meeting August's eyes as the man wailed. “These are bad people, little brother. They do bad things. They hurt and they murder and they taint this world with blood and darkness and evil.” He had to raise his voice over Foster's screams. “Why
should
they go gently? Why shouldn't they suffer for their sins?”

“I'm sorry . . .” Foster's voice faded, along with the light beneath his skin. His eyes burned, collapsing inward.

“Our purpose is
not
to bring peace,” said Leo, letting the broken body fall to the floor. “It is to bestow penance.” August opened his mouth to protest, when Leo said, “Watch out.”

It happened too fast. A second man lunged at August from behind. He didn't have a chance to think, to stop, to let go of the weapon and step out of the way. He turned just in time for his knife to bury itself in the attacker's stomach. August looked down at the blade disappearing between the man's ribs with a mixture of shock and horror as the man let out a strangled sound of pain. His life surged to the surface, and August gasped as the energy hit him like a bucket of ice water, sudden and bright and achingly cold. His fingers tightened on the knife, and the man went for his throat, but his hands faltered, landed on August's collar, nails digging uselessly into his skin.

“They deserved it,” coughed the man, blood already staining his lips. His legs started to buckle but August held him up, his life coursing between them, sharp and electric. “They all deserved it. This messed up . . . world . . . we're all . . . gonna . . .”

The man's words fell apart as he slumped into death, and August stood there in the dark, shaking from the force of it, feeling as if he'd taken on the man's evils as well as his life. This was the opposite of peace. He felt alive—so alive—but tarnished, his senses screaming and his head a tangle of dark thoughts and feelings and power, and he was drowning and shivering and burning alive. He had to close his eyes and force air into his lungs until the sensations dulled and his mind stopped
spiraling, and he could drag it back into his head, back into his skin. When the room took shape around him again, the first thing he saw was the blood-covered knife. He felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Leo there beside him, looking proud.

Which only made August feel worse.

“It'll get easier,” promised Leo, taking the blade.

But August looked down at the corpses, their shadows still, their bodies broken.

“Should it?”

Kate stared at the screen, where a man's body lay twisted on the floor, a bloody, contorted corpse. It had taken him a long time to die. Or rather, Leo had taken a long time to kill him. He'd used only his hands, which meant they didn't need music to steal a soul. What was the saying? More than one way to skin a cat.

She'd never really understood the phrase.

Now she did.

The only thing she didn't get were the marks. Leo had them, too, short bands of crosses circling his wrists.

One for every day without a slip
, that's what Freddie had said. Which obviously wasn't the whole truth, but it couldn't be a lie, either. Monsters didn't lie.

“Our Kate, always a dreamer.”

She jumped, and saw Sloan standing in the doorway, a
wicked smile smeared across his sickly face. She didn't know how long he'd been standing there—or how long she'd been sitting, for that matter, staring at the frozen image of Leo amid the wreckage and thinking about Freddie. She tapped out of the updrive, and set the tablet aside.

“What is it?” she asked.

He drew a pointed nail absently down the wooden door frame, eliciting a screech. Kate resisted the urge to touch the nick he'd made on her cheek. “Your father won't be home tonight.”

Her grip tightened on the chair. “Oh?” The thought of being left alone with the Malchai gave her chills, but she knew better than to let it show. If Sloan knew how uncomfortable he made her, he would only torment her more. “Nothing too serious, I assume?”

“Nothing he can't handle,” said Sloan.

She watched him go, hesitated, then grabbed her phone and surged after him.

“Hey,” she called, following the Malchai out into the penthouse. But he wasn't there. “Sloan?” Nothing. Then a cold breath against her neck.

“Yes, Kate?” said a voice near her bad ear. She didn't jump, but turned, stepping carefully back out of his reach. She focused on the branded
H
instead of his red eyes, reminding herself that he belonged to her father. To
her
.

“I want to ask you something.”

Sloan's dead lips pursed in distaste. “I would rather you didn't,” he said evenly.

“What do you know about Sunai?”

The Malchai stilled. A shadow flickered across the planes of his face before they went smooth again. He tilted his head, considering her. But he couldn't lie. “They are as different from
us
,” he said, “as we are from the Corsai.” His nose crinkled when he spoke of the shadow beasts. “They can appear human, but it is not their true form.”

Kate frowned. There had been no files, no footage of the monsters in another shape. What did a Sunai look like, behind its skin?

“Is it true they feed on souls?”

“They feed on
life force
.”

“How do you kill one?”

“You don't,” said Sloan simply. “The Sunai appear to be indestructible.”

“There's no such thing as indestructible,” said Kate. “Everything has a weakness.”

“I suppose,” he acquiesced, “but if they have a weakness, it does not show.”

“Is that why the other monsters fear them?”

“It is not a matter of
fear
,” snarled Sloan. “We avoid them because we cannot feed on them. Just as they cannot feed on us.”

“But
you
can be killed.” His red eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, so she went on. “How many are there?”

The Malchai sighed, clearly tiring of the interrogation. “As far as we know, there are three.”

Only child?

Youngest.

“The first, Leo, is known to all,” said Sloan. “He fancies himself judge, jury, and executioner.”

“Have you met him?” asked Kate.

Sloan's expression darkened. “Our paths have crossed.” He unbuttoned his collar, pulled the shirt aside to reveal sickly blue-white skin raked with scars, as if someone had try to claw their way through the bone shield of his chest.

“Looks like he won,” said Kate.

“Perhaps.” A rictus grin spread across Sloan's face as he touched a single, sharp nail to the place above his eye. “But I left my mark.”

She had seen a recent photo of Leo, seen the narrow scar that cut through his left brow like a piece chipped from a statue, the only blemish on a flawless face.

“And the other two?”

“The second Sunai made the Barren.” Kate's eyes widened. She'd seen the dead space at the center of the city, heard about the catastrophe, the hundreds of lives lost, but she'd assumed it was the result of a force, a massive
weapon, not of a single monster. “She is bound to her tower by the truce.

“The third,” continued Sloan, “is a mystery.”

Not to me
, thought Kate, clutching the phone.

She could see the truce was failing, knew it was only a matter of time before it broke. The monsters were restless, and her father's attention was drifting again to the Seam. The Sunai had always been Flynn's best weapon. If they could be hunted down, if they could be
killed
, even captured, South City wouldn't stand a chance.

Sloan was still watching her. “You are very curious tonight, little Katherine.”