This Savage Song (29 page)

The world came back in pieces.

Concrete beneath his knees.

Iron around his wrists.

A shifting pool of light.

A metallic
tap tap tap
.

The echo of large, empty spaces.

The world came back in pieces, and so did August. For a moment he was terrified that he'd lost himself, but the pain in his head, the ache in his wrists, and the searing heat across his skin told him that he hadn't gone dark. Not yet.

He was kneeling on the floor of a warehouse, surrounded by glass and dust and a single harsh light, the edges so sharp that the space beyond registered as a wall of black. His arms had been wrenched up over his head. Pain flared around his wrists, and August could feel the metal chains cutting into the base of his hands, rubbing the flesh raw in a way they shouldn't be able to.

Where was he?

Where was Kate?

The tapping continued from somewhere beyond the pool of light, and when August squinted, the first thing he saw wasn't the glint of metal or the smudge of skin but the blazing red of the Malchai's eyes.

August fought to get his feet under him as the creature in the black suit stepped forward, a long metal bar dangling from one hand, its edge sharp, jagged, as if broken off from some large machine. The torn end dragged along the concrete with a screech, and August winced as the sound knifed through his head.

There was something strange about the monster. He was all bone, of course, but the lines of his face, the width of his shoulders, the way he carried himself, was almost human.

Almost
.

August got one foot beneath himself before an electric droning started up and the chains overhead drew taut, dragging him the rest of the way to his feet and then onto his toes. He fought for purchase, his shoulders straining in their sockets. Since when did he feel the subtle tests of muscle and bone? His whole body felt fragile, breakable, and some distant part of his mind wondered if
this
was what it truly felt like to be human.

“August Flynn,” said the Malchai, rolling the name off his tongue. “My name is Sloan.”

Of course. Harker's pet.

“You know,” continued Sloan, examining his fingers, which tapered into pointed nails, “you don't look very well.” He leaned forward. “How long has it been since you fed?”

August tried to say something and realized that he couldn't. His teeth were jammed together, his mouth sealed shut with tape.

“Oh, yes, that,” said the Malchai. “I know the power of a Sunai's voice. Especially if they turn. Leo and I have a bit of a history.” A thoughtful pause. “You know, between your brother and your sister, I'm learning
so
much about your kind. But I'm getting ahead of myself.”

A second pair of red eyes floated in the darkness behind him, but Sloan's attention was on the metal pole in his hands. He brought the bar to rest against August's ribs, where the bullet wound from the truck stop was leaking a single line of black.

“You're bleeding,” he said, tone twisted into a sick pantomime of worry. “Isn't that strange?” The bar fell away. “You know, they say that Sunai are invincible, but we both know that isn't true.”

Sloan wound up and swung the bar into August's ribs. The pain was shattering, and he could feel the
bones threaten to crack, his consciousness fracturing around the blow. A groan escaped the gag. It felt like the tape was melting, fusing to his skin, the fumes choking his senses as he fought for air. His head swam.

“No, the hungrier you get, the closer you are to human. But close is not enough.” The jagged edge of the bar came up beneath his chin, forcing his head up. “You can hurt, you can even bleed, but you just won't
die
.”

The bar connected with August's collarbone, and pain exploded through his chest. He choked back a sob.

“You may be wondering,” continued Sloan, taking the bar between both hands, “what I want from you right now, August.”

He glared, trying to steady his breathing.

“It's really very simple.” His red eyes danced like flames in his skull. “I want you to go dark.”

The other Malchai
,
who'd edged forward to the rim of the light, shot Sloan a nervous look, but August felt ill.

Sloan's smile sharpened. “I think you know why.”

August started to shake his head, and the bar connected with his ribs. An explosion of pain, and August bowed his head, trying to ground himself in it instead of being swept away. Nails dug into his jaw as Sloan dragged his head up.

“
Think
.” He tapped August's forehead with a pointed nail, then drew it down through his left eyebrow.

The line of Leo's scar. It had never made sense, because Sunai didn't
get
scars. Not when they were flesh and blood. Which meant that when Leo got it, he hadn't been.

“
I
think,” said Sloan in his slick wet voice, “that a Sunai's most powerful form is also its most vulnerable. I think that if you go dark, I'll be able to drive this bar right into your heart.” And then Sloan leaned in, close enough that August could feel the cold rot of the monster's soul against his fevered skin. “In fact,” he whispered, “I
know
, because I put my theory to the test last night. With Ilsa.”

August's heart stuttered.

Bile rose in his throat.

No.

The darkness welled up, threatening to surface, and the Malchai hummed with pleasure.

“So many stars,” said the monster.

Don't worry, little brother.

“I watched them all go out.”

I'm not afraid of the dark
.

“Right before I cut her throat.”

When Kate opened her eyes, the world was still dark.

No, not just dark.

Black.

The heavy black of interior spaces without external light.

Her head was pounding and her throat felt raw from where Sloan's fingers had clamped around it. She drew a ragged breath and tasted the damp of abandoned places exposed to elements, the tang of metal and earth and stone.

A shiver went through her, and she realized she was sitting on a floor, slumped against a wall, both surfaces concrete, and cold was soaking into her back and legs. Metal pressed against her wrists, and when she tried to pull away, she heard the clink of steel on steel. Her hands were cuffed to something to her right. She turned until she was facing it and raised her hands, questing with her fingers, until she found a flat metal bar, like a piece of scaffolding. Kate pulled as hard as she could, but it didn't give.

She curled her fingers around the metal and hoisted herself to her feet, slowly, in case the ceiling was low. Three feet up, her cuffs caught on a crossbar, forcing her to stop, so she sank back to her knees, and followed the vertical line of the pole to the concrete floor, where it was screwed down with some kind of metal plate. She wasn't going anywhere with that. She twisted her head, straining to hear something—anything—over the sound of her pulse in her good ear. At first, there was
nothing, but then, muffled by concrete and metal and whatever else stood between her and the outside world, she heard a voice.

Sweet, and smooth, and on the verge of laughter.

Sloan
.

Kate gritted her teeth, torn between shouting his name until he showed up and staying silent until she had a way to
kill
him. As she listened, more sounds reached her, muffled by the walls between—a scrape of metal, a stifled groan of pain—and her stomach turned.

August
.

August trembling in the hall, his black eyes wide with fear and hunger.

Get the Sunai.

Kate dragged in air, forced herself to focus. She had to get out of here. Her lighter was gone, lost during the fight, which meant no weapon, and no way to see what she doing. She didn't have anything to pick the handcuff locks, and—

Another muffled scream beyond the walls.

She cringed, fought back the shudder of fear. Somewhere a different Kate could be terrified, but
she
didn't have time, so she forced it down and felt her way back to the place where the pole was screwed into the floor. She felt four screws, all half rusted into place. The frame was solid enough, but if she could get the
base free she might be able to torque it and slide the cuffs beneath the frame. She'd worry about getting them off later. Being handcuffed wasn't as bad as being handcuffed
to
something. Kate took a deep breath, and exhaled, her breath catching as another sob carried on the air.

She tried to turn a screw free, but it didn't budge. She pried until her fingers ached, twisted until her nails cracked.

Nothing.

She closed her eyes, and tried to think, her fingers drifting to the pendant against her sternum. Her eyes flashed open. She pressed herself against the bar until she could reach the medal's chain and dig it out from under the sweater's collar. It wasn't a very elegant gesture, but soon she got the pendant up over her head and wedged the medal's edge into the screw's groove, praying it was the right size. It fit. She twisted, as hard as she could. Twice her fingers slipped, skinning her knuckles raw.

But then, at last, the first screw began to turn.

And several curse-filled moments later, it came free.

One down,
she thought.
Three to go
.

Sloan's voice rose and fell beyond the door.

She jammed the silver disc in the next screw.

A horrible thud, like metal against flesh, bar against
bone
.

She twisted, slipped, twisted again.

A stifled sob.

“Hold on, August,” she pleaded as the second screw began to turn. “Hold on.”

A drop of blood hit the concrete, viscous and black.

“There's only one way this ends,” said Sloan, running a nail along the bar's jagged edge.

August tried to drag in air. The Malchai had struck him across the face, and blood was running from his nose and over the tape across his mouth. He was choking—on blood, on terror—and every time his vision slipped, he thought of Ilsa.

Ilsa standing in front of the window, fingers cracking the glass.

“So many stars.”

Ilsa's reflection in the mirror, chin resting on his shoulder.

“I watched them all go out.”

Ilsa lying on the floor of the traitor's cell, singing him to sleep.

“Right before I cut her throat.”

His lungs ached. His vision swam.

Hold on
, he begged his body.

And then an electric buzz filled the air, and whatever was holding August up disappeared. The chains went slack, and he crumpled, hitting the ground hard, his wrists still raw and wrapped in chains.

“Sloan,” warned the other Malchai.

August tried to get to his feet, and failed. The warehouse twisted and blurred until it was a bedroom, an alley, a school. Someone was calling a name, his name, and then he was standing in the forest brushing his fingers against the trees and he could hear music, humming, and Kate looked back with a frown and then—

Pain exploded against his side, and he crumpled. He tried to roll onto his back, but the concrete was cold and rising over him like water and he was in the bath his fingers curled around the edge and Kate's over his while the water fell like rain and he was burning burning burning from the inside and the darkness was waiting waiting waiting just beyond the light.

Sloan was towering over him, all shadow save for those vivid red eyes. He raised the bar to strike, but as he brought it down, August's hands flew up and caught the metal.

Darkness curled up around his fingers like steam.

“Let go, August,” said Sloan, putting his weight
behind the bar. Cold wicked along the metal, meeting the heat of August's touch. His grip tightened, his vision fixed on his fingers, wishing he had the control to slide between the forms like his brother.

Leo could turn a part of himself without losing the whole.

Because there was no whole left.

Nothing human.

Nothing real.

Somewhere beyond the pool of light, metal scraped across the concrete. August squinted and saw that the darkness wasn't solid after all. Massive objects loomed in the shadows, and a corridor branched off toward the noise, a pair of doors at the very end giving way to the paler dark of night.

“Oslo,” said Sloan, still leaning on the bar above him. “Go see to Kate.”

August's pulse pounded in his broken chest.
Run
, he willed her, even now.

The other Malchai turned to go.

“And
don't
kill her,” added Sloan.

“Don't worry,” smirked the monster, “I'll leave you some of—”

“You'll leave me
all
of her,” warned Sloan. His tone was icy and slick, his dead lips tight over his teeth. Heat flared through August's skin.

“You can end this,” said the monster, his attention back on the bar. And August knew he could, but he also knew that the moment he did, the Malchai would drive the metal down into his chest, and it would tear past what had been flesh, and what would be smoke and shadow, and into his burning heart.

And he would be gone.

Whatever he was made of—stardust or ash or life or death—would be gone.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

In with gunfire and out with smoke.

And August wasn't ready to die.

Even if surviving wasn't simple, or easy, or fair.

Even if he could never be human.

He wanted the chance to matter.

He wanted to
live
.

By the time Kate got the last screw free, her hands were shaking, and sweat was running down her face.

She yanked the screw out, grabbed the metal frame, and
pulled
.

It didn't move. She swore and wrenched, putting all her weight behind it, but the bar was still stuck. Exhausted, Kate leaned her head against the metal, and felt it slip forward off the base. Her breath caught in surprise, then relief, as she gripped the metal and
shoved
.
The bar ground forward, scraping over the concrete with a screech, and Kate cringed—so much for stealth. She managed to torque the bar enough to get the cuffs beneath, and scrambled to her feet.

Footsteps echoed in the hall beyond, and she held her breath, back pressed into the wall beside the door, wishing she had a weapon. Something.
Anything
. But she wasn't going down again, not without a fight.

The metal door slid open, casting a skeletal shadow into the room.

Thin light fell on the warped bar, the cast-off screws, the place where Kate
should
be.

The monster hissed and started forward, but something wrenched him back into the hall.

There was a choking sound, and the wet slick of a wound, and then nothing. Kate held her breath as a second shadow passed before the door, then disappeared.

In the distance, Sloan's voice echoed, sickly sweet.

Kate counted to ten, then peeled herself away from the wall and went to find him.

August was slipping, edges blurring into shadow. He lay onto his side, his face against the floor, and listened for the heartbeat of the world.

He didn't hear it.

But he heard footsteps. Soft, steady.

And then a shadow moved beyond the ring of light. He squinted.

It wasn't the Malchai.

It wasn't Kate.

It moved too slowly, its stride was too even.

The shadow drew itself together out of the darkness and became a man, tall and handsome with blond hair and eyes as flat and black as night.

Leo.

His eyes found August's, and black blood dripped from his fingers as he brought them to his lips in a command for silence. His expression was even, assessing, as he drifted silently forward to the edge of the light.

August coughed, tried to push himself onto his hands and knees as Sloan loomed over him, red eyes fixed and waiting.

Look at me
, thought August tiredly.
Look at me
.

Leo stepped noiselessly into the light as darkness pooled beneath August like smoke.

A smile crept across Sloan's face. “It's over, little monster,” he said, lifting the metal bar.

August braced himself, but before Sloan could strike, the pole was gone. One moment it was in his hand, and the next it was in Leo's, and then, in a single, fluid motion, his brother drove the metal up through the Malchai's back. Sloan let out a strangled scream and
staggered forward, nails clawing at the jagged metal edge protruding from his collar as black gore dripped down his shirt. He spun toward Leo, but lost his balance, staggered, and fell to one knee.

“My brother's death,” said Leo as Sloan doubled over, retching blood, “wasn't part of the deal.”

Sloan's lips curled back, teeth bared as he tried—and failed—to form words. And then his body shuddered, bones twitching before he finally collapsed to the concrete.

August rested his forehead on the ground. Leo's shadow fell over him, and he rolled onto his back, and looked up, meeting his brother's gaze. For a moment, all he felt was relief. And then, for some reason, a prickle of fear. The look in Leo's black eyes wasn't shock, or vindication. It was disappointment.

“Hello, little brother.”

Leo knelt, and tore the duct tape from August's mouth, and August gasped, choking on the cold night air. He coughed, spit black blood onto the floor. He tried to speak, but the words had no sound.

Leo tilted his head. “What was that?”

August tried again. “I said . . . ,” he managed between ragged breaths, “what deal?”

Leo gave August a pitying look. As if it should have been obvious.

A deal with Sloan. A deal between two monsters who wanted to start a war.

“What have you done?”

Leo took hold of the chain around August's wrists and hauled him to his feet. “What needed to be done.”

August swayed. “You . . . you told them about me . . . you sent me to that school and then you told Sloan I was there.” He didn't deny it. “Does Henry know?”

“Henry Flynn has grown tired and weak,” said Leo. “He is no longer fit to lead us.”

“But Ilsa—”

“Our
sister
should have stayed out of the way.” He shook his head. “Her loss hurts our mission, but I have hope for
you
.”

August started shaking his head and couldn't stop. “You betrayed our family.”

“They lost sight of our cause,” he said, grip tightening on the chains. “The city needs us, August. Not just South or North. The
whole
city. Poison spreads. Violence spreads.
Everything spreads
. We cannot hide behind these truces and Seams, and wait. We are Sunai. We were made to cleanse this world, not hide and let it rot. We have a purpose, August. It is time you rose to it.”

“Henry will never forgive you.”

“I do not need his forgiveness. He is a
human
.” Leo
sounded disgusted. “He cannot see beyond his own fear. His own desire to survive.”

“You're just another monster.”

August tried to pull free, pull
away
, but Leo didn't let go. “I am Sunai,” he said. “I am holy fire. And if I have to burn the world to cleanse it, so help me, I will.” He took August's face in his hand, a gesture that could have been gentle, but wasn't. A thumb beneath his jaw forced August's gaze up to meet his own, the black of his eyes at once flat and endless. “Where is she, little brother?”

Kate.

August saw the truth in his brother's eyes. Leo was going to finish what he started. He was going to kill her. But August couldn't answer what he didn't know. He shook his head.

Leo hissed. “You protect a
sinner
.”

“To protect our family. Our city. Killing her will start a war.”

A small, grim smile. “The war is already starting. And I'm not going to kill her, little brother. You are.”