Our Dark Duet

by Victoria Schwab

  August had felt fear and pain, the ache of hunger and the steady calm after taking a soul, but he’d never felt anything like this. He’d lost himself before in his music, fallen into the notes, the world dissolving briefly, and even that was not like this. For once there was no Leo in his head, no Ilsa or Soro, just the warmth of Kate’s skin and the memory of stardust and open fields, of bleachers and black-and-white cats and apples in the woods, of tally marks and music, of running and burning, and the desperate, hopeless desire to feel human.

  And then her mouth was on his again, and the version of himself, the one he tried so hard to drown, came gasping up for air.

  For a moment, everything was simple.

  Kate forgot the sight of the soldier in the cell and the ticking time bomb in her head, and the violent voice inside her was drowned out by August—by his cool skin and the music of his body against hers. The room seemed to dance with sudden light, a soft and lovely red—

  Kate gasped, lurching backward as she realized the light was coming from her. August saw it too and half-stumbled, half-fell back off the bed, landing amid a pile of books.

  She sagged against the headboard, breathless, the first washes of red light already fading back beneath her skin. She stared at August.

  And then, she started to laugh.

  It rose up suddenly, like madness, and left her close to tears, and August looked at her, flushed with embarrassment, as if she were laughing at him or at them or at this instead of at everything, at the absurdity of their lives and the fact that nothing would ever be easy, or simple, or normal.

  She shook her head, one hand pressed to her mouth until the laughter died enough that she could hear August telling her he was sorry.

  “Why? Did you know that would happen?”

  August stared at her, aghast. “Did I know that kissing you would bring your soul to surface? That—that—would have the same effect as pain or music? No, I must have missed that lesson.”

  She stared at him, agape. “August, was that sarcasm?”

  He shrugged, toppling another short stack of books somewhere behind him. Kate shifted back, making room. “Come here.”

  He looked miserable. “I think it’s better if I stay down here.”

  “I’ll try to keep my hands off you,” she said dryly. “Come on.”

  He rose awkwardly out of the heap, running a hand through his hair, the color still high in his face as he picked his way toward her. August lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, shooting her a wary look, as if he were afraid of her, or thought she should be afraid of him, but Kate only stretched against the far side, and when he finally sank down beside her, she rolled toward him and he rolled toward her.

  His eyes drifted closed, and she studied the dark lashes, the hollows in his cheeks, the short black lines around his wrist. Quiet settled over them, and she wanted to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw the soldier in the cell.

  And then she admitted something, a confession so low she thought—hoped—August wouldn’t hear, two words she’d vowed never to say aloud in a world filled with monsters.

  “I’m scared.”

  August stayed with Kate until she fell asleep.

  He didn’t reach out, didn’t take her hand, didn’t trust himself to touch her again, not after the . . . He flushed at the thought of it. If Kate hadn’t noticed the red light, if his mouth had lingered on hers any longer, if his hands had been pressed to skin instead of cloth—

  It could have been so much worse.

  Midnight came, marked only by the burn of a new tally on his skin.

  One hundred and eighty-six days without falling.

  The marks mean nothing, chided Leo. You have already let go.

  But his brother was wrong. Even when August thought he wanted to let go, some part of him had held on, and he had the marks to prove it.

  A soft weight landed on the bed. Allegro. The cat shot August a wary look, but didn’t flee, only curled up near his feet, green eyes vanishing behind his tail, and that felt as much a victory as the latest tally. August closed his eyes, and let the low static of the cat’s purr fold over him. . . .

  The sudden staccato of a cough jolted August awake.

  He didn’t remember falling asleep, but it was almost dawn, and the cough came again, the sound ricocheting through his head.

  Henry.

  August held his breath and listened, bracing for the fit to worsen, but mercifully, it trailed off, replaced by Emily’s voice, low and stern, and Henry’s, short of breath, but there.

  “It’s all right. I’m all right.”

  “Jesus, Henry, just because you can lie to me . . .”

  They kept their voices low, but whispering did no good when August could hear the mutterings of soldiers four floors down. Those he could tune out, but when it came to Henry, to Emily, he couldn’t stop himself from listening.

  “There has to be something.”

  “We’ve been through this, Em.”

  “Henry, please.” Emily Flynn had always been made of stone, but her voice, when she uttered that word, was cracking under the weight. “If you would just let the medics—”

  “What are they going to tell me? I already know—”

  “You can’t just let it—”

  “I’m not.” The sound of space collapsing between bodies, of hands on hair. “I’m still here.”

  And there, in the dark, August heard the next words, even though they were never said aloud. For now.

  He didn’t sleep again after that.

  He tried to focus on the other sounds in the building—on the footsteps, the water lines, the far-off music of Soro’s flute—but somewhere beneath it all, he heard the soldier in the cell. It was so far below, it must have been his mind playing tricks, but it didn’t matter.

  August slipped from the bed, took up the violin, and went downstairs.

  He expected to find the viewing room empty, the prisoner alone, but Ilsa was there, her face pressed to the window. In the cell beyond the soldier knelt on the concrete, rambling on about mercy and wrenching against his restraints until blood ran down his skin.

  There had to be something they could do.

  August looked around. Sublevel 3 was the lowest floor in the Compound, cut off from the world above, below, and to every side by steel and concrete. It was the closest thing to soundproof in the building. A console sat on the table, a red button marking a microphone, and when August tapped it, the soldier’s voice poured out of the cell, filling the room with madness and anguish.

  He set his case on the table, and Ilsa watched him, a question in her eyes, as he drew out the violin. Leo had always believed that their sole purpose was to cleanse the world of sinners. That music was simply the kindest way to do that. But what if there were other uses? Ways to help instead of harm?

  He took a deep breath and began to play.

  The first note cut the air like a knife. The second was high and sweet, the third low and somber. The steel strings added their own low thrum, tense under his fingers as the music echoed through the concrete room. Every time a note reached the walls, it doubled back, both less and more as it trailed off beneath the newer notes.

  He had never done this, never played to soothe a soul instead of to reap it.

  But in the cell, the soldier stopped fighting. His shoulders slumped, as if in relief, the darkness inside him subdued by the song.

  And August kept playing.

  The air smelled of blood and fear.

  Sloan inhaled it from the tower steps, but everywhere he looked, he saw Malchai, only Malchai, their mouths red and their hands empty.

  “I am so very disappointed,” he said, his voice carrying through the night.

  They had brought him nothing. They had witnessed nothing. They had played with their prey, dangled it in front of every living, breathing, hunting inch of the city night, and for it all they had gained nothing.

  Even Alice, small, bloodthirsty thing that she
was, had come back empty-handed, brandishing only stained lips and a careless shrug.

  “Perhaps,” she said, climbing the steps, “we’re using the wrong bait.”

  But humans were humans. The Corsai fed on flesh and bone, the Malchai on blood, the Sunai on souls, each and every part contained in the body of a human. What else was could he use?

  “Sloan!”

  A group of Malchai were coming toward him.

  “What is it?”

  “The shadow,” growled one.

  His hopes rose. “Did you find it?”

  But the Malchai were already shaking their heads.

  “Then what?” snarled Sloan.

  The Malchai looked at one another like fools, and Sloan sighed.

  “Show me.”

  He wove between the bodies on the station floor.

  To call them dead would have been an understatement.

  Perhaps if they’d had weapons, it would have been quick. But as far as Sloan could tell, the prisoners had used whatever they could find—chairs, batons, bare hands.

  In short, they had torn each other apart.

  And yet, Sloan had no doubt this was the intruder’s doing.

  Sloan had made an offering, and been refused. He’d given up a city full of easy prey, and instead the creature had come here.

  Why?

  His shoes echoed on the linoleum, and Alice trailed a few steps behind. She dragged her nails against the wall, whistling softly. The other three Malchai sniffed the air, and when Sloan drew in a breath, he noted a scent like cold steel, faint and strange and out of place. But something else was missing.

  Fear.

  The taste that coated the streets, painted itself across the night, that most common of human traits—it wasn’t here. The station was awash in other things—anger, bloodlust, death, but no fear.

  Artificial light buzzed harshly overhead, blurring Sloan’s vision. He flicked the nearest switch and the world was plunged mercifully back into muted grays. His eyes brightened, focused, drawing the room into sharp relief.

  Bodies sprawled across the ground.

  Slumped in halls.

  Fell out of open cells.

  The Crawford Street Station was a relic of the days before the war, before the Phenomenon, back when V-City had such mundane things as police, men and women enlisted to uphold the peace.

  Harker had used the North City’s four stations for their onsite holding cells, and Sloan had turned those same cells into pens for some of the city’s most violent resisters. Men and women who had no desire to fight for their fellow humans in South City or serve as Fangs. Loners with their own taste for blood, for death, for power.

  “What a waste,” mused Alice, stepping over a broad red pool. “It didn’t even eat them.”

  She was right. What was the point of so much death if not to feed? Unless, of course, it had fed on something he couldn’t see. After all, the Sunai devoured souls. If the act didn’t burn out their victims’ eyes, there would be no way of telling what was taken, what was gone.

  “You,” he said, pointing to the tallest Malchai. “Show me.”

  The Malchai dragged a pointed nail across a tablet, pulling up the footage. Four feeds: two of the cell halls, one of the main room, and one of the front doors.

  Two Fangs wandered the cell halls, while a third lounged in the main room.

  Nothing out of the ordinary. Sloan rolled the timestamp forward, watching the seconds, minutes, tick by and—

  The lights on the footage suddenly guttered and went out.

  They came on again an instant later, flickering and low, and in the half dark, Sloan saw the shadow. It stood a step or two behind the Fang, nothing but a streak of black across the screen. The light itself seemed to weaken around it, a halo of darkness tracing its edges. The camera blurred as if struggling to catch the creature’s shape.

  “Is that it?” whispered Alice.

  Sloan didn’t answer. He watched, expecting the human in the room to startle, to scream, to fight, and instead, the Fang stared, as if entranced. The shadow advanced, and the human rose to his feet and stepped toward the creature. For a long moment the human disappeared from view, swallowed by the shadow on the screen. When it withdrew, the man looked unchanged in every way but one.

  His eyes.

  They blurred the camera, streaks of light that cut across his face as he turned, took up a set of keys, and headed for the cell halls. He appeared on the next screen, another Fang moving toward him, and Sloan watched, mesmerized, as both men slowed, pausing for the barest second and in that second, something passed between them, spread from one to two. And then they were moving again.

  One went to find the third Fang while the other unlocked the first cell door.

  And began beating the prisoner to death.

  Or at least, he tried. But the man was twice his size, and in seconds the Fang lay on the floor, his neck snapped, and the prisoner was in the hall, his own eyes shining with that monstrous light.

  The other cells were open now.

  The slaughter started.

  All the while the shadow stood, almost peaceful, in the center of the station. But as Sloan watched, the creature began to harden, details etching themselves across its surface. Its arms tapered into long, thin fingers, its chest rose and fell, and the flat plane of its face took shape, cheeks hollowing and jaw growing sharp. And when blood splashed across its front, it did not pass through, as matter through shadow, but landed and stained, having met a solid surface.

  So, it was feeding on the prisoners.

  Not on their bodies or their souls, but on their actions, their violence. Sloan was suddenly glad that his Malchai had failed to kill the shadow. A monster that turned humans against each other—that was a pet worth having.

  On the screen, the shadow started moving through the station, fingers trailing along the tables and walls. It brushed up against iron bars and recoiled slightly. So it wasn’t invulnerable.

  And whatever it had gained from the humans’ deaths, the effects did not last long.

  By the time it reached the front doors, it was thinning again, edges smudging. By the time it crossed onto the fourth screen and stepped into the street, it folded into mist and simply disappeared.

  Sloan stared at the screen, which remained picture-still despite the passing seconds. No Malchai rose from the corpses. No Corsai stretched out of shadows. No Sunai shuddered into life.

  Monsters were born from monstrous acts. But here were monstrous acts without the monstrous aftermath. The only aftermath, in fact, appeared to be the creature itself, the violence fed back into its source, leaving nothing but bodies in its wake.

  “What do we do?” asked one of the Malchai.

  Sloan looked up. “Let the Corsai have the corpses.”

  “And what about the shadow?” asked Alice, drawing patterns in a pool of tacky blood. “We can’t let it run loose.”

  “No,” said Sloan. “We can’t.”

  Her red eyes narrowed. Alice had a way of reading others, reading him, that usually made him want to tear out those eyes. But for once, he only smiled.

  She is standing

  before a mirror

  staring

  at her own

  reflection

  and it has

  silver eyes

  and talks of mercy

  with a smile

  while blood drips

  from its fingers

  and the bodies

  pile

  at its feet

  and the reflection

  reaches out

  a nail

  against the glass

  tap-tap-tapping

  until it cracks.

  Kate woke alone.

  The sun was up, and August was gone, nothing but a ghost of space, an indentation on the other side of the bed.

  A weight landed on the blankets, and a pair of green eyes peered over her shoulder.

  Allegro.

  He r
egarded her uncertainly, as if he didn’t know what to make of her.

  “You and me both,” murmured Kate.

  She knew she’d had another dream, but it was already gone, and she forced herself up and into the bathroom, running the shower as hot as she could bear. The pressure in her head was worse, matched now by a vise around her chest.

  Steam filled the small room as she knelt and searched the bathroom drawers until she found something that looked like it might ease a headache. She took three before stepping into the scalding spray.

  Everything ached, and she had to sing to herself to keep her thoughts from drifting toward the razor on the shelf.

  When she got out, the mirror had fogged over.

  Kate stepped cautiously toward it and swept her hand across the glass. She let her gaze stray for just an instant, only long enough to see the way the silver had spread, engulfing most of her left eye and throwing lines like roots across her right.

  Her heart faltered, panic running like a tremor through fragile ground, and she had to fight to keep her footing, to stay calm.

  “You are in control,” she told herself, the words like weights in her pockets, anchoring her down.

  You are in control, she thought as she dressed in a pair of fatigues. The clothes made her think of Team Twenty-Four downstairs, and she almost felt guilty for not joining them, before she remembered that it had been only a ruse, a failed attempt at freedom. Besides, she didn’t think proximity to weapons or people who tested her patience was a very good idea right now.

  Another reason to be far from the Wardens and the rest of Prosperity.

  Still, as she sank into a chair at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in one hand and her tablet in the other, she found herself composing another message to Riley. There was a freedom to writing a letter you couldn’t send, and she told him about her father and her mother and the house in the Waste, about the Flynns and August and the cat named Allegro.

  She wrote until the headache faded and her mind finally cleared, and then she closed out of the message, and got to work, setting a trap for the Chaos Eater.