This Savage Song

by Victoria Schwab

  “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 no
t 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.”

  She met his gaze. “The more you know,” she said casually, grabbing a drink before retreating to her room. Once inside, she locked the door, and considered the phone.

  She could give her father this, the identity of the third Sunai . . . or she could give him something better. She could give him Freddie Gallagher.

  Show him that she was a Harker to the core.

  Sloan’s words sang through her mind.

  You will always be our little Katherine.

  Kate held down the delete key and watched the photos vanish, one by one by one.

  Not anymore.

  August wanted to crawl out of his skin.

  They walked back to the compound in silence . . . well, he walked back to the compound in silence. Leo was preaching. That’s how August thought of it, when his brother gave one of his sermons about the natural order of the world. As if there was anything natural about them. About what they’d just done. He could feel the man’s blood drying on his fingers. Could feel the man’s soul swimming in his head.

  “Your problem, August, is that you resist the current. You fight against the tide instead of letting it carry you. . . .” Leo’s black eyes were rimmed with light and bright with zeal. But at least when he got like this, he wasn’t forcing August to answer questions about his hunger, his thoughts, his need to feel human. “Just as you fight against your inner fire. You could burn so brightly, little brother.”

  August shivered, cold to his bones. “I don’t . . . want to . . . ,” he said, teeth chattering. This was the opposite of hunger. This was worse.

  “Stop being selfish,” said Leo. “We were not made for want. It has no place in us.”

  It has no place in you, August wanted to say, because you burned it out.

  They reached the compound, passed the guards, and stepped into the elevator. He clenched his teeth as it rose, afraid that if he opened his mouth, something would escape. Maybe a sob, or a scream. The man’s life was buzzing inside of him like bees.

  What have you done to me?

  What have you made me do?

  The moment the elevator doors opened, he stormed out, carving a line toward his room.

  “Where have you two been?” asked Henry.

  “Is that blood?” added Emily.

  August didn’t stop.

  “Leo?”

  “I was giving him a lesson.”

  “What—”

  “Don’t worry, Henry. He’ll be fine. . . .”

  August closed the door, and slumped back against the wood. There was no lock, so he stayed there until he was sure no one would follow, then let out a shuddering breath and tore off the FTF jacket. He left the lights off and collapsed onto the bed. His fingers dug into his ribs, trying to stop the buzzing, but it didn’t work, and as soon as he closed his eyes, the buzzing rose to screams. He fumbled in the crumpled sheets until he found the music player and shoved the buds into his ears.

  Something landed on the bed, and he rolled over to see Allegro padding toward him, but the cat paused just out of reach, bright eyes narrowing with suspicion, and when he went to pet him, the cat recoiled and darted away.

  They can tell the difference, you know, between good and bad.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered into the dark. “I had no choice.”

  The words left a sick taste in his mouth. How many times had someone said those things to him? It never made a difference. A confession didn’t undo the crime, nothing could, so August folded in on himself and turned the music up until it drowned out everything.

  It was the middle of the night, but he couldn’t sleep.

  The buzzing had finally stopped, but his nerves were frayed, and he padded out into the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of water. He wasn’t thirsty, but something about the gesture calmed him, made him feel normal.

  His attention wandered over a stack of folders on the counter, and he was about to reach for them when he heard something scratching in the dark. August set the glass aside untouched, and found Allegro pacing back and forth in front of Ilsa’s door.

  He knocked, but the door wasn’t pulled all the way shut, and it fell open under his touch. Inside, the lights were off, and the first thing he saw were the stars. Every surface of Ilsa’s room was covered in them, tiny dots of fiber-optic light splashed across the ceiling and walls and floors. His sister stood in front of the window, her strawberry hair loose but strangely weightless, twining through the air around her face. Her fingers were splayed across the window glass, and in her sleeveless shirt, her own tiny black stars trailed across her shoulders and down her arms.

  Two thousand one hundred and sixty-three.

  August couldn’t reconcile the Ilsa in front of him, gentle and kind, with the monster whose true voice somehow leveled a piece of the world and everyone in it.

  Our sister, the Angel of Death.

  He wanted to ask her about that day. Wanted to know what happened, what it felt like, to live with so much death. He wanted to, but he wouldn’t.

  Allegro padded toward the bed, and August was about to retreat when his sister spoke, so softly he almost didn’t hear.

  “It’s falling apart,” she whispered. Her fingers twitched on the glass. August padded forward carefully, quietly. “Crumbling,” continued Ilsa. “Not ashes to ashes and dust to dust, like things should go, but wrong, like when a crack starts deep inside a stone and then spreads and spreads and spreads, and you don’t know until the day it . . .” She pressed against the window, and hairline fractures began to web out across the glass.

  August brought his hand to rest over his sister’s.

  “I can feel the cracks. But I can’t tell . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them wide. “I can’t tell if the cracks are out there or inside of me or both. Is it selfish, to hope they’re out there, August?”

  “No,” he said gently.

  They stood for a
while in silence. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier. “Thirteen. Twenty-six. Two hundred and seventeen.”

  August frowned. “What’s that?”

  “Thirteen Malchai. Twenty-six Corsai. Two hundred and seventeen humans. That’s how many died in Lyle Square.” He stiffened, didn’t realize he was still holding her hand until she let it fall from the glass. “That was its name, before the Barren. They were holding a rally; that’s why there were so many people there. I didn’t mean to do it, August. But I had to do something. Leo wasn’t there, and the rally was turning, and . . . I just wanted to help. I’d never gone dark before. I didn’t know what would happen. Leo makes it look so simple, I thought we all burned the same way, but our brother burns like a torch, and . . .”

  And Ilsa burned like a wildfire.

  And August?

  You could burn so brightly, that’s what Leo told him. If you let yourself.

  “It was night,” whispered Ilsa, “but they all left shadows.” When she met his gaze, her eyes were haunted, dark. “I don’t want to burn again, August, but if the truce breaks, I’ll have to, and more people will die.” She shuddered. “I don’t want them to die because of me.”

  “I know,” he whispered, drawing her away from the splintered window. “We’ll find another way.”

  If it came to war, thought August, how many would he kill to spare her the task? How brightly could he burn? He thought of the knife, of the life lurching through him, the sickness, and Leo’s promise it would get better. Get easier.

  Ilsa sank onto the bed. Allegro hopped up, and nestled against her. She didn’t notice. “I’ll stay with you,” said August. “Until you fall asleep.”

  She curled up on her side, and he sat down on the floor, his head back against her bed. Her fingers wove absently through his hair.

  “I can feel the cracks,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered back. Allegro bounded down, considered him with his green eyes, then curled up in his lap. His chest loosened with relief.

  “Everything breaks. . . ,” murmured his sister.

  “Hush, Ilsa,” he said, looking up at the stars across her ceiling.