This Savage Song

by Victoria Schwab

  August bowed his head, and clenched his teeth, but he could feel the answer clawing its way up his throat, so he hung up.

  “What the hell was that about?” asked Kate as he stared down at the phone. “August?”

  He shook his head. There had been something in Leo’s voice, something he didn’t like. He thought of the way his brother spoke of Kate, as if she deserved to suffer for Harker’s crimes just because she was his daughter. As if crimes were something that could be passed on like a genetic trait.

  “I can’t take you South,” he said grimly.

  “Great,” said Kate, plucking the phone out of his hand. “Well, that’s settled.”

  But it wasn’t. Nothing was settled. Everything was falling out of order, out of balance.

  August closed his eyes to clear his mind and heard Kate typing something rapidly into the phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have to get a message to my father, let him know it was a setup.”

  “What if Sloan sees it?”

  Kate showed him the screen. It was a jumble of letters with dashes scattered between. “When we first came back to the city, after the truce, he taught me a cipher.”

  “That’s . . . sweet?”

  “Hey, kids,” said a waitress, “you’re going to have to order something or go.”

  “Sure thing,” said Kate. “We’re just waiting on a friend.”

  The woman didn’t look like she believed it, but she let them be.

  “What does it say?” asked August. “Your message.”

  “Kidnapped by vicious Sunai. Please start a war in my name.” August frowned. The bells over the front door chimed. “Relax, it’s just my name and this cell number.”

  The smell and the sound hit him at the same time. He caught his breath. “Kitchen.”

  “What?” asked Kate, disabling the phone’s GPS. “Are you hungry?”

  August shook his head. “Go toward the kitchen,” he whispered.

  Gasps were moving through the restaurant. Kate twisted toward the noise, but August pulled her back into the corridor.

  “Everyone,” said a voice like wet marbles in the main room. A Malchai. “Please stay in your seats.”

  “You aren’t supposed to come in here,” said the manager. “We have a deal, and—”

  The clean snap of a breaking neck.

  Chairs scraping and stifled cries as people began to rise.

  “Stop,” ordered the Malchai. “Sit. Down.”

  August cheated another step toward the kitchen. His violin case knocked into a folding tray, nearly toppling it, but Kate lunged and caught the edge before it fell. The moment they were through the kitchen doors, August turned and shoved some kind of cooking tool through the handles.

  “Hey!” shouted one of the chefs with a booming voice. “You can’t be back here.”

  The sound echoed against the stainless steel, and August grabbed Kate’s hand and ran. They reached the back door just as the first Malchai slammed into the one on the restaurant side. The barricade held long enough for them to burst out into the alley.

  “We can’t stay here,” said Kate, scanning for cameras.

  “Is there anywhere we can stay?” asked August, pushing a Dumpster in front of the doors.

  Kate shook her head, but she was already pulling him out of the alley and around the corner, putting as much space between them and the restaurant as possible. As they reached the street, she looped her good arm through his, and pulled him close, nestling into his side. August startled but didn’t pull away. He didn’t understand at first, and then he did. The only people on the street were walking in pairs or groups, and suddenly the two of them looked less like frantic, fleeing teens and more like a young couple. Eyes that might have snagged slid off.

  August bent his head casually, as if sheltering her from a breeze.

  “We have to get out of the red until I hear from my father,” she said.

  We, he noticed. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kate, leaning against him. “Every building in North City has cameras, and soon the streets are going to be swarming with Malchai, and God only knows how many are now working for Sloan.”

  And then, all of a sudden, she stopped.

  “What is it?”

  She spun on him, eyes wide. “The Malchai are working for Sloan.”

  “I thought we already knew that.”

  “Right, but that means we just have to go somewhere the Malchai won’t.” August opened his mouth to ask where in North City the Malchai could possibly refuse to go, but then he followed her gaze down, down to the ground beneath their feet, to the curl of steam rising from a grate in the pavement.

  “Oh hell.”

  “Just for the record,” said August as they climbed down the pipes and bars into the bowels of the subway tunnel, “I think this is a terrible idea.”

  “The Malchai hate the Corsai,” said Kate, dropping the last few feet to the tunnel floor, “and from what I’ve seen, the feeling is mutual.”

  “Yes, well,” August hit the ground beside her, “the Sunai aren’t fond of either of them.”

  “You wanted to come along,” said Kate, secretly relieved he had—the thought of doing this alone made her ill. Her shoulder ached with every breath, and August might be a monster, but at least he didn’t want her dead. The tunnel was dangerously dark; thin streetlight streamed in through the metal grates overhead, and box lights hung at intervals down the tunnel walls. They weren’t UVRs, weren’t even fluorescents, just rectangles emanating a dull red glow.

  Beneath their feet, the floor wasn’t solid; gaps ran down the center and along the walls, the ground plunging away into darkness. August kicked a pebble over the side and it fell, fell, fell for three solid seconds before landing with a splash.

  “What’s down there?”

  Kate dug an HUV from her backpack, and switched it on, angling the beam into the gap. Far below, a broad stretch of water slid past. “Looks like a river.” She tapped her foot on the concrete. “I think this used to be a bridge.”

  August started to say something, but Kate swung around, the beam tearing a single solitary line of compressed light through the tunnel. Her right ear registered nothing but white noise, but with her left she could make out the distant murmur of shadows, the scratch of claws on concrete, and the constant whisper. Judging by August’s face, he heard it, too.

  beat break ruin flesh blood bone beat break

  There were rumors that the Corsai told secrets, that their nonsensical murmurings took shape right before they killed you. Others claimed they merely parroted the sins that made them, whispering atrocities, mimicking the gruesome sounds of metal against skin, breaking bones, muffled screams.

  Now wasn’t the time to lose her nerve. Kate focused on her breathing, reminding herself that Corsai fed on fear. She faced the tunnel, flashlight burrowing away into black, and tried to focus her eyes on the center, the darkest point, as it began to move.

  “I am the daughter of Callum Harker,” she called into the dark.

  Harker, Harker, Harker, it echoed.

  And then the word was taken up and carried, and when it came back, it was different. Not our Harker, Harker, Harker.

  Kate shivered, fought the urge to take a step back, her eyes still trained on the place where her light ended, and the shadows took hold.

  Beside her, August was kneeling, clicking open his case.

  “Do you have another flashlight in there?” she asked softly.

  “No,” he said, “but I have something better.” He held up the violin. “Besides, you said you wanted to hear me play.”

  She remembered the eerie chords, the way the Malchai had screeched and recoiled and covered their ears, the strange calm that settled over her like snow.

  Beyond them, the tunnel’s red glow caught on teeth and claws, and the darkness began to churn. “Remember when I said this was a bad idea?” he muttered,
fixing a strap to the case and swinging it over his shoulder.

  “The good news,” she said, gripping the light, “is that I don’t think they’re going to tell Sloan we’re here.”

  “And the bad news?” asked August, tucking the violin under his chin.

  Kate swung the flashlight in an arc, and there was a flutter, like wings, as the Corsai parted and reformed. “The bad news,” she said, “is I don’t think they’re very happy to see us.”

  She slashed again, and the beam must have finally connected with a creature’s head, because a single shadow screamed and toppled forward from the mass, white eyes winking out, teeth raining down on the damp floor like loose stones.

  “Any time now,” snapped Kate as the Corsai rattled and hissed.

  “Can’t rush art,” said August as he rested the bow on the strings. The darkness barreled toward them like a train, edges raking the air, but just as Kate faltered and took a step back, he finally began to play.

  A single, resonant note swept through the tunnel, and everything stopped.

  Sound vibrated through the air as he drew a second sound, and then a third, the chords fusing together as they formed. The music was like a blade, knifing through the dark. The melody sang through her head, and the Corsai arced back as one, as if repelled by a single, massive beam. They hissed like steam, and broke apart, and fell away beneath the music, and Kate could feel her thoughts begin to fall, too, her head swimming with the notes the way it had at Colton.

  Now, in the darkness, she could see the music, too. It threaded through the air like wisps of sunlight, ribbons of color that twisted and swirled and held the shadows at bay. She reeled, suddenly dizzy, and her feet dragged to a stop. She couldn’t move, couldn’t look away. Her senses tangled in the chords as the song filled her head, swallowed her sight.

  And then she looked down and saw that she was glowing, too, a strange pale light rising to the surface of her skin. She marveled at it, at the way it moved when she did, danced like steam, even though it was beneath the surface. It was like silver and smoke, pulsing faintly in time with her heart.

  Was this her life?

  Was this her soul?

  In the distance, August’s voice reached her, soft and fluid and woven through the music. “Come on, Kate.”

  The music faltered, fell away, leaving only the echoes as he reached for her arm, and in that moment she found enough sense to be afraid.

  “Don’t,” she said, trying to pull away before he could steal her soul. She was too slow, but when his fingers closed around her wrist, nothing happened.

  “It’s okay,” he said, his voice careful, taut. “I can’t hurt you. . . .” She looked down at the place where his skin met hers, the way the silver light seemed to bend around his fingers like a stream around a stone.

  “But you need to stay close.” He drew her hand to the edge of his coat and picked up the song before the last tendrils of music could fade from the air. “Follow me.”

  And the truth was, Kate probably would have followed him right over a cliff, as long as he kept playing. The words left his mouth and tangled with the music and became real, became truth. The two of them moved through the tunnel, the shifting center in a sphere of melody and light. Kate’s mind sank. She tried to swim to the surface but it kept stretching out of reach. It was like the cusp between waking and sleep, where you couldn’t hold on to your thoughts. Couldn’t hold on to anything.

  But she held on to him.

  The darkness thinned as they reached a station, the tunnel unfolding into an arched ceiling, a set of platforms. Tiles glittered like teeth as the light from August’s song reflected off them.

  CASTER WAY, the sign flickered in the ghostly glow. They were heading northeast.

  The subway tunnels thinned and opened and thinned again as tracks merged and diverged and merged again. They passed a depot of darkened cars disabled until the morning shift.

  Kate wasn’t sure how long the song lasted. She couldn’t hold on to the minutes, felt herself say something, felt her mouth forming words, felt them spill out over her lips, but she couldn’t hear her own voice, only the music, and if August heard her, he didn’t respond, didn’t turn. He kept his head forward, violin up, and hands moving.

  This wasn’t the boy from the bleachers or the one folded in on himself in her car. This wasn’t the one coughing black blood onto the pavement or tied to the half-constructed wall.

  This was a different August Flynn.

  Confident.

  Mesmerizing.

  And Kate felt her lips forming those words, too, but she was cut off by a sharp twang as one of the violin strings broke. August faltered, his face flashing with panic. He started up again, and the melody returned, still entrancing, but there was something . . . thinner about it. Fewer threads of light wove around them, and as the glow caught August’s face she saw a line of worry.

  And then, too soon, a second string broke. August caught his breath. Now the sound was noticeably weaker. She felt its presence retreating from her mind and had a feeling that was a bad sign.

  “August,” she said, an edge of warning in her voice.

  “I never play this long,” he explained, eyes narrowed in focus. “My song needs all four strings.”

  She could see the strain on the final two, the place where the bow met the string pricking with light, like heat. The threads in the air were starting to dim, and the darkness—and the things that writhed inside—began to press forward.

  Up ahead, the tunnel opened onto another cavernous space. A shape glinted in the middle. Not eyes, or teeth, but the metal corners of a train car.

  Something scratched the walls of the tunnel at Kate’s back, the skritch skritch cutting through August’s faltering song. She didn’t turn. She wouldn’t turn. Seeing wouldn’t help. It would only make it real.

  “Kate,” said August, right before the third string broke.

  “Yeah?”

  “Run.”

  They ran.

  As fast as they could, the last tendrils of music and light trailing behind them like streamers, dissolving too quickly into the dark. The music had kept the Corsai at bay, but they were patient, they were waiting, and as soon as the song gave way, they were on them, surging forward in a mass of claws and teeth.

  August kept his eyes ahead, and Kate slashed with the flashlight, trying to keep them back as they raced for the subway car. They reached the door hand in hand moments before the first monsters reached them.

  August leaped up the steps, but Kate stumbled beside him, letting out a cry before he could haul her up. He threw his arms around her, shielding her body with his own as the Corsai hit the train car in a wave of breakruinbone. They hissed and tore at the air, claws raking the steel, but they wouldn’t touch August, so they couldn’t reach Kate.

  “The door!” he shouted as a creature tried to tear the violin from his hands. “Hurry!”

  Kate was shaking and pale, but she twisted in his arms, curled her fingers around the door, and pulled.

  The metal slid sideways with a resistant groan. They tumbled in and tried to force it closed. A Corsai’s clawed arm stretched through, but when August pressed his hand against the shadowed flesh the thing recoiled as if burned, and the door ground shut.

  Kate and August stood in the darkened car, gasping for breath as the shadows swarmed outside, gnashing and throwing themselves against the Plexiglas, but the walls were striped with iron, and soon the monsters shrank back into the tunneled dark. Their scent lingered, a mix of ash and damp decay.

  Kate collapsed onto a bench seat. “You were right,” she said. “Worst plan ever.”

  “Told you,” said August, sinking onto his knees. He examined the violin, wincing at the sight of the large scratch running down the wood. He dug around in the case until he found the pouch of new strings,and set to work by the light of Kate’s HUV beam.

  “Why the violin?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  August didn’t
look up. “Sunai use music to bring a soul to surface,” he said, freeing the broken strings.

  “I get that,” she said. “But why a violin? Can you use anything?” She drummed fingers on the subway seat. “If you made a beat, would that count as music?”

  August shook his head. “Hold the light a little higher.” He hooked the first string and threaded it through the peg.

  “We each have a song,” he explained. “A piece of music that belongs only to us, something we’re born with, like a fingerprint.” He tightened the string. “Leo can use almost anything to play his song—guitar, piano, flute—but Ilsa’s doesn’t work with anything except her voice. And my song only comes out right when I use this.” He plucked at the one taut string. “My sister thinks it’s about beauty. That our music correlates to the first beautiful sound we heard. I heard a violin. She heard someone singing.”

  “And Leo?”

  August hesitated. By Ilsa’s logic, Leo must have found beauty in everything. But he couldn’t imagine his brother seeing the world as anything but broken. Something to be fixed.

  “Who knows . . .”

  He worked in silence for a few moments, replacing the second and third strings.

  “There’s a big difference, you know,” said Kate, “between can’t and won’t.”

  “What?” He glanced over. Even in the near-black car, she looked pale.

  “When you took my hand, you told me not to worry. You didn’t say you wouldn’t hurt me. You said you couldn’t.” August turned his attention back to the violin. This wasn’t the time.

  “I’ve seen footage,” she continued, a strange tremor in her voice, “of Leo reaping. He touches people and takes their souls. But when you touched me, nothing happened. Why?”

  August hesitated, tightening the final string. “We can only take the souls of those who’ve harmed others.”

  “I’ve harmed people,” said Kate defensively, as if it were some kind of badge.

  “Not like that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because your shadow doesn’t have a life of its own, and your soul doesn’t glow red.”

  Kate went quiet for a few moments, then said, “What do your tallies really stand for?”