Soul Song

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Kitala fell several times before she found her balance. M’cal sensed it had less to do with weariness than a sudden loss of adrenaline and the punch of shattered nerves. Either way, the last time she stumbled it was quite clear she was almost ready to give up and crawl. M’cal did not want to see that. He wrapped his arm around her waist, helping her stand, holding her steady.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled, her hand buried in the front of his shirt. A tremor raced through her body, a bone-deep chill. Her fiddle case banged against his burning arm.

  He grunted. “Can you walk? My car—”

  “I can get there,” she interrupted, shivering. “Just point me in the right direction.”

  They sloshed out of the ocean, dripping, and walked from the beach to the grass, cutting across the small park to the road. M’cal let go of Kitala when he thought she could stand on her own. He did not want to, but he needed the distance. He touched his bracelet. The metal was warm.

  They arrived at the road and turned left. M’cal focused on staying upright. His clothing was soaked in seawater; until he stripped down and dried off, he was going to be very uncomfortable.

  “What’s your name?” Kitala asked. Her teeth chattered.

  “M’cal,” he answered, without thinking.

  “Interesting,” she said, rubbing her arms. “That doesn’t sound like a western name.”

  “I did not choose it.”

  “I didn’t mean anything.” She gave him a curious look, her gaze flickering down to his throat. She seemed to flinch, though it might have been the cold. Glancing away from him, she said, “My name is Kit. Kit Bell.”

  Not Kitala? M’cal wanted to ask, but he stayed silent.

  The street was dark. M’cal heard men talking, glass shattering, but nothing near. No sign of that last gunman. He moved a little closer to Kitala. She glanced up at him, a question in her eyes. No fear. Nothing like that. He thought of the violence she had experienced—the violence she had seen him commit—and wondered how she could still be so calm. How she could look at him as a man, a person, when no one else seemed to.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For everything.”

  He could feel the monster inside his throat, waiting. “Do not thank me.”

  Again, that sharpness in her eyes. “Why?”

  He didn’t answer. He saw his car, parked beneath a tree, between a truck and a rusty minivan. He had a Porsche, a gleaming black Cayman. A gift from the witch for services rendered. She bought him everything he needed, but only because she knew he hated it. His clothes, the vehicle—all were reminders that she owned him. That he was her toy.

  M’cal unlocked the car and gave Kitala the keys. “Take it. Go.”

  She stood there, staring. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  He opened the driver-side door. “It is safer for you without me.”

  Kit stared. “You saved my life.”

  M’cal grabbed her arm. His palm burned, but he held on tight and tried shoving her inside the Porsche, mercilessly using his strength. She slammed one foot against the side of the car and pushed back. M’cal leaned close to her ear. She smelled like the sea.

  “I was sent here to kill you,” he rasped, jerking her around to face him. “I am still supposed to kill you. And I will, if you do not leave this place. Right now.”

  She did not blink, though he could hear her heart fluttering, wild. “You rescued me.”

  “No,” he breathed. “Do not trust that.”

  “I trust what I see.” Kit’s voice hardened. “I trust what I feel.”

  “You should not trust. Eyes betray. As do hearts.” M’cal suppressed a shiver, desperation rising in his throat. His heart ached. The bracelet grew even warmer. “Go back to your hotel. Pack your bags. Leave this city. Get as far from here as you can.”

  Horror flickered through her gaze; he steeled himself against it, pushing again on her body. But she still resisted.

  “No,” she breathed, fear in her voice. “No, I won’t be bullied. Tell me what’s going on. Were you part of the group who kidnapped Alice?”

  “I do not know any Alice,” M’cal said wearily. “Just you. You were my target. I would have taken you after your concert, at the hotel. I parked there, waiting for you. I had a good view of the street. I saw everything, and followed.”

  Kitala shivered. M’cal reached past her into the car. She swayed away from him, but that was all. So stubborn. It was going to get her killed.

  He had a coat in the front seat. He did not need one—the cold rarely affected him—but he had been caught naked enough times leaving the sea that having a spare set of clothes seemed practical. He found the plastic bag holding his extra pants and shirt. Keeping those, he draped the coat over Kit’s slender shoulders. She let him, without comment. The black wool hung loose and huge. His hands stayed on her shoulders, burning and burning. Right through to his heart.

  “Who hired you?” she asked again, keeping completely still.

  M’cal did not answer. This was taking too long. He opened his mouth and began to sing.

  He did not steal her soul; that monster still slept. What poured through his throat was another kind of beast, elegant and full of the old dark deep. A siren call, an incubus song, a lure to rocks and storm and dream. His heart pounded a triple beat, inhuman; quick and strong.

  Kitala swayed, eyelids fluttering. Her lips parted. M’cal remembered the taste of her mouth and found himself bending close, his throat humming his wordless song, wrapping her mind in his need, his desire for her to—go, go now, forget me, be safe and forget—enter the car and drive away.

  I do not know you, he thought. But I will miss you.

  He could not help himself. M’cal kissed her again, for real this time. It hurt, but her lips were warmer than the burning, and her breath still tasted of mint. He did not press—the contact was light—but she leaned into him, and through his song he heard another melody, a counter harmony. Kitala was singing softly, barely louder than his own deep-throated whispering hum.

  He remembered hearing her sing once before, in the shipping yard; it had distracted him, made him falter. It did the same again. There was something in her voice, something he could not name, a sister to the notes plucked from her fiddle: a strong and soft and powerful music. It lulled him, just the same as he was doing to her; except she was still not moving, not obeying, and he realized, quite suddenly, that he was no longer in pain.

  Touching her. Still wet with seawater. Not in pain.

  He broke off the kiss and stumbled back. Kitala opened her eyes and stopped singing. The pain returned, but only just; the discomfort was a dull echo of what it had been.

  “What did you do to me?” M’cal whispered, staring. The bracelet thrummed against his skin.

  Kitala touched her mouth, eyes wide. “Nothing.”

  M’cal took a step, then stopped, holding back. “You sang.”

  “So did you.” Her voice shook. She jerked her head toward the shipping yard. “You’ve done a lot of that tonight. A lot of strange things.”

  No stranger than you, he thought, fingering the bracelet. It made his skin tingle, the sensation traveling right down to the bone. In his throat, the monster stirred.

  The witch. He had taken too long to come home.

  “Go,” M’cal muttered, shutting his eyes, fighting the compulsion. He succeeded—shockingly—but only for a moment. Whatever immunity Kitala had given him was slipping fast. Too fast.

  And she was still too close. She said his name. He could feel her reaching out to touch him.

  No. No, no, no—

  “Go!” he screamed. Kitala flinched, and he rushed her, stopping less than a foot away with his fists raised. This time she did not argue. She slipped backward into the car, slammed the door and locked it. Stared at him through the glass for one long moment, confusion and anger in her eyes. M’cal pointed to the road, hand shaking, and she started the engine. Gave him one last look that made his heart ache.<
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  She pulled out and drove away. Fast. M’cal watched the brake lights disappear. The only shred of hope he had found in years, and he had just let her go.

  Better than stealing her soul.

  The urge to follow was overwhelming. Even after years of being subjected to it, M’cal still did not understand the witch’s curse; only that she had set him like a hound to the scent, and while distance would lessen the compulsion to hunt Kitala, as long as the witch wanted her, the desire would remain. Unfortunately, there was a part of M’cal that wanted to find her. Hoped he would as long as he did not hurt her. Poor chance of that.

  He started walking down the road. It was late, and the air was quiet. He wanted to stop, but his legs were compelled to keep moving. He still carried his bag of clothes. He yanked his shirt over his head without stopping and tossed it on the ground. Dressed in the new button-up. The material was dry and soft. His skin felt better, though the lower half of his body would have to wait for dry clothes until the compulsion faded. If it ever would. He would not put it past the witch to keep him walking until morning.

  M’cal could think of worse ways to spend his time.

  Through the trees he could see the shipping containers; the distant bulk of the cruise ships. No streetlights around him. The air was cool and smelled of oil and metal; the pavement was wet from the earlier evening rain.

  He pretended not to notice the light tread of footsteps behind him. Nor did he turn when something cold and hard suddenly pressed against the back of his head. A long, strong arm grabbed his shoulder, holding him steady. M’cal managed to stand still, but his legs twitched, feet scuffing the ground.

  “Fidgety,” said a low voice in his ear. “Guilty conscience?”

  “No,” M’cal said.

  “You killed some friends of mine,” said the unseen man. “Don’t know how you did it, but it was good work. Good enough that I’m gonna have to fuck you up the ass with some bullets.”

  “Okay,” M’cal said.

  “Okay,” echoed the man, laughing quietly. “Right. But first, you tell me about that bitch. You tell me where she lives. And maybe I’ll put the gun in your mouth instead.”

  “Who wants her dead?” M’cal asked.

  “I do,” said the man. “All part of the job.”

  “Surely you can tell me more.”

  “‘Surely you can tell me more,’” the man minced. “Jesus. You sound like such a fag. Maybe I’ll make you suck my dick for the information, huh? I bet you’d like that.”

  “We should do something about the gun first,” M’cal said.

  And he began to sing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kit remembered the first time she saw a murder.

  She was six. Her bedroom was on the second floor of a house her parents rented on the outskirts of Nashville. That was the bad part of town, she later learned, though she did not know the difference or care when she was young. Just that for the first time they had heat in winter and food on the table at every meal, and her mother did not cry when she came home from her job at night. Nashville was a good place. The people liked jazz as much as country, even if the singer was a black woman from Louisiana. Even if her husband was a white fiddler from the Great Smoky Mountains. Even if folks were not supposed to mingle that way.

  It was at night. Kit was sitting up in her bed, which was right below the window overlooking Montgomery Street. The moon was out. She saw a woman walking alone down the sidewalk. A man ran toward her. The woman did not turn. He shouted something—her name, maybe—and she stopped, looked.

  Then she died. Shot in the face. The man kept on running.

  Later, the police questioned Kit. A crime of passion, they told her parents, but that did not mean anything. Not when she could still see the moonlit explosion of the woman’s head, the splatter of blood, brain.

  Everything changed after that. Or, at least, one thing had changed: her vision.

  Kit drove the Porsche fast. Her neck throbbed as if little needles made of fire were tattooing the wound. A doctor was out of the question. Someone with a sharp eye might recognize a near miss with a bullet, and she could not risk anyone filing a police report.

  You’re in deep shit, she told herself. So deep. And it’s only going to get worse.

  Much worse, if her instincts were right. And they usually were.

  Kit located the road into downtown, following her memories of maps and landmarks, and found Hotel Georgia after only several missteps and a mile or two spent reacquainting herself with a manual transmission. She parked M’cal’s car across the street, which still had some late-night foot traffic. But down the road, where the old man had died, and where Kit and Alice had run, the sidewalk was quiet, empty. Body and trauma were both gone, with only Kit’s ghost of a memory to tell her it had happened. She wondered if Officer Yu had been the sniper. Or someone else. The dark alley stared at her, and Kit tore her gaze away, looking at her hands clutching an unfamiliar steering wheel. She tried not to shake.

  Her fingers hurt when she finally pried them loose, but even though part of her wanted to run, she took her time and searched the car’s interior for anything revealing. She found nothing—except the registration in the glove compartment, which listed a Michael Oberon as the Porsche’s owner.

  “Michael Oberon,” she murmured. Not M’cal.

  But that’s his name. That’s the name that suits.

  Whatever. It did not matter. After tonight she would never see him again, and that was good. He was a dead man walking. Same with every other person on the planet, but having it shoved in Kit’s face—the violence and certainty of it—hurt more than she wanted to admit. A lifetime of trying to desensitize herself, and in one night all those walls were crumbling down.

  She tried to harden herself. It should have been easy. The man had said outright that he had been sent to take her life—something that should have made her run the first time he said it, though she had not. Instead she had engaged him, pressing him with questions because his eyes told a different story than his voice, and the way he touched her, protected her, spoke a different language than death.

  And if someone had hired him to kill her, why and who was a mystery. Kit had no stalkers, never received obscene letters, rarely had people asking for her autograph; she was boring offstage, plain and simple.

  Not so boring. Not if people knew what your eyes tell you.

  Which made Kit stop for a moment, trying to recall if there was anyone—anyone—who might possibly know her secret. Only her parents and grandmother came to mind; she had always been careful with anyone else. And she trusted her family above all others to keep secret what she could do. Not that it was enough to kill over.

  M’cal would not have killed you, whispered a persistent little voice. He saved you. He was still trying to save you when he scared you away.

  Kit just wished she understood why. She could still feel the warmth and pressure of his mouth, the strength of his arms. All of it, burned into her memory. Just like his face. And his future murder.

  Blood filled her mind; she grasped for something else, anything.

  Blue eyes, she thought. The man—Michael, M’cal—had blue eyes the color of a cold winter sky, clear and sharp. Unforgiving eyes, hard eyes, but with flickers of such raw emotion, Kit could still feel her heart aching for him. She did not understand her feelings. She could blame her lack of fear on the fact that he had saved her life, but as for rest …

  Feeling anything at all for him was dangerous. M’cal was not safe.

  Safe enough to keep you alive. On land and underwater. Another riddle Kit did not feel like contemplating.

  She left the Porsche’s keys inside the glove compartment and locked the car, then went up to her hotel room, looking over her shoulder the entire time. Changed clothes. Packed. Checked out over the phone and asked the front desk to call her a cab. Realized, at the last moment, that she still had M’cal’s coat. It was a nice big coat. Her own was still wet. She hes
itated, then slipped her arms into the loose, long sleeves. Found herself imagining, for a moment, that it was his body keeping her warm. M’cal had radiated a great deal of heat. She remembered that, too. Along with darker things.

  Kit did not go to the airport. It crossed her mind, for all of ten seconds. Instead, she traveled a grand distance of five blocks and paid cash for a room at the Hyatt. The clerk gave her a strange look but said nothing. Kit got her key and fled up the elevator. By the time she reached her room, she had begun to shiver. Inside, with the door locked behind her, the shivering turned into a teeth-jarring shudder that racked her bones with violent chills.

  Kit dumped all her belongings on the floor and collapsed on the bed. Her heart hammered against her ribs; her head was dizzy, it was hard to breathe, and each rough inhalation managed to feel like the prelude to vomit. Murder, kidnapping, mayhem—all were finally catching up with her. Kit felt like she was having a heart attack. Drowning. Her body no longer belonged to her. The terrible throbbing in her neck did not help either. She probably had an infection.

  It’s just panic, she told herself, trying to catch a breath. Nothing more. Calm. Think calm.

  But thinking good thoughts was not enough, nor was the tune she hummed, and after a brief internal struggle she crawled off the bed for her purse. She found her Xanax in a small bottle at the bottom. She kept the medicine for air travel, but this was as good an exception as any. Kit popped half of a pill in her mouth and let it dissolve, grimacing at the bitter taste.

  It helped, though. Her heart began to slow. She stopped shivering. Breathed easier, without that frightening tightness in her chest, or the nausea. The medication made her drowsy, too. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  She dreamed. Sharp dreams, strong; more vision than fantasy, which made her afraid. She dreamed like she was awake, and she knew the feeling for what it was: a blood legacy, like her glimpses of murder.