Soul Song

by Marjorie M. Liu

Koni parked the car in front of the Youth Center. The lights were off. All kinds of activity on the street—business as usual, with the women strutting tall and the brake lights shining. M’cal did not particularly want to interact with anyone. Too many people knew him, and it had been difficult enough explaining his past circumstances to Kitala. She had not judged him—not that he could tell—but revealing to her that he had been forced to work as a whore—even if just for show, as a lure to prey—would be a considerably different experience than explaining it to a group of strange men.

  But he and Koni did not walk to the street corner. They strolled in the opposite direction, where the shadows gathered more thickly and the tattered doorways of abandoned businesses were filled with skinny kids on cardboard mats, syringes in hand. It was so easy to get needles in this city; just as easy as heroin.

  “Any reason why we’re going in this direction?” M’cal asked.

  “We’re grasping at straws right now, but if Alice had trouble in this neighborhood, then that’s where we start. I need a place to change, though.” Koni smiled grimly. “It’s amazing what people will say in front of a bird.”

  M’cal would have responded, but he saw something across the street that made him stop. It was a dented brown Cadillac, parked by the curb, and inside the passenger seat was a boy with a Mohawk. Billy.

  “What’s wrong?” Koni asked. M’cal said nothing, still staring, watching the man behind the wheel. His face was twisted and angry. Billy said something, shaking his head, holding up his hands.

  Fear. M’cal knew what Billy’s fear looked like. He knew what all those children on that old street corner looked like when someone was hurting them. M’cal had put a stop to it as best he could. Protected them. Killed a man to make his point. The one killing he did not regret.

  He started running across the street, heard Koni say something but ignored it. He reached the Cadillac in seconds, ran around to the passenger seat, and tried to open the door. It was locked. He rapped on the glass, and Billy looked at him with a mixture of shock and intense relief. Billy tried to unlock the door, but the man behind the wheel held him back. M’cal put his elbow through the window. It hurt, but the glass broke. He stuck his hand in and unlocked the door.

  Billy clambered out so fast he almost fell. The driver followed, rushing out of the car. He was a short man, thick with muscle turning to fat. Bald, snub nose, eyes like a shrew, and enough rolls in his chin to almost qualify for a baker’s dozen. His belt was undone. M’cal felt sick.

  He touched Billy’s arm. “Did he hurt you?”

  The boy shook his head, but he was scared, pale and shaking. By daylight he could act so tough, like nothing bothered him, but he was probably softer than some of the fourteen-year-old girls M’cal had seen hustling a mile west some nights.

  The driver stalked around the hood of the car. “You fucking bastard. You broke my fucking window!”

  “You were scaring the boy,” M’cal said.

  The man’s chest heaved. He started fastening his belt. “Little fuck was cheating me. And what are you, his pimp? Fuck you. You’re gonna pay for that window, you fag.”

  “Now, that is some fucking foul language,” Koni said, jogging up. “You might want to watch your mouth, mister.”

  The man sneered at him and looked at Billy. “Think you and I are done? I’ll be seeing you again, kid.”

  M’cal’s hand shot out and caught the man around the neck. He slammed him on the hood of his car and held him there.

  “You touch that boy again and I will rip off your testicles,” M’cal said. “I will not be squeamish. I will not hesitate. You are just a body to me. Do you understand?” He reached into the man’s back pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to see the driver’s license. He memorized the name and address. “Mr. Daniel Bodine. I know where you live now. Remember that, should you decide to be stupid again.”

  M’cal let go of the man, who scrambled sideways, almost falling over his feet in his haste to escape. He crawled back into his car, started the engine, and peeled away.

  “I guess you made your point,” Koni said dryly. Billy snickered, but it was a weak sound, and M’cal turned to him. The boy’s demeanor completely changed; he shrank a little, his face crumpling with embarrassment, shame.

  “Don’t say it,” Billy told him, fidgeting. “I owe you again.”

  M’cal suddenly felt very tired; his heart ached for Kitala. “You do not owe me. You never did. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

  The boy shrugged, but it was tense, brittle. “I thought the police got you.”

  M’cal remembered hearing the boy yell. “Do you know how they found us?”

  He shook his head. “That bitch cop rolled around, started talking directly to Nico. You know, that new blond guy. Says some suspect was seen in the neighborhood. Describes your friend. Bastard gave her everything, even your room number. Fucker. I heard shots after that, but no one ever came down.” He straightened up and said, “I called your friend’s hotel and left a message. Did she get it?”

  “No,” M’cal said. “What did you find?”

  Billy glanced up the street; he still seemed nervous. “Nothing much. Just that I talked to some people who actually dealt with that lady you’re looking for. No one knew she was gone. No one knew why. If she was into anything, she kept it real quiet. I even talked to some friends of friends of local gangs, and they don’t know shit either. The only shit going down is with some drugs, but from what I heard, that lady never bitched about no drugs. She focused on kids like me.”

  “So either someone is wrong, lying, or Alice was much more secretive than anyone realized.” Koni sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Great.”

  “There’s something else,” Billy said, and his voice dropped to a whisper, his eyes darting nervously. “Might not be anything official going on, but some people have been going missing. Regulars, folks who used to come around here a lot. You’d recognize some of them, Mikey.”

  Probably because he was the reason they had gone missing. On the nights the witch made him hunt—and there had been more and more of them over the past several months—every encounter had resulted in the taking of a soul. Not one had slipped past him. Not until Kitala.

  But all he did was nod and say, “Thank you, Billy. I appreciate this.”

  “You saved my life,” said the boy solemnly.

  Koni stepped closer, and much to M’cal’s surprise said, “You going to hit the street again after we leave you?”

  “Have to,” Billy told him warily. “Gotta have a place to sleep.”

  “Not just jump a high?”

  Billy pushed up his sleeves and showed off his unmarked arms. “I don’t do that shit.”

  “Other ways to do shit,” Koni said easily. “You were doing one of them not two minutes ago.”

  He bristled. “If you’re gonna lecture me—”

  “No,” both men said at the same time. They glanced at each other, and then Koni slowly reached inside his jacket and pulled out a surprisingly large wad of cash. “You’re not a dumb fuck, are you, kid?”

  “No,” whispered Billy, staring at the money.

  “M’cal?”

  “Sometimes,” he said grimly. “He will not leave this lifestyle.”

  “Then you’ll die,” Koni said to Billy with unflinching certainty. He peeled off five one-hundred-dollar bills and gave them to the boy. “Take a couple nights off … if your work ethic will let you.”

  Billy gave him a dirty look, but he pocketed the cash.

  M’cal said, “You never accepted my money.”

  “You’re a friend,” replied the boy, which made little sense to M’cal but seemed to satisfy some kind of morality within Billy’s mind. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he glanced at Koni, shuffled his feet, and walked away without another word.

  M’cal felt Koni looking at him. “Thank you for giving him the cash.”

  “I would have
given him more if I thought he would use it to start something new.”

  “He is damaged,” M’cal said simply, watching Billy turn the corner. “If I had more time …” He stopped, shaking his head. “Go ahead and ask.”

  “None of my business,” Koni replied quietly. “Besides, I see Hari and Amiri.”

  M’cal looked across the street. Sure enough, the two men were there, watching. Hard to miss them; Hari almost seven feet tall and built like a fighter. Amiri was also tall, but not nearly so broad. Slender almost.

  “Trouble?” Hari asked when Koni and M’cal crossed the street to join them.

  “Only that no one knows what happened to Alice,” Koni said. “What did you guys find?”

  Amiri smiled. “According to our contact, Officer Yu and her partner have been the subject of an investigation for quite some time. They are suspected of physical abuse, colluding with known criminals, and making false arrests. No evidence, though.”

  “Nor did they report for work today,” rumbled Hari. “They are not responding to any calls.”

  “I smell the end of two careers,” Koni said.

  “If they are not killed first for their failure,” M’cal added. “Not only did they lose Kitala, but they failed to bring back my head.”

  “We found something else,” Hari said. “Far more disturbing.”

  “A rash of disappearances,” Amiri added. “Men and women vanishing. Not all the victims are from this city—in fact, most of them were visitors—but there have been twelve taken, including Alice, and all the people missing are relatively well off, with no previous inclination to simply disappear.”

  “None of them the kind to hire prostitutes?” Koni glanced sideways at M’cal.

  Hari frowned. “Unlikely. Why?”

  “Other folks going missing, that’s all.” The shape-shifter smiled grimly. “What’s the connection between the cops and the out-of-towners?”

  Amiri sighed. “There doesn’t seem to be one. The possibility that it is all related is only conjecture. But our contact said that some in the department have begun linking them up, speculating that it might be the work of a serial killer.”

  “Serial killers are more consistent,” Koni replied. “You said there’s no link between these people.”

  “None on the surface.”

  “Alice is a youth counselor,” M’cal said.

  Amiri shrugged. “According to our contact, she is also extremely wealthy. Her family is American, based in New York City. She used to be an art dealer.”

  “Huh,” Koni replied. “What is a New York art dealer doing in a neighborhood like this, working in a youth center?”

  M’cal wondered the same thing. “Did the officer know how long she has been here?”

  “Her family reported that she left home nearly six months ago, but that it was only in the past three that she seemed to settle in Vancouver. It was a hasty departure, without warning. She recently requested that her uncle John come visit. It, too, was spur of the moment.”

  “Woman goes looking for herself,” Koni suggested.

  “Or woman goes looking for something else,” M’cal replied. “Kitala said that Alice was not surprised that someone was planning on killing her.”

  “She might have been trying to escape someone,” Hari said.

  “Someone who can pay off cops? Hire men to kill? Who knows enough about me to shoot first for my throat, and then remove my head?” M’cal thought of Kitala. “I do not like this.”

  Amiri’s hip buzzed; his cellphone, ringing. He answered quickly, listening for only a moment before his jaw tightened and his eyes flashed so bright and hot, M’cal flinched, blinking hard.

  “Kit has been taken,” said Amiri. “Rik is injured.”

  M’cal went very cold, very still. “Who?”

  The shape-shifter hesitated. “It was a man. Large, strong, dressed in gray. Rik says his mouth was odd.”

  M’cal said nothing. His face gave away nothing. Koni said, “I’m flying,” and he pulled off his jacket and handed it to Amiri. He tossed M’cal the keys to the car. “You know your way back?”

  “Yes,” M’cal lied.

  Koni ran into a nearby alley, stripping off his clothes and tossing them to the ground. Golden light seared from his eyes; a thread of black feathers sprouted from his hairline down his throat. And then he disappeared into the shadows, and M’cal took off running, the other men just ahead of him.

  He quickly lost track of Hari and Amiri—their car was down another street—but he felt little concern about that. He was not going back to the house. He knew exactly where Kitala had been taken.

  You could have told them. Asked for their help. You need their help.

  But he knew how delighted the witch would be to find actual shape-shifters, and while they might prove more difficult to enslave than M’cal—who had loved, been blind, given himself freely—he was certain she would not give up such diverse specimens without a fight.

  And he did not wish that on anyone. Not ever.

  The monster still slept; his bracelet tingled, but remained cold. M’cal gunned the engine of the car, driving straight to the first sea access he could find—a tiny pier off Gastown, near the heliport. He abandoned the car at the side of the road, ignoring the sidewalk as he cut straight over the grass, racing down a steep hill that bled right into the sea. The dock was on his left, but he ignored it. He could hear music. He could feel the water reaching for him; and when he jumped from the shore he sensed, for just one moment, arms spread, ready to hold him.

  And they did. He melted into the sea, diving as deep as he could, shooting away from the shore. He tore off his clothes, transforming as he did, and there was no pain—nothing at all but the cool sweetness of the ocean as it caressed and held him. He inhaled so deeply his chest ached, but each breath coursed into his lungs like the cold, clear, crystalline air—shining, shining—of some snowy mountain peak, the kind his father and mother had taken him to while he was very young.

  He felt young, being in the water. He felt like he was home. Finally, home. It was, he thought, almost as if the curse had been lifted.

  Almost.

  He swam hard, his body obeying him with perfect ease. His bracelet tingled, but instead of ignoring it, he embraced the sensation, sinking deep within the bond. He let it lead, felt the pull—not as a compulsion, but as merely a line between his body and the witch. For once, useful. For once, something he was glad of.

  He heard music, voices—very distant. He sang back, for the first time in years—and the sound cut through the water like the lilting, curling bellow of a crooning whale. Movement on his left. Brother seal. M’cal reached out, and the animal skimmed against his hand.

  The seal stayed with M’cal as he soared through the cold, dark waters, gliding and twisting. Within minutes he was joined by others, cutting the shadows, batting fish into his face. He swatted them away. It was just play, but he could not afford to be slowed down, and after a moment he barked an order into the water, and the seals fell into more orderly ranks.

  Again, music. M’cal let out another cry, listening to it echo rich and golden through the water. If there were any marine biologists listening, no doubt they would be baffled, but let them chalk it up to a new species, or to a fluke in the machinery.

  The pull in the bracelet strengthened, tingling up his arm into his neck. Still no compulsion. The witch was alive, though; he knew that for certain. He let himself sink into instinct, following a trail through the currents. Close to the piers, the water began to run oily. Too many boats, too much city; but no complaints.

  He found the boat. It was moored almost twenty feet from the closest dock. Its anchor was down, but as he swam around the boat he felt the vibration of the engine humming through the waters. Ready to run, if need be. He thought of Kitala—imagined Ivan’s hands on her—and his rage and fear narrowed to a place in his soul so concentrated, so vile, he thought himself capable of killing with a thought, a breath, o
ne beat of his heart.

  If Kitala was hurt, if she was dead …

  He stopped his thought, and swam around to the ladder. He transformed, regaining his legs, gills receding into his body, and felt Brother Seal brush against his legs like a warm spirit. M’cal poked his head above water. He heard nothing, but that was typical. And likely the witch already knew he was there. No need for subterfuge.

  She will take your body all over again. She will compel you to hurt Kitala. You should have asked those shape-shifters to come and help you. You should have never left her alone.

  Too late for any of that. M’cal had to handle this on his own.

  He climbed out of the sea, dripping and naked, and walked onto the boat. He found the witch immediately. She sat in a chair, a candle burning on the small glass table beside her. Despite the cool air, she wore a silver bikini and nothing else. In one hand she held a glass of wine, and in the other a gun.

  “I should have learned a lesson from my sister,” she murmured, and shot him through the heart.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kit’s grandmother woke her up. Another waking dream.

  No veranda, no sweet swamp; just darkness, the oubliette. Kit sat naked on some hard surface that looked like nothing more than another part of the endless void. In front of her, laid flat and gleaming golden like a holy relic, was her fiddle and bow. And across from that was Old Jazz Marie. Also naked.

  “I don’t care if I am dead,” Kit said. “We should both be wearing clothes.”

  Her grandmother snorted. “You’re not dead. Yet. And don’t go wounding me so quick, child. This is what you’ll look like in fifty years. Best to burn it into your memory now, so you don’t wake up surprised one day.”

  “I would have preferred the surprise,” Kit said.

  Old Jazz Marie smiled. “That’s my girl. Now you pick up that fiddle, Kitty Bella, and you get ready to play. Not yet, mind you—you’ll know the moment—but when you do, you dance that devil down.” Her smile became chilling, more like a snarl. “You dance that bastard right back to hell, you hear? Cut him, little cat. Cut him good.”