And Kit woke up for real, her grandmother’s voice ringing in her ears.
It took her a moment to orient herself. She lay on a narrow bed in a small room paneled in dark wood. No window, one door, nothing at first glance that could be turned into a weapon. She still wore her clothes.
And there was a woman standing across from her.
The witch, thought Kit, taking in the long, pale hair, the luminous skin, the barely-there clothes: a bikini, of all things, showing off legs so long and smooth, Kit might have called them airbrushed.
The two women stared at each other. The silence was eerie, unnerving, as was the unblinking scrutiny, which after a time seemed like the stare of someone dead—flat and cold.
“Kitala Bell,” murmured the witch finally, in a voice surprisingly soft and rich. “Kitala, Kitala.”
“Yes,” said Kit. “Obviously. What’s your name?”
The witch smiled, shaking her head. “So naive. So dangerously naive. Women like us do not share our names, and the names we do give are never real. Names are power. You keep them safe. Your grandmother should have taught you that.”
Kit blinked, and like that, her fear began to fade. “You knew my grandmother?”
“Old Jazz Marie,” said the witch, and the name curled off her tongue with another slow smile. “She made the name herself, you know. Jazz, for what her daughter sang. Marie, for the charlatan priestess Laveau.”
Astonishing. Kit could not speak. The witch pushed off the wall where she had been leaning and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress did not shift; it was as if she were made of air.
“If you were any other person,” said the woman, “I would not be here right now. Ivan would be in my place, making you soft for me. But I knew your grandmother, long ago. We crossed paths. I was doing something. She was doing something. Both of our actions utterly incompatible. We had dinner, debated, ultimately quarreled. And I am not so prideful as to deny that she got the better of me. A very strong woman.” The witch looked down at her hands. “Is she well?”
“She died,” Kit said. Her throat hurt.
“Ah.” It was hard to tell how the witch felt about that, though for one brief moment Kit almost imagined her sorry. The witch’s gaze was distant, thoughtful. “That, I believe, is where she and I differed. Your grandmother had no fear of death. She did not fear her age. I, on the other hand, have always preferred the alternative. The price, however, is rather steep.”
“You eat souls to keep yourself young.”
“Is that what M’cal told you?”
“Yes,” Kit admitted. “Why else have him steal for you?”
The witch inclined her head. “I see your reasoning, though it is not entirely accurate. Staying young is only part of why I have him hunt for me. Power is another. That, and knowledge. Imagine for a moment that you could know everything there is about … me. All you would have to do is take me. Consume me. Easy, yes?”
“M’cal has been hunting men and women who hire prostitutes. How do they know anything worth having?”
“That, my dear, is where the power comes in. Strength, energy. The occasional bank account. It works. Trust me.”
“There must be a better way.”
“But this is my way,” said the woman, and she looked at Kit as though marveling at some inexplicable sight; some exotic being, fresh on earth. She murmured, still staring, “You are so innocent. So new and clean and bright. You have only just begun to test yourself, to taste the size of the world and all it can offer. Such as M’cal. You know what he is. How does it feel to you, to be aware of such a flesh-and-blood impossibility?”
“It still feels impossible,” Kit said. “But I believe.”
“There are other creatures like him. They are the roots of human myth, the first dwellers of the wild lands. Animals who can turn into men, men who can twist reality, reality that can be destroyed in the blink of an eye by a chosen few.” The witch smiled coldly. “I had a sister. We were very close. Our … aspirations were quite similar. Power, immortality. And yes, I can see from your face that those two things mean little to you, but if you had been forced to endure what we lived through …”
She stopped, took a deep breath. “My sister found ways to extend her life, but they were imperfect. Eventually she came upon the idea of harnessing the power of another, and in the course of her experiment, she stumbled upon a family of … magically inclined individuals. Not human, if you are at all curious.”
Kit found that she was. “What were they?”
The witch smiled. “They call themselves gargoyles. They can barely go out in public, though they do, with some success. Humans are so easily fooled in this day and age. If someone has the right size and shape, a malformed face and body can be explained away by accident or defect. No one ever imagines the alternative. No one dreams of magic.” She tapped Kit’s nose. “Even those who have it.”
Kit frowned. “So, what happened?”
The witch’s smile faded. “She trapped the gargoyles, but one of them managed to find a way around her spell. He and another, a human, killed my sister and freed the remaining gargoyles. All of whom have not forgotten. All of whom are now hunting the rest of our family. One of them is here even now, in this city.”
Kit sat back, realization filling her. “And that’s why you want my soul—to … to give you more power to fight him?”
The witch exhaled sharply, almost with laughter. “No, my dear. No. I am more than capable of fighting one gargoyle on my own. He is not what frightens me.”
A cold, hard knot settled in Kit’s gut. “So, what does scare you?”
The witch hesitated, and for the first time that cool facade fractured. “What frightens me …” she said softly, almost to herself. “What frightens me cannot be put into words. Your grandmother would have known, but I suspect she did not teach you. I doubt that was her choice.”
“I was stubborn,” Kit said. “Too stubborn.”
“The young always are.” The witch sighed, and stood. “For what it is worth, young Kitala Bell, I take no pleasure in stealing your soul, or your life. I truly regret it. There are few enough of us as it is, and we are a sisterhood, or should be. Power calls to power. It is why I always respected your grandmother, no matter how far apart we were in thought or method. It is why you and I have just shared words, instead of pain. But this is about survival. Not just mine, but of others.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You cannot imagine, my dear, the Beast that is coming. You cannot imagine the destruction, or the hate. I know I am not … good. But I am not evil either. Not in the way I know it to be.”
“You’re wrong. You enslaved M’cal. You tortured him.”
“Yes. That is what one does. It is part of the game, you see. The mask I must wear.”
“No,” Kit breathed. “It’s not. Why would you enslave him?”
“Because I fear him,” said the witch, with astonishing honesty. “Because, like you, I can see the end of days, and I have witnessed mine. M’cal is the man who will kill me.”
And with that, she turned and left.
The first paying audience Kit ever played for almost put a bullet through her brain, but that was incidental compared to the comments about her ass. Hooting Harry’s was a rough establishment on the edge of Nashville, but she was seventeen, and too desperate and hungry to care that not many of the truckers and bikers fresh from the highway were eager to hear some slip of a black girl play her fiddle on a stage more used to poles, G-strings, and bouncing breasts.
Still, she won them over. She always did.
Unfortunately, her confidence onstage was sorely lacking in all matters of mortal danger, and after the witch left the room, Kit found it extremely difficult to simply sit, think, and wait to die. In fact, it wasn’t long before she wanted to puke up her guts like some frat boy on a bender.
She maintained her calm, though. No time to indulge in a panic attack, even if all she could do was replay, again a
nd again and again, with agonizing clarity, every single word of that nuanced, fascinating, and very creepy conversation. The witch was an unexpected woman.
And you believe her. Kit blew out her breath. All of this, pure craziness. She did not want to believe, but everything the witch had said about her grandmother rang true as a bell. But if that was the case, then how peculiar that the old woman had failed to mention anything of the witch in their recent beyond-the-grave tête-à-têtes. Surely, in between all those other warnings, she could have said something.
Kit stood and tried the door. It was locked. The room’s only piece of furniture was the bed, and its frame was bolted down—though, after pulling up the sheets, she discovered the mattress was held in place by straps. Straps attached to bedsprings. Springs, which could be removed.
To do what? Pick a lock? Poke someone in the eye?
Kit heard footsteps outside the room. A heavy tread. She stood back as the door opened, swinging wide to reveal the man in gray. There was a massive bloodstain on the side of his suit, but he did not seem bothered by pain. He was far too large for the hall in which he stood. His shoulders brushed the walls. His head almost touched the ceiling.
He smiled at her. Kit said, “Your mouth is totally fucked up.”
He kept smiling, and Kit thought, So is your brain.
The man turned sideways and gestured for her to leave the room. Kit hesitated, but there was no way she could win in a physical struggle with him, so she followed the silent command and squeezed past his round stomach, which was as disturbingly hard as she remembered. Kit hated touching him. Her skin crawled. She felt like his face was a chalkboard and his teeth were the nails.
Walking in front of him, feeling his cold breath against her neck, was almost worse, but she managed to stay calm, observing her surroundings, still looking for a weapon. All she saw, though, as she walked the corridor, was more dark wood, edged in gold-plated metal trim—mirrors in the ceiling—thick shag carpet—a narrow portrait of a naked woman, very tasteful in a seventies-sex-lounge sort of way. All she needed now to make her officially insane was a swinging disco ball, a furred bed in the shape of a heart, and Shaft playing loudly over her screams.
Of course, seeing the man in gray naked would probably do the same damage in a shorter amount of time, but she really hoped it did not come to that.
The floor shifted slightly; Kit felt dizzy, nauseated. She choked down bile and climbed a short flight of stairs, tasting cool air, salt—but it was not until her head poked out into a world of night and clouds and damp that she realized she was on a boat. A very big boat—a yacht—anchored on the edge of downtown, with the city lights towering above her head. The deck was long and pale, and near the railing Kit saw a body.
She ran, falling to her knees beside M’cal. There was a hole in his chest. He was not breathing. She tried to tell herself he would recover, but seeing him so still and cold—
“Disconcerting, is it not?” said the witch, coming to stand beside her. “Though I think I prefer him this way.”
Kit snarled, throwing her arms around the woman’s legs, trying to take her to the ground. Instead she found herself hauled into the air by her hair. The man in gray was impossibly strong; his fist felt like the size of her head. Kit cried out, trying to kick him—punch, scratch—but she felt like a cat held by the scruff of her neck, and no matter how hard she writhed, nothing was effective in making him put her down.
The witch stood back, arms crossed, her eyes narrow and hard. She gave the man a sharp nod, and suddenly Kit could stand again on her own two feet. Her head hurt so bad she felt scalped—and indeed, there was a clump of soft hair in Ivan’s hand, which he slowly brought to his nose to smell.
“That was foolish,” the witch said to Kit.
Heart pounding—woozy, nauseated—Kit crouched by M’cal and picked up his hand. “You’ve hurt him enough. I don’t care about your reasons.”
“I have no regrets,” said the witch smoothly. “It is what it is.”
A giant hand came down upon Kit’s shoulder. She froze, breathless, as the witch said, “You have met Ivan. I suppose you are aware of his peculiarities. He has others, though.”
“Really,” Kit said, squeezing M’cal’s fingers, willing him to wake. The wound above his heart was beginning to close.
“Quite. If you would, please guess Ivan’s age.”
Guess his age? Kit finally looked at the witch, trying to see if she was joking. The woman appeared serious, though there was something faintly sardonic about the line of her mouth. Kit narrowed her eyes, thought about it for a moment. “I would say he’s thirty-five, forty.”
The question itself had been a tipoff, but Kit knew for certain that something was wrong with her answer when the witch smiled, eyes glittering—so bright, it seemed chips of diamond were embedded in her gaze. An unnatural light.
Kit forced herself to look at Ivan, studying his face. His skin was smooth and unwrinkled; taut, relatively young.
“Two hundred and a day,” said the witch quietly. “Remarkably well preserved for his age, is he not?”
Kit said nothing, staring. Ivan’s eyes were as cold and sharp as the edge of a cleaver; his teeth, poking over his bottom lip, were just as bad. A shudder ripped through her; she barely heard the witch add, “You see, my dear, souls are not what keep me young.”
Ivan’s hand shifted, sliding up Kit’s neck. She tried to move, but he applied more pressure—more and more—until she felt that struggling too hard just might snap something vital. He arched her neck, exposed it; and as the witch watched, smiling, Kit felt a cold cloud of breath touch her skin. Horror clawed up her throat—a scream—but before she could make a sound, he bit her, his teeth sinking into her neck like a flash of daggers, stabbing and sinking. It hurt like hell, but the only sound Kit could make was a breathless rattle as his cold lips pressed down, drinking her blood.
Her body stopped obeying her; she was paralyzed from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Only her vision worked, and Kit watched the witch crouch on the other side of M’cal, leaning close to stare … studying Kit like she was a book, a steak, a piece of embroidery ready to be picked apart. Ivan kept drinking. Kit remembered the bite marks on M’cal’s body. Dark spots swam in her eyes. Strings murmured; the theme from Jaws.
“Ivan is my perfect companion,” said the witch softly. “We met some years ago, both with certain needs. He is also a rare breed—not quite like M’cal, but similarly inhuman. Sickened by sunlight, hungry only for blood, remarkably strong and fast. Immortal.” She smiled, holding up her hand. There were two rings on her fingers, both silver, both engraved. “My secret—although Ivan has always stayed willing, has always enjoyed his services to me. I saved him, and he remembers.”
Ivan stopped drinking. He released Kit, and she hunched over, shivering, touching her neck. Blood dripped down her fingers, but there was no pain. Puncture marks on her neck, though. A row of them, like she was a piece of meat gnawed on by some dog.
Ivan rose and stepped over M’cal. The witch stood to meet him. His lips gleamed red with blood. He bent down, and the woman licked him clean—and then kissed him, slow and careful, her tongue moving inside his mouth. Ivan’s hands slid beneath her bikini to cup her buttocks, his fingers moving, pressing, until the witch let out a gasp.
Kit wanted to vomit, but she could not look away; it was too horrible, too strange—the wettest, most disgusting train wreck of her life. And then, as if there had not been enough blood shed, Ivan raised one of his hands to his mouth, bit into his wide wrist, and held it out to the witch.
The woman drank. She did it perfectly, without one wasted drop, closing her eyes and abandoning herself to the act with such need and passion that Kit finally managed to look away unobserved. She saw a gun resting on a chair. Ten feet away. If she could reach it, move fast enough while they were distracted …
Kit still held M’cal’s hand. His fingers twitched, and, like that, she lost her chanc
e to reach the gun. She squeezed his hand instead, watching his face, but his features remained slack and his fingers did not move again. Just a reflex, perhaps; he was slowly returning to consciousness. Quick, she begged silently. Make it quick.
The witch made a choking sound; she broke away from Ivan and staggered, touching her mouth. Her eyes were wide. She tried to take another step, but Ivan caught her around the waist and lowered her to the ground. Her weakness was shocking.
“You,” she breathed to Kit, dismay rocking through her flawless face. “You … met her.”
Kit shook her head, squeezing M’cal’s hand. “I don’t understand.”
The witch snarled. “Alice. You met Alice.”
Kit stared, and the witch’s entire face contorted; she grabbed Ivan’s hand, standing up like her body hurt—all that careful grace and control was spinning away. She kicked M’cal in the ribs. Kit cried out, protesting, but Ivan took one step across M’cal’s body and grabbed her shoulders, holding her still. He watched the witch with sharp eyes.
She did not strike a second time, but instead sank into another crouch, grabbing M’cal’s bracelet and holding the metal tight in her hands. She closed her eyes, murmuring to herself, and Kit remembered the music she had heard when M’cal tried to take her soul. It was a hard memory—burning—but as she held M’cal’s hand tight within her own, she poured that wild melody—that starlight song—into his body, and imagined it as a shield, a wall around his heart and soul. Protecting him.
The witch opened her eyes. “Stop. Give him to me.”
“Make me,” Kit rasped. The woman slapped her face. M’cal twitched, but his eyes remained closed, and Kit refused to let go of his hand as the witch struck her again, her glamour and youth twisting into something that was, for a moment, ancient, ugly. A mask—everything was a mask with the witch, except for this; her rage.
Then, just as the witch was about to slap her again, M’cal moved, sitting up so fast he was a blur. He slammed his palm into the witch’s chest, and the woman flew backward, skidding across the deck.
Ivan tossed Kit aside. She banged her chin and rolled, looking up in time to see M’cal ram the big man in the gut. They went down together, tangled, grunting.
Soul Song Page 17
