Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(36)

“Before you ask,” said Alice, “It wasn’t like the Falstead. I didn’t have anything to do with it this time. I’ve moved on.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Sloan.

Alice gave an impatient flick of her fingers. “Oh, a handful of Fangs—they must have snapped—who knows why. Went and killed each other—so it seems. The Corsai didn’t leave much behind. A petty squabble, if I had to guess. Humans are so”—she blew on the coals—“temperamental.”

“And what about them?” asked Sloan, nodding toward the Malchai.

“Oh, they volunteered.”

“For what?”

Alice didn’t answer. Instead she took one of the Malchai by the chin, raising his red eyes to hers. Her voice, when she spoke, was different, lower, smoother, almost hypnotic.

“Do you want to make me proud?”

“Yes,” whispered the Malchai.

She drew a thin metal bar from the fire, its end a burning red tip.

“Alice,” pressed Sloan.

“Here’s a riddle,” she said, her voice threading with manic cheer. “You can banish a Corsai with light, defang a Malchai’s bite, but how do you do stop a Sunai’s song?”

Sloan thought of Ilsa, the last sound she made before he tore out her throat.

“You don’t have to,” said Alice with a smile. “You just stop listening.”

With that she drove the burning spike into the Malchai’s ear.





It didn’t feel real until Kate hit the Waste.

Until she saw the open land, the sprawling nothing, and remembered dragging August’s fevered body through the fields to the house, remembered her mother’s room, the man at the door, and the gun in her hand. A single bang, the division between before and after. Innocence and guilt. Human and monster.

She didn’t like to think about that.

Didn’t like to remember that somewhere, out there, was the monster she’d made.

With any luck it had starved to death in the Waste.

With any luck—

The car shuddered, spluttered, and began to smoke. She swore and guided the dying vehicle onto the empty shoulder.

She was eight miles from the outskirts of V-City.

Eight miles, and less than two hours until dark.

Kate got out, and rounded the car. The gun sat on the passenger-side floor where she’d dropped it as soon as the barricade was out of sight. She took it up, savoring the weight in her hand, remembering the sweet recoil and—

She ejected the clip from the gun and put both pieces in her bag, hitched it up on her shoulder, and began to run. Her own shadow stretched out in front of her, cast by the sinking sun at her back, and her shoes beat out a steady rhythm on the asphalt.

Track had been a mandatory activity back at Leighton, and Kate had quickly discovered two things:

She loved running.

And she hated running in circles.

She tried to remember that love now, with nothing but an open road, a straight line ahead, but two miles in, she was pretty sure she’d made it all up.

Four miles in, she wished she had a cigarette.

Five miles in, she regretted ever smoking.

Seven miles in, she staggered to a jog and then a walk, a limp and then a stop, retching on the side of the road. Her head had started aching again, and she wanted to lie down, to close her eyes, but the sun was hovering over the horizon, and the last thing she needed was to be caught out in the Waste after dark.

She had to keep moving, so she did.

Funny, how simple things became when you didn’t have a choice.

Her legs and lungs were on fire by the time she finally reached the green zone.

Once upon a time it had been the richest section of the capital, a place reserved for those who could afford not only to purchase Harker’s protection but to carry on with their lives as if nothing was wrong. Once upon a time—but now it was empty.

It would have been easy to assume that everyone in the green had up and left, some kind of mass exodus.

It would have been . . . except for the number of cars in the driveways. And the blood.

Long-dry brown stains worn thin by weather and sun. But it was everywhere. Splashed like rust against car doors and curbs, garages and steps. An echo of violence.

“What happened here?” she murmured to the empty streets, even though she knew the answer.

Corsai, Corsai, tooth and claw,

Shadow and bone will eat you raw.

The sun dipped below the horizon and Kate perched her sunglasses on her head. The light was quickly thinning—soon it would be gone. She had to get inside.

She unzipped her bag and forced her fingers to gloss over the gun and take up the switchblade and an iron spike instead before starting down the street. She made her way to house after house, but the doors were all bolted. At the third one, she stood on her toes, peered into a window, and stilled.

It looked like a crime-scene photo, minus the bodies, dark stains streaking the walls and floor and toppled furniture. She imagined the people in the green locking themselves inside, waiting, until the power went out and the shadows slipped under their doors.

A low hiss sounded on the air, and Kate tensed, fingers tightening on her weapons before she realized the sound was human.

“Psst,” came the voice. “Over here.”

Kate turned and caught a flash of light on metal. No, not metal. A mirror. One of the front doors across the street was cracked open and a man was twisting a compact back and forth to signal her.