Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(61)

You’re lying.

His fingers tightened on the bow.

Focus, brother, chided Leo.

You even sound like him.

His song quickened.

The August I knew—

The bow slipped, and the note came out too sharp. He stopped playing, let the violin fall back to his side. He hadn’t finished the song, but it was enough. The crowd stared up at him, wide-eyed, complacent, souls shining on their skin.

A sea of white, and in the center, a single bloom of red. A man, squat and unassuming, with a woman at his side, the two pressed together despite the space around them. Her soul shone white, but his burned red, and as August approached, he heard the man’s confession.

“. . . but fear makes us do stupid things, doesn’t it? He could have been after me. I didn’t know . . .” His head was up, his eyes on August, but his gaze went straight through him. “I wasn’t a bad person, you know. It’s just a bad world. I was young, and I didn’t know any better.”

Red light rose off the man’s skin like steam.

“Can you blame me? Can you?”

August didn’t blame him—it was a bad world—but that didn’t change anything. He pressed his palm to the man’s skin, and the confession faltered, the words trailing off as the man’s life rolled through him.

The corpse crumpled to the floor, and August turned away as souls sank beneath skin, and the symphony hall twitched back into life around him.

He heard the woman sob, but didn’t turn back. Harris and Ani tried to calm her as he forced himself to keep walking.

Your job is done here.

He was nearly to the door when the gun went off.

August spun back as plaster rained from the ceiling, and people cowered, shielding their heads. The woman had Harris’s pistol in both hands, knuckles white as she leveled it at August. Ani and Jackson were already reaching for their tasers as he started down the aisle, hands raised. “Put it down.”

“Crazy bitch,” growled Harris.

“Drop the gun,” demanded Ani.

But the woman had eyes only for August. “He didn’t deserve to die.”

He took another step toward her. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know him,” she sobbed. “You didn’t know him at all.”

“I know his soul was stained.” Another step, past Ani and Jackson. “He made his fate.”

“He made a mistake,” she spat. “You can stand there, all righteous, but you don’t understand. You can’t understand. You’re not even human.”

The blow landed, not sharp, but dull and aching and heavy.

August was level with Harris now.

“He chose—”

“He changed. People change.” Tears streamed down her face. “Why doesn’t it matter?”

Maybe it should, thought August, just before she shot him.

The hall echoed with the deafening cracks as she emptied the gun into August’s chest. It hurt, the way everything hurt, but only for an instant. She continued squeezing the trigger long after the magazine was empty and all that left was the impotent click click click.

He let her do it, because it didn’t change anything. Her husband was still gone and August was still standing, and when the chamber was empty, the last of the strength went out of her limbs and she sank to the floor beside his body, the gun falling from her fingers. August knelt in front of her, one hand resting on the empty weapon, the gun smoke still rising off his skin.

“You’re very lucky I’m not human.”

He jerked his head, and Ani and Jackson swept behind the woman, hauling her to her feet.





The tower lobby hummed with energy.

Corsai pooled in the corners, whispering to themselves, while the Malchai shifted and stirred, restless at being gathered together in one place.

Sloan stood on the lowest landing and looked down at the sea of red eyes, reminding himself that this teeming mass, these filthy, feral things were nothing more than shades, foot soldiers, subjects.

And he, their king.

“There is an intruder in our midst,” he said. “A monster has seen fit to come into our city, and feast upon our food. It is a thing of darkness,” continued Sloan. “But we are all things of darkness. The Corsai claim they cannot catch it”—here the shadows chittered—“but we are not all Corsai.”

A low growl, a snarl of agreement.

“Sloan is right.” This came from Alice.

She was perched on the rail of a balcony above. It looked as though she were wearing dark gloves—in truth, she simply hadn’t washed her hands after her latest feast. The sight repulsed him, but the other monsters stared at her in rapture, as she knew they would.

“We are Malchai,” she said. “There is nothing we cannot hunt, no one we cannot kill.” She flashed a smile at Sloan, all teeth. “What would you have us do, Father?”

He gripped the railing, but did not rise to that last bait. Instead, he looked down at the Malchai.

“The intruder is drawn to live bait. Raid the fridges, take your prey into the streets. The first monster who kills this pest and brings me its corpse will find a place with Alice at my side.”

“That is, of course,” Alice added, “if I don’t kill it first.”