This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(44)

“Do what I say, little brother,” he said, his voice lower, stranger, more resonant.

“How do you know they’re here?” whispered August.

“I can smell the blood on their hands,” said Leo, the darkness receding from his skin, his voice returning to its usual pitch. He strode inside, and August followed, nudging the door shut behind him.

The house was dark and smelled of stale smoke and liquor, and when they moved, the boards creaked under their feet. August cringed. Leo didn’t. They reached the center of the room and stopped. Leo cocked his head, listening. And then August heard it, too. The floorboards groaned again. They were both standing still.

The first guy came out of nowhere. He lunged at Leo, but his brother was too fast; he plucked the man out of the air and slammed him down against the rotting boards so hard they split. The man squirmed and spat obscenities, but Leo crouched calmly over him like a cat pinning a mouse, but without the playful glee.

“What is your name?” he asked, and the air vibrated with his will.

“Foster,” spat the thug. His shadow writhed beneath him, clawing at the broken floor.

“Foster,” repeated Leo. “Are you here alone?”

The man thrashed, coughed, answered, “No.”

August’s grip tightened reflexively on the knife, but his brother looked unconcerned as he hauled Foster to his feet and spun him around so his back was pressed to Leo’s chest. “Pay attention, August,” he said. “There is more than one way to bring a soul to surface.”

With that, Leo wrenched Foster’s arm up behind his back, and the man cried out. August cringed, but Leo remained calm, unmoved. He kept twisting until August heard the tearing ligaments, and the man let out a scream.

“Why are you doing this?” asked August.

“To educate you,” said Leo simply. He twisted harder, and Foster keened. Bones broke audibly and August watched, horrified, first as sweat broke out across the man’s face, and then as his skin began to glow red. The light rose like blood to the surface, and as it did, it began to pass from Foster’s body into Leo’s.

“I’m sorry,” gasped the man, his confession spilling out through ragged breaths. “I’m sorry. I did what I had to do. If I didn’t kill them, they’d have killed me.” Leo twisted further, and the man sobbed between the crack and splinter of bone. The sound turned August’s stomach.

“Stop this, Leo,” he said. “Why make him suffer?”

Tears streamed down Foster’s face as the life seeped out of him. “I’m sorry,” he cried. “Please, I’m sorry. . . .”

Leo was unmoved. “Why shouldn’t he suffer?” he challenged, meeting August’s eyes as the man wailed. “These are bad people, little brother. They do bad things. They hurt and they murder and they taint this world with blood and darkness and evil.” He had to raise his voice over Foster’s screams. “Why should they go gently? Why shouldn’t they suffer for their sins?”

“I’m sorry . . .” Foster’s voice faded, along with the light beneath his skin. His eyes burned, collapsing inward.

“Our purpose is not to bring peace,” said Leo, letting the broken body fall to the floor. “It is to bestow penance.” August opened his mouth to protest, when Leo said, “Watch out.”

It happened too fast. A second man lunged at August from behind. He didn’t have a chance to think, to stop, to let go of the weapon and step out of the way. He turned just in time for his knife to bury itself in the attacker’s stomach. August looked down at the blade disappearing between the man’s ribs with a mixture of shock and horror as the man let out a strangled sound of pain. His life surged to the surface, and August gasped as the energy hit him like a bucket of ice water, sudden and bright and achingly cold. His fingers tightened on the knife, and the man went for his throat, but his hands faltered, landed on August’s collar, nails digging uselessly into his skin.

“They deserved it,” coughed the man, blood already staining his lips. His legs started to buckle but August held him up, his life coursing between them, sharp and electric. “They all deserved it. This messed up . . . world . . . we’re all . . . gonna . . .”

The man’s words fell apart as he slumped into death, and August stood there in the dark, shaking from the force of it, feeling as if he’d taken on the man’s evils as well as his life. This was the opposite of peace. He felt alive—so alive—but tarnished, his senses screaming and his head a tangle of dark thoughts and feelings and power, and he was drowning and shivering and burning alive. He had to close his eyes and force air into his lungs until the sensations dulled and his mind stopped spiraling, and he could drag it back into his head, back into his skin. When the room took shape around him again, the first thing he saw was the blood-covered knife. He felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Leo there beside him, looking proud.

Which only made August feel worse.

“It’ll get easier,” promised Leo, taking the blade.

But August looked down at the corpses, their shadows still, their bodies broken.

“Should it?”

Kate stared at the screen, where a man’s body lay twisted on the floor, a bloody, contorted corpse. It had taken him a long time to die. Or rather, Leo had taken a long time to kill him. He’d used only his hands, which meant they didn’t need music to steal a soul. What was the saying? More than one way to skin a cat.