This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(53)

Right now, that didn’t matter as much as getting out. He headed for the nearest exit, pulling the phone from his pocket, but staggered to a stop when he saw the girl’s body. She was young, a freshman, her head twisted at an awkward angle, but it was her face that made him gasp. She had no eyes. They’d been burned out.

He dialed Henry as he hit the emergency door override and burst out of the building.

“Come on,” he muttered as the phone began to ring. He let it ring three times, four, then hung up, and was about to dial Leo when he heard the strangled scream.

It wasn’t a high-pitched cry, more a muffled shout. August rounded the corner and slammed to a stop. Two creatures huddled over a girl, their lines too long and lean, their skin too pale and bones too dark. He’d never seen a Malchai before. Not face-to-face. They cast no shadows, but the air around their bodies shivered in his vision, their teeth jagged silver points.

They looked . . . monstrous.

And the girl beneath them—the one who’d cried out—was Kate.

For an instant, the world went still, and time slowed, the way it did between chords, the moment drawn out like a note.

He had to help her.

He shouldn’t help her.

If he did, she would know what he was.

If he didn’t, she would die.

They were killing her.

They were framing him.

She was an innocent.

She was a Harker.

And then, too fast, the moment collapsed, and he dropped to his knees and opened the violin case.

The torch burned the air above Kate’s face.

The Malchai’s nails were digging into her jaw, and a sound like a whimper escaped her throat. The noise, so foreign, so pitiful, was enough to shock her back to her senses.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the spike. And then she heard it.

Music.

A single note that rang out across the grounds and filled the air, a note that seemed to take up more space than it should. And then another, and another, weaving together into a song. The music was strange and haunting and beautiful, and it took all of Kate’s focus to cover her good ear, but somehow, she could still hear it, crystal clear. The Malchai dropped the torch and staggered as if hit, and the one on top of her froze, and clutched his skull in pain as something began to blossom like a bruise across his skin.

Her fingers finally found the spike in her boot, and she drove the iron up into the Malchai’s chest, past the blackish substance breaking out on his skin like sweat, and under the bone plate, and into his heart. The monster screamed, clawing at himself, but it was too late. The spike was buried all the way to the blunted grip, her fingers slick as black blood spilled from his lips and he slumped onto her. Kate shoved him off and staggered to her feet, swaying from pain, her thoughts clouded by the threads of music.

And then, abruptly, it faltered, and she heard Freddie scream, “Watch out!”

She turned too slowly, and found herself face-to-face with the second Malchai. The monster caught her wrist despite the oily darkness oozing from its skin, and before she could tear free, his knifelike fangs sank into her shoulder.

Pain shot through her. And then, an instant later, the monster’s fangs were gone, and he was being hauled backward. Freddie’s arms were wrapped around the Malchai’s shoulders, one of his hands pressed flat against the pale skin at the monster’s throat; and Kate stood there, dazed, thinking about how young he looked—how small—before she remembered that he was a monster, too. Freddie’s eyes were shut, his teeth clenched as he pinned the Malchai back against him, the darkness soaking from the monster’s skin into his own like a stain.

Kate’s senses finally snapped back, and she broke into motion, taking up the discarded spike and driving it up into the Malchai’s heart. He didn’t fight. He was already slumping against Freddie’s chest, the red light flickering out of his eyes by the time the iron struck home.

Freddie let go, and the monster collapsed between them, little more than teeth and bones, and for a second they just stared at each other, covered in blood and gore and gasping for air.

Neither moved.

Freddie’s gaze rolled unsteadily over her, and the corpses, before drifting to his violin, discarded in the grass. Kate’s fingers tightened on the spike in her hand.

Run, said a voice in Kate’s head.

She didn’t.

Freddie’s eyes found hers, and he swayed a little on his feet.

“What the—” Kate started, but then he doubled over and began to retch.

What came up was black, glistening like oil. He tried to straighten, but stumbled forward, collapsing to his hands and knees and heaving inky liquid onto the pale concrete of the Colton sidewalk.

Get back, said the voice, but she was already sinking to her knees in front of him. “What’s wrong?”

He opened his mouth, as if trying to speak, but choked as more darkness heaved out onto the concrete. When he looked up, his eyes were no longer gray, but black. Black, and full of pain. Veins stood out on his hands and wound like black cords over his skin, climbing his throat.

What had Sloan said?

We cannot feed on them. They cannot feed on us.

Then why? Why had he done that? She wanted to ask him, but Freddie’s eyes were sliding out of focus, his body shaking. He reached weakly for his violin, but it was too far away, and moments later he crumpled to the pavement. He wasn’t moving. Was he dead? Did she want him to be dead? A small part of her thought, so that’s how to kill a Sunai, but no, his chest was still lurching up and down with shallow, staccato breaths.