This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(58)

“Hey!” shouted one of the chefs with a booming voice. “You can’t be back here.”

The sound echoed against the stainless steel, and August grabbed Kate’s hand and ran. They reached the back door just as the first Malchai slammed into the one on the restaurant side. The barricade held long enough for them to burst out into the alley.

“We can’t stay here,” said Kate, scanning for cameras.

“Is there anywhere we can stay?” asked August, pushing a Dumpster in front of the doors.

Kate shook her head, but she was already pulling him out of the alley and around the corner, putting as much space between them and the restaurant as possible. As they reached the street, she looped her good arm through his, and pulled him close, nestling into his side. August startled but didn’t pull away. He didn’t understand at first, and then he did. The only people on the street were walking in pairs or groups, and suddenly the two of them looked less like frantic, fleeing teens and more like a young couple. Eyes that might have snagged slid off.

August bent his head casually, as if sheltering her from a breeze.

“We have to get out of the red until I hear from my father,” she said.

We, he noticed. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know,” said Kate, leaning against him. “Every building in North City has cameras, and soon the streets are going to be swarming with Malchai, and God only knows how many are now working for Sloan.”

And then, all of a sudden, she stopped.

“What is it?”

She spun on him, eyes wide. “The Malchai are working for Sloan.”

“I thought we already knew that.”

“Right, but that means we just have to go somewhere the Malchai won’t.” August opened his mouth to ask where in North City the Malchai could possibly refuse to go, but then he followed her gaze down, down to the ground beneath their feet, to the curl of steam rising from a grate in the pavement.

“Oh hell.”





“Just for the record,” said August as they climbed down the pipes and bars into the bowels of the subway tunnel, “I think this is a terrible idea.”

“The Malchai hate the Corsai,” said Kate, dropping the last few feet to the tunnel floor, “and from what I’ve seen, the feeling is mutual.”

“Yes, well,” August hit the ground beside her, “the Sunai aren’t fond of either of them.”

“You wanted to come along,” said Kate, secretly relieved he had—the thought of doing this alone made her ill. Her shoulder ached with every breath, and August might be a monster, but at least he didn’t want her dead. The tunnel was dangerously dark; thin streetlight streamed in through the metal grates overhead, and box lights hung at intervals down the tunnel walls. They weren’t UVRs, weren’t even fluorescents, just rectangles emanating a dull red glow.

Beneath their feet, the floor wasn’t solid; gaps ran down the center and along the walls, the ground plunging away into darkness. August kicked a pebble over the side and it fell, fell, fell for three solid seconds before landing with a splash.

“What’s down there?”

Kate dug an HUV from her backpack, and switched it on, angling the beam into the gap. Far below, a broad stretch of water slid past. “Looks like a river.” She tapped her foot on the concrete. “I think this used to be a bridge.”

August started to say something, but Kate swung around, the beam tearing a single solitary line of compressed light through the tunnel. Her right ear registered nothing but white noise, but with her left she could make out the distant murmur of shadows, the scratch of claws on concrete, and the constant whisper. Judging by August’s face, he heard it, too.

beat break ruin flesh blood bone beat break

There were rumors that the Corsai told secrets, that their nonsensical murmurings took shape right before they killed you. Others claimed they merely parroted the sins that made them, whispering atrocities, mimicking the gruesome sounds of metal against skin, breaking bones, muffled screams.

Now wasn’t the time to lose her nerve. Kate focused on her breathing, reminding herself that Corsai fed on fear. She faced the tunnel, flashlight burrowing away into black, and tried to focus her eyes on the center, the darkest point, as it began to move.

“I am the daughter of Callum Harker,” she called into the dark.

Harker, Harker, Harker, it echoed.

And then the word was taken up and carried, and when it came back, it was different. Not our Harker, Harker, Harker.

Kate shivered, fought the urge to take a step back, her eyes still trained on the place where her light ended, and the shadows took hold.

Beside her, August was kneeling, clicking open his case.

“Do you have another flashlight in there?” she asked softly.

“No,” he said, “but I have something better.” He held up the violin. “Besides, you said you wanted to hear me play.”

She remembered the eerie chords, the way the Malchai had screeched and recoiled and covered their ears, the strange calm that settled over her like snow.

Beyond them, the tunnel’s red glow caught on teeth and claws, and the darkness began to churn. “Remember when I said this was a bad idea?” he muttered, fixing a strap to the case and swinging it over his shoulder.