This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(68)
Kate stepped too close to the Malchai, trying to get under her guard, but the monster’s skeletal fingers caught her by the jaw and shoved her back into the wall. Light burst across her vision from the force of the blow, and the Malchai’s mouth yawned into a smile.
Kate smiled, too, then drove the metal spike down into the Malchai’s sinewy forearm. The monster hissed and slammed Kate back again, but this time Kate hit the door instead of the wall and went stumbling backward into the basement garage, landing hard on the concrete. Pain seared through her injured shoulder and across her stomach, and she could feel fresh blood welling against the bandages as the Malchai appeared, pulling the spike free and casting it aside.
Another crash, and August and the man came tumbling into the garage, a tangle of limbs. The baton went skidding away, and Kate was halfway to her feet when the Malchai sent her sprawling backward to the concrete with a vicious kick. She felt stitches tear, and stifled a cry, eyes blurring. Before she could force herself up, the monster was on her, slight but dense, unyielding.
Kate strained to reach her back.
“Oh dear,” said the Malchai, pinning her to the cold ground, her razor teeth shining in the artificial light. “It seems you’ve lost your toy.”
Kate’s fingers closed over the metal against her spine. “That’s why I keep two,” she said, driving the second spike up into the Malchai’s chest.
The monster gasped as Kate forced the spike home, greasy black blood spilling over her fingers as the Malchai collapsed onto her, more bones than body. She freed herself from the dead weight, recovered the two spikes, and staggered to her feet in time to see August force the baton up below the human’s chin. There was an electric crackle, a spasm of blue, and the man went down with all the grace of a cinder block.
August looked shaken, eyes wide and strangely bright, but he was already moving again. He plunged back into the stairwell and reemerged a moment later clutching his violin case. Kate didn’t waste time. She turned and started moving briskly, deliberately, between the rows of vehicles.
“What are you looking for?” he asked. A car alarm was going off in the distance, and he cringed as if the sound were deafening.
“A ride,” she answered. Some of the cars were too new, others too old. She finally stopped in front of a black sedan, nice enough, but not one of the models with fancy security and keyless entry.
“Break that for me,” she said, nodding at the driver’s side door.
“The window?” asked August, and she gave him a look that said yes, obviously the window, and he gave her a look that said I don’t commit petty crimes very often before he slammed his elbow into the glass to shatter it. The sound wasn’t loud, but it echoed through the garage as Kate reached in and unlocked the doors. She brushed the pebbles of broken glass from the seat and slid in as gingerly as possible, using the lighter’s hidden knife to pry open the panel beside the steering wheel. August rounded the car and sank into the passenger seat, the violin case between his knees as she sliced wires and began stripping them.
“Is this something they teach at boarding school?” he asked, craning to watch the garage behind them.
“Oh yeah,” she said, crossing two wires together. Nothing. “This, breaking and entering, monster killing. It’s all standard.” She stripped another pair and tried again. There was a spark, and the car’s engine thrummed to life.
“Impressive,” said August dryly.
She lifted both hands to the wheel, then winced as the pain caught up. “I don’t suppose you know how to drive?”
August shook his head. “No. I can probably figure it out—”
“That’s okay,” she said, shifting into drive. “We already have plenty of ways to die.”
She put her foot on the gas, and the car shot forward with surprising power, letting out a squeal that made August groan. It wasn’t that loud, she thought. Maybe Sunai had sensitive hearing. She gripped the wheel—growing up, she’d always liked cars, the fresh air racing past, the feeling of freedom, of motion. She wasn’t that fond of them since the accident, but driving was a handy skill, like physics and combat. She rounded the corner of the parking structure, and hit the brakes. There was a gate over the exit, a man in the booth.
She reached for the seat belt, then remembered the stitches and decided to leave it.
“Hold on,” she said, gunning the gas.
The car surged forward. August gripped the door. “Kate, I don’t think this is a—”
But the rest of his words were cut off by the satisfying crack of the front bumper connecting with the garage gate, the former denting and the latter snapping off as they burst through and onto the darkened street.
The car swerved for an instant before righting itself, and Kate smiled as she revved the engine, drowning the attendant’s shouts in their wake.
August twisted in his seat and looked back at the wreckage and the motel, and she wondered if he was thinking about Ilsa. She shifted lanes, following the traffic lights as they changed from red to green so that no matter what, they were always moving. “Is anyone coming?”
August slumped back against the seat with a ragged sigh. “Not yet.” His eyes were closed, his muscles tense, fingers white on the handle of the door as if he might be sick.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She didn’t believe him, but his tone was clipped in that way that said to let it go. She had more important things to worry about right now than his mood, so she headed east and watched V-City shrink in her rearview mirror until it was a steel hill, a speck, and then, nothing.