This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(92)

“Miss Torrell,” said the man, handing back the papers. “Drive safe,” he added, and she almost smiled.

“I will.”

The gates went up, and Kate pulled forward, out of Verity, and into the world beyond. It was ten miles of buffer zone to the nearest crossroads. Ten miles for Kate to decide where she was going.

She switched the radio back on. The Verity news feed was already losing its signal, and a few moments later it crackled out entirely, surging up with a different voice in a different city in a different territory. Gone were the reports of North City, of the Harkers and the Flynns, and she drove on, half listening, until a line caught her ear. “. . . violent murders have people shaken and police stumped. . . .”

Kate reached forward, and turned the volume up.

“Yes, that’s right, James, disturbing reports out of Prosperity, where enforcement is still investigating a string of grisly murders in the capital, originally thought to be gang-related.”

She reached the crossroads, and stopped.

Temperance to the left, Fortune to the right, Prosperity straight ahead.

“While the police refuse to release any details, a witness called the murders ritualistic, almost occult. The killings come in the wake of another attack last week that left three dead. Crime in the territory has been on the rise for several years, but this marks a frightening new chapter for Prosperity.”

“Scary times, Beth.”

“Indeed.”

“Indeed,” echoed Kate, hitting the gas.

August ran a finger over the single black tally at his wrist.

It was a new day.

A fresh start.

He rose, and dressed, but not for Colton.

He checked himself in the mirror, the dark fatigues hugging the slim lines of his body, the blocky white FTF stitched over his heart. His hair still fell into his eyes, but they were darker now, the color of pewter, and he found himself avoiding their gaze.

August sank on the edge of the bed, Allegro toying absently with his laces as he cinched his boots. When he was done, he lifted the cat onto his knees and looked him squarely in the face.

“Am I all right?” he asked, and Allegro looked at him with his massive green eyes, and cocked his head the way Ilsa did sometimes when she was thinking. And then the cat reached out, and rested a small black paw on the bridge of his nose.

August felt himself smiling. “Thank you.”

He got to his feet. A case sat waiting on the stack of books. A gift from Henry and Emily. The violin inside was new, not polished wood, but metal, stainless steel, the strings heavy. A steel bow sat beside it.

It was a new instrument, for a new age.

A new August.

He took up the violin, nestled the cool metal beneath his chin, and drew the bow across the first string.

The note that came out was more than sound. It was high and low, soft and sharp. It filled the room with a steady pitch that vibrated like a bass through August’s bones. It was unlike anything he’d ever heard, and his fingers itched to play, but he resisted, lowering the instrument, letting the bow slip back to his side.

There would be time to call the music.

Time to summon the souls.

With Harker gone, North City was already sliding. Malchai with the Hs torn from their skin were attacking the Seam. Corsai were feeding on anything they could catch, even if it wore a Harker medal. The citizens were panicking. They didn’t know how to find safety when they couldn’t buy it. It was only a matter of time before the FTF would have to cross the Seam and step in.

And when they did, August would be with them.

He wasn’t Leo, but without his brother’s strength, his sister’s voice, he was South City’s last Sunai. And he would do what was needed to save the city.

He could be the monster, if that kept others human.

August had killed Harker so that Kate wouldn’t have to. He hadn’t relished the murder, but it wouldn’t stain his soul, not the way it would have hers. It hadn’t been just about the sinner in the end, it was about the sin itself, the shadow that ate away a human’s light.

And August wasn’t human.

He wasn’t made of flesh and bone, or starlight.

He was made of darkness.

Leo had been right about one thing—it was time for August to accept what he was.

And embrace it.

The house beyond the Waste lay empty, except for the corpse.

In the bathroom down the hall, the faucet still dripped into the half-filled tub.

The blue front door hung open on its hinges, and loose leaves blew in across the threshold.

The sun was going down, stretching shadows across the wooden floor.

Most of the shadows stood still, but one began to crawl, spreading like the pool of blood, now stiff, away from the body and up the wall. It stretched, and twisted, and drew itself upright, off the blood-flecked wall and into the room.

She was tall and thin, with pointed nails that shone like metal, and eyes that glowed like cigarettes.

The monster stepped over the corpse and wandered down the hall, into the bathroom where the pieces of a violin lay strewn across the floor. She toed the shards of wood, the broken wire, saw her reflection in the mirror, and flashed a smile full of silver teeth. In the bedroom at the end of the hall, she found a photograph of a man and a woman, with a girl between them. The man and the woman meant nothing to the Malchai, but the girl she recognized.