Each chord hung in the air, shimmering like dust caught in beams of sun, and as the song ended a third time and the melody trailed off, he stood there savoring the perfect moment.
The timer chirped, a shrill sound that shattered the last lingering notes and dragged August back to the world and all the troubles waiting in it. He sighed and took up the phone, silencing the alarm, then frowned. He’d sent Henry a text to say he’d be home a little late, but there was no reply. Not even from Leo.
That’s when he noticed there was no signal, either. Damn. He reluctantly returned the violin to its case, slung his bag onto his shoulder, and went for the door.
It didn’t open.
August tried to put his weight behind it, but the door wasn’t just stiff, or stuck.
It was locked.
He looked around, wondering if there was some kind of card swipe in the studio, but there was nothing. The access pad was on the other side. Panic chewed through him, but he swallowed and pressed his face to the glass insert, straining to see something—anything—and what he saw was the access pad busted open, spilling cut wires like innards down the wall.
He was trapped.
Kate staggered back from the main doors, the corpse’s black eyes staring blankly out at her. She fought back a shudder, tried to think. Three Sunai. Logic said it was Freddie. But if it was Freddie, how had he gotten out and locked the subway gate without her seeing him? And if it wasn’t Freddie, and the second Sunai never left the compound, then that meant . . . Leo.
Multiple Sunai on the grounds, circling like sharks. Her chest tightened, but she couldn’t panic. Panic served no purpose. It clouded your head, led to fatal mistakes. She was a Harker, she thought, clutching the iron spike. She would find another way out. She set off, fighting the urge to run as she rounded the corner of the school, heading for the back gate, digging out her cell with her free hand and—
Something hit her, hard.
The phone went skittering away as she stumbled, a steel grip vising around her shoulders from behind. She didn’t hesitate, but drove the iron spike back and down into the creature’s thigh. It let out a wet hiss, its arms loosening enough for her to drop to one knee and fling it over her shoulder. The body hit the ground, rolled up, and spun with a strange grace, the spike still buried in its leg.
Kate froze.
It wasn’t a Sunai.
It was a Malchai.
A skeletal shape, red eyes swiveling in a skull that looked black beneath his slick dead skin. Half the Malchai’s face was a mass of angry lines—the H on his sunken cheek had been clawed off, just like the one on the monster she’d killed in the basement. His lips dragged into a crooked grin, his voice a wet rattle.
“Hello, little Harker.”
She opened her mouth to say that her father would have his head but never got the chance. A second shape hurtled forward, too fast to dodge, a blur that caught her in the chest and slammed her back into the brick side of the school. Something inside her cracked, and a scream tore free before the second Malchai’s grip tightened around her throat, cutting off the air.
The monster’s mouth split into a smile full of sharp teeth.
“This is going to be fun.”
No service.
Of course there was no service. August shoved the cell back in his pocket, took a deep breath, and then threw his shoulder against the door. He was rewarded with nothing but an echo of pain. Just because he didn’t bleed and break like a human didn’t mean he could out-muscle reinforced steel. He wasn’t a battering ram.
He looked down at his hands and thought of Leo the night before, the way the darkness had licked up his fingers, the doorknob crumbling in his grip, but August didn’t have that kind of control. It was all or nothing.
He rubbed his hand over the tallies on his wrist.
Four hundred and twenty-one days.
But it wasn’t the marks he was afraid of losing.
There had to be another way. He retreated into the center of the room, scanned the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Smooth. Smooth. Tiled. Standing on the stool, he was just tall enough to reach the insulated squares overhead; they were heavy, but when he pressed against one hard enough, it lifted, and he was able to slide it up, and over.
August sniffed, recoiling faintly at the stale air, then retrieved his violin and hoisted himself up into the grimy dark.
The fingers were icy steel around Kate’s throat, and before she could twist free, she was being thrown down against the sidewalk. She hit hard, the wind knocked out of her lungs and her palms burning where they scraped against concrete. She scrambled to her hands and knees, but the Malchai were too fast, and one of them was on her, forcing her down onto her back.
Her shoulder flared with white-hot pain as the monster pinned her to the sidewalk.