“But he did, Kate. Despite all the bad things you’ve been whispering in his ear.”
Her fingers tightened on the gun. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You sent those monsters to kill me, didn’t you?”
Sloan considered her. “And?”
“You said you didn’t do it—”
His smile was vicious. “I never said that.”
Her father’s words. I questioned him myself. We both know he cannot lie.
It hit her like a blow. Sloan couldn’t lie, but Harker could.
“Oslo,” said Sloan, addressing the other monster. “Go get the Sunai. I’ll handle this.”
The Malchai started toward the house, and Kate swung the gun and fired. The silver-tipped bullet buried itself in the monster’s shoulder, and he snarled as black blood stained his shirt. Kate turned the gun back on Sloan, but he was already there, cold fingers vising around her wrist and wrenching the barrel up. “This game again?” he said dryly. “Did you really think you could turn my master against me?” An edge of disdain on the word master. He pulled her toward him, and her free hand went for the lighter in her pocket just before his fingers closed around her throat.
The moment they did, she drove the switchblade up into his wrist. Sloan recoiled at the silver, and she drew the knife free and tried to slash at his throat, but he was too fast, and before she could get in another shot, his fist connected with her jaw, and she went down hard, spitting blood into the gravel.
The lighter skidded out of reach, and cold fingers curled around her wounded shoulder as he forced her onto her back and wrapped both hands around her throat.
“Our little Katherine, all grown up.”
She clawed at his wrist, but it was like fighting stone.
“You think you deserve a chance to rule the city? It doesn’t belong to you, or Callum Harker—not anymore. Soon the monsters will rise, and when they do . . .” he leaned close, “the city will be mine.”
He knelt on her wounded ribs and she tried to cry out, but there was no air. Her lungs screamed.
“You’ve made a mess of things,” he went on. “Can’t even die when you’re supposed to. Even your mother could do that much.”
She kicked and squirmed, trying to gain purchase, to get a leg up as her vision swam, tunneled. “I should kill you now,” he said wistfully. “It would be a kindness. But—”
He slammed her head back into the ground, and everything went dark.
August stumbled into the bathroom. He fell to his knees on the tile, and pulled the violin case onto the floor in front of him, fumbling with the clasps as a shadow appeared in the doorway, its red eyes reflected in the mirror.
August wasn’t fast enough—his fingers barely brushed the strings of the violin before a boot connected with his ribs and sent him hard into the base of the sink.
Porcelain cracked against his spine, knocked the air from his lungs.
“Well, well,” came the Malchai’s wet rasp, “not so scary now, are you?”
August struggled up onto his hands and knees, and crawled back toward the case, but the creature’s boot came down on his wrist, grinding it into the tile floor. Pain flared through him, too bright, too human. Sharp nails hauled him up, and then he was flying backward into the wall so hard the tiles cracked, and rained down around him when he fell.
August tasted blood, staggering upright as the Malchai’s hand closed around the neck of his violin.
No.
“Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal,” sang the monster, running a nail along the string. “Sing you a song and steal your soul.”
August lunged forward, but at the same moment the Malchai wound up and swung the violin at August’s head.
He tried to get his hand up to stop the blow, or at least save the instrument, but he was too late, and the violin shattered against his skull, turning the world to splintered wood and broken strings and silence.
The world came back in pieces.
Concrete beneath his knees.
Iron around his wrists.
A shifting pool of light.
A metallic tap tap tap.
The echo of large, empty spaces.
The world came back in pieces, and so did August. For a moment he was terrified that he’d lost himself, but the pain in his head, the ache in his wrists, and the searing heat across his skin told him that he hadn’t gone dark. Not yet.
He was kneeling on the floor of a warehouse, surrounded by glass and dust and a single harsh light, the edges so sharp that the space beyond registered as a wall of black. His arms had been wrenched up over his head. Pain flared around his wrists, and August could feel the metal chains cutting into the base of his hands, rubbing the flesh raw in a way they shouldn’t be able to.
Where was he?
Where was Kate?