“Run,” he hissed, but in that one word she heard enough to make her skin crawl, the hairs on her nape rise, and all she could do was stand as he screamed at her, his howl rising into a high, wailing note that was part song, part cry, and all power.
It was like being hit with the sharp edge of a merry-go-round railing—hard, fast, spinning—and when she closed her eyes, holding her head, there were so many lights inside her mind she might have been looking at the night sky on a roller coaster, taking a nosedive out of her world.
Her world. Her life. Her memories. Watching her life pass before her eyes, all of it flickering and fading and burning like falling stars, a shower of them streaking through her and leaving nothing behind. She could not catch them, she could not fight. All she could do was listen to M’cal’s voice, the terrible beauty of it sliding like a dark rainbow into her soul. And though Kit knew she should be afraid, each unearthly note seared her with such lovely sympathy, such twisted delight, she could feel her own music rising and rising, the strings of her fiddle arcing light inside her mind. Until, quite suddenly, the stars disappeared and she could no longer hear M’cal’s voice. She could not hear anything at all, except for her blood roaring in her ears and the pounding of her heart against her ribs. Her body was moving; bouncing. Her neck hurt.
Kit opened her eyes. It was difficult to see. The world tilted at a dizzying angle. Distant, in her mind, she heard the strings of a fiddle singing. A mournful cry.
She tilted her head again and found M’cal. He was not looking at her, but she could see his face and it was twisted, covered in rain, his black hair plastered against his pale skin. His eyes were haunted, framed in shadows. He was carrying her.
What happened?
wondered Kit, but when she tried to ask, her voice slurred into nonsense and her tongue felt thick as a brick. M’cal glanced at her, his mouth set in a hard line. He said nothing. He looked beautiful and terrible.
She heard catcalls, shouts; caught the flash of thighs and high, shining boots; fishnet, cleavage, red lipstick.
A blond man with a familiar narrow face and sharp eyes. M’cal said something to him—let go of her long enough to pull a wad of cash from his pocket—and then suddenly they were moving again, into a building that smelled like cigarettes and dirty sheets. It was blindingly dark—no lights, all shadow—and she closed her eyes, dizzy. She felt M’cal run upstairs, fast and graceful, and she clung to him, inhaled him, fingers clutching the soft fabric of his black shirt. He smelled like his coat—warm—and his body was hard and strong.
Safe,
she thought dimly, and then,
Trust him.
M’cal stopped. Kit opened her eyes. They were in front of a door, which he nudged open with his foot. No lights were inside, but there were windows. The walls were painted pink. There was a couch and a bed, both narrow, both old. M’cal lay Kit down on a quilted comforter that was supposed to be white but had been stained after long use into a camouflage of grays and browns.
Kit tried to sit up, but she was too weak. M’cal began to help, but stopped. He suddenly seemed afraid to touch her; his fingers darted nervously above her shoulders, not quite making contact, and after a moment he retreated, backing away until he hit the wall opposite the bed. He slid down into a loose crouch. His eyes were haunted. He was breathing hard.
Kit tried to speak, but her voice refused to rise above a whisper. Her throat hurt. “What happened?”
“I almost took your soul,” he rasped, and the raw emotion on his face was awful to see.
But his words echoed through her, again and again, and she knew they were true. Impossible, but true. Kit wondered if her dismay showed; M’cal rocked hard to his feet, turning away from her, pressing his head and hands against the pink wall. His entire body trembled; his fingers curled into fists.
“M’cal,” she murmured brokenly. “M’cal, please.”
“I hurt you,” he whispered.
“I’m still here,” she said. “Please.”
M’cal turned back around, standing in the half-light and shadows, his body long and lean, coiled. His wet hair curled around his hard face; his eyes glinted like a gasp of sky on the other side of a thundercloud.
He walked to her, and for the first time she was able to appreciate how he moved—like a dancer, utterly in control of his body; elegant and agile. Dangerous.
She tried to sit up again. He was there in an instant, his hand hovering over her shoulder. He did not touch her, but he was close—so close.
Kit did not let him pull away. She grabbed his hand. He flinched, but that was it. Nothing happened. Slowly, slowly, his fingers curled around her palm. She let out a shaky breath. M’cal swallowed hard and sat down beside her, perching so far off the edge of the bed she thought he might fall.
“Talk to me,” she said.
“And tell you what?” he replied softly, staring at their clasped hands. “That I am a murderer? That I almost took your life?”
“You said soul.”
“It is the same. You cannot live without a soul. The body . . . gives up.” He looked into her eyes with a gaze that was cold and hard and wild. “I had no choice, Kitala. If you had not stopped me . ..”
He could not finish. He tried to let go of her hand, but Kit hung on. She knew it was dangerous—could feel it in her weakened body, in his strength—but there was a part of her that recognized this moment as something vital, infinitely important. Something to fight for.
Even if it’s for nothing. Even if it breaks your heart.
Kit glanced down at the strong lean lines of M’cal’s throat and found his skin pale, free of blood and holes. Memory lingered, though. Death. She had caught more glimpses of it outside the Youth Center, inside Edith’s office. Almost tasted the scent of his murder.
But he’s not dead yet. Forget the how or why or when. You’ll never know the answer until it is too late. Focus on now.
Now. What a concept. Forgetting the future had never been an easy thing to do.
Kit’s back hurt; the fiddle case still hung against her. She tried to pull the strap over her head. Her arms were stronger, but it was still an effort. M’cal leaned in close to help her. Close enough to feel his warmth flow over her body; close enough to inhale his scent; close enough to kiss.
“How did I save myself?” Her voice sounded low, husky.
M’cal took his time pulling the strap over her head. She leaned in even more. His eyes flickered to her face. “Your music, Kitala. There is power in your music. You defended yourself with it.”
“I didn’t feel like I was defending myself.” On the contrary; Kit had felt like she was making the best music of her life.
The strap got caught in her wild mass of hair. She placed her hand on M’cal’s hard chest, tilting her head so that he could free the case. The arch of her neck lay exposed. M’cal faltered; one hand curled behind her back, supporting her. The other still held the fiddle case.
Kit met his gaze, and for a moment time stretched like a moonbeam reaching through a cloud, and she heard inside her head soft notes that could have been a voice, his voice, lilting like a ghost unseen. Music to love, even if everything else was strange. Music as blood and bone, another heart. Music that called to her soul.
M’cal’s gaze drifted down to her neck. She did not look at his, just kept her eyes locked on his face, suffering confusion, desire, fear and something more, deeper; the sense that once again this moment meant more than any other. That her life as she knew it was gone, dead, changed.
He kissed her neck. Kit closed her eyes, savoring the heat of his mouth, feeling it move through her, pool in her heart like a slow rhapsody. He kissed her again, and then once more, his lips trailing up her throat, and just when she thought her mouth would be next, he pulled her against him, tucking her close, in what had to be the most gentle embrace of her life.
“This cannot last,” he murmured. “Whatever you did will not last.”
Kit’s hand crept to his shoulder. “I don’t understand.”
M’cal began to pull away from her. Kit grabbed the front of his shirt. He covered her hands—one hand was large enough to warm both of hers—and crooked his mouth into a brief, faint smile.
“Playing rough,” he said. “That might be dangerous.”
“Only if you don’t explain some things to me,” she replied. She found it difficult to think, to speak, when he was so very near. “Make it simple, M’cal. I’m confused enough as it is.”
M’cal brushed his lips against her forehead. “Nothing is simple, Kitala.”
“Please tell me.”
“ ‘Please,’” he rasped. “You have said that word to me more than any other person has in years.
Please.
No one says that to me, Kitala. No one.”
“They should,” she murmured. And then: “I saw it in your eyes, but I want to hear it from your lips. You’re not human.”
“Not human,” he echoed, his voice catching. “Not fully.”
“Show me.”
He exhaled sharply. “I think you have seen enough.”
Kit looked into his eyes. “Please, M’cal.”
His jaw tightened. He held up his hand. At first nothing happened, but then as she watched, unblinking, odd faint lines formed against his pale skin; ridges that took on a glimmering iridescence, a sheen that looked like crushed pearls. Scales like tiny jewels. They spread higher, growing and growing until loose webbing draped between his fingertips. His nails lengthened into small, sharp hooks, darkening in color to silver blue.
Kit touched his hand, breathless. Here was proof, if she could believe her eyes and touch. Astonishing, shocking, ridiculous. His hand closed around hers, and the heat of it was immense. All she could do was stare, her mind blank for one brief moment, until something woke inside her and she analyzed his touch, the smoothness of his skin, like a snake. She was not afraid of snakes. It took a moment, though, to reconcile that she was touching the flesh of a man, a person
not human
but still with humanity.
“You are only the second person I have shown myself to,” M’cal said, which made her look at him. His entire body was tense, his eyes cold, hard. For a moment she felt threatened, but as she met his gaze, she glimpsed a glimmer of doubt roll through his face— one heartbeat, then gone—and she knew, without any uncertainty, that he was just as unnerved.
She squeezed his hand. He flinched when she did, almost like it hurt, and he stared at her. His cold mask fractured.
“Who was the first?” she asked, his skin still gleaming; inhuman, iridescent.
His fingers twitched. “Another woman. It ended badly between us.”
“How badly?”
M’cal looked away and pulled his hand free. “Badly enough that I often think it would have been better to die than to have ever met her.”
Screams—Kit could still hear his screams. She thought she might hear them forever. “What has this woman done to you, M’cal?”
“She owns me.” M’cal’s smile was raw, bitter. “I belong to her. She controls my actions. Makes me hunt.” He held up his arm and rolled back his sleeve, revealing a silver bracelet almost half the length of his forearm. The metal was engraved with odd figures and symbols, none of which Kit recognized. There was a multitude of white scars on his skin above the bracelet. “This forms the link. It binds me to her. Nor can I remove it. I have even tried cutting off my arm, but the blade does not sink far before I am compelled to stop.”
Kit stared. On any other day, with any other man, she might have called him a liar. But she had seen too much that she could not explain—felt too much of the same. She touched the bracelet and found the metal warm. “What else?”
He said nothing for a moment, simply studied her face. She let him, meeting his gaze, allowing him to see without fear everything she was feeling. She reached up slowly and brushed her thumb against his cheek. He caught her hand, kissed her palm, closed his eyes.
“The woman who did this to me is a witch,” he rumbled. “Or whatever you call a woman who wields magic as she does.”
Witch. Magic.
Hard words to swallow. Nothing should have shocked her—not given her background, her grandmother, the things she could do—but somehow this did.
If Granny were here, she’d already be rolling up her sleeves, taking charge. None of this would make her bat an eye.
Hell, Old Jazz Marie had probably known that all of this fantastic stuff existed and just kept it to herself. The woman was probably looking over Kit’s shoulder even now, shaking her head.
Which made Kit take a deep breath, swallow hard, and summon up her courage.
Just take it one step at a time. Go with the flow. Play it by ear.
In a slow, careful voice, Kit said, “This .. . witch. She’s the one who wants me dead, isn’t she?”
M’cal’s gaze darkened. “She asked for you specifically. I do not know how she learned about your abilities, Kitala, but after seeing some of what you can do, I understand her interest.”
“My abilities,” she echoed, thinking of murder and death. Of M’cal with a hole in his throat. “Just what do you think I can do?”
He hesitated. “Magic.”