Soul Song (18 page)

“Woman goes looking for herself,” Koni suggested.

“Or woman goes looking for something else,” M’cal replied. “Kitala said that Alice was not surprised that someone was planning on killing her.”

“She might have been trying to escape someone,” Hari said.

“Someone who can pay off cops? Hire men to kill? Who knows enough about me to shoot first for my throat, and then remove my head?” M’cal thought of Kitala. “I do not like this.”

Amiri’s hip buzzed; his cellphone, ringing. He answered quickly, listening for only a moment before his jaw tightened and his eyes flashed so bright and hot, M’cal flinched, blinking hard.

“Kit has been taken,” said Amiri. “Rik is injured.”

M’cal went very cold, very still. “Who?”

The shape-shifter hesitated. “It was a man. Large, strong, dressed in gray. Rik says his mouth was odd.”

M’cal said nothing. His face gave away nothing. Koni said, “I’m flying,” and he pulled off his jacket and handed it to Amiri. He tossed M’cal the keys to the car. “You know your way back?”

“Yes,” M’cal lied.

Koni ran into a nearby alley, stripping off his clothes and tossing them to the ground. Golden light seared from his eyes; a thread of black feathers sprouted from his hairline down his throat. And then he disappeared into the shadows, and M’cal took off running, the other men just ahead of him.

He quickly lost track of Hari and Amiri—their car was down another street—but he felt little concern about that. He was not going back to the house. He knew exactly where Kitala had been taken.

You could have told them. Asked for their help. You need their help.

But he knew how delighted the witch would be to find actual shape-shifters, and while they might prove more difficult to enslave than M’cal—who had loved, been blind, given himself freely—he was certain she would not give up such diverse specimens without a fight.

And he did not wish that on anyone. Not ever.

The monster still slept; his bracelet tingled, but remained cold. M’cal gunned the engine of the car, driving straight to the first sea access he could find—a tiny pier off Gastown, near the heliport. He abandoned the car at the side of the road, ignoring the sidewalk as he cut straight over the grass, racing down a steep hill that bled right into the sea. The dock was on his left, but he ignored it. He could hear music. He could feel the water reaching for him; and when he jumped from the shore he sensed, for just one moment, arms spread, ready to hold him.

And they did. He melted into the sea, diving as deep as he could, shooting away from the shore. He tore off his clothes, transforming as he did, and there was no pain—nothing at all but the cool sweetness of the ocean as it caressed and held him. He inhaled so deeply his chest ached, but each breath coursed into his lungs like the cold, clear, crystalline air—
shining, shining
— of some snowy mountain peak, the kind his father and mother had taken him to while he was very young.

He felt young, being in the water. He felt like he was home. Finally, home. It was, he thought, almost as if the curse had been lifted.

Almost.

He swam hard, his body obeying him with perfect ease. His bracelet tingled, but instead of ignoring it, he embraced the sensation, sinking deep within the bond. He let it lead, felt the pull—not as a compulsion, but as merely a line between his body and the witch. For once, useful. For once, something he was glad of.

He heard music, voices—very distant. He sang back, for the first time in years—and the sound cut through the water like the lilting, curling bellow of a crooning whale. Movement on his left. Brother seal. M’cal reached out, and the animal skimmed against his hand.

The seal stayed with M’cal as he soared through the cold, dark waters, gliding and twisting. Within minutes he was joined by others, cutting the shadows, batting fish into his face. He swatted them away. It was just play, but he could not afford to be slowed down, and after a moment he barked an order into the water, and the seals fell into more orderly ranks.

Again, music. M’cal let out another cry, listening to it echo rich and golden through the water. If there were any marine biologists listening, no doubt they would be baffled, but let them chalk it up to a new species, or to a fluke in the machinery.

The pull in the bracelet strengthened, tingling up his arm into his neck. Still no compulsion. The witch was alive, though; he knew that for certain. He let himself sink into instinct, following a trail through the currents. Close to the piers, the water began to run oily. Too many boats, too much city; but no complaints.

He found the boat. It was moored almost twenty feet from the closest dock. Its anchor was down, but as he swam around the boat he felt the vibration of the engine humming through the waters. Ready to run, if need be. He thought of Kitala—imagined Ivan’s hands on her— and his rage and fear narrowed to a place in his soul so concentrated, so vile, he thought himself capable of killing with a thought, a breath, one beat of his heart.

If Kitala was hurt, if she was dead . . .

He stopped his thought, and swam around to the ladder. He transformed, regaining his legs, gills receding into his body, and felt Brother Seal brush against his legs like a warm spirit. M’cal poked his head above water. He heard nothing, but that was typical. And likely the witch already knew he was there. No need for subterfuge.

She will take your body all over again. She will compel you to hurt Kitala. You should have asked those shape-shifters to come and help you. You should have never left her alone.

Too late for any of that. M’cal had to handle this on his own.

He climbed out of the sea, dripping and naked, and walked onto the boat. He found the witch immediately. She sat in a chair, a candle burning on the small glass table beside her. Despite the cool air, she wore a silver bikini and nothing else. In one hand she held a glass of wine, and in the other a gun.

“I should have learned a lesson from my sister,” she murmured, and shot him through the heart.

“I don’t care if I
am
dead,” Kit said. “We should both be wearing clothes.”

Her grandmother snorted. “You’re not dead.
Yet.
And don’t go wounding me so quick, child. This is what you’ll look like in fifty years. Best to burn it into your memory now, so you don’t wake up surprised one day.”

“I would have preferred the surprise,” Kit said.

Old Jazz Marie smiled. “That’s my girl. Now you pick up that fiddle, Kitty Bella, and you get ready to play. Not yet, mind you—you’ll know the moment— but when you do, you dance that devil down.” Her smile became chilling, more like a snarl. “You dance that bastard right back to hell, you hear? Cut him, little cat. Cut him good.”

And Kit woke up for real, her grandmother’s voice ringing in her ears.

It took her a moment to orient herself. She lay on a narrow bed in a small room paneled in dark wood. No window, one door, nothing at first glance that could be turned into a weapon. She still wore her clothes.

And there was a woman standing across from her.

The witch,
thought Kit, taking in the long, pale hair, the luminous skin, the barely-there clothes: a bikini, of all things, showing off legs so long and smooth, Kit might have called them airbrushed.

The two women stared at each other. The silence was eerie, unnerving, as was the unblinking scrutiny, which after a time seemed like the stare of someone dead—flat and cold.

“Kitala Bell,” murmured the witch finally, in a voice surprisingly soft and rich. “Kitala, Kitala.”

“Yes,” said Kit. “Obviously. What’s your name?”

The witch smiled, shaking her head. “So naïve. So dangerously naïve. Women like us do not share our names, and the names we do give are never real. Names are power. You keep them safe. Your grandmother should have taught you that.”

Kit blinked, and like that, her fear began to fade. “You knew my grandmother?”

“Old Jazz Marie,” said the witch, and the name curled off her tongue with another slow smile. “She made the name herself, you know. Jazz, for what her daughter sang. Marie, for the charlatan priestess Laveau.”

Astonishing. Kit could not speak. The witch pushed off the wall where she had been leaning and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress did not shift; it was as if she were made of air.

“If you were any other person,” said the woman, “I would not be here right now. Ivan would be in my place, making you soft for me. But I knew your grandmother, long ago. We crossed paths. I was doing something. She was doing something. Both of our actions utterly incompatible. We had dinner, debated, ultimately quarreled. And I am not so prideful as to deny that she got the better of me. A very strong woman.” The witch looked down at her hands. “Is she well?”

“She died,” Kit said. Her throat hurt.

“Ah.” It was hard to tell how the witch felt about that, though for one brief moment Kit almost imagined her sorry. The witch’s gaze was distant, thoughtful. “That, I believe, is where she and I differed. Your grandmother had no fear of death. She did not fear her age. I, on the other hand, have always preferred the alternative. The price, however, is rather steep.”

“You eat souls to keep yourself young.”

“Is that what M’cal told you?”

“Yes,” Kit admitted. “Why else have him steal for you?”

The witch inclined her head. “I see your reasoning, though it is not entirely accurate. Staying young is only part of why I have him hunt for me. Power is another. That, and knowledge. Imagine for a moment that you could know everything there is about. . . me. All you would have to do is take
me.
Consume
me.
Easy, yes?”

“M’cal has been hunting men and women who hire prostitutes. How do they know anything worth having?”

“That, my dear, is where the power comes in. Strength, energy. The occasional bank account. I works. Trust me.”

“There must be a better way.”

“But this is
my
way,” said the woman, and she looked at Kit as though marveling at some inexplicable sight; some exotic being, fresh on earth. She murmured, still staring, “You are so innocent. So new and clean and bright. You have only just begun to test yourself, to taste the size of the world and all it can offer. Such as M’cal. You know what he is. How does it feel to you, to be aware of such a flesh-and-blood impossibility?”

“It still feels impossible,” Kit said. “But I believe.”

“There are other creatures like him. They are the roots of human myth, the first dwellers of the wild lands. Animals who can turn into men, men who can twist reality, reality that can be destroyed in the blink of an eye by a chosen few.” The witch smiled coldly. “I had a sister. We were very close. Our. .. aspirations were quite similar. Power, immortality. And yes, I can see from your face that those two things mean little to you, but if you had been forced to endure what we lived through ...”

She stopped, took a deep breath. “My sister found ways to extend her life, but they were imperfect. Eventually she came upon the idea of harnessing the power of another, and in the course of her experiment, she stumbled upon a family of. . . magically inclined individuals. Not human, if you are at all curious.”

Kit found that she was. “What were they?”

The witch smiled. “They call themselves gargoyles. They can barely go out in public, though they do, with some success. Humans are so easily fooled in this day and age. If someone has the right size and shape, a malformed face and body can be explained away by accident or defect. No one ever imagines the alternative. No one dreams of magic.” She tapped Kit’s nose. “Even those who have it.”

Kit frowned. “So, what happened?”

The witch’s smile faded. “She trapped the gargoyles, but one of them managed to find a way around her spell. He and another, a human, killed my sister and freed the remaining gargoyles. All of whom have not forgotten. All of whom are now hunting the rest of our family. One of them is here even now, in this city.”

Kit sat back, realization filling her. “And that’s why you want my soul—to ... to give you more power to fight him?”

The witch exhaled sharply, almost with laughter. “No, my dear. No. I am more than capable of fighting one gargoyle on my own. He is not what frightens me.”

A cold, hard knot settled in Kit’s gut. “So, what does scare you?”

The witch hesitated, and for the first time that cool façade fractured. “What frightens me . . .” she said softly, almost to herself. “What frightens me cannot be put into words. Your grandmother would have known, but I suspect she did not teach you. I doubt that was her choice.”

“I was stubborn,” Kit said. “Too stubborn.”

“The young always are.” The witch sighed, and stood. “For what it is worth, young Kitala Bell, I take no pleasure in stealing your soul, or your life. I truly regret it. There are few enough of us as it is, and we are a sisterhood, or should be. Power calls to power. It is why I always respected your grandmother, no matter how far apart we were in thought or method. It is why you and I have just shared words, instead of pain. But this is about survival. Not just mine, but of others.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You cannot imagine, my dear, the Beast that is coming. You cannot imagine the destruction, or the hate. I know I am not. . .
good.
But I am not evil either. Not in the way I know it to be.”

“You’re wrong. You enslaved M’cal. You
tortured
him.”

“Yes. That
is
what one does. It is part of the game, you see. The mask I must wear.”

“No,” Kit breathed. “It’s not. Why would you enslave him?”

“Because I fear him,” said the witch, with astonishing honesty. “Because, like you, I can see the end of days, and I have witnessed mine. M’cal is the man who will kill me.”

And with that, she turned and left.

The first paying audience Kit ever played for almost put a bullet through her brain, but that was incidental compared to the comments about her ass. Hooting Harry’s was a rough establishment on the edge of Nashville, but she was seventeen, and too desperate and hungry to care that not many of the truckers and bikers fresh from the highway were eager to hear some slip of a black girl play her fiddle on a stage more used to poles, G-strings, and bouncing breasts.

Still, she won them over. She always did.

Unfortunately, her confidence onstage was sorely lacking in all matters of mortal danger, and after the witch left the room, Kit found it extremely difficult to simply sit, think, and wait to die. In fact, it wasn’t long before she wanted to puke up her guts like some frat boy on a bender.

She maintained her calm, though. No time to indulge in a panic attack, even if all she could do was replay, again and again and again, with agonizing clarity, every single word of that nuanced, fascinating, and very creepy conversation. The witch was an unexpected woman.

And you believe her.
Kit blew out her breath. All of this, pure craziness. She did not want to believe, but everything the witch had said about her grandmother rang true as a bell. But if that was the case, then how peculiar that the old woman had failed to mention anything of the witch in their recent beyond-the-grave tete-a-tetes. Surely, in between all those other warnings, she could have said
something.

Kit stood and tried the door. It was locked. The room’s only piece of furniture was the bed, and its frame was bolted down—though, after pulling up the sheets, she discovered the mattress was held in place by straps. Straps attached to bedsprings. Springs, which could be removed.

To do what? Pick a lock? Poke someone in the eye?

Kit heard footsteps outside the room. A heavy tread. She stood back as the door opened, swinging wide to reveal the man in gray. There was a massive bloodstain on the side of his suit, but he did not seem bothered by pain. He was far too large for the hall in which he stood. His shoulders brushed the walls. His head almost touched the ceiling.

He smiled at her. Kit said, “Your mouth is totally fucked up.”

He kept smiling, and Kit thought,
So is your brain.

The man turned sideways and gestured for her to leave the room. Kit hesitated, but there was no way she could win in a physical struggle with him, so she followed the silent command and squeezed past his round stomach, which was as disturbingly hard as she remembered. Kit hated touching him. Her skin crawled. She felt like his face was a chalkboard and his teeth were the nails.

Walking in front of him, feeling his cold breath against her neck, was almost worse, but she managed to stay calm, observing her surroundings, still looking for a weapon. All she saw, though, as she walked the corridor, was more dark wood, edged in gold-plated metal trim—mirrors in the ceiling—thick shag carpet—a narrow portrait of a naked woman, very tasteful in a seventies-sex-lounge sort of way. All she needed now to make her officially insane was a swinging disco ball, a furred bed in the shape of a heart, and
Shaft
playing loudly over her screams.

Of course, seeing the man in gray naked would probably do the same damage in a shorter amount of time, but she really hoped it did not come to that.

The floor shifted slightly; Kit felt dizzy, nauseated. She choked down bile and climbed a short flight of stairs, tasting cool air, salt—but it was not until her head poked out into a world of night and clouds and damp that she realized she was on a boat. A very big boat—a yacht—anchored on the edge of downtown, with the city lights towering above her head. The deck was long and pale, and near the railing Kit saw a body.

She ran, falling to her knees beside M’cal. There was a hole in his chest. He was not breathing. She tried to tell herself he would recover, but seeing him so still and cold—

“Disconcerting, is it not?” said the witch, coming to stand beside her. “Though I think I prefer him this way.” Kit snarled, throwing her arms around the woman’s legs, trying to take her to the ground. Instead she found herself hauled into the air by her hair. The man in gray was impossibly strong; his fist felt like the size of her head. Kit cried out, trying to kick him—punch, scratch—but she felt like a cat held by the scruff of her neck, and no matter how hard she writhed, nothing was effective in making him put her down.

The witch stood back, arms crossed, her eyes narrow and hard. She gave the man a sharp nod, and suddenly Kit could stand again on her own two feet. Her head hurt so bad she felt scalped—and indeed, there was a clump of soft hair in Ivan’s hand, which he slowly brought to his nose to smell.

“That was foolish,” the witch said to Kit. Heart pounding—woozy, nauseated—Kit crouched by M’cal and picked up his hand. “You’ve hurt him enough. I don’t care about your reasons.”

“I have no regrets,” said the witch smoothly. “It is what it is.”

A giant hand came down upon Kit’s shoulder. She froze, breathless, as the witch said, “You have met Ivan. I suppose you are aware of his peculiarities. He has others, though.”

“Really,” Kit said, squeezing M’cal’s fingers, willing him to wake. The wound above his heart was beginning to close.