Out it poured, taking shape in the air and twining through the bodies in the room, drawing their souls to surface.
If August’s eyes had been open, he would have seen their shoulders slump and their heads bow. Would have seen the fight bleed out of the man on the ground and every other body in the room, the fear and anger and uncertainty washed away as they listened. Would have seen his soldiers go slack and empty eyed, lost in the rapture of the song.
But August kept his eyes closed, relishing the way his own muscles loosened with every note, the pressure in his head and chest easing even as his longing deepened into need, hollow and aching.
He imagined himself in a field beyond the Waste, tall grass moving in rhythm with the music, imagined himself in a soundproof studio at Colton, the notes rippling and refracting against the crisp white walls, imagined himself alone. Not lonely. Just . . . free.
And then the song was done, and for a final moment, while the chords trailed off through the room, he kept his eyes closed, unready to return.
In the end, it was the whisper that drew him back.
It could only mean one thing.
His skin tightened, and his heart sank, and the need rose in him, simple and visceral, the hollow center at his core, that unfillable place, yawning wide.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was light. Not the harsh UVRs that lined the lobby, but the simple auras of human souls. Forty-two of them were white.
And one was red.
A soul stained by an act of violence, one that had given rise to something monstrous.
It belonged to the woman in green.
The mother, with the little girl still beside her, one small arm still wrapped around the woman’s leg. Red light beaded on her skin, streaking down her cheeks like tears.
August forced himself down the stairs.
“He broke my heart,” confessed the woman, fingers curled into fists. “So I sped up. I saw him in the street and I sped up. I felt his body break beneath my tires. I dragged it off the road. No one knew, no one knew, but I still I hear that sound every night. I’m so tired of hearing that sound. . . .”
August reached for the woman’s hands and stopped, his fingers hovering an inch above her skin. It should be simple. She was a sinner, and the FTF harbored no sinners.
It didn’t feel simple.
He could let her go.
He could . . .
The light in the hall was beginning to dim, the pale glow of forty-two souls sinking back beneath the surfaces of their skin. The red on hers shone brighter. She met his eyes, looking past him, perhaps through him, but still at him.
“I’m so tired . . . ,” she whispered. “But I’d do it again.”
Those last words broke the spell; somewhere in the city, a monster lived, hunted, killed, because of what this woman had done. She had made a choice.
And August made his.
He wrapped his hands around hers, snuffing out the light.
August retreated to the lobby as soon as it was done, as far as he could get from the collective sounds of shock, the palpable relief of the spared, the child’s piercing scream.
He stood over the siren mosaic, rubbing his hands, the sinner’s last words echoing in his head. Her life still sang beneath his skin. It had given him a moment of strength, steadiness, less like hunger sated—he hadn’t been hungry in months—than the sensation of being made solid, real. A calm that evaporated the moment the little girl began to scream.
He’d moved the mother’s corpse, carried it out of the hall, out of the child’s sight, for the collection team. Her skin had felt strange beneath his touch, cold and heavy and hollow in a way that made him want to recoil.
He’d spent a lot of time watching the soldiers of the FTF—he no longer tried to mimic their faces, postures, tones, but studying them had become a habit. He had watched the way their hands shook after bad missions, the way they drank and smoked and joked to cover it.
August didn’t feel sick, or jittery.
Just empty.
How much does a soul weigh? he wondered.
Less than a body.
The symphony doors swung open.
“This way,” said Harris, leading the group through. Ani had the little girl in her arms.
August felt Jackson put a hand on his shoulder. “You did your job.”
He swallowed, looked away. “I know.”
They ushered the crowd toward the southern doors. They were locked, but August keyed in the code as Ani tapped her comm. “Clear?”
A crackle of static, and Rez’s dry voice. “Clear as it gets.”
The whole group parted around August as he made his way to the front of the group, recoiling as if that small measure of distance would keep them safe.
Outside, North City now rose at their backs, but the sun was continuing its slow descent between the buildings.
There was still safely an hour before day began edging to dusk, which meant that monsters weren’t the most pressing concern. The Corsai kept to the dark, and while the Malchai weren’t incapacitated by daylight, it did weaken them. No, the real danger, as long as the sun was up, were the Fangs—humans who’d sworn allegiance to the Malchai, who worshipped the monsters like gods, or simply decided they’d rather submit than flee. It was Fangs who’d ambushed his team at the symphony hall that time, Fangs who committed most of the daylight crimes, Fangs who ushered new monsters into the world with every sin.
August started forward across the street.
Only six blocks separated the checkpoint from the safety of the Flynn Compound, but forty-two dazed civilians, four FTFs, and a Sunai would be too tempting a target. They had a dozen jeeps, but gas was tight, and the vehicles were in high demand, plus tensions were always high in the wake of a screening, and Henry didn’t want the new recruits to feel like prisoners being carted off to jail.
Walk with them, the man had said. Step for step.
So August and his squad led the way toward the broad set of stairs on the corner.
Boots sounded nearby, the stride even, casual, and a moment later Rez fell into step beside him.
“Hey, boss.”
She always called him that, even though she had ten years on him—more than that. After all, August only looked seventeen. He’d risen out of gun smoke and shell casings on a cafeteria floor five years before. Rez was short and slight, one of the first North City recruits to trade their Harker pendant for an FTF badge. She’d been a law student in her past life, as she called the time before, but now she was one of the best on August’s team, a sniper by day and his partner on rescue and recon after dark.
He was glad to see her. She never asked how many souls he’d reaped, never tried to make light of what he had done. What he had to do.
Together, they reached the gated stairwell, a steel arch overhead marking it as a subway station. At the sight of it, several people slowed.
August didn’t blame them.
The subways were largely the domain of the Corsai—dark tunnels like the one he’d raced through with Kate, full of shadows that twitched and twisted, claws that glistened in the dark, whispers of beatbreakruinfleshbonebeatbreak sliding between teeth.