Chapter 87
“Celia!” The musician gripped the citrus and pearl dust scented woman’s arms and yanked her to her feet.
“Kyon!” she grabbed for her dog, but the musician tugged her away. “Leave the stupid thing. We’ve got problems.”
She tugged free of her brother and scooped the dog up, wrapping it safely in her arms. They sprinted out of the park, dodging pedestrians and shoving past people staring up at the bulbous black clouds swarming the skyscrapers.
“It’s Luvic,” the musician said, flinging his hand in the air for a taxi. “He’s fighting a monster the Clarks released. It’s—”
“It’s going to devour the city,” the woman said, realization striking. Her already pale face lost its remaining pink.
A violent thunder shook the glass of the building behind them. Her puppy shivered in her arms, buried its head under her shoulder, then yipped furiously at another roar of thunder.
“What were they thinking?” she whispered. Then, “What is he thinking? He’ll be killed!”
The musician nodded. “Glad you caught on. It’s come down to it, Lia. Are we saving him? Are we fighting with him? We could run, or we could—”
She twisted her hand, and a sleek black motorcycle appeared. “A taxi isn’t fast enough.”
The musician smiled. It was the melancholy, soulful, stripped-bare smile that made a being’s heart ache. “Even if the Bard realizes we’re alive?”
“Ragnor Bard. Our little brother is fighting—probably to the death—to save the city from a monster. Do you even have to ask?”
“I just did.”
She smiled, and the little white fluff of a puppy squirmed in her arms, then it poked its head out and barked again.
“My puppy isn’t afraid.”
“Neither am I.”
“Then . . .”
“He’s going to die. Either today or as a jackaltooth. Maybe it’d be better if it was today.”
The wind knew the truth of the musician’s words.
Every human was meant to die. A battle was just one of many ways, and in some ways, it was better.
A man came into battle prepared for death, closer to God than if he’d died slipping on ice or choking on a bone.
Battle or war didn’t increase death. All humans died—war only sped it along.
Humans were always standing on the cliff of eternity, one shove away from death. War only made them remember their toes were hanging over the edge.
Perhaps the trickster would find a better death in fighting for a city of people who loved him than in fighting a shivering, weary, bone-sick battle against the jackaltooth infection. If the trickster had to choose, perhaps he would choose this.
“He wouldn’t want you risking yourself for him. You know that,” the musician said.
The woman studied his expression. “If I leave, are you planning to help him without me?”
The musician’s mournful face cleared of emotion.
“You are,” she accused. “You would help him without me.” She shoved him. “Get on the bike.”
He huffed. Then, twisting his hand, he conjured a second motorcycle. “I have my own.”
The woman grinned. “It’s the three of us, Raggie. It always has been, and it always will be. We’re loyal to each other. We’re loyal to the end. Besides, I really dislike the Clarks. I mean really dislike them. I want to destroy them and their twisted, city-eating monster.”
“Even if we die trying?”
“Shut up and drive.”
They sped through the city. The wind kept track of them, spinning on their flying wheels, vibrating on the kick of their engines.
It dodged and darted and fluttered thinly, with the siblings, and with the trickster, and with the solemn one descending into his own hell, and with the girl in her nightmare, and with the solange-eyed one and the boy fighting the horror.
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman screeched her tires, kicking dust and gravel into the silence. She leaped from the bike, and the engine coughed and died. The musician skidded to a halt next to her. He shoved free from the bike.
“How are we doing this?” he asked, staring up at the horror.
It raged with malevolent hatred, and even with the Silencer, its fury broke free and stained the atmosphere. The musician stared uneasily at the black mass. Bursts of light and sound flicked like lightning in a misty shroud of darkness.
There was something holding the mass back. It wanted to ravage and consume, but every time it darted forward, something shoved it back.
“Is he in there?” the woman asked. “Is he alive?”
The musician shook his head. “I don’t know.”
A small black nose and white fluff poked itself out of the woman’s shirt collar. It licked her chin. She pushed it back inside and whispered, “It’s okay. Stay in there.”
Then she squared her shoulders. She moved next to the musician. She barely reached his chest in height, but she made up for it in power.
“Well, someone’s in there,” she said, nodding to the flashes of light. “We’ll go in singing.”
The musician sighed.
“We’re Bards,” she said.
He frowned. He looked like he was standing on a beach watching a hurricane advance. “I would’ve preferred a whirlpool of weapons.”
“And I would’ve preferred to play with my dog and paint my nails. Also, I would’ve preferred for my father not to want to murder his children. Stick with me, Raggie. You know the song.”
“You’d better warn whoever’s in there to plug their ears.”
She grinned. “They’ll figure it out.”
They dove into the darkness, hands out in front of them.
They twisted them together, rising up in a dance the wind had seen before.
It was the lyrical, melancholic, universal dance they’d performed during the games.
They moved with sinuous grace, swirling in a tight circle, moving in tandem.
Then the woman sang in a rich mezzo-soprano, and the musician joined her in his soul-deep tenor.
The notes swirled around each other, twisting and tying, until they became one pure sound. The sound shattered the darkness.
The horror shrieked.
It’d been busy thrusting itself at the solange-eyed one. It had been calling to his darkness. Taunting his cruelty. The horror had been wooing the solange-eyed one closer so it could devour him.
At the same time, its larvae had been swarming the boy. They’d overwhelmed him. Each time he shoved them back, another cocoon of them had burst free and attacked. Their sticky remains coated his arms, his face, his clothing, and the concrete around him.
At the Bard sibling’s pure song—one of the notes that had been there at the beginning of time—the horror stopped its attack.
It shrank in on itself and screamed.
The solange-eyed one slammed his hands to his ears.
The boy fell backward and landed on the cement. He covered his ears, and then, looking at the citrus and pearl dust scented woman, he gave a wild, joyful, welcome-to-the-fun grin.
When the woman saw the blood from his cracked skull soaked over his face and the gore covering his skin, her pure note faltered.
She took a step toward the boy.
At the faltering of her song, the horror reared up and struck.