Soul Song

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Please, she whispered. Run.

  The man beside Yu aimed his rifle at M’cal. There was a hand-axe strapped to his side. One shot, one hack. Game over. He did not think he could grow a new head.

  But putting Kitala in the line of fire was no answer. There was no way to know how bad—or good—a shot these men on their knees really were. And he did not know how far her body could heal. No grandmother in sight, either.

  Run, Kit pleaded, her gaze sliding sideways to the rifle pointed at his head. They don’t want me dead. You can find me. Please, M’cal.

  “Dick,” said the woman, and the man’s hand tightened on the trigger. Kitala cried out. M’cal changed his song—yanked a string.

  One of the kneeling men threw himself at Dick, pushing aside the rifle just as it went off. The shot blasted a tree trunk near M’cal’s head, but he was already moving, the men around him providing cover. His puppets jerked to their feet like unwilling zombies, eyes wild as they lay down their guns and shambled toward Dick. The man’s rifle was torn out of his hands; he started screaming, swinging his fists. Yu staggered back, pale, dragging Kitala with her.

  “I’ll shoot her!” Yu screamed. “I’ll fucking shoot her if you don’t stop now!”

  But Yu’s finger did not tighten on the trigger, nor did she try to fend off Dick’s attackers. She was too smart for that. She kept the gun right at Kitala’s head, the best threat, the only way to keep herself safe.

  One of the men ripped off Dick’s earphones. A thick orange plug was also stuffed into his ear, but M’cal’s voice penetrated and the man stopped fighting. Yu shouted his name, but it was too late. Dick pulled out the earplug. M’cal’s voice was distorted, the monster in him rising with a howl.

  Blood streamed from Dick’s ears. The man went down hard, slamming his chin to the ground with a crack. His body jerked and shuddered; his heels drummed the ground. Blood leaked from his eyes and mouth. M’cal told him to die.

  Yu finally fired her gun at M’cal, but her aim was bad and the bullet only grazed his arm. He ran. Heard thumps behind him as all the men he had been controlling fell unconscious. Once he felt them go down, he stopped singing and threw himself flat on the ground behind a broken tree trunk. Nettles burned his shoulder and thigh.

  “Motherfucker!” Yu screamed brokenly. “I’m going to kill you!”

  M’cal closed his eyes, reaching out to Kitala, following his instincts to track her along the bond he had made. He heard music in his head, a rumble of drums, and very tentatively called out her name. No response.

  Yu still muttered to herself, followed by some sharp words to Kitala—but then branches started breaking and M’cal peered over the tree trunk and watched the two women march away through the forest, down to the shore. He followed them, quiet, and through the trees glimpsed something that had not been visible from the cabin: a small black speedboat, with oars attached. Silent entry, a loud fast escape. There was no other way to reach this place, unless a person wanted to hike ten miles from the highway. He could not imagine how they had been found. The witch he might understand tracking him, but Yu and those men …

  M’cal crept down the hill. Yu still wore her earphones. Kitala did not struggle, nor did she look around for him. He tried reaching out to her again, pushing with all his strength along their bond, but nothing happened.

  Yu stopped beside the boat and turned to gaze at the shore, the woods. M’cal kept his head down, peering through ferns. Kitala looked directly at his hiding place. She still had the blanket pressed to her breasts, her shoulders thrown back, her chin up. She stared right at him.

  Yu stayed quiet, still watching the forest. The pistol dug harder into Kitala’s temple. No one said a word. The only sound was the water, lapping against the shore. Even the birds were quiet.

  The woman pushed Kitala toward the boat. They waded out into the water, climbed up the short ladder, and stood for a moment, staring at each other. They said a few words that M’cal could not hear, but that resulted in Yu kicking Kitala in the stomach, sending her sprawling on the deck. M’cal flinched, digging his fingers into the ground so hard his nails tore.

  Yu knelt. Her hands disappeared for a moment, but came back with handcuffs. She snapped one end around Kitala’s right wrist, then hauled back Kit’s left foot and clicked the other cuff around the ankle. Yu kicked away the blanket.

  Kitala rolled herself around until she faced the forest. She looked again at M’cal’s hiding place. Behind her, Yu dumped the oars and raised the anchor. She started the engine. The speedboat roared, spun like a top in the water, and then sliced a path toward the mouth of the cove. M’cal started running, hurtling toward the shore so quickly that when his foot touched sea, one leap was all it took to take him into deep water. He transformed, and swam after the speedboat.

  He followed the boat north, up the coast, arms pressed tight against his sides as he made himself as long and straight as possible. He had raced dolphins as a teen, marked himself a winner on some occasions, a loser on others. Either way, he was fast. The problem was endurance. It had been a long time since he had pushed himself so hard. The witch’s curse, the pain of the water, had made that impossible.

  His body grew tired, the muscles in his tail aching, but he did not slow. He sang as he swam: great bellows of sound he pumped into the sea. He pushed harder, his voice building, power crackling through the water as he reached and reached, trying to do something—anything—to make himself faster, that boat slower. The orca pod was some distance away, but he heard their response.

  He had no chance to reply. Something hard rammed his stomach, flipping him out of the water. He caught sight of Yu’s boat, farther away than he had imagined, and then the sea closed over his head and he took another blow to the back, a slam to his head. Pain rushed in. He tried to use his voice, but hands clamped over his mouth, swiftly replaced by a sea sponge shoved hard against his tongue. He thrashed wildly, fighting the strong fingers squeezing his arms; glimpsed faces and flowing hair, the flash of scales. And then a net pressed upon his body, fibers cutting, and he was dragged down and down, screaming inside his mind, screaming for Kitala.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As the child of two musicians who could not in their wildest dreams afford day care—and who, as artists, might never consider day care as an option even if they could pay for it—Kit had spent much of her youth either alone at home, doors barred, or in the back rooms of bars, with a bag of books to keep her busy while one parent or another performed. Her mother and father were almost never on the same stage—different times, miles apart—but every bar was the same, as was the isolation, which was something that Kit had begun to view as the only way to be safe. Out of necessity, sheer desperation, her parents had taught her to be careful of strangers. To be wary, paranoid. To follow her gut. It was the best protection they could offer when the alternative was to starve. Or send her away.

  Kit had learned the lesson well. So well it had become a way of life. Few friends, few enemies. Until now.

  She did not bother trying to talk to Yu. The woman still wore earphones. Up close, Kit had heard music blaring out of them. Heavy metal, turned up to the max. Anything to drown out M’cal.

  Someone knows who he is. Someone knows what he can do.

  Dangerous. Unnerving. As was the fact they had been found at all, which implied an inside job—though Kit could think of no enemy except the witch—and it just did not seem her style. There was also Alice to consider, and the witch’s interest in her.

  It’s all connected. What a mess you stumbled into. Marked for sure. Twisted up in fate.

  No such thing as coincidence, her grandmother would say. Just threads, twining and weaving into something resembling free will, choice. But to Kit, that free will suddenly felt like sitting in the eye of a needle with a big fat piece of thread poking and poking, trying to spear her through. And out there, holding that thread, was some unseen force whose only goal was to knock her out and dead.

&n
bsp; She managed to sit up, craning her neck to peer over the edge of the boat. The ride was rough, the winds strong. She searched the sea behind them and saw nothing except one brief flash above the water—a long, pale shape catching the sun and disappearing. Kit kept watch, but saw nothing else.

  M’cal, she thought, reaching out. For a moment, she imagined a real connection, but the emotions that crowded her were so tumultuous, so full of fear and anger and desperation, she jerked away from them, gasping. Yu glanced back at her, mouth twisting open—the edge of a shout, a scream—but all those contortions ended in nothing but silence and a knowing, chilling smile.

  Kit took a deep breath, tearing away her gaze, steadying herself, pretending she had a fiddle in her hands, her precious fiddle, bow streaking sound like lightning crashing in the clouds. Hot, bright, quick. A symphony running ragged in her ears and heart, building secret strains, mystery. She remembered her grandmother; remembered holding out her eight-year-old hand, being touched on the palm and feeling a spark run through her, flinching as actual light flashed beneath their two bits of flesh.

  Magic, Old Jazz Marie had whispered. Magic in your soul. In all you do, little cat. All you need, right there. So open your heart. Believe.

  Believe. That was the problem. Kit believed, and did not want to. Had always restricted herself to the straight and narrow—or as straight and narrow as an artist could be. Professionally, she was a hurricane. Personally, just a trickle in a narrow stream.

  And this … magic that she could supposedly do was too new. It frightened her. Even trying to connect with M’cal, though she seemed to have done it several times already, felt too new and uncertain to be trusted as fact and not some odd rambling of her imagination. That old resistance coming through.

  She saw islands in the distance, small hills of rock and evergreen pushing up from the sea like living gems. It was only the second time Kitala had ever been up close to similar natural features; she had used part of her first big paycheck from the record company to pay for a family vacation to Nova Scotia so that her father could meet members of his family whom he had not seen in almost twenty years. Musicians, too; sometimes it seemed like her entire family had songs in their blood, tapping out melodies in the womb. The land was similar there as well. As had been Kit’s sense of mystery, staring at the ocean. Not so far wrong, to imagine so many riddles beneath the waves.

  There were other boats in the vicinity, but none near enough to see her awkward situation. Yu kept a wide distance, though she suddenly glanced sharply left. Kit followed her gaze and saw tall black fins sweep up from the water. Air blasted high and loud from blowholes. A great surge of hope leapt into her throat as the orcas drew near. Yu frowned, steering away from them. The speedboat increased its velocity, bouncing harder against the waves. The orcas fell slightly behind, but did not disappear. The pod spread out, flanking them like a pack of wolves, hunting. Kit thought she recognized the old female she had ridden, but maybe it was instinct, a gut reaction to the orca leading the fringe.

  Yu glanced over her shoulder, staring. “What is this?”

  The cop could read lips—Kit had discovered that during their brief exchange after climbing into the speedboat, but she saw no reason to indulge Yu’s questions. Instead, she turned back to the orcas, searching for any sign of M’cal. There was no trace of him. Perfectly logical, but it made her uneasy.

  Kit closed her eyes, cradling her spirit around the quivering note resting in her heart—one shining shard of music not her own, but wholly M’cal. She pretended her grandmother was with her, hand to hand, voice in her ears. Whispering. Telling secrets.

  A chill passed through Kit’s shoulders. She opened her eyes. She half expected to see her grandmother, but no one was there. She was getting too used to miracles.

  Kit raised her head to the wind, drinking in the salt, the cold. She looked again at the orcas, slicing the ocean some twenty feet behind the boat. One of them lifted itself just a little higher from the water—the pod leader, she thought—and inside Kit’s heart, in that place where M’cal resided, she imagined something else taking root: connections and language, all bound up in a sense of protection, duty.

  Images passed through her mind—herself jumping, orcas carrying her, biting the links binding her limbs. Taking her to freedom. To M’cal.

  Come to us. We will carry you.

  Kit stared. Felt like she was drowning above water, suffocating. Too much information, too much choice. But she grabbed the edge of the speedboat, hauling herself up on one foot. Looked out at the rushing ocean, the orcas. It would be a leap of faith. She would either live or die. But she was desperate enough. And she believed in magic now. Miracles. Kit set her jaw and tensed her legs.

  A hand grabbed her hair and hauled back, slamming her into the deck. Kit lashed out, aiming her fingers at Yu’s wild eyes. Poke and gouge—she remembered that much from her mother’s lessons—but the cop batted her hand away, mouth contorted in a snarl that was part fury but mostly disbelief.

  The woman dragged Kit to the front of the boat, cuffing her other hand to the railing behind the driver’s seat. Several orcas bounded dangerously close. Yu took out her gun and fired at one of the creatures. Kit saw the impact; blood spurted. The orca dove. Yu whirled and slammed her hand on the accelerator, pushing it up to the maximum. The boat lurched, hurtling against the choppy waves. The orcas were left behind. And with them, Kit’s chance of escape. Her disappointment tasted bitter.

  After several minutes, Yu slowed the boat, driving close to a hulking precipice of rock jutting from the sea. What had seemed like a tiny island from far away felt, up close, like the opening strains of the Sacrificial Dance from the Rite of Spring. At the top of the sheer cliff, evergreens covered the island, tall and dark, holding shadows under the morning sun. The wind shrieked.

  Yu steered them slowly around the rock face, following the broad curve of ragged rock. Ahead of them, Kit glimpsed a flat outcropping of stone. At first she thought it was a natural protrusion, but as they grew closer, she saw moorings, steps, a smooth, polished surface that was definitely man-made. A nice illusion, though.

  Yu cut the engine, letting the boat drift up against the stone dock. Kit glimpsed movement at the end of it, along a path leading down from the tree line. There were four men in dark gear, guns strapped to their hips. They were short, with tough faces, carrying themselves with less ease than Yu but with more professionalism than Dutch and his cavemen friends.

  As the men walked down the dock, Yu yanked up one of the seats, revealing a hidden compartment. She pulled out sweats and a T-shirt, tossed them to the deck beside Kit, and crouched to unlock her restraints. Kit did not ask, and Yu did not have to explain. Kit dressed fast, and was just tugging the sweats over her hips when the men arrived.

  They looked at Kit with some interest, but nothing lascivious. Professionals, she thought again. Men used to this sort of thing, with a job to perform that had nothing to do with ogling.

  Yu stripped off her earphones. An electric guitar shrieked. The woman had orange molds in her ears, and she pulled those out, too, hitting a button at her waist. The music stopped.

  “Put her with the others,” Yu said. “Remember your instructions, Hartlett. All of you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said one of the men. He was blond, with a thick neck and forearms roped by bulging veins. He looked Kit in the eye with absolutely no expression and hauled her out of the boat. Her hands got close to his gun—negligence, on his part—but she did not make a grab for it. Not yet. Too many people, all of them standing far too close. Any one of them could shoot her before she had a chance to pull the trigger. She was no Annie Oakley.

  Hartlett took her arm and marched her up the stone dock. Kit glanced over her shoulder at the three men following them, and saw Yu watching them from the boat. Her hand was on her gun. She looked like she wanted to take a shot. Kit thought of Yu’s partner, Dick, his brain bleeding out on the forest floor. She could not bring herself
to feel remorse.

  The dock bled into a set of rock stairs carved into the island. Kit kept pace with Hartlett, stealing glances at the sea. In the far distance she saw a ferry, some sailboats. No orcas. And, obviously, no M’cal. She tried to reach for him again and hit a wall. Stumbled.

  Hartlett grunted, glancing sideways at her. Kit took the opening. “Why am I here? Who do you work for?”

  Harlett did not answer, looked straight ahead and kept on walking. Kit thought again about his gun. She also thought about her own supposed power. Her … magic. M’cal said she could do extraordinary things. Her grandmother had told her the same, in more ways than one.

  You can move the stars.

  Move the stars with a song, so Old Jazz Marie had said. And while that was fine to hear, putting such a promise to practical use was another matter entirely. Could Kit free herself now? Make a run for it? Maybe steal that boat down below, or find another. Even jumping into the sea and risking hypothermia all over again would be better than whatever was waiting for her up ahead. She was certain of it.

  The gris-gris bounced against her chest. The leather was soft, warm, like her grandmother’s hands. Kit thought about the song Old Jazz Marie had made her listen to, the song of her soul, which had lurked in the background of her mind ever since that dream of the veranda and conch. Dawnlight and thunder, sleeping under the cover of her thoughts.

  But when she tried to pull the music free, nothing happened. No surge of symphony, no melodic tumult. There was music in her head, but nothing with teeth. As though it were rote, mechanical, without inspiration. An odd sensation, totally unlike anything Kit had ever experienced. She was always on. Always inspired. And she could feel it still, waiting. Part of her, holding in that fire.

  Not time, a small voice whispered. Not time, yet.

  The climb was steep. Kit’s legs burned, as did her lungs. The rock steps turned to hard-packed earth that was soft on her naked feet, except for the occasional stone and twig. The feeling of cold earth helped center and calm her; she focused on the sensation, pretending she was part of the soil, that her roots extended deep into the stone, winding with the trees and the sea. Breath to breeze, slow heartbeat to a slower tide.