August heard a sound beyond the shower.

A heavy beat. He thought it could be one of Kate's songs but there were no words, only the repetitive Thud. Thud. Thud.

August dragged himself into a sitting position. It hurt to breathe, hurt to move, but he was still here, still him.

He got to his feet, pants plastered to his skin with water, and swayed, then steadied himself against the tile wall as he turned the shower off, straining to hear over the pulse of the gunfire in his head. But beyond the harsh staccato, he heard his name, and then the sound again, and he realized it had the steady cadence of a fist against wood.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He stepped out of the tub, feeling like his body was made of glass-one wrong move and it would simply shatter. He braced himself a moment on the edge.

"Kate?" he called.

And then he heard the crash.

The door burst open as Kate crossed the entryway. The man caught her around the waist, and the two went down struggling. He landed on top of her hard, wrenching her wrists over her head, but she got her knee up into his stomach, and then her foot, sending him back into the wall as she rolled over and up, and leveled the gun.

"Don't move," she growled, heart racing, but hands steady. His hat had fallen off, and his hair fell into his eyes, but not before she saw the ruined H on his cheek. Not FTF, then. One of Sloan's. "Put your hands up."

"Miss Harker," he said smoothly, half raising one hand, the other still behind his back. "I'm not here to kill you."

She cocked the gun. "Hands. Up."

"There's no need for this," said the man, but his eyes were hard, calculating. "Your father sent me."

Her eyes flicked from the hat on the floor to the scar on his forehead. "Bullshit."

"It was just a disguise," he said evenly. "In case the monster came to the door." An almost arrogant smile. "How else would I know your location, Miss Harker?"

"Why would he send you?"

"He was worried."

"And the scar?"

He tilted his head, hair falling aside to reveal the mark. "Quick, aren't you? Now put that down and-"

"Show me your other hand."

Slowly, smoothly, his hand emerged, holding a cell phone. "See?" he said smoothly.

"Put it on the-"

More tires on gravel. Kate glanced away for an instant, but that was all it took. The man lunged for her weapon, and she swung back toward him as his fingers brushed the barrel, and she fired.

The blast recoiled up her arms, and the sound tore through the room, turning the sound in her good ear to static. It wasn't a clean shot-the bullet took the man in the neck, burrowed a hole straight through into the wall behind him. The cell phone tumbled from his fingers, skidding across the floor as he clutched his throat, but blood was already spilling between his fingers and down his front, dripping to the wood.

Red.

Not the black blood of monsters, but the vivid red of human life.

His lips moved, but Kate couldn't hear, and by the time she could, it was too late. He took a single, staggering step back into the wall, and then the life went out of his eyes and he fell, a body before he hit the floor.

Kate couldn't tear her eyes from the spreading pool of blood.

It should have been like killing a monster.

It wasn't.

A shiver went through her, and then she heard a ragged breath, and looked up to see August standing at the mouth of the hall, soaking wet and doubled over in pain.

No, not pain.

Hunger.

"Kate," he gasped. When he dragged his head up, the light was gone. His eyes were wide and black. "What have you done?"

IV.

August's vision tunneled.

The shadows in the room were bending, peeling away from the walls and the floor and tangling together around Kate. Her own shadow writhed around her as she moved toward him.

"I didn't-he came at me-I thought-"

She reached for his arm, soul pulsing like red light beneath her skin, and he staggered back. Away, away, away.

He tried to make the words but they were stuck in his throat.

It felt like the gravity in the room was tipping, like any second the wall behind Kate would become the ground and he'd fall forward into her. But she just stood there, waiting, and all he had to do was reach out and grab her, dig his nails into her wounded shoulder and drag her soul to the surface and the pain would stop everything would stop and- "Run," he pleaded as his flesh burned and his bones sang.

"August, I-"

"Run."

This time she listened. She staggered backward into the door and sprinted out into the dusk just as a second car pulled up.

Kate skidded to a stop on the gravel drive as a black sedan blocked her way.

A Malchai she didn't know climbed out of one side.

And Sloan stepped out of the other.

His gaze tracked over her, his mouth drawing into a smile. "Hello, Kate."

The crashing car. That rictus grin. Those bloodred eyes.

She raised the gun. "What are you doing here?"

He spread his arms, as thin as wire. "I've come to take you home."

"My father didn't send you."

"But he did, Kate. Despite all the bad things you've been whispering in his ear."

Her fingers tightened on the gun. "I'm not going anywhere with you. You sent those monsters to kill me, didn't you?"

Sloan considered her. "And?"

"You said you didn't do it-"

His smile was vicious. "I never said that."

Her father's words. I questioned him myself. We both know he cannot lie.

It hit her like a blow. Sloan couldn't lie, but Harker could.

"Oslo," said Sloan, addressing the other monster. "Go get the Sunai. I'll handle this."

The Malchai started toward the house, and Kate swung the gun and fired. The silver-tipped bullet buried itself in the monster's shoulder, and he snarled as black blood stained his shirt. Kate turned the gun back on Sloan, but he was already there, cold fingers vising around her wrist and wrenching the barrel up. "This game again?" he said dryly. "Did you really think you could turn my master against me?" An edge of disdain on the word master. He pulled her toward him, and her free hand went for the lighter in her pocket just before his fingers closed around her throat.

The moment they did, she drove the switchblade up into his wrist. Sloan recoiled at the silver, and she drew the knife free and tried to slash at his throat, but he was too fast, and before she could get in another shot, his fist connected with her jaw, and she went down hard, spitting blood into the gravel.

The lighter skidded out of reach, and cold fingers curled around her wounded shoulder as he forced her onto her back and wrapped both hands around her throat.

"Our little Katherine, all grown up."

She clawed at his wrist, but it was like fighting stone.

"You think you deserve a chance to rule the city? It doesn't belong to you, or Callum Harker-not anymore. Soon the monsters will rise, and when they do ..." he leaned close, "the city will be mine."

He knelt on her wounded ribs and she tried to cry out, but there was no air. Her lungs screamed.

"You've made a mess of things," he went on. "Can't even die when you're supposed to. Even your mother could do that much."

She kicked and squirmed, trying to gain purchase, to get a leg up as her vision swam, tunneled. "I should kill you now," he said wistfully. "It would be a kindness. But-"

He slammed her head back into the ground, and everything went dark.

August stumbled into the bathroom. He fell to his knees on the tile, and pulled the violin case onto the floor in front of him, fumbling with the clasps as a shadow appeared in the doorway, its red eyes reflected in the mirror.

August wasn't fast enough-his fingers barely brushed the strings of the violin before a boot connected with his ribs and sent him hard into the base of the sink.

Porcelain cracked against his spine, knocked the air from his lungs.

"Well, well," came the Malchai's wet rasp, "not so scary now, are you?"

August struggled up onto his hands and knees, and crawled back toward the case, but the creature's boot came down on his wrist, grinding it into the tile floor. Pain flared through him, too bright, too human. Sharp nails hauled him up, and then he was flying backward into the wall so hard the tiles cracked, and rained down around him when he fell.

August tasted blood, staggering upright as the Malchai's hand closed around the neck of his violin.

No.

"Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal," sang the monster, running a nail along the string. "Sing you a song and steal your soul."

August lunged forward, but at the same moment the Malchai wound up and swung the violin at August's head.

He tried to get his hand up to stop the blow, or at least save the instrument, but he was too late, and the violin shattered against his skull, turning the world to splintered wood and broken strings and silence.

V.

The world came back in pieces.

Concrete beneath his knees.

Iron around his wrists.

A shifting pool of light.

A metallic tap tap tap.

The echo of large, empty spaces.

The world came back in pieces, and so did August. For a moment he was terrified that he'd lost himself, but the pain in his head, the ache in his wrists, and the searing heat across his skin told him that he hadn't gone dark. Not yet.

He was kneeling on the floor of a warehouse, surrounded by glass and dust and a single harsh light, the edges so sharp that the space beyond registered as a wall of black. His arms had been wrenched up over his head. Pain flared around his wrists, and August could feel the metal chains cutting into the base of his hands, rubbing the flesh raw in a way they shouldn't be able to.