That's when he noticed there was no signal, either. Damn. He reluctantly returned the violin to its case, slung his bag onto his shoulder, and went for the door.

It didn't open.

August tried to put his weight behind it, but the door wasn't just stiff, or stuck.

It was locked.

He looked around, wondering if there was some kind of card swipe in the studio, but there was nothing. The access pad was on the other side. Panic chewed through him, but he swallowed and pressed his face to the glass insert, straining to see something-anything-and what he saw was the access pad busted open, spilling cut wires like innards down the wall.

He was trapped.

Kate staggered back from the main doors, the corpse's black eyes staring blankly out at her. She fought back a shudder, tried to think. Three Sunai. Logic said it was Freddie. But if it was Freddie, how had he gotten out and locked the subway gate without her seeing him? And if it wasn't Freddie, and the second Sunai never left the compound, then that meant ... Leo.

Multiple Sunai on the grounds, circling like sharks. Her chest tightened, but she couldn't panic. Panic served no purpose. It clouded your head, led to fatal mistakes. She was a Harker, she thought, clutching the iron spike. She would find another way out. She set off, fighting the urge to run as she rounded the corner of the school, heading for the back gate, digging out her cell with her free hand and- Something hit her, hard.

The phone went skittering away as she stumbled, a steel grip vising around her shoulders from behind. She didn't hesitate, but drove the iron spike back and down into the creature's thigh. It let out a wet hiss, its arms loosening enough for her to drop to one knee and fling it over her shoulder. The body hit the ground, rolled up, and spun with a strange grace, the spike still buried in its leg.

Kate froze.

It wasn't a Sunai.

It was a Malchai.

A skeletal shape, red eyes swiveling in a skull that looked black beneath his slick dead skin. Half the Malchai's face was a mass of angry lines-the H on his sunken cheek had been clawed off, just like the one on the monster she'd killed in the basement. His lips dragged into a crooked grin, his voice a wet rattle.

"Hello, little Harker."

She opened her mouth to say that her father would have his head but never got the chance. A second shape hurtled forward, too fast to dodge, a blur that caught her in the chest and slammed her back into the brick side of the school. Something inside her cracked, and a scream tore free before the second Malchai's grip tightened around her throat, cutting off the air.

The monster's mouth split into a smile full of sharp teeth.

"This is going to be fun."

No service.

Of course there was no service. August shoved the cell back in his pocket, took a deep breath, and then threw his shoulder against the door. He was rewarded with nothing but an echo of pain. Just because he didn't bleed and break like a human didn't mean he could out-muscle reinforced steel. He wasn't a battering ram.

He looked down at his hands and thought of Leo the night before, the way the darkness had licked up his fingers, the doorknob crumbling in his grip, but August didn't have that kind of control. It was all or nothing.

He rubbed his hand over the tallies on his wrist.

Four hundred and twenty-one days.

But it wasn't the marks he was afraid of losing.

There had to be another way. He retreated into the center of the room, scanned the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Smooth. Smooth. Tiled. Standing on the stool, he was just tall enough to reach the insulated squares overhead; they were heavy, but when he pressed against one hard enough, it lifted, and he was able to slide it up, and over.

August sniffed, recoiling faintly at the stale air, then retrieved his violin and hoisted himself up into the grimy dark.

The fingers were icy steel around Kate's throat, and before she could twist free, she was being thrown down against the sidewalk. She hit hard, the wind knocked out of her lungs and her palms burning where they scraped against concrete. She scrambled to her hands and knees, but the Malchai were too fast, and one of them was on her, forcing her down onto her back.

Her shoulder flared with white-hot pain as the monster pinned her to the sidewalk.

"Feisty thing," he murmured as the other Malchai freed the spike from his leg with a wet sound and tossed it aside. The monster on top of her had those same deep scratches running down his cheek, ruining the H and cutting all the way to bone. The marks looked fresh.

"She killed Olivier," said the other, shaking the burn of iron from his bony fingers.

"Indeed she did," whispered the first, bringing his lips to her cheek. She wrenched her head away and felt cold breath on her face as he whispered something in her bad ear, too low for her to hear. She drove her knee into his groin, but the monster only chuckled. So much for SING.

They were strong, but it was still light out, and if she could just get to her feet, put her back to the wall- "I can hear your blood pulsing," said the Malchai on top of her as her fingers scrambled for the second spike shoved in her sock. "I bet you taste sweet." The monster's mouth yawned wide, flashing jagged, silvery fangs.

"No teeth," warned the second, and the Malchai pinning her frowned but closed his mouth with a click. The other one produced a small, handheld torch, snapped it to life. The flame hissed, and Kate thrashed beneath the monster's grip, until his nails dug into her skin, drawing blood.

"I'm going ... to kill you," she snarled.

"Humans, humans, full of lies," sang the one on top of her, red eyes dancing with delight. "Should we kill her first, like the others?"

The Malchai with the torch seemed to consider. "No. There's no one to hear. We should take our time, like he would."

This was wrong.

This was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Her hand clawed at the grass, trying to reach the second spike. The monster on top of her smiled, and the one with the torch turned the dial, focusing the heat into a white-hot knife.

"She has her father's eyes," he said, and Kate shuddered, remembering the teacher on the ground, his sockets scorched black. "Hold her still."

August dropped out of a ventilation duct and into the hallway, his uniform smudged with dust and cobwebs. His shoes hit the polished Colton floor, and as he straightened, his relief at being free quickly reverted to fear. This hadn't been some random prank. Someone had wanted to keep him in that room. But who? And why?

Right now, that didn't matter as much as getting out. He headed for the nearest exit, pulling the phone from his pocket, but staggered to a stop when he saw the girl's body. She was young, a freshman, her head twisted at an awkward angle, but it was her face that made him gasp. She had no eyes. They'd been burned out.

He dialed Henry as he hit the emergency door override and burst out of the building.

"Come on," he muttered as the phone began to ring. He let it ring three times, four, then hung up, and was about to dial Leo when he heard the strangled scream.

It wasn't a high-pitched cry, more a muffled shout. August rounded the corner and slammed to a stop. Two creatures huddled over a girl, their lines too long and lean, their skin too pale and bones too dark. He'd never seen a Malchai before. Not face-to-face. They cast no shadows, but the air around their bodies shivered in his vision, their teeth jagged silver points.

They looked ... monstrous.

And the girl beneath them-the one who'd cried out-was Kate.

For an instant, the world went still, and time slowed, the way it did between chords, the moment drawn out like a note.

He had to help her.

He shouldn't help her.

If he did, she would know what he was.

If he didn't, she would die.

They were killing her.

They were framing him.

She was an innocent.

She was a Harker.

And then, too fast, the moment collapsed, and he dropped to his knees and opened the violin case.

The torch burned the air above Kate's face.

The Malchai's nails were digging into her jaw, and a sound like a whimper escaped her throat. The noise, so foreign, so pitiful, was enough to shock her back to her senses.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the spike. And then she heard it.

Music.

A single note that rang out across the grounds and filled the air, a note that seemed to take up more space than it should. And then another, and another, weaving together into a song. The music was strange and haunting and beautiful, and it took all of Kate's focus to cover her good ear, but somehow, she could still hear it, crystal clear. The Malchai dropped the torch and staggered as if hit, and the one on top of her froze, and clutched his skull in pain as something began to blossom like a bruise across his skin.

Her fingers finally found the spike in her boot, and she drove the iron up into the Malchai's chest, past the blackish substance breaking out on his skin like sweat, and under the bone plate, and into his heart. The monster screamed, clawing at himself, but it was too late. The spike was buried all the way to the blunted grip, her fingers slick as black blood spilled from his lips and he slumped onto her. Kate shoved him off and staggered to her feet, swaying from pain, her thoughts clouded by the threads of music.

And then, abruptly, it faltered, and she heard Freddie scream, "Watch out!"

She turned too slowly, and found herself face-to-face with the second Malchai. The monster caught her wrist despite the oily darkness oozing from its skin, and before she could tear free, his knife-like fangs sank into her shoulder.

Pain shot through her. And then, an instant later, the monster's fangs were gone, and he was being hauled backward. Freddie's arms were wrapped around the Malchai's shoulders, one of his hands pressed flat against the pale skin at the monster's throat; and Kate stood there, dazed, thinking about how young he looked-how small-before she remembered that he was a monster, too. Freddie's eyes were shut, his teeth clenched as he pinned the Malchai back against him, the darkness soaking from the monster's skin into his own like a stain.

Kate's senses finally snapped back, and she broke into motion, taking up the discarded spike and driving it up into the Malchai's heart. He didn't fight. He was already slumping against Freddie's chest, the red light flickering out of his eyes by the time the iron struck home.

Freddie let go, and the monster collapsed between them, little more than teeth and bones, and for a second they just stared at each other, covered in blood and gore and gasping for air.

Neither moved.

Freddie's gaze rolled unsteadily over her, and the corpses, before drifting to his violin, discarded in the grass. Kate's fingers tightened on the spike in her hand.

Run, said a voice in Kate's head.

She didn't.

Freddie's eyes found hers, and he swayed a little on his feet.

"What the-" Kate started, but then he doubled over and began to retch.

What came up was black, glistening like oil. He tried to straighten, but stumbled forward, collapsing to his hands and knees and heaving inky liquid onto the pale concrete of the Colton sidewalk.

Get back, said the voice, but she was already sinking to her knees in front of him. "What's wrong?"

He opened his mouth, as if trying to speak, but choked as more darkness heaved out onto the concrete. When he looked up, his eyes were no longer gray, but black. Black, and full of pain. Veins stood out on his hands and wound like black cords over his skin, climbing his throat.

What had Sloan said?

We cannot feed on them. They cannot feed on us.

Then why? Why had he done that? She wanted to ask him, but Freddie's eyes were sliding out of focus, his body shaking. He reached weakly for his violin, but it was too far away, and moments later he crumpled to the pavement. He wasn't moving. Was he dead? Did she want him to be dead? A small part of her thought, so that's how to kill a Sunai, but no, his chest was still lurching up and down with shallow, staccato breaths.

Her cell phone rang. It was still sitting on the sidewalk where it had been knocked from her hands, and she rushed forward and answered.

"Hello?" she asked, breathlessly. But it wasn't her father. Or Marcus. It was the cab company. The car was waiting in front of the school. The meter was running.

Kate looked around at the wreckage of the fight: the two Malchai corpses, the torch scorching a black line into the sidewalk, the unconscious Sunai at her feet. She was covered in drying blood and streaks of blackish gore. She swallowed.

"Stay there," she told the cab. "I'm on my way."

VERSE 3.

Run Monster, Run

I.

When August woke up, everything hurt. Pain had always been a fleeting thing, something that skimmed along the surface of his senses, but this was deep, knotting around every muscle and bone. The last time he'd gone dark, it had hurt to the core, burned through him like a fever, but even that was different. Now he felt hollowed out. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to be. And for the first time in his life he wanted to crawl back into the darkness of his dreams.