The Song of Prague Read online

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  Despite the thumping roar in his ears, the song was still loud and clear when he reopened his eyes. The unconsciousness seemed an eternity, but the gang had only moved a dozen metres and were now standing in front of the women. The bystanders had all but dispersed.

  Fire lanced through Len's muscles. His arm was burning and numb at the same time, his torso a litany of hotspots and needle-pricks as he strained to rise. His head swam, perhaps because of the song, which had entered another frenetic phase. The world had grown fuzzy.

  The gentleman in the grey suit approached and lingered within arms reach. He bent down close to Len, his mirrored glasses reflecting the bruises closing Len's left eye.

  "I have three sides now." The man's tone was oddly accented, like autistic French. He offered up his Rubik's Cube—the blue, red, and white sides converged at one corner. As he shifted a finger, a bloody print lay beneath, staining the white squares.

  His smile revealed two rows of teeth as neat and symmetrical as the squares of the cube.

  Len could only gape and fight for breath as the man caged the cube in his fingers once more, rose, and continued, step by measured step, towards the men clustered around Sasha. He twisted the cube once with each pace, smearing it with fresh bloodstains each time.

  The youth with the studded face hovered at the rear of the gang, clutching his swelling cheek and glancing from the women to the grey-suited man. Only once did he spare a look at Len, one that was wary and furtive like a wounded animal.

  With his unbroken arm, Len groped the back of his head. It was warm and wet to the touch, his hair matted. When he inspected his shaky palm, he found it smeared with blood. "How did that get there?" he murmured to his bloody fingers as if expecting an answer.

  Words cut through his haze and the song. The sister. Shouting.

  Rising to his feet took more effort than he thought possible. Every movement put pressure on a well-spring of new, unnoticed wounds, and thrust white-hot sabres through him. He staggered forward, a man reborn to a defective body. His spirit was willing, heeding the urgency in the sister's words. It drove him onwards—a half trot, half shamble that put him on a collision course with the punks and the man in their wake.

  Another shout from the sister broke Sasha's composure. Her voice faltered. Dissonant notes escaped into the park.

  The copse of trees that swayed to the song snapped at their bases—the simultaneous snap like the breaking of a cosmic, lovelorn heart. Their trunks crashed to the ground in one terrible, ordered line.

  "Wait!" he called to the punks' backs. His voice barely carried over Sasha's faltering song.

  Sasha's sister clutched an object in her hands, pulled from her bag.

  The punk with the branch swung it at the singer. Time slowed as the branch tore a gash across Sasha's cheek and ripped the glasses from her face.

  The object in the sister's hand shone silver in the light and exploded like a thunder clap. An instant later, Len knew it to be a gun, but the recognition didn't matter.

  Sasha had stopped singing.

  Len had only enough time to register her pearl eyes, devoid of detail, and her mouth open in shock.

  The sky dimmed—a sudden darkness, a curtain slammed shut. The horizon shook again but now threatened to tear apart. The entire world blurred at the edges.

  Four of the youths stood like statues before the sisters, the lay fifth sprawled on the grass next to his dropped piece of wood, bleeding out from the gunshot.

  The grey-suited gentleman stepped over the fallen punk, past his companions, and continued toward Sasha with his hands cupped but outstretched. He had completed the green side of the cube, but the white face was broken again, more a smear of red than white.

  Darkness threatened to overwhelm Len once more. He reached a hand towards Sasha but waves of nausea and dizziness struck him down.

  As the grass rose to meet Len, he heard screams drowned out by a note of crystal clarity, purer than any he'd heard before.