“Ugh!” Hunter looked over at Shanna with a sort of wild desperation in his eyes for a moment, before suddenly running toward the door and the staircase.
“Hunter?” Rachel looked at Shanna with wide eyes before quickly following, Shanna hot on her heels. “Hunter? Hunter! Where are you going?”
Meanwhile, the voice continued, honey-sweet, causing the air to hum and all to sway in its wake.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Dude, look at this kid’s porn collection,” Brett said, impressed, as he dug through a cardboard long box meant to house comic books. He grinned at each dimpled girl, half-heartedly holding a spaghetti strap up on her shoulder or lounging on a bed, head rolled back off the bed casually, hair flowing like silk, breasts barely held back by flimsy material. Each wore the same mischievous looks on their faces with their too-red glistening lips and thick, alluring eyelashes.
“Hmm, they’re just paper,” Ligeia told him. “I’m flesh.”
Brett looked up from the magazine he’d decided to peruse and grinned. “Yeah, you are.” He tossed the magazine aside and climbed onto the bed beside her, trying to gauge the coy look she sent him.
“It smells like dirty laundry in here,” Ligeia complained. “Like a boy’s room.”
Brett gave the room a once-over. Action movie posters. Comic book character statues. A retro wall calendar of pin-up girls. “Yeah. You don’t suppose the boy minds if we…”
“It feels so odd violating someone’s home like this, don’t you think? Looking through their personal things?”
Brett sighed and flopped back on the bed as Ligeia stood up and went over to the closet, sifting through the shirts she found there. She held out a red polo and smiled. “I bet you would look good in this. It’s a little too small for you, but your muscles…would look very good filling it out, yes?”
“Undoubtedly,” Brett threw her a lazy grin, meant to be seductive.
Ligeia paused and dug around the back of the closet, giggling as she came up with a pair of handcuffs and a small whip. She thrashed it once through the air and laughed again.
“Now that is what I’m talking about,” Brett perked up.
He tilted his head then as a sound came to his ears from the open window.
***
“She just scares me sometimes,” Jordan admitted, brooding over a cup of coffee in a small kitchen, his butt hanging halfway off of the bar stool he sat on at a high counter. He chanced a glance at Amelia, then quickly looked away, his finger inching toward a rooster potholder.
Amelia watched his fingers play over the bird, then gazed around the room, noting the roosters on collectible plates and cookie jars, statuettes. She smiled and thought briefly of the people whose house they had invaded, before returning her attention to Jordan. “You know, you have the chance to talk to Jade. From what I see, you guys are pretty tight. She will still listen to you, you can still weigh in. It’s not like now that a little wall’s gone up between you, you’re cut off for life.”
“Yeah, but I feel like that,” Jordan admitted. “I thought we were close, but really, I just wasn’t…aware of how different we are.”
“I think you’re just finding it more difficult to hunt without her than you thought. The moment you sit down with her and talk and laugh, you’ll feel better about all of this and wonder why you were so worried.”
Jordan looked up. “You think so?”
“I do.”
Staring at his cup of coffee for a moment, he nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right. I guess I just might be too close to the situation. You have a sibling, I take it?”
Amelia started and immediately stiffened. “I…I did. I might.” She laughed and shook her head. “I mean, yes. I have a sibling. I just haven’t seen him since we were very young.”
“Do you…have contact with him? I mean, your parents are divorced?”
Amelia turned away. “It’s…sort of complicated.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” Jordan pushed aside his coffee. “It’s really none of my-”
“My brother was kidnapped when I was very young. I don’t remember him much. I’m not even sure he’s still alive. I’m not sure he was alive five minutes after he was taken.” She glanced back at him with a smile that wavered. “Make peace with your sister while she’s in front of you. Life’s too short, you know?”
Jordan watched her for a moment. “Yeah, I…” He stopped and his mouth went slack, his eyes seemed to glaze over.
Amelia frowned as the music filled the room, seemed to caress her with each new note that reached out for her. A voice shifted softly from high note to even higher note, then dropped, making the transition like slowly-drizzling honey. Amelia attempted to put a face behind a voice as luxurious as the one she heard, but could only come up with a golden angelic figure. An angel. Yes, that was it. It sounded like an angel singing the most heart-wrenching song she’d ever heard. It brought tears to her eyes, the subtle break in the voice of the singer on a lower note, then the passion propelling another high note forward like a bullet through the air, aimed directly at her heart, shattering it into thousands of tiny shards. She wondered briefly if this was what people felt when they were moved by an opera - an overwhelming sense of emotion that caught them off-guard, choking them, strangling them with emotion. Amelia felt like a fog were snaking around her head, like she was being enchanted, blanketed by…something that wanted to control her mind. But it was not able to snake its way in through her ear canal, through to her brain, where it wanted to pick up her puppet strings and make her dance to its sinuous sound. It was being blocked somehow… “That singing…It’s the same as-” She stopped short as Jordan leapt to his feet and flung himself at the back door. “Jordan?”
“Jade! Jordan!”
Bolting, Amelia ran deep into the house, recognizing the shrill call. “Krystal? Krystal, what’s wrong?”
“Amelia!” Krystal’s frantic voice resounded from within a room to Amelia’s left and without hesitation, she slammed the side of her body into the door, causing it to crash open.
She stared at Krystal, who was desperately clutching onto Todd’s legs as he struggled to crawl out through the window, the pane littered with broken glass and wet with the blood from his cut arms and chest. He was cutting his flesh to ribbons without regard as he squirmed to escape the room.
“What?” Amelia froze in place, shocked at the scene.
“Amelia!” Krystal screamed. “He’s hurting himself! Help me!”
Forcing herself to move, Amelia launched herself across the room and helped Krystal restrain Todd, calling out to the air to aide them. In moments, Todd was bound to the bed by shreds of sheet, and was frantically squirming to loosen his restraints.
“What’s wrong with him?” Krystal asked, tears streaming down her cheeks. “He just went crazy.”
Amelia’s eyes widened. “The men. Jordan.”
“What? What about Jordan?”
“Damn it. You…just try to keep him from hurting himself anymore. And bandage his cuts. I have to…” She let her voice trail off as she leapt through the same window that Todd had been trying to exit through.
Outside, the song was all around her, almost deafening, drowning out all sound but its own. Amelia couldn’t hear a thing over the din. The air was going crazy with it, shimmering, trembling with…terror? That word didn’t seem right somehow, for such a beautiful sound, but it was the best way she could describe what the wind felt like to her, like it was utterly petrified. But Amelia was able to wade through its fear, gauging approximately where the source of the notes was. That had to be where Jordan would be headed. She stared in the direction of the beach and took off at a run.
***
“Damien, stop it!” Valor demanded, pinning him to the floor. She watched his wild eyes and cursed. “Damn it!”
“What is his deal?” Jade asked, scandalized by the
scene. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned quickly to see Cameron bolt from the room. “Whoa!” She sprinted after him, amazed at his speed as he tore out of the house and up the street.
The music didn’t even register with her at first, but the moment it did, she cursed as Valor had done and pulled a stick out of the holster on her right thigh. She whipped it down hard into the air and it extended into a club.
“Cameron!” she yelled after him.
He was only a few yards ahead, but at her current speed, she was going to tire fast. She took a deep breath and pushed herself harder, feeling her muscles burn with the exertion. When she was within striking distance, she let loose with a sideways hit to his legs, the club landing perfectly to trip him up and cause him to stumble and fall onto the pavement hard, skinning his knees and elbows.
Cameron didn’t react to the pain, but simply moved to get up and continue his run, something that Jade was not going to abide. With a quick flick of her wrist, Jade hit Cameron in the back of the head with the club, sending him onto the ground motionless.
Jade doubled over and gulped in air for a moment. “Shit. You…can run.” She drank the air for a full minute before cocking her head and listening to the music. “I mean, it’s nice. But it ain’t that nice.”
***
“Hunter?” Shanna called out into the dark of night, having lost track of his movements in the shadows of the ruins. “Hunter?”
“I got him!” Rachel replied loudly from nearby. “If I can just get him to…be…still.”
Shanna followed her voice as best as she could over the song that seemed to blanket all other sound. The song was overwhelming. It was full of emotion and…yearning…it brought tears to her eyes just hearing it, the soul behind that female voice, like it was calling out to her specifically and no one else, dredging up any and all moments of sadness and loneliness from her life and amplifying it to an intensity that seemed close to bringing her to her knees... Shanna shook her head to keep her focus and quickly found herself upon Rachel, the girl’s knee forced into Hunter’s back to keep him in check.
“What the hell?” Rachel demanded. “He went schizo. I thought we’d lose him.”
“Nearly did,” Shanna agreed.
“For a bookworm, he can haul ass.”
Laughing, Shanna helped Rachel restrain him. “What’s wrong with him?” She tried to ignore his attempts at bucking them. “It’s like he’s possessed.”
“I was reading about banshees…” Rachel frowned. “I mean, if there were banshees here, mourning the loss of the town…”
“But what caused the men to leave in the first place?” Shanna asked. “Because obviously, whatever it is that’s affecting the men here now, did the same thing during the initial attack, or whatever, that caused the evacuation. Plus, I don’t know much about banshees, but I don’t think they make people go…you know, crazy.”
“Yeah…” Rachel agreed. “Not banshees.”
“But if it’s only affecting men…”
“It’s a siren song,” a new voice related.
They looked up to see Natalia walking toward them, a figure lying still in her arms. Amelia appeared out of the shadows behind her, looking forlorn.
“What…?” Shanna stood up and watched with dread as Natalia drew nearer, carrying the still form of Jordan. “Jordan…is he…?”
“Unconscious,” Natalia informed her. “I had no choice. He nearly escaped.”
“This noise…” Amelia said, hands to her head. “It’s too much. Like a swarm of bees, like…I can’t catch my breath, it’s so intense.”
Rachel stared at Natalia. “You said…a siren song? As in…sirens?”
“The sirens?” Shanna piped up. “But then again, I suppose that would explain the men…and the song. Of course. From Greek mythology, the beautiful monsters who tempted men, and only men, to crash their ships into the jagged rocks around their island with their sweet voices. Some men would even jump into the ocean and swim to the island…to their deaths.” She looked down at Hunter, the desperation in his face, then paused. “Hey, but it affected Jordan too.”
Amelia blinked. “Yeah. He is a guy.”
“Yeah…” Shanna felt a blush creep into her cheeks. “I mean, yeah.”
“He’s gay though,” Rachel spoke up.
Amelia blinked. “What? No…. Really? No….” She looked up at Shanna. “Really?”
Shanna hesitated. “Yeah. I thought I was the only one he told.”
“Like you couldn’t tell,” Rachel scoffed. “He’d pushed the limits of metro long ago.”
“Oh.”
“Does Jade know?” Amelia wondered. “Because I could swear that he was straight.”
“No, he hasn’t told her,” Shanna confided. “And don’t…I mean, please don’t mention it to anyone else, including Jade.”
“So it’s completely biological,” Rachel looked over at Hunter curiously. “Too bad the brain here won’t do us any good until the noise dies down.”
“They used wax in the myth. You know, The Odyssey? To plug up their ears.” Shanna looked up at Natalia. “It’s worth a try, right?”
Natalia nodded curtly. “We can only try.”
Shanna started suddenly. “Wait…are the other men all accounted for? Is Cameron…?”
Amelia and Natalia exchanged looks.
“I don’t…” Amelia shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. Krystal was watching Todd when I took off after Jordan, so he should be alright, but Cameron left with Jade to investigate the whole helicopter thing, so…I don’t know.”
“And we don’t know about Saul and Brett either, I take it?” Rachel asked.
Amelia shook her head. “But they were with…Ligeia and Serene. If they are…I mean, could they be sirens?”
Shanna frowned. “The guys were rather taken with them right off the bat.”
“Yeah, but siren-pretty?” Rachel contested. “Because I’m way prettier than those two.”
“Oh, my God,” Amelia murmured with a hand to her face.
“Either way, I think we’d better take a look and assess the damage before we make another move,” Shanna suggested.
Natalia nodded curtly. “Agreed.”
As they began to walk toward the occupied houses in town, Shanna looked ahead, hoping that Cameron was alright, once again, and feeling guilt anew for selfishly staying behind to research her own Diana problem instead of watching out for him. Just once in her life, she’d like to make a good decision.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Ow,” Damien started as Valor applied a butterfly bandage to his forehead, over a nasty cut. “You don’t have to do that, you know. I’m a vampire after all. It’ll heal before long.”
Valor shrugged. “Well, I feel guilty for hitting you so hard.”
“I’m sure it was quite satisfying for you?”
“Quite.” Valor smiled mischievously before regaining a serious expression. “The song that called to you…do you remember it?”
Damien shook his head, gingerly touching the bandage, perhaps subconsciously. “I have a vague feeling of having lost something great, however. Almost a despair. Whatever the song was, it was quite powerful.”
“Obviously a siren song. That must be what occurred in this town.”
“Maybe it’s what happened to your hunters too.”
Valor nodded. “I’m sure that it’s not a coincidence.”
Damien glanced around the room at the papers lying in every direction, at the shattered table lamp and the chair on its side. “Well, I suppose we should clean up then and plan our next course of action?”
Conceding, Valor stooped to pick up a few scraps of paper. “You know, I had ample opportunity just now to kill you. I hope you remember that in the future.”
“And I could have killed you any moment I liked. I’m glad you’ve chosen to return the favor.”
“Hmmm. I was a hunter once too, you know.”
“I’m all too aware of that. We all are.”
Valor smiled. “I’m happy to hear that the impression was lasting.”
“Infamous, more like. The things you did won’t soon be forgotten.”
A few minutes of collecting the dispersed papers and they looked around them quickly to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
“Well, I vote that we go see if we can’t round ourselves up a siren or two,” Damien suggested. “Like in the old days, eh?”
“Heh. Not likely. The Agency learned long ago to steer clear of the sirens. I plan to locate our lost agents, then put as much distance between us and this place as possible.”
“Wow. You really have gone soft.”
Valor looked up sharply. “The sirens are too powerful, plain and simple. I don’t plan on jumping into any battle without assessing the odds of winning. This is a battle we are just incapable of winning. We go in and get the hell out.”
“That still sounds rather…cowardly. Leaving these extremely powerful entities to reign terror upon the helpless masses? Wasn’t The Agency formed for this sort of battle? Or am I wrong in my assumptions? Is The Agency here for some other purpose?”
“The Agency does what’s in the best interest of the people to do. Getting slaughtered isn’t in anyone’s interests. And anyway, the sirens usually don’t attack unprovoked. This is an extraordinary occurrence. I’m not sure what the cause is, but I have a feeling that it will be short-lived. Like this partnership that you and I have.”
Damien sent her a lazy, charming smile. “Whatever you say, Boss.”
***
“I got it, I got it,” Cameron insisted, holding the cloth to his bleeding nose. “Jeez. Showed some restraint, did you?”
Jade bit her lip. “I thought I did. It’s just…you were going so fast. If I hadn’t stopped you…” She let her voice trail off as they continued their slow trek back to the houses where they’d left the others. The night was suddenly chilly and she wrapped an arm around herself, which did little to fend off the cold. The sound of the sea in the distance was the only sound she could hear. It was eerily quiet in wake of the siren song, like everything had been drained of life, of strength. And they were all that was. A post-apocalyptic film where they were the sole survivors of their race. The setting, the dark abandoned houses, certainly supported the scenario.