Song of the Sirens (13 page)

Riley dropped to the bottom of the ocean
floor and sat. He looked exhausted.

The dolphins fled the moment chaos
simmered, and the mermen swam to Riley. They gathered around their protector
for a few minutes. A group returned to the city, but did not enter. The
majority fanned out and disappeared into the darkness. A few followed Riley
back to our location.

The screen dissolved and rippled.

I clenched my jaw and tightened my hold
on Dad, as if that could somehow protect his sleeping body from impending doom.
I sat unmoving in the silence for what felt like an eternity now. Anticipating
something, or someone, to pop up made me anxious. I shook from head to toe.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when
Riley shot his head out of the pool. He wiped water from his face.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I sputtered.

“And your father?”

“The same.”

A moment later, several glowing mermen
entered the pool and emerged in front of me. I waited to hear what came next.
For the time being, the others ignored me and spoke to Riley as if I didn’t
exist.

“Now time for the tricky part—hunting
down any who might have gotten away,” Riley said to the men with his back to
me. “Sirens didn’t leave a trail, or scent for us to follow, but we can hear
their song. They’re slow and sluggish thanks to weakness and starvation, so
they’ll have to use their song to call out, lure, and trap humans to feed on.

“If any escaped and used their song, I
wouldn’t reach them in time to save the human, but we could follow the trail of
mutilated and eaten corpses to find the siren, that is, assuming more hadn’t
escaped. But, we’re in the middle of the ocean, in the storm they created, and
there is only one place to go for humans.”

I cringed. This nightmare was about to
get worse. It prepared to morph into the scariest horror movie imaginable—one
with me in it!

“Report,” Riley ordered.

His men were fatigued and slouched. The
man in the middle spoke, “We think two sirens fled before we could reach them.
Most of us rushed to the boulder to fight them in. We managed to surround one
whom you drove back into the cave. Other men reported having seen something
that looked like a siren. Perhaps it was nothing, a figure or shadow leaving
the area, but that’s too much of a risk to take.”

He groaned. “I agree. Is the entrance
sealed?”

“Yes.”

“Others are combing through the sea. The
sirens aren’t able to get close to the city, thanks to the king, so they will
probably stay close to the ocean floor and stalk anyone, including us, who are
outside of the king’s protection.”

The men exchanged disconcerting looks.
Worry creased their faces.

Riley used the water to float higher.
“We’re all tired and no one wants to encounter the sirens. They’re hungry and
apparently still strong. But, it’s better to face them now while we’re prepared
and searching for them than to face them when they ambush us. Keep an ear out
for their song.”

“They should remain close, then?”

Riley nodded.

“We’re too far for them to swim to land
in their state. No fish will come near them, because they can sense the danger.
And there aren’t any humans for them to feed on to gain strength.”

“Except these mortals. I have to take
them back to the surface before the siren realizes they’re still here.”

“Should we escort you?”

“Comb the surrounding areas first. Start
close to these caverns, and then go outward. Check for any peculiar movement.
Any wildlife would have fled by now, including the sharks, so any disturbance
in the currents has to be a siren. We need a clear escape route. Once the
humans are secure, I can center full concentration on the sirens. Return once
you’ve decided the path is ready for us to move.”

They nodded with a slight bow of their
heads and dipped back into the tunnel.

Energy returned as a slow dribble,
though I riled it to gather faster. A sudden pang of dread cleaved across my
chest. If a siren was loose, two meaty humans waited like sitting ducks on a
silver platter for an easy picking.

Riley turned and swam to me. The water
gathered around his waist and lifted him up to meet me at eye level. He crossed
his arms and entered a stunning staring match. I didn’t know where to begin
with questions.

“What…what’s a siren, really?” That
seemed a good a question as any.

He didn’t respond.

“You can’t tell me the truth?” I
snapped. “I’m dead anyway, right?”

He raised his brows and looked at me
with big, puppy dog eyes as if my words hurt.

I scoffed and glanced at the foaming
water. In a softer, defeated tone, I said, “I know we’re not going to survive.”

I expected Riley to pause before forcing
out gibberish and a “we can” attitude, but he answered on the first beat in a
stern, though sincere, voice. “I’ll make sure you make it back to the boat and
back to land. You have my word.”

I raised my eyes to meet his.

“I shouldn’t have a connection to your
kind, but you’re easy to like.”

A brilliant shade of pink flushed his
cheeks, and in response, I felt my own cheeks grow warm through the bitter
coldness.

He added, “You know, I mean all of you.
Your father is likeable, and so is the entire crew.”

“You joined us just to keep this from
happening?”

“Yeah. My purpose in life is to protect
Atlantis. I keep the city and our people safe and hidden from humans, sirens,
and any other threat. We’re powerful people, but we know there are strong
adversaries out there. I walk among the humans, sailors, and scientists all the
time to get into their knowledge about my world.

“When I found out about your dad, I
didn’t think too much of it. I’ve heard of many men who set out to discover
Atlantis. When I realized how close he was to us, I maneuvered my way into his
team so I could sabotage his mission at the right time, taking his notes and
locations with me.

“I don’t mean to hurt you or your
father, or destroy his life’s work. I think it’s commendable that he spends his
days learning about lost civilizations, but we aren’t lost, we choose to be hidden.
What he searched for was an ancient, human culture, but what he actually found
was our city and our people. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Why don’t you want us to know about
you? You’re one of the greatest discoveries.”

He smirked. “I have to keep the secret
of my people hidden, and the same goes for the sirens. They don’t care about
revealing themselves to mankind. Once the world realizes mermaids are real, we
would never be safe. More off, once humans discovered that sirens are vicious,
flesh-eating maniacs, the world would vow to destroy them and merfolk alike.
Humans won’t stop there. They’ll continue to fish out the ocean and eventually
discover more of its mysterious civilizations.”

“There are more?”

“That’s another story.”

“Then tell me what those things are,
those sirens. Why don’t you just kill them if they’re so bad? Why so careful
with shoving them back into the caves?”

“We believe the bite of a siren could
poison a merman. If a merman wasn’t eaten, they would face a slow and painful
death from the toxins injected into their flesh. Many believed this would cause
the infected to go mad, and perhaps behave like the sirens, turning into
cannibals and infecting others of their kind until the searing epidemic
completely wiped out our race. Then who would prevent them from venturing onto
land and destroying the world, starting with the rich human food supply?”

I gagged. “You mean, like zombies?”

Riley scrunched his brows and pressed
his lips, as if searching an infinite dictionary. He replied slowly, “I guess
so. That fits the description.”

“When can we leave?”

Riley shook his head. Water beaded down
his face and chest with the movement.

“Why not?”

“We succeeded in trapping the sirens in
the cave, but we’re scouring the area to find any escaped ones.”

I froze. “And what if they escaped and
you don’t find them?”

I pressed my palm against the cliff at
my side until my wrist ached. I felt every protrusion dig into my flesh.

“Calm down, we’re following protocol.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. Where
did the sirens come from? What happened to them that made them like this?”

Riley sighed. “I can’t answer that. You
shouldn’t know.”

“You’re going to erase my memory,
anyway, right?”

He nodded.

“So what difference does it make?”

He narrowed his brows. “Tell me, Anita,
are you the type of person who fears the unknown more than the horror itself?”

“At this point, yes!” I screeched, and
then clasped a hand around my mouth, not having meant to raise my voice, which
echoed in the cavern.

My palm was red and indented from
pressure against the grooves in the rock.

Riley moved to the left, gripped the
ledge, jumped out of the water, and turned himself around to sit next to me.

I stared at the beautiful, glittering
tail and fan-like, near transparent tail, which tapered off into uneven
boundaries. The scales caught the glow just right and created thousands of
sparkles. The green hue matched his eyes, which also appeared to shimmer in the
iridescent light.

I dragged my eyes back up to meet his.
He returned the stare, as if musing why his species could so easily distract
mine.

Chapter Nine

“How do you even exist?” I asked.

He shrugged. “How do you exist?”

I raised a brow. “I could give you an
entire anatomy, physiology, and ecology lesson to answer that question. Our bodies
make sense. Yours doesn’t.”

“And I could reply to your question in
the very same manner. To us, you’re the weird ones.”

I made a face. “You learned that word
from me.”

He nodded in agreement.

“You haven’t been on land or around my
kind often, have you?” I asked.

“Enough to know what to do. I know how
much humans know about us, which isn’t much.”

“Can all mermaids turn into humans? Do
they walk among us?”

“First of all, I’m a mer
man
. And
second, no, they can’t.”

“Okay, now back to my original question:
what’s going on here?” I trembled in an attempt to maintain an even tone. We
ran around circles here.

Riley stole a glimpse of my father, who
continued to sleep to my right.

“I’m waiting. Fill up time and take my
mind off what’s about to happen. I won’t remember anything tomorrow. That is,
assuming that I make it that long.”

“Are you afraid of death?”

“Hell, yeah. Why would you ask me that?
Should I really prepare for it?”

“No, calm down.”

“You keep telling me to calm down, but
then you say things like that. Don’t you know what
not
to say to a girl
to keep her from freaking out?”

“Lesson learned,” he muttered. He went
on with a great deal of reluctance and through tight lips. “Mermaids and mermen
are real. I’m a merman, obviously, and our existence has cradled against
mankind for centuries.

“Our civilization lives in an underwater
kingdom in the depths of some of the deepest places in the ocean. The capitol
kingdom isn’t far from where your dad explored. What humans refer to as the
lost city of Atlantis is my kingdom. This is Atlantis, and a king and queen
rule it. You had the rare privilege of meeting King Neptune, the strongest
mer-king in the waters. You’ll never see the queen, since she’s the most
protected mermaid known. Queen Salacia is as ancient as King Neptune.

“We all have different special abilities
that enable us to remain hidden as a whole. We are super-fast swimmers. Most of
us can manipulate water to some degree. Certain mermen are chosen to be
warriors because of their gift over water and the great control they exercise
over it. Only a select few of us can turn into humans in order to keep our
secret hidden. I can do all of these things, and that is why I was chosen to
protect.

“Most of us don’t go near the surface.
If we get caught, we know we won’t come back. The saltwater keeps us alive. I
can walk on land, but I never stray too far from the ocean, otherwise I’ll die.
To avoid being seen or caught, we keep our distance. We’d rather die than
expose our kind.

“I’m from a long line of protectors. I
have the inherited gift of controlling water more so than even the warriors,
but not like royalty. Water comes to me, heals me, and enables me to be
immortal. I’m still young, but immortality is an option.

“Since war hasn’t reached us, I’ve spent
my life concealing our kingdom and keeping humans away from the gates of
Theoisis. Beyond the gates is the entrance to a large cave, which leads to a
lava-filled labyrinth. With scalding hot liquid on one side and an impenetrable
boulder on the other, it was the perfect place to trap the sirens.”