Siren. Part 7

His friend grabbed him and dragged him into the circle surrounding a body on the beach. Paramedics hunched over the b.l.o.o.d.y mess that Evan quickly realized was a man. It was just like his dream-the sand sated with blood. The emergency team had run an IV into the man's arm, and were doing something at the victim's neck.

"So...what?" Evan asked after a minute. n.o.body was saying anything, but the body on the beach jittered and spasmed periodically, so he knew it wasn't a corpse...yet.

"The guy was talking a minute ago," Bill said. "They couldn't shut him up. I wanted you to hear."

"Well, it doesn't look like he's going to say much now," Evan observed. "So what's the deal?"

Bill opened his mouth to speak, but then stopped as a low moan erupted from the sand. "She was there!" a rough voice insisted. The voice sounded about like what you'd expect after gargling a cup of bleach. "I saw her. She was beautiful and...I swear to you...she was nekkid as a jaybird. I seen nekkid chicks before but she..."

The voice trailed off into a fit of wet coughing, and the paramedics leaned over, trying to shush him.

"She sang the most beautiful song..." the man cried out. Evan saw his legs stiffen, and then one hand reached up and grabbed the pale s.h.i.+rt of one of the paramedics. "She sang..." The voice stopped, and then the hand slipped away from the paramedic's back. In its place was a long red smear.

There was a flurry of motion, and one of the ambulance drivers tried CPR. But the man was gone. Bill pulled Evan back from the crowd. "He was one of the crew on a small freighter coming in from Porto Huevas. They were almost to dock early this morning, rounding the point when they heard music. The captain slowed the s.h.i.+p and edged closer to sh.o.r.e, and the guy on the beach was with him. He said that she sang like an angel...and they tried to get closer. Then the s.h.i.+p hit something...but neither one of them did anything, because all they could do was listen to the woman on the rocks. Singing."

Bill looked at Evan and opened his eyes as wide as he could. "Did you hear me, Evan? These guys crashed their boat and stood there on the deck as it went down because they were totally in a trance because of some woman on the rocks singing. Does that sound at all familiar to you, Evan?"

Evan shrugged. "Sounds like they got drunk and sleepy and wrecked their boat on some rocks," he said. "Not sure that a naked singer has a lot to do with it."

Bill took him by the shoulders and shook him. "Wake up, Evan. I know it sounds crazy, but h.e.l.l...you've been with her. BEEN with her. No normal woman has the kind of effect on men that this chick does. C'mon, man. When have you ever been able to set foot in water deeper than a sidewalk puddle?"

Evan looked out to the a.s.s end of the boat that stuck out from the bay and refused to answer.

"She's dangerous," Bill said. "Do you know why that man just finished bleeding to death?"

Evan shook his head.

"Because she bit him," Bill announced.

"So she's a vampire?"

"No! Sirens eat the flesh of their victims. That's how it works. That's why they lure s.h.i.+ps to sh.o.r.e. For s.e.x and...food."

Evan pulled his s.h.i.+rt away from his neck and showed Bill his bare skin. He ran a finger around his throat and shook his head. "I've had s.e.x with her," he said in a low whisper that the others couldn't overhear. "And she's never bit me."

"Maybe you're sour."

"Then I've got nothing to worry about, huh?"

Evan started to walk away, and then stopped. "Hey," he called. "What happened to the captain?"

"She ate him," Bill answered without a trace of a smile. "I'm serious. That's what he said. She ripped out his throat and chewed off his lips. Was in the middle of ripping into his guts with her teeth when our guy back there tried to stop her. If he'd been smart, he would have just taken a dive and headed for sh.o.r.e while she was busy."

"Every man for himself?"

"Sometimes that's the only way to survive."

Evan, Maggie, Bill and the rest of the dock staff returned to the harbor office one by one, and the day crept by. n.o.body seemed much inclined to talk about it, yet, obviously the man's death impacted them all greatly. Darren didn't even mention that Evan had been late. He simply disappeared into his office and hunched behind a stack of files and papers.

Outside, a coast guard cutter flanked the half-sunken s.h.i.+p, most likely to keep away the curious while the wreck was investigated. Maggie made a lot more trips to the bathroom than usual and every now and then just announced, "They're still there."

Evan was glad when the day was done, though he dreaded his first stop of the evening. It wasn't home, unfortunately. Tonight was his weekly appointment with Dr. Blanchard. He felt stupid for going. People could brag about how their weekly trips to the chiropractor kept them upright, but n.o.body really wanted to admit that they needed a shrink to keep moving through the days. Somehow, mental health remained taboo in a country where there was a head doc on every corner. Somebody was keeping them in business and most of those somebodies probably didn't have nearly as much reason as Evan to need help. Most hadn't lost a child.

Evan cringed as he walked up the sidewalk to Blanchard's door. He was still embarra.s.sed about coming here, and knew if it hadn't been a demand of his employer, he never would have continued coming. Still, Blanchard had helped him, he had to admit that.

And today, he really needed her. He wasn't quite sure how he was going to tell her that, but he did. There was too much going on for him to pretend to be fine tonight though. Tonight, he needed someone to talk to. And after the scene at the beach today, he just couldn't bring himself to tell Bill.

Evan followed Dr. Blanchard into the office and eased into the maroon cus.h.i.+oned chair near her cherrywood desk. Everything about her office seemed to have a trace of red in it, he'd noticed, even down to the faint but unmistakably fake additional color added to her lips.

"I had s.e.x in the ocean with a Siren," he blurted out.

Dr. Blanchard tried to hold it back, but couldn't. Her professional composure disappeared and she laughed outright.

"A what?" she gasped.

"A Siren," he repeated. "I'm not joking. Last night, I went down to the beach, and a woman sang to me and it was so beautiful, so moving, that I walked right into the ocean with her, and we made love out in the surf. She even pulled me underwater while she came. And I went with it. I came with her, while my face was under the waves."

"This is a new tactic," Dr. Blanchard said, after forcing down her smile. "From a man petrified of the water, not to mention living life, to a man who is, pardon my French, f.u.c.king a force of nature in the ocean?"

She waited for Evan to respond, and when he only stared at his shoes, she continued. "Why did you say that?" she asked more gently. "What's going on?"

"I know it sounds ridiculous," he said. "But I've never been more serious in my life. The woman I told you about last week? The one who I thought drowned? Well, I went back to the point and she was there again. And she sang to me. So beautifully that I forgot everything. She led me right into the ocean. She could have led me into h.e.l.l for all I cared. But last night, I think she killed a man. Two men, I guess."

Dr. Blanchard quietly pulled her notepad down to her lap and slipped the cap off her pen. Today, she thought, she might need some records.

"Okay, slow down," she said. "Let's start at the beginning..."

Chapter Eighteen.

June 7, 1887 Things didn't feel right. Sometimes, you could just tell. Taffy hauled the rope down hard and s.h.i.+fted the sail.

Sometimes, things didn't feel right 'cuz the sea was scary calm, and you just knew a deadly storm was brewing out in the west, and it was just a matter of time until that quiet turned to squall. You hightailed it to sh.o.r.e then, if you could, because n.o.body wanted to end up as so much meat in Davy Jones's locker. There was an electricity in the air during those times that raised the hair on the back of your neck. You just knew that lightning was poised to strike.

But Taffy had a different feeling right now. This wasn't a seaman's itch about the coming temper of Mother Nature. This was the kind of itch that kept you up at night searching the shadows for the beast you knew was out there. Somewhere close enough to slither out and kiss you. He'd had this bad feeling in his gut, truth be told, since the day Rogers had turned up missing. It had gotten worse when they'd pulled some of that boy's carca.s.s up in the nets. Taffy didn't believe in coincidences; everything happened for a reason. Everything was connected. Now Nelson seemed to have disappeared into the drink. The thief had gotten hisself a captain's whuppin' and the next day, he was gone.

Coincidence?

He grinned, but it wasn't a happy grin. He'd been with Buckley on the sea for a couple years now, hoisting and hefting. The captain ran a tight s.h.i.+p; some called him mean as a widow's t.i.t, but Taffy had always called him brutally fair. He'd had respect for the man, though Buckley kept to himself and didn't share his rum with anyone. They all knew he had it; you could smell it on his breath at dinner. But it was his s.h.i.+p, and if the captain wanted his nip, the men couldn't complain. Captain's prerogative.

Still. Something had changed this time out. The captain disappeared at odd times during the day, just...left the deck. Not a word to anyone. His usual surly stand-offishness now seemed simply rude and mean. And the atmosphere about the s.h.i.+p was different. There were the strange noises at night he'd never noticed before. Rogers had said it was just the s.h.i.+p settling, a light creak that seemed musical in its rhythm.

But Taffy had sailed this s.h.i.+p too many times. The noise didn't sound at all like boards creaking with the waves.

It sounded like m.u.f.fled music.

Kind of like what he'd been hearing just now, from down here in the hold. Taffy slipped between the wooden crates, his ear at the ready. The s.h.i.+p swayed and dipped, slowly, easily, and Taffy's feet adjusted without thinking. But as they hit the low end of the trough, he heard a noise. A sc.r.a.ping. From his left.

He wove between another stack of crates in a crouch. A smile creased his cheeks as he moved. He felt like a mouser. And who knows, maybe he was on the trail of a large rat. They grew big as cats on these boats when they found easy food and no predators. But they didn't hum, Taffy thought. And d.a.m.n it if that sound just now had sounded like a light, airy, feminine bit of absentminded musing.

But there were no women on this s.h.i.+p, so that was impossible. Or was it?

Maybe they had a stowaway?

The creaking came again, just on the other side of the square box that Taffy stalked behind. He nodded and decided to make his move. Springing into action, he twisted around the angle of the box, arms at the ready to grab and take on anyone or anything.

He saw the shadow before he knew what it was and his hands darted out to nab. But at the same time as he reached, a heavy rope flipped over his head and caught at his lower back, and with a snap, drew him right into the figure he'd grasped at.

"You!" that figure bellowed. The pressure on the rope suddenly released, and Taffy staggered backward, his hands tingling from their brush with the captain's s.h.i.+rt.

"Stand up," Buckley hissed, and Taffy did, like a soldier, full attention. "What are you doing here?"

Taffy felt caught and yet...he'd done nothing wrong. Stifling the urge to apologize, he countered, "I could ask the same thing, Captain. Exactly who did you think you were going to catch?"

Buckley scowled, thick gray eyebrows meeting above his nose like a bitter squall. "I asked you first," he said. "But I'll tell you anyway. I'm trying to find the scoundrel on this s.h.i.+p who's. .h.i.tting our cargo. I thought it was Nelson, and maybe it was...but he's gone now, isn't he? Or is he? Maybe he's just hiding out down here, drinking us dry, while the rest of us work our a.r.s.es off to bring what's left of our cargo to ground."

Taffy couldn't help it. He laughed. "That's the most foolish thing I've ever heard," he said. "Nelson was-is, I hope-a good man. He wouldn't dip into the hold. None of us are going to keep our places on this s.h.i.+p for very long if we don't deliver the cargo we're paid to sail."

"Ah, but I caught him with a bottle already," Buckley growled. "And where there's a sip there's a drink, if you catch my meanin'. Now tell me why I shouldn't include you in my list of drunken suspects. What're ya doin' down here in the hold when you should be pitching the mainsails for dusk?"

"I heard something," Taffy said. "Like there was someone down here."

The captain suddenly looked interested. "Heard something, didja? What'd ya hear, boy?"

"I've been hearing things ever since we last docked at Delilah. The other men, they tell me it's the old boards, but I don't buy it. We've sailed together too long, Captain. And this s.h.i.+p don't sing like that in the middle of the drink. Something's changed since we docked at Delilah."

"All that's changed is my crew's interest in the cargo," Buckley growled, pointing a thumb at the stairs. "Get above deck."

Taffy woke in the wee hours. The crew quarters sighed with the snores of hard-worked seamen and the unmistakably nasal wheeze of Jensen. The man never drew a breath that didn't sound vaguely tortured. Taffy didn't know how the man worked on a sailing s.h.i.+p with the rasp that plagued his every exertion, but the thick seamen seemed to muddle through. Taffy didn't know what had awakened him, but he slipped his feet over the edge of the bunk and decided to take a walk. He could use to lose a little water over the side.

He stepped down the dark corridor that led from the crew quarters to the s.h.i.+p's head. He took a lantern hung in the hallway to light the way as he closed the door to the small room and released his bladder into the hole that led straight to the sea.

After, as he stepped back into the corridor, he heard a noise and paused. Something quiet, urgent and soft broke the stillness of belowdecks at night. The sound grew slow and heated and desperate. It made him smile as his crotch grew tight. It drove him, made him move toward the bow of the s.h.i.+p. He pa.s.sed the captain's quarters and then let himself into the storeroom just beyond. The s.h.i.+p's storeroom was a tight s.p.a.ce just at the curve of the bow, not big enough to carry cargo, but big enough to store some small supplies for their voyage. This was the odd-shaped s.p.a.ce where odds and ends and the crew's supplies were stowed. The front area was piled high in ripped nets and fis.h.i.+ng supplies. The crew didn't do much fis.h.i.+ng-despite their official charter-but they had to have the implements available to make their case, if they were ever questioned. Every now and then they had to pull in a catch and stow some evidence to support their claim that they were a fis.h.i.+ng rig. If the authorities ever wanted to check the hold, they were dead. So they needed to keep some fish on hand for when they docked. Reg led them in a day of trawling the depths at the end of every trip before they'd head to port. He'd grown up a fis.h.i.+ng brat, helping his pa drive a rig in 'Frisco for years. Now he helped them fill out a token catch each time they delivered rum to the ports of California. The catch was definitely more trouble than it was worth on the face of it, but it kept their record clean as a legitimate fis.h.i.+ng rig.

Taffy held the lamp up over the shambling stacks of supplies and stinking nets and stepped awkwardly between the mess. The light flickered in long shadows off the curved boards of the hull, and Taffy shook his head at the empty air between him and the dark crevice where the two walls of the s.h.i.+p met and joined. There was n.o.body here.

"mmmm-hmmmmmmmm"

Something moaned. Or creaked. Or...sang.

"mmmm hmmmm mmmm hmmmmm," it came again. The sound sent s.h.i.+vers down his body, and Taffy closed his eyes for a moment, imagining the porch of his momma's home back in Georgia at the turn of the war. She'd brought mint juleps to the tables there, and served the men from the troops when they came home for relief in between skirmishes. She'd been a saint, he thought.

Taffy rounded the corner of a stack of old food crates, and caught his breath. There, spread-eagle on the wooden planks, lay the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her hair cascaded across her shoulder in raven curls that just about kissed the pink pucker at the top of the swell of her chest. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s lolled wantonly, creamy full in the orange lamplight. Taffy thirsted for a taste of them with the first glimpse of her untethered nipples. Above the soft flow of her neck, her lips swelled thick and warm, heavy as a woman just rolled over from a bout of pa.s.sion. Her hands said why. They reached between her legs with obvious intent, covering her s.e.x, or perhaps exploiting it. She moaned and whimpered like a b.i.t.c.h in heat, and with every low and high exclamation of pleasure, Taffy felt his spine melt. He almost collapsed to the ground at her sound. Instead he moved closer and grinned, reaching to undo the front of his pants. If there was an opportunity to be had here in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean...he was not going to pa.s.s it up.

Taffy stepped closer, the wheeze in his chest loud, but the woman seemed oblivious to his approach, despite the sound and the fact that his lamplight flickered brightly over her naked torso. She kept her eyes closed and reached deeper with her arm, calling out with louder and louder gasps as she did so. Taffy knew she had to know he was there, yet she brazenly continued to enjoy herself despite that. Clearly she wanted him to enjoy her exploration of herself, and he grinned-because he did enjoy it. He did very much, indeed. His pants were loosened and slipping down the thick muscles of his thighs as he s.h.i.+fted step by careful step closer, and he recognized the sound he'd heard earlier that day from the far reaches of the s.h.i.+p's hold. That musical, wavering, beautiful bit of noise that said "female" and "heaven" and "take me."

He set the lamp down on the deck and crawled between her legs, unconscious of how brazen the act may have been. She had not said a word to him, or even acknowledged his presence, and he was going to mount her? Her song drew him to her, low and quiet and needful, she hummed and whimpered and moaned-a music that seemed to fill the hold with a pa.s.sion so thick you could mire yourself in it. Her voice was amber, and he dove in without regret knowing that he'd be trapped.

As Taffy let his body touch hers, the woman's eyes opened, and the golden-flecked brown pools drew him in like magnets. He leaned to kiss those pouty lips, and her hands slid from between her thighs to grip his back. She pulled him closer and drew his need to her own with an ease that he respected.

This woman, whoever she was, knew what she wanted, and he was happy to oblige. He slid into her, gasping at the warmth and comfort he found there, and took one thick nipple between his teeth as he drove his hips against hers.

That song, that amazing sound that was her, began to vibrate around him and he could almost see the colors change against the wood of the s.h.i.+p, from scintillating purples to deep, wanting crimson flares to yellow exclamations of pa.s.sion. His eyes no longer saw the real world, but only registered its shades of pa.s.sion.

When her fingernails dug into his back, he arched into her, and when her teeth bared and bit at his neck, he only moaned, stupidly a.s.suming she thirsted for a taste of him.

What she thirsted for, unfortunately for Taffy, was his blood.

He only cried out once when she ripped out his throat and drank from the fountain of his heart. With her hands she grabbed him by the head and gave a fast, furious twist. The snap of Taffy's neck echoed through the hold like a gunshot; he was not nearly as flexible as his name implied. Ligeia relaxed as the seaman's life flowed into her like wine. She twisted and ground beneath him, leveraging his weight against her crotch as she drank and enjoyed the weight of him against her. He had died hard, and she used him. Soon she grew slick with his blood and for a time oblivious to the musty confines of the s.h.i.+p, smelling only the flower of his iron and the heat of her excitement.

After her song had spent, Ligeia rolled the heavy seaman over, his eyes white and dead in the flickering oil lamp he'd left behind, and she bent at his throat to slake another need. Hunger trumped all pleasure. With teeth that hid edges sharp as razors she fed on his flesh, closing her eyes to revel in the warm, salty taste of his muscle and blood.

"Hmmm," she moaned, as she separated the head from his spine. Strangely, this one's body didn't seem to hold on to his head with quite the possessiveness that she was used to, and she enjoyed the jellylike warmth that she buried her mouth on as his face fell away.

The ropes slipped around her wrists with ease. She may have been otherworldly, but she too could get lost in her pa.s.sions. And not for the first time, it was her undoing.

"So..." Captain Buckley grinned, a long, wicked smile in the orange shadows cast by Taffy's lamp.

"You thought you would stay on my s.h.i.+p and take my crew did you?" The captain shook his head, and the woman's eyes widened, her blood-spattered cheeks drawing up in full comprehension of her miscalculation.

"You could have taken to the sea," he said, hog-tying her without regard for the long, sticky pink bits of flesh from Taffy's corpse that still clung to her. "You could have escaped. But I knew-I knew...with this many men in one place, locked at sea...you wouldn't leave. Not right away. Like rum to a drunk they were for you. You shoulda hedged your bets, my Siren," Buckley said. His teeth gritted against one another like chalk against a rough board. "But I have to say, milady, I am getting tired of cleaning up after your messes. And I am beginning to run short on crew."

Buckley left her tied tight and helpless in the corner while he slung Taffy's body over his shoulder. For once in his existence, the crewman mimicked his namesake and hung like a warm, boneless blob over the captain's shoulder. Buckley took the steps up to the deck as fast as he could, and after a quick look back and forth, virtually ran across the boards to the edge of the s.h.i.+p. He let Taffy's body fall to the dark waves below without a second thought, and then grimaced as he ran a hand across the warm stain that covered his chest.

Another s.h.i.+rt ruined.

Since Ligeia had entered his life, Captain Buckley had disposed of a lot of s.h.i.+rts thanks to her feeding habits. Cursing silently, he slipped back down the stairs to retrieve his prize. He and she had some catching up to do after spending the past couple days apart. And he intended to catch up in the worst possible way. Captain Buckley considered the leather strap that had lain abandoned near the fishy stink of his bunk for the past two nights and smiled. His girl would be home again with him. She had a nasty side, that was for sure. But they suited each other in that. And after all, he'd paid for her, hadn't he? He intended to get his money's worth.

Oblivious to the music in her moans, the captain carried her naked form down the black shadow of his s.h.i.+p to the squalid confines of his cabin.

When he closed the door, he shut out the last of her hope. Tears streamed like the spray of the ocean down the captain's bloodied back, but he didn't care. He only positioned her lush body on his bed and began to strip off his own ruined clothes.

"Now," he said. "Now you will earn your place on this s.h.i.+p."

Chapter Nineteen.

"I think maybe we should go away somewhere," Sarah said.