Our Bloody Pearl

by D. N. Bryn

  I throw myself into Storm’s path, knocking into them before they can reach Dejean. We tumble across the netting, matching snarls, a layer of blood and water slick between us. I try to get a firm bite, but I can’t hold onto Storm for long enough. Their teeth rake across my arm, losing their grip before they can dig in. We hit the edge of the netting. Drawing on all my strength, I shove Storm over the side of the boat, grabbing hold of the netting’s edge to keep from falling in after them. They vanish below the surface.

  Dejean shouts something, but I can’t focus on his words. My heart pounds. My chest heaves. I made a mistake.

  I should never have let Storm go.

  The beginnings of their song rises through me in a terrible rhythm Dejean and Murielle can’t yet detect. Rolling toward Dejean, I grab a hold of his arms.

  “Storm will sing. We have to leave!”

  But it’s already too late. Murielle stares at the waves with the same look she gives the mechanical gizmos scattered around Dejean’s house, her eyes wide and alight. I let go of Dejean to snatch her wrists, pulling her away from the edge of the boat.

  The song rises around us, an eerie but beautiful melody, spinning a tale of love and of death. I feel the rage of emotions as strongly as Storm does. The wounds they’ve faced from the human’s traps. The betrayal from their pod. The longing to be loved, and the ever-present knowledge that the sea will be there, no matter what befalls them.

  From somewhere deep inside me, I ache for Storm. But that pain turns to fury at the crooked smile that lights up Dejean’s face as he tries to stand, his gaze on the sea. I must stop this.

  Shoving Murielle beneath me, I lunge at Dejean. I yank him back as Murielle struggles to get out from under me. I can’t hold them both. But somehow, I have to. I have to keep them away from the water. I have to force Storm to either leave or to climb back on the boat.

  My arms tremble as I fight to hold down both my pod-mates. A scream burns itself into my throat, rattling my lungs. My strength will fail. Storm can sing for as long as they wish, as long as it takes for my arms to give out, for my scales to fry in the sun, for Dejean or Murielle to break from my grasp.

  I have to make a choice.

  A harsh whimper escapes me as I let go of Murielle. Dejean already lost part of his shoulder to Storm. His half-healed state will put him in danger in the water, even without the presence of a siren.

  I pull Dejean against my chest. It takes every muscle in my body to toss us toward the catamaran’s mast. We roll once and smack into it. I grab the length of excess rope coiled at its base and loop it around Dejean, tying it off as quickly as I can. He struggles, shouting words I ignore, his panic and frustration clear in his voice.

  They mean little, but they hurt all the same, his pain digging into me like rows of needle-sharp teeth. But I’ve done my part. In the daze of the song, he can’t figure out how I tied him. Each time he strains against the rope, it tightens the knot.

  Grabbing the edge of the boat, I heave myself into the water. Murielle swims in slow, sluggish strokes. Soft and enthralling, Storm sings her deeper. They move around her, circling like a shark, watching her every move. Light ripples off them both, sparkling in the slow stream of bubbles Murielle releases from her mouth.

  I rock my hips and pump my arms, propelling myself forward frantically, but I manage little better than a fast drift. Any moment, Storm will notice me and go in for the kill.

  Any moment.

  But their fixation with Murielle never wavers. Lines wrinkle their brow, their eyes narrowed. Their shoulders tighten, each motion guarded, but they tip their head.

  Murielle giggles, the last of her air leaving her mouth. She reaches for Storm, her fingers spread wide.

  A fearful shudder runs through them, and their demeanor changes. Their aggression renews in bared teeth and hunched shoulders, their song turning to a bitter, vengeful requiem. As I reach Storm, they lunge toward Murielle. We collide.

  With a shriek, I knock them to the side. Their teeth barely scrape the base of Murielle’s neck, but they cling to her, dragging her down toward the reef. She doesn’t protest, though her chest trembles as if forcing herself not to breath the water with every conscious thought.

  I will not let her die. Not by Storm and not by the sea.

  Using Murielle as leverage, I shove into Storm with all my weight, slamming them against the rock. They shriek, their eyes rolling once. Their remaining fingers find my gills, digging into the flaps. Pain floods my head and my mind goes numb.

  Simple thoughts echo through the agony. I can’t do this much longer. I can’t fight Storm into submission. One option remains. One chance, and I have to take it.

  Baring my teeth, I ignore the pain and the darkness threatening to consume my vision, and lunge for Storm’s throat. They don’t block me. I hit my mark and I tear.

  Storm’s song dies, and blood fills my mouth as their fingers fall away. I pull back, prepared to attack again, but it’s done. Storm touches the base of their neck, hollow shock on their face. They tremble for a moment, then go limp.

  My heart pounds inside my chest, aching in a way I’ve never felt before, could never imagine feeling. I don’t want to look at Storm’s body, but my gaze holds there, stuck. I can feel every bit of myself, from my shaky arms and tight brow to my tongue, which curls with the taste of Storm’s blood sticking there like a brand.

  What have I done?

  Murielle floats through the corner of my vision, and I finally yank my eyes away from Storm. She’s still conscious, but each kick of her feet is a little weaker as she flounders in the water.

  I launch myself off the rock. Grabbing Murielle’s wrist, I slip under her, lugging her along on my back. The rope attached to the catamaran still hangs in the water, drifting along the sand. It takes me a series of forceful surges to reach it. Climbing to the boat is easy from there, even with Murielle slung over my shoulder.

  We break the surface. I shove Murielle against the edge of the nearest hull. She gasps, spitting out water, and clings there, her feet slowly kicking again. I pull myself onto the catamaran and drag Murielle up after me. She collapses onto the net.

  “Murielle? Perle!” Dejean’s shouts penetrate my mind. It sounds as though he’s been yelling our names for an eon, his voice rough and quivering. He tears at the rope that binds him to the mast with red fingers. It falls away and he rushes to our sides, dropping to his knees. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  “Little, tiny bit woozy, I think,” Murielle mumbles. “Just gotta lay here.” She must be alright, because she sprawls out overdramatically, moaning like she’s dying.

  “Perle?” He looks at me anxiously.

  “I…” The weight of what I did descends like a tidal wave. I killed another siren. The knowledge shakes through me, rattling my core. We are cruel and demanding, and we leave our own to die, but we do not kill them ourselves.

  Especially not for a human.

  Dejean reaches out to me, his palm up like an offering. The same motion I used with Storm. I breathe in and take his hand, squeezing it. I killed a siren—a good siren—a siren who tried to keep me safe in the only way they knew how. I killed them for this human and for the moaning mass beside him.

  Again, I breathe. I should not have ended Storm’s life, but I chose to save my pod. I can’t regret that they lived. I can’t.

  A lump grows in my throat, and I pull myself against Dejean, curling into his broad chest. Stiffening, he hovers his unrestricted arm around my shoulder. Slowly, he relaxes. He wraps me up, pulling me close. His solid form radiates warmth, and I can feel every rise and fall of his torso as he breathes, every beat of his heart.

  My chest trembles, tightening when I try to draw in air. There's something wrong with it, as though I’m drowning in the sky instead of the sea. Humans release their emotions through their eyes in a stream of salty liquid. I long for that now, to be free of the aching in my chest.

  Dejean rocks me back and forth, like the
gentle churn of the ocean, the boat bobbing beneath us. I don’t want to let him go, not now, not ever. I need the reminder that he’s alive, that he’s here, that he’s with me.

  Reaching out a hesitant hand, I find Murielle’s bare foot. She twitches her toes under my fingers, snorting. But then she sits up. She takes my hand in hers and presses her lips to it.

  “You’re a damn pearl, you are,” she teases.

  Dejean makes a disgruntled sound. “Aren’t you engaged to my first mate?”

  “I can flirt with pretty sirens if I want to!” she protests. “Perle doesn’t mind, do you Perle?”

  A bubble of joy floats through my misery. “Never,” I say, but I sign the motion for idiot instead.

  A chuckle rolls out of Dejean, shaking his chest as he holds me tighter. “You’ve been rejected, Mur.” His breath warms my forehead, and I glance up to see him smiling; a weak smile, but a smile all the same.

  The lighthearted exchange takes away some of the pain. But it can’t take back what I did to Storm. Their body still floats out there, drifting against the rocks. By now the sharks may have found it, and if not them, then the little fishes or the crabs. I look at my hands, resting my head against Dejean’s chest. I ignore the reef, and the body lying within. The ache in my heart already hurts enough.

  I am to blame for this. But the actions of others led to it, the pain humans inflict on sirens and the terror sirens instill in humans in return. The worst of these offenders is Kian. Storm’s suffering was one small polyp in a much bigger coral, to which Kian has added more trauma and death than any other.

  I curl my lips, a soft hiss rising in the back of my throat. Running from her might save me, might save Dejean as well. But as long as Kian lives, the wounds she inflicts will grow, taking more sirens and humans down in the process.

  Dejean runs a hand over my head, the quirk of his lips vanishing into worry. “What is it?”

  “I want to kill Kian.” I sit up far enough to sign properly, glaring at the line of the horizon. “I will taste her blood.”

  “Kian?” Dejean repeats the sign, an angry fist tapped against the eyebrow.

  “Captain Kian?” Murielle asks. “She’s the one who’s got the fancy song-blocking instruments, yeah? S’been catching sirens and selling them—or their hides.” Her ears go pink, and she dips her head.

  I poke her cheek, silently telling her I don’t mind talking about it. “I was the first she captured, or one of the first, at least. I was trapped with her until Dejean found me.”

  Murielle watches my signing for words she knows, but Dejean translates anyway.

  “I… didn’t know,” she says. “I’m so sorry.” Then her eyes narrow and she whacks Dejean in the side of his better arm. “Why didn’t you tell me it was Captain Kian’s Oyster you sailed into port!”

  With a muffled whimper, Dejean tries to shove Murielle without letting go of me. “It wasn’t important for you to know! The more people who found out the Oyster had been in harbor here, the more likely someone would trace me and Perle back to this island.”

  Murielle grumbles something under her breath, making a face at him.

  I interrupt her. “Kian’s a monster. As long as she has the means, she’ll murder or capture all my kind. It was hard enough for us to deal with traps and poisons. With Kian hunting us, the sirens won’t keep to their rules or territories for much longer. If Storm’s any indication, there will be worse conflict to come, and death with it.”

  Both my humans are silent, somber.

  Murielle speaks first. “Then we’ve gotta catch this Kian and get rid of whatever she’s got that’s blocking the siren songs. Set everything back the way it was.”

  Dejean sighs, dropping his chin onto the top of my head. “It’s not that simple. If she or anyone else on her crew knows how to recreate those blockers, destroying them won’t do us any good. We’ll have to kill Kian too, and the first mate she escaped with, possibly any others she’s gathered since. It’ll be dangerous and difficult.”

  “I have to do this.” I lean away from Dejean, forcing him to meet my gaze. “I have to protect my kind. They’ve been hurt enough already.”

  “Then we’ll help you.” Dejean pats my head. “We are your pod, after all.” He grins, his eye sparkling.

  “My pod.” I nod, returning his smile. After a moment of hesitation, I wrap my arms around his waist. Water soaks the front of his shirt from when he first held me, but it’ll dry soon, my body with it. “I can’t comfortably stay in the air much longer.”

  “Do you want to swim more?” He asks it softly, as though he already knows the answer, but wants to be polite.

  “No. I’ll go back to the tub.” I don’t want to see Storm’s body again, at least not yet. The cove is my home now, just as much as any place my pod resides, but I can’t bear to swim in it with the reminder of what I did still drifting on its waves.

  Murielle stands. “You both get up to the house. I’ll follow in a bit.”

  She doesn’t explain why she’s staying, but there’s no need. I can see it in her gaze.

  “Put them out to sea. The land isn’t a resting place for a siren.”

  “Figured that out myself, matter of fact. You sirens do love your sea.” She smiles at me, her half-dried hair a mess of tangled coils sticking up at all angles. “Not that loving the sea’s bad or anything,” she adds before launching herself off the boat. She curls into a ball in the air, creating a splash that washes over Dejean and I.

  I breathe a little easier as I slide off Dejean’s lap and let him move the ship closer to our elevator.

  These humans make a good, loyal pod. I won’t let anything happen to them, no matter the cost. But I won’t stand by while my own kind are hurt, either. I will swim this cove in peace for as long as I wish, and open our pod to all who need the sanctuary, siren or human.

  And no one will stop me, least of all Kian.

  [ 9 ]

  MOMENTUM

  I was changed. Therefore, I change.

  DEJEAN CARRIES ME toward the house, holding most of my weight on his unrestricted arm. The brace lifts my tail off the ground, though the shredded half of my limp fin hovers a finger’s length above the grass. The low sun casts harsh shadows off the building. Dejean’s comforting warmth stings my drying body. I can’t wait to sink into the tub.

  I unlock the back door while Dejean supports me. Orange light shines through the water from the windows along the far wall, turning the metal beneath a brilliant gold and sparkling off the bits of dust that float in the air above. It lacks the majesty of the cove, but in its own way, it’s beautiful.

  It gives me pause.

  I want my human pod to have a place in the cove. But they’ve made this stretch of land their home, and they granted me a piece of it even before I considered them my family. A smile tugs at my lips, and I lean my head against Dejean’s chest, the pain of what I did to Storm drifting a little further away.

  Dejean steps through the door, somehow managing to close it behind him using only his bare foot.

  I snort a humorous noise through my nose.

  “Did you say something?” He lifts a brow, looking suspicious.

  “I was laughing at your toes.”

  He huffs, tossing me into the air just enough to unsettle me.

  I grab his good shoulder with a yelp and glare at him. “They’re weird! Little, stubby, wrong-shaped fingers. They—”

  Something crashes in the next room over, and I squeak as Dejean nearly drops me in surprise. He regains his hold, his fingers tighter than before.

  “What was that?” I sign, making no sound.

  He shrugs, his brow scrunching.

  The floorboards squeak as someone walks across the room. My fear fades as Simone appears in the hallway, her blotched flounder-like skin unmistakable. Her usual cascading cape of blood-colored fabric swirls around her ankles, the matching colored feather in her wide-brimmed hat bobbing. She carries two large pieces of a broken vas
e, similar to the ones Murielle stores her tools in.

  Dejean releases a long breath, his eyes lifting to the ceiling. “You and Mur must stop doing this! I have a doorbell and a front porch for a reason.” He sets me down beside the tub.

  “I have your spare key,” she states, her tone unconcerned.

  Dipping my hands into the water, I splash it over my face, letting it soak through my scales. It makes me yearn to dive in, but I don’t want to deal with removing the brace in the confines of the metal tub. I set about unlacing the complex ties near my waist. Dejean and Simone talk as I work.

  “When did you get back?”

  Simone sets the broken vase onto the table, turning her nose at the mess. “An hour ago. The ships are still well away from the harbor. I came in on a dinghy, with Chauncey and Ynez. They’re still in town.” She moves forward, her gaze sweeping over the tub and settling on me. “I see you kept the siren.”

  I pause from my unlacing and hiss at her.

  She tips her head, whisking off her hat. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  I can’t tell if she means it, but she plops the hat on my head, and I decide the oddness of it is far more interesting than her feelings toward me. Why anyone would want a weight on their skull blocking part of their vision, I can’t fathom. I take the thing off and spin it between my hands. The feather dances like a dolphin in play. Grinning, I set it back on my head and return to the brace.

  Simone chuckles, then shifts her attention to Dejean. “What’s with the arm? You’re carrying it funny.”

  “You noticed,” he grumbles.

  “Yes,” she says, matter-of-fact. “Show me.”

  He groans but does as she asks, unbuttoning his shirt with his unrestricted arm and tossing it to the side. “I have to change the dressing soon anyway.” A large white sponge still sits on the wound, held there by long, white strips. The first few days, blood soaked through, but now it looks pristine on the outside, save for some wrinkling around the edges.

  I unbuckle the poles on the sides of my brace and slip it off as Dejean removes his dressings. A dip remains in his shoulder, but the quickly forming scar tissue covers some of it. The speed he heals isn’t natural for humans. It’s their science that makes it happen, though Dejean assures me the knotted, off-colored scar tissue would not be any different had he let his body take its good old time. I can’t decide whether I believe him.