The Siren Song

by Anne Ursu

  Zee stiffened. “Nothing, Mum.”

  The next thing Zee knew, his mother was at his side with her hand on his cheek.

  “You’re all clammy. Are you ill?”

  “No, Mum,” he said, pulling away. “Just hot. Jogged from the bus stop, you know. No soccer today and all.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Well, sit down. Let me get you some water.”

  “It’s all right,” Zee insisted. “Look, um”—he began to edge toward the door—“I’ve got to call Charlotte….”

  “You can call her in a bit,” Mrs. Miller said in a voice that would brook no opposition. “Sit down.”

  With a heavy sigh, Zee sat on the edge of one of the chairs at the small kitchen table, poised to spring at his first available opportunity.

  “So,” she said, handing him a glass of ice water. “Tell me how your day was.”

  “Um…” Zee said, wondering if he might actually burst open. “Fine, Mum.” He began to gulp down the glass of water as quickly as he could.

  “You still like it at Hartnett?”

  “Yes,” he replied tightly.

  “It’s a tough adjustment,” she mused. “Everyone thinking you have an accent. Being new. Not a lot of black kids there.” Her voice was casual, but Zee could feel her looking at him intently.

  Zee almost rolled his eyes. One or the other of his parents said the same thing once every week now, always as if it was something that had just occurred to them that second. Except they hadn’t cared about any of this at all when he was at F&E, where he actually was miserable. “Nope, I like it a lot. Good school.” Zee finished his water, plunked the glass down on the table, and stood up, nearly knocking the chair over. “Anyway, I’m going to call Charlotte.”

  “Something important?” Mrs. Miller smiled benignly at him.

  “Oh, uh…English project. See you later, Mum!” And with that, he made his escape.

  After casting a glance back at the kitchen, Zee trotted up the stairs to his room, closed the door, and turned on his stereo just loud enough to mask the sound of his voice, but not so loud his parents would complain. Then he picked up the phone and dialed his cousin’s number, uttering a silent prayer that she’d be the one to answer.

  “Hello?”

  No such luck.

  “Oh, Uncle Mike. Hi…”

  “Zachary!” Mr. Mielswetzski said, his voice full of cheer. “How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m good,” Zee said, squirming. “How are you?”

  “Well, we’re just fabulous over here.”

  “Great…”

  “We sure miss you around here. How have you been? How’s school treating you?”

  “Good,” breathed Zee. “All good. Hey, listen, Uncle Mike, is Charlotte around?”

  “Oh, she’s at therapy. I’m just going to pick her up now.”

  “Right,” Zee said. “Can you have her call me? Tonight?”

  “Sure thing! Oh, what?” Zee heard his aunt’s voice in the background. “Hold on, your aunt wants to talk to you. She’s going to pick up the other phone.”

  “Zachary!” exclaimed Mrs. Mielswetzski, her voice bursting through the receiver. “We sure miss having you around.”

  “That’s what I said,” said Mr. Mielswetzski.

  “Well, it’s true,” said Mrs. Mielswetzski.

  “That’s why I said it,” said Mr. Mielswetzski.

  Zee bounced up and down on his heels. Shouldn’t they be picking up Charlotte now?

  “Oh, Zee,” Mrs. Mielswetzski added, “did you hear? About the cruise?”

  “Cruise?” Zee repeated. He glanced out of his window, looking for lurking shadows. But there were none—the street was clear.

  “We’re all going on a cruise! Uncle Mike won an award—”

  “A prize!” Mr. Mielswetzski corrected.

  “A teaching award. We’re leaving a week from Saturday. Going up the eastern seaboard! All three of us!”

  “Oh,” Zee said weakly, “that sounds brilliant.”

  “It is brilliant,” laughed Mr. Mielswetzski. “The Mielswetzskis, sailing the seven seas!”

  “Well, really just one of them,” said Mrs. Mielswetzski.

  “It’s a metaphor, dear,” said Mr. Mielswetzski.

  “I know, darling,” said Mrs. Mielswetzski.

  Zee kept bouncing while his aunt and uncle chattered on about their cruise—did they have any intention of picking up Charlotte at all? Were they going to abandon her in front of her psychologist’s office? At least then she could have easy access to therapy to deal with her abandonment.

  Zee finally extricated himself from the conversation and hung up the phone with a great exhale. He went right up to the window and peered out. The walls of the room seemed to be closing in on him.

  “Where are you?” he whispered.

  No answer. Still, the skin on the back of Zee’s neck prickled. Hugging his arms to himself, he stared out of the window a few more minutes, then flopped down on his bed and tried to still his heart while the sun slowly set outside.

  When darkness started to creep over the room, Zee sat up and went to look out the window again. Still nothing. Charlotte had to be home by now, he thought. Why wasn’t she calling? Didn’t they give her the message? What if Charlotte never called him back at all, didn’t come to school, just went off on the cruise with her parents…. Mielswetzskis on the seven seas—

  Zee gasped. The sea! The image from his dream appeared in his mind again, Charlotte on a small boat heading toward disaster. What if it wasn’t a symbol at all? What if it was quite literal—Charlotte in danger on the sea? Why he was seeing it he couldn’t imagine, but maybe someone was trying to give him a warning. (But who, who?) Or maybe it was a trap—they’d been lured to the Underworld by a message that Mr. Metos was in danger. Zee would do anything to keep Charlotte from danger.

  But—he thought suddenly—would he really? He’d been hearing Philonecron’s voice for months and he hadn’t said anything. Just because he was embarrassed, just because he felt like he had failed. But he never thought about Charlotte at all. Philonecron had been weirdly obsessed with having Zee by his side, yes, but he hated Charlotte with a fury. And if Philonecron was nearby, was speaking to Zee, was sending more creepy men after them, well, Zee wasn’t the only one who was in danger. He had to tell Charlotte.

  In his head, he saw the old man in the aqua suit standing next to the big oak tree staring at him. The image sharpened, as if someone had changed the settings on the camera, and Zee saw quite clearly that the man was grinning.

  His skin prickled again, as if someone were drawing his finger lightly across his neck. For some reason Zee froze, his whole body at attention—like a prey animal in the woods. The music from his stereo suddenly sounded dim and far away, as if it were coming from down the street. In fact, his whole room felt dim and far away, as if Zee had somehow been removed from that plane of existence and was now living somewhere just beyond it. His lungs felt stretched, his skin tight. Then the familiar sibilant voice:

  Soon, it said. Soon.

  Violently Zee snapped back to reality. He stood in his room, poised on the balls of his feet, looking all around him, as if the source of the voice might be there. But of course, it was not. Zee tore out of his room and ran down the stairs.

  His mother’s voice came floating toward him from the kitchen. “Zachary? Is that you?”

  As he ran through the front hall toward the door, the lie rolled off his tongue like a song, like a Charlotte Mielswetzski classic, “Going for a run, Mum!”

  “But dinner—”

  Her words were interrupted by the sound of the door slamming shut. Zee was gone.

  It was about two miles to the Mielswetzski house, and Zee could be there in fifteen minutes if he ran. Which he did—down the front steps, down the street, around the corner, down the block toward the busy street that they drove down to get to the Mielswetzskis’. Block after block Zee ran, barely stopping at street corners, do
dging cars that got in his way as he crossed the streets. People honked, someone yelled at him out of a car window, but he just kept running. He was getting hot and clammy underneath his sweater and jeans, and the sweat on his face felt like it was going to freeze. Steam rose from his head. One mile down, another to go—his legs began to protest, his chest heaved, his side began to ache, his lungs felt battered and bruised by the dry night air, but still he ran on, turning up another street, now on the jogging path that ran along the lake near Charlotte’s house. So focused was he on keeping his legs moving, on keeping his lungs working, on hurling himself toward his destination, that he did not notice the three human-like shapes—two large forms supporting one small and shriveled one—that moved along swiftly in the shadows just beyond the periphery of his vision. Nor did he see the small man break away as the two large ones set themselves up underneath a towering tree a few yards ahead of him. He noticed nothing until, two blocks away from Charlotte’s house, the two large men moved themselves so they stood directly in his path.

  Zee thought nothing of them at first—he would just move around them, go to the street—whatever those two big men were doing standing in the middle of the jogging path on a cold March evening, it would not slow him down. He was almost there, and even as the dull pain in his side grew sharp and his legs threatened to give out and his chest was ready to explode, he was going to get there and warn Charlotte—

  And that’s when he got close enough to get a good look at the men.

  At first it looked like they had no heads. For before him Zee saw two forms, wearing black suits and broad-brimmed hats, but there didn’t seem to be anything in between.

  Then the men stepped toward him as one and Zee saw that they did, in fact, have heads—it was only that the heads were made up of a clear substance that looked a great deal like water.

  Perhaps if Zee had continued to run he could have escaped—if he had turned away from the men and run full tilt toward the Mielswetzski house, gotten inside, and never left again, this story might be very different. But he did not, for the sight of the men with water for heads coming toward him stopped Zee in his tracks.

  Then his body took its revenge for the abuse he had inflicted on it. His legs faltered, his side screamed, his chest began to suck in air desperately, and the two water-faced men were upon him, grabbing his arms with their gloved hands. With all the strength he did not have, Zee flailed and fought, but he could not shake himself from their grip.

  “There is no point fighting, young man,” a raspy voice said. Zee wrenched his head toward the sound and beheld the old man stepping toward him, rubbing his pale, bony hands together gleefully. “Hector Horatio and Otis are quite steadfast.”

  Zee stared at the old man, fear and hatred in his eyes.

  “Ah, yes, you remember me,” the old man said. “That was carelessness on my part. I should not have let you see me before I had my friends here to help me.” He motioned generously to the water men.

  “What do you want?” Zee hissed.

  “I? I want nothing from you. I am merely doing a job. But don’t be afraid; I’m sure Philonecron will take very good care of you.”

  As panic welled up inside him, Zee kicked his left foot back as hard as he could toward the knee of the man on his left. Instead of making hard contact, his foot kept going past the plane of the leg, plunging right into the watery body. He heard a rippling sound and felt a strange vibration on his arm and, for a moment, the man’s grip loosened. Zee wrenched his body forward violently, bracing himself to kick the other man, when his eyes caught some sort of strange shifting in front of him. Suddenly the man in the aqua suit was gone, and Zee found himself face to face with—himself.

  Zee’s whole body went slack, his vision blurred, his stomach turned, his skin turned to ice. The Not-Zee in front of him grinned a very un-Zee-like grin and said in his raspy voice, “I know, I know, impressive, isn’t it?” He twirled around, holding his arms out as if to model himself. “Sometimes I even amaze myself! Really, though,” he added thoughtfully, “the point is not the ability, but the opportunity it presents. Remember that, Zachary—it’s not your talents, but how you use them! It’s what you do with your life that counts!” Not-Zee tapped Zee on the nose. “Don’t worry, no one will even notice you’re gone. At least…until your cousin leaves. Until then, we’ll have loads of fun!” With twinkling eyes, Not-Zee leaned in, and suddenly his voice grew deep, young, and full. Zee’s voice. “It will be brilliant.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Special Delivery

  ONCE PROTEUS HAD LEFT ON HIS MISSION, Philonecron began to prepare himself for Zee’s—or as he called him, Zero’s—impending arrival. There was so much to do! He needed all new furniture—from a nice ebony dinner table for two, to an armoire for the boy’s clothes, to another velvet-cushioned, high-backed chair in which the boy could sit while the two of them discussed the finer things: music, philosophy, art, and evil plans. And, of course, the six-foot-tall silk-trimmed glass case the boy would stand in when Philonecron did not require his company.

  Then, of course, there was the issue of clothes. Philonecron did not understand how a boy with a soul so akin to his own (not that Philonecron had a soul, mind you) could dress like a blind Cyclops with a mental disorder, but that was easily solved. A quick visit to the ship’s tailor and Philonecron had a proper wardrobe for him, from morning coats made out of the wool of golden-fleeced rams, to casual afternoon suits for deck parties and seahorse races, to carefully fitted tuxedos for evening wear—not to mention thirty handkerchiefs crafted from the silk of giant Indos worms, all carefully embroidered with a majestic Z. (Philonecron also had a new, short cape made for himself. It billowed behind his wheelchair as he rolled around.) The tailoring was not as it was in the Underworld, of course. Nothing was. There was nothing like the threat of eternal torment to really motivate a person to do his best work.

  But there was nothing he could do about that, or any of it, really; not the tailoring or the crass ambrosia or the lounge singer’s tendency to be one sixty-fourth of a note sharp on anything in her upper register or the fact that the ship had lounge singers at all—he had to play nice for the time being. It wouldn’t do to be feeding Poseidon’s favorite tailor to a tank of demonic piranhas, at least not yet. Not until he’d gotten what he wanted. He could only hope Zero would understand.

  Then there was the matter of finding the boy a good valet—since, after all, he wouldn’t be able to dress himself. It was not an easy task—most of the servants on board the Poseidon wouldn’t know how to match a cravat to a handkerchief if their lives depended on it. Which, if he were running things, it would.

  Greatness, you see, is not always a blessing. Oh, sure, if you are also blessed with, say, your own realm to rule, then greatness is certainly a boon. But if you are gifted with genius, vision, virtuosity, and, of course, exquisite taste, and you must toil in a world of others’ making—and those others are so vastly inferior in every respect to yourself—then it will bring you nothing but torment.

  Oh, how Philonecron wished he weren’t so encumbered with brilliance! Then he might be perfectly happy in this world of puckered seams and inept regimes, lax standards and lounge music. He would not mind that Hades had let the Underworld sink in the bog of bureaucracy, that Poseidon was too busy glorifying himself to remember what glory really was. He would not mind that none of the Immortals—from the most minor puddle god to Zeus on high—had any real ambition, vision, had any sense at all of their power and potential, and were content to mire themselves in mediocrity. They were unworthy of being gods, they were pathetic, every last one of them—and do you know who suffered because of it? Philonecron, that’s who. He’s very sensitive, you know.

  But, wish as he may, brilliant he was. It was his burden to carry, and he would carry it as best he could.

  Of course, it was a lonely life. Perhaps that’s why he noticed Zero in the first place. Philonecron never knew there was a hole inside his heart (ag
ain, if he had a heart) until he began to spend so much time with the boy’s blood and realized what a wonderful specimen Zero was, how like Philonecron himself—an extraordinary creature in a disgustingly ordinary world.

  He had never really thought about what it might be like to have a family. Plotting to overthrow the King of the Dead is very time-consuming and just doesn’t leave much time for thoughts of settling down. But Zero made Philonecron realize that not only would he be a magnificent ruler of the Universe, but he might be a pretty darned good father as well.

  Yes, Zero was someone who he could raise in his own image, who could share with him a passion for elegance, culture, and world domination, who could help him as he conceived of his next evil plan. Because Zero was clever, capable, strong. Because Zero was a hero—anyone could see that, and he could help Philonecron get what he wanted. It is, after all, a hero’s destiny to do great things, and what could be greater than helping Philonecron take over the Universe? And when Philonecron finally ruled, he would have a son by his side. And when he unleashed pain and torment on the Earth to show humanity what it really was to serve a god, when he threw the Olympians in the deepest, blackest pits and set loose upon them demonic rats who would feed on their entrails for all eternity, he would have someone with whom to share it.

  For what is the point of ruling the Universe without love?

  You may be surprised to find him so sanguine after all he had experienced, and indeed it had not always been thus for Philonecron. It had taken him some time to get to the point where he could dream of love and the eternal suffering of others again. When he first was exiled, when the horrible Griffins with their piercing claws and intolerable breath dropped him in a field in the ghastly brightness of the Upperworld, he found himself wishing that his life would end. Him. Philonecron! He did not say—Do not worry, Philonecron, for you are an evil genius and you have a destiny, and someday you will crush them all in your white-gloved hands. No. Philonecron despaired. And if you had come across him lying in the field on that bright afternoon (and I sincerely hope you did not) you might have noticed a single tear slide down his gaunt, gray cheek, past his wide red mouth, and fall to the ground—whereupon all the flowers within a one-foot radius quickly turned black and crumbled in a steaming pile of ash.