by Cutter, Leah
“Of course, nowadays they can get around that by carrying a vial of water with them, from their home river.”
“So they need water,” Kai clarified.
“Yes, they must have it. Or they’ll go insane.” The professor paused, then shook his head. “Even I wouldn’t want to face a siren who’d been on dry land for too long. No, that wouldn’t be pretty.”
Kai nodded soberly. So Rilke had been telling the truth about that. “Do they have any other special magic? Like hallucinogens, or something?”
“What do you mean?” the professor asked.
“Like those toads in the Amazon. You lick ’em and get high.”
The professor chuckled. “Where do you get these ideas, child? The only magic of the sirens is their song, to catch and draw men and women in.”
Kai took another sip of coffee and thought for a moment. Maybe that was why Blind Randall or the other drug gang was holding Gisa—they wanted her song, to draw more drug users to them.
It seemed a stretch, but that was all Kai had to go on.
“Anything else I should know about sirens?” Kai asked.
“Your people have more information than I would,” the professor said with a deceptive shrug.
Kai bristled. “What do you mean, my people?”
The professor just looked at her over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses, his dark eyes taking on a golden hue.
“I’m human,” Kai insisted. “Just—special.”
“Hmmm,” was the only reply Kai received. “Be sure to watch out for all of them,” the professor added after they’d both sipped their coffee a bit.
“The sirens?” Kai asked, confused.
“They’re always born as triplets,” the professor said. “So there will always be either three sisters or three brothers.”
That was what Rilke hadn’t mentioned. Kai was certain of it. The thing she’d been holding back.
Where was the third sister?
* * *
Heat enveloped Kai as she stepped into her office. Still, the golden sunlight on the wooden floor cheered her, and her ordered disorder, all her knickknacks and papers and books, made her office more like a home. Outside, the car traffic moved slowly, fighting the crowds of human traffic. Just down the street, a lone saxophone played.
Kai sat back on her chair, sipping her iced coffee, and called Rilke, wanting to ask about her other sister. Was there a third siren in New Orleans as well? However, the call went straight to the hotel voice mail system. Kai didn’t bother leaving a message.
Then she called Caleb.
“Hey, darling, miss me already?”
Caleb’s warm voice made Kai smile, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. “Hell no. I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” Caleb’s voice dropped down an octave, and he continued with a ridiculous, smooth-jazz-sexy voice. “You looking for some afternoon delight, sugar?”
“Knock it off,” Kai said. Her body warmed to the thought, but she had business to do. The professor had confirmed the worst of her fears. Just before they’d left the coffee shop, she’d warned him to get out of the city if the storm off the coast turned bad. “I need your help scaring away a couple drug dealers.”
“Okay, so we’re role playing. That’s cool. I can dig that. You want me to rescue you from the big, bad dealer? Be your knight in shining, ah, skin?”
“Stop thinking with the little head,” Kai said, exasperated. “My new client—her sister’s missing. I tracked her to an abandoned mall up north. There are a couple of street kids—dealers—hanging around outside. I need you to chase ’em off so I can go look inside.”
Kai couldn’t help her shudder, and was glad Caleb wasn’t there to see. Those walls remembered the flood, still drowned in it. She’d just have to shield herself, somehow.
“I don’t know,” Caleb said. “Don’t seem like your kind of thing.”
“You owe me,” Kai reminded him.
Silence dragged on between them. Finally, Caleb gave a great sigh. “This isn’t some kind of setup, is it?”
“Ha,” Kai said. “Very funny. I’m trying to find a missing girl. Y’all gonna help or not?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll help. But if it is a setup, you’re gonna owe me more than just a favor,” Caleb said darkly.
“What you mean?” Kai asked.
She could feel Caleb’s shrug from over the phone. “Not like you to get mixed up with drug dealers.”
“You mean like Blind Randall?” Kai threw back at him, fuming. The sunlight was suddenly too bright and her office was too damn hot.
“Now, darling—”
“Don’t you darling me,” Kai replied. “You gonna help or not?”
“I said I’d be there,” Caleb said.
Anger still boiled through Kai after Caleb hung up. Why would he accuse her of setting him up? She had better things to do with her time than to play some type of elaborate hoax on him.
Maybe Papa was right: Caleb wasn’t the marrying kind. Kai had known that from the start. Maybe she should let him go, leave him be, and focus on the purely human side, with Orlan, despite how that felt like a cage.
* * *
The cracked sidewalk behind the small hill felt gritty under Kai’s sandals, as if it still held sand and dirt from the floodwaters. She and Caleb stood a few yards from the old mall; behind it and, thankfully, upwind, for once. The hill hid them from the street. A dying palm tree bristled on top of it, providing creaky shade.
“What do you think?” Kai asked Caleb after he’d taken a walk around the mall solo.
“I still don’t like it,” Caleb said sourly. He handed Kai his medallion, then he tugged his red-and-white striped polo over his head. “At least they won’t have a clue what hit ’em.”
“Hurry up,” Kai said impatiently. The street was empty, and they were out of view, but it was still broad daylight.
“Too distracting for you?” Caleb asked with a grin, putting his fists on his waist and proudly displaying his chest.
Kai rolled her eyes. “Hon, you’re good, but you ain’t that good.”
“So you say,” Caleb said knowingly. He quickly shucked off his white shorts and high top sneakers. Then he turned to Kai, about to say something.
“No,” Kai said quickly. “Just change, already.”
“You’re no fun,” Caleb complained.
“Not what you said the other night,” Kai retorted, but Caleb was already contracting, muscle and skin fusing into fur and power. His startling blue eyes shone with unnatural intelligence. He peeled his lips back in a doggy grin.
“That’s enough, you,” Kai said as she finished stuffing Caleb’s clothes in her bag. “Go chase away the bad guys.”
Caleb gave a playful yip, then turned and raced off. Kai followed around the edge of the mall more slowly, pushing her way through the chain-link fence and onto the barren, glass-covered, parking lot.
The drunken, beached white guy was no longer there, though his stench lingered. The two drug kids didn’t show up either as Kai approached. She breathed a sigh of relief, though that brought a whiff of the building in front of her.
It wanted to trap her, drown her, hurt her and everything that moved that could get out of the way of the rushing water while it stood and endured and drown and….
Kai shivered in the heat and pulled herself back, glad suddenly that the first developer hadn’t tried to recondition this place—that it would soon be razed to the ground. Even if it had been redeveloped, the mall would have been plagued with problems: The walls were too steeped in hate to let anything joyful survive.
Before Kai stepped across the glass- and garbage-strewn threshold, she wrapped a wet scarf over her mouth and nose, hoping it would filter out the worse of the rotten dry wall and moldy paint smells, as well as the stench of decay. Small creatures had sought haven in this building, only to find their death.
Glass crunched under Kai’s sandals, the sound echoing through the cavern
ous, empty mall. The tile was slimy and covered in mold. Just a few feet past the entrance, blackness hung. Kai could see better than most in the dark, but the inside of the mall didn’t have any windows or light at all. She dug a flashlight out of her bag and continued.
Black, spray-painted gang markings covered the closest wall, harsh and angular. The remains of a homeless nest—an abandoned sleeping bag and a wire cart overflowing with old papers—were snugged up against a low wall. As Kai stepped closer, gagging, she realized the structure in front of her had once been a fountain, and whoever had been living here had been using it as a toilet. The buzzing flies sounded tinny in the wide open space. Kai breathed open-mouth through the wet cloth, trying to settle her stomach.
But where was Gisa? She wasn’t there now, Kai was certain. But where had she been?
Kai swung her light around, trying to follow the tracks of the gang. She couldn’t open her senses or try to find some kind of path, not without getting lost or overwhelmed by the malicious building.
The walls to her left had more gang markings. Something sparkled in the distance. Kai walked toward it until she could make out that it was a mannequin. Its face was made up with bright red lipstick and it was dressed in a purple boa and gold parade beads.
It wasn’t anything other, though. Just some prank.
It still stirred something in Kai. Though the mannequin didn’t have arms, she felt as though it pointed to the right. Kai followed her instincts, as she always did, past the stinking former fountain, to the space behind the crumbling escalators, tying her wet scarf tighter across her face.
Different markings had been painted there, below the green smudged line of where the water had stood. The bright red characters looked like pictograms, with squiggly arms and long tails. Kai couldn’t read them, but she would bet they were some kind of Chinese writing. She fumbled out her phone to take a picture—maybe the professor knew someone who could translate them for her.
She looked around, but she didn’t see anything else, couldn’t feel anything. The characters didn’t point her in one way or another. She circled the escalator, but she didn’t see any more marking.
At the foot of the frozen, rusted stairs, a large pile of debris caught Kai’s eye. Among the discarded papers and broken plaster, something black that didn’t belong there lay to the side.
When Kai toed the pile, a designer black pump rolled out. It wasn’t rotted like everything else here: It was a recent acquisition of the building’s.
Kai only had to touch it to know it had belonged to Gisa. She caught an image as well, of Gisa standing on the beach, arms outstretched as the wind whipped back her flowing dress.
Power hadn’t come to the siren up through the ground or the waves. No, it came from above her, from the wind and the rain, and was channeled through her, down her feet and out.
The soft clicking of claws against the tiles brought Kai back from the wild storm. She flicked toward the sound with her light, finding Caleb approaching, tongue hanging out, panting, his eyes demon-red.
“You hurt?” Kai asked quietly. Her voice still seemed to echo through the entire building, startling them both.
Caleb shook his head.
Kai motioned for him to follow her to the far side of the escalator. She shined her light on the markings and whispered, “Any idea?”
Caleb did a good approximation of a dog rolling his eyes.
Kai supplied the dialogue. “I know, they’re Chinese symbols. And I know, you can’t really talk right now. But the woman I’m looking for was here, right here.”
However, Gisa wasn’t there any more. They’d taken her away—but where?
Kai brought Caleb over to sniff at Gisa’s shoe, but she knew that although Caleb had a good nose, her ability to find things was better than his scent tracking. He cast around for a moment, but he agreed with her: Gisa wasn’t there anymore.
They headed back toward the entrance, Caleb trotting smartly in front. Just before the open, broken door, Kai saw more red characters. “Hey, just a sec,” she called, going over to them.
These were different than the others: They were more modern, angular and sharp, almost like gang markings. Kai snapped another picture, then took a step closer.
Was that blood, mixed in with the paint?
Without thinking, Kai reached out to touch the wall.
Water surged around Kai. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see anything outside the swirling gray. The pounding freight-train of the hurricane winds deafened her. There was nothing but the storm, no escape, no release. She drown in pain and water and wind, too small to fight, too afraid to scream.
A sharp crack echoed through the waters, sending ripples that Kai could follow. It wasn’t from the storm, but from the outside. With a gasp, Kai leaned back and her hand fell away, back to her side.
Stupid fucking idiotic building. How could she have been so stupid? Kai turned to apologize to Caleb, but he wasn’t there.
Bright blood spotted the floor, and its coppery scent cleared the air of the overpowering mold and decay.
Kai hurried out the door. Caleb had the tall, skinny white boy up against the wall. Blood dripped from his front legs, red drops blossoming on the stained concrete.
Where was the second one?
The Asian drug dealer came around the corner.
All Kai could focus on was the silver-gray gun in his hand.
Kai picked up the broken bottle closest to her feet and heaved it at him.
Of course, it missed.
The Asian man licked his lips and turned toward her. Without aiming, he shot at her, missing her, but she had no idea by how much. The crack echoed loudly in the afternoon sunshine.
Before he could shoot again, Kai threw a heavy rock at him, smacking him soundly in the arm.
“Run!” Kai screamed at Caleb. “Run!”
Caleb turned, but instead of scrambling around the edge of the building, going back the way they’d come, he headed straight toward the Asian man.
“No!” Kai screamed, throwing another bottle, cutting her own fingers as it slid across her palm.
The bottle struck the Asian’s man’s hand, but the gun still went off.
Caleb jerked at the impact. Then he leapt, bringing down the drug dealer. A quick bite to the man’s jugular ended him.
Then Caleb raced out of the parking lot.
Kai followed him, listening for the wail of the police. Maybe no one heard the shot—or maybe they just didn’t bother reporting that up here. By the time she’d reached the far end of the parking lot, she’d caught up to Caleb.
“This way!” Kai said, letting her senses lead her. Less than a block away, they ducked into an alley and behind a green dumpster. Caleb pressed against her legs, shaking. He seemed shrunken, reduced.
Kai dug into her wallet and pulled out Manuel the cab driver’s card. He seemed the kind who’d help and not ask too many questions.
Luckily, he was only five minutes away, and he got there in three. Caleb wouldn’t meet Kai’s eye, but lay on the ground, panting.
She had to get him to his family. They would be the only ones who could help. No hospital or vet.
Manuel graciously laid a towel on the seat that Caleb painfully climbed up on. When Kai sat down, Caleb put his head in her lap, and wouldn’t stop shivering.
“It wasn’t a setup,” Kai whispered. “I promise. It wasn’t.” Just two, dumb street punks. “I’ll owe you a favor,” she added.
Because Caleb had to survive to collect it.
Chapter Five
Though Caleb’s brothers could afford better, they kept a house out in Bywater. Not a cute cottage, no—an ugly, 1950s ranch, with stained white siding, a screened-in porch, and a peeling black roof. The grass in the yard stood yellowed and tough like straw that stubbornly came back every year, only greening for a couple weeks in the spring.
Blue and Jake came tumbling out of the house and down the stairs as Kai pulled up in Manuel’s cab. They wer
e both shirtless, ready to change if they needed to. Kai couldn’t admire all that beautiful dark flesh, though. Caleb still shivered on her lap, and now wouldn’t open his eyes.
Jake opened the back door, then tenderly reached his big hands into the car, gathering Caleb up, his muscled bunching as he took his brother’s weight.
Kai had explained as much as she could in hurried whispers on her cell to Blue. As she started to get out of the car, he pointed at her. “Stay.”
“I beg your pardon?” Kai said, standing up straight, her miniscule five-foot-nothing braving his six-foot-plus frame.
“You’re enough trouble as it is,” Blue said as he walked over to Jake to help carry Caleb. “I’m sure, though, that he’ll call you when he can.”
“I’m sorry,” Kai said to their retreating backs as they walked back up the stairs.
The porch door slammed with finality, and the brothers disappeared into the house.
Shit. She knew Caleb’s brothers hadn’t liked her; now, they hated her.
Kai looked up and down the block. No one else was out in the afternoon heat. All the houses had a shuttered feeling to them—neighbors who probably never questioned the brothers or talked about what they saw.
Kai swayed where she stood, suddenly tired beyond belief. She wanted to crawl under cool sheets and sleep and sleep and sleep.
But the water was just there, ready to pull her under. The stench of rotten weeds rolled over her, swamp dirt and gas.
“Miss,” Manuel said quietly from behind her. “Where would you like to go?”
Without saying the words, he heavily implied that she couldn’t stay here.
“I know,” Kai said with a sigh. She didn’t want to go to her empty apartment. And while she could call Papa, go to him, she’d end up facing his disappointment as well. “Orlan,” she said out loud. She turned back to Manuel, who stood with a blank expression, carefully not judging.
Kai rattled off Orlan’s address in the Marigny. She knew he’d disapprove of that—she should have just given the corner intersection, got off there and walked. But she was tired, so tired.
