Siren's Song

by Trish Albright

  He looked at her suspiciously, doubtful that she would help him. Pretending to misunderstand his expression, she acted as though she had stepped over a line, bowing her head. “My apologies.” She lifted her bound hands in supplication and waved to Emma. “Please. Proceed.”

  Paxton wrapped the whip, stepped forward. He caressed her cheek. “What’s your game, Alexandra dear?”

  She shook her head. “No game. I just want to be done with it. The prophecy, the map, the astrolabe. It’s all yours. Take it before the eclipse, and the secret’s lost forever.”

  Paxton’s face was expressionless. But she had succeeded. She’d piqued his interest, and he forgot Emma. Now she just had to find a way to get Emma to a cabin.

  “Unfortunately, there is this other issue.”

  He stepped closer, trying to intimidate her, she guessed, but also not wanting the others to hear any of the secrets she had.

  “And that would be?”

  Reeling him in, she licked her lips and leaned forward, tilting her head to whisper in his ear. “You’re not going to live long enough to succeed.”

  He thrust her from him, furiously. “The devil! You are a dangerous siren, Miss Stafford. Keep your mouth shut, and you might live another day.”

  “I don’t need another day, Paxton.” She smiled slyly. “Today will be quite enough.”

  He slapped her hard. She caught her head from snapping and tasted blood, but sensed uncertainty in his eyes. He stroked the curled whip in his hands, thoughtful.

  “Careful. Don’t want to hurt yourself with that, Paxton.” She taunted him loud enough for the crew to hear, demanding that he recover his respect. She was ready for the next strike, but it rattled her brain nonetheless and sent a lightning jolt of pain down her neck.

  Paxton walked away from her. “You show her who’s boss, Cap’n!”

  Alex let out a peel of laughter at that suggestion, inciting him further.

  Paxton turned abruptly, and a wild strike with the whip in her direction let Alex know she had succeeded in goading him. Her hands moved instinctively to protect her face and deflect the whiptails that immediately lashed her wrists and arms. A sharp pull cinched her hands, and she was vaguely aware that the rope binding her actually saved a large portion of skin from this new assault. What wasn’t saved burned like hell. A second yank and Paxton pulled Alex painfully to her knees. She gasped from the sting of the hard deck on her kneecaps. Yep. Nothing like solid American hardwood.

  “I believe I shall want your friend alive and on her back for me.” He motioned to Emma. “Take her to my cabin.”

  “No!” Emma screamed, struggling. Her eyes locked with Alex in terror. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks, and though her words sounded like they were for the evildoers, Alex knew they were for her. “Don’t do this! Don’t!”

  “Now then, Miss Stafford. Tell me what I want to know and this will all go much easier for you.”

  “That’s Captain Stafford to you.” She looked him in the eye before adding, “Bastard.”

  He shook his head, chuckling indulgently. Then he gripped her hair and whipped her head backward, forcing her to her knees.

  “When is the eclipse?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “You lie.”

  “When shadow crosses light. And light triumphs.” She released a harsh breath. “Tomorrow, Paxton.” She told him like it was already over. “Tomorrow is the eclipse.”

  “You speak in riddles. You’re bluffing.”

  Alex smiled, knowing he hated it.

  He tossed her away from him. “Tie her to the mast.”

  The sailors obeyed and cleared the area. Paxton slowly took off his shirt. He gave the whip a swirl to test and the crew gave shouts of encouragement.

  “Wait!” Falco leapt to the deck. Alex thought for one instant the murderous first mate would save her. Then Falco took a knife, and before he could be stopped, sliced the back of her black robe and spread it to make a clean target for her nemesis.

  A cheer went up.

  The first crack of the whip was lost among cheers, but the dramatic flinching of the victim’s body was not. Paxton looked at his crew and smiled with devilish pleasure. He enjoyed watching his victim arch painfully. A hot red mark opened on her back, revealing how easily her skin had broken.

  Paxton stepped up and whispered in his victim’s ear. “Did you like that, my sweet? I can be nice, you know. If only you would give me a chance. If you beg me now, I might see my way to being merciful. The bed is very comfortable. But then you know that already since it used to be yours, isn’t that right?”

  She didn’t say a word. She gasped for air painfully, trying to ignore the blazing sensation spreading from her back through her ribs, intensified by the simple act of breathing.

  “Nothing to say?” He brushed her hair back to look in her eyes. “We could have been partners, you know.”

  Alex struggled to speak. “The siren and the snake?”

  He sighed. “You do amuse me so.”

  Paxton walked back to his place and Alex braced herself for the next lash. A loud hiss squeezed from her clenched teeth as the whip seared flesh and muscle. She breathed in slowly trying to prepare herself for another, praying her whimper of pain was not discernible. Instead, her head was yanked back violently. Paxton was becoming incensed by her silence.

  “Will you not beg, sweetling?”

  Alex rasped, sweat burning her eyes. “Go to hell.”

  He slammed her head forward then stood behind her and kissed the back of her neck, on the tattoo where he had permanently claimed her. The more she denied him, the more it incited him. “Why do you make me punish you?”

  The next lash struck her back across the middle, followed quickly by a second and third before she could even prepare. Her exhale of agonized breath seemed to garner sympathy from a few crewman, but none dared to challenge Paxton. Another long succession of strikes silenced the entire ship.

  Alex crumbled against the wood, sucking in air during the pause. Her mouth was dry, her lips torn from biting back cries. Perspiration dripped at her temples as she fought to maintain consciousness against the blackness crowding the edge of her vision. That’s when she decided swooning might work in her favor.

  Paxton observed her limp body and lifted her tied hands from the hook holding them in place. When he let go, she fell to the ground. He put his hands on his hips and gave her a push with his foot.

  “She ain’t dead already, is she?” someone yelled out, sounding disappointed.

  “No,” Paxton smiled. “But this sure as hell takes the fun out of it.” He tossed the whip to the ground amid the laughter of the crew. An enterprising sailor grabbed a pail of salt water.

  Seawater washed over the fresh wounds on her back. A wail erupted through her clenched teeth at the unexpected assault burning nearly as hot as her wrath toward Paxton and his men. She forced her eyelids downward to hide the murderous vengeance she felt. Adjusting her robe, she crawled a foot or two, struggling to see through wet, tangled hair and eyes rimmed with dirt, soot, and sweat. Reaching for the post that had moments earlier held her, she pulled herself up, straightening as much as she was able, every muscle protesting her proud stance. The raw skin remaining on her back resisted every movement, but determination to fight filled every part of her. At her feet she noted blood mixed with water dripping on the deck. She straightened herself further, shoulders back, head slowly lifting to Paxton. Her eyes glared, but her lips smiled. He needed to know there were some things you couldn’t beat out of person.

  Paxton knocked her sideways to her knees with a quick hook.

  There were gasps of surprise.

  Stubborn, Alex reached the deck with a hand for balance and stood again. This time she laughed. “Do I scare you, Paxton?” She took an unstable step closer to him. He didn’t move.

  “I’m very disappointed, Alexandra. Your father sustained at least thirty-five lashes before he fainted.”

  His taun
t had caught her unaware. Paxton was pleased by the reaction.

  “Of course he was crying like a baby until then.” There was doubt on her face. He finally found a crack in that steely armor. “He begged for mercy just before he died. It was very undignified.”

  “You’re a bad liar, Paxton. My father was lost at sea.”

  Paxton laughed loudly at that. “Oh yes, my dear. He was certainly lost at sea.” He winked to Falco, including him in the joke. “Piece by piece.”

  This time it was Paxton who smiled when Alex turned deadly white.

  “You liar!” she screamed. “How dare you even speak my father’s name on your foul lips, you pig!”

  Falco chimed in, adding to the confusion. “Aye, Cap’n. Speaking of pigs, didn’t her papa squeal like a pig when we did ’im in.”

  “Yep,” Paxton embellished extravagantly. “I remember like it was yesterday. Boston’s Honor was easily won that day. All her crew cowards. Ship went down in a blaze with your papa watching. Then we cut off his arm and fed it to the sharks.”

  Alex stared in disbelieving horror. She could not imagine her father’s death like this. Never could she imagine anyone’s death like this. Falco seemed to enjoy her sickened expression. A crewman asked another if it was true.

  “Aye. That’s when he started the squealing,” Falco told her.

  “But after his other arm went, it wasn’t much fun. Not with all that blood getting on the deck,” Paxton reminisced. “Fortunately the sharks were good and hungry when we finally tossed him over.”

  Alex stepped away from them, and spun with fury at the crew, then back at Paxton. She spoke loud, her voice scornful, her eyes burning with vengeance. “You, Paxton, who have followed the prophecy for so long. You who should have known better … have made an error in the extreme.” She snarled her next words. “You don’t control the seas, Paxton. I do!”

  Alex took a deep, focused breath of ocean air, pulling in the power of the sea she had always known she was born with, and released a high, keening sound—a sound so cold it sent a chill down every sailor’s spine.

  At that moment, it seemed the wind ceased and the sails fell limp against the rigging. Sailors looked around them, eerie silence spreading to panic. The Sea Fire was in irons, and the strangeness of it was not lost on the crew.

  Several looked at each other in terror, then all stared at the white, taut body of the woman who stood proudly before them in the tattered black robe, her red hair tangled and sticking to blood dripping down her back like an evil sorceress seeking revenge.

  Birdie shivered at what he saw. He wasn’t the only one. Her once warm green eyes appeared blacker than the depths of the darkest oceans, and ten times colder. They were the eyes of death. There was no life, no glitter, no reflection.

  Paxton stepped back unconsciously.

  Her lips curved slowly, but this time it was the smile of an animal that had turned feral.

  Her voice came out calm and deliberate. “Thank you, Paxton.”

  He couldn’t resist. “What for?”

  She was unnervingly confident. “Now I know how you will die.”

  The crew gasped at her words, and Paxton struck her hard, as if chilled by her being. But this time she didn’t fall.

  Unaffected, she lifted her head and laughed in his face with the kind of cold delight one would imagine from a devil. He hit her again, this time in real fear, but nothing could wipe away the cold smirk or mocking eyes. He yelled for the crew to trim the damn sails and get her out of his sight. “Lock her up in the darkest corner of the ship. Where there is no scent or sight of the ocean.”

  A sailor whispered that they ought to toss her over now. Bad luck she was.

  Her guards were afraid to get near her. She managed a cold nod to Paxton before falling into a sailor who jumped in terror, rattled by her clinging to him for balance. Recovering, she followed two guards below.

  Falco issued orders to the men and all scurried to adjust the sails, eager to move from this haunting spot in the sea. Despite their efforts, chaos reigned, and there was no wind to be found.

  Alex was the only one who rested calmly. She relished the pain coursing through her body. It fueled her determination. She had used her knowledge of the sea and the prophecy to incite fear and uneasiness in the crew. It had been easier than she expected, even if the price was high. In the darkness of the cargo hold, her mind clicked coldly through the details of her plan, her fingers still clutching within the folds of her black robe the knife of the sailor she had fallen into. She touched her jaw to assess the damage. Not broken. She felt the tender skin near her eye. She could see. It would be several hours before any major swelling. That was fine. She probably wouldn’t be alive that long.

  Across the miles of open sea, another sailor stood alert, the tortured sound calling to him. The wind shifted and sails ruffled in urgent warning before being quickly trimmed by alert crewmen eager to please. He pressed a hand over his heart, as if half expecting to see a vision. A shiver of awareness washed over everyone on the schooner. A cry, like the echo of a whale, whispered on the water.

  “Captain? What is it?”

  He looked at the worried eyes turned to him, seeking answers, and more—reassurance. He didn’t have it to give. Something had changed. A soul from the sea whispered urgently. He signaled to the helm. They were changing course.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Birdie unwrapped the dried herb celandine, which he used to help the pain in his side that Matthew referred to as his gallbladder. The doctor had given him a new supply of the medicine recently. Birdie made it into a tea once a day when the affliction came upon him. One time, when he was in a particular amount of pain he had thought to use more than the usual amount of celandine, which to Birdie’s logic would match the more than usual amount of pain. It was a mistake he never made again. The herb had kept him in the ship’s head, relieving himself, for a good twenty-four hours.

  This time he tested his new potion on the appointed galley cook. The man had been in and out of the little kitchen ever since. Birdie stirred the entire contents of his celandine supply into the pot. It was the basis for the sauce the cook had directed him to fix just before he gripped his guts and made the now familiar dash.

  The Sea Fire was still mysteriously becalmed, and the atmosphere was stifling. The crew grew more uneasy by the hour, but Birdie’s cheerful encouragement to “eat up and all would be well in no time,” echoed motherly advice some had once known. A gale picked up as bowels weakened. It was only then that Paxton went below deck to discover Lady Preston missing.

  He looked under the bed, in the wardrobe. He banged around the cabin. The porthole of the cabin was open. She could have squeezed through, he knew. He just couldn’t fathom that someone would throw themselves to their death. He looked out and reached, pulling a piece of material that had torn.

  It was dusk and all of the crew went on deck searching overboard for the body of Emma Preston. There were murmurs of fear and relief. Women were definitely bad luck on a ship any way you looked at it. Paxton ordered a second guard on the Stafford woman. He looked around. The two Stafford crewmen were accounted for, the old man was bent over with cramps cursing Africa for his pain. He went to the wheel and watched, alert for anything out of the ordinary.

  Later, when all had given up hope of finding her, Emma lifted the trap door of the secret escape hatch, and reentered the captain’s cabin. The treasure from the sultan was in plain sight next to the bed. The chest unlocked. Quickly scooping the gold into sacks, she passed them into the hidden passage below. She opened a drawer under the bed and reached for the belt Alex requested. It was heavy. Carefully she handed it to Birdie. Then something else got her attention. Coiled like a snake near the chest. The ends of leather were a damp reddish brown. She reached, trembling. She had heard every strike. She would not give Paxton another chance to do that again. Handing Birdie the whip, they shimmied along the wall of the ship awaiting nightfall, and freedom.
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  The threat of the lash was all that kept the night crew on their feet. The rest laid with eyes closed, in fetal positions, praying for oblivion. Paxton stayed on deck until the moon was high, though it was through pure determination. There was a ship within his sights, and he wouldn’t risk battle in this state.

  Birdie used the opportunity to gather supplies.

  Alex sat in her cargo hold, focusing her mind and biding her time. Memories of her father were strong tonight. He had smuggled guns and ammunition during the Revolution. It was profitable as well as patriotic. One night he returned to town with news that he had set fire to the warehouse. Samuel had grinned when describing the looks of the British and how the building had blown to smithereens. She had loved that word as a little girl. It sounded funny. When her brother had used it that night, it wasn’t funny. She didn’t understand why they had done it. Her father’s reminder stuck in her head for years to come. Better to cut off your hand, than to let it serve evil.

  Her brothers would reach them soon. Perhaps by morning. If she didn’t get Emma away now, they would be caught in the crossfire, and she wasn’t sure how long Emma could survive in the cramped wall of the ship before suffocating or being discovered. Alex let go of fear. She had to follow through with her plan.

  Paxton’s voice echoed not far away. He was checking on her. A sign he was wary. That was bad. He would be extra careful. Fortunately, the sailors guarding her thought three men were more than enough. Two would sleep and the other would watch the girl. Alex pretended to sleep, but she was waiting. And smiling. She had no doubt Paxton was the type to count his gold before going to sleep. A shadow signaled her. She pulled off ropes she had cut earlier, then got up and walked over to the sailors on guard.