Sirens in the Night

by Bradley, Michael;

  Puzzled, Samantha asked, “What’s that when it’s at home? And, more to the point, how did you figure it out?”

  Leaning back into the sofa, Jack smiled smugly. “About six months ago, Bryan was trying to get me to watch this movie. One of the all-time greats, he called it. It’s the first feature film directed by George Lucas. You do know who George Lucas is, don’t you?”

  Frowning, Samantha replied, “Are you going to get on with this, or do I have to arrest you for obstruction?”

  Smiling, Jack continued to explain. “Bryan wouldn’t shut up about this film, calling it his personal favorite. The movie was called ‘THX 1138’. I’d been racking my brain for hours without any success and then it came to me.”

  “Did you ever watch it?” asked Samantha.

  “Yeah, but I just didn’t get it.”

  Samantha leaned forward, gazing at the computer screen. “What’d you find? Anything helpful?”

  “Quite a bit. Bryan’s been busy over the past few weeks doing a lot of research on these creatures. There’s a lot here, I’ll just give you the highlights,” explained Jack as he leaned over the laptop. “According to his notes, Seirenes are the real-life creatures that the Sirens of Greek mythology were based on. The difference being that the Seirenes are far more dangerous than their mythological counterparts.”

  “How dangerous?” questioned Samantha.

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. Sirens were mentioned in Greek mythology for centuries, one of the earliest references being in Homer’s Odyssey. Bryan noted this as the classic representation that most people accept: their beauty and enchanting songs entice sailors to their deaths.”

  “That’s a far cry from sucking corpses dry as a bone,” remarked Samantha.

  “Bryan’s theory was that the real Seirenes were so terrifying that writers of that time didn’t dare tell the truth of their nature, fearing it would cause widespread panic. But he also noted that Homer did try to convey some degree of the truth in the Odyssey. Let me find it,” said Jack, as he tapped on the keyboard, searching the laptop for a particular file. Finding it, he continued, “Here it is. Circe—the Greek goddess of magic—is warning Odysseus about the Sirens. She says the Sirens ‘sit in a meadow; men’s corpses lie heaped up all round them, moldering upon the bones as the skin decays.’ Mentions of the Sirens pop up all over Greek literature. They’re in the Odyssey, a poem called “Argonautica”, Ovid’s poem “Metamorphoses”, and even a play by Euripides called Helen. They’re significant figures in Greek mythology.”

  “I get all that. But it doesn’t explain how they ended up in Philadelphia.”

  “Bryan found other references,” Jack explained. “He’s noted some allusions to creatures called Seirenes in some obscure writings from the eighth century BCE. According to Bryan’s notes, these writings pre-date the Odyssey by about fifty years. They tell a tale of a village on the island of Capri. Three women terrorized the village with their power to influence men, and strip them of their souls. What Bryan found interesting was these writings say that the Seirenes left the soulless empty shell of the men behind. Sound familiar?”

  Samantha shook her head. “I’m not sure I buy it. All the talk about souls sounds more like religious superstition than fact.”

  “I know. But Bryan commented on the fact that in those days everything had a spiritual element to it. He theorized that they might have seen a dried up corpse left by a Seirene, and assumed this was what happened when the soul left the body.”

  “What else did he find?” asked Samantha.

  “Some references in early first century documents alluding to an ancient text about Seirenes written by Aristotle—supposedly in the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Aristotle had written the manuscript, and gave it to his student, Demetrius of Phaleron, who has been attributed with initially organizing the ancient library. Whether it’s true or not, no one knows. The library was destroyed by fire between 40 BCE and 400 CE.”

  “Fat load of good that does us,” said Samantha.

  “But Aristotle’s manuscript supposedly theorizes that the Seirenes had some kind of mental ability to influence the minds of men and women, with men being more susceptible. That would appear, to the uneducated, as using their beauty to bewitch men.”

  Samantha laughed. “It’s comforting to know that things haven’t changed much. With big tits and a nice ass, you can get a man to do anything.” She paused and then her face drew into a frown as she said, “That would explain Peter’s behavior when we questioned Calithea. Damn, I came down on him pretty hard over that. It might also explains why I had such a feeling of . . .”

  “Of what?”

  Samantha shook her head. “Nothing. It’s not important.”

  Jack continued. “According to Bryan’s notes, there’ve been hints and references to Seirenes throughout history, mostly in private letters and journals. They always state that there are three Seirenes, working together to terrorize a small village or city. Most of the references were from Greece. The descriptions vary, but two things are always the same. They’re very beautiful, and they use their beauty to entice men to their deaths. It’s a recurring theme throughout all of the stories.”

  Shaking her head, Samantha said, “Hang on a minute. If these creatures were as terrorizing as you say, why are they relegated to obscure mentions in ancient texts? I’d have thought something this terrifying would’ve gotten a better mention than just a footnote in Homer’s Odyssey.”

  “Bryan had a theory about that.”

  “Of course he did,” interjected Samantha.

  Smiling at her sarcasm, Jack continued to explain. “Their appearances, although terrifying, were not very frequent. The Seirenes would terrorize a village for a few months, and then disappear for a several decades, or even a century or more. Then they’d reappear in another village for a few months, only to disappear again for another century.”

  “That’s one hell of a long hibernation period,” joked Samantha.

  “No one knew where they went, or why. The only consistency was that there were always three of them. A brunette, a redhead, and a blonde.”

  Samantha added, “Calithea, Adonia, and Kallista.”

  “Kallista? Can’t these three have normal names, like Michelle, Amy, or Janet?” joked Jack.

  Samantha laughed loudly. For the first time in weeks, she was beginning to relax. Was it the wine? She thought. Or . . . the company?

  “There’s a fairly descriptive tale about Laconia, a city in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece,” continued Jack. “In the early 1270s, the city was a prosperous part of the Byzantine Empire. But there’s a story that tells of a dark time when men and women were afraid to venture out at night, and it was ill advised to even walk alone during the day. They called them the ‘Three Angels of Death.’ It was said if you fell under their spell, you were as good as dead. The story describes how these angels would wander through the city enticing young men, old men, fathers, sons, and even a few women with their mysterious charms. Every day someone would be found missing. According to the story, this went on for months, until two soldiers patrolling the mountain region outside of the city stumbled into a cave. It contained over a hundred bodies, all with their souls damned for eternity . . . at least that was what they thought back then. Again, they lacked the understanding to know what had really happened. Everyone that had gone missing was in that cave. It created such a panic in the city that the soldiers were ordered to burn everything in the cave.”

  Samantha looked puzzled as she listened to the story. “How’d they know there were three of them?”

  “Witnesses. There were people who had seen some of the victims walking away with a beautiful woman they didn’t recognize,” explained Jack. “Based on those descriptions, they made the assumption that there were three angels. But that’s not the best part of the story. An artis
t named Sebastianos lived in Laconia at that time and wrote this obscure text. He added some illustrations based on the eyewitness accounts. Bryan found a picture of the illustrations.” Opening another document on the screen, Jack handed the laptop to Samantha. “Take a look.”

  Samantha rested the laptop on her thighs, and peered at the screen in amazement. The artistic abilities of the medieval artist left quite a bit to be desired, and Samantha could understand why the world didn’t rank the work of Sebastianos up there with that of Da Vinci and Picasso. But the illustrations were good enough for Samantha to see the resemblance. The detail in the crudely drawn face showed the now familiar oval shape, with the narrow chin and red lips. Although the style was different, Samantha immediately recognized the long strands of black hair falling on either side of a familiar countenance, which the artist had captured perfectly. Feeling a chill work its way up her spine, Samantha couldn’t help but shiver. If she had not known any better, she would have sworn that the depiction had been created just a day or two ago. The resemblance was more than just uncanny; it was terrifying.

  Jack leaned over, and pointed to the screen. “You may not recognize the other two, but I do. The redhead is Adonia, the woman I saw with Jason at Pulsar. And the blonde is the other woman I saw at the club. There are our three angels of death—our Seirenes.”

  Samantha, still staring at the images on the screen, mumbled, “Death’s little angels. Is there anything in here that explains how they do what they do to their victims?”

  Nodding, Jack replied, “You’ll have to take this with the proverbial grain of salt. Bryan got some of his information from a roleplaying game called Demons of the Myst. He claimed the myths in the game were historically accurate. According to the game, the Seirenes had hundreds of microscopic hair-like fibers in their palms. When they feed, these fibers penetrate the skin of their victim like a thousand tiny needles. You can’t see the fibers unless the Seirene is feeding. They can feed off just about any part of the body, but they prefer the neck.”

  “There’s the handprints explained,” remarked Samantha. “You realize I’d never believe a word of this if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  “There’s one other thing you need to know. Among the numerous references in Bryan’s notes, there were two of particular interest,” Jack explained. “One was a letter dating back to December 1788 from William A. Doyle of Philadelphia to his sister, Esther, in New York. Apparently, this William Doyle was a constable in what would have been an early version of the city police department. In his letter, he described a string of baffling deaths around the city that the police were having no luck in solving. He told his sister that the mere sight of the victims frightened him and had to be the result of witchcraft. He didn’t say much else, except that the one corpse he saw reminded him of something he had seen in the local tannery.”

  “They came to Philadelphia?” Samantha gasped.

  Jack shrugged. “It would appear so. Here’s the clincher. The final reference in Bryan’s notes comes from the personal journal of none other than Benjamin Franklin himself. The entry was dated in March of 1789, a little over a year before he died. Here is the journal entry.”

  Samantha stared in amazement as she read the words on the laptop screen.

  I have returned home from a night most terrifying. Perhaps the most terrifying of all my days, of which there are few left. I have this evening, in the company of many a good man, put to rest the three who have plagued us for so many months. The efforts of men have overcome those that would dare bring evil to this fair city of ours. To the city, the cost was high. But to see the iron cap lowered into place and the chains lay tight, brought relief to this weary heart. Entombed as the three are they shall never again bewitch this or any other soul. But weariness from the effort has brought me low and fear I do that this event has deprived me of some few years. Yet if it so happens that should I depart from these earthly bounds this night I do so content in the knowledge that the three have been subdued. And, God–willing, shall never walk these streets again.

  She glanced at Jack and asked, “Is this for real?”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Jack replied, “I’m just telling you what’s on the laptop. I can’t speak for the validity of the information. But Bryan seemed to believe it. And I think he died because of it.”

  Samantha rose from the sofa and began to pace around Jack’s living room. Her head was spinning from all that she had heard, and now her mind was trying to put together all of the pieces.

  “You’re telling me that these three bitches terrorized this city in the seventeen hundreds, and now they’ve come back?”

  Jack nodded. “It looks that way.”

  “And Benjamin Franklin defeated them?”

  “Yep,” replied Jack. “I’m still not sure where, though. Bryan didn’t have any notes on that.”

  Samantha smiled. “Don’t worry about that. I know where they were buried.”

  Jack leaned back into the cushions of the sofa as Samantha began to explain, “There’s an old building being renovated over on Broad Street. Peter and I were called out there a few weeks ago to investigate three bodies that were found under the basement of the building. They were dried and shriveled corpses, just like all the others have been. But these were the first ones. I was certain someone had been playing a hoax on us. In the chamber with the bodies was a deep well, with an iron cap and a pile of chain. It was empty.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Jack.

  “Yeah. The forensics team didn’t find much, other than three sets of bare footprints, presumably women’s feet based on the size and shape. I’m pretty confident this was probably where our little angels had been hiding for the past few centuries,” explained Samantha. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “I don’t suppose he thought to put in his journal how he defeated them . . .”

  Shaking his head, Jack responded, “No, unfortunately not.”

  “I guess the old bastard had no way of knowing they’d come back. But how did they get here?”

  “It doesn’t say,” said Jack, shrugging his shoulders. “Those were the only two references in Bryan’s notes to Philadelphia. Everything else was about Greece.”

  “Where could they be now? There’s no way Calithea could return to her apartment. They must have another hideout somewhere in the city,” theorized Samantha.

  Glancing at his watch, Jack rose from the sofa and said, “I’d love to stay and talk about this all night, but it’s just past eleven. I need to head into the station.”

  Samantha turned to face Jack. “I’ll drive you over.”

  Shaking his head, Jack replied, “That’s not necessary.”

  Folding her arms, Samantha stared at Jack. “I am driving you. Have you forgotten already what happened just a few hours ago? I’m not going to lose you to these creatures.”

  Smiling, Jack said, “I didn’t know you cared.”

  “I don’t. But you’re the best resource I have right now. God knows nobody else would believe this shit. We’ll leave the way we came in, just in case Wilkinson’s got eyes on the building. I’ll drop you off, and I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”

  “If I say no, what’re you going to do?” Jack jokingly asked.

  “Slap the cuffs on you and drag your ass over there anyway.”

  “I guess I don’t have much choice,” remarked Jack.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The clock on her microwave told her it was close to one in the morning when Samantha finally arrived at her townhouse. The drive to the WPLX studios had been a quiet one. Neither occupant of her white Mini Cooper had felt like talking much after their lengthy discussion in Jack’s apartment. She had never listened to the radio station before, but she had tuned in WPLX during her drive home. Samantha was surprised at how different Jack’s disembodied voice sounded coming through her speakers. She had smiled as he
, with his smoky voice, delivered the weather forecast, making it sound as if he was talking only to her.

  Once she had removed her grey overcoat, Samantha poured herself a glass of wine from the half empty bottle of Pinot Noir in her refrigerator. She swirled the ruby liquid around in her glass before taking a long sip. Moving into the living room, Samantha slid down into the deep cushions of the chocolate microfiber sofa. The room was brightly illuminated with light coming from three floor lamps and a light in the ceiling fan above her head. The lights in the room had been strategically placed so as to not cast shadows—a practice she had initiated during the earlier Society Hill Serial Killer investigation. Turning all the lights on had been a practice that had taken two years of therapy to break. Now, after the events of the past few weeks, she found herself returning to the behavior for comfort. She glanced around the room, taking a full inventory of each and every item. Each photo, piece of furniture, and every curio and knick-knack were right where they should be. That knowledge brought Samantha a great deal of comfort as she allowed herself to sink deeper into the sofa.

  While sipping her wine, Samantha made a mental note to write letters to the families of Officers Faulkner and Anderson, expressing her deepest condolences. It wasn’t something that was expected of her; she knew that the dead officers’ captain would be sending letters. But Samantha felt compelled if for no other reason than to try to squelch the rising guilt she felt over their deaths. Her therapist would tell Samantha that their demise wasn’t her fault. But, just like the last time, it wouldn’t stop her from feeling guilty.

  She tried to shift her mind toward reviewing what she had learned earlier in the evening from Jack Allyn. There was a lot of hearsay and not a lot of facts. Everything that they knew about these Seirenes was from ancient documents, whose veracity was doubtful to say the least. Even if the journal entry from Benjamin Franklin was utterly truthful, it had been far from helpful in nailing down a solution to the current situation. The question now became what to do next.