Sirens in the Night

by Bradley, Michael;

  Calithea, watching from the top of the stairs, tilted her head back and laughed out loud. Slowly, she descended the stairs; her bare feet didn’t make a sound. Samantha rolled onto her side, grimacing in pain as Calithea approached and then knelt down at the detective’s side.

  “Was my sister a little rough? I should apologize. Neither of them are quite as cultured and refined as I am. They still rely more on their baser instincts and tend to lean more toward violence,” Calithea said. She paused for a moment, and then added, “Having said that, I must admit that I do occasionally enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on others.”

  As her final word exited her mouth, the Seirene grabbed a fist full of Samantha’s auburn hair. With a savage jerk of her hand, she yanked the detective’s head backward, forcing Samantha to look the Seirene in the eyes.

  “I hope you understand,” hissed Calithea.

  A groan from across the room prompted the black-haired Seirene to release her grip, rise, and then walk toward Jack. With hands on her hips, she stood over him, and gazed down at his huddled mass, watching as he rolled over on his back still cupping his groin with his hands.

  Through gritted teeth, Jack said, “Damn it. If you don’t want people to come in, lock your damn door.”

  He regretted the jest almost as soon as the words had left his mouth for Kallista drove her foot into the side of his head with a swift kick. His ears were ringing and his vision blurred as he tried to shake off the vicious attack. Jack tried to focus across the room to see if Samantha was still alive, and felt relieved to see a hazy figure struggling to rise to her knees.

  “I’m impressed,” Calithea said. “I wasn’t expecting you to find us so quickly, but my sisters have been a bit overzealous with their feeding. I tried to stop them, but they do so love a good meal, particularly after starving for so long in that pit.” She looked toward Samantha. “You do know about the pit, don’t you? Of course, you do. You know, detective, I told you once before that you didn’t know with whom you were dealing. Do you know now?”

  Samantha wiped the back of her hand across her nose and found a streak of bright red blood left on the skin. Her back ached and her head pounded. She rose to her knees, steadying herself on the wall behind her. She glanced at Peter’s barely conscious body, lying amidst a pile of scattered gold coins on the floor. His face was swollen, and black and blue. His left arm was twisted in a way that she knew wasn’t natural, making her wonder how many broken bones Peter had. Blood trickled from his ear and the side of his mouth. His jacket had been torn, and she could see at least three distinct bloodstains on the front of his shirt. She knew he wasn’t dead, but Samantha wondered if it would have been better if he were.

  She glanced over at Jack, who had been able to lift himself up, and was now seated on the floor rubbing the side of his head. The Seirenes stood over Samantha and her companions like the victors gloating over the spoils of war. Samantha glanced at Adonia and felt an overwhelming discouragement to see only a faint discoloration on the skin where she had earlier placed two precisely aimed bullets.

  Spitting blood from her mouth, Samantha said, “I know who you are—an arrogant bitch. But I don’t understand how you got here. This isn’t Greece. Why the hell are you here?”

  As Kallista smiled in response, Samantha watched in horror as the Seirene’s mouth morphed from luscious lips and perfectly white teeth to a broad, sinister row of hideous dagger-like incisors. Hissing, the serene said, “So, the detective doesn’t have it all figured out. Should we tell her?”

  Calithea replied, “Why not?”

  The three Seirenes began to circle around the chamber with slow predatory steps; their heads slowly oscillated like animals of prey. Samantha couldn’t help but be reminded of vultures as they circle a carcass, and she wondered if that was what she would soon be.

  “We are as old as time, and have lived for more centuries than you can imagine,” said Adonia.

  Calithea continued, “We were considered an abomination to nature, and cast out with the expectation that we would die.”

  “But we lived, feeding on the very ones who had cast us out,” added Kallista.

  “And then our reign of terror began,” said Calithea.

  Adonia said, “We sought out villages and feasted on their nectar. But this wasn’t enough.”

  “We wanted more. We wanted wealth and, with that, power,” stated Kallista.

  Calithea added to the narrative with, “We found that some villages would pay us handsomely to leave them alone.”

  “But we gorged ourselves on those that refused,” said Adonia.

  Samantha, still on her knees, shook her head. “Enough with the synchronized sentences. How the hell did you get here?”

  Calithea halted and then turned to face the detective. As her eyes burned bright, and her mouth contorted into a line of sharp fangs, she said, “We had heard much about this new world. Its potential seemed far too good to pass up. We booked passage on a schooner heading for your city of brotherly love. Your historians have been diligent to excise from the historical record the name of our vessel, the Zephryia. It was the only vessel in 1788 to arrive without its crew. They, shall we say, each met with their demise during the voyage.”

  “You killed them,” clarified Samantha.

  “We killed them all . . . for the sheer pleasure of it. One by one over the course of our journey. You should have seen the faces of the last three shipmen. Even as Zephryia drifted into dock, we were enjoying our last meal. Three hapless souls who became our celebratory feast. Would you have preferred we starve?” responded Kallista.

  “If I had my choice . . .” started Samantha.

  Jack slowly rose to his feet, cautiously, so as to not provoke a response from the three Seirenes. A wave of nausea came over him, as his abdomen ached from the blow he had received. He leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees for support as he struggled to keep from dry heaving in front of his attackers.

  Feigning pity, Kallista said, “The poor man seems to be ill.”

  Between deep breaths, Jack asked, “People didn’t take too kindly to your presence here, did they?”

  Hissing with venomous hatred, Adonia exclaimed, “Franklin!”

  Calithea explained, “The people of Philadelphia were happy enough to have three beautiful, wealthy women spending money in their city. We were invited to some of the finest homes by some of the wealthiest members of society. They were so stupid and so inept. They had no idea what they had let into their homes. Sheep can be so easily led, and they were such good sheep. But Franklin . . . Benjamin Franklin was different.”

  “The old man began to assist the city constabulary with their investigation into what they called murders. We had been feasting on the city’s population for months before he finally subdued us. One would never have expected such fight and vigor from the old man, but he succeeded where most had failed. It won’t happen again,” added Kallista.

  Rising to her feet, Samantha grimaced at the ache, which seemed to encompass her entire body. She tried to brush some of the dirt and dust from her clothing but quickly determined that it was an exercise in futility.

  “How did he stop you?” she asked.

  Calithea’s head tilted back, and she let out a loud laugh, which was quickly imitated by the other two Seirenes. “Do you think us foolish? Is your opinion of our intelligence so low that you think we would so easily tell you of our weaknesses?”

  Samantha’s smirked antagonistically. “Yeah, actually it is.”

  Before she knew what had happened, Kallista had swiftly crossed the room, and delivered a fierce backhanded blow across Samantha’s face. Stumbling back, Samantha clutched the wall for support, but refused to fall to the ground. The Seirene raised her hand into the air to strike out again at the detective.

  “Sister, stop this,” commanded Calithea. “There is no need
to inflict such senseless violence on the good detective. She was just expressing her . . . objections to our raison d’être.”

  As Kallista backed away, Samantha could taste blood in her mouth. Her mind was racing, and she was filled with a combination of uncontrollable rage and utter fear. She wanted nothing more than to get her hands around the neck of any one of the three and throttle them to death. But she knew from experience that their strength was far superior to hers. Samantha considered herself more than efficient when it came to close quarter hand-to-hand fighting, but she doubted she would last more than a minute against any of the three Seirenes. Their strength and violent nature would be far too difficult to overcome.

  “You won’t tell me how to defeat you. At least tell me what you’ve done to that poor girl in your underground chamber of horrors,” said Samantha.

  “Her? Oh, she is very special to us. She will be our, how can I say it? Our Virgin Mary,” said Adonia.

  Samantha stared blankly at the Seirene. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Calithea responded, “She is our child bearer. That young girl is carrying the first of a new breed of Seirene.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  With her eyes wide open and her mouth gaping, Samantha could barely contain her shock and disbelief. It was an idea that had never crossed her mind, and now it came crashing into her conscious thought like a runaway freight train. She had simply assumed that there were three, and only three, and never gave any consideration to the fact that they could reproduce. Three of these creatures are hard enough to deal with, she thought. Her head was whirling with the possibilities and none of them were pleasant. She stared at the three Seirenes, each looking calm and relaxed at first glance, but a closer examination showed the tautness in their muscles as a sign of their readiness to strike at a moment’s notice. She turned her gaze toward Jack, who looked as aghast as she felt.

  “Hang on a second. You three can reproduce with another woman? How the hell does that work?” inquired Jack.

  Calithea turned toward Jack. “We’ve tried for centuries to reproduce, but our bodies are incapable of carrying a child. Although we can produce eggs, all of our attempts to become pregnant ourselves have failed in the most painful and debilitating manner.”

  Jack stole a quick glance toward Peter’s limp body as Adonia added, “When one of us would fall ill, the other two would dedicate themselves to the care and protection of the fallen one. It takes years of isolation, constant care to recover from such a traumatic event.”

  Samantha, trying to maintain a calm composure despite her ever increasing fear, let out a laugh, and said, “Hey Jack, did you hear that? All we got to do is get them knocked up, and then we can defeat them. For the sake of the city, would you mind obliging?”

  No sooner had the words exited Samantha’s mouth than Kallista had her hand around the detective’s throat and shoved her back against the cold stone wall. Samantha struggled to breathe with the vise-like grip crushing her windpipe.

  “You dare to mock us!” exclaimed the blonde Seirene.

  Samantha, unable to answer, felt her feet lift away from the floor as her back was dragged up the rough stone of the wall. Grasping Kallista’s wrist with both of her hands, the detective tried to free herself from the tightening grip to no avail. Her head was beginning to spin, and her vision was becoming blurry from the lack of oxygen.

  More out of instinct than courage or valor, Jack lunged forward to try and help Samantha. He had only taken two steps when Adonia’s fist smashed into his abdomen. As he doubled over in pain, his face met her knee as it raced upward, snapping his head back and sending him crashing against the crates filled with gold. The jangle of coins echoed through the cellar as the top crate broke open, spilling its contents all over the floor. The gold coins, some shiny and some dull, scattered across the cold stone surface, creating a carpet of metallic yellow that shifted easily underneath Jack’s weight as he impacted the ground. When his huddled mass finished sliding across the coin-littered floor, Jack was lying still in front of Peter’s unmoving body.

  “Enough!” shouted Calithea, resulting in the release of the iron grip on Samantha’s neck.

  As she dropped down to the floor, Samantha struggled to keep her knees from giving out under the weight. She pressed her back against the stone wall behind her for support. Stroking her sore neck, Samantha gasped for air. From where she stood, she couldn’t tell if Jack was alive or dead. She was feeling an overwhelming sense of hopelessness as she summed up the odds and found them to be greatly lacking in her favor. She had done exactly what her father had always told her not to do; she had gone in without backup. It had crossed her mind as she drove across the city that morning, but what choice did she have? How could she have called for backup? She was entering a house without a search warrant under the suspicion that the owner was some kind of mythological killer. And, even if she had applied for a search warrant, would she ever have succeeded in convincing a judge of the facts? She had taken a risk, and the gamble had failed. Now she was facing imminent death. Samantha assumed that it would only be a matter of time before they grew tired of her presence and simply killed her. The only thing she could do was bide her time.

  “If you can’t get pregnant, then how are you going to reproduce?” she asked.

  Calithea smugly replied, “Humans have made such great strides since we were entombed. I believe the good doctor called it . . . in vitro fertilization. We provided the egg, as well as the sperm from a . . . let’s just call him a healthy donor.”

  “Doctor Hardwick?” inquired Samantha.

  “Yes,” Calithea explained. “He’s resting in the chamber next to our mother-to-be. Dr. Hardwick was considerably shocked at how fast the fetus has grown. It seems that our genetic makeup, when combined with that of a human, has somehow accelerated the growth rate. He’s anticipating that we shall be happy parents within a month.”

  Samantha thought about Susan and Jessica Hardwick and shuddered as she recalled the sight of their bodies in their home on Thirteenth Street. The doctor’s wife and daughter had died in the most horrible and, Samantha had little doubt, most painful manner possible. Death at the hands of these creatures was a terrifying proposition that Samantha feared she would soon experience.

  “You killed his family? And kidnapped him?” Samantha asked.

  Kallista smiled. “We . . . borrowed him.”

  “You kidnapped him,” Samantha stated.

  “Let’s not bandy words. You say kidnapped, and we say borrowed. Does it really matter? After all, the end result will be the same,” said Calithea.

  Feeling increasingly frantic, Samantha exclaimed, “The ends justify the means? Is that it? What about that woman? Let me guess . . . you found her jogging alone in the park, and just decided to help yourself to her uterus.”

  Calithea tossed her head back and laughed. “You have such a way with words, detective.”

  “You’re putting her through this hell! Does she even know what you’ve done to her?” exclaimed Samantha.

  “It doesn’t matter. When she gives birth, she’ll be too close to death to care, and won’t survive very long after. The fetus is feeding off her as it grows. There’ll be hardly anything left of her at birth. And what is left will make a nice first meal for our newborn,” replied Calithea.

  The Seirene’s nonchalant manner when speaking of the young girl’s inevitable death infuriated Samantha. There was no compassion, no remorse, and no emotion at all. The Seirenes were treating the young woman, whoever she was, like nothing more than an incubator. She was just a thing to be discarded when her usefulness was over.

  “Why now?” asked Jack suddenly as he slowly rolled onto his back and tried to lift himself to his feet.

  Samantha shuddered at the state of his battered face, with its swollen cheek, bloody nose, and a deep cut above his left eye. He also, she noted, was
favoring his left leg. His last scuffle with the Seirenes must have been worse than it had appeared. Samantha’s hopes for escape continued to plummet.

  Pointing at him, Calithea commanded, “Bring him over here.”

  Adonia approached Jack, grabbed him by the arm, and jerked him forward till he was standing against the wall beside Samantha. Reaching forward, Samantha wiped a trickle of blood away from his eye.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Jack nodded, and then looked at Calithea. “Answer my question. Why did you decide to reproduce? You’ve been content for centuries. Why now?”

  Adonia, who was still standing beside Jack, leaned closer, placing her face inches from his. “Because we want to rule.”

  Calithea added, “We are the superior species. We are only three, yet we could easily dominate this city. But just imagine what an entire race of Seirenes could do. We could dominate the world. All of the human race would be under our thumb.”

  “Superior race? One man already tried that and failed. Look it up on the Internet. His name was Hitler,” said Samantha.

  “Genetics can be a complicated thing. What if this baby doesn’t turn out to be the superior child that you’re hoping for?” Jack inquired.

  Kallista replied, “We shall kill it and start again.”

  Samantha said, “You’ll have to find another surrogate mother.”