The Harvest: Call of the Sirens Book One

by KB Benson

  My heart pounds inside my chest. “What do you mean, you’re a siren?” I ask, unable to face the reality and admit that somewhere inside I think I knew all along.

  “Jace.” Iris places her hands gently on the sides of my face as though she fears I’ll flinch away. “Look in my eyes.”

  Iris inhales deeply through her nose, her face only centimeters from mine; and I watch as her eyes change color from brown, to amber, to silver.

  “Contacts?” I rationalize.

  “Not exactly. When I’m too near the ocean, my eyes burn with the prospect of the Harvest. Unfortunately, you always smell like the ocean. I love the ocean.”

  I brush my fingertips along the length of her forearm, a small shock burning where our skin meets. Images race through my vision of bodies, murders, thrashing and water everywhere; and Iris in the center of it all. This time I do flinch; and Iris drops her hands.

  “The dead people,” she huffs. “They’re because of me—all of them, and you were supposed to be next.”

  A sobering breath of ice fills my chest. “What?” I force myself not to pull away from Iris, not yet. If she’d seriously wanted to kill me, then she would have done it when I was at the ocean, when I was ignorant to all of this.

  Iris doesn’t give me a chance to react. “I’m a killer, but I could never hurt you. That’s why this all happened—because I couldn’t take you.”

  “You couldn’t take me? You couldn’t murder me?”

  “No.” Iris speaks about murder like it’s common practice, maybe it is in her world. “I was given an alternate assignment. One that would save you…” She pauses, chewing her bottom lip.

  “What was it?” I ask, nervous her answer will add to the incriminating evidence piling up stating she is, in fact, a monster straight out of a mythology book.

  “I had to kill two others in your place.”

  “You’re killing innocent people… to save me?”

  Iris stares at her hands.

  “Innocent people, Iris! How could you do that?” I can’t help but shout.

  She shakes her head, a tear slipping off the tip of her nose, a shimmer of what looks like scales trailing behind the tear and falling into her lap.

  “Oh man, Stewart was one of them, wasn’t he? And Jaxon was the other.”

  Iris doesn’t have to answer.

  “And what about the others Demonas told me about—your bad karma? You just decided to off them, too?”

  “I didn’t decide to do anything! It’s my charge. I don’t have a choice.” Iris’ face mirrors my own. I know disgust contorts my expression, but I can’t help it.

  I barely hear Iris’ words. “I can’t believe this,” I mutter. “How could you do this?”

  “How could I not, Jace? I have to keep you alive.”

  My head snaps up to see her face—she’s pinning the murders on me. She’s killing for me. “I never asked you to kill for me, Iris.” I step away from her, my hands pulling at my hair as I try to think this through.

  “Gah, I love you, Iris.” I pause. I can’t believe I’m saying this, “…but I can’t be with you.”

  “You won’t be with me,” Iris revises my decision.

  Iris’ gaze falls back to her hands in her lap, her fingers running over the dry cracks that spread across her knuckles as though she sits in the desert sun rather than under a shady oak.

  “I’m sorry.” I back away, putting more space between us with each step. “I just—I can’t do this.”

  Iris doesn’t look up as I turn and run away from Derby Park. Away from Iris.

  Chapter 31

  JACE

  Consciously I’m not quite sure where my feet are taking me until I stand outside of the Santa Cruz Police Department. The chaos from the beach has moved to this building, way too small for the influx of bodies running in and out. It’s noisy here, too. I catch bits and pieces of everyone’s grief. That girl in the green jacket is looking for her friend, Sarah. The older couple in the corner stares at a small picture in their hands, crying over their grandson. Everyone at the station is searching for someone; and most, I guess, won’t get to see them again.

  I stand on the brink of giving all this disorder a face to blame. And I should. People have a right to know why their loved ones—their brother, daughter, or best friend—will never get to see them again. I can’t believe Iris would do something like this. And all the times she smiled at me, hiding the killer she is behind her stunning beauty. A part of me feels guilty for thinking about her in that light, but I don’t care. It’s refreshing to know the truth, even if the truth is awful. The girl I love is not who she says. The girl I love is a murderer.

  I take a stride toward the arching steps leading to the glass doors of the station when a hand clasps tightly around my shoulder. I flip around ready to hit anything or anybody. Instead, my face drops in surprise at Mr. Demonas, his face red and flushed. He’s been running.

  It only takes a few seconds for my brain to put the puzzle pieces together.

  “Did you KNOW?” I shout, shoving my finger into Demonas’ tweed jacket.

  “Quiet down, Jace.” Despite how flushed he looks, Demonas has a strange calm to his voice, almost as eerie as Iris has sometimes.

  His voice is soothing, but I try to ignore it and to hold onto my anger. It’s a release to be mad. “I won’t. Tell me, Demonas, did you know?”

  He leans forward, his usual perfectly placed hair falling in front of his face. “Of course I did. Would you like to?” The calm assurance in his voice is replaced with impatience.

  “I already know—”

  “You couldn’t possibly know everything I do in the short amount of time you’ve been with her after the attack.”

  Demonas glances from side to side as though ensuring no one drops in on our conversation.

  “Feel free to run to the police,” he says. “Feel free to betray her if you can get the police to believe you anyway.”

  “I can and I will.”

  “Even if you do, they’ll take Iris; but do you think they can stop the creatures in the ocean? You were on the beach; I’m sure you saw how many there were.”

  How does Demonas know so much? I hate to admit it but I do want to know, too.

  He can tell I’m mulling it over. With a quick swipe through his hair, he puts it all back in place. “Meet me at Mudhouse in an hour.”

  I’ve never been to this coffee shop before, the dim lights clouding the corners of each wall. Demonas sits in one of the shrouded booths. He doesn’t look up, although I’m sure he knows it’s me. There’s no one else in the shop except the two of us and the cashier.

  I walk up to Demonas, shoving my fists into my jacket pockets.

  “There’s nothing you can say that’s going to make a difference.” I’m sure of it.

  Mr. Demonas looks at me with sad eyes. “Well, can I at least try then?”

  Reluctantly I nod.

  “Iris is dying.”

  An involuntary stab pangs somewhere in my chest. And here I thought today couldn’t get any crazier. If I’m going to believe Iris is a freaking siren, why not believe she’s on death’s doorstep, too?

  “Iris is not dying. She’s the one killing people,” I say, my voice betraying a little hesitance.

  “No. She’s dying because she refused to harvest you and apparently Jaxon now, too.” Demonas seems so confident talking about Iris’ dark secrets.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “Did you not learn anything from my class? The host of a siren’s song that goes unharvested will harvest the life of the siren who sang it. She’s dying, Jace. One of the most illusory creatures in the world is dying because she made the choice to save your life and Jaxon’s today at the beach.”

  “So this is my fault too, then?” Sarcasm drips from my words.

  “You were never meant to hear her song.” Demonas shakes his head. “That’s not what I want to talk to you about, though. I want to help you u
nderstand what’s happening.”

  “I don’t know if it’ll be that easy.” I’m not sure I want it explained but at the same time I’m dying to know.

  “I’d like to try. You’re important enough to Iris for me to do at least that much.”

  My resilience sways. “Fine,” I mutter.

  “Close your eyes.” Demonas waves his hand in front of my face forcing me to blink. “Just close them.”

  I do.

  “How easy is it for you to breathe sitting here at the Mudhouse?” he asks.

  I don’t understand where he’s going with this. “It’s natural. Everybody breathes without thinking about it. What’s your point?”

  “Exactly.”

  I’m not sure how I helped Demonas make a point, but now I wish I’d said it was difficult to breathe.

  “That is exactly what the Harvest is for Iris. It’s in her nature to reap and harvest just as breathing is in ours. We don’t like to think of it because to us taking a life is very unnatural. Taking a life is disturbing the balance that God created. But to a siren, she’s only breathing.”

  I cringe at Demonas’ rationalization, but the scowl on my face begins to soften.

  “I met Iris a couple of years ago. In fact, it was in that exact booth over there.” Demonas points a long finger across the shop. He smiles at a distant memory. “She was beautiful then just as she is now.”

  Demonas sits in his silent reverie until I cough, and he shakes himself back to the present.

  “Sorry, it feels like such a long time ago. Anyway, ever since I met her, she’s tried to change her nature. And with you and Jaxon, I think she finally has.” Demonas rubs his eyes behind his glasses. “She doesn’t want to kill, Jace. She doesn’t like who she is; but just as you can’t stop breathing without dying, she can’t stop reaping. She is a siren, Jace. You can’t hold her accountable for doing what is in her very nature to do.”

  Demonas makes too much sense. I don’t like that Iris is a killer; but from this perspective, she isn’t. She’s just a siren. A siren who has fallen in love with me.

  “So, have you known about all of the … the… reapings?” I ask, a little calmer.

  “Every single one. I can’t tell you how many nights Iris has come home in tears because she was afraid she couldn’t do it. She was afraid she wouldn’t survive another Harvest. And then when she did, she couldn’t live with herself. I swear, that girl is more human than some biological ones are.”

  “Why did you help her? Didn’t you feel like she was murdering people?”

  “Never. I suppose I understood before I ever met her what it would be like to be an outsider. You know, she never told me what she was. I stood with her on the beach; she was ready to take me when I figured it out. I’ve been by her side ever since. I tried to help her control the urge to reap around the Harvest moon. There would always be casualties, either by her or another siren, and our goal was to minimize them as much as possible. We tried to find people who were less deserving of their lives—the murderers and rapists, but there are only so many of those.

  “Her clan,” Demonas continues, “wanted her to bring more souls into the ocean to harvest. And she’s been battling nonstop to keep control—”

  “Wait, there’s a clan?” This craziness just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

  “Well, yes, her family of sorts. You met them at the ocean today. When her father, the leader of the clan, commanded her to deliver you because you accidentally heard her song, she panicked. She made a deal with him; and in her terror, she stopped being careful and just grabbed whomever was the easiest prey. But it looks like she stopped herself tonight. To be honest, I have no idea how she was able to do that right in the middle of the Harvest. That would take a lot of willpower. She just turned her back on her family, on what she is.”

  Half of what Demonas says doesn’t even make sense, but Iris will explain.

  “Thanks,” I mutter as I walk out of the coffee shop and back to Derby Park.

  Chapter 32

  JACE

  Iris is right where I left her a couple of hours ago. Her head wedged between her knees. I kick at a rock on the ground so she knows she’s not alone anymore. Her attention snaps up at the sound.

  “Jace,” she gasps. A combination of relief and fear spread across her face.

  I take a deep breath. “Iris, I’m really confused. I need you to start from the beginning.”

  A small smile touches her face. Stress and fear still pull at her eyes, but for a moment, her smile snuffs it out.

  “It’s called the Harvest.” She stops to think of the right word. “It’s an obsession—an obsession with the moon that pulls me to the ocean. Trying to retreat from it is physically painful. I belong in the ocean where the moon bathes every night.” Iris’ voice grows dreamy as though she’s speaking about a long lost memory.

  Iris explains how she lures her prey into the ocean by singing a “Siren’s Song”; and then they’re taken, as though that’s what’s expected. She stares at her hands as she tells me how she invents ideas of what caused their deaths—kidnappings, wandering off into the wilderness, shark attacks, but it’s always just the ocean; the ocean and her. The nausea reels through Iris again—what she is sickens her. I try not to give weight to the thought that it sickens me, too. Her guilt nearly rolls off her in waves. Demonas was right about one thing: Iris hates what she is.

  She explains how she sang my song when she was alone on the dock one night, and she was supposed to be alone without me lurking on the sand waiting to hear it. After learning I was her next kill, she made a deal to save my life—by replacing me with Stewart and Jaxon.

  “Stewart was innocent, but I didn’t have many choices and I was running out of time. He was an outsider and my best option.” Iris’ eyes beg me to understand. “By the time I got to Jaxon I was desperate. I tried so hard to find a replacement that didn’t deserve to live, but there was no one.”

  She takes a long, deep breath, her shoulders reaching her ears.

  “I don’t feel,” she says, her voice hardening. “I don’t love, or at least I shouldn’t. I’m meant to seduce my prey into the water for feasting.” Her hardened expression melts into terror. “I don’t love, Jace; but I’m in love with you. I don’t know how that’s even possible. I’ve never felt like this before. When we first met, I didn’t want anything to do with you. We’d just harvested a boy and I was supposed to wait a few months before I reaped another. But you were always there and I fell. For you. I’ve never felt a pull as strong as the ocean’s pull to me except for you.”

  She speeds up trying to explain everything in a single breath. “It all starts with the Harvest moon when I take my first prey of the year. After that I must take a soul from this life every other full moon—it is my, or it was, my charge as the seeker. I’m never the one who actually kills the prey, not anymore; but I distract them for my clan to feast on.” Iris explains about her time as a sentry for the clan, her betrayal to what used to be her family, and her abandonment on the shores of California.

  Her history, her memories are too real to be a joke. When she finally takes a breath, I rest my hand lightly on her arm. And I can feel it. I feel a difference in her skin I never noticed before. Her skin is almost dry enough to feel like scales.

  “Hang on,” I say. Iris shrink backs, barely able to make eye contact. “Iris, when you sing your—uh—siren’s song, does it only attract the one person?”

  Iris’ brows pull together with curiosity. “It’s meant for that one person and when they hear the song they must die. Anyone else who hears will still be attracted to the ocean as long as I’m in it.” She gulps heavily. “Once in the ocean, it’s really up to the clan as to how many souls they’ll harvest.”

  My breathing speeds as understanding dawns on me. My heart barrels against my chest, the blood pumping through my veins with the horror of my realization—I’m as much to blame. “Iris, I need to tell you something.”

&nbs
p; “What?”

  I rub the back of my neck, heat rising to my cheeks. “I ran into Jaxon on Saturday.” I shake my head. I can’t believe I was so stupid to think this was a good idea. I should’ve trusted Iris when she didn’t want anyone to hear her sing. “Jaxon showed me a recording he had of you singing. I just figured since you’d let him hear you sing and record it, you weren’t afraid of people hearing your amazing talent anymore.”

  Iris’ face drops.

  “I borrowed his recording and we used it with Chase’s movie. When he showed the movie at the talent show, the entire assembly heard your song.”

  I can’t tell if it’s rage, fear, or her terrible beauty that makes me shrink back. Either way, the darkness that covers Iris isn’t in my imagination.

  “You did what?” If a word could kill me, the way she said ‘what’ would have done it.

  “I’m so sorry, Iris. I should never have used it without your permission. It made sense in the moment, but I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Almost as quickly as the anger had come, it disintegrates. Iris shakes her head again and sighs.

  “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know any better. And it’s Jaxon’s song,” Iris mutters. She takes a deep breath. “As long as I’m out of the ocean they should be fine now. Besides, enough of them have died that his connection to me should wear off soon.”

  “His connection?” I ask.

  “His obedience to any commands I give him. And...” She waves her hand. “Never mind. Yours should, too. Stewart broke our connection enough that you have your total free will again.”

  I stare at the ground, my head hurts. I can’t think about any of that right now. “Can I ask a different question?”

  Iris nods.

  “So, you’re like a mermaid then?” I can’t believe Iris is one of the monstrous eels that swarmed the coast this afternoon.

  “Please,” Iris scoffs. “Mermaids are based on us, not the other way around. A few decades ago one of our prey escaped. For years the man was sure something had tried to kill him in the water. Shrinks, therapists, psychologists: none of them had an answer for him. They each told him the same thing: it was just his imagination. And after a while he believed it. They called him Hans. Apparently, he made a lot of money off the idea of tailed creatures living in the ocean.”