The Siren

by Petra Landon

  Sienna seemed to understand. “You didn’t slip up. I’ve suspected it for a while. It’s a long story and I’ll tell you when the time is right, Tasia” she said hurriedly.

  A commotion outside interrupted them. The resort officials had arrived to take custody of the Mage.

  In the corridor, Hawk was explaining to officialdom that the intruder had approached the lodge with her powers and presence camouflaged. Nandini showed them the incomplete rune on the wall. It seemed to clinch the matter for the Setik. The grim-faced officials marched their prisoner away.

  They had barely a minute to take stock, before the first of their party trooped in. The Shifters looked jubilant, though their faces were smeared with blood and their clothes streaked with detritus and dirt. They had clearly enjoyed themselves hugely. Tasia guessed that some of the Shifters had taken advantage of the forest, to scuffle with the marauders in their beast form.

  “You missed out, stripling” Elisabetta threw at Hawk; for once, as mussed as the other Shifters. It was a taunt, but it missed her usual bite.

  Hawk shot her an unexpected grin in response but remained mute. The four of them waited, in unspoken accord, as the Shifters poured in steadily through the corridor. Atsá shot them a searching glance and Luis, a frowning one, but the others disappeared in a hurry.

  The Alpha was the last to walk in, with Jason, Roman and Duncan. Tasia noted that Jason looked the most pristine and Roman, just a little disheveled, whereas the Shifters appeared to have been in a brutish and long drawn out brawl. The Alpha was blood-soaked from head to toe, his bare chest covered in scratches and gore, his denims bloody and in tatters. Her eyes shot to him, to catch the gold-colored gaze on her. But in the poor light, she could not make out anything from the gold depths.

  “Alph” Hawk greeted him precipitously. “We caught a Magick lurking in the corridor.”

  The announcement had an immediate effect on everyone in the corridor and within auditory distance. They stopped in their tracks. The gold eyes wrenched away from Tasia, to study Hawk.

  “A Rune Mage” Nandini proffered helpfully. “She was cloaked in some way.”

  Jason grasped her point immediately. “Invisible?”

  “Yes.”

  “You detected her presence?” Duncan asked Hawk.

  Hawk shook his head, choosing his words with care. “We wondered why the leeches would engage us here at the resort. I thought it prudent to keep watch in the corridor.”

  Sienna rushed in to explain, gesturing at the wall. “Nandini thought she sensed something at the end of the corridor and Hawk tackled the intruder. When her camouflage fell away, the Mage tried to deploy another rune. It clued us in to what she was. Once we separated her from the rune, it wasn’t hard to subdue her.”

  Jason strode to the wall, to scrutinize the half-finished rune. The Shifters accepted Sienna’s explanation without question, but Roman’s eyes narrowed, taken aback by such evidence of Nandini’s instincts. What he knew about Naga powers did not suggest faculties more hyperaware than a Wyr. But Roman stowed the information away for another time. There was a far more pressing matter to resolve.

  “Where’s the Mage?” he asked.

  “The lodge is holding her” Hawk responded.

  This time, the Alpha’s brows drew together in a frown. It was Tasia who stepped into the breach. Her friends had done a commendable job of covering up for her. It was her turn to return the favor.

  “Hawk was outvoted” she said to the Alpha, meeting the gold eyes squarely. “We hoped the lodge might be more amenable if we reciprocated. The Mage is an intruder on their property.”

  Roman frowned at her words, his eyes going to Nandini, who studiously ignored him. He guessed who had led the charge to outvote Hawk.

  “Did the Mage hurt anyone?” Raoul asked.

  “No, we handled her, Alpha” Sienna answered. “But her subterfuge and intrusion has displeased the lodge officials.”

  “This could turn out to our advantage, Raoul” Duncan murmured.

  Roman stirred. “I’ll go talk to them” he announced. “The Mage must be in cahoots with the Clan. They were working together to outwit us.”

  “Take Atsá, Duncan and Jason with you” Raoul bid the Ancient. “I need a good scrubbing before I’m presentable.”

  Roman got the message. This was no more a purely Setik business. The ambush had been an attempt on the entire party. Having handed the intruder over to the authorities, they should take advantage of it — use the information about the decoy in the forest to sway the Setik owners, to open up with details about the Deadly they chased.

  As the Alpha took charge, Tasia slipped away into her room, astounded but immensely grateful to Sienna, for publicly covering up her role in routing the Mage. The whole affair had been a whirlwind and she wanted the chance to process it, without distractions. In the privacy of her room, as she looked back on the events, Tasia came to the conclusion that she’d made the right call. She had certainly risked her cover as a Wizard with little magic. But upon reflection, Tasia suspected that without her timely intervention, Nandini and Sienna might have been lost. Even with all four Chosen using their gifts in tandem, it was hard to fight back against an enemy that could pass undetected. But she had one final task to accomplish, before the events of the night could be laid to rest — come clean to the Alpha about using magic and about what had been revealed in the course of thwarting the Rune Mage.

  She lay in wait, but it was more than an hour before the Alpha and Duncan came striding up the stairs. Tasia shot into the corridor to waylay them, gesturing wildly towards the forest. Without a word, the two Shifters accompanied her down the stairs and into the grounds. Once outside, the Alpha took the lead, taking them unerringly into the rainforest. When he stopped eventually to face her, Tasia recognized that it was the same clearing that she had traversed earlier tonight. The one where she’d come upon the magnificent beast lounging under the light of the full moon. So much had happened since then that she’d barely had time to ruminate on the momentous event.

  “What happened?” the Alpha asked.

  “I blew my cover” she said baldly, confident that he would understand she had done so under exigent circumstances.

  Raoul evinced little astonishment at her words. He’d already guessed which Chosen had played the starring role in the Rune Mage’s capture.

  “Hawk didn’t sense anything?” he asked, as a silent Duncan looked on.

  Tasia shook her head. “Neither did Nandini. That’s what put me on my guard. She was moving very lethargically but her aura came ever closer. And yet, Hawk remained oblivious.”

  “That is how she slipped past us” Duncan mused aloud. Atsá had circled the lodge, while the rest engaged the leeches. But even the venerable Were-Alpha had been bamboozled. The Mage had slipped through by masking everything, except her inherent magic which Tasia could sense in all Magicks.

  Raoul had known that, sooner or later, some of the witchling’s secrets would come tumbling out. It was inevitable. One could not work, travel and live in such close proximity to other Chosen while leading a double life. But he was mighty relieved that the exposure had come in Sienna’s presence, and not Roman Durovic’s. Nandini, witness to Tasia’s magic previously, had never let on about it. He hoped that he might prevail upon Sienna similarly to keep this information to herself, for now. She might share it with her Guardian lover but Raoul was confident that LaRue would keep the secret. He’d come to like and trust the Guardian, against all odds. But more crucially, Jason was acutely aware of the fractures within the Guardians and would comprehend that the witchling’s powers put her at risk of becoming a pawn between GCW factions. Durovic, on the other hand, buoyed by the insular world of Ancients, where all major Chosen decisions were entrusted to their Elders, would consider it his duty to disclose the witchling’s secret to TorElnor.

  “What’s the damage?” he asked her.

  Having spent the last hour cogitating on this, Tasia
laid out a catalogue of her transgressions precisely. “I stripped the Mage of her cloak, to make her visible. And, when she tried to deploy a rune, I helped Nandini neutralize its power.”

  “Also, I was the one who told Hawk about the invisible Chosen in the corridor” she said, coming clean.

  The Alpha contemplated her. “But Sienna said it was Nandini who detected the Mage.”

  “Sienna covered for me” Tasia confessed. “She wasn’t surprised at all by my actions. That’s the strange bit. Apparently, she’s suspected about me for a while.”

  This time, Raoul’s brows drew together, floored by the news.

  “What gave you away?” Duncan interjected, wondering how Tasia could have slipped up when every precaution had been taken.

  “Sienna says it’s nothing I did, and when the time is right, she’ll tell me about it” Tasia admitted.

  Her eyes went to frowning gold gaze. “If Sienna has kept this to herself thus far …” her voice trailed off hesitantly.

  Duncan shot a look at the Alpha. The cat was clearly out of the bag. But he understood what Tasia was saying — matters might not be very dire yet.

  “Sienna probably believes that you hide your powers to blend in” Raoul averred. “I’ll have a word with her. But I think your secret is safe for now.”

  Though immensely baffled by Sienna’s admission, Tasia was nevertheless relieved. Actions spoke louder than words. If Sienna did have prior knowledge, she had never allowed even a hint of it to escape her.

  Raoul moved on to a different matter. They had a problem on their hands. How had Bianchi convinced an Ancient to mount an assault on a Setik lodge?

  “How powerful is this Mage?” he asked Tasia.

  “Not very powerful” she responded. “Whatever rune she used to camouflage herself also strangled her aura. It took me a while to figure out what was happening, even though I could sense her magic in the air.”

  Tasia’s eyes tangled with his. “If she had more power, she’d have cloaked her magic better. And I would not have been able to detect her” she said soberly.

  Duncan expelled his breath. “A close brush.”

  “Much too close” Raoul acceded. “The leeches draw us into the forest, while a Mage slips into the lodge to retrieve her daughters. It’s good strategy, I’ll give Bianchi that.”

  He had never expected Lady Bethesda to back away from laying claim to her daughters. And he’d known that Sienna and Nandini were far more vulnerable away from his fortified Lair. But he had to admit that he’d been outwitted with a wily ploy. Had the witchling not been around, the ruse would have succeeded. He would not allow Lady Bethesda to get that close again.

  Tasia’s eyes widened at his words. It wasn’t difficult to connect the Mage with the Blutsauger assault on them. But this was the first mention of Rafaelo Bianchi. After her run-ins with the Vampire, she would never make the mistake of underestimating him.

  “Has the Mage admitted anything to the lodge officials yet?” she asked, hoping that Nandini’s insistence on involving the local Setik paid them rich dividends.

  “She’s singing, Tasia, in the hope they’ll let her go” Duncan said. “She has offered up Bianchi’s name.”

  Tasia perked up at the news. Perhaps, the events of the night might yet give them an advantage. But something puzzled her. “How does Rafaelo Bianchi’s path cross that of a Rune Mage? The Vampires and the Mages do not socialize in the same circles.”

  Her question echoed what Raoul had been pondering. And suddenly, the answer came to him. “The Lombardi Nest” he murmured, the gold eyes pinning her. “You told me that Monseigneur had Mages working for him during your father’s time with them.”

  Tasia mused on it. It was certainly a plausible explanation.

  “If so, might be a good idea to have Roman nudge the Mage on Monseigneur, Raoul” Duncan suggested. “The Setik have allowed him in the room while they question her.”

  “I’ll have a word with him” the Alpha agreed, struck by his friend’s suggestion. The Ancients would not bestir themselves against Lady Bethesda, unless she deigned to emerge from the shadows. But perhaps, they might be prevailed upon to turn their attention on Monseigneur. Trespass and attempted assault on a Setik owned property would not be looked upon kindly by the First Ones.

  “I have other news” he told them. “The Shifters found something in the forest.”

  Tasia gaped at him. She had not expected this. “Tracks?” she asked incredulously.

  “More like a sign.”

  She looked confused. “A sign?”

  “I asked them to keep an eye out for anything unusual” Raoul explained. “And Luis found it. A patch of forest that looks like the aftermath of a hurricane.”

  “Hurricane” Duncan repeated. He had not yet been privy to all the details, for the Vampires had interrupted them. “Could it not be the aftermath of a real one, Raoul?”

  “It was localized to a small section of the forest. Trees uprooted, ground wrecked, everything obliterated — all pointing to something major. Luis called it an earthquake and a typhoon rolling in together. Sound familiar?”

  “The explosion” Tasia breathed.

  “Exactly” the Alpha asserted. “This is the first proof that he was in the forest.”

  “Do we leave Belize in the morning?” Tasia asked, excitement unfurling in her.

  “Only after Durovic has what we came here for. He believes he’s close.”

  “Then, I can check out the site tomorrow” she prompted eagerly, pleased by the prospect. “If we’re lucky, we could follow the trail of magic to its destination.”

  Raoul shook his head. “It’s not a day’s trek, witchling. For a Shifter yes, but not you.”

  Tasia did not demur. There was no way she could physically keep up with a Shifter. She sighed. “What we have is a clue we can’t follow up on.”

  “On the contrary, witchling” the Alpha countered. “There is a town to the west that’s a day’s walk from it. It’s likely that was their destination. I’ll have Faoladh’s investigators follow up on it. But their prospects will vastly improve, if we provide a description of the girl or the Archmage, assuming they were traveling together.”

  “Let’s hope Roman can identify the Mage from the guest list” Duncan remarked.

  “Atsá had a look at the site too” Raoul added. “He says the devastation is more intense than the building here. Almost, as if the earth itself was torn open and then, closed up.”

  Tasia tensed, vague memories stirring at the back of her mind.

  Raoul, attuned to her, narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”

  “The first Eru to walk the earth were rumored to command its power” she said slowly, meeting his eyes. The Eru’Aars had been named after those early forefathers.

  For a moment, no one said anything. Such mystical magic, lost to history, now lived on merely as Chosen lore and legend.

  “That is very very old magic, Tasia” Duncan said gruffly.

  Weeks in the past, deep in the Belizean Rainforest

  Temi spent a sleepless night in the little cavern, followed by a restless day in the outer cave. Throughout the long day, there was nary a sign of any Blutsauger — thus, proving his parting words to her right. But as her temporary coop darkened with the last of the day’s rays, the nub at the pit of Temi’s stomach clenched into a hard knot. Something had happened to him, she suspected. Or perhaps, whispered the insidious voice in her head, he had abandoned her. Her supply of protein bars and fresh water from the stream would last her a few days. But after that, she’d have to leave the sanctuary of the cave. Monseigneur’s Undead would not rest until they had her back in their custody. And out in the forest, without a knowledgeable guide or map or his ability to mask her scent, she’d be easy prey for the Vampires.

  As dusk fell and the massive grotto darkened, Temi kept watch by the entrance. Finally, even the birds fell silent, readying to bed down for the night after a final flurry of activity. The f
orest was calm and still. Soon, the Blutsaugers would start to comb it again, hoping to catch her. Temi waited, a sliver of desperate hope in her that he had not deserted her in a rainforest in Belize; not after offering to take her to Mexico. But as the hours passed and night settled in, the hope grew dimmer until all she had left was despair. She reminded herself that, desperate though her circumstances were, she was still better off than before — a prisoner of the Lombardis, her fate in Monseigneur’s vicious hands. She must conserve her meagre food reserves and find a way through the forest, without being taken by the Vampires. After all, she had powers that few Chosen could dream of. Had she not prayed fervently for one opportunity to escape that which she feared the most, Temi told herself fiercely. ElMorad had given her that chance and it was now up to her to make the most of it.

  But before she scurried into the little cavern to plot the way forward, Temi wanted one last look outside. Not too far, just a cursory glance around. She’d followed him blindly through the forest, never keeping track of which direction he led her towards. And Temi cursed herself for it now. A quick glance at the moon to draw strength from it, she promised herself. Her affinity to the Goddess was not because she followed the old ways. Rather, the moon was a symbol of courage and hope for her. It would give her the strength to make her own way, just as her more illustrious namesake had once drawn her powers from it.

  Outside, moonlight gleamed over the treetops to occasionally, filter onto the ground through the heavy canopy. Everything lay hushed in the night; the trees like enigmatic sentinels guarding the secrets of the darkened forest. Temi gulped in deep breaths of the chilled air. But as she made to return to her hideout, a slithering sound, like the brushing of foliage, had wild hope surging in her. She turned, her excitement rising. But it was not ElMorad who confronted her. Something whizzed through the trees, to land on the ground and face her. It was a Blutsauger. She had been discovered!

  Before a terrified Temi could react, the moonlight fell on him. A familiar face stared back at her. Temi stiffened as his gaze held hers.