Siren Hunter- the Curse

by J G Barber

  Ellen freezes as Leucosia transforms into a lioness-woman. Ellen struggles to clear her mind of the sound. She grabs the spyglass and recites the runes in Old Norse, freezing Leucosia as she advances on Laura in her vulnerable state. The on-duty doctor and two nurses rush in to resuscitate Laura, so focused on their patient they do not notice Leucosia. Ellen fights through a wave of terror as she continues reciting the runes to immobilize Leucosia.

  Alexei runs into the room, crossbow drawn. He faces Leucosia. Eyes never leaving her, he sets the crossbow down, withdraws a long blade capable of gutting her, and moves into a fighting stance. Leucosia growls, swatting at him with her paws but unable to advance. Two security guards run in behind Alexei, focused on him… until they see Leucosia. They flank Alexei on either side and pull out their pistols.

  Ellen recites the next row of runes. Leucosia roars. Surprised by the power of Ellen’s Old Norse delivery, Leucosia morphs into her human form. Alexei and the guards grab her. Leucosia sings to mesmerize them all. Ellen drops the spyglass. With blinding speed, Leucosia throws one guard into the wall, trips the other one onto the floor, and pushes past Alexei. She’s about to advance on Laura when Ellen grabs the spyglass off the floor. Leucosia jumps out the window and morphs into a bird-woman in mid-air before Ellen can collect herself to recite the runes again. Alexei grabs his crossbow. Leucosia flies out of range before he can shoot an arrow.

  The guards come to, rubbing their bruises and trying to figure out what just happened. “Is anyone injured?” Alexei asks. His voice of calm helps ground everyone. Alexei comforts Ellen as she shakes off her fear. “Remarkable. A brave first encounter with a shape-shifting nixe.”

  The compliment bolsters Ellen’s confidence. “That’s happened to you before?” Alexei nods.

  Janitorial service workers go to work on the mess. “We’re going to move our patient to another room,” the doctor says, addressing Alexei and the guards in particular. “All of you should stay us through the move.”

  “There you are.” Lorelei grins as Paul opens his eyes. She hides the syringe she just injected him with.

  Paul rubs his arm where the needle entered as he looks around the room. It’s wobbling and moving like the hallway scene at the end of The Matrix. He recognizes that he’s upstairs in the master suite, on the bed. “What happened?”

  “A little overindulgence, that’s all.” Her words echo through the room as she retrieves Paul’s collar, fastens it around his neck, and secures the leash. “It’s almost the witching hour. The true celebration is about to begin.” Her eyes command him to stand. She holds just enough tension on the leash to remind him she’s in control, but she lets him do the work.

  Lorelei leads Paul downstairs. The mood of the music has changed to a haunting and erotic vibe. The central floor is more than half empty. Thick fog rises from the floor to fill the room. The rotating, colored lights permeate the fog to create a spectacular other-dimensional effect. She leads him slowly through the fog, allowing Paul to take in the scene.

  A closer look reveals that the male-dominant rules have flipped. Women in various stages of undress stand around a young, muscular male dancer, stuffing dollar bills in his briefs and stroking his crotch as they withdraw their hands. On a couch, two androgynous individuals make out as a group of spectators watch. The spectators’ eyes wander to the nearby stage, where a half-naked heterosexual couple taunts a pre-op transgender male with a massive erection hanging by handcuffs and a harness from the ceiling. A sexy exhibitionist in a black nightie approaches a pair of shocked female first-timers and flashes her crotch so only they can see. The first-timers share an embarrassed look. The exhibitionist moves closer, lifts her skirt, and demonstrates the fine art of self-pleasure for them.

  Jerry kneels at a woman’s lap. She lies naked on a chaise lounge, with two exquisite naked beauties kneeling on either side of her, each taking turns giving her deep tongue kisses, fondling her fleshy breasts, and tongue-bathing her nipples. Jerry’s face burrows between the woman’s legs, his tongue oscillating, until her abdomen quakes and her vagina pulsates in a series of squirting orgasms that drench his face and clothes. Jerry turns to face Paul. The two men share a moment of shame as they recognize in each other they are the sirens’ bitches and they are totally fucked.

  “Come with me,” Lorelei barks, yanking Paul’s leash to lead him away.

  Leucosia enters the floor below the main stage, wiping Dutch’s dried blood from her chest and licking it off her fingers. Satiated with life force energy and her fill of human flesh, infuriated by her failure to finish Laura and Paul’s child, her alpha animal magnetism attracts an entourage of female familiars. Surrounded by her sisters, Leucosia calms. Monica and Brianne join her. The familiars strip the three of them, dip their hands in a cistern of oil, and cover the three from head to toe, sprinkling them with silver and gold dust to finish the ritual preparations.

  The DJ music fades to silence. Lorelei leads Paul onto a stage decorated with plants, flowers, a ritual bed elevated on a platform. Labrys symbols surround the stage. A Serpent Goddess statue towers in the background. Leucosia and Brianne escort Monica to the stage. Leucosia directs the familiars to circle the stage. She joins them to form the siren choir.

  Brianne lays Monica out on the ritual bed as the siren choir joins hands. Leucosia begins and the others join in to sing an erotic and almost holy siren song. Lorelei detaches Paul’s leash, removes the collar, and strips him. She guides him to the ritual bed. Paul takes in Monica’s body and inhales her smell. It drives him wild, compelling him to climb on. She grabs his face with her hands. Their eyes connect as their lips and bodies merge. Her oiled breasts on his chest sends a spasm down his spine, electrifying his lust. Lost in each other’s eyes, they surrender to their mutual desire.

  Lorelei and Brianne dance around the lovers with reckless abandon, their hands, breasts and lips wandering over the lovers’ bodies, joining in the siren choir’s song of longing and desire for resurrection. Their desire unleashed, Paul and Monica kiss and caress wildly. More spectators gather around for the show. In a flash of lucidity, Paul realizes the fuck of his life is on display for everyone to witness… but then the drugs and Monica’s lips and the smell of her heat take him to a place of dark desire where he wants her so desperately he doesn’t care.

  “Enter me,” Monica gasps in his ear. “Fill me with your seed.” As he proceeds, the siren song becomes something holy. Paul feels its vibration in his pelvis as he thrusts. She receives him as they melt into each other. She moans, ecstatic, grabbing his face to connect with his eyes as they release into orgasm in unison. Feeling the force of his ejaculation inside of her, she grabs his buttocks and pulls him into her with all her strength, holding him deep inside her until he finishes.

  The siren choir creates a resonant force field that encapsulates the lovers. The song vibrates on Monica’s womb, and Paul feels its potency and power through his penis as he withdraws. They exchange their final kisses as the tone of the siren choir transitions into a calming lullaby. Paul rolls off of her, remaining by her side. Monica moves his hand over her womb before they fall asleep together.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Paul stirs to semi-consciousness, the room wobbling and spinning from all the drugs he ingested and the impact of the siren choir. Surrounded by mirrors, his reflection morphs into a scene he can’t quite make out. He blinks.

  The Friday night party with the crew comes into focus in the mirrors. They gather around the mermaid table in Lorelei’s sitting room at the mansion. Everyone’s wasted drunk except for Lorelei. The glass tabletop contains one last line of coke and full shot glass. Monica challenges Paul. He finishes them without hesitation. Leucosia enters and morphs into the Serpent Goddess. She wraps an oscillating energy band resembling a snake around each man’s neck. Each snake bites its tail to create the ouroboros, fades into a translucent glow, and disappears. Lorelei wraps her hands around each man’s neck to link her mind to the snake colla
rs.

  The mirrors morph again. Paul sits bedside with his father as he passes away. At the moment of Robert’s death, Erik leaves his body. Erik’s shadow hovers over Paul before merging with his body. Erik’s eyes of rage look out through Paul’s at Robert’s corpse.

  The mirrors morph one more time. Erik’s reflection stares at Paul, the storm of 1539 raging in his eyes. Paul breathes in the fear and refuses to look away as images blur one into another, a rewind of Erik’s continuation through the 22 generations of Douglass sailors, from 20th century Seattle to 19th century Florida to 18th century Ireland to 17th century England to 16th century Germany. The rewind stops on Erik’s son, Odin.

  In the mirrors, Alexander, Dutch, their sons, and several hundred men surround Odin. The men join hands in a large circle. One group boards their boats. Half of them cross the river. Men on each side of the river ride horse-drawn carts to the near and far ends of the Loreley rock, stretching massive nets across the river to trap the gossip of mermaids. Odin leads the charge on the water as they capture and behead the mermaids one by one, hoisting the heads by their red hair in a savage celebration of victory, turning the river red with their blood. Leucosia and Lorelei escape downriver. Men pile the bodies and heads on a wood pyre and burn them.

  The horror of the scene shocks Paul into a conscious state. Crazed eyes with dark circles underneath stare back at him in the mirror, startling him. He looks closer and sees Erik in his sailing garb overshadowing him. Paul stumbles around the room, struggling to figure out where he is and if he’s hallucinating. He recognizes Lorelei’s playroom. He finds his clothes, his phone and his wallet on the nightstand.

  Paul takes a hot shower to wash away his hangover and Monica’s smell. As the water revitalizes him, images from his waking dream replay in his mind. Holding his head under the water brings a moment of lucidity. I’m cursed. I inherited this madness from my father. He inherited it from his father. And it all started with Erik.

  He exits the shower, slurps handfuls of water from the sink, and towels off. “Need food.” Lorelei hung up his new clothes for him to choose from. He struggles into the casual boating attire and stuffs his phone in his pants pocket, afraid to look at it.

  Paul slogs up the stairs. He finds Lorelei and Monica in the kitchen, dressed as a prim and proper vintage housewives, covered by cooking aprons. His fried brain can’t process the moment. “Good morning, sweetheart,” they say in unison.

  Monica kisses him. “Good evening, I should I say. Dinner is ready.”

  “What happened?” Paul plops down at the table. Lorelei presents him a sumptuous roast beef sandwich decorated with vegetables and a cup of coffee. He empties the cup. “What time is it?”

  “Eat,” Monica says. “You need to replenish your strength.” Lorelei pours him a coffee refill.

  Paul devours the sandwich, mumbling and massaging his head between bites. “Ow, headache. What did you do to me?”

  Monica beams. “We call it sexstacy.”

  He stiffens in his chair. “What? You gave me fucking Viagra?”

  “Oh no, my dear, not Molly and Viagra like you primitive humans do it,” Monica says.

  Lorelei explains. “It’s our secret formula, prepared with love, made with gifts from Great Mother. The formula maximizes your output.”

  Paul remembers the woman squirting all over Jerry’s face, having the most raging hard on ever, brief flashes of Monica’s voluptuous naked body, climbing on top of her and looking into her eyes, and the resonant sensations as he came inside her. He falls out of his chair.

  Monica catches him. “Wasn’t it amazing?” She kisses him.

  Paul feels his phone vibrate. He pulls out his phone and reads a message from Ellen while Monica looks over his shoulder. “Trying you again. Laura’s in Whidbey General Hospital in Coupeville. Need you here ASAP.”

  Monica wraps her arms tight around him. He pulls away and heads for the front door. Lorelei moves at superhuman speed to block his exit. “I need you to stay,” Monica calls. “You have a responsibility to our son. And me.”

  The room spins again as Paul’s drug-riddled mind folds under the stress of his new reality. He falls back against the wall and slides down to sit on the floor. Monica scoots up alongside and cradles him in her arms.

  Lorelei kneels to face the two of them. She grabs Paul’s face and looks deep into his glassy eyes. “Time again for you to choose, Sailor. Join us.” She turns him to face Monica. “Sister Monica is the perfect partner for you. She loves to party and she’ll let you fuck whoever you want, with her or alone. But most important, your son needs a father.”

  Paul pushes away from them both and struggles to his feet. “Where’s my fucking car?”

  Lorelei wraps her arms around Paul. “You came here with me, remember?”

  Monica entwines herself with them. “What do you say, sister? Is it time for the three of us?”

  Lorelei grins. She kisses Monica. “Indeed it is, sister. Let’s take more sexstacy and make it a party.”

  “Get the fuck off me!” Paul extracts himself from their embrace. “Laura’s in the hospital. I have to go.” He unravels in a full-blown hangover meltdown, stumbling around in a circle, unable to put together a logical course of action. He pulls out his smartphone to call a car. There’s no service. “Fuck!”

  Monica collapses in grief. Lorelei sits next to her, caressing her hair. “My dear. This is our fate. If we force him to choose, his resentment will damage our son. Your child is more important to us than anything else.”

  “But what if I don’t get pregnant?” Monica sobs.

  “We have insurance,” Lorelei replies. “Cryogenically frozen.”

  Paul’s too distracted searching for the keys to Lorelei’s Lamborghini to register the fact that they took his sperm without his permission and froze it for future use. He finds the keys in a mermaid bowl on the foyer, grabs them and runs down the hall to the garage.

  Lorelei helps Monica off the floor and leads her up the spiral staircase to the faux castle turret. The sunset bathes the patio in orange-yellow light. Mermaid Leucosia emerges from the soaking tub and transforms into her human form.

  “Paul made his choice,” Lorelei reports. “Grief consumes our dear sister Monica.”

  Leucosia enfolds Monica in her arms. “She will stay with us from now on.”

  “How do you bear it?” Monica asks, tears in her eyes.

  “We take our vengeance on those who caused it,” Leucosia replies. Her eyes turn dark and remorseless.

  Monica’s not ready to let go of the idea that she and Paul won’t be together. “We will kill him, then?”

  “Our song is the invitation,” Lorelei explains. “They choose to self-destruct. That’s what they do.”

  Lorelei and Leucosia undress Monica and guide her into the soaking tub. She doesn’t understand why and tries to climb out. Leucosia holds her down as she instructs her. “Now you know what it means to be a siren. Our grief defines us. Let the water absorb your grief.” Monica surrenders, submerging herself underwater.

  Lorelei pulls Leucosia aside. “We must complete our plan, my queen. How do we finish this?”

  Leucosia furls her lip. “I do not know. They bring a female companion who has learned to read the runes. And the Russian continues to interfere.”

  “This is the second time he has bested you,” Lorelei scoffs. “That puny man is no match for you, my love.”

  “This human is a cunning hunter. He knows the Icelandic ways,” Leucosia replies with a respect she never gives to a human. “He and Paul are unlike any men we have encountered since Erik and Odin. We must be careful.”

  “The wife’s condition?” Lorelei asks.

  Leucosia allows herself a moment of emotion for her lover, Laura. She too had hoped the Douglass couple would join them, and the savagery embodied in her enhanced Sirenian genes would not be necessary. “In critical care. Her injuries incapacitate her. And the husband?”

  Lorelei allow
s herself a moment of emotion for her lover, Paul. She never expected him to say yes to the sirens’ offer. But she prayed he would, for Monica’s sake, and for their son’s. “His self-destruction is imminent.”

  Leucosia pushes back. “You take too much for granted, sister. Their wills are strong. And their love is as strong as ours. We need a contingency plan.”

  “Let me tell you how we will finish them all.” Lorelei sits Leucosia down to explain her new plan for ending the Douglass lineage and the last remaining siren hunters. Monica exits the soaking tub to join them. Despite her aching heart, she’s already made her choice. She’s a siren. And sirens lure sailors to self-destruction. That’s what they do.

  The Lamborghini zips around turns, kicking up dirt and gravel as Paul’s sloppy driving pushes the edges of the road. His reaction time is off, too slow for the speed he’s driving. As he enters a downhill stretch of dark, winding road, siren song echoes all around him. Paul pulls off the road. He takes out his smartphone to dial. Ellen’s name displays… and the battery dies.

  He opens the glove compartment to look for an emergency phone or anything that can help him. He finds a glass vial full of cocaine. The siren song activates his snake collar. He opens the vial and tastes the powder. Addiction takes him over. He fumbles with his wallet, pulling out two credit cards. He taps out a fat line on one card, chops it up with the other, and snorts it. His hangover clears in seconds. “Ah yeah.” He fires up the engine.

  The Lamborghini races down the winding road. Paul drives too fast into a hairpin turn. A rabbit hops into the middle of the road. Thud. Screech. In an instant, Paul’s future flashes in front of eyes: the Lamborghini crashes through the railing, hurling down the hillside, crashing into the trees in a ball of flames. Screech. Paul’s head shakes unnaturally. The car skids into a double 360. Erik takes control of his hands and the steering wheel, recovering control of the vehicle. The passenger side taps against the railing as the car skids to a stop.