Macabre Melody: Reverse Harem Siren Romance (Spellsinger Book 7)

by Amy Sumida

  “You wanna try me, Diva?” Jago asked with an excited gleam in his gray eyes. “You might win. You might even manage to get your collar off and make a run for it. But then you'd have to fight the three-hundred gargoyles standing between you and the zone exit, and then you'd have to get one of them to open the passage for you. Think you can manage that?”

  “There's no way three-hundred men are bunking in Building 1.”

  “Do you seriously think we only have one barracks?” Jago laughed. “They're all over the Zone.”

  My heart dropped. I'd known it would be difficult to get out of the Zone, but I hadn't thought it would be impossible.

  “Hey,” Jago said gently; his expression shifting abruptly, “you're going to be okay, Elaria. You won't be here forever; I promise.”

  I blinked in surprise. Then I remembered him carrying me out of the arena after my last fight; the things he'd said to me and... the tears in his eyes. The fucking gargoyle had cried over me. Why hadn't I remembered that until now?

  “Thanks, Jago,” I whispered. “And thank you for yesterday; for getting me out of there. You saved my life.”

  Jago flushed; his stare shifting away from mine. “That wasn't right. I shouldn't have had to save you. The whole point is to give everyone a fighting chance.”

  “Yeah; no shit it shouldn't have happened,” Cerberus grumbled. “Did you find out why it did? And what about that fucking earthquake? That wasn't normal.”

  “Above your clearance level, Dog-breath.” And sassy Jago was back. He ushered me out of my cell and past the grimacing Cerberus. “This one's gonna be rough, Diva,” Jago whispered to me. “I don't know what you said to the boss after that cluster fuck yesterday, but it riled him bad.”

  What I'd said to him was that I'd rather pretend to be dating the Shedder than him. I know; it was both childish and a bald-faced lie, but fear had been riding me, and then Slate had pissed me off with his whole; It appears that we're now an item shit. Then he'd gone back to that crap he'd spouted in the infirmary. He told me that starting today, I'd be singing in his club and socializing on his arm as his new girlfriend. I said no. Slate said that I'd fall in line or face the consequences. You know; typical overlord bullshit. Then he told me that if I spilled the monster beans to Cerberus, he'd put the dog down. Thus; Cerberus' ignorance of the monster beneath us. I agreed to keep quiet, but I still refused to sing in his stupid club. He could force me out onto a stage if he wanted to, but he couldn't force me to sing. Yeah; that hadn't gone over well.

  “You're fighting a fucking dybbuk today.” Jago brought me out of my dark musings.

  “A dybbuk?” I asked in horror. “That son of a bitch! That fucking stoner bastard!”

  “Shh,” Jago hissed. “He's up there listening; you know that he is.”

  I ground my teeth together in fury. Humans believed that Dybbuks were disturbed spirits; dead humans who couldn't move on to their afterlife because of unresolved trauma and so possessed other humans. They got the spirit part right but that was about it. Dybbuks were malicious motherfuckers from a cold, wasteland of a planet where they had evolved to be really fast and really deadly. They could shift from solid bodies to spiritual ones in the blink of an eye, and once they were in spirit form, they could move like the wind. He or she would be able to breeze across the arena, reform, and beat the shit out of me before I sang two words.

  “Give me a head start,” I whispered frantically.

  Jago grimaced.

  “Please, Jago,” I begged urgently.

  We were fast approaching the gate. It started to rise; looking like the gaping maw of a hungry monster.

  “Just turn off the collar as soon as you shut the gate. I'll need every second I can get to prepare.”

  “You can't attack him until they say the word,” he warned me. “You do, and you're in far more trouble than a dybbuk can give you.”

  “I promise.” It was a lie, and he knew it.

  “All right.” Jago chose to believe it. “Get the fuck out there already.”

  I walked into the arena and my stare went straight to Slate's box. He was there, of course, giving me a look that said I could stop this whenever I wanted. He'd known that Jago would warn me. Either that or he'd overheard our whispers. His silver stare was burning a hole into me like molten metal, and I was a second away from giving in. That's what firmed my resolve; that near capitulation. This bastard wasn't getting anything from me easily. I honestly didn't know who would win our contest of wills, but if I lost, I'd do so knowing that I had given it everything I had.

  “Fuck you,” I mouthed at him.

  Slate grimaced; shaking his head and baring his teeth. I ignored him and focused on my magic. The gate was closing behind me, and if Jago kept his word, I'd—

  My love! Kyanite burst into my brain. We are still searching for you, but do not despair—

  “Ky, I'm sorry but shut up and listen,” I growled, and he shut up; bless his sweet stone soul. “I'm fighting a dybbuk. We need to be fast. Any ideas?”

  Oh, dear.

  “Not helpful.”

  You'll never be able to hit it in time, even if you get straight to the punch-line, as it were.

  “Fuck; here he comes!”

  An average looking man stepped out into the arena and smiled at me. His dark hair was tousled playfully over his even darker eyes. Eyes that gleamed with magic. Worn jeans hung low on his hips—he needed a belt—but a tucked-in, Bob Marley T-shirt covered any skin that might have shown. He waved at me.

  I suggest you fight fire with fire. Or in this case, dybbuk with dybbuk.

  “What?”

  “Become the Beast” Kyanite snapped as the song by Karliene started to play.

  It was just a soft tapping at first. I sang the opening lyrics under my breath; getting closer to the chorus I needed. Biding my time until the announcers shouted for us to fight. I could have blasted right to those precious lines, but when I worked through a whole song instead of one-lining it, my magic was able to build up to its ultimate strength, and I needed it at its best. As soon as I heard the word “fight” my voice lifted; my magic already primed in my throat like a missile.

  For all its softness, it was a vicious song. A temptation to join the darkness; to become something brave and powerful and terrifying. To live in that hungry fierceness and embrace it; let it lift you to the top. This was a song about primal power; brutal and base. But in its heart, the lyrics spoke of transformation; becoming what you feared most.

  And that was just what I needed.

  The wild crowd around me went silent as my body became transparent. The dybbuk—who'd been flying across the arena toward me—solidified just in time to go right through me. The shouts would have been deafening if I'd had ears, but as I was, they were hollow. Like being underwater. My senses had dulled, and I floundered in my new form. My body flickered—my voice becoming a haunting, banshee wail in my dybbuk throat—and I stumbled to my knees.

  “Nice trick,” the dybbuk whispered in my ear. “But it takes years to master the art of spiriting.”

  His knee bashed into my face. I went rolling in the sand; blood spraying everywhere. Shit; here we go again.

  Gasps. Shouts. Pounding feet. My fans were not liking this turn of events. They were nearly as angry as they'd been when my collar was kept on the day before. Well, look at that; they could be loyal after all.

  I rolled to my feet and shifted into a dybbuk again; spitting blood as I sang. Crimson drops arced toward the sand; going translucent halfway up the stream. Kinda cool, actually. I held my ghostly arms out to the sides and took a moment to center myself; focusing on the song and the feelings inside me instead of the dybbuk who was now snarling instead of smiling.

  Unfortunately, the song merely gave me the means to survive the battle, not the weapons to end it. I'd have to fight this man on equal terms; something I wasn't used to. Less than equal. As a natural born dybbuk, he had the advantage while I was just an impostor.

/>   “I need another song,” I cried desperately.

  Can you hold this form while you switch songs?

  “I've held up walls of fire while I moved on to different music.”

  This is risky.

  “Riskier than running around this arena, trying not to get—”

  My form flickered again; evidently, you couldn't stay a spirit indefinitely. The dybbuk was right there to take advantage of it too. He had known I'd have to solidify. As soon as I did, he punched me in the gut; stopping my song short. I groaned and fell forward. He kicked me in the stomach, the legs, the back. He was having fun.

  I rolled and tried to crawl away; nails filling with sand as I dug for purchase. My gaze flicked up, and I saw Slate standing at the glass; his hands clenched into fists at his sides. I was coughing up blood; making crimson puddles in the soft sand. I absently noted how it seeped into the earth.

  Then I disappeared.

  The dybbuk's foot went right through my spirit form. I still had it! As long as I kept a hold of it in the back of my mind, I should be able to spellsing a new song.

  I've got the perfect music, my love, Kyanite growled.

  There was no intro this time; Kyanite plunged straight into the shouting, slamming chorus of “Zombie” by The Cranberries. I wasn't using the song for its true meaning; the poignant poetry on war and the horrors it leaves behind in the heads of the soldiers. No; this wasn't the time for poetry or pity—only words. Harsh, bleak words.

  My spectral hand pointed at the dybbuk as the lyrics poured out of me in a ghostly rendition of themselves. It made the powerful song even more dramatic; the echoing, eeriness spearing my magic straight into my opponent's brain. The music blasted around me; drowning out the crowd. Trails of wispy hair undulated in the air around me as if I were underwater and my skin glowed with an inner light. I was creeping myself out.

  But I kept singing.

  The first word from my mouth had frozen the dybbuk in his solid form; frozen and poisoned him. He was dead but not; his eyes going hazy as I watched. I sang one word over and over. It reverberated out of me; sealing his fate and decaying his flesh. He tried to take a step forward and his eyes liquefied; running down his rotted cheeks in rivers. His mouth opened on a scream but all that came out was a gurgle as the thick, slug of his black tongue worked the air.

  I delivered the lines necessary to kill him, and the dybbuk's head exploded; bits of putrid brain and bone flying through my ghostly body. I let go of my song and my focus as soon as the corpse fell to the sand, and then I followed it down.

  One chorus and the dybbuk was dead. It had taken less than thirty seconds to turn a man into a rotting pile of meat. And it was a damn good thing too. Because thirty seconds was all I had left in me. I laid with my cheek pressed into the sand; my whole body trembling. Wait; was I shaking or was it the earth?

  The blaring lights above me and the roar of the crowd faded away as a pair of black boots filled my vision. And then I was consumed by a deeper darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The door of my cell creaked open and sounds rushed into my ears; pulling me from the darkness. There was a horrible banging and roaring going on somewhere nearby. Was it the monster? Had it broken through the ice and crawled out of the earth?

  I rubbed at my head and groaned. A vague memory of Helene rose up. She had healed me again; repairing broken bones and hemorrhaging organs that my immortality hadn't been able to get to fast enough. I would have lived, but it would have been uncomfortable for a bit. I needed to send that woman a muffin basket.

  “She's not going to the arena; calm the fuck down, Cerberus!” Jago shouted.

  The racket ceased. Not the monster, just a hellhound.

  “Where are you taking her?”

  I sat up and saw Cer's furious face in his cell window. His expression was vicious and his hands were bloody from banging them against the steel.

  “Cerberus; I'm okay,” I quickly called to him.

  Cerberus took a deep, calming breath and nodded to me while he asked Jago again, “Where are you taking her?”

  “To see the boss.”

  “The fuck you are.” I crossed my arms. “Fuck that dickhead.”

  “Gods damn it, Elaria!” Jago hissed as he pulled me to my feet. “Don't make me fucking carry you.” He started yanking me out the door. “Can't you tell when someone is trying to help you?”

  “Who's trying to help me?” I asked angrily. “You or him?”

  “Me, you idiot,” he huffed. “Say yes. To whatever Slate asks you; just say yes. You don't want to see what he's capable of doing just to get his way.”

  I clenched my jaw, but I let Jago lead me out of the cells and into Building 1. Through my many visits, I'd learned that Slate had the top floor all to himself while his men had rooms on the bottom floor. The second level was a storehouse and weaponry with the entrance to Slate's private arena box. I glanced down the long hallway to the viewing box as we passed it. It went through the wall of the arena, just below the tiered seats. How many times had Slate walked down that hallway to stand alone in that glass box and watch beneathers kill each other? What kind of a man took pleasure in that?

  No; I wasn't about to give Slate Devon any more pleasure than I already was. I was not saying yes.

  “Here she is, Boss,” Jago pushed me down into a seat in front of Slate's desk.

  Wow; I got to sit this time.

  Slate's attention was on the monitor screen to his left; his fingers tapping away at a keyboard that sat on a sliding shelf before him. He nodded to Jago, hit a few more keys, and slid the shelf back beneath the desk.

  “You'll be staying here from now on.” Slate pointed toward the door on my right. “Jago is packing your things for you.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” he said firmly. “I want to keep an eye on you; it seems as if every time you bleed, the fucking earth trembles. Maybe I shouldn't have let you sing to that beast; it seems to have a hard-on for you.”

  I blinked. So, that had been another earthquake. Was my blood really connected to it? How? Why? Had it really connected with me when I went down there? No; it couldn't be. That made no sense.

  “Until we figure out the quakes, you're singing in my club.”

  “No; I'm not,” I said evenly.

  “Yes you are,” Slate said as he stood. “Every night. Twice a night if I fucking say so.” He snarled the last bit as he yanked me out of my chair by my upper arm.

  “There went sitting and having a discussion like a couple of civilized people” I muttered.

  Slate marched me out of his office and down to the second floor without another word. We took a right and strode down the hallway to his viewing box. Our shoes echoed hollowly in the narrow space; sending an ominous sensation through my bones. Slate slammed open the door at the end of the hallway and dragged me into his glass box. He took me all the way to the expanse of windows and shoved me toward the glass. I hit it with my palms before it came into contact with my face.

  “Stay there!” Slate snarled at me.

  I pushed away from the window furiously; glaring at Slate as he went to a plastic panel on the wall and pushed a button on it.

  “Jago, do it.”

  “Gods damn it!” Jago's voice came out of the panel.

  “Jago!”

  “Yes, Sir!” Jago's voice burst through so loudly that it turned to static.

  Slate stomped back over to me and crossed his arms as he stared down. I followed his glare to the arena floor. It was a better view than I'd expected; the whole arena was spread out before us; the ward glittering just beyond our feet. A match had ended and men were clearing away the corpse and raking the sand. We were close enough to see the sweat on their brows. I glanced at Slate as a horrible feeling filled my belly.

  Then one of the gates creaked up, and Jago strode through it carrying something furry in his arms. He laid his cargo down on the sand, and it immediately unfolded itself and clung to him. I gas
ped as Jago glared up at us and did exactly as I had done after my first fight. He flipped Slate off. Then he extricated himself as kindly as possible from furry, grasping arms and left the arena. Tessa clambered to her feet and ran after him; pounding at the metal gate as she screamed.

  The beneather crowd was murmuring in horror. No one quite believing that the Zone Lord could be so despicable. But I did. I believed it.

  “No,” I whispered. My eyelids fluttered in pain and my voice trembled, “You fucking monster.”

  The other gate opened, and Tessa's eyes turned to it in terror. She was crying; her fur soaked with her tears. My hands clenched into fists; it took everything I had not to attack Slate. Jago had been right; the Zone Lord would do anything to get his way. I never saw who Tessa's opponent was; I was too busy turning to the evil bastard to say the words he wanted to hear.