Siren's Song

by Kaye Draper

  Luca smirked, and Grey slugged him in the arm in passing. “What?”

  He fell into step with Abbie and Grey. “You said I was gorgeous.” He winked. “Do you have crush on me now?”

  “I’ve learned my lesson,” Grey said dryly. “I won’t ever fall in love with a guy again.” He turned to Abbie, ignoring Luca.

  “Why do you put up with them Abs?”

  She pulled her eyes away from Luca. There was a slight frown on her face, which she immediately erased. “What? Oh. Because I’ve got you to take care of me, of course,” she cooed in a high falsetto, taking his arm. “My sweet little agro hero!”

  Grey shook his head and pried her off, but Luca jumped into the conversation before he could comment further. “You shouldn’t encourage him,” he said seriously.

  Abbie glanced at him in surprise. “Well, he seems to enjoy it. And it’s not like he can’t handle himself.” She fluffed up one side of her hair, as if reminding Luca that she was a lady after all.

  Luca frowned. “Seriously,” he turned to Grey. “Grey, you’re acting strange lately. You don’t have to do this.”

  Grey shrugged out of Abbie’s grasp and jerked his coat straight. “Do what?”

  Luca’s dark eyes were full of concern. “You don’t have to hide yourself under all this tough guy stuff,” he said softly. “Whatever’s going on, maybe I can help—if you’d just talk to me.”

  Grey stopped in his tracks, then sped up, wanting to get out of the sight of two pairs of pitying eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is just who I am.” He gestured wildly. “I don’t need to talk. I’m not some emotional girl! Stop treating me like one. If that’s what you want, go find some whore off the boat from the mainland.”

  Grey stomped off down the street, not looking back, barely able to keep from screaming. Everyone either wanted him to be something he couldn’t be, or they handled him with kid gloves, like he was a fucking idiot child. His head hurt, the damned seagulls wouldn’t stop screeching, and there was a rushing in his ears. Suddenly, all Grey wanted was to lie down in the cold sand and never get back up again, let the icy surf wash over him and be done with it.

  “Grey!” Abbie called out to him as he stormed off. She caught up to him a couple minutes later, while he waited at an intersection. He could hear the clunking of her high heels a mile away. “Grace Kelley Hawthorne!” Oh, she was pissed.

  Grey turned to face her. Luca wasn’t with her, thank God. Why did the hell did he keep turning up at the worst times? Was he a stalker?

  “What is wrong with you?” Abbie’s face was flushed, from running or anger he couldn’t tell. Little puffs of steam rose up from her in the chill air.

  “Where’s Luca?” Grey said, ignoring her huffing. She looked like a teakettle about to whistle.

  Abbie had bent to straighten her cable-knit tights over her thick, muscular legs. At Grey’s question, she stood up and dropped the hem of her dress, covering her big thigh. People were staring, but Grey supposed that’s what she wanted. He was too tired to reprimand her.

  She straightened her pink pea coat and glared at Grey. “He left. Not that I blame him, when you’re being such a bitch.” She held out a plastic CD case. “He said to give this to you, and to remind you to think of the band’s reputation at least before you go knocking people around.”

  Grey took the CD, probably the demo song he’d been promised, and tucked it into his jacket. “Thanks.”

  Abbie frowned at him. “Grace, how could you treat him like that?

  Grey looked at her in surprise. “Like what?” Secretly, he felt ashamed of the way he had spoken to Luca. The guitarist was the most patient, understanding person he knew. He put up with Grey’s shit constantly. And Grey showed his appreciation by barking at him. He didn’t even know why he was acting this way himself—but that only made him even more pissed off. It was like a never-ending cycle he just couldn’t stop. He needed…something…but he didn’t know what it was, and he was afraid he was going to go insane before he figured it out.

  Abbie put her hands on her hips and looked at Grey like he’d lost his mind. “‘Like What’ he says. Christ, Grey, that was an awful way to talk to someone who loves you so damned much!”

  Grey stared at her. The rest of the world receded, then came back with a snap.

  “He doesn’t love me.” The light changed and he stepped out into the crosswalk, Abbie hot on his heels.

  “Bullshit. Though I don’t know what he sees in you to make him put up with your shit.”

  Grey kept walking, ignoring the fact that he’d just been thinking the same thing. “Abbie you’ve seen the guy at a few gigs and met him once, for all of ten seconds. You don’t suddenly know what he’s thinking. Don’t be an idiot.”

  She clunked along beside him. “You’ve got a thing for him too, don’t you?” she huffed. “You do! Oooh scandalous, Grey, lusting after a bandmember.”

  Grey rounded on her. “I don’t!” His face flamed. “Look, he’s just nice to me because he knows I’m a morph, and he feels sorry for me. It’s pity, Abs. He’s been trying to hook me up with his brother. Besides, he’s into girls. He has a girlfriend...or at least he did have...before.”

  Grey realized he had just blown it with his dumb, rambling denial. Abbie was laughing at him. “You like him. A lot. Is that why you’ve been so violent and moody lately? Repressed urges…?” She waggled her perfectly shaped eyebrows over her beakish nose.

  Grey threw up his hands, drawing strange looks from the people passing by. “Didn’t you hear me? I won’t go down that road again. I’m a guy.” He kept walking.

  “Guys date other guys all the time,” Abbie yelled after him, making him hunch under the curious stares of the fifty million people who’d just heard her. But she let it go.

  Grey was immensely grateful. His feelings for Luca were something he couldn’t talk about, even to himself. Because whatever was there, it was deep—it got deeper every time he was around the kind, perceptive, amazing guy. As much as Grey loved the water, he still had a healthy fear of drowning.

  They had crossed the street and reached a row of brick buildings near Abbie’s clothing shop when a figure shambled out from the shadows. The stooped man had a long white beard and was dressed in layers of mismatched jackets. He wore three hats, stacked one on top of the other. He clutched at Grey’s sleeve, keeping him near even when Grey would have recoiled at the cloudy white eyes that stared up at him from the craggy face. “You’ve got to stop her!”

  Grey managed to tug himself free of the man’s bruising grasp. “I don’t know what you mean. You okay, old man?” Maybe he was sick or something.

  Abbie drew up behind Grey and looked over his shoulder as if she needed protecting, even though she was a full head taller and at least fifty pounds heavier than her defender. “Let’s go,” she hissed, pushing at Grey’s back.

  Grey took a stumbling step and the man reached out after him. “We’re all gonna die!” he insisted, voice rising.

  Grey side-stepped the man and let Abbie propel him a few more steps down the street. The man was standing in the middle of the sidewalk now, practically screeching. “Cold! It’s so cold!” He collapsed, sobbing, against the side of the building.

  Grey looked around, furious to see that he and Abbie were the only ones giving the poor creature the time of day. He should go back. Maybe get the guy a hot cup of soup or take him to the hospital or something. But just then he noticed a seagull perched on the lamppost to his left. Another one fluttered down to land on a park bench nearby. A particularly fat specimen was waddling down the sidewalk, making a beeline for Grey’s sneakers. He’d had enough.

  “Fuck off!” he shouted, waving his arms and sending the gulls flapping erratically into the air. Then he realized he must look as crazy as the homeless man. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders, feeling even more ridiculous when his fingertips found the CD case in his pocket.

  Abbie sn
orted from behind him. “Shut up,” he grumbled.

  Grey turned back to do the right thing and help the homeless guy. But the guy was gone, leaving behind a pile of hats and a raggedy, moth-eaten wool coat. He looked at Abbie and she shrugged. “Streaker?”

  Grey sighed. His pounding headache was rapidly reaching migraine levels of intensity. “I’m sorry, Abs. I’ll come play dress-up with you some other time. I think I’m going to go down to the boardwalk and clear my head for a bit.”

  And maybe drown himself.

  Chapter 28

  Luca meandered along the boardwalk, watching the white sand sift down through the cracks in the boards. He had tried to ignore it, but the Grey problem, as he had come to think of it, was overshadowing everything else in his life. He looked down at his hands, remembering soft brown curls running between his fingers as he tousled Grey’s hair. He clenched his fists. He was becoming obsessed—hell, there was no becoming, he was obsessed. With a man who was likely in love with someone else.

  And a fucking dangerous man, at that.

  Luca wasn’t sure who Grey was in love with, and his idiot brother refused to tell him, simply saying that Luca should ask Grey himself—the fact that he delivered this advice with a wink and a leer was probably meant to make him wonder if Grey could be interested in Luca himself. But then, this was Cameron, so that was probably exactly the point—to drive Luca insane in any way possible.

  Luca closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to be rational. His twin brother had had a rough time of it since the change. On the surface, he looked perfectly happy, outgoing even, with his sports teams and his group of jock cronies. But Luca had watched Cam withdraw into his hobbies and teams, and he knew that it was only a veneer over something else. His brother was different since The Change. His grades were so terrible he'd be lucky to graduate from college this year. He was constantly getting into fights, though he tried to hide it from Luca. And there were more and more morning hangovers. Luca was afraid he was losing his brother.

  Since Cam had met Grey, Luca could see some change in the jock’s robot-like behavior. Cam seemed genuinely at ease around Grey, even more so just lately. He seemed…happier. At first Luca had thought maybe the weirdo really was about to start batting for the other team. But when he really thought about it, it probably had a lot to do with what Grey was, with the power he exuded. Luca had hoped, ever since he’d seen that look of longing in Grey’s eyes that first day on the street, that maybe Grey could change Cam, make him happy, give him something to live for so that he’d wake up from whatever fog he was lost in. Even if it took magical means.

  But now Luca wanted to keep Grey to himself. He opened his eyes and stared out over the steely water. Grey wasn’t hung up on Cam. It was like a weight had lifted off his chest. But now he knew the reason for his change of heart was another guy. Luca should let it go. Maybe find out which of his bandmates the singer was interested in and encourage them—be the better man and all that. But Luca just didn’t have it in him. For once, he didn’t give a single fuck about anyone else’s happiness. And that made him feel weak, disloyal.

  Something prickled over Luca’s skin and he shivered at the touch foreign magic in the air, and at the strangely familiar pull that had him wanting to rush off toward it. As he stared out at the beach, he saw a figure there. The form was backlit by the sun, so it was nothing more than an outline, but somehow Luca knew it was Grey. And he wasn’t alone. The figure of a voluptuous woman outside of “tourist season,” accompanied by that taste of power in the air, sent a shock wave of fear through Luca’s body.

  Shit. He should have warned Grey sooner.

  He should have been worried about something other than his damned love life. This was what happened when Luca let himself be selfish.

  Luca knew he needed to get his father immediately and let him deal with the creature. But then Grey might be pulled into something awful. Drawing the attention of the Gods was never a good thing, and if Luca’s dad got involved there would be no avoiding the creatures. Luca's feet moved in the wrong direction, carrying him off the boardwalk and onto the cool sand to do what damage control he could.

  Chapter 29

  Grains of sand crunched lightly under the soles of Grey’s sneakers and sifted through the gaps in the boardwalk as he passed. A strong breeze carried the scent of the ocean—salt, sand, and that barest hint of something else that made the scent impossible to ever describe to someone who had never breathed the sea air. Something moved inside him, something as cool and shivery as the gray water ahead.

  A pelican glided out over the water and Grey’s eyes followed it in its graceful arc. He was always surprised that the big, awkward-looking creatures were so graceful in their element. If only he could find his own element. He thought he’d finally found the place where he belonged when he met Luca and joined the band. But now he wasn’t sure he’d ever really fit in, when he was so weird and so…lost.

  He paused to strip off his socks and shoes, then stepped down off the end of the boardwalk. The fine white sand was cool and silky against his feet, soothing. He rolled his jeans up to his knees and made his way across the beach toward the water, the sand squeaking under his bare feet when they scuffed through it just right.

  The water kissed his toes, gray and icy. The moods of the sea had always held a sort of fascination for him. In a few months, the water would once again be warm and green. But for now it was all chill and mystery. Like the moods of a woman, the old timers said. Like his current mercurial emotions.

  No matter how many times Grey saw the ocean, it never ceased to fill him with an immense feeling of wonder, something that was comforting, soothing…and as frightening as falling into an abyss, all at the same time. Yet this was where he always ended up when he felt lost. His mother had been the same way.

  Grey looked out over the rolling waves. The sea was angry today, churned up and disturbed. He scowled as he thought of what Abbie had said. There was no way Luca could ever love a man like Grey. Luca only felt sorry for him. That spark of…whatever it was—that was just Grey's unstable hormones. Nothing else. After all, he’d been having erotic thoughts about all his band mates. Maybe he was just broken inside. He shoved down the fear that bubbled up in his chest. Man up.

  Seagulls wheeled over the beach, calling harshly as they circled. They hadn’t been there a moment ago. Maybe they could sense his dark mood. He turned his head to watch the gulls glide out over the water and back to the beach, a bitter twist to his lips at his melodramatic thoughts. His eyes were drawn by movement a little further down the shore, and he braced himself for whatever new hallucination was there to plague him.

  A figure was approaching, walking along the waterline. It took a moment to register the fact that it was a woman. A gauzy dress, too thin for the freezing day, clung to her curvy form as she walked barefoot in the surf. Pale blond hair whipped around her, dancing over her shoulders and spilling down to her hips like a waterfall of white gold. She was the most beautiful woman Grey had ever seen, but scary, like the women in Luca's father's paintings.

  She stopped a few feet from him. The gulls had become frenzied, swooping and diving over the water as they spiraled in the air. The woman’s face was familiar somehow. It took a moment for Grey to realize why.

  His mother.

  The cold, radiant beauty that surrounded her now made it difficult to see the similarities, but they were there. The color of her eyes. The shape of her mouth when she regarded him with that mysterious half smile. In fact, the longer he stared, the stronger the similarities became between this creature and the woman he had known.

  Her eyes moved from his face to the sea, taking in the angry swells. “The ocean is hungry today,” she said in a musical voice that vibrated in his bones.

  He stood there, frozen. Any other guy on this island would probably be thanking the Gods and drooling all over himself right now, but not Grey. His skin tickled with a crawling sensation, like that feeling you get wh
en you walk through a spiderweb, as if there was something he couldn’t see wrapping itself around his skin.

  The woman with his mother’s face turned back to him, no doubt wondering why he wasn’t striking up conversation. She moved closer, her head tilted to the side, the live blond mass of her hair obscuring one bright green eye. “You are a beautiful young man,” she whispered, reaching out to trace the air near his cheek. Her lips turned down. “But you aren’t affected by me, are you?”

  He swallowed. She didn’t recognize him. Of course not. How could she? His limbs felt heavy, and when he fought to lift his arms to stuff his hands into his pockets, it was with a scratchy buzzing feeling against his skin. “Ma’am?”

  She put her head back and laughed, a bubbling, flowing sound that should have been beautiful, but chilled him more than the cool sea air. “Oh, I see,” she said, that penetrating green gaze boring into him. “You’re one of the ones I created.” She pushed the hair back out of her face. Her nails were long and pointed, like weapons. “That shouldn't matter but…there’s something more, isn’t there?” Her eyes took on a feral glow. “We come from the same stock, I think.”

  The woman paced closer, her soft hair a whisper against his skin. She reached out for him, placing her hand on his chest. “I am sorry for you, but this island is mine,” she said, curling her fingers slightly so Grey could feel her claw-like fingernails through his shirt.

  A zap of electricity sprang up between them, and she jerked her hand away. Her green eyes widened with sudden realization. “You’re--”

  There was a shout behind them. Grey turned his head to glance back at the boardwalk. Luca was jogging toward them, his dark hair glinting in the cool sun, and a furious expression on usually good-natured face. There was a splash nearby, slightly louder than the rush of the ocean waves. When Grey turned back, the woman was gone.

  Luca reached his side and stood looking down the shoreline with him. “You okay?”