Who had watched him sleep?
He knew without question.
The woman from the cave. Probably here for his gold. Her gold. His heart leapt, and he jumped up and went to the backpack, still wet from the ocean. He’d set it on a towel in the corner. But his panic was unfounded. It remained undisturbed.
Andy pulled on a shirt and some jeans, and stepped out of his room to the hallway. The faint, drying prints continued out there, and led down the stairs to the open room of the main floor. They were harder to see now, but he followed them almost to the front door before they disappeared.
“Something you need?” a gruff voice said from behind.
Andy jumped, but it was only the innkeeper woman. She stood like a tank in the center of the room, her hair in a net, her nightgown covered in a thick blue robe.
“Someone was in my room.
“What do you mean?”
He pointed at the faint smudges of wetness that led up the stairs. There were footprints in my room,” he said. “Wet footprints that come all the way down here.”
The old woman’s eyes widened. “Sirena,” she hissed. “What have you done?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“How dare you lead them to this house? In the morning, you will be gone.”
“But…”
“In the meantime, lock your door,” she said. And with that, she disappeared back down a dark hall behind the innkeeper’s reception desk.
He looked once more at the steps that led to the front entry of the inn, and saw something glimmering in the light from the one orange lamp that remained lit on a table near the front window. Andy walked over to see what it was, and knew before he reached it that the woman had left it for him to find. He picked it off the floor and pocketed it after turning the wet coin over and over in his hand. A piece of the treasure.
Andy opened the door and stepped out of the inn onto the stone steps. Before the door closed behind him, he caught the glimmer of another coin, just a few steps from the door. He bent over and picked it up with a frown. Was this what he thought it was?
The harsh light of the moon grew stronger as he stood there, contemplating. A cloud slipped to the horizon, and he could see now almost as clearly as in daylight. The grass sparkled with early dew, and the walkway was too damp to see any individual footsteps. But he did see another coin just a few steps away. He picked it up, and continued to play the game, walking along the path. He had a feeling he knew where she was trying to lead him. When he reached the steps down to the beach, he hesitated.
But then he heard a voice from below. A beautiful, unnerving, nakedly sensual voice. A woman had begun to sing. High and tremulous notes that seemed comprised not so much of lyrics, as emotions. With every lilt of melody, his heart seemed to pump harder, and his legs moved forward almost of their own accord. Absently he shifted his pants and realized that he had an erection.
Andy put one hand on the rail to start down the stairs to the beach, following the voice. But then something smacked him against the leg.
“Ouch!” he cried out. Another one hit him in the chest.
“What the hell?”
The pain broke his attention from the song for a second, and then he saw the innkeeper standing just a few feet away, gesticulating wildly to him. She’d thrown rocks!
“What the hell?” he said.
“Get back to your bed now or you will never sleep on land again,” she yelled, then turned and ran back to the inn.
Andy realized that his legs had completely answered the call of the song, and for the moment, the old woman had broken the spell. A violet tremor overtook his legs; for a few moments, he had completely lost control. Andy turned and staggered after the innkeeper. He felt sick…and drawn to the song that continued to echo from the beach below. He covered his ears and screamed, refusing to allow his mind to hear the beautiful melody. He vaulted up the steps to the inn, pushed his way through the door and then slammed it shut, holding both palms against the wood as if he was holding back a force pressing on the other side trying to get in.
When he finally turned around, the innkeeper stood near the front desk, holding a crucifix aimed in his direction. “What did you do?” she hissed. “Why have the Sirena come to my house?”
She shook her head. “Don’t tell me, they will want my soul as much as yours. They have taken too many here already. I should throw you out into the night right this moment. But I am not so cruel. At the dawn…”
She let the phrase dangle, and shook her head at him, as if he were a son who’d proven a huge disappointment to her. And then she disappeared, presumably back to her bedroom.
Andy didn’t sleep well. His dreams were plagued with a woman who smiled at him and sang—a beautiful, horrible, entrancing song. When the sun began to lighten the old orange and yellow threaded comforter on his bed, he rose and packed up his few belongings, slung the backpack over his shoulder, and walked out into the hall.
There was a faint murmur of talk coming from the great room below, and he leaned over the rail to look down. The innkeeper was pouring a small cup of coffee (he hated the coffee cups here, they were all small!) for two older men who sat in dark coats. Seamen, by the look of them, ready for any weather, though it was supposed to be a nice day today.
As Andy began to descend the stairs, the chatter stopped. He had the unnerving sensation of three sets of eyes following his feet on the steps. When he reached the bottom, one of the older men cleared his throat, and whispered something to the other. The innkeeper walked to the desk and waited for him.
Andy walked over and pulled out his billfold to pay for the two nights he had stayed. She told him the amount, with no preamble or apology for kicking him out, and a moment later, he was signing a receipt.
As he pocketed his copy, and began to walk towards the front door, one of the men called out to him.
“She’ll never stop, you know. She’ll follow you wherever you go.”
Andy looked at the man. He looked like the sort who’d been on a fishing boat since he was seven years old. Now he was probably 50 or 60, his hair a tangle of grey waves and his eyebrows just tufts of salt and pepper fuzz.
“I live on the other side of the world,” Andy said. “I don’t think she’ll swim across the ocean.”
“Don’t be so sure,” came the response.
Andy shrugged and stepped out of the door.
As the door closed behind him, and he took a deep breath of the salty mist of morning, Andy realized that he didn’t have a plan. He should probably have called for a cab from the inn…but he hadn’t really intended to be leaving town immediately.
Andy walked away from the inn on the lonely road into the center of town. There were precious few businesses that still were in business here, as he’d already noted, but none of them were open now. It was too early. He wandered for a bit, and then made his way to the road that bordered the descent to the beach. The water looked grey and cold this morning, the sky still overcast as the sun burned sullenly orange on the horizon.
Was there really such a thing as a siren? He wondered. He hadn’t truly believed in the sex magic that Cassie had tried to craft with him as her “donor” a decade ago, and he didn’t really believe superstitions about sexy, toothy women who lured men to their deaths on the rocks of the shore. But he had met a strange, silent woman in an underground cave who’d left him confused, breathless, and wondering if it had all been a hallucination.
And he had been drawn like a puppet to the sounds of a woman’s voice just a few hours ago. Was that proof of a siren? Or proof that he was still suffering from jet lag? He had to admit the events of the night before had left him spooked. The wet footprints next to his bed even more than the intoxicating lure of the song that had caught him in its hook. Andy walked down the broken steps that led in a winding path down the hillside to the beach. The scent of the sea was strong as he stepped over froth-covered brown fronds of broken seaweed until he stood on hard packed
sand, still wet from the last large wave.
He looked out along the promontory that extended into the grey-blue expanse of water. Did Sirens live there, tucked out-of-sight below the waterline? Or, more likely, a band of gypsy squatters?
The beach gave no answers.
Part of him longed to swim back out there with his backpack and unload the treasure to return it to where he’d found it. Then he could at least alleviate himself of that guilt. If the gold belonged to that woman, who was he to fly across the world, walk into her home, and steal it from her?
On the other hand…
Andy shook his head. He would not give up what he’d come so far to find. Tonight he’d sleep miles from here, and tomorrow he’d be in a plane flying halfway around the world. The gold was now his. Simple as that.
He turned away from the endless horizon to walk back up the stairs and out of this forsaken town.
And found that he was no longer alone.
A woman stood on the first step leading up, blocking his way.
A woman with long, kinked black hair, and startling eyes.
A familiar, naked woman.
Andy averted his eyes in embarrassment for a moment, but then looked back at her once more. He was not spying; she blocked his way.
It was the woman who had seduced him in the underwater cave. He would not fall for that again. Andy began to walk toward her. She remained stationary, a perfect carving of flesh and beauty. A signpost between the strange world of the sea, and the human world above. A toll keeper? He had a feeling he knew what she wanted. It was in his backpack.
Andy drew closer, and as he did he felt his heart pump faster. She was beautiful. And dangerous. There was something about her stance that told him she was no frail flower. She may have been naked, but she was not helpless.
“Hi,” he said, when he was just a few steps away. “I was just leaving.”
She shook her head at that, very slowly. And then opened her mouth to let loose a piercing cry. No, not a cry, a song. That initial note drew his attention, and then turned into a quivering, baleful note that shifted and dove, changing emotions and pitches without notice. Andy felt his bones weighed by sadness and then buoyed by joy. Erotic longing, and then desperation. He realized as she stepped towards him, still singing, that he could not move.
Literally could not move. His legs were locked, his fingers frozen.
She slipped her arms around his shoulders, and he felt the hard points of her nipples press against his t-shirt as she drew him close, all the while, still singing. The sky behind her grew faint and his vision blurred. All he could focus on were her eyes…sea-green and hungry, staring deeply into his own as her voice drew him into her.
Then her lips met his, and the sound shifted inside him. Andy felt his feet moving, cold slipping up his calves. Part of him wanted to scream, as the chill of water reached his waist, but her eyes held his, and the vibration of her song filled his mouth. Then her face pushed his beneath the water, and Andy tried to scream. She only stroked his back and drew him with her through the waves. He closed his eyes to block the salt and found that he couldn’t reopen them. And why would he want to? He was held safe in her arms, drew breath from her song, moved forward on her kicks.
* * *
Andy lay in a bed of moss. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, and couldn’t tell whether it was night or day; there were no windows here, though there was a faint light. The walls held what looked like faint flames; patches of phosphorescent green and orange glowed atop golden torch holders. Sea lights.
Something warm and soft covered him; a blanket of some kind, though not made of cotton. It felt thin as paper, but held in his heat. And a good thing, he realized, as he shifted to roll on his side and realized his clothes were gone.
A rustling nearby. Cool thighs slid into the small bed beside his own.
The woman from the beach. She rolled atop him. In the faint light, her cat-green eyes seemed to glow with their own energy. Her heavy lips parted, and with a thin pink tongue, she traced the edges of his lips. He felt himself respond beneath her, and she spread her legs to meet him, shifting slowly, sinuously across his hips until his eyes widened, and her breath hitched. She lowered her sex and her lips onto his simultaneously, drawing him into her from both ends. Andy’s eyes almost rolled back in his head as the pleasure of her washed over him, animal pure and amazing. His tongue wrestled with hers, and then he jumped when he caught his tongue on what felt like a hook. She opened her mouth and he withdrew his tongue, just barely catching a glimpse of the teeth within. They looked too numerous…and shark sharp.
It clicked in his brain then that she truly was not human. Not exactly. But that didn’t stop his hips from moving faster to meet her own, or his cry of release when he couldn’t hold back any more and he let go, encouraged by the sharp bleats of her own orgasm. His head rolled back then, and he struggled to catch his breath. His mouth held the faint taste of iron, from his own blood, and his waist felt nearly numb.
Her long nails trailed across his forehead and down his chest, slowly, exploring him without a word. And then, she pressed a kiss to his lips and slid away.
Andy felt sated and strange…and slipped easily back into sleep.
The next time he woke, she brought him food: fresh slabs of fish and green fronds of something he knew grew from the ocean floor. He was tempted to refuse it, but his stomach growled, and she pushed a cube of the white meat to his lips, nodding her head. He accepted it finally, and saliva burst throughout his mouth with the first taste. It was rich and creamy and wonderful.
He didn’t need her encouragement to finish the rest.
When he was finished, she led him out of the bed to walk around the shadowy expanse of her home. The phosphorescent torches lit their way, as they stepped through a small path between two large boulders and into a larger space, which clearly was where she spent most of her “home” time. And clearly, she didn’t do it alone. Seated at a long driftwood table were three other women. All of them lithe and attractive. Andy was acutely aware of his nakedness now. But the women were as bare as the siren who’d led him to them.
They spoke to each other in a language he could not fathom; it was high-pitched and fast, and one of them, a pale blond-haired girl with ice blue eyes, looked directly at him at one point and laughed. The girl nodded quickly, and laughed again.
“Do you speak any English?” he asked, and the women only looked back and forth at each other blankly. Then they continued to jabber amongst themselves. At one point, one of them walked across the room to an old chest, and opened it to rummage around within. She pulled something out, and then walked across the room to present it to him.
He took it and marveled at the ancient leather. The front cover read simply, The Bible.
He didn’t believe in The Bible any more than he believed in Sirens, he thought. And then raised an eyebrow at himself given the change in his situation. Perhaps he would have to reconsider The Bible.
He shook his head and pushed it back across the table. The woman frowned, and then went back to the chest. She pulled out two more books and dropped them on the table in front of him. They were of different vintages, one with a black cover, one of red leather.
The Bible, they both read.
“So that’s the way it’s going to be, huh?”
He leafed through one for a while, before settling back in his chair to stare up at the dark ceiling of the cave. He didn’t know what was expected here, or how long he was to stay, but he was not going to memorize the “good book” as he waited to find out.
Someone had gotten up from across the table.
The blue-eyed girl. She was the tiniest of them all, a thin waif with almost a boyish chest, her small nipples only raised slightly from the plain of her tummy. But she was gorgeous, he thought. Her skin was pale and covered in a faint down, and her smile contagious.
She was smiling at him now.
She drew him to his feet with one sle
nder hand and led him down a different hall then he had entered this room by. They ducked beneath a low ceiling and then they were in a tiny little side cave. It was decorated in pink—pink tapestries and flowers and beads. When she pushed him towards the small cot against the wall he saw it was draped in pink sheets that clearly were not woven underwater…these had been taken from the mainland. While his captor lived naturally, this Siren was clearly entranced by human things.
And apparently he was one of the things she was taken with, he thought, as she pressed him to the bed and straddled him without any foreplay.
She drew his hands up to cup her nascent breasts, and once again, he was ready for a woman’s need in a heartbeat. She wasted no time in making use of him, and grinned a sharp-toothed smile when he broke that tight boundary and slid inside her with a wet jab. Her jaw yawned back, and then she slammed her chest down against his own, and rolled, drawing him to his side and then pushing him to take her from the top, missionary. Her fingernails dug into his back like tickling knives, and he gasped and thrust faster, urged on by her wild desire. It should have been over fast, but she milked him for what seemed like an hour, shifting and turning and scratching him until they both screamed together, her eyes and mouth wide and sexily inhuman.
When they were done, she draped herself over him. Without saying a word, she went to sleep with her head on his chest.
The next time he woke, there were bodies on either side of him. Neither appeared to be the women from before. But when the one with long straight black hair saw he was awake, she put her finger to her lips and hissed “Shhhhhh,” before slipping that same finger between his legs to prod and tease him awake once more. He didn’t think he could possibly go again so soon, but this girl teased well, and…bit; his chest was bleeding in three different places when she finally finished grinding herself to happiness.
But she fucked him silently, and when she was done, and he was empty, she put her finger to her lips again, and slipped back out of bed to disappear back out of the hall.
Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans) Page 28