by Krista Walsh
She was so invested in whatever late-night show she was watching that she didn’t look up at the tinkle of the bell over the door or seem to notice Gabe until after he’d grabbed a red jug of gasoline and approached the counter. At the sight of him, she jumped, her feet landing on the floor with a thud. By the slight widening of her eyes, Gabe guessed he was her first customer of the night.
“Can I help you?”
He set the gas can on the counter. “Just looking to settle up.”
As she went through the process of ringing him through, he glanced at the television to find that she’d been watching the news. A man in a bulky blue parka stood in Folly’s Park shouting into a microphone over the whistling wind.
“Anything interesting?” Gabe asked, nodding his head toward the screen.
The woman followed his gaze and shrugged. “More snow and no sign of it clearing. Roads are closed, trains are canceled, some guys have been killed by the harbor.”
“Do the cops have any leads yet?” he asked, and leaned closer to read the text ribbon at the bottom of the screen. The detectives he’d eavesdropped on had said they would only take a day to follow leads of their own before reaching out to their otherworldly contact. Had they already done so? Was there another set of eyes he should be watching out for the next time he went to the harbor?
“They’re not saying much,” she said, propping her hip against the counter to watch the reporter blather on. “I can’t imagine they’re making much progress with the weather, but I suspect it’s gang related. Who else would be stupid enough to go down to the docks with the power out?”
Gabe scanned the newspaper racks and grabbed a copy of the Chronicle. It was that morning’s edition, so clearly their office had been one of the lucky businesses to get power their back.
Your turn’ll come soon enough, Gabe, he assured himself. He was just grateful he could handle the cold showers well enough to keep the stink off him.
He scanned the front page, found nothing, and flipped through until he spotted Daphne’s name on page three. Apparently, the story wasn’t as juicy as it had been when the last victim was found.
“Frozen in a Winter Wonderland,” the headline read.
Yet another victim was found on the docks of Wishrock Harbor early this morning.
Greg Kirit, 44, was discovered by an employee of Catarman Inc., who had gone to the harbor to check on security at the company’s warehouse. Kirit’s condition matched the other victims found this week, and although no suspects have been brought in for questioning, Detective Hunter Avery has stated that this latest incident has sparked a new series of leads. He’s hopeful the New Haven Police Department will have the case wrapped up before long.
Gabe wished Daphne had given a hint of what those new leads might be. He considered tracking her down and asking her in person, but the same reservations held him back as before. Bringing her into this situation could potentially make things messier. With Allegra’s expertise and Percy’s equipment, he was confident he could bring this siren down on his own.
“What do you think? Is it the end of the world?”
The gas station attendant’s voice dragged Gabe out of his thoughts. He set down the paper, grinned, and handed over the cash he owed. “If this is what the apocalypse looks like, I think we’ll be fine. We just need to learn how to layer.”
The woman chuckled. “Sure, but if the roads don’t clear soon, I’ll be out of a job. Not much use for a gas station when no one can drive.”
Gabe raised the gas can. “There are always generators. Could be a whole new branch of business for you.”
He gave her a wink and headed out into the storm.
His stomach grumbled. He hesitated on the corner before turning around and trudging back down the street to the nearest open pizzeria. He was sure there had to be one running at this time of night in this kind of weather. There were always people looking for an easy meal when the days were long and dark.
Two blocks over, the bright red sign of Joe’s Pizza shone down at him, and he turned his steps toward the front doors.
He stepped inside, brushed the snow out of his hair, and waved at Joe behind the counter. The man grinned in recognition and shook his head.
“Again?”
“Always.”
“Same as usual?”
“You know it.”
Gabe set the exact cash on the counter, and Joe counted it aloud in a singsong voice. The old man’s gray hair caught silver under the fluorescent pot lights as he shuffled over to the work counter to prep the pizza.
“How is it you get out here on nights when most of my even-more-regular-than-you regulars can’t find their way in?” Joe asked over his shoulder.
Gabe crossed his arms and used his thumb to bump his sunglasses up on his nose. “Just goes to show I’m the most loyal customer you have. They can’t be bothered to dig their way through the snow, but I’d never let the weather stop me. I think that deserves a discount, don’t you?”
“Only way you get a discount is if you stand on this side of the counter and wear one of my monogrammed aprons, my friend,” Joe said, taking the covered pizza and shuffling over to the oven to slide it onto the rack. “No matter how stupid you are for leaving the comforts of home.”
“Ah well, it was worth a try. Anyway, I’d hardly call my home comfortable. I think I might bring a sleeping bag here instead. Tuck it by the window over there. It’d mean I was here first thing in the morning for your famous breakfast pizza.”
“Not on your life. If I let you start, I’d be running a hostel before I knew it, and then who would come in off the street?”
Gabe chuckled and perched on the edge of a barstool.
Joe set the timer for the oven and leaned his elbow on the counter. “You hear anything about these murders at the harbor? Sounds like the police can’t tell their elbows from their knees in figuring it out. Seven murders in two weeks? That’s gotta be a record.”
Gabe frowned. “And not one that people are going to remember fondly after the drama of the storm fades away.”
“If people remember,” Joe said. “My thinking is that whoever’s doing the deed is doing it smart. With all this snow, the cops aren’t likely to find anything useful at the scene, and the media’s so distracted by the storm, they’re not paying as close attention as they might be. Mark my words, Gabriel, this is one crime that’s never going to be solved.”
Gabe couldn’t offer anything in reply but a forced smirk. He agreed the police probably wouldn’t be the ones to put an end to the problem, but that didn’t mean no one was going to take on the challenge.
He remained quiet while Joe rattled off the news on his favorite hockey teams — a subject Gabe had never cared enough about to learn — and then smiled when the timer went off for his dinner.
He wished Joe a good night and, with the smell of warm mozzarella and meat wafting from the box, decided to skip the rest of the long walk home. He moved into the alley behind the pizzeria and opened a rift.
As he passed through, he enjoyed the temporary warmth of the Fae world that countered the cold draft of his apartment. Even with the window closed, the wind whistled around the ill-fitted panes into the living room.
He set the pizza on the coffee table, then crossed the room to crack the window. After setting the hose for the generator in place, he refueled the tank and switched it on. The quiet apartment filled with an electric hum.
Propping his feet on either side of his laptop, he booted up his computer and turned on his stereo. He smiled when the wailing notes of an electric guitar pushed through the speakers rather than the static he’d grown used to. Apparently power had been restored around the local station.
He eased onto the futon and, for a few minutes, rested with his eyes closed, allowing himself to come down from the episode in the alley and forget the expression on Lila’s face. All he’d wanted was gas and food, but trouble seemed to have a knack for finding him.
Hopefull
y it wasn’t a sign of more trouble to come.
Before he could get wrapped up in dark thoughts, he grabbed the pizza box from the kitchen table and bit into a slice, trying to convince himself he had reason to feel more confident than he had a few hours ago. At least now he had an idea of how to go after the siren. The questions he had for her burned in his mind, but while Allegra’s suggestion that he go ahead and ask them danced through his head with sweet temptation, he accepted he would probably have to let them go unanswered. Curiosity was his weakness, but he had no intention of being the cat.
His thoughts raced along to how he would prepare for his next trip onto the ice. He’d need earplugs and some kind of weapon. A knife would be the easiest to come by.
At least this time he wouldn’t be going in blind. He would watch for her, and with Percy’s invention, he’d be able to pick up traces of her before she saw him. Then he could strike. She was fast, but he was strong. All he needed was the upper hand and he could drive the blade through her heart.
Now that he knew what he was dealing with, the siren worried him about as much as the hellhound had — still a threat if he dropped his guard, but manageable.
The icon for his video chat glowed a friendly blue on his desktop, but he shut down without opening the program. He would update Percy in the morning. For now, he just wanted to relax.
He stripped down to his T-shirt and boxers and ate his dinner, leaving half the pizza for tomorrow. Briefly, he considered rifting somewhere with electricity so he could take a warm shower, but everywhere that came to mind would be as dark as his own apartment, and the hassle of finding somewhere new — with the hope that it would be empty — didn’t seem worth the trouble. After working up his courage, he jumped into his own bathtub. The spray was even colder than it had been earlier, and his skin was pebbly with goosebumps by the time he got out.
Shivering, he turned off the lights, removed his sunglasses, and buried himself under the blankets. He knew the cold was mostly in his head, a psychological side effect of all his stress, but knowing it didn’t make him feel any warmer.
In the darkness, he couldn’t make out the stippled patterns on the ceiling, but he didn’t need them. His walk past the store had brought Vera’s face to mind as clearly as if he’d passed her in the street, and he held on to the image, pretending he had the guts to talk to her.
Without any distractions, his thoughts tumbling over each other, his earlier confidence ebbed, and doubts rose up about how his next encounter with the siren would go. He was a computer guy-turned-private investigator, not a fighter. He had no idea if he was up for this challenge.
But that face, the steady gray eyes and long red hair, motivated him to try. Not only to prove to himself that he could be as strong as Vera was, but also to keep her city safe.
He rolled his eyes at his own sentimentality as a love song crooned on the stereo. He’d only exchanged a handful of words with Vera Goodall, and yet somehow he’d gone crazy for her. It didn’t matter that he’d never had a real relationship. With Vera, he almost believed they could make it work. Because what could go wrong between a vengeance goddess and a Gorgon?
With a bitter chuckle, he ran his hands over his face.
He rolled onto his side and reached for the remote to turn the stereo off. If he wanted to make a real go at tackling the siren in the morning, he should at least get a few hours of sleep.
His hand hit the edge of the table and the remote slipped from his grasp. As he grabbed at it, his fumbling fingers mashed the buttons, accidentally changing the station. The music disappeared, replaced by the static of another local channel whose power hadn’t returned yet, and he winced at the sharp piercing noise.
He moved his thumb to hit the off button, then stopped.
His vision sharpened and his skin broke out in goosebumps that prickled the roots of his hair.
The static continued, but beneath the white noise, he heard the faint trace of something else. Something sweeter and more alluring. A voice. It called to him and worked its way into his blood, heating it up and blocking out all other thoughts or desires.
He jumped to his feet and raised his hand in the air.
When he realized he was about to create a rift out of his apartment, he threw himself at the stereo and switched it off.
In the sudden silence, he heard nothing but the blood in his ears and his uneven breaths as he gasped for air.
Somehow, the siren had reached the radio waves.
8
Once Gabe’s breathing slowed, he collapsed onto his futon, the side of his fist pressed against his forehead.
What did it mean that she’d pressed so far into the city? Would he wake up the next day to find that a dozen men had heard the call and gone out to the river to drown?
He couldn’t sit by and wait to find out.
He adjusted himself to face his computer and booted it up, going straight to the video chat. The clock showed two o’clock in the morning, but Percy answered without delay.
“Hey Ga — whoa!” he darted out of frame and from somewhere in the room Gabe heard, “Sunglasses, man.”
Swearing, Gabe grabbed his sunglasses from beside the computer and slipped them on. In his shock he’d forgotten he’d removed them, and the results could have been just as dire for himself as for Percy. He didn’t know for certain if his stony stare would work through a computer camera, and had no desire to test the possibility, but his family history had taught him the risk of catching his own reflection.
“Sorry,” he said. “They’re on.”
Percy returned to frame, his hand over his chest. “Nearly gave me a heart attack. Thought maybe you’d gotten tired of me or something.”
“Hardly,” Gabe replied. “But you’re not the only one with the increased pulse right now. I just heard the siren on the radio.”
“What? Shit. What station?”
He wheeled to the other computer, his fingers clacking over the keyboard.
“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “I switched stations by accident. I’d turn it back on to check, but I don’t think that would be the smartest idea.”
“Found it,” Percy said. “It’s a dead station, but there’s definitely sound coming through. It doesn’t look like the signal is reaching the entire city, at least, but if it’s as far as you are, that’s a good radius.”
“I need to get out to the river,” said Gabe. He clamped down on his rising panic. Night time. The river will be hard to see. “If anyone else heard it, there could be swarms of people marching toward her like her own personal smorgasbord.”
Percy grimaced. “Now there’s an image.”
“You have no idea.” Gabe filled him in on what he and Allegra had discussed about the siren getting stronger and her web getting wider, and his friend’s face went pale.
“Damn.”
“Exactly.”
“So what are you going to do once you’re out there?”
Gabe drummed his fingers in a steady rhythm on the table. “I’ll fight. Hopefully be fast enough to get her before she gets a hold on me.”
Percy passed a hand over his brow, then crossed his arms. “You’re not going alone.”
“I am,” Gabe argued. “I can do the earplug thing and hopefully ignore the temptation to go for a midnight swim. You don’t have the resistance I do, and I don’t trust you to keep your earplugs in. I know you too well.”
Percy grumbled, but put up no further argument. Unfolding his arms, he clasped his hands on the desk and Gabe caught the movement of his fingers as he fiddled his thumbs. He didn’t blame Percy for being nervous. If he let himself show how frazzled his own nerves were, his pillow would be a shredded mess and there would be a heap of beer cans beside him. Instead, he rolled his neck until it popped and set to work cracking his knuckles.
“What’s your plan, then?” Percy asked.
Gabe thought through Allegra’s warning. If the siren got violent, he would need something to fend her off. He didn�
�t have time to go shopping, even if the stores were open at this time of night, so it would have to be something around the house. A frying pan? How domestic.
At times like these, he wished he were the sort of man who collected swords, or who kept an ax hanging on the wall, but his Gorgon temper made keeping weapons on hand a bad idea.
“Will you stone her?” Percy asked, using his preferred turn of phrase for Gabe’s unfortunate ability.
“Not if I don’t have to,” he replied. He clenched his teeth and had to relax his jaw before adding, “Allegra thinks that her living under the river could be a sign that she’s unhinged. I’d rather not deal with her in my head if that’s the case.”
“Better than getting dead.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.” Gabe grimaced and rubbed his temples.
He’d explained the side effects of his ability to Percy once before, but it wasn’t something anyone could understand if they hadn’t gone through it themselves. They had never felt that horrible mix of agony and fear as his victim’s memories were shoved into his head at the moment he reduced them to lifeless husks.
As though people were nothing without their memories, and the moment those thoughts were ripped from their bodies, they no longer existed, reverting back to the base element of the earth itself.
Sure, one look at the siren and New Haven’s problem would be solved, but that one look would mean Gabe had to spend the rest of his life sorting through which memories were hers and which were his. And that was only if he managed to avoid having her memories overwhelm him. He was still haunted by nightmares of the people he’d left behind, frozen for eternity as life passed by around them.
The first time he’d experienced it had been the moment he was born. The obstetrician had looked Baby Boy Mulligan in the eye and turned into a statue right there at the end of the bed. That had been a wake-up call for Mom and Dad, no question about it. The nurses had panicked and fled, and it had taken all of Frank Mulligan’s ingenuity to wiggle Gabe out of the doctor’s stony grasp and get his wife and child out of the hospital before the nurses came with the cops.