Song of Wishrock Harbor (The Invisible Entente Book 2)

by Krista Walsh

  He hoped Allegra’s suggestion worked and he wouldn’t need to do any of that. If he could get her talking, maybe they could work out a deal where he wouldn’t have to use the chain at all. An optimistic scenario, sure, but why not? Experts extolled the wisdom of positive thinking, so who was Gabe to tell them they were wrong?

  Outside, the storm raged on. He’d closed the window now that the generator was no longer needed, and the wind shook the wooden frame. Ice pellets clacked like fingernails against the glass, and more than once, Gabe checked to make sure the siren hadn’t come for him. He pictured her climbing up the side of his building, her features displaying the porcelain perfection he found so much more terrifying than the skeletal gauntness. At least when she appeared as a monster, he had an easier time looking away.

  He planned to go back out after the sun set. With the electricity running again, he guessed more people might try to brave the weather, and he wanted to wait until they were off the streets. While he hoped his next encounter with Ligeia would go peacefully, he had to prepare for a fight and didn’t want any bystanders drawn in. Neither he nor Ligeia needed the extra daylight, and even if his eyes weren’t as good as hers in the dark, her faint blue glow was sure to guide his way.

  The afternoon grew darker as thick clouds gathered overhead. However Ligeia was controlling the weather, she’d set her mind to it with a vengeance. The reprieve she’d allowed earlier in the day was over, and a fresh blizzard swept the streets. Around five o’clock in the evening, a loud crack echoed through his apartment. Gabe looked outside to find the oak tree across the street had split in half, the thick branches tangled in a mess of telephone wires and ice.

  And just think — that could be you in a couple of hours.

  Gabe groaned and refocused on the chain, swinging it around and launching the shackles at his futon a few times. Anything to help make him feel comfortable with the weight of them.

  Once he grew bored, he threw the chains onto the futon cushion and dropped down in front of the computer screen. His arms throbbed with the effort of his throws, and yet he felt no more fatigued than if it he’d carried a cereal box across the room. One of the perks of magic most television shows skipped over.

  He booted up his computer and checked the Chronicle website for the latest updates on the case, but all Daphne had written was more of the same. Detectives Avery and Kealey were doing their best, but no new information had come up. From some of the language in the article, Gabe picked up on the sorceress’s growing frustration that there had been no progress.

  “Although police have dedicated every waking hour to discovering the whereabouts or motive of these killings,” she’d written, “the weather has proved an unrelenting opponent. No witnesses have come forward to explain the victims’ presence at the harbor, and authorities are asking anyone with information to reach out.”

  Compared to the detachment of her previous articles, the language in this one struck Gabe as personal.

  Is it possible?

  He read through the article again, and although Daphne gave away nothing to suggest she’d been out to the crime scene herself, the passion of her words led Gabe to believe his suspicion was correct. She was likely the contact the detectives had talked about bringing in.

  Gabe laughed and shook his head. Trust the journalist to make buddies with the cops.

  He glanced at his phone and thought about calling her. If she was already involved, the least he could do was warn her to be careful. Now that he had a better idea of what he was dealing with, maybe asking her for help would be exactly what he needed to tip the scale.

  Before he had a chance to weigh out the pros and cons, a familiar beep from his computer announced a call. Percy’s face appeared, and his flared nostrils and wide eyes made Gabe’s shoulders tense. “What is it?”

  “I messed up, man,” Percy said. He ran his fingers through his thick mop of curls. “I shouldn’t have held you back, but I really did think she’d stay away. I had the security cameras on and didn’t see her come back to the surface, but she must have.”

  “Percy, stop,” Gabe said in his firmest voice to cut through his friend’s panicked ramble. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know how she did it, but she’s — she’s everywhere. Ever since the night you heard her on the dead station, I’ve been watching the radio signals. Half an hour ago, every single station in New Haven lit up like a beacon. I don’t know how she got on the frequencies, but she’s belting out everyone’s favorite Top 40 hit as we speak.”

  Gabe swore and slammed his fist against his knee. Was any decision he made on this case going to bring him forward, or would he keep making so many mistakes that the entire city fell before he wrapped it up?

  “I have to get out there.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s my own fault. You keep an eye on what’s going on and try to find some way to block the signal.”

  “I’m working on it, but even if I shut her down, what are you going to do about the fans she might already have picked up?”

  Gabe chewed on the side of his leather-covered thumb and thought about the damage she could do in one solid blow if no one stepped up to block her victims from reaching her. It would be a massacre.

  “I’m going to end the show,” he said.

  “Are you going to take me with you?” Percy asked.

  Gabe shook his head. “Not this time. I’ll keep the camera on so you can watch, but if I’m going to try to speak with her, it means I’ll need to hear her, which would mean turning off the white noise.”

  Percy sat up straight in his chair. “White noise. Gabe, man, you’re a genius. If I can’t block her from the radio, maybe I can drown her out. But I don’t know if I can do that and direct the noise to you, as well. It might cut out and leave you with a stereo rendition of her song in your head.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll go the old-fashioned route. You focus on shutting her up and send me some silent thoughts that I get out of there in one piece, all right?”

  For once, Percy didn’t argue with him, his fingers already flying across the keyboard.

  Gabe swore again and grabbed his coat from the table. Whether he was ready or not, this was it. He hefted the chain between his hands and rifted out onto the ice.

  ***

  By the time Gabe got to the harbor, a hundred men had already arrived. They moved like a small army — all in unison, following some unheard order. Gabe knew the siren’s song would be audible beyond his earplugs if he listened for it, so instead he concentrated on the screams of the wind as it rushed past him.

  He stepped backward as one of the men reached him. His brown eyes were glazed over and a line of saliva dribbled out the side of his mouth to freeze on his chin. Without a single glance in Gabe’s direction, he passed by and stepped onto the river.

  Gabe walked alongside him at the front of the silent army. His heart slammed in his chest, and in spite of the cold wind, his palms went clammy.

  He thought about the video footage Percy had stolen off the security camera from the night Ligeia killed Sam Davidson. At the time, he’d thought the sight of one solitary figure pushing through the snow in his enthralled trance was one of the most terrifying scenes he’d ever laid eyes on. It was nothing to seeing so many at once.

  They were mindless husks on their way to being emptied by someone who didn’t care about who they were or what they might leave behind.

  Rage bubbled inside of Gabe, blocking the horror of the scene, and he shoved his way through the crowd to get to the front of the line. Once he was clear on either side, he broke into a run across the river, leapt over the gap in the ice, and slid to a sharp halt when the blue glow appeared ahead of him.

  Against the faint orange hue of the sunset behind the clouds, Ligeia looked like a painting. Something a classic artist might have drawn at the height of his career — no feature out of place, perfectly symmetrical, the ideal femme fatale.

 
The trouble with art is that it often pictured things you didn’t want to come to life. Dangerous women were great for the imagination, but hell for real men who got caught in their traps.

  Gabe shifted the weight of the chain in his grasp and edged toward the siren.

  The river water had washed away some of the blood from the hounds’ earlier attack, but large red patches stained the luminescent whiteness of her dress. Her bare arms were gored with deep punctures and torn flesh where their teeth had broken skin. The bodice of her dress was a tattered wreck, slashed into four long strips where one set of claws had sliced into her, each tear tinged pink.

  But she didn’t appear to feel it. She stood on the ice in the same manner she’d been the first time Gabe saw her, her dress and hair billowing around her. Her song cut through the breaks in the wind, and his mouth went dry at the sound of it. He forced himself to listen to the crunch of his boots through the snow, the lap of the water, and the song of the storm instead.

  She gazed on him with recognition in her stark white eyes and tilted her head to watch him approach. Gabe braced his feet on the ice and swallowed hard.

  On seeing him, her lips curled into a smile, and her flawless face melted into the skeletal horror. Her wordless song grew louder, and he had to concentrate harder to prevent it from worming its way into his brain. The distraction slowed his reaction as she flew at him, tackling his chest.

  They slammed backward onto the ice and slid a half-dozen feet. The ice rode up Gabe’s shirt and tore into his back, peeling his flesh as they skidded. The earplug on his left side tumbled free, and the sound of the river lapping against the ice drowned out the rush of his blood pumping in his ears. They stopped a foot away from the crack in the river, and Gabe pressed the chain against Ligeia’s neck to force her away. He refused to become a victim to the water’s frozen touch a second time.

  She jerked back from the chain, and Gabe’s eyes widened as smoke drifted up from where the metal had pressed against her skin.

  She let out a hiss that morphed into a high-pitched scream. Gabe imagined blood pouring out of his ears and his brain splitting in two as though sliced by glass. She backed away and he jumped to his feet, moving farther from the gap. Although the water had frozen over, he doubted it was thick enough to hold his weight if he slipped over the edge.

  The chain had stripped some of the flesh at Ligeia’s throat when she’d wrenched away, and it continued to smoke as Gabe watched.

  What kind of magic did John put on this thing? he wondered, but set the question aside in the face of his rising confidence. He finally had the advantage over her.

  He stalked forward and she hunched her shoulders, her fingers curled in front of her like claws.

  “You seek to use such magic against me?” she hissed, and her voice wound its way into Gabe’s left ear, its effect still potent if not as strong as her song. “My revenge was not set against you, but now you may enjoy a taste of it.”

  Ligeia launched herself at him, her teeth bared. Gabe dodged and raised the chain, but she moved faster. Her teeth sank into his wrist and she clamped down. He cried out and raised his knee to catch her in the stomach. She grunted and rolled away, and by the time Gabe centered himself, she stood out of his reach. Her white irises were now a shade of blue that rivaled the vividness of John’s violet stare. Her gaze passed over him, searching for his weaknesses.

  She opened her mouth, and the first notes of a new song emanated from her throat. Gabe pressed his ear into his shoulder to block it out, but just like the melody she had sung for the hounds, he felt no pull from her call — no effect whatsoever. His eyes widened, and as he stared at her, her slash of a mouth rolled into a smile. She shifted her attention over Gabe’s shoulder, and he glanced behind him to look.

  The army, which had paused when she’d stopped singing, was marching again, this time heading toward him.

  In the moment he looked away from her, she threw herself at him, landing on his back with her knees braced around his hips. Gabe staggered. Her song fell silent and the army went still, but her hands were around his throat, squeezing. Her strong legs hugged his waist to keep her balance, giving added strength to the pressure in her hands. He swung his torso back and forth to dislodge her, clawing his fingers at her hands to gain a single inch of leverage. For a moment, he managed to pry away the index and middle fingers of one of her hands, but she jerked out of his grasp and brought her fist into his right cheek before returning her grip to his throat. There was a crunch of glass as the camera on the arm of his sunglasses cracked. The second earplug slipped free, and the stereo sound of the fight — his heavy breathing, her low hiss — scratched against his eardrums.

  Black spots danced in Gabe’s vision, and he dropped to his knees. His heart pounded in his chest and his lungs burned. The reek of river water wafted up his nostrils, and shards of ice whipping through the air cut into his skin.

  As his consciousness wavered, he tightened his grip on the chain. His vision was too spotted and the tips of his fingers too numb to work the manacles, so he touched the chain against the backs of Ligeia’s hands. She screeched, but didn’t loosen her hold. He pressed the metal tighter against her. She jerked one hand away at the pain, and he used the opportunity to suck in air.

  The spots in his eyes faded, and before she had time to return the hand to his throat, he snapped one of the manacles around her remaining wrist. She fell from his back and yanked her arm away, but the chain held. He turned to face her and caught the terror in her wide blue eyes, her mouth open in a scream that wouldn’t form. Her entire weight pulled away from him to free herself, but each pull dug the metal deeper into her flesh.

  Her scream morphed into a snarl and she lurched closer. Gabe braced his feet and readied the second manacle to clamp around her other wrist, but he couldn’t move quickly enough to stop her from closing her free hand around his throat.

  His neck jerked as she attempted to raise him off his feet, but the contact with the chain had done its job and weakened her.

  “I feel you watching me through his eyes,” she said, and although she stared at Gabe, he understood she wasn’t speaking to him but to someone beyond. His face felt swollen and his vision was blurring with the pressure on his throat, but her words reached past his haze of breathlessness. “Know this, then. You will never claim me as your own again, and every agent you send against me will suffer the same fate with which I would damn you if ever you were brave enough to come for me yourself.”

  With that message, she tightened her grip around Gabe’s throat, and stars burst in his eyes.

  17

  Gabe swung punches toward Ligeia’s blue-tinged form — his father’s lectures on never hitting a woman fading away as she choked the life out of him — but now there were two of her in his vision and he didn’t know where to aim. His arms grew heavier, his movements jerkier and more difficult to control, but before he blacked out, she threw him onto the ice.

  He skidded across the surface. Water sprayed out on either side of him, soaking into his shirt, his pants. A chill set in and he shivered. He’d released his end of the chain when she threw him, and now it dangled from her arm, another accessory to match the rest of her macabre attire. Smoke curled up from her shackled wrist, and her face was contorted in pain, but she didn’t try to remove it.

  She approached, and he sat up, backing away from her on his hands and the balls of his feet. Shards of ice cut through his leather gloves into his palms, striking pain up his arm into his head.

  Although Ligeia had released him, she clearly hadn’t finished with him yet. Apparently, whatever fate she would have served John — the person he guessed she’d spoken to through him — was worse than suffocation.

  The closer she came, the faster Gabe’s brain tried to catch up with the turn the fight had taken. She believed he was there on John’s behalf. He understood her vendetta against the man, but how could she know he would come for her? And why was she so certain that John would s
end an agent to do the work for him instead of coming himself? Her words suggested she knew the jinni better than John had let on.

  But whether or not the jinni had lied hardly mattered. Ligeia’s reasons for wanting to face her enemy didn’t affect Gabe’s mission. He was here to stop her — end of story.

  She stood by his side, the strips of flesh on her skeletal face fluttering in the wind, and opened her mouth. The first sweet notes of her song trickled between her lips, and Gabe slammed his hands over his ears. Sweat and freezing water dripped down his back. His skin bubbled in goosebumps and a headache started throbbing behind his right eye.

  He surveyed the scene with a squinted stare. John’s chain dangled within reach from her arm. If he moved fast enough, he could bind her before her song turned him against himself. He imagined her suggesting that he jump into the river, that he accept the darkness as his own and give himself up to the relaxing emptiness of the current. His troubles would be over, his pain would be gone.

  The image being painted in his mind was so vivid, he knew it was more than just his panic playing out the worst possible scenario. She was planting ideas in his head.

  He ground his teeth and focused on the pounding of his heart.

  Then, the melody of her song changed and the desire to harm himself faded. Gone was the pull on his heart, which could only mean she’d turned her attention away from him. He glanced over to find the frozen army marching again. He eyed the chain. He could make it. He could dart out before the army reached him, before a hundred pairs of hands could force him under the water or tear him apart one joint at a time.

  But going after the chain would mean taking his hands away from his ears and risk her switching her song back to him.

  A groan pushed from his chest around the thickness in his throat. He had no choice. He had to try.

  Drawing in a deep breath, he dropped his hands and threw himself at the chain. Once more the song changed, and the power of the melody broke through the barrier of Gabe’s concentration. It twisted through his limbs and filled him with peace. He couldn’t hurt her — he loved her. She was worth protecting.