Sirens and Scales

by Kellie McAllen

  “Gran! Are we having this conversation?”

  “You’ve changed in front of me before, and I know that look hasn’t been around for a few decades now. No one likes pubes. Of course, back in my day, the men were so happy just to get some, they didn’t mind like these men today. I was thinking since I’m doing a little bit of flashing from corporeal to incorporeal, that maybe I can find a way to get myself updated too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, the black is so gloomy. I don’t feel gloomy here, but I do have tons of questions.” A cigarette appeared out of thin air again in her long, thin cigarette holder. “But, we can talk about all of that after you boink him.”

  “Gran, you can be insufferable at times.”

  “Don’t go getting upset with me. That’s not going to do anything with making your libido go zippity, zappity, zoop. I’m trying to make things better. You’ve been tossed and turned so much in life, and he could be so good for you, if you’d only let him.”

  “Good or not, you are not to be in that room to assess his technique.”

  “Not even a peek? He won’t know.”

  “No.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll behave and explore more of the castle.”

  I freshened up as quickly as I could and scrubbed until bubbles practically floated around the bathroom from all of the luscious suds.

  Finally ready, I wrapped my towel around me, and opened the door only to be greeted by a handsome man asleep on my bed. Crappity, crap-tastic!

  30

  Alistair

  Awakening, he shifted in the bed, cracked open his eyes and remembered he hadn’t made his way back to his chamber last night. Instead, Leslie was cuddled up to his side, with her wild hair sticking up in every direction, her mouth slightly open, and an unladylike snore escaping her beautiful full lips. He tried not to laugh.

  Although he would have enjoyed staring at her all morning, easing into the day with whatever this could become, duty called. He eased up from the bed, and was greeted by Gillianbusti in the corridor. “What is it this evening?”

  “There you are,” Rose called out. “We were concerned about you, as you weren’t in your usual hidey holes. As you know, you need to get on board with our plan, show everyone a united force, especially since more details of the murder have been recovered.”

  “You’re telling me this instead of taking me to the scene—again?”

  “We couldn’t find you, but I did bring you pictures. Hell, Alistair, even my wards only last so long. I still had to release the scene over to the police.”

  “What do you know about this one?”

  He held her smart phone and flipped through the images. It could have been the same scene if it hadn’t been a different body—a sigil, a drained and naked female with Leslie’s book.

  “Was she a reader?”

  “Yes, but this crime had a stronger message.”

  “Show me.”

  Rose flipped a couple more images and handed him back the phone. “This wine glass.”

  “So, the killer had wine?”

  “No, the glass was filled with the victim’s blood and enjoyed afterward. Fingerprints were left behind, and we’ve run them through the database. They came back as Leslie’s.”

  Alistair shook his head. “That’s impossible. She was with me all night.”

  “You sleep like the dead. She could have snuck out, then returned, and you never would have known.”

  “No, I know she didn’t do it.”

  “You’re going to have to face the honest truth. Your mewler is indeed killing people, and I’m going to have to take her with me.”

  “No!” He stepped in front of Rose, blocking her way.

  “You are interfering with official business. I can only do my job and help you, if you allow me to.”

  “She can’t even transform, she doesn’t know how.”

  “So, since there is only one way out of that room, and if she can’t sneak out as a bat, she should still be there?”

  “Of course.”

  Rose pushed past him and opened up the door to Leslie’s room finding it empty. “So, where is your sweet vampire now?”

  31

  Leslie

  “You should be very happy that I got you out of there when I did,” Gran began as she led me down a secret passageway that meandered through the castle. We walked through the dark and cramped hallways.

  Gran passed me a sword she must have pulled off the wall. It was heavy as heck. I hoped I wouldn’t need it, or accidentally impale myself with the sharp blade.

  I could hear the raised voices on the other side of the walls. Whatever had happened was serious, and it seemed to be the consensus that I was the one responsible for it.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To see what is really going on. They are saying that you’re the one behind it all, but I know the truth. Come. We have to hurry if we are going to save the next girl.”

  “The next girl?”

  “Yes, she’s being held at one of the tenant cottages.”

  “Why not get help?”

  “They aren’t going to listen to me or you, as they’re convinced you’re behind it all. No, we have to save her before she dies.”

  The secret passageway led out into the garden, and under the cover of night, I followed Gran’s shimmer. We stuck to the trees and shadows as not to attract any attention. Armed guards kept calling out my name like I was some kind of lost puppy. I could even feel Alistair mentally reaching out. How was it possible that he could think that of me too?

  I pushed through the disappointment and hurt and glanced around. While still only in my socks, I raced in the direction Gran sent me, to find the tenant’s house all lit up.

  “Hurry, she’s dying.” Gran waved me forward, and then stopped. “But I can’t go in. Should I? That sigil will also pull me under and through to the other side.”

  “I have no intentions of leaving. But whatever you do, you mustn’t drink from her. That will be your death sentence and there is no way of coming back from that.”

  Grans voice was rarely stern, but this time, it was filled with righteousness, determination, and a sense of warning. The voice a mother used before she placed her child into time out. The full-bodied voice of warning that only Mom’s around the world could share that overcame every culture and language. Her words were spoken in the language of Mom. I understood it.

  “I’ll take care of her, Gran,” I said, then burst through the door to the most horrific scene ever. The young woman lay sprawled out, fully nude, and the gurgling sounds that came from the back of her throat as she tried to breathe, mixed with her panic and fear.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said, and felt my teeth descend. Blood. All of this fresh blood going to waste. The intoxicating smell lured me ever closer, until I stepped into the pooling crimson.

  I’d never wished for the power to heal like I did right then. “Gran, go get help.”

  “But if I leave you, you’ll take a sip. All they need to see is if your taking one sip and then, poof, you’re gone.”

  “You have to trust me to be stronger than that. I’m still in here; the same determined Leslie.”

  Gran paused, but only for a second before she flashed away. “At least someone’s getting a hold on their new situation.”

  I took the dying woman’s hands, then the scene unfolded before me:

  While sitting on her couch, she casually watched the latest episode on BBC. The loud television muffled the sound of the slight knock at her door, until the slight knock changed into a loud bang.

  She jumped, knocking over her glass of wine and popcorn. “Just great. I’m coming, but I don’t see why anyone needs to stop by at this time of night.”

  She padded to the front and opened the door. Instead of a face, I only saw a blur. The magical face swam before me, leaving only a void.

  “Good evening, may I help you?”

  He didn’t speak,
but I saw in his leather-covered hands that he was indeed prepared.

  “It is with great joy that I bring you your salvation, a sacrifice to the ultimate of gods,” he said, and began to squeeze her neck.

  The woman struck back, attempting to fight him off.

  I looked away. I didn’t want to see anymore.

  She urged me to look further.

  Once he had her under control, where she stopped fighting, he tossed a coin onto the floor, creating the purple sigil.

  “Death of dawn, lightness of day, accept this offering, I pray,” he said, and pushed her down onto the floor.

  “Sorry for the mess,” he said lastly, and began his procedure, only to hear the floorboard creek. The woman turned and there stood Gran at the door in her corporeal body before she flickered away.

  That’s how Gran knew. She’d been exploring and stumbled on this.

  And that also meant that he was still in the house waiting to finish it all up. I pressed down on the wound, applying as much pressure as I could, and with all the energy I had, I reached out, hoping that the link I had with Alistair was indeed two-way.

  I felt her last breath, and saw from the corner of my eye as the man dashed out of the door towards the woods.

  I gave chase.

  32

  Leslie

  Through the woods, over the hills, I followed the figure until I stared out into the expanse of empty wilderness—rugged Scottish mountains with large trees, babbling creeks, and talkative wildlife waited for me to near.

  With the castle in the distance, away from the winding roads and life of Inverness, my hand gripped the sword’s hilt and I tried to breathe. Even under the cover of night, with only a sliver of the moon casting its light, I could make out in the inky shadows, but this was different. I could feel more than one pair of eyes staring back at me. One friend, and one quite maleficent.

  A wolf’s howl reached my ears and I saw him come bounding my way. His snarl loud and threatening.

  I backed up.

  Magic sifted through the Highland air falling onto my skin.

  Just as the wolf was about to reach me, I struggled to hold my weapon, but it leapt over my head to fall on that which I’d not seen approaching.

  The faint smell of freshly shed blood, combined with a very human scream, caused my hackles to rise. My canine’s descended, a thirst beckoned me.

  That aroma was like what fresh baked bread used to mean to me. I breathed through my mouth cutting off the aroma’s appeal. The tanginess that was surely a trap.

  With my sword raised, I inched toward the darkness, watching for the slightest movement.

  My heart reacted to the tension, pulled tighter than a guitar string ready to be plucked.

  I turned left first, then right.

  “You really shouldn’t go running off on your own,” Killian said. He still had blood smeared across his mouth.

  “Step back. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?” He frowned. “And why would you do that?”

  I looked behind me to see if anything was there. “You’re the one killing these women, and draining them dry.”

  “I assure you that I like my women very much living, well mostly alive. There is no fun in a cold body, and it’s a waste of life for such beauty to be erased.”

  He took a step closer.

  “Why are you out here then?”

  “Why are you out here?” he countered. “I am out for my nightly walk, and happened to stumble upon you, a mewler, with a sword drawn. Are we looking for things that go bump in the night?”

  Just then, a twig snapped, but it was too late. I watched a metal blade slide from Killian’s back through his stomach. He howled in pain.

  I dropped the sword and stumbled backwards as Lloyd approached.

  “It is so good to finally meet you,” he said. “and now I know why his Lordship has neither time nor interest in the things that are necessary and good.”

  I would have liked to have said that I saw the crazy, but he wasn’t a supernatural, only a man with a gun who could still kill a vampire like me.

  “Come, get going. I have a lot that I need to do with you, and daylight will be here soon enough.”

  He turned me around and put the muzzle of the gun into my back. “Don’t try any funny moves either. You might be fast, but I’m sure these silver bullets are faster.”

  We walked and walked until I became disoriented, and then followed a narrow path to the mouth of a cave that overlooked the water. Once inside, he removed his flashlight and forced me further into the cave. The cave gave way to a makeshift lab.

  Looking around, it would have appeared just like any other fisherman’s retreat, well, if you took away the women he had caged up, suspended in the air with tubes leading from their bodies into various tanks. The clear tubing was stained red in color.

  I finally understood. This is where he drained them.

  He pushed me towards a waiting gurney and tied me down.

  Man, I really wished I’d spent more time practicing with Alistair, but how was I to know that he had a lunatic working for him?

  The sound of metal cuffs snapping down around my wrists and ankles signaled the beginning of the end. Whatever he had planned, I was a part of that.

  “What are you planning to do to me?”

  “Making you into what you should be. Vampires were not created to be pescatarians. You are supposed to be a force to be reckoned with, not this little weak thing. No, what you need is what I can provide you with, and you will provide me something in return.”

  He placed a gas mask over his face, and then began to burn an herb I was all too familiar with: henbane. The smoke wafted, and my consciousness drifted.

  When I awoke, I felt a tube in my mouth force-feeding me what tasted like bliss—human blood. It ran across my tongue and warmed me from within. Power mixed with zeal, and a thirst for more. I continued to drink until I was sure I’d had my fill.

  “That should be enough.” He then inserted an IV into my arm, attempting to draw blood from me.

  Barely a drop came out.

  “You know, you taught me this ritual years ago in your book. When I heard that you were the new one in the castle, I knew this would be something to make you happy. You could walk in your gods given destiny, and I could be your servant. I only need a bit of your blood to mingle with mine.

  I drifted in and out of consciousness, and it seemed that I was almost floating.

  “Alistair,” I called with my mind.

  Lloyd removed the feeding tube. “Just imagine what I will be able to do once I am a vampire like you. I can finally take down that Nessie who eludes me, bring jobs back to the town, and make this place a national monument to increase tourism. I can save this town from what his Lordship can’t see.

  He created a tourniquet, pumped his fist, and withdrew his blood, then mixed it with a drop of my own.

  “Now, you only have to say those words. I can drink the blood and it will be all good and done.”

  I rocked my head back and forth. “That’s only fiction. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just a romance writer.”

  I tried to scrutinize the room, to find something I could use as a weapon.

  “The bloody hell you are. You’ve written about this place, these people in your series—all of them, and just made them all appear. When you arrived, I knew it to be true. This was to be my way to make it all better.”

  I struggled against my metal cuffs. Clang. Clack. “Help,” I screamed.

  “No one can hear you back here. You will remain with me until we get this done. No matter how long it takes, or what it means in the end. My town is more important than you.”

  I glanced over to the women in the cages. “How many do you have up there?” Each one of them had family, friends, a history, and instead of living life, they were dealing with a mad man in a cave who believed that he could be turned into a vampire.

  “Hmm, may
be around nine. You know, nine is the holy number for us.”

  I’m on my way.

  I just needed to buy time.

  “How long have you been doing this? With these women?”

  “It’s not that simple, and these women, well, it’s not like they have roots. They can be easily replaced in life. They are commodities, just like the cows and sheep that litter the fields. Vampires need a source of food—human blood—and that is what they shall be until they are emptied.”

  “Is that what happened to Bridget?”

  “Oh, heavens no. I needed a way to get your attention. She reminded me of your character, Scarlet. You know, the one that is just horrible to everyone, and I thought she’d do perfectly as my sacrifice to you.”

  “You are the most obnoxious man. I’m telling you that something bad has happened and you refuse to act,” Gran screamed at Alistair, breaking her usual genteel and calm demeanor.

  “I have no need to listen to anything you say, as you and Leslie have constantly disobeyed the rules of this house. Instead of following them, now you wish to lie and tell me of a human woman being killed on my property, which Leslie just happened to stumble upon.”

  “Gran swirled around him, winding like a tornado. “No, she was in her room, and I went to get help, as I thought Leslie was the only one who’d be willing to help, and I was correct. Instead of assisting this poor woman, you’ve done the most cowardly of things—nothing. Anyone can do nothing, that does not make you an adequate ruler, that makes you one filled with privilege. Nothing you have done since we’ve been here has been for anyone other than yourself. You sir, are a bastard and a selfish one at that.”

  “Alistair.” Killian limped into the throne room.

  “Killian what has happened?”

  “Leslie’s been taken,” he painfully whispered.

  “I’ve been trying to tell him about the girl down on the property, the one bleeding out with Leslie,” Gran said.