Sirens and Scales

by Kellie McAllen

  The woman, who looked far younger than her forty-seven years, squinted at me like she’d heard every word of my inner rant.

  Growing up, Mom had one rule: Never lie.

  Unlike my baby sister, Roxanne, I prided myself on having never broken that rule. At least, I hadn’t until two days ago. I lied to the most honorable woman I knew, boarded a plane for the Florida Keys, and didn’t think twice about it until she showed up a day ago on my rented lanai. How she found the house my fraternity had rented for spring break still had me reeling.

  But that was Iara Martin.

  She’d get that wild look in her eyes, and the determined set in her jaw could only be rivaled by a pit-bull or Roxanne, and you knew you’d better agree to whatever she said.

  Azure blue water only the Caribbean Sea could pull off lapped up against the hull of the boat. I adjusted the strap on my suit, stealing a peek and finding that dogged look was still in Mom’s eyes.

  Psh, I swiped my mask off the deck and flopped down on the edge of the dive deck. It was that pit-bull determined look, the one she was giving me right then, that got the woman tenure at Texas A&M and a blank check book from NUMA.

  Let’s face it, the National Underwater Marine Agency loved a good treasure find, but Mom had been hunting this treasure for twenty-two years, at least. This was the only project she’d ever pursued. She believed in the Lost City, and NUMA believed in her.

  Fuck, I believed in her, too.

  I pulled in a deep breath, letting humid air settle in all the cracks and deepened fissures this fight created. The ocean had always been a balm to my soul. My shot of whiskey on a bad day was diving into salt water. Holding my breath until my lungs burned and my problems suffocated.

  And despite the shit my fraternity brothers were honor bound by guy code to give me when we got back to San Diego, I loved it out here.

  I loved being out here with her.

  “Ricky.”

  “Rick,” I corrected, dangling my feet off the dive deck. My emotions when it came to my mother switched so fast my brain would get a concussion trying to keep up.

  “Rick.” Mom enunciated my correction with a syrupy-sweet tone. I wasn’t fooled. I might have calmed down, but the quick and urgent pace the flip-flop of her fins took punishing the deck said she wasn’t pleased I’d taken the corrective tone, at all. Not that she wasn’t used to me being all sassy—her word—but it was the disrespect that she wouldn’t tolerate.

  I guess we were both reeling from my lack of honor. I was just a little further along the dive into forgiveness.

  I spit in my mask, rubbing it around so my lens wouldn’t fog, and waited for the ear lashing.

  “Rick.” Mom knelt down next to me; the cool Caribbean water kept time between my name and the gut check Mom was about to deliver. “If you don’t want to be here, then leave.”

  My gaze snapped to hers. Her brown eyes were sharp stones and nothing like my blue ones. Our eyes weren’t the only thing different about us. Mom had jet-black hair with hints of auburn. Mine was bleached blonde by the California sun. Mom was happy with a stolen moment in the ocean. I dreaded graduation day when I’d be expected to come back to land-locked College Station and start graduate school at Texas A&M … with Mom. It wasn’t an option, so this option out wasn’t like her.

  She never gave me an out.

  Never.

  “I’m serious,” she added. “I need all of you or none of you when we’re under. Especially today.”

  She kept her focus on the depths of the blue waters. We were far enough out, deep enough in the crystal-clear water we couldn’t see the bottom of the ocean.

  Seemed fitting for my life.

  I couldn’t see past the next day when it came to my future. One of the reasons I’d opted to run to the Keys and forget that helpless feeling.

  Mom pulled her gaze from the ocean and maneuvered herself back up despite all the gear. She was as graceful out of the water as she was in. The easy way everything rolled off her. The world—both worlds—bowed to her wishes.

  She deserved more than a son like me. A son that ran away, buried his head and went radio silent when the first signs of a storm rolled in. Mom and Roxy, they’d stand their ground and spit in the eye of hurricane before they’d back down from anything or anyone.

  I stole a quick look, watching her double check her dive tank and then mine.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “This is it, Ricky.” She stole a quick glance over her shoulder. “The last artifact I uncovered says it’s here.”

  I nodded, counting all the other times she’d been certain we were about to unearth the lost city of Atlantis. “Altimeter’s checked. Oxygen levels are good. Dive belt has enough weights.” I mentally ticked off our pre-dive checklist, tying all the smartass remarks I wanted to say to internal dive weights.

  Mom grabbed my hand, her gaze cutting right through me. “Are you listening to me, Rick?”

  I waited for the blood rushing into my ears to settle. Even guilty, I’d ridden this rollercoaster of emotions so many times I’d lost track. At thirteen, I was in the seat right next to her, certain this was the time we’d find the City. I was the lucky charm, the key to unlocking the mystery. Every cliché she could throw at me, I bought, hook, line, and ultimately sinker. We didn’t find the City eight years ago, and we weren’t going to find it in the eighty minutes of air we were strapping to our backs.

  “I’m listening, Mom.” I dipped my mask into the water, rinsing it out and then testing it on my face. “You say that every time we dive.”

  The giddy in her eyes dulled a bit, twisting the guilt knife in my gut.

  “I know you believe this is it, but what changed?”

  Mom stole a quick glance over her shoulder. The crew was busy readying themselves. The technicians were checking the AV before they screwed the cameras to our heads.

  “This.” She reached into her dive suit and pulled out a jagged piece of a gold medallion, and my world stopped.

  The sun glinted off the ancient piece Mom pushed into the palm of my hand, before standing up and blocking me with her body. My heart stopped as I flipped the trinket over in my hand. A hard, jagged, break cut down the off-centered middle of the North, West compass rose. I wore its South, East match around my neck.

  Had since I was thirteen and found the fragment on my first dive. Thought I saw something else, but…

  I rubbed my finger along Mom’s latest find.

  The piece of compass rose around my neck was my first taste of bringing treasure up from the floor of the ocean had fed my appetite and ultimate addiction to find more for five years. But every time we went down, we went deeper, took bigger, more dangerous chances, and always came up empty handed.

  I stopped diving with Mom when I left for San Diego. Flat out refused the full-ride scholarship Texas A&M’s marine biology department offered, instead opting for a small pirate’s treasure chest worth of debt to SCRIPS University, because I declined to participate in Mom’s fantasy—the crazy ass delusion that I was somehow the key to finding the lost city of Atlantis.

  I tucked the piece into my dive pocket, already knowing Mom would insist I carry it. “Where did you find this?”

  A smirk pulled at her lips. The same smirk she’d worn when we found the first piece. “When we’re back on shore, I’ll buy you a mojito and tell you the story.”

  I choked on air. “You don’t drink.”

  “I will tonight.” Mom winked at me. “You ready?”

  A tiny twinge of excitement and drop of forbidden treasure-hunting adrenaline dumped into my blood stream. I’d stopped because that taste, that sweet delicious taste on my tongue right then, was too dangerous. I raked my hand down my face, trying to recall all the after-dive disappointments. Doing my damnedest to remember this was all part of the cycle. The high of highs, which only led to lows that had Mom curled up in a ball for days if not weeks at a time. I was so damn desperate I even let the memory of her going
blue in my arms because she’d disregarded her warning regulator float to the surface. My pulse picked up, but it had nothing to do with the memory. Mom had served me a heavy dose of my favorite drug—treasure—and despite all my best efforts, I’d taken the hit and was ready to dive for more.

  “Only if you promise—”

  Mom cut me off. “I promise.”

  “I take the lead,” I finished, but it didn’t dull Mom’s enthusiasm.

  “Deal.” She fit her mask over her face, and I did the same. She gave the dive master the thumbs up as he cautioned again about the dangers of diving under a violet sky. I waved him off; Iara Martin would never listen to caution. I turned back to the ocean and watched Mom disappear below the surface for the last time.

  2

  Sirena

  Eleven months later.

  “If I can deliver the key, you promise you will give ‘em to me?” I asked despite the slithery feeling of guilt worming around in my gut.

  The clatter and commotion in the great ballroom of the sunken cruise ship, Caribbean Illusion, came to an eerie and sudden quiet. Light from the surface sliced through the blue ocean water.

  My gaze darted around the still waters. This only happened when blood tainted the waters and sharks were about to attack.

  It did not matter.

  I straightened my shoulders and swam into the spotlight. Why I was being so defiant burned in my chest along with my mother’s condemnation on my so very ostentatious ways. She never could understand my obsession with humans, or why I was so desperate to be one of them. Her safe and by-the-book ways got her killed nonetheless.

  A shadow passed over us, stealing the attention from me for only the briefest of seconds, and giving me a moment to remember the one time I dared to break the surface. The cool air on my cheeks and the heat of the sun on my face when it came out from behind a …

  What was it called?

  I smiled.

  A cloud.

  It had been nine years since I had broken the rules and showed myself to a human.

  Nine years since I had followed a boy to the surface only to feel the heat of the sun on my face, the air dry my skin, and the sweet smell of freedom fill my lungs.

  And for nine years, getting out of the water for good was the only thing I could think of, especially when I had returned home and found my world destroyed.

  There was word from above that a group of girls had landed in The Florida Keys, which was not news by itself, but that one of the girls was asking about details regarding Iara Martin’s diving accident.

  Rays of sun refracted in the water, as the boat above us sped away. The shimmering strands of my freedom cut across the sharpened planes of the sirens’ faces. Faces that were all staring at me, again. I tried to stay still, to not let the desire to have what everyone hated cloud the clear water between Critias—the igetis, or leader of the sirens—and me.

  Sirens and their male counterparts, the Blue Men of Minch were pretty infamous for having three things: no conscience, no care, and complete compliance. That compliance was for their current igetis and the next soul they would consume. Granted, the current leader had been holding the reins of this ship for the last hundred years and might have coined the phrase, the only human worth having is the one you have already consumed. Like he knew my thoughts, Critias gave me a thorough look before he gave a quick nod toward his private staircase.

  My breath caught in my lungs. He was willing to hear me out. I had spent six years working up the nerve to address Critias, only to be dismissed for the last two. The only way to get my legs was to be of service. And the only way to be of service was to find and deliver something –someone—Critias wanted more than me.

  Monica, my sister, grabbed my wrist. “Can’t tell if you’re the bravest siren I’ve ever met or the most desperate.”

  “Desperate.” I eyed her grip on my hand and waited for her to peel her sticky fingers away. “Never underestimate the power of desperation.”

  I kicked my tail, letting the water rush past my face, and quickly closed the distance between me and the steel door determined to separate me from what I wanted most.

  Legs.

  I kicked again, quickly undoing my hair from the tight braid I usually kept it in. I was pulling out all the stops, leaving nothing to chance. Monica and my mother did not think much of me. Mom said I was too much like my father, from his copper hair to the stubborn jut of his chin. It was that stubbornness that got him killed and our kind nearly kicked out of the fantasy lane and into a hunted reality. I quickly swam past the guard at the staircase and nearly lost the tip of my fin when he slammed the door shut.

  The Caribbean water fluttered my hair as I cast the henchworm a quick, disgusted look. He snarled his saber teeth at me before chuckling. I was a joke to all of them. Something to be played with. A worm on their hook and all of them had taken a bite of me. I pulled in the cool water, forcing the hidden air into my hybrid lungs.

  Cool, calm, and collected.

  I had to play the game.

  I fluffed my hair and turned my attention back to the man who held the key to my future. I was working every angle and given the vile grin crawling across Critias’ face, he knew it too.

  “What is it you want, Sirena?” Critias asked, nodding for me to follow as we finished making our way up the stairs and into the captain’s quarters.

  “A place on the protection detail.” I looked around, taking in the dark waterlogged wood panel, the tattered curtains, the plush carpeting. Despite a year on the bottom of the sea, the place still exuded opulence.

  Critias nodded to the space next to his desk. Why the leader of the Caribbean Sirens needed a desk was beyond me. It was not like we were hard to coordinate, and the treasures we found we were bound to share with the pod.

  Another rule I had broken. I pushed the thought of the trinket I had stashed from my mind.

  “Why?”

  I started, like Critias could read my thoughts.

  “I want to prove my worth and climb the ranks.” The canned answer rolled off my tongue just like I had practiced the last two years.

  “That’s not what you said downstairs.”

  My heart stopped. “Sir?”

  “You said downstairs, ‘If I do this, you promise you will give me ‘em?’”

  I blinked once, twice, and by the third blink, I could hardly recall my own name, let alone the lie that was supposed to be swimming off my tongue.

  Critias nodded to the guard behind me. The water ruffled my hair as he left, the muted clunk of metal on metal sealing my fate.

  Critias kicked his tail up, sinking into the captain’s chair, nodding for me to do the same. He smiled, sharp daggered teeth winking at me when my chin jutted out.

  “You know your father was one of my best friends.”

  I shook my head, feeling my stubborn chin waver a little. After my father died, Mom refused to utter his name. I think I was a constant painful reminder of him.

  “You remind me a lot of him.”

  “So I have been told,” I muttered.

  Critias chortled before his eyes went sharp like black orbs. I had seen that look once before. I squirmed. It did not turn out so well for the siren or his family. Critias folded his arms over his bare barreled chest. The muscles in his forearms flexed in time with the tide. A current that kept up his biceps and was picked up in the pulse of his neck and the corded muscle that undulated along his jaw. Chiseled like he was carved out of a piece of Atlantis marble, most females fluttered under his gaze. Me, I just saw a means to an end. An end that had me on the surface and a pair of legs to carry me far away.

  “You don’t like it here?” he asked.

  “I like it well.”

  Critias leaned forward, elbows landing so hard on the desk a flurry of particles floated like mini cyclones up from the wood. “So what is the them you want?”

  I studied Critias. After a hundred years in the water, you would think he would have wrinkl
ed, but he was as muscular as any other siren. Owning up to wanting legs could have me banished, and a banished siren was a dead siren. But on the other hand, this was what I had wanted for nine years. There was no future for me under the water, and to stay here would only be me waiting for my death.

  “I want on the protection detail.”

  “What is the them?” Critias repeated.

  I leaned forward. “You have a recovery detail leaving for The Florida Keys. Why?”

  Critias regarded me. “How do you know about The Keys?”

  “Put me on the recovery detail.”

  “Tell me about The Keys?”

  My gaze darted across the thin set of Critias lips, not ready to tell him Monica’s lover talked in his sleep. Or that I had a feeling I knew the divers who were in Key West really did have the key to finding Atlantis.

  “Sirena.”

  I smiled. “Critias.”

  “Just like your father.” Critias sat back, stroking his chiseled chin.

  Particles shimmered in the sun as they floated between us, keeping time like I could not already feel it passing with my pulse.

  “Sirena.” Critias folded his hands behind his neck, pushing his hair far enough behind his ears I could see his gills flex and fold. “You’ve never consumed a soul, have you?”

  “No,” I quickly answered. It was not something I was looking forward to either. Monica said she could still hear the screams of the man she first devoured. I thought she was joking, but story after story, siren after siren, they all told the same tale. You never shook loose the cry of your first soul. It was one of the main reasons I was twenty and still a virgin. If loving a man was the first step to consuming him, then…

  “Fine.” I startled at Critias’ booming voice. “You bring me the key to Atlantis, and I’ll give you your legs.”

  My stomach tumbled. I had half of the key stowed away from the detail I had followed last year. I knew where the other half was, with Iara Martin’s son.

  That was who was in Key West.

  He was the key to my freedom.

  “Deal.”