by Jasmine Walt
“You’re in a very…monumental position, Pike.”
I turn and face her. “Meaning?”
“Meaning… no one has been in a position to alter the course of history in such a significant way in quite a while.” She touches the small pearl earring attached to her lobe. “I’ve come to offer guidance.”
I start to pace again. “I don’t want any guidance. I just want to get back and do what I gotta do.”
I don’t hear her move, but now she is in front of me, grasping my hands between her own. She peers up into me with those silky eyes, and I freeze.
“I implore you to reconsider,” she says.
For a moment, I can’t move. Just like when she first showed up. All I can do is stare into those moving eyes, trapped under their power. My mouth slowly starts to open. I try and pull away from her, but I can’t.
“I ask you again, Pike Richards.” Her smile is slow. “Would you like to hear your fate?”
My mouth is all the way open. I’m trying to form words with a dead tongue. Beads of sweat curve down my nose. It occurs to me that this is how they get things done. Nobody with half a brain would consent to hearing what a fate has to say because nobody wants to know how it’s all going to play out.
And a fate can’t tell you shit unless you give them permission. Kinda like vampires, only they really exist and they don’t just want into your house.
They want into your destiny.
Her smile is almost blinding by the time I find the strength to pull away. I turn away from her to catch my breath. When I look up, she is there again.
“No.” I point my finger into her face. I realize I need to slow my roll. Fates are no joke. “With all due respect,” I say with a change in tone. “Please send me back. I don’t want to know.”
Her face falls. “May I ask why?”
“Because I have the funny feeling that you’re going to tell me I’m going to die… or something worse.” I clench my jaw. “And I can’t… I can’t think about that. I need to get this done.”
She nods slowly, then pulls me into a hug. It’s uncomfortable and soothing at the same time. I tighten every muscle in my body, trying not to let any emotion seep out.
Finally, she lets go. “As you wish. I shall send you back.”
I nod, about to say something like damn straight, when a thought occurs to me.
“Hey, wait a second.”
She lifts her gaze to mine.
“Can you… I mean, would it be possible for you to tell me…someone else’s fate?”
She smiles in a knowing way. Seconds later, she is right in front of me again. With a pat on the hand, she says, “No, my dear.”
“Oh.” I look at my dirt encrusted boots. “Alright.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
I glance up and shrug. “We’re good.”
She reaches out and rubs my shoulder. “Okay, are you ready to get back to it?”
Hell no, I think. Instead of saying it out loud, I give a tight smile and nod. Moments later, I get the sensation that I’m flying. Before I know it, I’m on my feet, stumbling in the hot sun.
The heat turns the surroundings into waves.
“Hey, Pike! You ready to go now?” Tripp’s voice echoes in my ears.
He is the only one standing outside of the convoy. I hurry toward him and duck into the car after him. As I strap on my safety harness, I look around at everyone else. They all seem pretty clueless.
When we start up, I stare out of the tinted window and try not to think about what the fate wanted to tell me.
I take a small swig from my canteen and watch the quickly shifting landscape from my window. We’ve gone from brown earth to dead black, and now, a deep, unnatural purple. The trees have grown thicker and almost humanoid, with branches reaching out as if to grab at anything that gets near them. The sky has lost its blue and taken on gray hue with rolling red clouds racing across the surface. After an hour or so in the car we come to a stop.
“We take it on foot from here.” Juliet turns around from where she sits in the driver’s seat. “An armored van will meet us at our next checkpoint. Make sure to grab as much food and water as you can carry. Just in case.”
Slowly, we all step out into the rancid air. It’s not hot anymore, but the wind is thick with smell. Like a paper factory is near and hard at work. I let Tripp get out, then reach in and pull out all of my crap and hoist it on.
“Ready to get some exercise, beauty?” Tripp asks as we head back to the car holding the food and water.
“Why you keep calling me that, man?”
He grins as we stop in a line behind Lee and Kiwi. “Because you look so lovely when you sleep.”
I laugh. It’s a tired, worn laugh, but it’s still a laugh. “You’re a dumbass.”
“I’ll take that as high flattery coming from you.”
“It is, man.” I clap him on the shoulder. “It is.”
As Kiwi and Juliet step aside, Tripp moves in to load his pack up with supplies. When he’s done, he hands food and water back to me and I stuff in as much as my pack will fit. I trail the group back to the first car, wondering why we have to make this part of the trip on foot. As soon as we’re all in front of the car, I no longer have to wonder.
“Shit burger,” I mutter, taking in the stretch of land reaching out in front of us.
If you can call it land. It looks more like a watered down wasteland. Literally. Cars, buses, and hunks of buildings float in a sea of purplish water. It’s the same purple of the land, and it’s the most eerie thing I’ve ever seen.
“So, when you said on foot, you meant we swim for it?” Kiwi stares out in front of her with an expression as daunted as I feel.
“Yes.” Juliet gestures toward something hanging off her belt. It looks almost like a key ring and it’s attached to a thin, clear string. “If you’ll pull on this, and make sure you have all your belongings, we can head out. According to Scouters, this stretch of the trip will take about two hours.”
I close my eyes. “Shit. Burger.”
Something that sounds like air being pumped into tires snaps my eyes open. I glance at Tripp, who has a long finger hooked through a keychain-looking thing on his belt. His Kevlar vest has inflated into a floatation device.
I glance down at my own belt and do the same. The fabric tightens, then balloons out across my chest.
Juliet claps, bringing my focus back to her. “Is everyone ready?”
We all just stare at her, so she nods politely, and turns on her heels. As she saunters away, we slowly follow. For a few minutes we are on pavement, but soon enough, water laps around our ankles.
“This is bullshit,” I mutter.
Beside me, Tripp laughs. “Try not to think of it as swimming through a watery hell. Think of it more as a nice day at the beach.”
I glance sidelong at him. “You on that Orc shit?”
He chuckles again. “No, beauty. I’m just in a good mood.”
My mouth gapes open as the water rushes in around my knees. “How?”
He shrugs. “How could I not be? We’re out, saving the world.”
Now I laugh. The water is swiftly approaching chest level. Only Tripp’s ass could focus on only the positive given our situation.
“Alright, shoestring. I’ll try and look at it your way.”
I clear my head and try to picture a beach, with hot bitches in bikinis rubbing me down with sun block. I try not to think about how this thick, nasty water is now at my throat.
Hot bitches and beaches. Hot bitches and beaches. I say it over and over again in my head.
After a while, it becomes impossible to stay within the safe confines of my freaky daydream. After a while, shit gets real.
What feels like hours later, I throw an arm onto the hood of a submerged van and let out an exhausted grunt. I spit out a mouthful of soupy water and have to scrabble to maintain my grip on the slippery metal.
“I gotcha,” Tripp says behind me
in a hoarse voice.
A hand grabs my ass while another grips me on the upper thigh. Soon, I’m being boosted up out of the water. I gasp my relief and crawl off the hood and onto the top of the van. Once there, I throw a hand down to Tripp, who waves me off. In three quick movements, he is seated beside me.
At this point, I could give a shit about manhood. I flop down on the top of the van and suck in air like an eager stripper tucks dollar bills into a G-string.
“You guys okay?” Tripp yells out to someone.
“Yeah, let’s take it easy for ten minutes,” Kiwi yells back from somewhere in front of us.
“Nah, damn that.” I pant. “Just leave my ass.”
“Oh, you’re fine.”
“Fork me, I’m done.”
Tripp laughs, and then forces a hand under my neck and forces me into a sitting position. I have to press my weight down on the dented roof to keep my balance.
“See, I would think you’d be in your element out here.” He shoots a tired smile at me.
“Ha-ha.” I cough and pull my backpack off to get to my canteen. “That might be funny if being a siren had anything to do with literal water.” I force myself to take slow, measured sips, when what I really want to do is gulp the whole thing down.
Tripp takes a sip from his own canteen. “Well, it must have something to do with water. Everyone thinks you guys are born of the water gods.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Are you serious?”
He shrugs and points at his face. “For future reference, this is my serious face.”
I grin, then take another sip and put the water away. “I expect this from the humans, but from my own people…”
He laughs and pulls out a pack of dry crackers. He hands me one, and I shove it in my mouth.
“Sorry for my ignorance, but I still think sirens must have something to do with water.”
I turn my head, swallow my food, and wink at him. “Maybe. You gotta remember I’m a Muse, not a Spirit.”
The skin around his eyes crinkles. I’m guessing he’s abandoned his serious face for his thinking face. It’s goofy as hell.
Finally, his eyes widen and he snaps his bone-thin fingers. “You weren’t made by the gods. You were thought into existence by the gods.”
I give him a thumbs up. “Trademark of a Muse. That a boy.”
He points at me. “So, sirens are manifestations of what your parent gods thought of the qualities of water.”
“Another gold star.” I strap my backpack on and try to stretch out my burning limbs.
“Who was that, by the way? Poseidon?”
My eyes narrow. “Nah.”
Tripp doesn’t say anything, probably assuming that I’m going to answer him. He has no way of knowing that I don’t talk about that dick bag. When Tripp’s eyes stretch so wide they look like they’re going to pop right out of his head I offer a tight smile.
“You’ll meet him soon enough.”
“Ah.” Tripp replaces his canteen. “I love a boy with baggage.”
Laughter bursts out of me and, for a moment, I feel like I’m back in my crappy living room, having a beer and cutting up with a good friend. I lean into him, nothing homo.
“Thanks for that, man.”
“Thanks for what?”
I start to shake my head when Juliet screams, “Alright, we have to get going!”
With I sigh, I throw my head back. “Crap stain.”
Tripp laughs, already lowering himself back into the murky water. I shut my eyes and give myself an inner pep talk before going in after him.
A shiver races through me as I paddle behind Tripp through a maze of submerged cars, bodies, and random objects that used to be a landscape for life.
A child’s teddy bear.
A worn copy of some piece of literature.
A full sized mattress.
A box of Christmas ornaments.
Now all they represent is unnatural death. The leftovers of fear. Mankind’s new hell. I wade through all this shit and try and picture Sadie in this world.
I can’t see her.
I can’t picture her doing anything but becoming another empty shell of a world that chose fear.
They are destructive thoughts that my twisted gut is starting to accept as true. I push them to the back of my mind and swim on. Swim through the shit. That’s all that’s important now. Get to the other side.
Hell, there might even be something better there.
I just highly fucking doubt it.
It seems like hours, days, or months before we get to the end of this stretch of water. When it starts to shallow, I feel a new burst of energy buzz in my muscles. By the time it’s on my knees, I begin running as much as anyone can run in thick water, until finally I drop down on all fours and crawl out of the watery hole, then flop down onto my back.
I smile up at the strange, cloudy gray sky and take comfort in the pavement under my ass. Kiwi plops down on her butt near me, while Tripp squats down, breathing hard. Juliet and Lee are the only two still on their feet.
“That. . .” Kiwi pants. “Didn’t feel like two hours.”
Juliet nods and flips her hair. “All the debris we had to navigate around tacked on to the time.” She sucks in a breath. “Take a minute. I’m going to comm our contact.” With that, she walks several feet away and starts talking to her wrist.
Grunting, I roll up to sitting, then stagger to my feet.
“See, beauty, you made it.”
Kiwi snorts. “Beauty.”
Tripp points between him and myself. “It’s an inside thing.”
She rolls her eyes. “Adorable.”
Tripp retorts with something that I don’t hear. My attention is caught up in a figure stalking our way from the distance. I narrow my eyes and step away from the two of them to get a better look. The figure is a person, draped in a hooded, moss green cloak. Juliet turns toward the figure as it passes her, and she freezes.
That can’t be good.
I reach behind me and grasp my trident.
“What the hell is that?” Kiwi says under her breath.
Almost on cue, the figure lifts her head. A green cowl covers the figure’s face, but I can tell it’s a woman because a mess of long, violet hair tumbles out of her hood. She’s still several feet away from us, but close enough to make out the olive hue of her skin. Something about her face, half draped in shadow, almost stops the pulse in my throat.
Despite her cowl, I can make out the tears running from her eyes. They run all the way down her chin where the droplets dance a few moments, then drip to the ground.
Her tears are black as pitch.
“Oh, no. Ohmygod,” Kiwi says.
Three pairs of feet start to back away. I’m moving with them, almost against my will. As if that will stop this. After a few moments of tense silence, I release my trident. It won’t help. Neither will any of my immortal given gifts. There is nothing I can do. There is nothing any of us can do to stop the incarnation of death before us.
The woman—no, girl—stops ten feet away from us.
“For gods sake, no,” I say.
It doesn’t matter.
The girl sweeps her hands out, opens her mouth, and inhales a large breath. When she does, tension grips my body and doesn’t let go. My heart hardens in my chest.
No, please, don’t do it.
A gust of wind rushes the air. The girl’s hood flies off, and her violet hair blows up and away from her head. Black tears rush like rivers down her cheeks. They make tiny black ponds on the ground.
She freezes, then a mind numbing shriek rips through her lips and crashes into all of us.
18
The Banshee’s scream stops time. Even with my hands mashed over my ears, I can’t keep the death wail out. I try to move toward her, but invisible waves keep me rooted to the pavement. I shut my eyes and grit my teeth, helpless against this bitch that’s totally fucking us.
After what feels like decades, her
scream starts to die down. After a few moments, I can open my eyes. I squint at the black tears running down her face. My eyes water in response. Then, just as if she was never there, she is gone. The quiet she leaves sticks to my insides like something that will never wash away.
I stand to my feet and wipe a rainstorm of sweat from my face. We all look at each other in tense silence. We all know that one, or more, of us is dead.
We just have no idea who.
And right now it doesn’t matter.
The rumble of an inhuman growl stops anyone from saying anything.
I don’t so much see them as feel them.
The banshee’s scream brought them down on us.
I close my eyes as my heart sputters, then slowly open them again.
With a knot of dread in my stomach I turn in a slow circle.
We are surrounded by berks.
Get to higher ground.
It’s the only thought in my head as we all take off running. No one has to yell anything. We just all know that if we don’t move, and move fast, the banshee will have predicted all our deaths.
I set my eyes on a line of tall trees in the distance. The low rumble of a steady growl rumbles in the background. A chorus of teeth snapping at my back. Even in my complete exhaustion, those sounds make my movement possible.
It feels like my muscles will rip open with every stride. As the soles of my feet hit the pavement tiny knives slice into them, yet I keep moving. The warm breath of more than a hundred berserkers slide up and down my spine. Air hardly moves inside my lungs.
I crash into a small hill of rocks and fall forward. I scramble onto my hands and knees and pull myself up. After a few moments, my feet hit plush soil. I keep going, darting between bare trees. Something tight clamps down around my ankle. My face plants into the ground.
Without thought, I reach into my holster for my gun as the thing that used to be human picks me up around the ankle and slams me onto my back like I am nothing.
I glance up into those yellow, saucer-sized eyes and blow a hole right between them. Blood and chunks of brawny tendons splash down into my face.
“Arg.”
His body falls down on me, rooting me to the earth.