Escape to Sirens Gate: Sirens Gate Books 1-3

by M. L. Bullock

  I went back for another cup when my phone rang. It was the house phone, which alarmed me. Only the office called me on my landline. Nik and the few other friends I had always called my cell phone.

  “Castille here.”

  It was Molly, and she sounded in a bit of a better mood than yesterday. “Sorry to bother you on your day off, Chief, but you need to get to the bike shop. Targetti is dead.”

  “What the hell? All right, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Tell Tragic I’ll meet her there.”

  “Okay, Chief.”

  With some discomfort, I dressed quickly and drove my own car to the bike shop. Officer Tragic had the squad car. When I arrived, the coroner and Tragic were standing on the front porch of Targetti’s bike shop.

  “Hey, Chief Castille.” Tragic walked toward me. Her blond hair was in a neat ponytail again. I don’t know why I liked looking at it so much. “Got the call about half an hour ago. Vacationer returning a bike to the rack. Saw the side door open and Targetti lying on the ground. What’s weird is no one touched the register or his wallet. And it gets weirder. There’s this.” She handed me a sealed evidence bag. I read her neat handwriting: Large catch fishhook. “That was lodged in his eye.”

  “Get the hell out of here. Seriously?”

  “Seriously. The guy who reported it…” She consulted her notepad. “Joshua Holliday was his name. He was pretty shook up about it.”

  “I bet he was, finding Targetti with a fishhook stuck in his eyeball. I should probably speak to him. See if his story changes at all.”

  “I took his statement.”

  “Police work 101, Officer Tragic. Question witnesses multiple times. Stories change.”

  She frowned, making the dimples in her cheeks more pronounced. “Yes, I remember, but he wasn’t a witness. He found Targetti afterwards. I don’t know how much his story would have changed no matter who spoke with him.”

  “Well, now we’ll never know, unless you have the correct contact information for him. Ask Mr. Holliday if he wouldn’t mind coming back so we could talk to him.”

  “Sure,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll get on it.”

  “Why don’t you use the phone back at headquarters? I think I can finish securing the crime scene, Officer.”

  “Great. Sure. Thanks.” She didn’t like it, but she’d made a major rookie mistake. She’d have to figure it out. The county officer waved at me, and I walked over.

  “I’m going to take off. This murder doesn’t fit with any of our open cases. You need anything?”

  I was relieved but kept my enthusiasm to myself. “Not a thing.”

  “Great. Call us if you need us. Congratulations on the promotion. Guess they wanted to stick with a local yokel. That’s good for you, huh? I hear Jeter applied for the job, but they didn’t even consider him. And he’s way up on the food chain. What’s up with that?”

  “Couldn’t tell you.” Yeah, I didn’t like this guy. I forgot what asses these locals could be. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a dead guy to deal with, and I’d like to get him squared away before every fly on the island finds him.”

  There did seem to be an unusual number of flies around this place today. I walked into the store, carefully shining my flashlight around until I found the light switch, and over to the side door where Targetti lay. “Good morning, Dr. Lamplighter. Sorry to see you again so soon.” Darwin was still sporting his awful mustache. It looked even worse than before, slightly longer with patches of hair missing in weird places. I tried not to smile thinking of Nik describing it as “moth-eaten.” Everything else about him appeared fairly old-fashioned, like he was stuck in the ’80s: Wrangler blue jeans, topsiders, a short-sleeved blue oxford and a red tie. He looked like he wasn’t getting much sleep either. I felt for him.

  “First time I’ve ever seen this. Somebody did a number on this guy, but that was the killing blow right there.” He pulled Targetti’s torn shirt up and pointed at the half-dozen bite marks on his body.

  “What bit him, doc?”

  “I can’t say for sure. Maybe a dog or a wolf.”

  “It sure wasn’t a dog or wolf that killed him with that fishhook, though.” I hated stating the obvious, but I had to know for sure.

  Lamplighter rubbed his forehead with a worn handkerchief and pulled at the collar of his shirt.

  “You okay? I wasn’t going to say anything, but you look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell. I’ll take Mr. Targetti to the lab and call you later. I’ll need to make some digital impressions of those bites and consult a colleague of mine, but I’m fairly sure that’s canine. It’ll probably be tomorrow before I know for sure. And there’s one more thing that’s damn weird. You see it?”

  I stared at the corpse. Targetti was ugly as sin, but that had been true when he was alive. Except for the fishhook in his eye and the bites on his swollen chest, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Not really.”

  “There’s no blood. There should be blood everywhere, but there’s not a drop.”

  I got up off my knees and stared down at the doctor and the dead guy. He was right. I couldn’t see even a few drops of blood. “How much blood should there be, doc?”

  “At least a pint, probably more. Unless they did a damn good job of cleaning this place up, I can’t see how they killed him with virtually no blood at all. And if they did clean up after themselves, why would they leave him hanging out the door?”

  “You say ‘they.’ More than one killer.”

  “I’d say yeah. Multiple bites, different bite patterns. Definitely different biters.”

  I sighed at him and plopped my hat back on my head. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The mayor is going to love this. How about you do me a favor and give him a call?”

  “They don’t pay me enough for that. I’d rather deal with the stiffs any day of the week. You can deal with the suits—Chief. Congrats, by the way.” He covered Targetti with a blue sheet with MOBILE COUNTY stamped all over it. “I’ve got a few ahead of this guy, but like I said, I should have something for you in the next forty-eight hours.” He nodded to his pimple-faced intern, who helped him move the large man to the gurney. Once they got Targetti moving, Lamplighter began swatting his face again with the hankie. He was almost as discolored as the dead man.

  “You really do look like crap. Maybe you should go see someone.”

  “Who has the time with all these stiffs showing up? I’ll email you.” With that he was gone, taking the body, the intern and the van with him. I took a walk around the empty bike shop one more time and couldn’t find a thing disturbed. There was one weird footprint, a large paw, that I took a photo of. But other than that, there wasn’t a thing. I locked the front door and closed the side door. I didn’t know who Targetti’s next of kin was, if he even had one, but we would have to find out. With the camera hanging around my neck, I walked the perimeter of the store. I found a few more of those paw prints, laid a pen beside them for scale and snapped a few more photos. Before I headed back to my car, I decided to check Nik’s store too. God forbid something should happen to her. That reminded me, I needed to call her. She’d blown me off for lunch, but I figured she’d been busy, what with the fishing rodeo and all. Now I’d have an excuse to go by and see her. I missed her.

  Everything looked okay. No broken windows or doors. Nothing that would suggest anything was wrong.

  Yet it did feel wrong. No, that wasn’t right. I sniffed the air. It wasn’t a feeling. It was a smell. Metallic, bloody and evil.

  Yes, it smelled wrong. Very wrong.

  Chapter Eight—Lily

  The Outcast

  I don’t know what made me do it, but at seven o’clock in the morning I was at Ramara’s boat with coffee and fresh Danish pastries from the island’s only bakery. I didn’t know if he even liked sweets, but I had to have something to tempt him with. I’d spent half the night thinking about him, fantasizing about taking him as a lover, regardless
of what it might cost either of us. The other half, I was thinking about the vampires that threatened our precious barrier islands. And of course, the practical matters won the argument.

  I was certainly an oddity. Maybe the only practical siren in the entire world. How boring! I shoved my pink eyeglasses up on my nose and walked down the dock with a smile on my face. I needed an ally. Ramara had to help me save this island from the deadly invasion that was coming, no matter what Targetti and the others believed. Yeah, that’s why I was here. It wasn’t the fact that I found him extremely attractive, so attractive that I’d like to make him my plaything for the next hundred years or so. If Nik didn’t want him, I’d take him. There were ways around the eloi restrictions. There had to be.

  You need to take a vacation or something. Just go get it out of your system already with someone who won’t have to pay such a high price. Focus!

  Despite what Agrios said, we were not safe. And we would not be safe if we didn’t work together. Vampires were unreasonable snobs who thought too highly of themselves. They’d flirted with coming out and even encouraged popular culture to fantasize about them, feeding them stories about seductive vampires from across the centuries. They weren’t anything like that. Too focused on power and blood to be seductive. And too many races had diminished already, some never to rise again, because of such pride. Sirens included. I had no idea how many sirens there were now, but there couldn’t be too many. Most sirens preferred having their own island, and I knew for a fact there were two free islands now that Antoinette was dead and Neera was missing and likely dead. Then there were the Macedonian and me in the general area. If he wasn’t protecting her, maybe he’d agree to protect me.

  “Ahoy, the boat! Can I come aboard?”

  His silky wheat-colored head appeared first. He was working on a boat called The Outcast—his boat, I presumed. He’d been hidden in a hatch, fixing some thingamabob. I had no mind for mechanical things.

  “Since you come bearing gifts, I suppose so,” he said, lifting himself out of the passage with his strong arms. It was a delight to see him shirtless. I couldn’t help but stare over the rim of my glasses; I pretended to stare at his tattoos, but quite frankly I couldn’t have cared less about them. “I’ve never been so popular in my life. I’ve had two visitors already today.”

  “The princess?”

  His smile vanished as he shook his head slowly. “No. Her friend the police officer came to see me. Mr. Targetti, the tritoni, died last night or sometime early this morning. Since Castille dislikes me, he naturally thought of me.”

  “Targetti is dead? Was it the vamps?”

  “Well, I couldn’t ask that question, could I?” Ramara removed the plastic lid from the foam cup and tossed it into a small bag. I did the same, hoping it would cool so I could drink it. The water was thankfully smooth like glass this morning, so we wouldn’t get sloshed.

  “Come have a seat.”

  “Thanks.” I sat down on the white leather cushion under the canopy, and he sat across from me. “I wonder if I should go see this police officer. Maybe mesmerize him into letting me see the body.”

  “It won’t do you any good, Liliana. No offense. This cop is half shifter. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “How is that possible? I mean, I would think he’d know the truth by now.”

  “So would I, but I gather he’s not that smart.”

  Hmm…the eloi is jealous.

  Ramara continued, “Since he’s a shifter, he’s too strong-minded for a siren to mesmerize. But I’ve already done it once. And quite easily.”

  I laughed at that. “This morning?”

  “No, but recently. He was involved with the trouble we had a few weeks ago, with Roxana. He was Nemesis’ prisoner before Nik rescued him. Nik asked me to mesmerize him so he’d forget about it. I tried to explain to her that it wouldn’t hold his memories back forever. She wants to protect him from the supernatural world—from us.”

  “I see.”

  The conversation had clearly turned his mood sour. I sipped on my coffee and glanced at my watch. I was tired…I’d stayed up late creating a private Facebook page for our kind. I’d made a few connections with the locals I knew about, but it wasn’t going as quickly as I’d hoped. “Do you know all the supes on this island?”

  “Yes.” A noise from the dock drew his attention. A group of men were heading this way. Must be looking for a charter. “I don’t have time for this this morning. The Order has cut me off financially, and I’ve got to make a living. If you don’t mind, Liliana, I’d like to get to it.”

  “I need your help, Ramara,” I said hopefully.

  He shook his head and looked down at me with slitted eyes. “No, you don’t. You can do everything you need to do by yourself. And the Order is paying you to do it. So if you don’t mind….”

  “I’m asking…please.” I stepped between him and the humans who were nearly at the boat.

  “You can say please all you want. The answer is no. I’ve been faithful to the Order, and they lied to me. About a lot of things. They said Nemesis was imprisoned. She wasn’t. They said I wouldn’t have these feelings anymore. That’s obviously not true. They said I would be able to serve proudly, yet I’m cast off here on this island. Forgive me if I take everything you say with a grain of salt.”

  “I would never lie to you, Ramara.”

  “Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. I’ve learned sirens are fickle creatures. Excuse me.” He moved around me and waved at the men.

  One of them said, “Is this boat for hire? We’d like to go day fishing, if you’re free.”

  “Just a second,” he called back.

  “I can’t believe you are refusing to protect Thessalonike when I know you love her.”

  “You don’t know anything,” he warned me with a voice like steel.

  “I guess I don’t.” Insulting him wasn’t going to do it. And I did need him if I was going to pull this island of stubborn creatures together. “But I know how you can have your heart’s desire without losing your soul.”

  He reached out a hand to help the first guy onboard, and he paused. “What are you talking about?” he whispered.

  “You know what I mean. You can have the Macedonian and keep your wings. There is a loophole in the rules. If you’re willing to listen and help me.”

  “I still don’t believe you,” he said, pulling the guy onboard. The humans stared at me, noting the intensity of our conversation. They wisely didn’t interrupt us.

  “Fine. I’ll find someone else to help me. While you’re slopping chum and listening to these humans burp and fart, you can think about how you threw away your only chance for happiness because you were too damn stubborn to listen to me. Have a nice day, Ray!” I called him by his human name as a final insult.

  “Hey! Where you going? We’ll pay extra if you stick around as first mate,” one fellow catcalled me. He was obviously two sheets to the wind already. I was so angry, I’d left my coffee on the boat. I didn’t need it anyway.

  I was wide-awake now—and pissed off.

  Chapter Nine—Nik

  Wicked Game

  I woke up spinning in a circle with my hands behind my back. I gasped at the speed of the movement and quickly realized that I was being held by someone very strong and my feet weren’t on the ground. Even weirder, Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game played somewhere nearby. We were in a dark room, and the thing that held me was breathing like a human. I knew it was a false breath, a trick this creature used to blend in.

  And the only creatures that didn’t breathe were vampires.

  I pulled away from the monster, uncaring that I might fall to the ground. It was only ten feet or so; I wouldn’t die from such a tumble. I opened my eyes slightly, assessing my situation better, but a pair of dark eyes stared back at me. A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

  The world was on fire, and no one could save me but you

  It’s strange what desire will make foolish
people do

  I’d never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you

  And I’d never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you

  The vampire sang in my ear, and despite my best efforts, it soothed me. It calmed me. I couldn’t have summoned my powers if I’d wanted to. I fell back against his arms as he spun more slowly now.

  “I know you’re awake, Thess-a-lo-nike of Mace-donia…Beautiful siren…”

  His voice was like a snake’s whisper. It made me shiver, and he laughed with delight at my response.

  “Ettore, stop playing with her. Put her back in her chair so that I may speak with her.” That was a female’s voice. She spoke in commanding but tolerant tones, like an overindulgent mother whose child just pulled the wings off a fly. He did not answer her but obeyed. The spinning slowed, the song ended and quicker than lightning I was in the chair again. More quickly than I could discern, ropes were tied around me and I was unable to move at all. The only thing not tied was my face.

  I squinted against the darkness; it was pitch dark in my prison. I could hear nothing, not even a mouse scratching, just my own quick breathing. Suddenly the strike of a match popped and a candle was lit. First one, then two, then a dozen red candles shone in the darkness.

  “There we are. I sometimes forget the limitations of your kind. Can you see me now?”

  I glared at the figure. She was a vampire, of the Nordic type. Probably from the clan that had claimed this island so many years ago before the Order relocated them. Except this one. Or two. That seemed a slight oversight.

  She stepped—no, floated—closer and quickly. “My name is Vega, and I am queen here.” She had a thick accent, and I could tell that like most vampires she liked the sound of her own voice. “You are going to die, siren-queen. How dare you come to my island and try to take my place! I have killed your kind before and will not hesitate to do it again.”