Escape to Sirens Gate: Sirens Gate Books 1-3

by M. L. Bullock

  “Cruise Castille, look at me,” I said in a fierce voice.

  His face and body went slack, like a deflated tire, and his eyes were fixed on me completely. The shifter girl was beside me now, no longer reaching for her gun but standing between me and the hybrid. “You can’t do this. He’s not ready.” Her perfect lips were set grimly, and she practically growled at me.

  “Out of the way, shifter. You don’t call the shots here.”

  “You don’t either, eloi.” I heard a gun cock behind me and sighed. I doubted I had the strength to fight off a shifter and a Neutral and mesmerize the stupid human. Time for Plan B.

  “The siren is gone. The vamps have her. I need his help.” I raised my hands to indicate my surrender. The officer grabbed her cuffs and shoved my hand behind my back without a word. It was Molly who intervened.

  “When did this happen?”

  “I’m not sure, but the vampire stench is still at her house and near her shop. I received a message from her. She needs my help. Our help. Which you would know if you had bothered to come to the council meeting last night.”

  “What meeting?” Officer Tragic snapped at me. Despite her pretty, preppy appearance, she had a short fuse and was easily angered. Like most shifters, she clearly struggled with her animal nature.

  “Yes, what meeting?” Molly echoed.

  Could it be possible that the two women didn’t know about the meeting?

  “We don’t have time for this right now! Take these damn cuffs off me, or it’s going to get ugly. Thessalonike is in the ground. She’s running out of time, and if we don’t find her…”

  “Nike Augustine?” Castille repeated his earlier question, his mind obviously stuck in a constant loop of our previous conversation.

  “How many times have you mesmerized this man?” Officer Tragic asked as she unlocked my cuffs. “Look at him. He’s practically drooling. You angels think you can do whatever you want. His brain is going to be fried after all this.”

  “We don’t have any choice. And we’re wasting time.”

  “You screw up his memory like this, he’s as good as toast. He’s a hybrid, after all, and didn’t have all his marbles to begin with.”

  “Hey…” The human slurred his speech now.

  Molly threw up her hands. “Fine, but it’s on your head. I’m not going against the Order, no matter what the two of you do. You and I both know you don’t have permission to do this, eloi. What’s so important about Cruise? Why do you think you have to do this?”

  I tried to keep my voice level. “Do you think it’s an accident that he’s in charge here? He’s an island guardian just like you. Even if he doesn’t know it yet. And he’s in love with the siren, which means he’s got a connection to her. I don’t understand it all, but he does. And he knows about the vampire under our feet. I’m sure that’s where they are keeping Thessalonike.”

  “Oh my goodness! Buried here at the police station? How did they do that?”

  “Enough talk now. We have to get moving. Be quiet so I can do this. It’s going to take everything I have, and I don’t know what the results will be. So shut up!”

  I moved closer to Cruise, the ridiculously large desk between us. “Cruise Castille,” I began. I had to use his name, or else I’d mesmerize both the women too. Well, I could have if I had been as strong as I used to be. I knew I wasn’t, but there was pride involved. “Listen to my voice, Cruise Castille. You now remember what happened at the liquor store. What happened at the Shark’s Tooth. What happened on the pier that night you saw Nike swimming with the mermaid…”

  “Good God! I knew you’d done this to him too many times.” Tragic shouted at me. Molly reached for her arm before I knocked the shifter over. Her righteous indignation wasn’t helping anything. Least of all Castille.

  “Say it after me, Cruise. I remember everything.”

  “I remember everything.”

  “I remember who I am.”

  “I remember who I am.” With that he collapsed into his chair, and Tragic jumped over the desk to stop his head from banging on the corner.

  “You killed him!” she screamed, her teeth bared like an animal’s.

  “No, but he will probably wish I had in a few minutes.”

  “If he’s dead, you are too.”

  I heard the front door of the police station slam, but before anyone could get there, Liliana was standing in the doorway of Cruise’s office.

  “Tell me you haven’t.”

  “He has.”

  “Why didn’t you wait, Ramara? You knew this wasn’t right!”

  Shaking my head in disgust, I walked around the desk and squatted down next to Castille. Tragic was on the other side of him giving me the stare-down. “Cruise Castille, you will open your eyes now. It’s time to wake up.”

  Then the shifter’s soft voice said, “Cruise, you in there?”

  Chapter Eleven—Cruise

  Total Recall

  “He’s going to run,” I heard a voice beside me warn. My blood surged as thousands of tiny sticks of dynamite went off in my brain. All the dark places, all the blurred images came into clear view now. The face of the harpy. That had been real. The feel of her breath, the scraping of her claws on my flesh. The night I saw a mermaid swimming alongside Nik, that had been real. I hadn’t dreamed it as I imagined. Ray, he did have wings that popped out of his back, blue wings.

  And Mom, she had been real too. All this time of forgetting her, not remembering the timbre of her voice or the feel of her hands as she soothed my head when I had a fever. That had been real. Seeing her running into the copse of trees behind our mainland house completely naked, that had been real too. Hearing the sounds of the wolves crying in the night, that had been real. I opened my eyes and jumped to my feet. All of my senses were firing like never before. The girl beside me, Officer Tragic, she was like me. Whatever I was. Molly, I could see her now, like she really was—I could see the faint outline of her human façade, but there was something else. Ray stood by me and spoke to me, but my senses of smell and sight overwhelmed me. Besides I wasn’t listening to him but to something deep underground. It scratched, banged and screamed for my attention. Then I heard a familiar voice below us.

  Nik!

  Ray was right—I did run. I crashed through the window behind me, the metal frame and glass not hurting me in the least. I was on the ground, ignoring the screams behind me. I ran around the building looking for a way down.

  My heart was heavier than it had ever been before, but I wasn’t anywhere near crying. I felt very much alive. Like I was the real me, whatever that was. I knew it was something not quite human. And that filled me with fear. Not only did I remember with complete detail, but I saw what shouldn’t be there, smelled what I shouldn’t smell and heard the smallest sound. A red ball of emotion, mostly anger, pulsed inside me now, and I screamed in agony at the amount of stimulation that came at me. I had to run away from this feeling!

  “Hey, Cruise, wait! You can’t just run around the island like this.” Officer Tragic trailed me and finally grabbed my arm. “Stop it! Listen to us. We’re all trying to help you.”

  “Cover your ears, guys. I’ve got this,” Liliana shouted. Before I knew how to respond, she began to sing a few notes of a song. It was a sweet song, an ooey-gooey song that made me want to lie in the sand on the beach with someone sexy. Since Nik wasn’t around, I reached for Kendra Tragic.

  I kissed her. I don’t know why. I didn’t love her, but I wanted to do it. She didn’t push me away but kissed me back. I laughed at the look on her face.

  “Oh my stars! Did you put a love spell on him, Liliana?” Molly complained.

  “No. It’s just something to calm him down for a few minutes so we can reason with him.”

  I smiled at her from a cloud of blissful stupidity. “Thank you,” I said, slurring my words like a drunk. That’s how I felt, too. Totally drunk.

  “Um, you’re welcome.”

  I walked toward Ray
; he was muscular, wasn’t he? I couldn’t hide the big grin on my face. Maybe she had put a spell on me. Ray raised his hand to stop me. “Look, fool, if you try to kiss me, I’ll punch your lights out. Wipe that lip gloss off your face, and let’s get to work. Thessalonike needs us, and we are wasting daylight. There has to be a way down to this crypt or whatever it is. If we don’t rescue her now, we don’t stand a chance. The creatures that have her become exponentially stronger at night. Can you think like a reasonable person?”

  “Sure. Okay. Yes.” The cotton candy cloud around me lifted a little, and urgency began to take over.

  The four of us stalked around the building looking for forgotten stairs, a door or something to give us access, but there wasn’t anything that we could see. “You two shifters can’t smell your way in?” Ramara said in an aggravated tone. That guy was always aggravated, and for good reason I supposed. He loved Thessalonike and wanted her for himself. But she was mine. I growled at him as I realized he was my competition.

  “Hey! We’re not dopey bloodhounds or opossums, Ramara. And you’re the one that can supposedly hear her. She can’t tell you how to get in here? Have you tried ‘calling’ her again?”

  He paused, clenched his fists and became very still. I knew he was trying to communicate with her, but apparently he heard nothing. He shrugged his shoulders.

  Suddenly, a voice shouted, “What are you doing out here, Chief? Where the hell did all this glass come from? Is there a problem?” None of us spoke but glanced back and forth at one another. “Hey! What the hell happened to the window?” The mayor, Sherman Bostwick, barreled toward us. He looked like he’d just left the courthouse because he was wearing one of his trademark three-piece suits and expensive cuff links.

  The man dressed up every day and ruled the island with an iron fist, you could say. He didn’t like it when unexplained things happened, like Targetti getting chewed up by animals and murdered. I heard a rumor that the morning headline of the local newspaper, the Pelican Brief, would be: FISHHOOK KILLER ON ISLAND. Bostwick was going to blow a fuse when he found out. I’d have to tell him about it. I knew I’d see him sooner or later today, but I had been hoping for later, well after I had my paperwork done and on his desk.

  “Animal did it,” Molly spoke up, tugging on her shawl. She pulled it closer around her shoulders, and I could see with my new eyes that the action made her appear more human.

  “What kind of animal?” he asked suspiciously. He walked toward the window and saw that the glass was blown outwards. An animal trying to get in wouldn’t have done that.

  “We’re not sure, sir. It happened so suddenly. Something ran through the office, and this fellow tried to help us get it, but then it burst right out the window.”

  “That’s weird. Well, did you see what it was you were chasing?”

  “I think it was a big dog, maybe part wolf. Probably some mangy creature a visitor decided to leave behind. You know how these rodeos are—they attract a weird element,” Molly answered for Ray.

  “Next time you encounter an animal in a public building, please let the authorities handle it, Mister…”

  “Ramara.”

  “Mr. Ramara,” Bostwick repeated as he leaned back on his heels and looked up at Ray. “We could have called animal control on the mainland. They would have taken care of it right away. Now we have to replace a police station window, and that is going to cost the taxpayers a chunk of change.” He looked at us like we were all naughty schoolchildren. “But I guess what’s done is done. Let’s get out of the heat, Chief. I need to talk to you about this Targetti business.”

  What was I supposed to do with Mayor Bostwick’s hand clamped on my shoulder except go with him? I let him lead me back in the building, and we sat in the front lobby away from the explosion of glass. He made a quick phone call to maintenance, which meant we’d have a crew on the grounds cleaning up glass and replacing the window. Why had I been so stupid? Now that was truly a rookie move. Kendra had nothing on me.

  “Now what’s going on with this Targetti matter? Any family who’ll cause a stink?”

  “We can’t find any. There was no information about his family on his business application, and nobody had claimed his body the last I heard. I guess you heard about the headline for the paper tomorrow?”

  “No, what does Brad have planned?”

  He blew a fuse when I told him, just as I’d suspected. “What is that moron trying to do? Ruin the rest of the season for us? At least we don’t have shark problems like Gulf Shores this year. Bad mess over there. Don’t worry about the paper, Chief.” He rose from his seat and dusted off his suit. “I’ll handle Brad Mueller. He can find another headline for his rag. By the way, what was this Mr. Ramara here for, anyway? He looks like a shady character.”

  Those sticks of dynamite were still popping off inside my head, but I kept it together. Or so I thought. I slapped an easy smile on my face. “He was here to report a missing person, but we found her. It was a miscommunication. That’s all.”

  He appeared relieved and walked out of the police station just as a green maintenance truck pulled up. A crew of three men got out; one of them was like me, I could tell right away. A shifter, that’s what Ray had called us, right? The man stared at me but didn’t speak. Harvey, the older gentleman who ran the truck for the island, grinned at me. “Fight with an alligator this morning, Castille?”

  “No, it was as stray. A big dog or wolf—no gator. I’m sure whatever it was is gone now. The mess is in my office. Thanks for coming so quickly.”

  “No problem, Chief. Got nothing to do but pick up trash. Boy, those tourists know how to trash up the place, don’t they? I hope you got a boatload of citations out of them. We could use the money for the maintenance department. We need new blowers and…”

  “I hate to cut you short, Harv, but I’m in the middle of an investigation. Let’s talk later.”

  He seemed peeved but nodded. “Yeah, the dead guy. Later, then.” He went about his business. The shifter, a black man with unusual green eyes, gave me the once-over before he began pushing glass into a dustpan with his broom.

  I walked back outside and found Molly, Kendra, Ramara and the singer standing under a shade tree glaring at me as if I’d committed some kind of heinous crime. It was my fault we’d had to stop our search for Nik. I’d acted a fool, and now she’d pay for it. “I am an idiot. I get that. Now what?” I looked at Ray, hoping to hear some words of wisdom, but it was the singer who spoke up. “I’m Liliana. Nice to meet you, Chief Castille.”

  “Liliana,” I repeated with a small smile.

  Molly walked toward me, still wrapped tightly in her black shawl. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Chief. I think they’d better fill you in while we wait for the crew to leave. In the meantime, I can make a few calls and get more help here.”

  “I can’t leave work. What if the mayor comes back?”

  “Go with them. I’ll cover for you. Take your cell phone, and I’ll call you when they’re done here. And for goodness’ sake, don’t break anything else.”

  “Let’s go to my boat. It’s anchored off a pier on Chaumont. We can talk there.” Ramara wasn’t too happy with me, and now I felt like an even bigger fool for blowing up like I did.

  Kendra gave me a sympathetic look and slid her arm in mine.

  “Let’s take my car,” I offered. It was the least I could do.

  She shook her head. “No, let’s walk. That way nobody can find you, at least for a little while. The island won’t blow up while you’re out.”

  “Are you sure?” I wasn’t convinced. Too much was happening, too quickly. I felt dizzy. And hot. And angry now. Mostly at myself but at my dad too. I’d have to work that out later. Nobody spoke during our walk. After five minutes, we made it to Ramara’s boat. We followed him below and waited for him to close the door and turn on the AC. He flipped on a radio and turned it down low.

  Liliana said, “Okay…are you ready to hear it all? Do we n
eed to tie you down first?”

  I shook my head. I sighed deeply, closed my eyes and sat quietly for a minute. When I opened my eyes, Liliana told me what I needed to know.

  Now it all made sense.

  Chapter Twelve—Lily

  Dream On

  “Kendra, please tell me you don’t know anything about what happened to Mr. Targetti,” Castille said. “I find it odd that you are, well, what you are—I mean, I am what I am, and the guy died with bite marks all over him and a fishhook in his eye. Did I have anything to do with this?”

  After all the information I dumped on him, this was the question Chief Castille had. I agreed with Kendra Tragic. Cruise wasn’t playing with a full deck, probably because of Ramara’s persistent brainwashing. Or mesmerizing, whatever you wanted to call it. He had no questions about the Order, who I was, what Ramara’s powers were, what his own powers were. He accepted that he was different, very different, and that she was like him. I didn’t guess he understood that he had the potential to transform at certain times of the year. That he had an animal side that would not be denied if placed under the right circumstances. But he wasn’t a mindless animal.

  “What? That’s a jerky thing to say, Cruise. Of course not! We’re not a pack of wild dogs running around chewing up people. Why would you say that?” Kendra appeared completely offended. Ramara and I would have found all this much more amusing if Thessalonike wasn’t being tormented at this very moment.

  “Wait, do you smell that?” Kendra sniffed the air. I don’t know how she could smell anything over the layers of perfume she wore. As if that would hide her natural “earthy” scent. My nose had identified her kind right away. I pushed my pink rims back up. I didn’t smell a thing, but the two shifters did.

  “That’s a dog,” he said, surprised at his own intuitiveness.

  “Yes, but is he friend or foe?” We all clambered back on deck, ready to face a beastly adversary if necessary, but there was no one there. No one except a cheerful, excited dog who barked as soon as he saw us.