Siren's Song

by Trish Albright

  “Get them up to the room,” Liz instructed.

  Emma was conscious and listening to every sound. She tried desperately not to panic while inside a crate that made her feel like she was about to be buried alive. A latch opened and cold, damp air greeted her. She was pulled roughly to her feet in what appeared to be a dark warehouse, and by the sound of it, near the water. Carefully finding her balance, she watched as another crate was opened and gasped at the sight of Alex. Her friend was unconscious and, by the look of things, injured. Emma ran to Alexandra, fear knotting her stomach as she reached to examine the blood on her friend’s pale face.

  A rough arm yanked her back, and she stumbled to cold earth. She shook her attacker away with outrage and got to her feet, intending to reach Alex again. There was a woman present who seemed to be in charge. She was richly dressed, but what struck Emma most was the icy hardness on her face. She apparently didn’t like to get her hands dirty either. There were seven henchmen surrounding them, willing to do it for her.

  “Who are you?” Emma asked with open disgust.

  “A friend of the family,” the woman answered, indicating Alex. “Now take off your shoes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” she demanded, slapping Emma hard to emphasize.

  Emma jumped for her, surprising the woman, but not the men. One of them grabbed her. Another had taken Alex, now barefoot, and swung her over his shoulder. He was carrying her up some stairs.

  The woman came closer to where Emma was held back and slapped her again, causing blood to spurt from her lip. “So feisty. I hear Arab men like that in their slaves.” She smiled with satisfaction at the glimmer of fear in the girl’s eyes.

  “Let us go now … while you can still live,” Emma warned, fighting back fear.

  “I’m going to make a small fortune on you.” She turned to one of the men. “Get her shoes and tie her up with the others.”

  Emma fought as they dragged her up the stairs. She was thrown into a room and was shocked to see several other bedraggled and weary girls, eyes dark with fear, some only half conscious. Her immediate thoughts were for Alex, who lay curled on her side in the center of the room. The door was locked behind her as Emma hurried to Alex and knelt in front of her.

  “Alex? Alex?” Emma listened for a heartbeat. There were no apparent wounds. The blood must not be hers. Alex’s eyes fluttered.

  “My head,” she mumbled. Emma felt around her friend’s scalp and found a knot the size of an egg.

  “Dear God,” Emma worried. She looked around at the other girls. One slowly came over beside her and Alex.

  “My name is Cherise White. Can I help you?”

  Emma gasped at the name. This was the girl everyone believed had killed herself by drowning in the river. Emma told Cherise the story.

  “So no one has been looking for me,” Cherise said. “Will anyone be looking for you?”

  “Yes,” Emma said. “Don’t worry. The Earl of Stonewood is my guardian, and the Duke of Worthington is my friend’s fiancé, sort of … Anyway, they will tear the city apart until we are found. I promise.”

  A tear slipped down the girl’s face. “There isn’t much time. They are going to move us before sunrise. To a ship.” Worry and hope mixed on her face.

  “We will get out of here somehow. I promise you. Be strong.” Emma held a sleeve to her mouth and wiped the blood. It wasn’t too bad. She focused on Alex, giving her a couple light slaps on the cheek. “Please Alex, wake up,” Emma begged, fighting back her own tears. She swallowed another lump of fear and slapped Alex’s cheek more urgently.

  “How can I sleep with you hitting me,” Alex mumbled, wishing Emma away. Thoughts started to jumble through her head as she tried to make sense of what was going on. “What happened?”

  “We’ve been kidnapped.”

  Something registered, and Alex’s eyes opened, as if struggling to comprehend.

  “I’m so sorry Alex. I’m afraid I’ve gotten us in an awful mess. I should have never told the gardener to open the gate and give the man directions.”

  “Well,” Alex whispered, trying to focus on her friend through confused and blurry vision, “I’m glad it’s your fault for a change.”

  Her pained smile turned to a grimace as she tried to sit up. They were losing daylight.

  “You have blood on you.” A new voice whispered to her. Alex turned to the girl.

  “I killed a man. But then another one got me from behind and hit me.” Alex slowly remembered. “I saw you unconscious.” She looked at Emma. “The ether?”

  Emma nodded.

  “Joshua and Stephen were there. As soon as they see the mess on the patio they will hunt down our kidnappers.”

  “Who are they? Why would they want us?” Emma queried.

  “She goes by the name Lady Beauveau,” Cherise said.

  “She called herself a friend of the family, Alex,” Emma said. “I think she meant your family. And she’s not very friendly either.”

  “That must be the understatement of the year.” This time the jest worked. Emma smiled. Cherise looked awed that they could make light at a time like this.

  “This is Cherise White.”

  “Oh, no.” Alex saw the fear and understanding on Emma’s face when she made the introduction.

  “Yes,” Emma agreed. “There are others.”

  Alex struggled to pull herself together. A headache and stomachache made her want to curl back up, but she knew time was all they had, and there was not much of it.

  “According to Cherise, there’s a ship due in, and all of us are going to be transported before dawn.”

  Damn, even less time than she hoped. Alex’s gaze pierced Emma, knowing what their fate would be. She couldn’t let it get that far. They may not be found by morning. Daylight was nearly gone. She looked around. There were no windows. How did she know that? She tilted her head and saw the vent in the ceiling. A small skylight. Ugh. Looking up made her dizzy. She tucked her head between her knees and breathed carefully while she thought.

  “One of us has to get out,” she stated. “Cherise, will they be checking on us regularly?”

  Cherise shook her head. “I think there is one guard, but sometimes he doesn’t come in here. Tonight may be different though, since they want to move us.”

  “Emma, can you help me stand?” Emma and Cherise both helped Alex as she fought the nausea that swept her when she moved. Slowly she tilted her head again to assess the height from a standing position. The vent was not taller than nine feet above the floor. A slow smile cracked her cheeks. Definitely in reach.

  It was ten P.M. Six hours since the women had disappeared.

  The Stafford brothers were murderous. They nearly killed the constable while in the Earl of Stonewood’s parlor. They had already tried to strangle Joshua and Marcus. The women were kidnapped from under their noses! Samuel knew that Joshua loved Alex as much as they did. It was all that prevented his death. The man looked like he had already died several times that evening, but he’d stayed deadly calm and focused.

  “Clearly they were after Lady Preston.” Constable Pierce tried to put some order in the room. “Miss Stafford must have interrupted.” He handled the knife as if wondering what kind of woman knew how to use one as effectively as she had.

  “Self-defense.” The Duke of Worthington interrupted his thoughts, daring the man to hint otherwise.

  Frustrated, Matthew hissed at Pierce. “We questioned the neighborhood. All anyone saw were crates being loaded into a carriage. They must have been in them. The dead man, what’s the line on him? This can’t be his first trouble with the law.”

  “His name was Crowley. He is known to do odd jobs, lawful and unlawful. He is also known to frequent the harbor district.”

  “We have all of our crews working the waterfront,” Samuel informed the inspector. “They will check in again at midnight and every two hours after.”

  Pierce lifted a suspicious brow to the duke. “Accord
ing to one of the servants, Miss Stafford was not so keen on getting married.”

  Joshua grabbed the man ready to throw him against the wall. Joshua thought of Alex. Before his blunder she had been ecstatic. They both were. Samuel pulled him off just as there was a commotion at the door. Birdie was trying to get past and about to clock the butler a good one when Marcus intervened.

  “Quick, lads! Lady Emma. She’s at the ship and says ya must hurry. Ain’t much time.” Birdie was out of breath.

  Joshua pushed the others away and grabbed the man by the shoulders. “Alex? Where is she? Is she okay? Is she with Emma?”

  “Nay. Injured, but okay, accordin’ to m’lady. There be several women from what I reckon. All held captive by some filthy, scum-sucking, lowlife, dirt-crawling bastards.” Birdie relished each slur. “Thay’s going to transport the girlies a’for morning.”

  Joshua shot out the door, a black look on his face that would have frightened the devil himself.

  “By God!” The inspector gasped, sickened at the thought, and excited to make the capture. “White slavery.”

  “I think, maybe.” Birdie wiped one of his few hairs across his head. He didn’t want to alarm the Staffords. “Emma feared she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to the warehouse. She awaits us on the Sea Fire.”

  “Is she okay?” Marcus was asking. There were a hundred questions being asked by all the men. “Aye, sir. Roughed up and scratched something awful, but okay.”

  Joshua was already on his horse with the Staffords and a grateful Marcus at his heels. The inspector and his crew jumped in their carriages not far behind.

  “Bloody country,” Samuel swore. “Damn, bloody country.” For once, all the Staffords were in agreement.

  Alex would have been climbing out the roof herself if she didn’t feel so ill. The plan had gone well. Now it was up to Emma. She hoped her friend had found a way off the two-story building and wasn’t lying in a heap somewhere.

  Half an hour after Emma’s escape, a man walked into the room, followed by several others. He lifted a lantern, illuminating his face. Coldness gripped her soul and foreboding chills ran down her spine. Paxton. Time had just run out.

  He walked over to where the women crowded behind Alex.

  His eyes stayed on her and he laughed with supreme delight. “Well, well. Liz was indeed successful. We meet again Miss Stafford.” He smirked with delight. “Or should I say, Kelile?”

  Alex didn’t speak, but her jaw tightened. She wished she had a knife and that she wasn’t so weak from the miserable bump on the head.

  “Where is your duke now, I wonder. He didn’t tire of you already?”

  Alex swallowed, the dig hitting its mark.

  “Perhaps he prefers a more delicate sort. A woman without calloused hands and sunburned skin, who is not quite so socially inept?”

  She hissed in fury, fighting to keep her face neutral. He had read her journal. Of course. Alex had known he would. She visualized murdering him slowly to keep from attempting it now. They were vastly overpowered.

  Paxton handed his lamp to one of his men. He reached down and pulled Alex up by the hair. She struggled when he grabbed the collar of her blouse, knowing what he was after. Her struggles were futile. He tore the shirt from her throat with one easy tug, revealing the necklace. Her astrolabe. Now the journal, a copy of the map, and the astrolabe were his.

  He managed to get the chain from around her head, while one of the men held her. Alex watched as he pulled his own necklace from under his shirt, revealing a disk. A disk that was suspiciously similar in size and style.

  Alex gasped in wonder.

  “Yes, my dear. I told you we were connected.”

  Alex watched in astonishment as he turned the center screw that held her disk in place below the ornamental design with the mark of Lilith etched at the top. His disk fit behind hers perfectly, and a slow one-sided smile curled his cheek into a twisted look of satisfaction. He began to laugh low and deep, his chest shaking with triumph, hungry ambition seeming to grow stronger in front of her very eyes.

  “I suppose you are wondering where I got this?” he said to Alex.

  She didn’t respond.

  “I told you, you didn’t know why your mother died. You still don’t, do you?” He held up his disk for her inspection, now attached to her disk. “She died protecting this.”

  Alex’s blood burned hot, clearing any befuddlement that remained from her injury. “You killed her?”

  “No.” Paxton shook his head at her sympathetically putting the chain with the astrolabe around his neck. “No, no, my dear. She was much too beautiful to kill.” He walked over to her and caressed her cheek as if to comfort. His false gentleness turned cruel a second later when he scraped a sharp fingernail down her cheek. It wasn’t enough to leave a mark, but enough to warn her he wanted to do harm. “I took this from the man who killed your mother. Right before I killed him.” He taunted her further, “So it seems, Miss Stafford, that you owe me.

  “Of course, had either of us known the little whelp running into the water had another piece …” He looked at her, letting her know he had been there when her mother died. “Then we would have made more of an effort to fish you out. As it was, having you drown seemed best. No witnesses. Strange that you didn’t drown though.”

  “Yes,” Alex agreed, outwardly calm. “Strange.” Inside she struggled with this information, her head pounding to remember something from the past, something to tell her whether or not what he said was true, but nothing came. Only images of her mother braiding her hair. Then water.

  Paxton turned to the guards. “Tell Liz I’ll take this one now as the advance on my payment. I’ll pick up the rest at the meeting place in a few hours.”

  Alex wasn’t going anywhere. She gripped her hands together and swung upward at his chin with all the strength she had in her. It wasn’t nearly strong enough, and not a wise thing to do. He blocked her strike and made one of his own, the back of his hand hitting the side of her head, knocking her off her feet. She rolled to her knees and defended herself against the next kick in the ribs. She vaguely heard the whimpers and tears of the girls behind her.

  The blackguard stood over her seething and unrepentant, sneering maliciously at her and the others. “How rude of me, my sweet. I forgot to introduce myself to your friends. Ladies,” he intoned, “the name is Paxton. Reginald Paxton. I’m your new master.”

  It was the last straw. Alex vomited on his feet. Things just got worse. Much worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Emma thought she had lost the way. All the warehouses looked the same. She had wedged a piece of her skirt in the side of a building when she turned the first corner. She should be able to see it now. Worried tears brimmed in her eyes.

  “Don’t panic, Emma.” Marcus held her comfortingly, and encouraged, “You’ve gotten us this far.”

  Marcus slipped from his horse to see if there was a piece of cloth visible from a different view. He helped her down as she started off the horse. Between the Staffords, the constable’s men, and the Stafford crew they had picked up on the way, easily fifteen men waited on her in silence. She prayed she wasn’t lost.

  Emma looked. There was no cloth where she left it. She stepped toward the shadow of the building. “Here!” She gasped with relief and triumph. The strip had fallen on the ground. She picked it up. “The warehouse is the fourth one down on the left.”

  Marcus hugged her and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Good work, my love.”

  The men dismounted and drew their weapons. Joshua led the way. “Stephen, take Emma, and stay here with some men.”

  Samuel assessed the constable. “Pierce, unless you’re prepared to accept the bloodshed, stay here with your men.”

  Pierce looked into the elder Stafford’s face. He had no doubt that these Americans were ready to kill the kidnappers with their bare hands and enjoy it. They were also bigger than any of his men, who truth be known, did not look
easy about being around the waterfront this time of night. “I’ll be going in. No need to risk my other men.” Pierce had his men follow but keep a distance.

  Joshua held up a hand. Two men had just entered the building. Two others guarded a carriage loaded with three large crates. The driver got down for a smoke and it was the last thing he ever did. Matthew reclaimed his knife. Samuel spared a second man by only choking him until he passed out. Pierce took the surviving man away for questioning.

  Matthew and Marcus were across the doorway from Joshua. They could hear hammering going on inside, and cries that were definitely feminine. Joshua counted the men. Four hammering crates closed and two trying to get a girl into one. She was kicking and screaming all the way. Her screams became louder the closer to the crate she got. Though she struggled, she was clearly no more than an irritation to the men who ruthlessly dragged her toward the wooden box.

  Matthew swallowed his fury and calmly began to slide knives from his belt into his hand. When he saw the bastard strike the small girl trying so valiantly to fight, he decided that man would be the first. He followed Joshua silently, deeper into the warehouse.

  The duke noted the knives in the American’s hand. The nearest assailant was about thirty feet away. “Are you as good as Alex?”

  “I taught her,” Matthew said coldly.

  Joshua nodded. “Help the girl. I’m going right. Give me ten seconds.”

  Marcus followed Joshua. Matthew started to count. The girl kicked to free herself and the man slapped her hard enough to send her several feet. Matthew checked his emotion.

  “Ay, can someone help me with this bloody bitch?”

  Matthew couldn’t have been happier. He stood up and a knife sliced through the man’s heart with deadly accuracy. “Happy to oblige,” Matthew voiced calmly, directing all their attention his way. Another knife landed in the back of the neck of one man who turned to run. Samuel blackened a man with a bullet as the villain raised a gun toward Matthew, then shot another with a second gun, sending him down the stairs.