The Fall (The Siren Series)

by Higginson, Rachel

  With a heavy sigh, she said, “Echo is hosting a dinner tonight. We’re expected to be on time.”

  “Is Nix picking us up?” I asked with that soul-sinking feeling that came whenever I had an “event” to attend.

  She shook her head, her vibrant red hair bouncing around her slender shoulders. “No, he’s escorting the Fates.”

  “They haven’t left? I thought they were leaving?” I sounded panicked which I thought would annoy my mother, but she glanced over with a look of sympathy.

  “They have not left,” she confirmed. “Please be on your best behavior tonight, Ivy. I just… they can be… fickle with their goodwill.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Don’t be smart,” she snapped. “Echo is demanding a formal dinner and everyone in attendance will be expecting a… spectacle from you. Do not disappoint Nix.”

  In a flash of irrational behavior, I let my emotions get the better of me. “Why are you doing this? Why is this okay with you? I’m your daughter! You’re supposed to protect me!”

  The one time before I’d raised my voice at her and let her know exactly how I was feeling, she had slapped me. I expected her to lash out at me like that now. I braced myself for the impact that was sure to come, closed my eyes in anticipation.

  But her hand never connected with my face. Her anger never rose to physical violence.

  I opened my eyes and found her staring at me sorrowfully. “I am protecting you,” she told me. “This,” she gestured around the apartment. “This,” she waved a hand down her body. “This,” she ripped the scarf from her throat and pointed to the faint bruises around her throat. “Everything I do is to protect you, Ivy. Every single thing.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I argued. “You protect yourself. You don’t care what happens to me.”

  She barked out a humorless laugh and dropped her head back so she could stare at the ceiling. A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye and rolled down her pale cheek. “If I didn’t care what happened to you, do you think I’d stick around and put up with this shit? Do you think I’d let a demon put his hands around my throat and strangle me? Ivy, think for one goddamn second about why we stay here.”

  “For Honor,” I answered immediately. “You want Honor. That’s why we’re here.”

  She dropped her head and leveled me with a fierce stare. “You don’t get it at all. You don’t see anything.”

  “What are you-”

  She put her hand up cutting me off. “Go get ready. Look your absolute best. If I have to put up with those three evil whores again, I don’t want to hear it from them.” She gave me her back and stormed into her bedroom while I was left scrambling to pick up her last pieces of conversation that had fallen out of her mouth so carelessly.

  She meant the Fates. Those were the three evil whores? But what did she mean by deal with them again? As in the last time we saw them? Or had she met them before? And what the hell did she mean that she was protecting me?

  That couldn’t be right. I mean, she couldn’t really believe that could she?

  I decided to think about all of that later. I would pay attention tonight at the dinner and see what else I could learn.

  Mostly, I wanted to shut down and not give this world another thought. Freedom could be three weeks away. I could survive anything for twenty-one short days.

  I could keep breathing for this small remaining time.

  But some niggling instinct inside me told me I should pay attention. Maybe it was the damaged part of me that was too skeptical to believe I could get out of here. I had been oppressed for too long for freedom to ever seem like a reality. Even when it was within my reach.

  I went about the tedious task of glamming up from summer casual to under-aged-sexpot. I chose a mint cocktail dress with black lace detailing on the top half and three-quarter length sleeves. The back scooped low and so did the front but it still kept me semi-modest. The chiffon silk skirt hit mid-thigh and pleated with a fancy knot-like pattern over one leg. I finished the outfit with some campy black peep-toes and a necklace that had a black onyx heart hanging at the end of its thin gold chain. I had picked it up in Arizona when I was there for treatment last summer and thought of it as my own little inside joke. This was the first time I had been brave enough to wear it though.

  I took extra care to cover the tattoo on my wrist and then wrapped a chunky, gold bracelet around it, just in case. My hair stayed loose and wavy, my makeup was a little dramatic but not over the top.

  I stepped back and saw the beautiful display I was supposed to be.

  I saw a fake, superficial, plastic mannequin that had no soul and a heart made of stone.

  She didn’t have hope, or moxie or anything else that could get her through the night or the next day or any day after that.

  But that girl also had a secret. Something so deeply buried she would die before she confessed. Something that would keep her breathing, keep her sane.

  She was leaving.

  Leaving all of this behind.

  She was running away to a place where this world would never touch her again.

  My mom knocked on my door, asking if I was ready to go. I grabbed my phone and a gold, beaded clutch and showed her that I was. She nodded with approval and we made our way to the party.

  She didn’t speak to me the entire journey to Exie’s house. She didn’t even look at me.

  Exie lived in an affluent neighborhood in a suburb of Omaha. Her house was this custom monstrosity of gilded moldings, ivory everything and electronic hell. I swore everything had a button to push or a touch screen to swipe. Echo, Exie’s mother, was all about material status and her house was a showpiece of the best money could buy.

  Our driver pulled to the front of the house and a valet hopped down the sandstone steps to open our door. I followed my mother in and smiled at Echo and Nix who were waiting to greet everyone. The house buzzed with men and women I had come to recognize over the last week. I shuddered at the close proximity of so much evil and immediately looked for my friends.

  Nix caught me by the sleeve; his large fingers pinching the tight fabric under my arm so that I had no choice but to still. I looked over my shoulder at him and wrestled an apologetic smile onto my face.

  “Just because you are seventeen, doesn’t mean you should act like it,” he scolded.

  “I was hoping to find Exie and Sloane.”

  “Later,” he growled. Before I could stop him, he had my arm wrapped around his elbow and my plans had changed. He ignored my mother and led me into the house.

  The sunken living room was crowded with people, but in their center, the three Fates stood sipping champagne and idly chatting with everyone around them. Even Veda, the child-looking one, had a glass in her small hands.

  Something about the way her bored eyes traveled the length of the room and her fingers held the long-stemmed glass so casually confirmed my suspicions that she wasn’t actually a child, even while she looked like one. Enid stood at her back, whispering to Crete, aka Hades, in condescending tones with a snide wrinkle in her pretty nose. Her pale pink eyes flashed around the room passing judgment on everything and everyone. Only Isadora seemed truly interested in the conversation she involved herself in. She stood next to a shockingly beautiful woman and regarded her with obvious respect.

  The strange woman towered over everyone in the room. She had to be at least seven feet tall and her bone structure was thick enough to support that height. But she still appeared slender and elegant. Her hair tumbled to her lower back in wild black and orange curls that tangled together in twists and braided knots. She looked like a giant Greek princess. Her white, silken dress draped from her neck to her feet in small folds of lavish sophistication. The top half of the dress was embellished with gold plates that created an intricate design meshing the silk and gold together. She wore a gold-threaded rope belt around her thin waist, the ends dangled long at her side. Her bare arms were also adorned with golden bands th
at spiraled around her olive-toned biceps. She looked like she just stepped from a page of history. While the rest of these Greeks hid their heritage in modern day humanism, she flaunted her heritage with arrogance and brazenness that was as staggering as it was challenging.

  While I gaped at her, Nix led me directly to her. She ended her conversation with Isadora abruptly and watched me intently as I approached.

  “This is your Siren?” the woman asked in a husky, demanding voice.

  Nix rocked back on his heels, “This is my Siren.” He turned to me. “Ivy, this is Eryn.”

  Her face had been half-turned when I observed her earlier. Now that I faced her straight on, I stumbled into Nix, half-fascinated, half-disgusted. The seemingly handsome woman had a wide, jagged scar marring her once elegant features on one half of her face. I had to assume it was a knife wound… or sword, maybe ax? I didn’t really know, but the mark disappeared into her hairline, slashed down her face, over her milky white eye and ended somewhere in the middle of her throat. Her skin stretched and puckered over the area, pulling in places it shouldn’t and bunching in others. Her smile drooped on that side, twisted downward in a permanent frown. Her cheek was also flattened on that side, compacting her whole bone structure and making her eye droop.

  Her face was hideous and beautiful at the same time. I couldn’t look away, even while I wanted nothing more than to stare at anything but the disgusting scar.

  “It was a trident.”

  “Huh?” I looked up at her, trying to make sense of the words she’d used as a greeting.

  “The scar. You’re wondering what could have caused it. I’m telling you. It was a trident.” Her throaty voice grated over the words with unconcealed malice. I felt power radiate off her, swirling at the flouncy hem of her dress and raising the hairs on my arms.

  Nix stilled next to me; he became immovable stone paralyzed with anger.

  “A trident?” I whispered.

  “Mmm,” she confirmed. “But it was years ago. One hardly remembers those ancient disagreements.”

  Nix cleared his throat. “Some of us remember.”

  “I’m the one that left with a trident in my face,” Eryn growled. “What do you have to hold a grudge over?”

  “I liked that trident,” Nix told her with all seriousness.

  I miraculously kept in my laugh of disbelief until Eryn declared, “And I liked my face.”

  Could anyone really blame me for the giggle that tumbled out of me after that?

  Actually, apparently they could all blame me.

  “The Siren finds us amusing,” Isadora drawled. “And tell me, Child, what is so funny when a Fury fights a god of the sea? When the lives of men are trampled beneath his feet and the seas upturned with his ire? What is so amusing when he washes away whole villages with his rage? Or when she allows her wrath to raze entire kingdoms or when their quarreling upheaves the entire Pantheon? What is so hilarious about that?”

  I met her condescending glare and tilted my chin in defiance. “There’s nothing funny about that. That’s disgusting behavior.”

  Isadora hissed. “What courage you must have.”

  “Foolishness,” Nix echoed.

  But Eryn smiled at me for the first time. “She’s right. We were despicable back then.” Her cold black eyes floated over Nix. “Some of us still are.”

  He sighed impatiently. “What is your purpose for joining us tonight, Fury? Why deign to grace us with your presence if you think so very little of me.”

  “I have a message,” she answered confidently. She wasn’t intimidated by Nix in anyway. It didn’t matter that he was a god and she was a god’s weapon. It didn’t matter that he had clearly beat her once upon a time, even if she took his trident with her. She wouldn’t allow herself to be bothered with insecure feelings of fear. “From Olympus.”

  Nix’s handsome face broke into a devilish smile and he clapped his hands together to draw the attention of the room. “My dear friends, tonight I have a very special treat for you.” He stepped back from me and turned in a wide circle with arms extended. “Olympus has sent a guest to regale us with her wisdom. I ask that everyone listens closely, for I am sure that whatever is said will be worth noting.”

  Eryn stepped forward and her one working eye twinkled sinisterly at the room. Her smile split down the middle, drooping downward on one side and curling upward on the other. “Enemies of Olympus,” she bellowed at those gathered. I felt her power again, felt it spin around the room and slide furniture and bodies away from her. I tripped backward and knocked into Isadora. She didn’t even acknowledge me as I righted myself and planted my feet. “We know what you plan. We see your schemes and your insolent conspiracies. We see that you design to take the sacred mountain and restore your insidious and self-gratifying kingdoms. We wait for you with open arms. We stand at the gates and welcome you with restless spirits. But be wary. Come home and meet us with your weapons raised and your armies behind you. For you have a girl, but we have the power of a mountain with us. You have one symbol of the old empire, but we hold strong as the new.” A ripple of something supernatural undulated through the room but I couldn’t tell what it was or where it came from.

  Isadora gripped my forearm and dug her manicured nails into my skin. I winced and bowed into her but she held firmly. “She’s going to speak to you, Siren. Pay attention.”

  “We watch you,” she said right to me, staring me down with her black eyes. They flashed orange while I watched them, as bright as her hair, as dangerous as fire. “We see what you are. We see what you can become. You are not alone. You have allies that you do not see. But we see you.”

  Could that have been any creepier? I shivered unable to stop myself from being affected by her words.

  “Delphi,” Isadora spat under her breath. She dropped my arm suddenly and then she stepped forward and bellowed, “Show her to me! Bring her out and let me face her!”

  Eryn stepped forward and a gust of wind blew up from behind her. My hair whipped around my face as the current of air surrounded me. “She will not face you unfaithful Fate! She will not dare step foot in your house. You are a traitor! You are a vile creature that sells the futures of the innocent for money you do not need and possessions you do not want! She will not taint her moral spirit with the poison you seep for she seers you for what you truly are!”

  Seers? That was an odd way to phrase that…

  Isadora broke into a hysterical laugh and met Eryn halfway between. Enid and Veda stepped forward and surrounded the Fury. They never touched each other but a black haze connected them together and finished off the circle of evil. I held my breath, wishing I could disappear from the room and walk back out into the light of a normal world.

  When the three fates spoke, they spoke together in unison and brought on terrifying chills that clawed up my spine.

  “You see us,” they taunted in high-pitched voices. Their eyes flashed bright white, only adding to their extreme fear-factor. Blue lightning crackled in the haze of the black cloud that surrounded them. “But we also see you. We see that you fell to Poseidon before and that you will fall to him again. We see that your sister does not share your loyalty and that she will betray you to the god of the sea. We see that your kingdom will fall and that your king and queen will writhe beneath the tips of our swords. We will take the mountain and we will ascend to the old power. We will meet our old enemy again and she will know our vengeance has aged with time, has fermented into the sweetest judgment. Stand at your gates and wait for us because we march with an army as wide as Greece and as dangerous as all the gods and goddesses that make the Pantheon!”

  “Bring your army,” Eryn snarled. “For I wait with sharpened blade and bated breath.” And then she disappeared.

  Right before my eyes she poofed into nothing.

  I gasped a shocked sound and it was the only noise in the entire room. Of course, everyone else would expect something like that to happen, but I had been raised in almost an
entirely normal world- except for the whole sex trafficking bit. This supernatural crap was new to me.

  “Hermes!” Nix shouted at the top of his lungs. “Come here you deranged bastard and fight me!”

  “They’re gone,” Veda announced. “Back to the mountain. They saw what they wanted to see.”

  “I didn’t expect that from a Fury,” Crete announced in a much calmer tone than Nix had used. “They have never sided with Zeus before.”

  “Who is her sister? Who is the traitor?” Ky asked.

  I tried to remember something about the Furies, but all that came to me were that there were three. They were sisters and were dispatched by the gods to bring Olympus’s judgment. They were horrible creatures, I did know that; and their vengeance was absolute. They wouldn’t just punish a particular village they would wipe it from the map… from entire history books. I also knew they hadn’t been seen or heard from in years, but right now that was all I could remember.

  “It’s either Alecta or Meg,” Enid answered.

  “That was Tisiphone?” Echo asked as she walked over to a settee lounge and pushed it back into place.

  “That was Tisiphone,” Isadora confirmed.

  “Then my money’s on Megaera,” Crete announced.

  “Meg over Alecta?” Nix shook his head. “It could be either. All of them are capable of evil.”

  “They shouldn’t be on Olympus,” my mother hissed. “They should have no place on the sacred mountain.”

  Nix chuckled, “Our righteous one. She brings judgment on those that are not worthy.” He was making fun of my mother but I did not understand. I looked back and forth between the two of them and watched a hateful glare pass between the two, but it was something I didn’t understand. Something from the past that didn’t belong in this present. “Ivy, find the legacies. Let the grownups talk.”

  “Do not let her out of your sight, foolish sea creature!” Isadora bellowed with the scraping screech of fingernails on a chalkboard. Her voice rattled my insides and turned my stomach.

  “Do not command me, Thread Cutter. You do not have authority over my life.”