Shadeland (The Ethereal Crossings, 1)

by D.L. Miles

  Chapter 14

  The next day Jared didn’t have to say a word to let me know I wasn’t welcome. It was obvious in the way he glanced at me without moving his head, and in the way he held the steering wheel with both hands, as opposed to his usual one. I knew that what we were doing was dangerous, but that didn’t matter to me; some part of me wanted to catch the killer that had caused Luke so much trouble and another part wanted to do it just because it was…interesting. That sounded wrong, even as I thought it.

  We had gotten lucky that Luke was released again, but that didn’t stop people from still believing he was the killer. It didn’t stop any of the humans, at least. Most of the Eidolon’s seemed to know that he didn’t do it, yet none of them wanted to say anything, making sure to keep it a secret. It made me wonder if they knew who was really behind the killings. Dr. Wineman knew something that he wasn’t telling anyone and if he wasn’t going to help us then maybe Yamuna could.

  Though she had probably needed some convincing, she agreed to help us in the end. What I didn’t understand was why she didn’t want to do the spell herself. Was it really so dangerous to summon this thing? And how did she expect us to do it?

  “Do you know how to kill it?” I questioned Jared, the tension in his arms not getting any worse. He was stiff, and after driving for nearly an hour I imagined it would get sore or at the very least tiring. Still, he kept his position.

  “Kill what?” he asked back. What else would I be talking about? Was there something else out there that needed to be killed? I hoped not…that thought led me astray, into a direction I didn’t want to go.

  “Whatever’s killing these women,” I said, resting an arm on the door of his car. “When we summon it, do you know how to kill it?”

  “First off, there is no ‘we’,” he waved his hand in front of himself, finally losing a bit of control, “you refused to get out of my car, so I’m stuck taking you with me to get the stuff Yamuna wants. When I summon this thing, you won’t be there. I will be alone, and I will kill it alone.”

  “So you do know what it is,” I said, ignoring the tone of his voice and how he was going to make sure I wasn’t around. “You know how to kill it?” He placed his hand back on the wheel and kept his eyes forward.

  “Can’t be that hard,” Jared said, “everything can die.”

  I found his choice of words interesting. As a bounty hunter I would have thought he would say that everything “can be killed”, but instead he said everything “can die”. So who did he lose that he thought would never die? I considered asking him, but he probably would have stopped the car and left me in the middle of the forest. My mind began to mull it over, trying to figure him out without being given any clues.

  I said nothing and stared out the window watching tree after tree after tree pass by. It was a bright day out, despite the fact that later today we may be killing a creature as old as the world itself; somehow whenever I imagined the future it was dark and usually black and white. I began to think about what it must have seen in its lifetime, the wars, the revolutions and the changes, until soon enough the paved road turned into dirt and the car began to bump along with its curves. Jared had refused to tell me where we were going, as if I would go there alone at some point. Of all the ingredients on Yamuna’s list, all of them were nearly impossible to get; a mermaid’s scale being at the height of impossibilities.

  I eyed Jared, he didn’t look like he had thousands to spare; he wore the same outfit almost every day, or every time I saw him, anyway. So where did he plan on getting the scale? His answer to almost every question I had asked was “I know someone” or “I know a place” or sometimes just “shut up already”. Not the most informative or nicest person around.

  The Charger came to a stop on the dirt lane, the fender just inches away from the knee-high grass ahead of us. I grimaced, glancing down at my moccasins, they weren’t exactly hiking shoes.

  “I suppose if I told you to wait here you wouldn’t,” Jared said, putting the car in park. He stepped out without waiting for a reply. I opened the door and quickly shut it, just in time to hear him say, “That’s what I thought.” He was wearing his sunglasses now and as I looked around I regretted not having mine with me.

  “What are we looking for here?” I asked, tailing him through the trees as he tromped down the grass. He stepped down hard on the blades, making sure they stayed down for a while after he moved on. I followed in his footsteps, wondering if he did it to help me walk through.

  “The first item on the list,” he said, holding up the piece of paper, “the mermaid scale.” I stopped and looked up at him, knowing that if I tried to walk it would end in disaster.

  “But the doctor said those were almost impossible to get,” I continued forward, since Jared didn’t stop to chat.

  “They are for normal people,” Jared laughed. If I were him I would probably laugh too, knowing how not normal I was. Maybe his laugh wasn’t at how others couldn’t do what he could, but at himself, for how not normal his life was. The puzzle that was Jared seemed to be falling together, piece by misshapen piece.

  “So where are we going to find a mermaid’s scale in the woods?” I asked, catching up with him easily as he forced the grass down to the earth. I hoped saying “we” enough would get into his head; make him start saying it so I was included. It was bad enough Luke was stuck in a depression at home; I didn’t need to join him there. Being productive would be the only way I could stay sane, or so I hoped.

  “Like the good doctor said,” Jared pulled a compass out of his pocket and suddenly turned right, “mermaids are always mistaken for undines. They can be found pretty much wherever water is.” I paused and listened to the stillness in the air.

  “I don’t see any water,” and I couldn’t hear any. We pushed our way through the grass; it almost seemed to be getting thicker, stronger. As a child I had walked through many woods surrounding Ellengale, but this area was unknown to me, with no designated pathway.

  “Just hurry up,” he ordered, still stomping down the grass to make my journey easier. At least, I hoped that’s why he was doing it; I couldn’t think of any other reason. It was only about two minutes later that the silence between us started to really bother me.

  “So do you know a lot about the Eidolon’s?” I asked, and it almost sounded like I was making polite conversation. This was new to me, I never really bothered talking to people but for some reason I really wanted to talk to Jared then. He was...scary but still interesting. I had never met anyone like him.

  “I hunt them daily,” he told me, “of course I know a lot about them. Watch your step.” He hopped over a fallen tree branch and paused to look back at me from the corner of his eye. I did the same and we kept moving.

  “You said you’ve only been hunting Eidolon’s for about a year, since they came out,” I wanted to call them Etheric’s, to be politically correct, but I didn’t think Jared would care what I called them. “How much can you learn about them in a year?”

  That made him stop; I counted to three before he started walking again and I decided it would be best to keep my mouth shut. After a few more minutes I could hear water falling over rocks but still no animals. The hushed woods were unnerving and the sunbeams streaming between the leaves only made me feel a little safer.

  We stepped into a small clearing in the sunlight. A few feet away was a river and at its head a small waterfall, probably only fifteen feet high. The water was clear, allowing me to see the smooth pebbles on the bottom; I had never seen a river so clean. It almost appeared to glisten as we walked over to it. Jared moved away from me and surveyed the area looking, I assumed, for the siren but I couldn’t take my eyes off of the water; it was just so beautiful.

  I moved a few inches closer to it, not having a single thought in my head. Kneeling down I reached my hand out to the water, almost able to touch it when a small yellow butterfly landed on my finger
s, wrenching me out of my trance with a cool puff of air.

  I felt its legs tap along my knuckles as it founds its balance, its wings fluttering to create another oddly cool breeze on my hand.

  “What are you doing?” Jared asked, grabbing my shoulders and wrenching me back up. The butterfly glided off on the air and I looked up at Jared, confused.

  “Huh?” I said, wondering why he would sound so mad. Well, then again, he always seemed upset over something.

  “You wanna die?” It didn’t sound like a threat so I asked him what he meant. He sighed and pulled me away from the water before explaining. “Mermaids are pure magic, that’s why their scales are so rare. When they’re in the water, they give off this…pheromone,”—he waved his hands around slightly—“it makes the water like a trap.” He set his aviators on his head to show how serious he was. That explained the stories of sailors diving into the water near a mermaid.

  “That’s why it glows?” I looked towards the water for a second before Jared pulled my face back to see his.

  “Yes,” he stressed, “so don’t look at it for longer than a few seconds otherwise you’ll get trapped.” He grabbed the sunglasses off his head and put them over my eyes. “Here, these’ll help.”

  “What about you?” I asked, touching the sides of the glasses. They were a little large for me so they slid down my nose just enough to be irritating.

  “Can’t you just say ‘thanks’?” He sighed and walked away, towards the waterfall. I stood there and watched him, holding my left arm for comfort.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled under my breath and followed after him. I tried not to look at the water again, but it was hard since we were looking for a mermaid. At least we knew she would be there, since the water was glistening. I didn’t say anything to Jared, but at some points I actually thought I could hear the water almost calling to me; it sounded like a ringing chime in the air that I couldn’t ignore. It was a song sung just for me.

  Jared stood at the edge of the waterfall, staring into it. I almost thought he was in a trance like I had been minutes earlier but he would look away every few seconds, ensuring he wouldn’t be ensnared in the mermaid’s trap.

  “How did you know there would be a mermaid here?” I asked, still trying to fill the quiet, and drown out the chime. Jared brushed his hair back.

  “I did a little research,” he told me, “and ten years ago a woman killed herself here.” I gave him a blank expression through his sunglasses, hoping he would elaborate. I expected him to roll his eyes or sigh like Yamuna so often did with me, but he did neither. “She jumped off the cliff after finding out her husband cheated on her. There’s a legend that above the River Rhine in Germany that a woman did the same thing over a faithless lover and she became a siren. There are a few different versions to that though.

  “I’ve only heard of two cases when the woman actually becomes a siren, or more specifically a Lorelei.” He began walking down the river but I stayed by the waterfall; it was… quieter there.

  “So if you only know of two other times a woman has become a Lorelei, how did you know this one would?” It was one hell of a lucky guess. Jared crouched down by the water and touched his mouth in thought.

  “Over the past decade there have been a few mysterious drowning’s and disappearances, all of them started after the woman killed herself.”

  “That’s really…professional of you,” I said. I really hadn’t expected him to do research on the subject, or to even think about looking into the history. Jared was just full of surprises and apparently deserved more credit than I gave him…for now at least.

  “Well that and there were reports of seeing a mermaid here over the years,” -and it was ruined. He straightened himself and shot me a toothy grin. “It’s about time you showed up.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “Well neither of you were going to go into the water willingly,” came a voice that felt like silk across my skin. I twitched, resisting the instinct to jump away as I turned around to face the caressing voice; in front of me stood a woman with chestnut dark hair and deep, empty blue eyes. Taking a careful step back I watched her, unable to look away as I had the water; this time because of fear though, not magic.

  “What can I say? I’m not that easy,” Jared was beside me, pulling my arm to keep me back. He stepped between us, just enough to emphasize that I wouldn’t be another one of her victims. It was exactly what Luke did in elementary school when someone would try and pick on me; they were both protecting me.

  A soft breeze came from my left and lifted the sirens hair with it. I noticed that her hair was dry, not wet as I had imagined it would be. Her red and white flowered sundress moved with the wind while her toes played with the grass below. She was absolutely gorgeous, if you ignored the hollow abyss in her eyes.

  “We want a scale,” Jared said, almost as if she would just hand one over. Her laugh came out like a bark, mocking us both.

  “As if I would give one of my scales to anyone,” she said, covering her mouth while she laughed, “besides, you have something much more powerful on your side.” Her eyes fell on me, sending a shiver through my body. She continued, “But I’ll die before you get one of my scales.”

  “Well, if that’s what you want,” Jared’s arm shot from his side and swung at her, hitting her across the face. I jumped back at that point.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled at him with a jump backwards. Somehow I didn’t think she would hand over a scale if we beat her. Jared turned to me for only a second.

  “We need her to show her true form,” he yelled back, “we need to get her mad!” The siren straightened herself and laughed again, the punch barely fazed her.

  “Hitting me won’t work human,” she scoffed, “you’ll never get my scale, you’ll be dead soon enough.” Jared punched her again, this time I could see more power in it. I stayed still, not knowing what to do but knowing I couldn’t just punch a mermaid. The only person I had ever considered hitting was…well, Jared.

  The siren moved in to attack Jared and my heart began to race even more. I started feeling the same as when I had found Charlie; totally useless. She hissed at him as he prepared to swing again, holding up her hand in defense. I had thought she simply would have blocked his attack, but instead she countered it.

  A large stream of water poured from the center of her palm, moving like a serpent and hammering Jared in the chest. I stumbled aside just in time to avoid him crashing into me. He flew back a few feet past me before landing on the grass. Jared stood, soaked.

  “Okay,” he said, removing his jacket, “happy birthday to me.” He tossed his jacket at me and I caught it, trying not to get wet. Jared’s white shirt was almost completely clear now, showing multiple scars that he must have gotten during his years as a bounty hunter. His gun was holstered by his side but that quickly changed when he ripped it out of its holster to point it at the siren.

  Jared’s hair was matted down from the water, almost covering his eyes. I wondered if he could see very well like that, if he would be able to aim the gun. He pulled the trigger, the sound echoing through the woods. Hopefully nobody was close, or they would have easily heard the shot.

  The siren burst into a million strands of water, disappearing into the ground. I looked around the area but couldn’t find her anywhere, she was gone.

  “Bullets,” said the siren, reappearing behind Jared in seconds, “how…simple.”

  Jared spun on his heels but it was too late, the mermaid stuck her hand in the air and blasted him with another torrent of water. He was coming right at me again, and I ducked as I heard him sail over me, feeling the air whip my hair back. I was gripping his jacket as though my life depended on it, not caring that the water was soaking into my clothes.

  I turned around, still on my knees to see Jared rolling over on the ground. I imagined he was seeing stars as he climbed to his hands and knees.
How did he still manage to get up? Looking back, the siren had disappeared again. This wasn’t going as well as I had hoped it would.

  With shaky knees I stood and backed up towards Jared. I almost shrieked when I bumped into his chest and he touched my arm.

  “Watch yourself,” he warned, eyeing the trees around us, “she could be anywhere.” He stepped in front of me, holding his gun low in front of him with both hands.

  “What should I do?” I asked in a whisper, clutching his jacket in my hands.

  “Just stay out of the way,” he said, his voice as loud as it usually was, “I need to make her show her true form and the only way to do that is to make her lose the glamour.”

  “Glamour?” I whispered back to him.

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing at me, “it’s like camouflage; makes her look human. Almost all the things use it to blend in.”

  “And how do we make her lose it exactly?” I was still whispering, feeling as if that would ensure she couldn’t hear us. He had said something about making her mad but that seemed too easy.

  “You can’t,” said the siren from behind me. I turned to see her empty eyes staring back at me as she lifted her hand for the attack.

  “Down!” Jared shouted and I dove to the ground, covering my head by instinct. He fired the gun and I heard the siren screech. I had to hold my hands over my ears; the sound could shatter glass and the river next to us rippled from the exuding power, an echo resonating around us. The leaves rustled and in the distant birds took off, screeching. When the scream died down I opened my eyes and peered upwards, where the siren was standing.

  “How is this possible,” she questioned, her voice hoarse. “They’re just bullets.” Her eyes were wide as she stared down at her bleeding hand. Jared had managed to shoot directly through her palm, leaving a bloody hole in the center. Her left hand clasped at her wrist, unsure of what to do with the wound.

  “Hurts, huh?” Jared said with a wicked smile, a deadly smile. I was glad I wasn’t on the receiving end of that look; that look that said he knew something that you didn’t. That look that said he was about to kill you. For a brief second I wondered if he had ever looked at a human with that smile.

  “It isn’t healing,” the siren said, finally ripping her eyes to look at me, “why isn’t it healing?” She fell to her knees, her dress soaking up the water as it touched the ground.

  “Liv. Here. Now.” Jared pointed to the spot next to him and I obeyed. I didn’t care that he was treating me like a dog in that moment; I was too focused on the woman in front of me. Though she was evil, she looked very human, appearing as a woman in pain and scared.

  “It won’t work,” the siren laughed, hysterical, “I won’t change, not completely. You will never get my scale.” She held onto her wrist, blood trickling down her arm before dripping onto her dress. Jared lifted his gun again at her.

  “Guess I’ll have to shoot you again,” he said, “kinda sucks when you’re shot with a cursed bullet. Believe me, I know.” His smile was gone, replaced with a stern and thoughtful look. He rotated his left shoulder, remembering something from the past. As he prepared to shoot I stopped him, touching his forearm. He looked down at me. “What?”

  “You said the first Lorelei had killed herself because of a cheating husband, right?” I asked and he nodded. I turned to the siren, still crumpled on the ground. “Is that why you did it?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked, looking at me with her bottomless eyes. This time they weren’t empty though, they have a flicker of something in them…despair. She had jumped down onto the sharp rocks below to kill herself because her husband cheated on her. I felt a twinge of guilt over what I thought I was about to do. Telling myself it was necessary didn’t make me feel any better.

  “You probably deserved it,” I told her, trying to act as if I didn’t care about what was happening. “Clearly you weren’t enough for him.”

  “What?” She said, anger taking over her beautiful features.

  “What are you doing?” Jared whispered to me, never taking his gun off the siren. I ignored him and gently swatted his shoulder.

  “I mean, come on,” I said with a hint of a laugh, “you’re pretty and all, but I’m guessing the woman he slept with was way better than you. Blonde maybe?” The siren flinched. “Yeah, guys always have a thing for blondes.”

  “Shut up, child,” she warned, “you don’t know anything.” Water began to drip down the strands of her hair until it was plastered to her head. She watched me through her bangs, ire rising in the deep blue irises as they began to swirl with power.

  “I know that you loved your husband, but know what?” My hands fell to my sides, Jared’s jacket hanging loose in my fingers. “You didn’t satisfy him. He didn’t love you.” That was enough to set her off. That was enough to make her lose her glamour.

  “No!” she shrieked and leapt at me. A cyclone of water circled her as she showed us her true form while still in the air before us. Her dress was gone, revealing a smooth grey torso leading to a classic mermaid’s tail, long and shining in various blues, violets and greens. The blue that had once been so gorgeous in her eyes took over the whites and the pupils. As she screamed she bore fangs and her arms reached for me, her nails two inches too long, fingers rigid.

  I could hear the chimes in the water and covered my ears instead of ducking. It was too loud, I couldn’t hear anything else; I was paralyzed. Jared grabbed me and threw me to the ground, shielding me from the water. He didn’t waste any time jumping from me and aiming his gun but the siren was gone again, already hiding in the river she deemed hers. As I hit the ground his sunglasses flew from my face.

  “Mind telling me what that was?” Jared said, on high alert scanning the river and waterfall. I sat up and rubbed my head, thinking about how close I had just come to death…again. I picked up the sunglasses and placed them back on, careful not to look at the water without them.

  “I figured if she killed herself over her husband then it would upset her enough to make her change,” I was yelling, trying to drown out the chimes of the water. I adjusted Jared’s sunglasses on my face and got to my feet, cautious of another attack.

  “Well, warn me next time, ‘kay?” I was about to say something back to him when the river began to bubble and flow backwards. A whirlpool began to form in front of where Jared and I stood, sucking water from the waterfall and further down the river. We stood watching it, water dripping from our bodies and flowing towards the pool. He stared down and said, “That’s not good.”

  I took a step back and Jared raised his gun just as another cyclone shot out of the river. I could see the form of the siren inside it and had to cover my ears again because of the song. I counted off two bullets Jared shot into the cyclone by watching his trigger pulls. He jumped out of the way, leaving the siren to fall to the grass below, dead and in her true form as the water fell around her.

  “Stay back,” Jared said and he walked over to the lifeless Etheric. She was lying on her stomach so I couldn’t tell where she had been shot. Her face was elegant, as if she was sleeping; no fangs. Jared tapped at her torso with one foot and her eyes jumped open.

  She screamed and reached for me again with one free arm. I fumbled backwards and fell to the earth, frightened. Jared swore and shot two more bullets into her back, both hitting her heart. She slumped over on the earth again, her eyes slowly closing as she died. I was still shaken from the sudden outburst, my ears ringing.

  “What was that?” I shouted at him. I had thought she was dead the first time.

  “Guess I missed,” he shrugged and reloaded his gun before putting it back in its holster. I stayed where I was, still holding onto Jared’s jacket too tightly again as he knelt down next to the siren.

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a switch knife, flicking it so the blade came out. Slowly he lifted off one of the colour
scales from the tail, pulling it upwards with sickening “shtick” noise.

  “C’mere,” he said and again I obeyed on wobbly legs. He held out a hand when I reached him and I gave him his jacket back. “Hold this.”

  Jared placed the scale into my hand possession, careful not to break it. As it sat in my hand I could feel it buzzing with energy, so much so that the center of my palm grew hot. I was just glad it wasn’t singing to me like the water had. With that in mind I glanced over at the river; it was flowing as it should be. It no longer had that same alluring glow to it, its bottom obscured by the rustled mud; it was just regular water now that the mermaid was dead.

  Jared threw his leather coat on and pulled a plastic container out of it. If I hadn’t known any better I would have said it was a petrie dish. He stuck the scale inside and tucked it safely back in his pocket. I bent over and picked up Jared’s sunglasses off the ground.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, taking his sunglasses off of me before leading the way back to the car.

  “What about the body?” I asked, holding onto my phone in my pocket. I was a little surprised it hadn’t fallen out when Jared tackled me. He turned to face me and smiled, setting up his aviators on top of his head to get a clearer look at me. Jared asked the question back to me, still smiling. His question confused my already scattered mind so I looked down at the body of the siren.

  Just three feet away from the body began to evaporate and melt at the same time. Like she had done before, parts of the siren started to turn into water and soak into the ground, but a thin mist also floated up and away from her into the air. It was only a matter of seconds until she was completely gone, leaving nothing behind besides the greenest grass I had ever seen in the shape of a what had once been a lonely, heartbroken woman.