by J G Barber
“The curse passes from one generation to the next, from father to son,” Alexei replies.
Paul shakes his head. “I would never wish this on my son. I want to spare him this torment.”
Alexei reflects on his father’s counsel. “A father can spare his son the fate encoded in his genes. The son must make his own choices.”
“Erik tells me I must face Lorelei alone.” A flash of Erik’s memory comes to him. Erik clutches the wet wooden mast as his boat sinks in the Rhine river, struggling to read the Atlantean symbols on the spyglass.
Alexei recognizes Erik’s most brilliant strategic play to date. “Erik is right. It is the only way. You must visit Laura before you face Lorelei.”
Paul snuffs out his cigarette and runs to the hospital entrance. He checks in at the front desk and finds Laura’s room. “You’re back,” Ellen says as Paul peeks in, her voice strained with surprise and fatigue. He checks on Laura as she sleeps. Paul reviews her monitors until he’s satisfied she’s in no danger.
“What do you know about the Great Mother?” Paul asks Ellen.
Ellen explains. “Archaeologists associated the Great Goddess with the Snake Goddess, a prehistoric deity. We commonly associate her origins with Minoan culture, because of early 20th century archaeological finds by the British in Crete.”
Paul remembers that Lorelei mentioned the Minoans. “Why do the sirens refer to her as Great Mother?”
“Variations of the Great Mother and the Serpent Goddess were common in many pre-Christian societies. The serpent is a symbol for the renewal of life. I found together the earliest goddess figurines with bird figurines on Crete and throughout the Eurasian region. These symbols are ancient, going all the way back to post-Ice Age humanity.”
He puts the puzzle pieces together. “A snake biting its tail. Laura called it the ouroboros.”
Ellen nods. “Another symbol found with the goddess and bird figurines is the labrys, the Butterfly Goddess. This symbol is also very ancient. It represents the cycle of life, or resurrection.”
The labrys symbols in Lorelei’s private art collection, on the two-handled god chalice, and the ritual stage at the celebration flash through Paul’s mind. “Lorelei used the word resurrection. Why would sirens worship an ancient deity and decorate their homes with prehistoric symbols?”
“Symbols have power.” She holds up the spyglass as evidence. “These runes saved Laura’s life.” Ellen sorts through her mind files for a more thoughtful answer to Paul’s question. “Maybe the sirens know something we don’t. The medieval inquisitions sought to erase all pagan knowledge—and the people who possessed it—from our collective consciousness. Most of what we have today is speculation.”
He feels the surge of Erik’s rage fill his body with an urgency to act. “Leave me alone with her,” Paul commands in Erik’s tone of voice. Erik’s voice spooks Ellen. Paul holds out his hand to take the spyglass from her. “Now.”
Paul waits until Ellen closes the door. He holds the spyglass in one hand with the Atlantean symbols facing him, sits by Laura’s side, and takes her hand. It’s time for you to let me go, Erik instructs. Paul closes his eyes. Erik’s shadow separates from his body and merges into Laura.
Laura sits up and opens her eyes. She takes the spyglass from Paul and speaks in Erik’s voice. “Unlock the memory of Paul Douglass, descendant of the Atlantis siren hunters.” She turns the Atlantean symbols towards Paul. The symbols emit a green light that envelops Paul from head to toe.
The green light absorbs into Paul’s body and kicks off an extreme feeling of cognitive dissonance. Discombobulated, he struggles to focus on Laura’s face. Paul falls out of his chair when he sees Erik looking back at him. “What just happened?”
“Leave the spyglass. We will protect the wife and child.” Erik’s will projects through Laura’s gaze. “It is time to play your part. I imprinted the codes in your mind. You know what you must do with them.” She closes her eyes, lies back, and returns to unconsciousness.
Paul’s mind cannot comprehend what just happened, but he feels it in the cells of his body. Erik awakened an ancient wisdom in him, and he can use it against Lorelei. He invites Ellen back in, hands her the spyglass, and kisses Laura’s forehead before he goes to face his fate.
In the mirrors of her playroom, Lorelei admires the sculpted body of her current host. Leucosia wraps Erik’s necklace around her neck, the one he gave to Lorelei 500 years ago. They turn to face each other. The last time Lorelei saw Leucosia’s fear was in the Rhine River, on the day Odin and the men of the Rhine River valley murdered their gossip. “I remind you, dear sister, Paul knows our truth now,” Leucosia says. “He is dangerous.”
Lorelei scoffs. “He does not have the will to survive the confrontation.”
Leucosia’s mood turns dark. “Set aside your arrogance. You will need Great Mother’s help to emerge victorious.” Leucosia secures a Minoan skirt around Lorelei’s waist, and then secures the headdress, transforming her into a living representation of the Serpent Goddess. This is not the costume Lorelei wore at the celebration of desire. This is an archaeological artifact.
“No man is my equal, alive or dead.” Lorelei admires her transformation in the mirror. “I trust in Great Mother’s protection.”
Leucosia can’t shake her feeling that Lorelei’s life is in danger. “I will stay.”
“I will face him alone!” Lorelei shouts.
Her face softens as she sees the impact of her words on her beloved siren sister. Lorelei wipes the tears from Leucosia’s face. Ancient green eyes reveal an uncharacteristic vulnerability, Leucosia’s hidden fear of losing Lorelei and being alone, the only living Sirenian in a world of invasive humans who care nothing for her life.
Lorelei kisses Leucosia. “Help me remove this abomination from our lives, my love. Now go, fly as only you can. Let us finish the siren hunters.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Lamborghini parks on the side road next to the sirens’ property. Paul grabs the manila envelope and runs up the hill, ready to storm the mansion. Something unfamiliar inside him stops him at the peak. He sits on the earth and crosses his legs. Paul rests his hands on his knees in a meditative position. His middle fingers connect with their opposing thumbs. A waking dream enters his mind.
A man resembling Paul, but of a different time and culture, meditates on a pillow in the center of a temple made of huge crystals. He wears a white linen robe, a gold headpiece and a gold necklace, each adorned with a large emerald, one over his third eye and the other over his heart. The crystal walls surround him with multicolored patterns and Atlantean symbols. Sunlight diffuses through the walls, creating an effect of amazing beauty. As he meditates, the light around him collects in the emeralds, infusing his head and heart with a glowing green light. The green light radiates outward from within, forming a cocoon of energy around his body.
Paul opens his eyes and breathes. He feels attuned to his surroundings, connected to all life around him. Calm and centered, he picks up the manila envelope and walks down the hill, following the same path Laura took to face Leucosia. He enters the house through the patio door.
Lorelei awaits him, outfitted as a Minoan priestess, a mirror image of the Serpent Goddess statuette next to her. They size each other up. Paul sees Lorelei as the Sirenian spirit, an overlay on the host body. Lorelei sees the glowing green orbs emanating from Paul’s head and heart. He takes in the surreal scene, feeling the life force in his heart and groin he’s so often felt in Lorelei’s presence. He does not allow it to move him from his center.
“You’ve remembered your Atlantean origins. How romantic,” Lorelei sneers. “That is why we chose you. Your son will possess all of sister Leucosia’s capabilities and more.”
Paul places the manila envelope on the table. “I’m sure you realize I will not sign this… work of fiction.”
“It accomplished its purpose. You are here with me.” She adjusts her outfit to kneel at the mermaid table. Two drinks await
them. She chops out neat lines of cocaine. “What do you say, Sailor? One last fuck to remember me by? You know, after you leave the physical plane.” She dips a finger into the cocaine, coating her gums and outlining her nipples. “Might as well indulge. Like wife, like husband.”
His mind connects her words with the video Art told him about. He wants to know what happened with Laura. “I don’t understand.”
“You know my sister, Leucosia. The beautiful redhead you met on the Parthenope.” She offers him a glass. He refuses. “It’s Jack and coke. I just love coke with Jack Daniels. Don’t you?” She snorts another line.
“I don’t know how you pulled off that trick with the video,” Paul admits. He feels his rage surge. The green light in his heart absorbs it. “I do know your sister put Laura in the hospital.”
“True. But only after she rocked her world like you never have. Dear Laura came repeatedly. She begged for more! And she went down on Leucosia like a true lesbian.” Lorelei waits for a reaction. “Unfortunately, just like you, Laura chose not to join us. She would have added so much life force to the celebration of desire. Imagine it, Paul, watching your pregnant wife getting train fucked on stage for all to see, coming with each new man and woman who enters her… and imagine how that experience in the womb would have prepared your son for his life as our Sirenian stud.”
Paul pulls down the Serpent Goddess statuette. Lorelei returns to her feet at superhuman speed before it lands on the mermaid table, shattering glass and sending stone fragments across the room. Lorelei’s laugh echoes through the house with the permeating power of her siren song. “I see you’ve bought into Alexei’s bullshit. Yes, we know who he is. Another one of your pathetic band of damaged children who hasn’t been able to get over your granddaddy’s disappointment.”
The green light surges down Paul’s leg as he takes out the new door to the sealed room where Lorelei keeps her private collection. He marches in, flips a glass case upside down, grabs it by two of its legs, and slams it against the wall. Paintings fall. Glass, coins and jewelry scatter everywhere. “Alexei lied!” she proclaims. “These objects have no power. Great Mother resides within me!”
He grabs a sculpture of Lorelei off of its display stand. “Lorelei, you are not a human being. Yes, I know the truth about you. You stole that body from another woman. I saw her fear in those eyes, the fear of the woman whose soul you’ve dominated. You are a parasite that feeds off of people’s fear.” Paul shatters the sculpture on the floor.
“I am a Sirenian!” Lorelei declares with a haughty tone borne of an epic offense. “We ruled this planet before your species invaded the Earth like a cancer, poisoning and consuming all forms of life it encountered. We stopped you in Atlantis from destroying all life. We survived your inquisitions by turning your own destructive urges against you. And we will rise again to cleanse the Earth of your foul kind, once and for all. The Sirenians will restore the natural order Great Mother intended.”
“I apologize for the part my ancestors played in your oppression,” Paul says with genuine compassion. “It belongs to Erik, and those who came before him. I want no part of it.”
His compassion surprises her. Lorelei studies him, until she recognizes that he is no longer host to Erik. “My dearest Erik, you are more clever that I thought possible.” Her eyes that could sink a thousand ships focus on Paul. “If you think you have escaped his influence, you are mistaken. You cannot escape your legacy. It is contained within your genes.”
Paul opens his arms. The green orbs of light surrounding his mind and heart intensify. “I renounce it all. I reclaim my innocence.”
“You are not innocent!” Lorelei scoffs. “You gladly fucked me to get what you wanted. You are greedy and self-centered like all of your kind. You destroy everything you touch. Now you will destroy yourselves. Because that’s what you do. That’s all your kind knows how to do.”
Paul throws the stone lioness-woman, turning it into rubble. “No. I choose life.”
“Ignorant fool!” Lorelei rages. “In your quest to destroy, you lost the one true power, the power of sound. We have not. Let me introduce you to the song that will end humanity.” She unleashes her most powerful siren call, summoning a violent wind that blows through the house, tearing the paintings off the wall.
Paul stands strong, his feet grounded, his will strapped to the metaphysical mast of his ship. The light of the green orbs emanates from his head and heart to form a cocoon that protects his body. But her song evokes a storm inside of Paul, every dark mood and urge, his rage and violence and addiction and lust, the essence of soul destruction. He allows the storm to surge and overwhelm him. His heart absorbs and dissipates the darkness.
Lorelei opens a safe on the wall and withdraws a pistol. “OK, you win. Go ahead. Kill me.” She hands Paul the pistol. “You can end this right now with a shot to the head.” She lifts the barrel to her temple. “Do it!”
Paul’s hand shakes. He drops the pistol to his side.
She strolls around Paul in a hypnotic circle, infusing her voice with a siren song borne of lust and immense grief. “I remember your father. Robert. Oh, how he loved to have sex with me. We would fuck for hours, like you and I did our first night together. He just couldn’t get enough. You know, just for fun, I’d call your mother when he was on his way over. I’d tell her all about us. How we met, what we did together, what we would do that night. How upset she’d get! I invited her to join us, of course. But she would have no part of it. One of those prim and proper housewife types, you know. Robert was a real man, not like you. Getting him into my bed was no easy task. It took even more effort to lure him to self-destruction. I had to crush her soul to bring him to his end. Yet, even on his last day, he was still begging me for more.”
Immersed in his deepest grief, Paul now knows the truth of everything he did not understand growing up. He can’t bear it. Paul raises the pistol to his head. “The sweet release of death,” Lorelei sings. Paul drops the pistol and collapses. He embraces a soul mourning so deep and so primal it evokes Lorelei’s grief and the grief of her host. He allows himself to sob. The grief he repressed all his life washes over him, cleansing his soul.
He stands and looks deep into Lorelei’s eyes. “Erik was not your first love, was he Lorelei?” With his newfound sight, he looks into her mind. “It was Heinrich! That’s how you became a siren. You learned of the death of your one true love and you took your own life. Erik and all the others were your vengeance.”
He points at Lorelei, speaking to the woman host. “And you! Used and abused by men all your life. Their acts and emotions twisted your relationship to love and sex. When Lorelei came along, you thought she would protect you. But she dragged you into her horrifying world of slavery, sexual deviance, betrayal and revenge. Have you had enough yet?”
Lorelei shakes unnaturally. Her Sirenian spirit loses its anchor to the host body. Lorelei grabs the pistol and points at Paul’s head. He looks past the siren’s eyes and connects with her host. “You can take a stand,” Paul says to the woman. “You don’t have to be a victim of this siren.”
The woman who hosted Lorelei since she was a teenager looks back at Paul with eyes of gratitude and release. “My name is Shannon,” she says. “Thank you, Paul.” In an instant, she lifts the pistol and shoots herself in the head. Blood splatters on Paul and all over the room. Lorelei’s spirit separates from Shannon’s body and disappears into the gold Serpent Goddess statuette in the display case. Paul catches her body as it collapses. Another tide of grief swells as Paul lets go, sobbing as he clutches Shannon’s corpse.
Moonlight lights the parking lot. Alexei and his crossbow remain stationed in the back of the hospital, in line of sight of Laura’s room on the second floor. He savors another Sobranie. Ellen stumbles across the parking lot to join him, exhaustion getting the best of her. “Oh god, can I have one of those?”
He lights one and hands it to her. “Best cigarette you will ever have.”
She
takes a long drag, revealing her long-deprived addiction. “Oh God in Heaven, that’s fantastic.” She exhales. “I still don’t understand. Why did they attack my sister?”
“She carries Paul’s son,” Alexei replies. Wings flap overhead. Dutch’s body drops on the hood of Alexei’s car with a thud. Alexei aims the crossbow and fires, but Leucosia escapes into the trees. “Where is the spyglass?”
“In the room.” Ellen runs back to the stairwell. Alexei reloads the crossbow.
He waits for Ellen’s signal from the window before he drags Dutch’s half-eaten, fly-infested corpse off the car hood and into the bushes, out of sight. Alexei fights to get the sedan’s hood open. He checks the engine for damage, and then he starts the engine to make sure it still runs.
Bird-woman Leucosia observes from overhead, circling the scene, using the trees and hospital building to hide her presence. Lorelei’s presence overwhelms her mind and heart. She flies back to the mansion. But then she feels Laura awakening. She knows what she must do. Leucosia banks and returns to the hospital.
Ellen clutches the spyglass in one hand and holds Laura’s hand with the other. Laura awakens. She senses danger. Laura removes her oxygen mask and inspects the gear all around her. She detaches herself from the IV and EKG leads. Her eyes lock onto the spyglass.
“Give it to me,” Laura says in Erik’s voice as Leucosia’s call shatters the window. Two arrows zing into the room and embed in the wall as Leucosia flies in. She morphs into a snake-woman. Erik locks eyes with her. Leucosia bats her tail to knock the spyglass out of Laura’s hands. Ellen lunges for it, but she’s unable to grab the spyglass before it rolls underneath the bed to the other side of the room. Leucosia slithers over Ellen to get to Laura. Laura grabs the spyglass from the floor and just escapes before Leucosia pushes the bed into the wall. She corners Laura by the door.
Erik’s eyes lock onto her serpent eyes. Laura’s hand spins the spyglass to the Atlantean symbols and Erik recites them. The vibrational power in his voice causes Leucosia to shake. “Reset Leucosia. Disable Sirenian metamorphosis gene. Enable human gene dominance.”