Shining Sea (26 page)

WAVE

Down on the beach a steel sky hangs over a silver sea. Bo’s Siren Song rings in my ears.

Fingering my lips, I watch as he strips down to his trunks and dives into the water. A moment later, the waves grow monstrous.

“C’mon, Bo, send us another!” Cord’s words carry over the water from where he floats on a surfboard out beyond the breakers. Letting his pop song of a voice wash over me, I try to justify Bo’s behavior. My skin feels seared where he touched me.

Close to tears, I mutter, “If only—”

Jordan drops down on the sand beside me. “If only what?”

I open my mouth to speak, but the slippery eel of a thought—something about Bo—slides off to some dark corner of my mind. I shake my head, struggling to pursue it.

Jordan studies me for a moment, then looks away.

“If only Nick and Beth hadn’t climbed the jetty,” I blurt.

“He still would have hurt her,” Jordan says, watching the waves. “He’s a Delaine.”

Burning to defend Logan, defend his family, I shiver instead at the sound of Jordan’s voice, and search the horizon for Bo. Finally I spot him, just his torso visible above the waterline—I know now, no glittering fish tale lies below it. The source of Bo’s support is his legs. Kicking, treading water—pedaling, that’s the Siren term. He can stay afloat forever. Now he windmills his arms through the waves, creating a perfect curl for Mia and her pink surfboard.

Jordan had been doing the same thing for Cord last Sunday, when I’d watched from the deck of the lighthouse. He’d been the swimmer in the water. I hadn’t known then, about their wave-making game, how they take turns playing Poseidon.

Vaguely, I remember a story by Kafka, about Poseidon doing paperwork. I can’t imagine the Summers anyplace but here, but if what Logan said is true, then the media—

As if Jordan is reading my mind, he says, “Mortal Girl, I know you’ve got a thing for Logan, but his brother—he may be more dangerous than we thought.”

“Same way Bo’s more dangerous than
I
thought?” I spit out before I can stop myself.

Jordan’s atramentous eyes regard me steadily.

Then suddenly he lunges at me—

I scream as he jerks me to my feet—

“I heard him!” Dripping wet, Mia appears beside us. “Bo’s right. It’s Nick.”

Bo races up behind her. “Mia, are you sure—” He breaks off and glares at Jordan.

“Don’t be a presumptive bastard,” Jordan says in response to Bo’s narrowed eyes. “I heard him too. He’s close.” He releases me, examining the ocean Mia and Bo abandoned with such speed.

“Nick’s in the Cove!” Cord bounds up from the water. “His Signal’s cranking.”

How can Nick be here? How can this be real?

Holding my breath as if that’ll protect me, I start making deals with God.
Please, let me see Mom and Dad again. Please let me see Lilah.
Bo and Jordan failed to hold Nick before, even with the help of their father—how do they expect to stop him now that he’s bent on revenge?

Nick—can he really be a Siren?

And Logan, how could I have just walked away from him?

God, are you still there? Because there’s this boy, with eyes like a cloudy day. His smile might blind you momentarily, but please, I need you to let him know—

I love him.

The ground seems to dip under my feet.
A nonexistent wind stirs the water violently and the ocean—

Begins drawing away from the beach.

Jordan shouts something, and Bo leaps in front of me, his bare back dripping seawater. Shoulders squared, he looks ready to fight—

Only there’s no one to fight. Instead there’s a massive wave forming off the beach, a wave twenty times the size of any I’ve ever seen.

Silently, I start to cry, and for a second, it looks as if everything is underwater. I stare at the towering wave looming impossibly high over a newly visible flat of soaking sand dotted with suffocating fish and scuttling crabs.
Lilah, I’m sorry. I
should have been on that boat.

Jordan and Mia and Cord move as one toward the receding sea—

Just as a great roaring detonates in my ears, the thunder of smashing waves—

No—it’s
music
. Cascades of strings, great claps of percussion—

Bo’s wings
.

“Get Arion away from—” Cord’s voice disappears in a gust of wind, and then—

We’re in the air.

“Wrap your arms around my neck—tighter!” Bo commands. His legs are already around my legs. His arms cross my back, pulling me closer until our bodies touch in every possible place. One of his hands slides quickly to the back of my neck, jerking my face roughly against the hollow of his collarbone, and I feel his body, hard everywhere, as the tug of the tides washes through me.

Light, dark, light, dark,
the shadows of his wings fall around us as we speed through the sky. Squeezing my eyes closed, I press my face into his neck, trying to catch my breath but succeeding only in emitting a ragged sound between a cry and a moan. Suddenly I don’t have to try to hold on—my body clings to Bo of its own accord. He sings to me now, his lips near my ear. Maybe he’s trying to reassure me, but the sound only makes me ache, makes me forget anything else exists besides his skin, and his Song.

“Okay,” he says now, “okay.” And somehow we’ve landed, and we’re standing by the lighthouse, and he’s trying to peel me away from him. But I grip his shoulders, won’t allow him to disentangle himself, lifting my lips— Gently but firmly he pulls my arms from around him, sliding my leg down—the one still wrapped around his own—little by little, until both my feet are on the ground and there’s an inch of space between us. The inch alone makes me groan in frustration.

“I need you—” I protest almost incoherently, swaying toward him love drunk—not even, drunk with lust—and pleading, wanting to lick his skin, sink my teeth into one of his bare shoulders.

“I know what you think you need.” He crosses my lips with an index finger. “Rising is—intimate, can lead to intimate things.”

“Rising,” I repeat, stumbling slightly as he steps back from me.

He takes my elbow, steadying me. “Yes. I had to. And I may have to again. I need to get you away from here, until this is over.”

“But it’s over, isn’t it? Your brothers, Mia, they’ll . . . they’ll make him leave.” But even as I say the words, I know neither thing is true. Nick Delaine is as tenacious as he is terrible, and as Bo’s Siren spell begins to fade, I want to shout,
What about the serpentine tail?
But I’m thinking crazy. That image—it’s from my dreams.
Nervous laughter bubbles out of me.

“Arion. Stop. You need to pack. I’ll go back, get the car.”

“The car?”

“Yes. I’m going to take you away from here, away from him. We need to go.”

“But I can’t just go! And where? Where would we go?”

“Anywhere! Anywhere but here.”

We stare at each other, and I imagine what it would be like, running away with him. How long is he talking about? A night? A lifetime? What about my family? What about—

Logan.

“I can’t,” I say frantically. “My mother is coming, my sister—”

“Arion, be reasonable, let me take you away from here, just until—”

“Could you leave
your
family now? Knowing that Nick Delaine is
here
?”

“He’s been here,” Bo counters. “Maybe longer than we thought. We need to go.”

“No! And don’t make me. This one thing—I need to choose. Please.”

He scowls and swings away from me, walking across the pebbles to the windblown grasses at the edge of the bluff. I follow.

“Bo—”

“Ari. Nick Delaine has mutated, or—something. He’s learned . . . Neptune knows what. That rogue wave he formed? That’s not something a single Siren can do. And yet he did it.

“Jordan and Mia, and Cord—the three of them will handle this. They’ll push the water back, protect the cottages, but only because they’ll work together.

“Nick . . . seems to be on his own. He must have struggled to survive . . . You’d think being alive would be enough for him!”

Bo shouts this last handful of words at the sea. Then his voice grows quiet. “But being alive isn’t enough.” He turns around, looks down at me. “Is it. Not enough for any of us.”

All at once the wind tears over the bluffs, lifting our hair, shivering my skin.

But it doesn’t bring any answers with it, and I don’t know what’s enough—for Bo, or for me, or for Nick Delaine.

BLINDFOLD

Out of the sea and onto the sand steps the Siren, the winged man. Yes, I know what he is now. I know what he wants. His skin is seawater. His eyes are swords.

Silently this time, the wings appear. Not white but oil-slick black.

This time, everything is different. I step toward him. He steps toward me:
Step, stop. Step; stop.
The rhythm of a bride—walking down the aisle.

My breastbone is nearly against his—I thought he was taller than this. Then I realize, it’s because of me: I’m on tiptoe, straining upward, not wanting to wait for his kiss.

Now I am predator, he is prey.

His wings wrap around me, a black hole pulling me in, drawing me down. He tips his face, and I slide my hands behind his neck, clasp him tighter. Start to drown.

Through the silken night of his feathers, a brilliant light flares and I see forever—

Until his wings close tighter, create a coffin of obsidian.

But just before the onyx blindfold takes my sight completely, and buries me in the raven grave of him, I see the man I love standing on the path—

And know he’ll never reach me, because—because he is a killer, like the man who holds me now. And then they are one, but I am one with them. I am a Siren. A murderer. A monster.

I become water. The darkness is total. And the music . . .
the music . . .

The melody is jagged, chaotic. A screaming electric guitar, smashed at the end of a set—

And then I’m screaming—

Into a bright morning bedroom, my bedroom, though the vivid image of the Siren still trespasses. I sit up and pull my knees in close to my chest. Wrap my arms around them. Streaks of darkness cross my vision—his jet-black feathers.

I finally told Bo about the series of strangely similar dreams. I also told him how I thought someone had been in my room—even though part of me still believed that the
someone
had been him. I’m ashamed, that I suspected him. But I couldn’t help it.

He denied it, of course.
“There was never a time I was in your room that you didn’t want me there.”
Then he went detective on me, asking lots of questions. Uncomfortable, embarrassed—I didn’t bring up the topic again.

But this nightmare is worse than embarrassing. It’s humiliating.

The creature that’s haunted my sleep for so many nights—

Has become
desirable
.

My skin prickles, and I imagine . . . he somehow crawls beneath it.

CONTROL

Bo not only took me to school in the morning, he parked and walked me to the building.

As he predicted, his brothers and Mia drove back the massive wave. They also told Bo, when he stopped home earlier—after apparently spending the night patrolling the grounds below the lighthouse, something that I found simultaneously romantic and unnerving—that Nick Delaine had vanished. Against Mia’s wishes, Jordan spent the night searching the coves along the coast. He found no trace of Nick.

Sick with nerves, I spent most of the day in the nurse’s office. Now, in the matchbox of a room where Lilah will sleep, I open the window—starting as the sea air blows in with a
whoosh
. Childishly, I pretend that when Mom gets here, she’ll magically make everything better.

But Bo and his siblings have come up with a plan of their own to fix things, and Bo told me that, since I refused to leave Rock Hook, they’d make it safe for me stay.

During dinner, I find myself telling Dad that I’ll be spending the weekend with Mia.

“How’s the
zuppa di pesce
?” he asks. But I can almost hear him thinking,
Weekend slumber party, that’s a teenage girl thing, right?

“It’s really good.” He looks pointedly at my bowl. It’s full. “Guess I’m excited.”

Definitely, I can’t eat. But at least I don’t need to be concerned about Dad. Over dinner he decides to take advantage of the fact that I’ll be away this weekend and go to Bangor a couple days early to see friends. Surrounded by people, he’ll be safe.

“I’ll be in town when their flight arrives. Won’t have that long drive two days in a row.”

There’s been no change in Lilah’s condition. Six weeks from now we’ll fly to California for her procedure. As for Mom, it doesn’t matter to me anymore that I don’t have the relationship I want with her. I just want
her
here
. And whatever issues she and Dad have? They’ve become unimportant as well. They don’t involve surgery. They don’t involve Sirens.

And how much more can they argue?

“If you’d had a real job instead of being captain of a fishing fleet, charter boats, party boats—is that really what you planned to do with your life? And now, you’ve ruined Delilah’s.”
Mom hadn’t been able to stop. She’d needed someone to blame.

In part she was right, Dad
hadn’t
intended to work on those kinds of boats. He’d planned on adventure, sailing the world. But Mom herself had changed all that. She’d wanted Dad in one place, and that place was San Francisco, where
she
wanted to be.

Yes, they discussed splitting up, but instead, my parents are going to try again. The move, the possibility of a new life, Lilah’s upcoming operation. These things have given them hope
.

Hope. That muscle is strong in me now. No longer atrophied or in need of exercise, hope seems to bounce in my chest. Unfortunately, it has company. Fear. And uncertainty.

“Are you psyched?” I ask, forcing myself to make conversation.

“Sure am.” But Dad seems distracted as he finishes his food. Also, he burned the garlic bread—very unlike him. Maybe he’s nervous about seeing Mom. That last letter she sent hadn’t told me anything new, but I have no idea what she’s said to him.

Tossing the burnt bread out seems to wake Dad up. “Bo going to be around this weekend?”

“I’m not really sure.” Keeping my eyes on the sink, I run hot water for the pots.

Dad clears his throat, and I glance up. He’s giving me one of his dad looks.

“Hey, there are
three
houses at Summers Cove, and Dad? I’m going to be with
Mia
.”

Bad liars always sound defensive.

We aren’t even staying at the cottages. We’ll be at Cliff House, because, supposedly, it’s safer. But no way will Dad let me go out there.

To ease his mind, I begin telling him about Mia, tossing around words like, “girl talk,” “shopping,” and “hair,” in the same way he seasons his soup, which is liberally, until his worries are forgotten. Sadly, I can’t forget my own.

“We don’t want to broadcast this all over the seven seas,” Cord told Bo.

He’d meant—one of them needed to speak with their father, face-to-face.

I’m not the only one who needs protection, and tonight Cord will go back to India, believing that the only way to keep Beth safe is to personally tell her as well: Nick Delaine is alive and out for vengeance. Now more than ever, she needs to remain in hiding.

“Neptune knows how,” Cord said, “but Nick’s honed the Deep Skills. He must have. He has to be behind the arc of violence we’ve mapped, because that arc ends here. Nick is the only Siren we know of with a reason to come to Rock Hook. It totally makes sense that he’s trying to exact revenge by creating a series of unanswered questions that will expose us to the world.”

“Unanswered questions” was Cord’s tactful way of saying missing boys and dead bodies.

Now, bringing the cold air in with him, Bo appears at my bedroom door. He’s just come from saying goodbye to Cord, who’ll leave late tonight.

“Less boat traffic,” Bo explains. “Less air traffic. Less chance of being seen in his Full Expression.” The bed sighs as he sits down beside me.

“You didn’t worry about anyone seeing you in your . . . Full Expression”—my face grows hot—“when you flew me to the lighthouse.”
And your Siren spell made me want to—

“Some risks are worth taking,” Bo replies, his gaze level.

“What about the risk Cord’s taking, swimming to Goa alone?”

Bo reaches for my iPod, starts scrolling. “He’ll be safe. We don’t know
exactly
where Nick is, but Mia picked up his Signal. Finally. It’s faint, but she heard it. He’s definitely in this part of the world. J and Mia are going to swim the length of the coast, see if they can get a bead on his location. If they do, we’ll confront him together. Meanwhile, say hi to your bodyguard.”

“Is that a step up or down from lifeguard?”

Bo doesn’t answer, just sets the iPod down and lifts my left hand, examining the calluses on my fingertips. “You know,” he says after a moment, “it’ll be the four of us at Cliff House.”

I jerk my hand away—

“Don’t worry, Jordie won’t be around much. When he is, just—don’t listen to him.” With a shrug, Bo holds up my earbuds. “If things get weird, put these in.”

“Beeswax, yeah? And what if I
want
to listen? You going to tie me up?”

“Sure thing, Odysseus, you
and
your red boots. On second thought, that might make things too easy for Jordie when he—”

“Shut up!”

“Okay, but seriously, he’s my
brother
. He’s a good guy. And despite any revelations you may have had? So am I. Now, your job’s not too tough. I’ll take you to Cliff House tomorrow after school. You’ll stay inside. Out of sight. Cord will be back Monday, at the latest. Our father will probably be with him. By then . . .” We sit looking at each other. The plan is simple: Two hunters. One babysitter. Switch. In the end, when they catch Nick, it’ll be three against one.

“What will you . . . do to him?”

“Arion.” Bo’s voice is dark now, black on black, like a shadow at night. He touches my face. I lie down on the bed . . .

“But—” I protest weakly. “He’s like you.”

“We’ll take his breath,” says the shadow voice. “It’s the only way—”

His lips graze my neck.

“To kill a Siren.”

I’m lost in his Song . . .