Chapter 23
Canto
Iapproach Diablos cautiously. He’s standing at the edge of the cliff, but even this close proximity has me wanting to send him flying off. The night sky is full of stars that I don’t recognise, and the wind is blowing off the ocean, bringing a promise of winter with its icy breath.
“I have a lead on a possible creature for you to hunt down.”
Diablos, the back-up plan. We’re putting all our hope and faith into this plan because the alternative is unthinkable.
I don’t have a lot of faith in this idea, but if anyone might be able to find a way, it’s Diablos. Plus, he has something we don’t.
Contacts.
We just need five creatures, and we’re free. She can go to Nightmare while we deal with Deux, and then we can retrieve her. It will work out. I’ve thought it over again and again. It has to work.
“What is this creature you want taken care of?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been up there to have a look. To be honest, I’ve been chasing up leads of possible omegas in trouble.” He grunts, and for the first time, looks really tired. “There are so many out there needing help, Canto. So many.”
“What do you do with them when you find them?”
“If they are capable and useful, I see if there’s a good fit of alpha that can work with them. If there’s not, I help them get a new life or safety, and we educate them on their omega nature.”
“What’s a good fit?”
“Well, I recently found an omega whose profession is as a contract lawyer. I also had three alphas who recently came across who are deep into contracts, it was what they lived for. I have paired them up, and they are now blissfully happy, making leak-proof contracts people and other worlders can’t escape from. ”
The bitterness in his voice has me holding tight to the laugh that wants to escape.
“Did she get you?”
“Oh, yeah. Mercenary little omega,” he growls. “There’s another omega who is a firefighter. Turns out a nymph and a dryad are here, and they like putting out fires. It’s a dream team.”
“What makes us such a good match?” I ask without meaning to.
“Sometimes it’s not about what you do; sometimes it’s about who you are.”
He looks out at the ocean and smiles gently. I’ve never smiled like that, as if I were truly content with my lot. I envy him.
“When I met Hartley, he needed something to believe in, to give his heart to. He was tired, and I needed someone who was loyal and good, someone who believed. I think of our souls as jigsaw pieces, and we just fit together.”
Diablos’ black hair whips around his face.
“I think Mei is the same as you. She’s lived a hard life, with no fault of her own, but she’s a survivor; she’s strong. You are all protectors. When I look at you together, I see a whole jigsaw puzzle.”
I shake my head, denying it, but I can’t speak the words I know are false.
“It’s impossible,” I whisper. “It can’t be.”
“Yeah, it always seems that way, and then you remember that it’s not.
And suddenly, five asshole Sirens are there, saving the world because this strange girl who should have died has just become something that is a myth.
And sometimes, the impossible is not just possible but probable.
Mei can be your impossible. It’s okay for dreams and plans to change. ”
“I’ll think about it,” I murmur.
“Good. Now, there’s a forest, deep in the middle of this mountain area. It's not got a lot of people or visitors, but something has gone wrong.”
Diablos pulls out a map and pinpoints the area.
“The humans are saying something monstrous has moved in, and the gossip is spreading.”
“Okay, we’ll go now.”
“Thank you, Canto.”
He pauses, glancing at me, his hair whipping up in the wind.
“What was your name before?”
I stare at him.
“Before is dead, Canto is who I choose to be. The name I was born with will never be uttered again.”
Diablos notes the distinction and dips his chin in understanding. “Happy and safe hunting, Siren.”
“And to you, Demon.”
Then he disappears. I wait a moment to make sure he’s really gone and then walk back to the house to get everyone ready.
It’s almost a relief to have something to do.
It takes up half of a human hour to get ready, and then Leaf opens one of his portals. I land heavily in a crouch with Mei beside me.
She bounces up, inhaling deeply, but the wind is blowing the wrong way. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this, and I trust my gut. It has kept me alive all this time.
So, when she goes to move towards the village that we can’t see, I grab her wrist and pull her back.
“Wait, Mei, something’s wrong.”
When I turn to look at her, I realise she already knows. Her lips are white and turned down, and she’s stiff and tense, like she’s expecting a hit. The survivor and monster that she is has returned.
She is beautiful.
Knock it off, Canto.
I go first, and she follows behind, not close enough to be a hindrance if I need to move but in a spot that is just in the corner of my eye.
She moves silently while the rest of us make a little noise. Everything sounds so loud, and I realise that it’s because there are no birds singing. No insects buzzing. The world is silent. Where are the people?
I get this sudden sick feeling that I know what we are going to find, still I hope. It’s not a human condition, hope is for all creatures. I cling to it, begging for someone to be alive, for there to be a good explanation for this.
The road is dirt, and it’s covered in snow and ice that deepens as we drift closer to whatever is wrong. Leaf doesn’t seem to be enjoying the cold at all, but Mei moves through it like she’s had experience with it before.
It takes us an hour before we see the outskirts of the village. The huts are stone and thatched roofs, cobbled streets. Right now, there is no smoke coming from the huts, no sounds of children or people talking. There isn’t a smell that could be food or drink. There is just an absence of life.
“Where are they?” Lirin asks, pulling at his jacket. His cheeks are red, and his eyes scan the surrounding forest warily.
I don’t answer him, instead pulling my sword as we pass the first house. I go into the fourth one. There’s a plate of food on the table, it’s frozen over. A chair has been knocked over. Whoever lived here left in a hurry. They tried, and they fought to survive.
But they were no match against whatever came for them.
My anger rises, and I try to smother it as I back out of the hut. We check every single house, there is no sign of anyone alive, but no sign of bodies either.
“Where do a hundred and fifty people disappear to in the middle of a blizzard?” Ronit snarls.
Mei’s attention is intently focused on something on the hut. I look at the long scratch marks on the outside wall, she can’t see it, but she clearly senses something.
“It could be nothing,” I say to her because I hope it isn’t what she’s thinking. I really do.
But my history, my knowledge, says otherwise. Everyone is still here…they just aren’t alive anymore.
So, where are they?
Mei wanders ahead of us, following the road out of the village. In front of us, a mountain looms, disappearing into low-lying clouds. The wind is freezing, and the temperature is dropping. We can’t stay here much longer.
“Mei,” I call out. “We have to go back.”
She ignores me, instead, she keeps walking, but she gets smaller. Not physically, although she curls in on herself, but something terrible clutches her, and she just…shrinks.
“Mei!” Leaf bellows and charges towards her.
That’s enough to break my frozen spell. I lunge forward, and because I’m closest, I’m able to reach her first, but as soon as I get close, I stop moving. All I can do is stare.
The foot hanging in front of my face is white. I look up and see a scene more grisly than anything I have ever seen in battle. People are hanging from trees by their wrists. Every single person is naked. Man, woman, child, young, and old. Their bodies are crystallizing with snow and ice.
There’s one thing every single person has, though.
Wounds where the eyes should have been, like they were ripped out, and a hole in their chest, showing their missing hearts.
Mei keeps walking, but she moves slowly, it takes me a moment to gather my thoughts and follow her. My hands tremble a little, but I shove it all aside and focus on the mission.
I don’t know how he did it so perfectly. How did he get them all to come out here? How did he ensure there were no survivors?
My brain starts working, and I can see it in my mind.
It all makes a terrible, sick sense. He would have chosen a house on the edge and taken them one by one in the night.
When the alarm sounded and people tried to hide, he would have left them until he’d killed all the fighters, then gone for those hiding. The children would have been the last.
I close my eyes, children are special, they are sacred. How can he do this? There’s only one creature I’ve ever met who was this evil. I take Mei’s hand, pulling her to a stop.
“Was this-”
“Deux,” she says. “This is a message to me. This is a promise. He’s not going to stop, not until he’s got me, and as long as I continue trying to fight him or run from him, he will just keep killing.”
“Mei.”
She shakes her head violently, tossing that golden hair of hers. “I know him.”
I look up at the bodies, at all the people who were alive a few days ago.
“This is excessive. This is the joy of killing just for the sake of killing. He will always be a monster, it’s not your fault. It’s his.” I lick my lips, shivering in the cold. “Where did he do it, though?”
“He would have found somewhere he could hide.” Mei tries for nonchalance, but her voice breaks.
“Mei?”
“I think he killed her like this. Because she fought him and got me away from him. He was following us for so long.”
I pull her into my arms, holding her close. “I’m not going to let him get you, but I don’t understand, Mei. Who did he kill?”
“I think he killed my mom. I couldn’t find her, but I could feel her. It’s a thing, I can feel their pain, their agony. I can hear their screams. It lingers in the world like an echo.”
“No, Mei. It’s done, it's not them. You are safe.”
I hold her for a long time, listening to her broken confessions, each time that monster hunted her and almost got her. Each time, he stole a piece of her. I make a tally in my head.
He hurt her. He scared her.
I’m going to chop him into pieces and feed him to the crabs at the bottom of my ocean. My rage grows, and my shiver stand in silent witness, hearing the words, letting the soul of this Nightmare into us. She’s not just our enemy. She’s not a mindless killing machine.
She’s scared and hunted. She’s braver, smarter, and wiser than anyone I know.
I look at Ronit and see him dip his chin in acknowledgment. We’ll talk, but later. Right now, she needs us.
We keep walking and stumble upon the site by sheer luck. It’s a bloody circle with brown, black dried blood mushed in with the trampled snow. Most of it is covered up, but the thick tree canopy stopped the snow from falling on it and burying it.
He’s cunning.
We have to be smarter.
He’s vicious.
We’ll have to be meaner.
Deux is an apex predator who hasn’t met his match yet.
But we are weakening. We aren’t what we should be. Just thinking that eleven months ago, we would have ripped this ridiculous creature apart, but the curse has dampened our powers, and the closer we get to the end of it, the less strength we have.
We have to outsmart him, it’s our only option. We need to set a trap.
I push it aside and focus instead on what we need to do.
“Diablos,” I whisper. “We need you.”
He appears instantly. “I hope this is important, Sire-” he cuts off mid-word, turning first one way, then another.
“What the fuck happened?”
“Deux,” Mei says quietly.
Diablos exhales roughly. He opens his mouth, then closes it. I can see him thinking all the things he wants to blurt out but stopping himself before he does. I’m glad I don’t have to try to kill him.
I’m not even sure I could do that right now.
Leaf takes Mei’s hand in his, ignoring the way she tries to pull away from him.
“Deux?” Diablos mutters. “Perhaps I ought to stick Stix on him. Or Puppy.”
“No!” Mei shouts.
Diablos looks at her with real anger this time. “Why not?”
“He will consider it a challenge. He will go after anyone they care about, and he will make Becky’s death horrible. She doesn’t understand herself yet. Stix is too honourable; Deux would kill him, and Puppy is too thrown by his instincts.”
Diablos stares at her, really seeing her. “What would you have me do? I can’t leave him to run around killing entire villages of humans. They will get out their guns and nukes and blow us all to hell.”
“We will do it,” Mei says. “If we work together, I think we could do it.”
I stare at her. Working together? I think about it, all of us. Yeah, we might be able to pull it off.
Diablos nods and looks around sadly. “Get out of here. I need to notify the local authorities and let them investigate. I don’t need anyone to see the Sirens here again.”
Leaf picks Mei up and carries her away. I move closer to Diablos and stand shoulder to shoulder with him, watching as Ronit gets our shiver moving.
“If we fail, there will be a place you can send him. Listen for my song.”
Diablos scowls. “Don’t fail, Siren. That Nightmare deserves better than this life has given her.”
I incline my head, acknowledging the truth of that statement. Mei does deserve better.
I look up at the frozen bodies, but then again, so did they. Not everybody gets a happy ending in this life. Some of us are destined for tragic ends and tears. Some of us have to suffer so that others can soar.
That is the way of it.
It just never occurred to me that I would want so badly to change the fate of one person.