The monster woke.
She screamed, clawing at my hands with her talons and rushing backwards, fear widening her eyes. Pain ripped up my arm.
“Easy. I’m not going to hurt you,” I promised, grabbing a hold of the scratch on my wrist with the other hand, applying pressure.
Although the siren’s eyes were wide and she shrunk away from me, but she didn’t take flight and leave as I had expected her to. In my injured hand, I held four feathers. I needed one more.
Blood oozed between the fingers of the hand I was using to apply pressure. The cut on my arm throbbed. When my hands were on my dying friend’s chest, Kyle had told me to focus my energy on healing. Focus on molding the injury back together on a cellular level, letting the blood come through like water. I did that again now.
My arm tingled, and slowly the pain subsided, I pulled my hand away and found an ugly white scar instead of an angry cut. Bruising still developed under the surface of the skin. It wasn’t a perfect healing, but it would have to do.
Then I focused on the four feathers in my hand. If I approached the siren would she even let me get close enough to rip out another feather? How did I feel about that? I wasn’t crazy about trying to gain the creature’s trust only to betray it by ripping out the feather. Tearing out the first four feathers had been like pickpocketing. I was in, grabbed what I needed, and was gone before the mark had a chance to do something about it.
Betrayal was another matter.
“Easy, I want to help you.” The least I could do after injuring the poor creature was heal it, right? I stepped toward it slowly when something crunched under my foot. I glanced down, moving my foot to the side slightly, but that was hardly necessary.
Bones littered the nesting area. Most were dried and bleached white by the sun. Others had the remaining red gore gathered around the heads of the bones. Among the various bones were skulls, some animal and some human. Then the smell hit me, and I dry heaved. If I had eaten anything that morning it would have been all over my shoes.
Indignancy overcame me. The monster had lured my men into a sleep so that she could crash our ship against the rocks in the midst of the whirlpool. She wanted them to die. She wanted to eat them. Not a poor creature, but a monster. My face grew hot with anger.
Overhead, thunder rumbled as the sky turned dark. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and then a bright flash caused me to shrink away, blinded for a moment. A deafening boom followed.
Chapter 8
Smoke and burning flesh filled my lungs, and I coughed it out. Bent over with my hands on my knees, I coughed and wretched against the hideous smell. When the wind had pulled away the smoke, I was finally able to see what had happened.
Although the dark sky overhead roiled and rumbled, no rain had fallen. Before me, in the nest of bones sat the charred remains of the siren. My hear sank. Lightning. I killed it.
Guilt washed over me, but not as much as I thought would. The siren truly was a monster, a human-eating monster. But worse, was the question of whether I would find a feather intact among the burnt remnants of her body.
Heat still dissipated off of her flesh, and much of her brown speckled feathers were melted against her body in sticky masses. The white feathers on her body were blackened.
Bile rose up in my throat again, and I swallowed it down. As much as I didn’t want to go near this creature, or touch it, I had no choice. I pressed my hand against the heat of its freshly seared body and pushed. Perhaps there would be feathers underneath that were still intact.
Under her body, I found only one feather at her tail that was usable. The other feathers were only half the length and width of this one, but I plucked it from the body and then released my hold, letting the body fall back into place.
I shoved the feathers into my leather knapsack and backed away, rubbing my sullied hands against my jeans. The monster’s face was charred and barely recognizable, but its eyes had fallen open when it had moved. Its mouth was open, exposing its rows of needle-like teeth. I avoided looking in its eyes as I backed away and then turned around and rushed back down the steps.
Because of the clouds overhead, the cave had become much darker than it had been on my ascent. But near the bottom, a fire had been stoked, and I kept my eyes fixed on the bright spot to help me stay focused on my way down the steps. I kept a hand against the cold, moss-covered wall so I stayed away from the empty edge of the steps on the other side. When I got about halfway down, I could see better, because of the firelight.
“Flora,” Calypso whispered my name in the darkness. “Slowly and quietly.”
The dragon didn’t elaborate, but I got the gist. I slowed down my pace and measured each breath I took, trying to quiet my panting.
Then I found the burgundy eyes of the dragon hiding behind a set of rocks. I snuck up next to her and crouched with her. “What’s going on?”
“He’s coming.”
A cough and a grumble came from the larger entrance to the cave, which thankfully wasn’t the one we came through. He stepped into the firelight. Standing well over ten feet tall, the cyclops must have weighed over five hundred pounds, too. It had a blindfold over its one eye, but I could see its lone brow over top.
My throat went dry, and I froze.
Polyphemus cleared his throat and
