Siren Song

the waist to study the spill of scarabs.

“I can see you’ve been given a death curse but not who did it or how. Perhaps the Wadjeti can tell us.”

I watched as she very gingerly picked up the lid to the box, giving me my first glimpse of the exquisite scarab on the inside of the lid. One by one, she began gathering up the small bits of Egyptian pottery, looking carefully at the symbol on the bottom of each as she did.

“Cursed?” Crap. We studied curses back when I was in school. I even knew a guy who’d been on the receiving end of one. And while he’d been an absolute jerk who richly deserved it—still, ouch. I understand that surgery helped with part of the problem and he and his wife eventually were able to adopt. “Is it fixable?”

She didn’t answer. Not good. I’d been hoping for a quick “yes.”

She straightened up and I realized she had missed one. A single, red scarab had rolled beneath the edge of one of the chairs. Without thinking, I reached down and picked it up. It was warm and I felt a slow pulse of power flow through me. It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt really, really good. I was almost sorry to give it up, but I extended it to her, flat on my palm, carving side up.

I wouldn’t have thought she could pale further, but she did. White showed around her entire iris as she took it from me. But she pulled herself together. With a shaking finger she pointed at the edge of one of the chairs. “Is that another one over there?”

I dropped onto my knees. Nope. Nothing. I rose in a smooth movement and turned to her.

“I need to talk to my mother.” Almost slamming the lid shut, she shoved the box into my arms. “I realize it’s probably useless to say this, but try to stay out of trouble.”

And in less time than it took to blink, she was gone.

5

I sat in the visitor’s chair in Dr. Scott’s office. Not even 6:00 A.M., but I knew he was already on the grounds. I didn’t technically have an appointment, but I’d at least called ahead. The night receptionist, Autumn, had reluctantly agreed to let me into his office. Mostly because I told her there’d been a major security breach and I needed to talk to him right away.

Dr. Scott’s office takes up probably a fourth of the first floor of the administration building. It’s on the same side of the building as the group therapy room, with a similar wall of glass facing the ocean. The decorator had done a great job echoing the golden tans of the sand and the blues and greens of sea and sky. Everything was beautiful, tasteful, expensive, and soothing.

I wasn’t feeling particularly soothed. I’d found the visit from my “cousin” more than a touch disturbing on several levels. The curse mark remained fairly prominent. I kept glancing at it.

Curses, in general, are pretty variable. Say your coworker, sibling, mother-in-law, or whatever pisses you off. If you have any magical talent at all you can put a curse on them. How effective the curse is will depend on how much talent you’ve got. Someone like me, with no magic, equals no curse. Now someone like Bruno, who’s got so much talent he practically glows in the freaking dark (now that I’ve got vampire powers to see it), well, there’s not much he couldn’t do, up to and including arranging for your enemy to die.

I felt a shiver run down my spine from a combination of fear and rage. Sitting there, holding my little wooden box, I wanted answers, about the curse, about the gift Ren had brought me.

I don’t trust people. Never have. But I trust my instincts and my instincts were telling me that this “gift” was the magical equivalent of dynamite.

It wasn’t exactly reassuring when Dr. Scott stormed into the room, his expression thunderous. He isn’t that big a man, and normally he’s reserved and elegant, someone you’d expect to see on the cover of JET magazine or one of the major psychiatric journals. He was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, but his attitude was anything but casual. “What the hell have you done now? Whatever you’re holding was felt by most of the staff and woke half of the guests.”

“What have I done? Oh no,” I snapped back. “You need to have a chat with Security, because someone slipped through the cracks. I could have been killed. Like Vicki was killed, in case you’ve forgotten. I thought you’d tightened security around here.”

He stopped in mid-stride, halfway around the desk. Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself, and I watched him very deliberately pull calm around him the way I’d seen a woman at my grandmother’s church put on a familiar and comfortable shawl. He changed direction to sit in the guest chair next to mine. We were close enough that he could easily touch me if he wished, and it gave him an unobstructed view of what I was holding.

“I’m sorry, Celia. You’re right.” His voice was tightly controlled. I could tell he was still angry, but he wouldn’t let the emotion control him. This was more like the Jeff Scott I knew. In fact, the fit of temper he’d shown coming in was so unlike him that I wondered if Ren wasn’t right and he needed therapy.

“This wasn’t your fault. May I?” He nodded toward the box.

“Are you sure you want to? Last time someone else touched it, it shocked the hell out of her.”

A small frown crossed his face, but he was nothing if not determined. He set his jaw and reached out. “I’ll take my chances.”

I passed the box to him. He didn’t flinch or hesitate and it moved into his grasp without event. I was glad. My hand was still tingling from earlier.

“What is it?” he asked, running his fingers carefully over the intricately carved wood. Lifting the lid, he set it on the desk beside him.

“It was a gift from my siren visitor. She called it a Wadjeti. It’s used for some form of divination.”

“Sirens.” His expression soured. “I suppose that’s how she affected me—made me do things without my remembering?” He shook his head and let out a low growl. “I wouldn’t have believed it if my conversation with her hadn’t been on one of the security tapes.” His tone of voice made it clear how annoyed he was about this.

“Probably,” I admitted with a shrug, “but don’t ask me how it works. My gran said it’s a form of psychic ‘call,’ but she didn’t have much more information to give me than that.” Actually, she’d told me quite a few things, but none of them applied here and I wasn’t inclined to share them.

“The woman this morning manipulated me. She appeared in my home through a dozen magical barriers and I was compelled to bring her here and take her to your rooms. Then she sent me off, told me to get myself a cup of coffee. And I had to do it. Wanted to. Anything to please her.” He shivered. “Birchwoods is supposedly secure against teleportation, but my home was not.” He scowled. “I didn’t think it was necessary. My home address is not common knowledge among the staff.” He paused, his expression souring. “Of course, she could have persuaded someone to tell her.”

There was a tension to his body that wasn’t normally there. His gestures were too sharp, his voice just a couple of notes higher than normal. I might not have noticed had Ren not mentioned it, but Jeff didn’t seem quite right. He was trying too hard. It was almost as if he was doing a really good impression of himself.

“It’s possible, I suppose.”

“Did she give you a reason for the visit?”

“She said she wanted to give me a gift.” I indicated the Wadjeti.

“You don’t believe her?” His face said he agreed, but he couldn’t help but slip into doctor-patient mode every time he saw me now.

“Mostly I got the feeling she was trying to stir up trouble. Ren doesn’t get along with Adriana and wants to make her look bad.”

“Adriana being the siren from the wake?”

“Yes. The gift was just an excuse.”

“Are you expecting any more visits?”

I shrugged. “No. But I wasn’t expecting this one, either. You have to remember, until very recently I didn’t know much more about sirens than that they existed. I still don’t—and I need to. I’m caught up in the middle of some sort of political mess and I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t like it. And I really don’t like that they can just come and go as they please.”

He nodded. “Nor do I. Is there anyone you can discuss this with? Find out more of what’s going on?”