Siren Song

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“Dr. Scott called after Dottie left for the day. Said you needed to get back to him right away.”

“Thanks. I’ll give him a buzz,” I called out, and kept climbing, going two stairs at a time without feeling breathless.

Bubba’s office is just down the hall from mine on the third floor. As I walked past, the competition’s judges were eviscerating the poor kid verbally. Why anyone considered that entertainment I’d never know, but Bubba seemed to love it. I hurried to unlock my office door. If I was lucky the heavy wooden door would cut down on the sound. Situations like this made me truly hate having vampire-enhanced hearing.

I stepped over the threshold, feeling the familiar buzz of the wards reacting to me. If I’d looked, I might have caught a glimpse of the silver sigils Bruno had used to create the protections. Thinking about him, his smile, his voice, the touch of his lips . . . hurt enough to incapacitate me if I let it. But I wasn’t going to let it. I’d had my own epiphany in the restaurant.

One of the things Gran told me was that part of what went wrong with my mother was that my father left her. That men simply aren’t supposed to be able to leave sirens. His going broke something inside her. I hadn’t really thought about things from a biological perspective before. Bruno shouldn’t have been able to leave me. Maybe he could because I wasn’t fully siren, or because we met before my powers were activated by the vampire bite, or because he’s such a strong mage. Whatever the reason, he had left, and it was hitting me much harder than it should, given that we’d only just gotten back together.

I’m not my mother. I was not going to crawl into a bottle. No matter how much it hurt right now, I would get past this. What had worked best for me last time was keeping busy, working hard. Fate was certainly giving me the opportunity to do just that. Life was apparently going to be interesting, in that ancient curse sort of way.

Which brought me back to curses. Setting my purse on the desk, I dropped into my office chair. Dialing the phone with one hand, I stared at the mark on my palm. It was faint but still clear. I didn’t know a lot about palmistry, but now that I knew what to look for I could see that it did, indeed, mingle with both my life and career lines. Crap.

Apparently Dr. Scott had given me his direct number, because he answered on the first ring.

“Hello, Celia.” His voice was flat, without inflection, and it unnerved me.

“Hey, Jeff, what’s up?” I made my voice as cheerful as possible. I intended to say I’d been going to call him anyway, but he spoke before I had the chance.

“Your aunt’s personal assistant was here.”

“My aunt? I don’t have any aunts.”

“A very regal woman. She bedazzled the guards without any effort at all and just walked right through all of our security.”

Oh, crap. A siren.

Judging from Jeff’s tone of voice, whoever the siren was, she’d gotten to him I heard his anger, but underneath it there was a hint of hysteria.

“Look—” I started to speak, but he kept talking. With every word he seemed to grow more confident and more pissed. Which was probably good for him. Not so much for me.

“She was quite upset to find you gone. Apparently, your aunt, the sovereign of the sirens, Queen Lopaka, has been trying to reach you. She’s quite insulted and offended that you haven’t returned her messages.”

“I can imagine she was upset.” Because queens don’t like to be insulted. Except that nobody had tried to contact me that I know of, other than Ren’s visit. “But since I had no idea she’s been trying to reach me, I’m not sure what to do about it. Has she been trying to reach me, Jeff? Has your staff withheld messages from me?”

“Nobody has contacted our facility until today, I promise you. It’s not the sort of thing we’d keep from you. We would discuss it in therapy at the very least. I’ve sent you an e-mail with the details of her visit, along with the results of your most recent blood work and . . .” He paused for a long moment and I could hear him breathing as though summoning his courage. “I’ve also sent you an agreement to sign, terminating your stay here and releasing us of all responsibility. Once you fax it back to us, we’ll refund all your money.”

“B-but—,” I stammered, trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. He was kicking me out? Could he do that?

“I’m sorry, Celia, but the fact is that you’re simply too much of a security risk. I can’t have people wandering in and out of our facility at will, manipulating the patients and staff. It’s dangerous. I know you’re not responsible for it, but the fact of the matter is that they are coming here because of you.”

I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. He was right. I might not want to be a patient at Birchwoods and might not think I deserved to be there, but I sure as hell didn’t want it to get out that I’d been evicted. If word got out, I’d never get another facility to take me if things went south. Of course, the state would still be more than happy to let me in and then throw away the key. I wasn’t going there. I’d rather die.

“Tomorrow, movers will pack your possessions and deliver them to your office. We’ll cover the cost.” His voice was still cold, flat. He was doing his very best to be businesslike and make it absolutely clear that this was non-negotiable. Damn it! Dammit, dammit, dammit.

“Is there anything else?” I sounded a lot calmer than I felt. Shock maybe. Possibly fatalism. There’s only so much the mind can take in a short period of time. At some point, if you have enough disasters hit close enough together, you just get shell-shocked. I had not only reached that point, I’d also sailed right past it. All I could do now was just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

He kept talking, a little too clipped and high-pitched to sound normal. “Your therapist has indicated she is willing to continue seeing you privately, off-site. Dr. Talbert has also indicated her desire to work with you in the future. I took the liberty of giving them both your e-mail so that you can work that out between you.”

Did I want more therapy? I wasn’t really sure. While a part of me was thrilled that I could go home and didn’t have to be locked behind gates and wards anymore, I also felt . . . sort of weird. Now I understood what Vicki had meant when she said that the outside seemed too open. But there was nothing more to be said, at least not to Dr. Scott. “Wow. Well, I guess that’s it, then.”

“Yes, it is.” Long seconds of silence ticked by. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Good-bye, Jeff.”

“Good luck, Celia.”

He hung up. For a long moment I just sat there, holding the receiver. I was stunned. As of this moment I was probably the only homeless multimillionaire in the country. I had inherited the guest cottage and part of the beach from Vicki. But that was still in probate and I hadn’t signed the lease papers before Creede spirited me out of there. No doubt Cassandra would even contest that. Everything was going to be tied up in legal limbo for God alone knew how long. I hadn’t worried too much about it until now, because I’d been scheduled to be at Birchwoods for weeks.

Where the hell was I going to stay? Even if I bought Gran’s house, it would still be her house. And if Mom didn’t go to jail, she’d probably live with Gran. I couldn’t live there, too, and I couldn’t afford to buy another place and pay two mortgages if I bought another place. I make a good living but not that good.

I set the phone back in its cradle and put my head in my hands. Dammit, I didn’t need this shit. I’d had enough. More than enough.

There was a tap on the door. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”

I looked up to see Bubba leaning against the door frame. He was holding a pair of beers from the mini-fridge in his office. I appreciated the gesture, but no alcohol. Not right now. Every day, every negative event was becoming a new temptation to drink. I didn’t need crutches, I needed solutions. The hard part was, there weren’t any to be found.

“You ever just want to say ‘screw it all’ and walk away?”

He grinned, giving me a glimpse of a chipped tooth that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him. Ah, the joys of being a bail bondsman. “All the time, babe, all the time.” He twisted the cap off one of the bottles and tossed it into the trash with a deft flick of his wrist. He offered the second bottle to me, but I shook my head no. “But what else am I gonna do? And you know it wouldn’t be any better anyplace else.”

I gave a gusty sigh. “You’re probably right.”

“You know it.” He set the unopened bottle on my desk in case I changed my mind, and sprawled into one of