Page 29 of Siren in Love (In Love #1)

Mike

~ Mike

Mike tried to count them with his siren sense, but all he was certain of was that Dominic had raised many. He’d gathered them here for his little ambush. Peter was absolutely right. This was a trap, and Dominic wants to watch Corvin get torn to shreds and eaten.

Mike launched straight into his siren song, hurling it at the swaying shapes that waited for them in the old greenhouse. He wasn’t very surprised when all it got him was Dominic’s laughter.

“Like I didn’t expect you to try that, Mikey. I’m wearing earplugs to keep you from pulling your little tricks on me.”

“Mikey?” In the moonlight, Corvin looked pissed. “That’s not your name, Pineapple Mike.”

“Never liked him calling me that,” Mike agreed.

Peter circled back to the door they had come through, his spade at the ready for decapitation.

Mike wasn’t sure whether Dominic had seen Peter.

It was dark in here, and even if the necromancer had the power to enhance his sight with magic, they’d made it through a door he hadn’t expected them to use.

The way Peter was sneaking, he probably hoped for the same.

“Mikey, just stop. Think about this. You and me, we’re perfect for each other. And if you really want to keep the human around to play with, I’ll happily resurrect him for you.”

The swaying heads of the dead approached them. They looked like bobbing buoys in an ocean of darkness.

Meanwhile, the zombies at their back were finally at the door. Peter greeted the first one with his spade, and a severed head tumbled and rolled to a stop right in front of Corvin.

“Oh, shit, that’s fucking disgusting!” Corvin’s fingers tangled in Mike’s shirt as he tried to get away from the head.

“Mikey,” Dominic said, “that’s not nice. We should’ve just gotten straight to the makeup sex instead of this angry reunion bullshit you’re putting me through. Come on, we’ll be the best power couple, you with your siren power, me with command over death.”

Corvin looked at Mike in the darkness. “Please tell me he wasn’t that crazy when you guys were dating.”

“For someone who habitually raises the dead, I thought he was a pretty decent guy. But obviously, I broke up with him, so…” Mike shrugged.

“Necromancers,” Peter said in between swings of his spade. “Their breaking points are usually not too far beneath the surface.” Another head went rolling to the vine-dark floor. “There are too many of them, and he has a good score more here.”

Corvin pointed, even as the small zombie army Dominic had prepared to eat him came closer and closer. “Can you break glass?”

“Good thinking,” Peter said. “Won’t stop them, but it will slow them down.”

Mike nodded and looked up at where the glass panes still sat in the greenhouse’s roof. He sang until he found the resonance point, strengthened his voice rapidly, then felt the give as the glass shattered and rained down like crystal starlight. Dominic yowled.

“Fuck!” the necromancer screamed. Some of his zombies stumbled.

Peter ran past behind them. “Let’s make an exit!”

Instead of aiming his spade at a spinal column, Peter began hacking away at the thick growth of vines and knotted branches. Mike sang at the plants to part. Serenading plants wasn’t his specialty, not by a long shot, but he tried to help Peter as best he could.

More through sheer vampire strength than anything else, Peter hacked them a path to the outside, breaking the structure of the greenhouse with kicks that could have downed a werewolf prize fighter.

“This way.” He slipped through the opening.

“Come on,” Mike said, pulling Corvin with him.

Before they could get outside, Corvin screamed and stopped, his arms torn free of Mike’s grip. Mike turned to see the rotten body of an old lady taking hold of Corvin’s left hand. Her ugly mouth with yellowish, broken teeth opened. She wanted to take a bite out of Corvin.

Corvin tried to hit the zombie with his trowel, but the brittle bones had found a strength through magic that the gardening tool couldn’t beat. Her teeth came closer to Corvin’s fingers, his ring finger with Corvin’s engagement ring a dark band against the pale skin.

With anger and frustration and a futile shriek at the corpse, Mike swung his shovel. He caved the old corpse’s head in with the flat side, and the teeth, rather than tearing into Corvin, pattered against his skin, followed by gore that made Mike glad there wasn’t any more light to see by.

Corvin screamed, pulled away from the corpse, and got behind Mike.

“Get outside!”

Mike raised his shovel to aim at another zombie, and behind another set of swaying heads, he saw Dominic. The necromancer held his hand to a bleeding cut on his forehead, but the cruel smirk, the white teeth, still caught Mike’s attention.

Mike turned and followed the other two, squeezing through the broken wall. Outside, the ocean sang to him, and Morrowvale glistened brightly in the distance.

This was the far end of the resort, the oldest part of the property. Mike had read that surfers liked the beach here, but at this time of night, it was completely abandoned.

“There’s a path down there that leads to the beach,” Peter said. “You two go ahead. I’ll spade off a few more heads before I follow.”

He glanced down at Mike’s shovel and gave an approving nod as he walked back toward the opening in the greenhouse wall. Gray arms were already reaching through, grasping at air as if it could give them life.

“You sure?” Mike asked.

Peter laughed. He was enjoying himself, Mike realized. “I am. Keep your librarian safe, Michael.”

Peter swung his spade. A zombie moaned before its head rolled onto the grass. Mike hissed at the severed head, then ran after Corvin, who was already picking his way toward the beach.

“Are you okay?” Mike asked as he caught up with him.

“I think so. She didn’t bite me. Fuck, I’ll never be able to look at an older person and not remember this. How are you so calm? Don’t tell me this is normal for you.” He looked at Mike. The wind had tousled Corvin’s hair, and smudges of gore streaked his face and hands.

“It’s not normal.” The footpath to the beach was steep and not exactly an easy walk.

Mike gripped Corvin by the shoulder to make sure he didn’t fall forward in the darkness and hurt himself.

“But it does happen. I mean, I’ve never had an ex try to get me back with a horde of zombies, but a lot of our clients are supernaturals. ”

Corvin glanced back. “Wow. We need to have a super long and detailed talk after this. You need to tell me what a yule cat is, and why it was trying to eat you, just for starters.”

“It wasn’t. It just roamed before it was time to roam and maybe got angry when it saw someone wearing last year’s clothes.”

Corvin stumbled and almost fell forward, but Mike pulled him back, hard. They landed in a heap on the path, and the press of Corvin’s body, the warmth of him, made Mike want to hold on, to protect what was his.

He braced both arms around Corvin and kissed the back of his head.

The scar tissue there wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone else, but Mike caressed it, remembering how that evening had started: him, waiting, and Corvin, walking toward him while music drifted around them from the inside of the Old Church.

“Thanks.” Corvin’s voice was husky. Mike could easily pick out the desire in it.

“Anytime.”

With Corvin so close, Mike was almost tempted to forget where they were and what was after them. Corvin made a breathless little noise in the back of his throat, telling Mike he felt the same.

Peter appeared on the path above them. “This is not the time or the place for sweet affection. I dispatched a few more, but the cleanest option would be to go for the necromancer at this stage. I think he brought the entire cemetery.”

Corvin cleared his throat and scrambled back to his feet. Mike picked his shovel up from the sand. “Okay, let’s do that then.”

“My pleasure. Corvin? Sweet Corvin, you’ll see this through with your siren lover?”

“Fiancé,” Corvin said. Mike’s heart swelled with love and pride. “That siren is my fiancé, Peter, and yes, I’m in. Unless you want me to, uh, help?”

“Aww, you want to help.” Peter turned in a pirouette.

Mike heard his spade connect as the vampire used the momentum to cave in a zombie skull.

Corvin squeaked as a body tumbled down to the beach ahead of them.

“The gesture is appreciated, but perhaps you could stick with staying safe. Pick up the pace, you lovely couple. The zombies are getting hungry.”

Mike had to keep Corvin from falling twice more, but they made it to the beach in one piece, feet sinking into the wet sand.

The moon painted diamonds on the cresting waves and made the sea foam look like ivory, but the sea itself was velvety black. It sang its ode of cold and deep waters to Mike, who hummed to it in response.

Behind them, the zombies groaned from a hunger that nothing living could ever sate, stumbling and falling to the sand only to reach for them again with grasping hands.

“You can’t run forever, Mikey!” Dominic yelled from above. “You sway the living, and I sway the dead! We’ll be powerful. Together. No one will ever be able to stop us! You belong to me, Mikey.”

Corvin snorted. “The nice thing to say would be you belong with him. It’s good you’re getting hitched to me if this guy was the best you could do before me.”

Corvin’s praise, even if said with panic tingeing his voice, still made Mike’s chest swell with pride.

“Corvin, are you suggesting ours will be a pity marriage?”

The moonlight was enough for him to see the surprised expression on Corvin’s face right before he started laughing. “Oh, fuck. Nice one, Pineapple Mike. Yes, this will be our pity marriage.”

“Mikey! Answer me! You’re mine,” Dominic yelled from behind his horde, interrupting their moment.

Is that what he wants? My power? What does he want it for ? Not that it matters anymore.