Page 30 of Wicked Tides #1

I climbed down toward the boat and stepped to the front as Mullins and James began to row.

My men already knew what to do. We’d done similar things so many times, it was almost routine.

There were three harpoons, one on each side of the ship, and nets.

They were ready for sirens. I hoped they’d be ready for anything else, too .

The fog was thick and the smells even thicker. It was like a soggy graveyard. I knew the volcano on that black, cursed island smelled of sulfur, but there was more to it. I knew the smell of dead bodies well and the island was surrounded by the stench.

My men pulled scarves over their mouths and noses, but the odor of rotting flesh only familiarized me with what I’d be one day. I never shied from the scent. Glancing back at Dahlia sitting on the other end of the boat, I saw her expression unchanged.

When something bumped the boat, I glanced over the edge to see a bloated corpse full of holes where crabs and seagulls had gnawed at the rotting flesh.

The men maneuvered the oars around it just as another drifted by, the stomach hollowed out.

I wrinkled my nose at the sour stink as I reached for the man’s coat to pull him closer.

He was a captain. Foreign by the looks of the beading and embroidery on his collar, but his face was too rotted and peeled to get an accurate idea of what he once looked like.

“Guess we found the crews from those ships,” Mullins said.

We finally hit the sand and let the waves push us up the shore before everyone hopped into the knee-deep water.

We hauled the boat up onto the black sand beach and then went silent, listening to the too-quiet island.

Sounds came back to me from deep within my memories.

Wailing voices. Cries of agony. The ripping of skin.

The damn pleasured moans of feeding sirens as they ate their fill of a crew that was once like family.

My eyes found Dahlia again as she walked up onto the beach. The way she was staring into the haze made me think she was going through those same memories. But she and I saw that day from different sides of the same coin.

She turned her eyes toward me, straightened her shoulders, and began exploring the beach. My men spread out, blades drawn, and began searching for answers.

The island was the last place I saw my father. The last place the crew of the Mother’s Fang put their mark on the world and instead of dying in battle, they died in cruel, helpless agony. That island also saw me take revenge on the bitches who did it.

We had not landed on the same side of the island, but the whole place felt the same. It felt like a great beast mocking us for our tribulations. Jagged rocks made cliffs and passages and there were arches up ahead where red grass and leafless bushes persisted in that wretched place.

I searched the sand. The rocks. Pieces of long-wrecked ships littered the beach. Bones. Jewelry. Remnants of horrors no one was around to hear made its final resting place on that island.

“Cap’n,” Mullins said, coming up to me with a wet flag that was tattered to shreds. I looked at it as he spread it out between his hands. “Le Saint. This ship went missing only months ago. Was filled with some of the most notorious hunters, wasn’t it?”

“Captain Jean Brigaut,” I nodded, recalling the man I saw in the water. “What the hell was his ship doing here?”

“What the hell was the Cornwallis doing so far off course with a bunch of young girls? Nothing’s right anymore.”

He looked nervous. I didn’t blame him. When I’d told my men about the creatures that attacked us on that tiny island, I could see in their eyes that they didn’t want to believe there was something worse than sirens stalking the waters.

Now it was becoming blatantly obvious that there was more going on.

I turned to see Dahlia far off in the fog, hip deep in the water and tugging on the shirt of a bloated corpse.

She was dragging it onto the shore and I wanted to know why.

I made my way toward her as Mullins continued to scour the beach.

When I reached her, she was just dropping the corpse on the sand.

She crouched down over it, tossing his torn shirt off his chest.

No silentium. Jean Brigaut was a hunter. All of his men should have had them. Then again… all of my father’s men had them when they were slaughtered. Didn’t seem to do much good in the end.

But there was something else on his chest and it seemed to capture Dahlia’s interest, though her face barely showed it .

It was a symbol and it was carved into the man’s skin like a brand. The way Dahlia regarded it, I was certain she knew what it was.

“What is that?” I asked.

She stood, glancing at me, but she didn’t answer.

Instead, she turned and continued down the beach.

I followed, unwilling to let her out of my sight.

When we reached a large structure of rocks, I noticed a shallow cave eaten into the stones.

Dahlia walked right in, careless of her bare feet treading on the sharp rocks.

The cave smelled like smoke and putrid meat.

It was clear why when I saw the fire pit in the center filled with piles of ash and charred bones.

I narrowed my eyes at the scene while Dahlia circled the pit and began sifting through the ash.

“Your people don’t cook meat last I checked,” I said.

From the ash, Dahlia pulled out a necklace. I crouched opposite her near the cold fire pit and watched as her thumb brushed the ash off a silentium pendant. Our eyes met and finally, I saw a hint of confusion on her face.

“Men do,” she muttered, dropping the necklace into my hand. She slowly stood as I examined the pendant. “My people didn’t do this.”

I stood to face her, tossing the useless necklace aside. “Do you understand what happened here?”

“Perhaps. What would you do if I told you? Would you accept it or would you twist my truths into lies?”

“What do you mean?”

“Could you trust me?”

“No,” I huffed.

“Then there’s nothing to say.”

She walked past me, heading out of the cave. I reached out and caught her arm.

“Whatever is happening, you’re afraid of it.”

“You should be, too.”

“I cannot fear something I don’t know. ”

“The only reason I would ever help you understand what’s going on is if I intended to work alongside you and that is something I cannot even fathom doing.”

“That makes two of us, but that also makes us stupid.”

“I made myself the fool the day we first met. We—”

A gunshot rang out from down the beach. Quickly, we both turned and then began sprinting toward the noise. Through the fog, I could see four silhouettes standing together.

“Captain!” James called.

When we got closer, I noticed he was the one that pulled the trigger.

There was a body on the sand. A man, half-starved and barely breathing for all of thirty seconds before the wound claimed him.

I crouched over him, realizing immediately that he was without a silentium and that his body was littered with infected, swelling wounds.

In place of his silentium, was a symbol carved into his flesh, same as the floater.

The man would have been dead soon had James not ended him already.

“He came at us,” Mullins explained. “Had a rock in his hand and a crazed look on his face.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Asked him who he was. Told him we could help. He was mad.”

Dahlia looked over the body, examining it with the same precision she did the other one.

The sound of feet slapping sand drew everyone’s attention.

Another skinny man with a bald head darted over the hill, shouting madly.

I lifted my pistol as he came at me, a big rock in his hand just like the last one.

Blackened, rotten teeth sat unevenly in his mouth as he screamed.

I pulled back the hammer on my pistol when hands suddenly shoved my arm upward, forcing me to fire my shot into the sky.

Dahlia.

I lowered my firearm and pulled out my blade with my other hand, pressing it swiftly beneath her chin in warning as two of my men tackled the stranger to the ground. Our eyes bore challengingly into each other before she boldly stepped away from my sword and turned to the struggling madman.

“Be calm for me,” she spoke in an alluring, gentle tone.

The silentium buried in my chest hummed against my sternum as her voice carried through the air.

My men stepped back, alarmed to hear her inhuman tones fill their ears.

Those tones were disrupted by our pendants, but to the man without, they were hypnotic.

Whimpering, the man rose up on his hands and looked at Dahlia as she moved slowly toward him.

I watched as she crouched, reaching out a hand to gently stroke his salt-crusted forehead.

“Be calm,” she whispered, her voice like many trapped together in an eerie prison.

The man muttered something in French, his voice trembling and dehydrated. It was not fear I saw in his eyes, but desperation. His yellowed gaze was on Dahlia, unblinking and wanting as if he’d sooner serve her than drink water in his dying moments.

Dahlia spoke back to him in French, her voice no less tantalizing and poetic in another language.

All the while, she continued to stroke his face until the man slowly began to lean into her like a babe would his mother.

She sat back, coaxing more out of him until his head was in her lap.

She ran her fingers gently over the bridge of his prominent nose, his scalp, his ears, relaxing him.

Tempting him. Assuring him. My French was shit, but I was able to pick up a few words.

Not enough to understand what they were talking about.

“… Pour le fils d’Akareth,” he mumbled before his eyes closed and he went quiet.

“Shhh,” Dahlia hushed, leaning over the man and pressing her lips to his dirty skin. “Tu dois aller dormir maintenant,” she whispered, her song-like tones soaking through the man’s muscles until he was completely limp, curled in on himself like a child.

Dahlia’s eyes slowly climbed up and found mine. Gently, she set the man’s head on the sand and stood to face me.

“You may kill him now while he sleeps,” she said. “He wishes for it. I’d do it myself, but I wager you wouldn’t like the sight of it. ”

I glanced at Tor, giving him a subtle nod, and he stepped in to finish the poor man. Dahlia was already halfway to the boat when I caught her, forcing her to look at me.

“You used the voice among my men,” I snarled.

“This place is cursed,” she said through her teeth. “These sands are haunted by things even sirens fear.”

“Was it worth it? Taking his free will?”

“I did not take his free will. Someone else did. The one carving her sigil into men’s chests.”

I was growing frustrated with her vague answers.

“You know so much more than you’re saying.”

She scoffed. “Of course I do. And I’ll tell you.” She stepped in close, lifting her chin. “If you make it worth it.”

The briefest sense of desire flashed through my thoughts, followed immediately by disgust and I shoved her away from me.

Amusement curled one side of her lips before her eyes shifted away from me toward the sandy hills.

I glanced back to see a dozen silhouettes manifest on the null.

When they emerged from the fog, they looked similar to the two men on the beach in tattered clothes.

They were all starved. Crazed. Some had swords.

Others had stones. Sticks. Whatever they could find.

I knew Dahlia couldn’t control them all. Nor did I want her to. Seeing her do it to one man chilled me. If I could avoid seeing her do it to another, I would.

The men began to charge, all consumed with madness like it was a disease they longed to spread. My men started firing, but with only one shot in every pistol, we were outnumbered.

I rushed forward, drawing my cutlass to help in slaying the crazed mob.

One by one, they fell, each of their faces finding peace in their last breaths as if we’d done them a great favor.

They barely tried to fight us. They swung at us but with no skill.

No real effort. When they were all dead or dying at our feet, I felt a familiar rage bubbling up inside me.

I knelt to wipe the blood off my cutlass with one of the men’s torn shirts .

“Get back on the boat,” I ordered.

I stood and looked back at Dahlia standing next to the boat.

I was about to prod her again with questions when I noticed something in the water behind her.

A floating head, perhaps. A body. No… a face.

Half-submerged, the face remained perfectly still, inky hair floating like oil around it.

Dark eyes pierced through the back of Dahlia’s head, watching her.

Dahlia cocked her head at the look on my face when the stranger in the water emerged, leaping from the waves with arms extended.

A thin body with sleek muscle and gray skin shot forth.

A long, snake-like tail coiled beneath it and propelled her onto Dahlia’s back.

She fell to the sand, clawing at the wet grit as the other siren dragged her toward the water.

Dahlia turned over, kicking at her attacker when she raised her clawed fingers up and slashed downward.

She didn’t scream, but I could see she’d been cut.

The two wrestled like animals. The woman shrieked words I could not understand before Dahlia kicked her off into the waves.

She sat up in the water, speaking in that icy tongue of theirs before lunging at her again.

I sprang toward them with Lady Mary in my tight grip.

As Dahlia scurried backward, I surged forward, swinging at the woman’s neck.

She dodged, but my blade still managed to snag her collarbone.

She made a sound so shrill it felt like an ice pick had pierced my skull. Then she dove back into the waves.

“We must go,” Dahlia said, lurching to her feet and holding a hand to her bleeding chest. “She is calling others.”

My men dragged the boat into the water, heads frantically turning from one way to the other.

“Wait!” a voice said.

My head snapped back to see Uther running from down the beach. I wasn’t aware he’d gone so far, but he was desperately sprinting toward us and if he looked that afraid, I did not want to know what might be behind him .

Mullins helped Dahlia into the boat but realized what he was doing quickly and snapped his hands back like she was made of hot metal.

Tor and James paddled hard, bringing us back toward the Rose as quickly as they were able.

From below, something large bumped the side of the boat.

Then another. Bump. Bump. The boat rocked, waves undulating as if to force us back to the island.