Chapter 5

Mortimer had been practicing his pool skills when he heard a crash in his kitchen again. He muttered curses under his breath as he set aside the pool stick and walked toward the noise.

“If you insist on eating my food, Thalia, you’d better"“

But he wasn’t able to make the threshold of the kitchen before a lithe figure swept out from the darkness and grabbed him from behind. It secured one hand behind his back, bringing a knife to his throat with its free hand while locking his shoulder.

Mortimer looked down at the blade and saw the familiarly decorated hilt that told him the intruder was a Siren. He rolled his eyes.

“Really, you have your garments in a bunch over Daddy’s decision to give you a vacation? Lots of people would only dream of"“

“You’re going to shut up,” a voice commanded in a thick Irish accent, “and you’re going to listen to me. We have some important things to discuss and for once, I would like to not waste any time listening to your voice, so please, don’t talk.”

“Morgan,” he said pleasantly. “Well, this must be a special occasion for you to sully yourself at my manor.”

“Mortimer, was it the “don’t” or the “talk” that was difficult for you to understand, exactly?” she asked, pressing the knife a little closer to his throat.

“I could disarm you really quickly,” he pointed out.

“And, yet, you haven’t. Probably because you realize I’ll kill you before you can twitch a finger toward any useless weapon that you’re thinking about grabbing in defense.”

“Now, now, if we’re going to discuss important things, I’d love to be able to see that pretty face of yours.”

“And I would love to be able to see your spleen freefalling to the floor,” she said. “We don’t always get what we want.”

“I’ll bet your little sister wouldn’t like that,” he said, struggling a little to get some air. “She’s taken quite a liking to me. I really think I’m growing on her.”

There was a growl behind him and he felt himself being slammed to the floor. He stood to his feet, rubbing his neck and turning around.

The light from the kitchen behind him cast Morgan in half shadows. Mortimer could see her dressed in all black as usual with the blade pointed right at him. Her expression was solemn. It was her battle face.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked politely. If he were being honest with himself, the sudden appearance of the Siren known for the least amount of patience unnerved him a little. It would be showing a deadly card, he knew, to let her see that.

“You’re a disgusting rat, Mortimer,” Morgan said, ignoring his question. “You took the time in between my little sister’s punishment to try to sell her to your side?”

“Ah,” Mortimer said, reaching to the table with the whiskey and glasses next to where they stood. He poured two glasses. “I see she just told you about that. Well,” he said, holding one glass up to his lips and pushing the other towards Morgan. “No harm done. Your baby sister is really stubborn.” He took a sip as Morgan looked down at the cup and scowled. “She should be careful about that, could get her in a lot of trouble someday.”

Morgan lowered her blade a little as she remembered something and Mortimer smiled. “Oops. That’s right, that ship has sailed, hasn’t it? One of the timid, nervous, flighty little birdies mouthed off to the big bad hawk just recently.”

The blade lowered all of the way down. “How do you know that,” Morgan asked edgily.

“Well, that’s the nature of little birdies, right?” Mortimer asked, waving a hand toward the ceiling to turn on the lights. “Little birdies love to chirp and sing. And my best workers do love to listen. So, Alexandros is calling for a global purge?”

“No thanks to your minions and staff ignoring the rules laid out by our diplomats.”

“And I’m willing to bet that’s why you decided to pay a visit, isn’t it?” Mortimer asked.

“You know what will happen if our father succeeds.” Morgan said.

“End of days for all of us, I would imagine,” Mortimer responded casually as Morgan picked up the glass in front of her and sniffed it warily. “That really isn’t necessary,” he said. “I’m drinking from the same bottle, and less can kill you than me.”

“It could still ruin my day and make for a bad hangover,” Morgan countered. Poison couldn’t kill a Siren, but certain ones could make them wish it did. Satisfied that it didn’t smell dangerous, she took a cautious sip. After a moment, she was sure it was safe and took another.

“This is terrible,” she said.

“Well, then, you don’t have to drink it,” Mortimer responded.

Morgan scowled. “Not the drink, you idiot. This situation. Doesn’t your pathetic existence being either enslaved or wiped out completely worry you at all?”

“Well, it does go against my desire to continue living in this lovely place,” he agreed, looking around. “I suppose you came by to find out more than my feelings on ceasing to exist, though.”

“You told Telese that you knew of some underground holding cells in the Dark World.”

“Just under your father’s private little time-out section, yes.” Mortimer said, taking another drink. “I know every inch of this place. I know exactly where they are.”

“I need to see them,” Morgan said.

Mortimer shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he told her.

“What do you mean, ‘I can’t do that’? Aren’t you a big shark now?”

“Yes,” Mortimer said. “And with a new promotion comes more responsibilities. I can’t just be showing Sirens around the deepest recesses of the Dark World, now can I?”

“Apparently,” Morgan argued, slamming her drink cup down. “Apparently you can show Sirens around, because you offered to show Telese!”

“I offered that to Tilly on the condition of pact. I’m sure she informed you that she hasn’t seen them either. There’s a reason. I’m a business man, Morgie,” he said. “You want something? I want something. Get me what I want, and I’ll get you what you want.”

“And you want Telese under your thumb,” Morgan confirmed.

Mortimer refilled his glass. “You think of these things so much more harshly than you ought to. You love your little sister, I understand that. And when she was being tortured, your imagination could only play out the worst scenarios, day in, day out, for a hundred years.”

He took a sip and poured her a fresh glass. “But your imagination, in its most descriptive, violent, vivid scenes, couldn’t do justice to what actually happened to her. I saw her every day. And if I were to be able to make you see what I saw, well,” he nodded to her glass, “it would take about ten more of those and a rampage to settle your nerves again.”

Morgan’s breathing had gone shallow. “What is your point, Mortimer,” she said tensely.

“My point is the same thing your father saw,” he answered. “Telese, through unspeakable terror and pain and violence and abuse, never broke. She was akin to a teenager and the little Siren stayed her ground. Your father came in just before I would sneak in. I heard him talking to her, telling her that she needed to agree to work as a warrior. But she had made up her mind on the diplomat. And, of course, the rest is history. But to have somebody that resilient for the Dark World’s use, even for a hundred years or so….” Mortimer took a drink. “It would be magical. And it would be beneficial to you all, as well.”

“It’ll never happen, Mortimer,” Morgan said.

“Oh, I have high hopes,” he responded. “And I have all of the time in the world. Which, of course, we know isn’t going to be very long, is it?”

He gave her a big smile and she glowered. “You see, Morgan, every living being has a price. Me, you, your father and even your baby sister. We all have something.”

“And you price?” Morgan asked.

Mortimer shrugged. “Tilly’s pact will be more than enough. Barring that? I could take another Siren, I suppose. Preferably a diplomat. The Dark World could only stand to gain from an intelligent bargainer.”

“This is absolutely raving!” Morgan said. “Mortimer, everything you care about"your nice house, your special job, your money"all of it will be gone! You’ll have no more to live for than the last remaining humans!”

“You know,” Mortimer interrupted, “you could learn a lot from Tilly. So I won’t show you exactly where the cells are. Perhaps you can come up with some other sort of favour. Something with less risk?”

Morgan watched him for a moment.

“A map of the area?” she asked.

“Oh, really,” he scoffed. “Clearly your little sister is the smart one. A layout of the place would be even more risky, especially to give to a daughter of the man that wants to claim the entirety of Earth’s existence for himself. It would be like asking for him to build a fail-proof ambush plan.”

“Would there be any other kind of ambush plan?” Morgan asked. “Our father is"“

“The most powerful being in this world, yes, yes, I’ve heard this once or twice in my lifetime. He may be the most powerful being on Earth, but within all of existence, he shares that title with two others"one of which built the entirety of the Dark World with his own hands. The Dark One had planned for any sort of power play from your father.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “The Dark One expected this from father?”

“Well he didn’t come to be one of the three most powerful beings in all of existence by being an idiot.”

“Pardon, but I just don’t see the point of some Dark Lords, who are barely a step above humans in the power chain,” she paused for a moment to enjoy his scowl, “having any contingency plans in case of an attack from father and the Sirens. You would be dead.”

“Divide and conquer,” Mortimer said.

Morgan scoffed. “As though that would help? You could do the ‘divide’, but that ‘conquer’ part is going to be trouble, being that Father has the only weapon that can kill us.”

“The Eternal Blade, yes,” Mortimer said. “However, there is another way to kill you and dear old Dad. Oh, relax,” he said as she shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not so easy. It requires summoning the Dark One himself. This is difficult already, much less with you guys rushing an ambush on us. The point of the layout is to slow you down and spread us out so that somebody somewhere in this place has enough time to make the call.”

“And I suppose you all have some method of contacting him at once.”

“Correct.”

Morgan thought about this for a moment, taking a drink. “And I suppose you’re not going to tell me what that method is.”

“Also correct. I’ve been generous with the information so far. You’re lucky I like you. Anybody else, I wouldn’t be so gracious. Of course, anybody else I would have also disemboweled for breaking into my home.”

“So back to the original point,” Morgan said. “If you aren’t going to show me where the cells are, what will you tell me?”

“Well, you have to ask the right question.”

“Mortimer, I don’t know the question, otherwise I would have asked it already!” she snapped, her eyes starting to glow violet. “Do you think this is a social call? Trust me, I don’t want to be in your miserable rat nest any longer than I have to! If you’re going to be a miserable prat, just . . . give me a hint!”

“What do you already know about the location?” Mortimer asked.

Morgan sighed. “Only that it’s below the correction rooms. “

“Okay, and how many entrances are there to the correction rooms?”

Morgan thought about it. “Two. One that comes from the main walk from Earth to the Dark World and the other that leads to empty catacombs. They’re both dead ends.”

Mortimer raised an eyebrow. “They are? Keep in mind what I just told you about the layout. Does that make sense to have something where somebody can be so easily overpowered?”

Morgan huffed. She looked away for a moment. None of it made sense. He had admitted that the Dark One had laid out the Dark World to be far more fortified than the Sirens knew about. It didn’t make sense that there would be areas where there was no escape. But how could somebody escape from solid stone like the catacombs and corrections rooms were built upon. Not unless"

“There are passages everywhere,” Morgan said slowly, “Aren’t there.”

Mortimer smiled. “There we go. Now you’re thinking correctly.”

“Okay,” Morgan said. “Okay, then, where can I find the passage to the underground cells. Can you tell me that?”

Mortimer nodded. “Of course I can. We never use that particular passage. But it still doesn’t come for free.”

“And what do you want for it?”

He reached over the drawer of the small table next to him and pulled out a tiny little glass square with a gold cover, not much bigger than a dime.

Morgan looked at it for a moment. “What is that for?” she asked warily.

“For blood. Particularly your blood. A tiny little prick of your finger should do the trick,” he assured her.

Morgan was confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Siren’s blood is an incredibly rare ingredient for some very powerful spells,” he explained. “As you can imagine, it’s not very easily come by. That’s my price.”

“What kind of spells,” she asked. She didn’t have a good feeling about it. “Anything that can hurt us?”

“Of course not. Though some of them could really make your day a little more difficult, should you be trying to infiltrate any time soon.”

Morgan looked down at the glass, then back at him. “So this is your insurance.”

“Yes,” Mortimer said.

Morgan took another look at the small glass. She bit her lip, weighing the consequences.

Sighing, she picked up her blade and pressed the tip against her right index finger. Quickly, the blood began to trickle. She placed her finger over the glass and, keeping her eyes on Mortimer, pressed her thumb against the pad of the finger. Three drops of blood fell into the glass as Mortimer watched.

“That’s enough,” he said. He took Morgan’s hand and waved his own over the afflicted finger, healing it. He replaced the cap over the small glass.

“When you walk towards the catacombs, there’s writing carved all over the walls in different languages. Halfway down, on the left, there are three bricks with one word each. One is written in Hebrew, one in Russian and one in Hindi. Press the Hebrew once, the Hindi four times and the Russian six times. The way will open up to a set of stairs. Those stairs will lead you down to the hidden cells.”

“And my father definitely doesn’t know about this?” Morgan asked.

Mortimer smiled. “I assure you.”

Morgan took the last drink from her cup. “For once, I want to kill you less than usual, Mortimer.”

“You’re quite welcome. Give your sister my love,” he said.

Morgan scowled. “Well. That fixed that problem.” With that, she disappeared.

Mortimer looked around, well pleased. It wouldn’t be long before Telese made a visit, he was certain.

And then the real work would begin.

 

***

 

The smoke filled the space in Telese’s head. She shouted over and over for her mother, with no answer. Her eyes stung, and she couldn’t tell if she was blinded by her tears or the billowing clouds all around her. As she shouted for her mother, her voice became less like the adult she was now and more like the adolescent that had stood there before.

“Mother!” she screamed amidst coughs. “Mother!”

She saw the silhouette of the tall, slender woman inside the haze. She cried and tried to run toward her mother, but something inside was stopping her. Her whole body burned as though she had been thrown into the fiery mountain herself. She could feel it warming her fingers and foggy brain. The panic and anger were all red hot, waiting to erupt.

She pressed forward, through both the outer and inner haze, but her mother seemed always just out of earshot.

She saw the man’s silhouette as she pressed further. Suddenly, the air became much thicker. It was as though she was trying to run through an ocean. There was a resistance against her as she struggled to join her mother’s side.

She saw the man lift something high above his head. It caught a light somewhere above them. The blade of a knife.

“No!” Telese screamed. “Stop, no!”

She saw the knife come down toward her mother. She heard the screams as she fell to the ground, giving in to futility. She felt the fire inside of her consume every part of her and move out from her as she began screaming herself. She couldn’t stop it; it flowed from her to the angry mountain that boiled with fiery rage just like her. There was a fierce rumble and the smoke began to thicken around her.

She felt grief and anger consume her as she watched the silhouette of the man spin around, as though lost and frightened. She waved an arm toward him, trying to direct the burning rage at him.

She continued to scream and cry as the world seemed to explode outside and in. She couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care. Somewhere, in the distance, she heard a shrill buzzing.

She laid her face to the ground, crying and gasping. She felt alone and expose, realizing that her mother couldn’t protect her from what was going on around her. As she sobbed and beat the ground weakly, the sound grew louder and louder.

She lifted herself up sharply and realized she was in her bed. She was no longer the adolescent, but the adult Siren. The buzzing sound was loud and rhythmic now.

Telese wiped her face, where tears still ran. She still felt the sharp pain in every part of her as she saw the last moments of her mother’s life. She pushed her curls from her face and looked around her. Files and books on Pompeii and old diaries laid scattered around her. She had been up all night researching everything that had happened those days, trying to pinpoint what she had done to tap into that power.

She reached for her alarm clock as the fog from her mind started to clear. As it did so, she remembered that she hadn’t set her alarm.

The buzzing was the door.

Telese shook her head and looked down at her clock. 11:20 AM.

She groaned and got out of bed. As she passed the kitchen, she waved her fingers at the coffee pot and muttered some Sireeni. It started with no effort. She stomped to the door and stared at the intercom for a moment.

She hit the receiver button. “Can you just give me three good seconds to cross the room?”

“Do you think I want to sit outside on the street waiting for you?” Roxy answered back. “You asked me to come, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Telese said.

She could feel the Old Energy tickling her fingers. She pushed it outward with her mind. She could see it move down the red-carpet hallway, down the marble stairs and through the lobby where the front deskman was busy reading. It permeated the glass lobby doors and then into the entrance, into the mechanisms of the front door.

“Ur sun,” Telese said, when she saw the entrance door. She could hear the energy click with the mechanisms of the locks.

Within five minutes, there was a knock on her door.

Telese opened the door to see Roxy’s impatient expression. She was wearing a frilly, scarlet tank-top and black cargo pants. Her blond hair was clipped to the top of her head and curls seemed to poke around everywhere. On her feet were black leather combat boots.

“You look like you’re going to some industrial show or something,” Telese said, yawning.

Roxy frowned. “Nikki, you shouldn’t talk about clothes,” she said, eyeing Telese’s blue pajama shirt with a green cartoon baby bunny, which also covered her blue pajama pants. She had on her favourite green slippers with a black and green heart on the top. “Did you know it’s almost noon?”

“I’ve got nowhere to be,” Telese objected, stepping back to let Roxy in.

“And I do,” she said. She took a closer look at Telese’s face. “Have you been crying?”

“Hmm?” Telese said. “No, I just woke up.”

“Your eyes are all puffy, Nikki.”

“I. Just. Woke up.”

Roxy gave her a skeptical look, but said nothing else about it. “What did you want to talk about?”

Telese looked over the cityscape of Washington, DC. “I really like this view,” she said.

“I really hate your pathetic attempt to buy yourself time,” Roxy countered. “I’m a busy woman. I don’t get a break in this whole fiasco, remember?”

“Yeah,” Telese said softly, still looking out to the city. The vision of her mother’s death was still playing in her head, though it seemed farther away now.

She shook her head. “Yeah. Look, about that.”

Roxy held up a hand. “If you think you’re going to pull a Layla and tell me how to do my job"“

“No,” Telese said. “No, I thought I would . . . offer a suggestion, I guess.”

“Ah,” Roxy said. “And what would you suggest?”

Telese looked at her sister. Roxy was farther up in the birth order, at number 356, but she had always been closer to the younger Sirens than the ones around her age. She and Morgan had some memorable tiffs, as both of them were known for their rage and tempers. But Morgan had been an easier target for Telese. She trusted the youngest Siren’s judgment ever since they were children.

Roxy, however, hated the idea of letting somebody else take lead. She liked to be in control of everything going on around her. Though, for somebody so hot-headed, she also knew better than to take uncalculated risks. Her unforgiving rage and her ability to think three steps ahead is how she had become the lead warrior. It had been a close competition between her and Morgan, but Morgan’s tendency to act before thinking had held her back. Telese knew that Roxy would not be so keen to go against their father without knowing every risk. But she was also certain that Roxy wouldn’t sell her out, either.

“Roxy, do you want this?” she asked her sister. “You know, the whole ‘wiping out humanity’ thing?”

Roxy looked at her as though she had just made up a language to ask her the question. “Do I want it? I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“You understand English,” Telese said. “Do you want to eradicate the majority of humanity from the face of the earth?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, they drive me raving sometimes,” she said. “But, no, of course I don’t want to do it, Nikki. Really, is this what you called me here for?”

Telese watched her sister carefully. “What if you didn’t do it?”

Roxy could only gape at her. “What do you mean? I was told to do it by Father. It’s not like I have a choice.”

“But just say you did have a choice and you chose not to listen to Father. What do you think would happen?”

Roxy shook her head slowly. “I think he would kill me. No, you know? I know he would kill me. That’s pretty much guaranteed.”

Telese was silent. Roxy raised her eyebrows.

“You aren’t thinking . . . Nikki, what are you thinking? You can’t possibly be thinking about questioning Father. You . . . you remember what happened when you did that before, right? Alfonso?”

“Of course I remember that,” Telese said in a cold voice that her sister had never heard her use. “I still dream about it, among other things.”

Roxy looked at her little sister sadly. “Then you know there’s no point even having this conversation. I know you’ve worked hard, Nikki, but this is out of our hands now.”

“Now? Since when has it ever been in our hands?” Telese demanded. “We constantly do what Father tells us to. Are you really going to do this without questioning what happens next, Roxy? Do you really think he’ll keep us around when there’s practically no more humanity to protect?”

Roxy was silent. She didn’t like the thought of being wiped from existence after doing what her father told her, but, of course, the possibility had crossed her mind.

“Nikki, what do you think we can do?”

Just as with Morgan, Telese explained the book to Roxy and how it had fallen into the hands of a human that could translate it. Roxy listened to Telese’s explanation, and the wheels began turning in her head. If even one human could gain this knowledge, it would alter the balance of power. Humans had all of the technology and capability to spread the information across the globe.

But this was speaking of unraveling all of the secrets of all of existence in just a short amount of time.

“Nikki, there are a few flaws in your plans,” Roxy said. “First of all, our father is a psychopath.”

“I know that already,” Telese said.

“Do you?” Roxy asked. “Because you just told me about how you want to challenge him, and I thought it might not have been mentioned to you yet. So say you have some magical, miracle-granting unicorn hidden where the sun doesn’t hit and you can get these secrets to the human in time,” she continued. “How exactly do you get him to convince over seven billion people that all of this is true?”

                “We don’t need him to translate the entire thing right away,” she said. “We need him to translate the information about Father and the information about the minions. If that book has everything, it’ll have the spells to allow the minions to be seen even when they aren’t actively engaged in the pact. You know, when they’re trying to bend the human’s mind first.”

                “It’s hard for humans to perform spells,” Roxy pointed out.

                “I know,” Telese said. “I’ll teach him.”

“Ah,” Roxy said. “You just . . . you really want Father to kill you in the most violent, goriest, most unforgiving way possible, don’t you?”

“Don’t fool yourself into thinking that he isn’t saving his best for me after all of this is over anyway,” Telese said. “I would just rather fight back than let it happen.”

“By teaching a human magic? Nikki, this is absolutely insane! He’ll have your head and the heads of anybody that even thought about helping you! And he’ll make you watch before he kills you! Please tell me you haven’t approached any of our other sisters or our nieces about this.”

“No,” Telese said quickly, waving her hand.

Roxy watched for a moment. “You definitely talked to somebody else. Who? You know what?” she said, putting a hand up as Telese made to protest. “Don’t even bother. Of course I know who. And judging by the fact that you feel emboldened to talk to me about this, I’m sure she’s on board as well. Seriously, this is why I made the lead position.”

Roxy looked around the apartment. She was silent, just as Morgan had been. Telese said the same, silent prayer that she had said before, when awaiting Morgan’s answer.

Roxy shook her head. “I’m sorry, Nikki. I understand all of your anxieties. But there is no way this could work. It’s a possible death sentence for not trying, but it’s a definite death sentence for going forward with this ridiculous idea.”

Telese felt her heart sink into her stomach. “Roxy, please, just"“

“No, Nikki. There’s nothing we can do. You need to tell Morgan to give it up. You need to get that book like Father asked, and you need to return it as soon as possible. Maybe doing so will help you get on his good side.”

Telese stared at Roxy like she had just punched her. “His good side? Do you think I care about being on his good side anymore? He had me tortured for a hundred years, Roxy! You will never, in your most vivid nightmare, know what I went through! I didn’t cave under the worst torture he could give me, and you’re telling me you can’t stand up to him now?”

“No, Telese, I can’t!” Roxy snapped back. “I can’t stand up to him and neither can you! You act like you’re invincible, but you forget one thing: the only reason that you’re alive is because he allowed you to be! This isn’t just stupid, it’s downright selfish and will get you and people we love killed!”

Telese fell silent. Roxy stood and straightened her clothes.

“My decision is final. Retrieve the book for Father, tell Morgan the whole thing is off and never speak of any of this again. If you love your family, please, stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about all of us.”

“I think of my family all of the time,” Telese said sullenly. “Maybe it’s time for you to do the same, Roxy.”

Roxy narrowed her eyes at her little sister. “Your pride is going to ruin you and everything you’ve worked for. Maybe you should consider that.”

With that, she disappeared.

Telese looked around. She didn’t even have the energy to throw a tantrum. Instead, she sadly walked back to her room, crawled under the covers and began to wish her father hadn’t allowed her to live after all.