Chapter 19 - SIREN
1059 Words
“They trained you well, human. The perfect, innocent little thing, aren’t you?”
I stand outside the door, listening to his cold voice. The spy does not respond except for one little whimper. How much longer can she keep up? Her life was draining away yet she was refusing to speak.
“You do not want to speak, I see. Keep quiet then. I am quite enjoying our little dance.”
There is a sickening sound of metal plunging into flesh. No scream. No sound indicating she was hurting.
She is too weak…
Maybe if I were as idealistic and naïve as foolish Rosa, I would feel sympathetic and burst into tears. But I am not Rosa. Whatever pain this measly human is going through at the moment, I have gone through worse. Much much worse.
Help me! Ana…Ana…
That night invades my memory again. The starless sky, the narrow alleyway full of rubble. And the strange moment when my powers just vanished. The g**g of humans closing in, asking me to fix their homes, cure their sickness. There were even children – eyes alight with madness, asking the Angel to give back their parents.
I…It’s too much…I can’t…
“Siren!” I crash back to reality and see that the door is open and Eric is standing before me. His lips are curled in a peculiar smile. It reminds me of the large red grins humans paint on their faces sometimes.
“It’s just a matter of time before she talks. Assuming she has something to say…” His cunning eyes are fixed on mine, alert as a fox. It should trouble me that a Guardian knows the game I am playing with Rosa. But really, it doesn’t. Eric is a pest that can easily be exterminated.
“Oh…she will have something to say. You can leave now, Eric.”
“I am not done.” The glee in his voice is chilling but it’s something I have to deal with. This is what he is good at and I need him at the moment for the benefit of Dreamscape.
“You are done for the night.”
“You are having your fun with Rosa. It’s not right, Siren, that you are denying me my favourite sport.”
“You ought to think about changing your hobbies, Eric.” I step into the room. The orange glow of the torches on the wall light up a tiny figure in the corner of the room. Even before I approach her, the coppery smell of blood hits my nostrils like waves from the ocean. The battlefield flashes before my eyes. Cracked burning earth, b****y pieces of flesh, and the smell…The smell of death.
“Oh, don’t worry. I have plenty of new hobbies in mind. Conspiracies for example. How the mighty leader of the Dreamscape wants me to help with-“
I turn to see Eric beside me, his gold armour and sword glowing in the dim light. His wings flap behind his back, lazy and smug.
“I would think a lot before you antagonize me, Siren.” He bows.
“I think you know that I can destroy you with a single spell, so better watch that mouth of yours.”
“And I know that I have people ready to spread the word for me the moment you do such a thing.” Eric lifts his hand. Smoke gathers at his fingertips. For one moment I think the fool is going to attack me but he targets his magic at the curled-up figure in the shadowy corner of the room.
“SCREAM!” He cries.
The puny little thing starts shaking. She hugs her knees tight and takes deep breaths, a little bit of life draining away every second.
“Addie…A…” She says, feebly.
“That’s enough, Eric! I don’t think-“
“You do know I can just take over Dreamscape, don’t you?” He turns towards me, his hand falling at his side. “Are you wondering why that hasn’t happened yet?”
I laugh. In a blast of blinding light, Eric is smashed against the wall. Before he can get up, chains wrap themselves around him like a butterfly in a cocoon. “I guess this is why.”
“You will release me.” He says, unfazed. “Or you will have a rebellion in your hands. All the peace you worked so hard for…shattered in an instant.”
“I can stifle a rebellion.”
“I wonder how long you can last against all the Guardians. Because they will turn against you. All of them.”
“You are hallucinating.”
He laughs for a long time before speaking. “Two little Fairies…Convinced that their loving Guardian has been sentenced to death because the big bad Fairy doesn’t like her… How quickly they believed me. How quickly everyone will believe them. If you don’t let me go now, that is.”
“As I said, you are delusional. This is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard of.”
“Did you know that Celeste’s ring was not found on her body?”
Suddenly, it feels like the ground vanished from beneath my feet and I’m falling into a bottomless pit. He couldn’t…
“You thought she lost it when she ran, didn’t you? I don’t blame you. You couldn’t possibly have thought that someone saw your argument. Someone got to her before you and took it. Didn’t you think it was odd that she was passed out when you found her? All set up for you to drain her Magic and throw her into the Vortex?”
I take a moment and compose myself. “Even if you had the ring, what could you prove? You could have been the killer who killed her and-“
“Oh no, it is not about the ring!” He laughs. “She cast a spell on it. She found out about you and recorded everything she knew on the ring. The remembrance spell. The moment someone touches it, they will know too.
The world shifts around me. Darkness everywhere, suffocating…
“I will kill you and those two little brats two before they can do anything about it.”
“It’s not just them, Siren. Lots of the charges know. They have been instructed to keep quiet until I give my word or disappear.”
“What do you want?”
“You should already know that. There is only one reason you are still in charge. I don’t want to sit on a throne. I’d rather have a puppet on it. All of the power and none of the responsibility.”
“You weasel-“
“Now, let me go.”
- Writer
