Salt and Blood

Chapter One

As predicted, only one of three women chose the option of life laid out before them. The blonde labeled me as a malevolent force from hell, dead set on absorbing the souls of innocents. She convinced herself I only wanted to see humans burn. She was rather combative when her death approached, so I used a blade carved from dragon bone to sever her spinal cord quick and easy. She hardly felt a thing and was dead within seconds. The brunette simply said she’d rather die than be owned by another person again. I tried reasoning with her, explaining that what I’m offering it isn’t a parasitic union, but rather a harmonious fellowship allowing free reign of the island. Unfortunately, she was set in her beliefs and preferred death, which I can respect. I gave her a drop of toxic Morekfish oil on the tongue and she fell into a peaceful slumber on the beach. Out of respect, I set both their bodies afloat on a burning pyre at sea.

I never really enjoy killing anyone, I’m just desensitized to it at this point. I’ve been a weapon for as long as I can remember.

The redhead named Rayne chose life. She didn’t take much convincing. She bowed her head, dropped to her knees and pledged fealty to me before the first two girls even died. I knew what her choice would be before I even offered, though. Certain women are cut from a particularly resilient piece of cloth. They’re built for this type of lifestyle; the type that requires sacrifice for the greater good. Rayne happens to be one of them, and I knew that from the second I observed her on the beach. The way she surveilled the raft of floating corpses with acceptance and a hint of justice said it all. She’s seen death before, she’s stared it in the face and somehow came back from the edge. She knows true pain, and acquaintanceship with suffering makes for the perfect Siren.

Now, about half of us lie on the sandy shoreline or work on dismantling the humans’ camp as the sun peeks over the horizon. The other half are offshore pillaging their ship for anything valuable, then burning it down to a pile of ash so it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. By this point, the forty or so dead bodies have drifted far off into the ocean and they’re no longer visible to the naked eye. They’ll be providing sustenance to countless organisms in the days or weeks to come as they decompose, thus continuing the endless circle of life to which most of us are bound. I wiggle my toes in the sand and sigh, watching as daylight creeps through the thick black smoke of a smoldering ship sinking in the distance.

Once the first beam of sunlight touches the peak of Frejya’s mountain top, I rise from my seated position and extend my palm outward to Rayne. Genesis and a few others have been chatting with her about life here on Frejya and the process to become one of us. She’s nervous, but I know it will be a good fit.

“It’s time,” I smile at her. She swallows hard and takes my hand as I lead her to the water’s edge. “Take off your clothes. You don’t need them anymore,” I instruct. She does as I say and strips down to nothing, revealing patches of purple bruising on her torso and thighs, and long, self-inflicted vertical scars up and down her forearms. She self-consciously tries to hide the damage from my vision, but I flip her arms over with a soft sigh.

“There’s no need to hide who you are and where you’ve been. Don’t be ashamed. We don’t demand perfection on Frejya.” Rayne nods her head and chokes back a sob as tears pool up in her eyes. Warm, soft waves crash against our thighs as we turn and wade into the seafoam colored water. I elect to keep my human legs during Rayne’s initiation just as I’ve done for everyone else. Unlike the other women here, shifting into my Siren form is a conscious decision. I don’t automatically turn once I’m in the water. I can exist in either state of being whenever I choose. It might seem like a gift, but it wasn’t intended to be one. It was a methodical gesture given by Calypso solely because the assets on this island need constant protection. I’m nothing more than a weapon, and I need access to land at any given moment.

I push back the long, scarlet curls from Rayne’s shoulders and cup her cheeks in my palms. I lean forward and plant my soft, full lips against hers. Initially, she tenses up and her eyes widen. She’s caught off guard by my actions, but my toxic saliva quickly calms her into a state of tranquil sensuality. Human women don’t respond to my voice, but they sink right into my kiss. My lips on theirs is a potent narcotic straight to the bloodstream. It brings them as close to nirvana as they’ll ever get. The effect does wear off after about half an hour, though, so her heightened state of mind won’t last long.

When I pull back from our kiss, she dreamily stares into my eyes. I turn her around so she’s facing the shoreline and beautiful speck of land known as Freyja. We watch as the girls enter the water one by one and the sun trickles further and further down the mountainside. I hover my lips just below her earlobe, lifting the hair off her neck.

“Upon this kiss, you’ll be reborn,” I whisper. “You will breathe the ocean, and the ocean will breathe you. Eternal life, you will find, and to the sea, you’ll be bound.” I slowly sink her down into the surf until the water is just below her chin. “To me, you will be loyal, and Freyja, you will protect.”

I submerge her head completely under water and close my eyes as my fingers lace through her thick hair. The horde of newly formed Sirens begin swirling around us in a gentle whirlpool. Rayne starts to struggle from the lack of oxygen and she fights to surface for breath, but I hold her down. A couple of girls break from the circle around us and latch onto her feet and wrists, forever binding her to the sand and sea like the rest of us. When her floundering finally lulls into twitching, I place my hands on either side of her dying face. Drawing in a deep breath, I channel the energy of the ocean into my fingertips. I am the conduit for her life. It’s my blessing and curse to carry until my job is complete.

The tidal ebb and flow guided by the moons of Saros pulsates underneath my skin with fervent power. Every silent voice of the creatures in the sea sing to me in an echoing vibration that rattles me to my core. The black, hollow stillness in the depths of the trenches swallows up my eyes, filling my vision with a swirling galaxy of life. Everything that is the sea seeps into my pores on a molecular level until we are one. Rippling lime filaments climb up my legs and stomach, tattooing every inch of my skin. The cool sand beneath my feet lifts as it whirls into thin spiral bands all around us. I flood the potent concoction of the sea from my body and into Rayne’s mind. Capillaries bust in my nostrils and blood trickles over my lips. Tears of raw emotion spring from the corners of my eyes and stream down my cheeks. The solution of blood and tears drips off my chin and into the water. Each droplet of diluted crimson liquid wiggles through the brine and finds its way into Rayne’s nose, mouth, eyes and ears.

“From my blood, you’re born again…from my pain, you’ll find life…from darkness, comes light…from death, comes eternal life.”

A sharp, electric pulsar rockets through my nerves and into Rayne’s lifeless heart. I tremble and grit my teeth as her body lurches upwards under water and she draws in her first salty breath. Her heart vigorously pumps with newfound life and her canary eyes shoot open. Her legs rapidly coalesce into a vivid magenta tail as fuscha fins on her forearms and back split her skin in defensive mode. The razor sharp spines pop up in place, ready to shred any threat that comes her way.

She’s panicking and terrified right now, I can feel her fear as if it were my own. What she’s experiencing isn’t unique, though. She encountered death and birth as a fully conscious being, and that in itself is something very few have the sweet displeasure of encountering.

I surge a steady flow of soothing energy waves into Rayne’s mind as I maintain my grip on her face. I work to placate her nerves and ease her into this transition in a less traumatic way. With each deep breath in and out, her fins depress against her skin and she settles down. Her eyes flutter for a moment until she falls into a peaceful slumber. Once she’s asleep, two girls take her by the arms and swim her away towards the river where she can recover. She’ll be asleep in the shallow freshwater for a few hours or so, and when she wakes up, she’ll be much more level.

I rinse the blood from my face and walk onto the island on a mission. As I push myself through the concentrated underbrush, leafy plants and branches tingle my skin with every touch. My senses and emotions are extremely heightened after rebirthing someone and I need to ground myself to Saros.

The further inland I get, the steeper and rockier the terrain becomes. I reach the base of Frejya’s mountain and gaze upward, wiggling my fingers into its familiar rocky pores. Foot by foot, I scale the face of the summit with determination. Dirt cakes underneath my fingernails and stains my skin as I climb upwards in the early morning light. The wind picks up with the elevation, whipping my wavy blonde hair around in a frenzy. Every strained breath and long reach of my arms brings me closer to peace of mind.

It brings me closer to him.

I grunt as I reach upwards and flop my right hand onto a familiar massive ledge. I push myself up a little higher with my legs until both hands find a fistful of grass. I brace myself and hoist my body up onto the fifty foot ledge. I sit back on my knees and wipe some sweat from my brow, leaving a little trail of dirt across my forehead. My eyes stay closed for a few moments as I catch my breath and prepare myself for the bitter sting of loss and loneliness. I inhale deeply and swallow hard, directing my gaze towards an overflowing field of amber and periwinkle flowers. The expansive meadow on the ridge runs about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. It blooms all year long, producing a thick blanket of vivid florets that rise just above my hips. This is by far, the most colorful spot on the island.

The sight of the lush, blossoming flora fills me with wistful reminiscing. I unavoidably end up thinking about him and what I’ve lost. In this place, his remains provide an eternal fertilizer that cultivates living proof he existed. I could have laid him to rest anywhere on Freyja, but this is where he would’ve wanted to be; watching over the world and protecting the assets of this island. His body became a sprawling meadow intended to shroud the narrow mouth of a cave carved into the mountain; a cave that must remain hidden at all costs.

I slowly stand and make way into the flowers, caressing the velvety petals between my fingertips. There’s a small dirt circle in the center of the meadow where nothing grows, and that’s where I want to be. My feet reach the patch of bare earth and I drop to my knees, leaning forward to place my forehead on the ground. I comb my fingers through the damp dirt as I lie in child’s pose and try connecting with him. My fingers probe the soil for any residual energy his body might have left behind long ago even though I know there’s nothing to feel. I haven’t felt that connection since he left.

He’s gone forever, and half of me died with him.

I sit up and work on grounding myself anyways, taking solace in the fact that we’re together in some way, shape or form. This brimming field of flowers on the tip of the world is where I get to feel close to him. A mild zephyr rustles through the stalks of flowers surrounding me, the humid, salty air gently kissing my skin. I grin at the sensation.

Every time I’m up here, I envision myself sprinting towards the brink of the cliff and jumping right off the edge. I taste the adrenaline of freefall on my tongue and keep my eyes open just to see the splashes of color painted all around me. I’m not afraid to die because I know he’ll catch me before I hit the ground. He’d never let anything happen to me, even though I couldn’t manage to return the favor.

The breeze shifts ever so slightly and I furrow my brow with strained concentration. Far off in the distance, waves smack against hollow wood and ropes tightly bound to a mast creak with every swell. Thick, hefty sails blow southeast towards Frejya as wind whistles through the rigging of a ship.

My eyes shoot open and I jump up, hustling over to the edge of the cliff. I narrow my eyes to the north and dial in on a tiny speck a few miles out. I grit my teeth and quickly begin my decent back down the mountainside. My intuition is warning me that somethings horribly wrong. Ships don’t come to Frejya very often; maybe once every three years or so. Most people avoid this place on purpose because they don’t want to die, so the fact that there’s another vessel offshore a mere twenty four hours after the last one is disconcerting. Someone could be intentionally scouting out the island for more than just blind curiosity. If that’s the case, I’ll die before any greedy human finds a single object under my protection. I’ve got to be prepared for the worst possible scenario. I’ll give my life for this island and what’s on it.

I snake my way down the versant much more quickly than it took me to climb up and I drop to the ground. When my feet hit the dirt, I sprint in the direction of my cave by the river. Thickets and bushes scrape my legs, and large rocks block my path, but I weave and run even harder. As soon as I reach the mouth of the cave, I let out a high pitched bird whistle to alert to the girls to attention. I dart into the turquoise lit cave and scramble all the way to the back. I side step the small bed and random trunks scattered throughout until arriving in front of a black leather chest. I pop the top open and pause, staring down into the tinderbox of ancient memories.

I reach down and take a leather holster in my hands, rubbing my thumb along the long bloodstained material. My fingers tremble as my gaze locks onto a black dagger with electric yellow etching. I lift it out of the trunk and twirl it around a bit for old times’ sake. I snap it tight against my forearm in its natural resting position, smiling with nostalgia. It’s been so long since I’ve held this blade that I thought it’d feel foreign, but it doesn’t. It’s as natural as breathing.

I snap myself back to reality and grab a handful of black clothes from the chest before slamming it shut. When I arrive at the bank of the river, I toss my clothing and dagger onto a rock at the waters edge. Thankfully, almost every woman is present and accounted for, save for one. They sit along the shoreline or lounge on top of rocks while whispering amongst themselves with confusion. Xena, the last missing piece to my harem puzzle, finally comes darting upstream from the ocean, her lilac tail shimmering in the current. She was the very first woman I ever turned and she’s been with me over one hundred and ninety years. I elect not to form any deep personal relationships with the girls, but Xena is the closest thing to a friend I’d say I have. She doesn’t know anything about my past life, but she’s the one I trust most, especially when it comes to the risky things like scouting out potential threats without being seen.

She slides her caramel toned body up onto the riverbank and shoves her long black hair out of her face in a panic.

“What’d you see?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath, her chocolate eyes filled with concern. “They’re already rowing their way to shore; four boatloads of people, at least fifty in number.”

My jaw clenches up. “What do they look like? Are they typical pioneers and pillagers, or do they look like anyone who’s possibly militant?”

“I don’t know who they are, but they certainly aren’t our run of the mill visitors,” she answers. She nervously rolls her jaw before clearing her throat. “Far less than half of them are men...the rest are women.”