The Sirens - 02 (21 page)

I came awake with a start. I was sitting up on the same seat I'd fallen off. There was a full pint of beer on the table in front of me, and the three Mason brothers across from me.

"Christ," I said, feeling my voice reverberate in my skull. "I hope you're not the interview panel."

The big one in the center smiled. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"More in the way of a welcoming committee," he said. "We owe you a thank you for bringing the boy back."

"So you thought you'd drug me first?"

He smiled again, nearly a laugh.

"Oh, we had to be sure you'd stay. We can't have you missing the last act now, can we?"

"Oh, I'd be happy to leave early, I've got the last bus to catch," I said. I patted my pockets. I was looking for my cigarettes, and I found them...but I also found to my surprise that I still had the tranquilizer darts in my top pocket. I managed a smile back at him as I lit up.

Irene appeared at my shoulder with a menu.

"Anything you want, on the house," she said.

"A hearty meal for the condemned man?"

This time the big fellow did laugh.

"You catch on quick. I knew that, when I found these..."

He bent down and lifted the gun and the CD onto the desk.

"The gun is obvious," he said. "But what made you choose the music?"

He was still smiling like a shark, so I decided to put some blood in the water.

"I got it from an auld chap...glass eye, nice line in banter."

I hit a nerve...his eyes flickered with what might have been fear, then the smile came back full force.

"The old bastard is interfering again, is he? Probably trying to change the rules, now that we're close to our goal."

There were questions I could have asked there and then, but I knew the look of a man who wanted to talk. Like a Bond villain, he was about to tell all and reveal how stupid I'd been. Some men are just born gloaters and I was sure I had one opposite me. It was only a matter of time.

In the meantime I ordered grilled salmon and oysters, Caesar salad and French bread, with plenty of beer on the side. My heads felt like they'd played football with it, and my back hurt like blazes, but the beer was beginning to make inroads into both.

"Listen, I did what was asked. I brought him back. Isn't that what you wanted? The 'Chosen' back in place to restore your family's destiny and protect the line of the Sea Wives?"

The big man laughed, long and hard.

"Not as quick as all that, then. Here..." he said. "This will complete your education. Read it while you eat, then we'll get down to business."

He took a notebook from his pocket and tossed it across the table. It was old...battered and frayed. But looking at it was preferable to facing the three-fold smirk from across the table. I picked it up, and started to read.

* * *

"My wee boys" it read. "You're too young to understand. I'm writing this so that someday you'll know what to do, when the time comes around. Your Uncle Tommy has betrayed me, and sometime tonight she'll come, and I'll go to her. I'll go to her, and try to break the curse that has blighted our family for far too long.

"But I'm scared, boys. Scared of losing you. Scared that one day, she'll come for you. For if that bastard of a brother of mine has no lead in his pencil, that's what'll happen.

"I'd better not get ahead of myself. I need to tell you some family history, and hopefully try to explain why I have to walk out the door when the call comes.

"Our part in this long tale starts back in 1912, with the birth of my father...and his twin brother. They were brought up to face their destiny. They were taught the sea wives story as I've told it to you, and as it is written in the back of this book. And when they asked 'Why?', they were told, 'That's just the way things are'. That wasn't enough for them. And as they got older, they began to think more and more about the fate that would befall one of them, for they loved each other so much that they couldn't bear to be parted.

"And they began to study arcane knowledge. They spent a small fortune having ancient tomes ferried over to the island, Huge leather-bound volumes with titles like
De Vermis Mysteris, The Necronomicon, Cultus Sabbaticus.
They started inviting strange, intense, people to Portree, and it is said that Crowley, the old beast himself, performed a banishing ritual that killed every seal in a ten-mile radius. But it wasn't enough. Then 1936 came round.

"One summer's evening, as they were out on the boat, the call came. And my Uncle Duncan, may God rest his soul, was the one chosen to answer. He was away over the side of the boat and into the gathering dark before your grandfather could stop him. All night they searched, but there was no sign of Duncan. Not till the next morning, when his near-dead body was washed up on the shores of Loch Grehornish."

* * *

My food arrived, but I barely noticed it. I held the notebook in one hand and the fork in the other as I shoveled salmon and oysters with no more thought than if they'd been a fast-food burger and fries.

* * *

"They brought him back to the Kelpie," the notebook continued. "For that is the center, the only place where we can be calm until the change. And now the brother's work became almost feverish. They both knew that they only had nine months in which to find a solution. While Duncan pored over the old tomes here in the Kelpie, your grandfather traveled, searching for other fisherfolk, for cults and traditions of the sea wives, and how their influence might be fought.

"He spent time with tuna fishermen in Greece, with minke whale hunters among the Eskimo people, with shell fishermen in Jamaica and Haiti. But it was closer to home that he thought he'd found the answer, in Lapland, where Loki himself might have walked.

"He was introduced to a guild of fishermen, 'The Sons of Loki'. Among their rituals and spells for catching fish, they had one, an ancient chant that gave instructions for breaking the curse.

"Excited beyond measure, your grandfather rushed back to Scotland. But he was too late. Duncan had gone, disappeared into the sea like many generations of his forefathers.

"After that, your grandfather was a broken man. He wrote down his findings, which I have reproduced here in this book, and he even got married, and sired your uncle Tommy and myself, but the joy had gone out of his life. He lasted until 1963, when I was fifteen. One night he took himself out alone on the boat, just him and the shotgun. Another victim of the curse.

"Five years he's been gone. And he never got to see you, my wee treasures, my three boys. For those years your uncle and I have been studying the ritual, going over and over it until we are word perfect. We were to have performed it together, nine months after one of us was called. But he has betrayed me. Betrayed all the line of our family in all the years past.

"The call came. And he did not answer. He has followed his dick, and run away. So now I wait. When the call comes I will go. And if I do not return, then read this, my wee boys, and know that I'll never love anything like I love you.

"Prepare yourself. Study the ritual.

"Your time will come."

* * *

The rest of the notebook was filled with complicated drawings and charts, long passages of what looked like poetry, and page after page of runic script. I put it down, and at the same moment realized I'd eaten all the food, with no memory of having done it.

I sat back and lit a cigarette.

"I don't suppose anybody's thought about using ear-plugs?" I asked.

That got me the shark smile again.

"It's been tried," the big man said. "Back in 1436. So has wax in the ears, hot pokers, and a variety of blunt instruments. None worked."

"So, this ritual," I asked, fearing I already knew the answer. "Where do I fit in?"

"You'll be by way of a sacrifice," he said, and grinned widely. "You die, she never comes back."

"Sounds like I get the raw end of the deal," I said. "What about John?"

"He's family," the man said. "He gets to stay with us."

"Maybe I haven't got such a bad deal after all."

He lifted the gun and pointed it at my chest.

"Finish your cigarette," he said. "And make the most of it."

* * *

By the time I stubbed the cigarette out the brothers were moving tables from the center of the floor. They raised a trapdoor so big it took two of them to lift it. The big man motioned me towards it, the gun never wavering from its aim at a spot over my heart. When I stood over the opened space I was looking down a long flight of wooden steps. The tang of the sea wafted up towards me, and somehow I didn't think I was looking down into their beer cellar. The gun prodded me in the back, and I started down the steps.

I was on a steep stairway, hemmed in on either side by damp rock, which opened out after twelve steps into a wide area. Sputtering oil braziers lit a long hall. The roof and walls were an extravaganza of wood and bone, fishing nets and harpoons. The bones were the ribcage of what must have been an impressive whale, while all the woodwork was intricately carved with scrollwork and sea-faring scenes. The whole thing felt like a stage-set, but enough of Doug's enthusiasm had rubbed off for me to realize that this room was old...far older that the bar above.

"One of life's little coincidences," the big man said. "Irene found it, two years ago."

And something tickled at the back of my mind, as if clarity wasn't far away. But I wasn't given time to think about it. I was pushed further into the chamber.

At the far end, the woodwork and bone gave way to bare rock. Irene and John Mason stood over a pool that lapped gently at their feet. Behind them, seemingly carved straight into the rock wall, was a massive plinth, on which lay an effigy of a bound man, mouth wide open, screaming for eternity.

The three Mason brothers bowed low.

"Sea Father, protect us," they chanted in unison.

John Mason still had that dreamy, far away look on his face while Irene held tightly to his arm. She smiled at me, but didn't move to help when the brothers wrapped me in a fishing net, so tight that my arms were pinned to my side. They lifted me onto the plinth, and I noticed it had two parallel grooves cut on top...channels that let to the screaming statue. They laid me down on my side, facing out into the room, and the three of them walked off to my right and out of my sight.

Now was the time for a witty remark, a laugh in the face of danger...but I couldn't manage one. My mouth dried up and my heart pounded all the way up to my ears.

"For Christ's sake, Irene. Get me out of here. They're going to kill me."

"Oh no," she said. "The boys must have their mummery. It's their time."

She went back to holding tight to John Mason, and didn't acknowledge me further, even when I cursed and screamed. I shouted until I was hoarse, my throat feeling like barbed wire had ripped through it, but one last scream died in my throat as a figure stepped in front of me.

At first I thought it was John, changed again, then I realized it was one of the shorter brothers, dressed in a long hooded cloak. The cloak was of thick scales, and the hood fell over his face, the scales over his brow cunningly formed to look like two large, reptilian, eyes.

"I am a Son of Loki," he said.

"I am Jormungand."

"Gluttony is my table, whale meat my knife. The rocks of the earth my woman, strength my companion. Black depths are my bed and the sea itself forms the walls of my home.

"I am Jormungand, and Midgard is mine."

He moved aside and the second smaller brother stepped forward. He wore a cloak of wolf fur, and his hood was shaped into the head of a great wolf.

"I am a Son of Loki.

"I am Fenrir.

"Gluttony is my table, red meat my knife. The moon is my woman, rage my companion. The forest is my bed and the mountains form the walls of my home.

"I am Fenrir, and Jotunheim is mine."

He moved aside, and the big man stepped in front of me. He wore a cloak that was wolf fur down one side, and skin, probably human, down the other. Half of his hood was wolf, the other man.

"I am a Son of Loki," he said.

"I am Vali.

"Gluttony is my table, sons of men my knife. All women are my women, fury my companion. The halls of men are my bed, and their cities form the walls of my home.

"I am Vali, and all of creation is mine."

He moved to join his brothers.

If I hadn't been bound and trussed I might have laughed, so serious yet so nonsensical were they. But any urge to laugh was quenched when the big man went to the wall and took down a harpoon that was as tall as he was.

His brothers began to stamp their feet, clap their hands, and chant, a deep, almost growling, rhythm that seemed to take on depth and resonance as it echoed around the chamber. The big man started to prowl the room, stabbing the point of the harpoon at walls, into corners, in a dance that was formalized and synchronized in time with the chants. And every time he circled the room and came to face me he stabbed the harpoon at my chest, getting closer each time, the chanting, foot stomping and clapping rising, louder and louder.

And slowly, above the noise being made by the brothers, I heard the tune I'd been listening to all night, but this time it came from far away, and sung by a single, mournful voice. John Mason started to move towards the rock pool, but Irene held him in a tight embrace. He made a token attempt at resistance, then seemed to slump in her arms.

The Mason brothers upped their tempo, and soon the big man was whirling and spinning around the room. And still, on each turn, the point of the harpoon came ever closer to my chest.

* * *

The noise the brothers made drowned out the sea wives for a few seconds, but it came back again, closer now, more forceful.

The brothers began to stomp and chant themselves into a frenzy, and sweat poured down the big man's brow as he came round again.

The water in the pool surged and boiled, and the head of a seal broke water, just as the big man came round to face me.

"I am Vali, Son of Loki. By the right of blood I call for an end."

He raised the harpoon.

"We will serve no more."

He pulled the weapon back, and my whole life focused on the torchlight gleaming off the barbed point. I closed my eyes and tensed my muscles.

* * *