Siren. Part 6

"s.h.i.t," Bill mouthed. He gently moved his arms back and then swooshed them forward, trying to push his body slowly through the water without angering the cloud. They looked beautiful-ghostly explosions with arms that hung like alien wraiths in the water.

All you needed was a bunch of jellyfish stings and you could kiss that next cheeseburger at Cheeseburger Central good-bye. Good-bye for good. A school of large, poisonous jellyfish was death to a diver. Deceptive, slow-moving death.

Bill moved his flippers slowly, carefully, trying not to kick the school up and along with him. A globe of pinkish flesh slid around the side of his breathing mask, and Bill stopped breathing for that moment, eyes gone wide and scared.

He wasn't afraid of a jellyfish. He was afraid of an army of jellyfish.

Carefully he kicked out his feet, and the black hole of the wreck drew away to become nothing but a shadow near the ocean's floor again.

A handful of the poisonous school followed the swirl of his feet, but once he'd drawn a few yards away Bill kicked out in earnest, and in seconds had left all of the creatures far behind. That'd be rich, he thought. Man found dead of jellyfish stings; priceless wreck discovered nearby.

Bill kicked his legs harder, aiming at the sh.o.r.e where he knew Evan waited. There were very few things he'd found that were worth risking your safety for.

Irrefutable proof of the legend of a deadly sea creature who chewed men up for fun was not one of them.

Chapter Fifteen.

June 4, 1887 It was hard to be a man and not love women. But it was harder to be a man and live with a woman. Captain James Buckley III had found the solution.

Love a woman. Live with a woman. But keep her bound and gagged until her services were needed. No harm. No haranguing.

Some would have called him cruel. A horrible pig of a man.

Buckley just called himself expedient.

He grinned at the thought and patted his intellect on the back-expediency is the heart of brevity and brevity is the soul of wit-and fumbled his key into the lock of his quarters. A captain's prerogative should always include a nooner, he thought. Or, in this case, a midafternooner.

Burying Rogers, the cook, last night had given him an appet.i.te for the cause, he thought. He would have been too ashamed to have admitted to the wooden erection he had grown as they lifted the bag of body parts and swung it over the side of the ship to sink in the depths. But admit it or not, there it was. The remains of Rogers's body had excited him in a brutally s.e.xual way. Buckley knew who had dined on the cook's softest flesh. He knew because some of that flesh was still here, in his cabin. And he was responsible for having thrown the other pieces overboard, unfortunately just hours before they ended up back on the ship in its nets. He wasn't excited by the bag of body parts, but any thought related to her excited him.

And while she chewed other men to the core, she took him TO her core. In a way no other woman ever had. She was amazing-an animal. The key to being a man was acting like one, Buckley thought. You had to show the woman who was boss. Even if that meant a gag and chains. And from those tiny, frantic mewling sounds she made every time he climbed into his fish-stinkin' bunk with her, she enjoyed it, he figured.

Buckley entered the cabin and carefully shut the door behind him. Sometimes she got angry when he woke her from a dream. But as he stepped into his cabin, some sixth sense told him that she wasn't dreaming. Something was wrong. Used to the small s.p.a.ce in the dark, he stepped in four strides to the bulkhead window and drew the curtain there. The room filled with weak gray light, and Buckley swore.

The bed he shared with her was empty. The gag lay abandoned on the stained and stinking sheets. The ropes that had bound her hand and foot this morning were unraveled.

Where she had gone was a mystery, though there were only so many places you could hide on a ship drifting at sea. The reason for her freedom was clear enough though.

On the floor, next to the well-gnawed thigh of Rogers, lay the openmouthed face of "Three Hands" Nelson. The thief looked as if he'd been surprised at the end, and Buckley's first thought was good riddance.

But now Nelson's surprise could be the captain's undoing. d.a.m.nitall, Buckley complained. Another deckhand gone-that was surely going to cause some talk among the men. More importantly, how the h.e.l.l was he going to recapture the d.a.m.ned creature and get her back in his bed where she belonged? Some men would have suggested a tall gla.s.s of bourbon and some sweet talk to catch a woman, but Buckley was of a different stripe. And this woman wasn't going to come back quietly. He knew that for d.a.m.n certain.

He dug into a drawer in the bureau near his bunk and tossed a series of ropes and flogs and clips and such over his shoulder, until he found the tool he'd been looking for. He uncoiled the long, wound rope of leather and ran it across his palm with a satisfied grin. Then, bullwhip in his hand, Captain Buckley stepped back onto the deck outside of the captain's quarters and headed toward the storeroom.

If you wanted to catch a clown, look in the spotlight. If you wanted to catch a Siren, look in the dark recesses near the sea. The captain lit a candle and walked into the ship's hold, stacked with crates and crates of rum. The room had an almost claustrophobic feel-from floor to ceiling, wooden boxes filled the womb of the Lady Luck, and Buckley was always surprised at just how much liquor they managed to squeeze into his hold before he left Mexico and pulled out the fishing nets to mask his true trade from the port authorities.

He stepped into the deep shadows of the crates and whistled. He tried to hum a tune his mother had once sung to him as a child. He'd found it soothing, though it hadn't ever quite been up to par for those on the outside of the relationship. They said she couldn't carry a tune. But he'd wanted his momma to know that what she did mattered. In the end, it didn't really matter what his momma had sung to him. It all sounded pretty much the same to Buckley.

Some said he was tone-deaf, but he just figured that he really didn't appreciate music. That's why he'd found it such a beautiful irony when just a few weeks before, the Greek man had led him to the hidden room that he'd stashed the singing woman in. Supposedly the woman had been taken in the middle of the night from where she wandered along Delilah's beach and would never be missed.

"Don't take that gag off, whatever you do," the wizened dark-skinned man had insisted. "The sound...it is death to a mortal man. Mark my words."

Buckley had marked them, but not surprisingly, hadn't listened. On the other hand, it hadn't seemed to matter. He had released the bonds on the beautiful woman's mouth and instead of hearing the litany of verbal abuse he was used to from a female, he'd instead heard a long, tremulous ululation that, he supposed, seemed like the thing that others called music.

For him, it was only noise. A hair-raising exercise in interruption that prevented him from reaching the reason he'd bought the woman from the Greek in the first place. When she sang, he found he couldn't complete the deed with her. His exertions simply stretched out in a frustrating infinity until he grew tired of the effort. Certainly her song had an impact on his manhood, but really, enough was enough. He quickly found out about the impact her song had on others though. On the first night of her new captivity he'd slept with her in a hotel in Delilah before they'd broken port, and a man had smashed down the door in the midst of Buckley's rutting. The captain had leaped for his gun, but he quickly saw that the man meant no harm-his eyes looked vacant and he only stood there, rapt at the hotel bed while she sang.

In moments, her mouth had been on the poor fool's neck, and blood drenched both the bed and voluptuous body Captain Buckley had so recently been enjoying. He watched with shock and awe as she chewed out the man's throat. There was nothing he appreciated more than the danger of savagery-Buckley had always longed to be a big-game hunter. Instead, he used his l.u.s.t for blood as a means to keep a group of ruffians to work.

He tied a leather strap around her head and made sure it fully covered her mouth as soon as he got her back to the ship and stripped off the robes they had draped her in.

She needn't sing to him, or play coquette behind the pretense of civilized clothes. She was brought to his ship with only one purpose in mind. Robes would only slow that purpose.

But her insistence at singing caused the captain to ultimately keep her mouth in check. Aside from its impact on slowing the arrival of his o.r.g.a.s.ms, he couldn't have the men wondering who was in the captain's cabin besides the captain. The answer of "a woman" would have torn the ship apart. Nor could he afford for them to be smitten with the strangely euphoric effect her song seemed to have on other men.

And so she remained gagged and tied to his bed for hours on end until he returned to release her.

But, apparently, someone else had gotten wind that she was there and decided to release her without the captain's orders.

Buckley thought of the remains of Nelson and laughed.

Some men could handle their women. And some couldn't.

"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty," Buckley growled, threading his way among the crates of liquor. In his hand, the whip itched to be swung.

"Here, kitty, kitty," he said again.

Buckley laughed and licked his lips. He loved nothing more than the chase. And when you lived on a ship in the ocean, there were only so many places the prey could hide.

Chapter Sixteen.

It was more than s.e.x, Evan told himself as he walked down the beach. He stifled a yawn; tonight he'd tucked Sarah in bed before he took his walk, so it was already past 10:30. She had an early morning meeting and had wanted to turn in by ten. He had toyed with the idea of not walking the beach tonight but...he couldn't stay in his family room. On the couch trying to watch the ten o'clock news, he'd just kept fidgeting.

Evan couldn't say he loved her; he'd hardly spoken to her, despite the intense animal s.e.x they'd had on the beach twice. Yet, when he thought of Ligeia, Evan's whole body warmed. He needed to be with her, with every cell in his body. After arguing with himself for fifteen minutes, he finally shut off the TV, slipped on his sandals and slipped out the sliding gla.s.s doors off the kitchen.

The surf was gentle and quiet tonight, and Evan didn't dally on his way to the point; he walked fast and with purpose; no stone skipping.

When he reached the place where he'd awoken naked at three A.M. just a couple nights before, he stopped and looked out at the dark horizon. Water stretched as far as the eye could see, merging into the black of the nighttime sky. The point blotted out the stars to his left like a hole in the world.

"Ligeia?" Evan said softly. His voice barely seemed to carry past his lips. He hoped that she would come tonight. Last night, after Bill's dive, he had not walked down here. While he told himself that Bill's was a fool's errand, and Ligeia was just some exotic singer living down off the beach somewhere nearby, he had to admit that he was starting to be sucked into Bill's irrational explanation for the power of her music. And her affinity for water. Did he really believe that the woman he came here to meet lived at the bottom of the ocean?

Evan laughed at his own internal question. Uh, no. But then why had he been worried that Bill's dive near the point would somehow make her angry at him?

"Ligeia?" he called again, a little louder.

Of course, he thought to himself, if he didn't believe there was something more than human about her, why did he just a.s.sume she would show up whenever he decided to walk the beach? As if she were some kind of genie he could invoke by his mere presence?

He frowned, suddenly fearful that maybe she wouldn't be here tonight. After all, it was later than the past couple times he'd found her, and he hadn't come at all last night. Bill had come to their house for dinner, and then the three of them had gone down to O'Flaherty's for a couple hours. They had taken over the lone ratty pool table in the back of the bar and played the night away, laughing and enjoying the company in a way they rarely did anymore. Sarah hadn't gotten drunk either-her eyes still sparkled with humor, not liquor, on the walk home. For once, she had been the one to have to wake Evan in the morning; he'd been groggy half the day.

"I missed you," a voice whispered in his ear.

Evan jumped. Ligeia was there, right next to him. Her voice had nearly sent him out of his skin, but when he looked at her, he felt instantly calm again. And aroused. She stood naked in the night, arms at her side without shame. Her long dark hair fell in wet ringlets across her shoulders, but didn't cover the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her belly glistened with moisture; the curves of her waist and hips were preternatural. She was a muse incarnate, a modern Venus.

"We're going to have to take you shopping for a new outfit." He grinned.

Ligeia smiled and leaned in to kiss him. "Do you really want to cover me?" she said, biting his ear. "I think you're the one who needs a change in clothing."

Her fingers began to pull at his shirt, and Evan put his arms in the air for her to lift it over his head. In seconds his pants joined the shirt on the sand, and Evan held Ligeia tight to him, her soft flesh pressing his in all the right places. He felt desperate to have her then, immediately. He wanted to take her standing up, and he grew against her, edging up to do just that.

She pushed him back slightly and laughed. Her voice was crystalline and beautiful, just like her song.

"I want you in the water," she said.

Evan's heart stopped. His erection instantly lost its steel. "Um..." he began. She pressed a finger to his lips and knelt in front of him to press her lips to his belly, and below. "It was so good last time, you know?"

"I told you," Evan said, feeling stupid as he did so. "I don't like the water. I never have been able to-"

His words were interrupted by his own moan at the feeling generated by her oral attention.

"Shhhh," she said. "You will come with me."

"I'm aquaphobic," he insisted. "I can't help it."

"It didn't stop you before," came her reply. And then her mouth was full again, taking him deeper.

"I can't...explain it," he gasped, having trouble keeping the conversation up while other things were up. "When you sang...the world just...disappeared."

The warmth that engulfed him suddenly slipped away, and her hands moved from his thighs to his shoulders as Ligeia stood. The tip of her tongue brushed his lips, sending a tremor down Evan's back, and then she opened her mouth. A tremulous note emerged, vibrating low, just at the point of hearing. Her head dipped, and her eyes met his with a look that demanded his l.u.s.t. Gold freckled the brown of her eyes like a cat's. Her gaze was electric. The melody rose from a whispering ba.s.so to a tremulous soprano. She sang without real words; yet there was meaning there. Evan's mind filled with first a deep sadness, and then a great, overpowering need.

Evan's transport this time was instant. He barely noticed that she led him into the water. When she pulled him under the waves, their bodies locked as one, all he could see were her eyes. All he could feel was her mouth on his, her body moving against him, holding him tight and then releasing. The song had disappeared, replaced by her kiss, but Evan drifted in the ocean, letting Ligeia do the work, swimming and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g at the same time. Her fingernails pressed against his back painfully as she reached her climax, and he felt his own release cresting too. They spasmed together beneath the surface, but as he opened his mouth unconsciously to scream out his pleasure, Ligeia kicked once, and brought him to the air.

"Oh my G.o.d," he gasped, spitting out a mouthful of seawater. He could only think of one word to describe the feelings pulsing through every vein in his flesh. Rapture.

Ligeia held him easily, keeping them both afloat. Her lips were wide, happy. Evan let himself drift in her care, oblivious to all fear of the water. His phobia seemed to melt away completely at her touch. "That was the most amazing...ever," he said, heaving and gasping to catch his breath.

She pulled him tight to her breast. Her hair stuck to his cheek. "Come with me tonight," her voice whispered in the dark. "And you will have me like that always. Every day. Yours forever."

Evan's stomach clenched. "Ligeia, I..."

"Forever," she promised.

"I'm married," he said. "To a wonderful woman. I love her. I shouldn't be here at all."

"You're mine now," she said simply, with a shrug that preempted all argument. Then she flicked her tongue across his eyelids, nose and lips. Ligeia began to hum, and Evan's panic subsided instantly.

The wind blew against them, raising the fishy smell of the ocean depths, and he shivered. Ligeia gripped him tight to her, legs scissoring his and working him back between her thighs. When he entered her a second time, the force of her moan hit Evan like his own o.r.g.a.s.m. Her voice broke all around him in short staccato squeaks. Mellifluous, high and almost birdlike. "Mine," she moaned more than once.

Evan couldn't help himself. His need for her grew so heavy, he joined her in promises.

"Yes," he said. "Yours."

Chapter Seventeen.

The door slammed behind Evan with a hollow snap, and he knew right away that something was wrong. Darren's office was empty, though the lights were on. He stepped into the bull pen, and all of the desks were empty, though the computer screens all glared with light. Bill's chair was pushed away from his desk, as if he'd left in a hurry; its back hung up on the front rim of Maggie's desk.

"Huh," Evan murmured. All of their cars were in the lot, and he hadn't seen anyone up on the dock. No ships were in this morning, though a couple were due, he knew.

He looked out the back window to the dock and confirmed that n.o.body was in sight. The pier extended out into the water without a single tie-up so far today. It was a beckoning finger into the ocean that remained unanswered.

"Huh," Evan said again, and went to his desk to turn on his computer, which was obvious in its off-ness. He was late again. And this time, he had apparently missed something big. I'm going to hear about this, I bet.

As the Windows 95 logo lit up the screen, he noticed a handwritten note on a Post-it dangling from his monitor.

Evan- There's been an accident. We're going up the beach near the point.

-Bill "What the h.e.l.l," Evan said to the empty office. What kind of accident would have sent the entire office out to the beach? Images of blood on the sand, the crumpled body of a water-skier lying a dozen feet from its severed leg filled his mind. Steeling himself for the worst, he exited the back door and took the stairs down to the beach two at a time.

As soon as he pa.s.sed the fence that walled in the cargo area of the port, Evan saw his workmates. They were huddled down near the point, but Evan didn't pay attention to what they were looking at. His eyes were trained on the ship out in the water, not far off the beach. He couldn't tell how large the craft was, but it was a cargo carrier, without a doubt. Probably the one he'd known was due in overnight, its berth filled with Mexican produce. A green machine, they called it in the bull pen.

This one wasn't going to be delivering much green though. Not with its bow head down in the bay. The port side of the craft faced the beach at an awkward angle-a.s.s up, as it were. The water wasn't deep enough to swallow the craft here, and it had apparently run aground during the night.

There were flashing lights cutting the air beyond the sand, and as Evan drew closer he saw that there were blue-shirted cops kneeling down in the sand as well as Bill, Darren, Candice and some others.

Bill saw his approach and motioned him over. "You've got to hear this," he whispered as Evan met him just outside the circle of gawkers.

"What's going on?" Evan asked.

"Ship sank early this morning, just before dawn. They never even used the radio; Maggie saw them out here this morning after she got in. She happened to take a look out the bathroom window and saw a d.a.m.n ship facedown in the drink, you know? She freaked out!"

"What happened?"

"Ha." Bill grinned dourly. "That's what I wanted you to hear."