Page 59 of Wicked Tides
A gunshot rang out from down the beach. Quickly, we both turned and then began sprinting toward the noise. Through the fog, I could see four silhouettes standing together.
“Captain!” James called.
When we got closer, I noticed he was the one that pulled the trigger. There was a body on the sand. A man, half-starved and barely breathing for all of thirty seconds before the wound claimed him. I crouched over him, realizing immediately that he was without a silentium and that his body was littered with infected, swelling wounds. In place of his silentium, was a symbol carved into his flesh, same as the floater. The man would have been dead soon had James not ended him already.
“He came at us,” Mullins explained. “Had a rock in his hand and a crazed look on his face.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Asked him who he was. Told him we could help. He was mad.”
Dahlia looked over the body, examining it with the same precision she did the other one.
The sound of feet slapping sand drew everyone’s attention. Another skinny man with a bald head darted over the hill, shouting madly. I lifted my pistol as he came at me, a big rock in his hand just like the last one. Blackened, rotten teeth sat unevenly in his mouth as he screamed. I pulled back the hammer on my pistol when hands suddenly shoved my arm upward, forcing me to fire my shot into the sky.
Dahlia.
I lowered my firearm and pulled out my blade with my other hand, pressing it swiftly beneath her chin in warning as two of my men tackled the stranger to the ground. Our eyes bore challengingly intoeach other before she boldly stepped away from my sword and turned to the struggling madman.
“Be calm for me,” she spoke in an alluring, gentle tone.
The silentium buried in my chest hummed against my sternum as her voice carried through the air. My men stepped back, alarmed to hear her inhuman tones fill their ears. Those tones were disrupted by our pendants, but to the man without, they were hypnotic. Whimpering, the man rose up on his hands and looked at Dahlia as she moved slowly toward him. I watched as she crouched, reaching out a hand to gently stroke his salt-crusted forehead.
“Be calm,” she whispered, her voice like many trapped together in an eerie prison.
The man muttered something in French, his voice trembling and dehydrated. It was not fear I saw in his eyes, but desperation. His yellowed gaze was on Dahlia, unblinking and wanting as if he’d sooner serve her than drink water in his dying moments.
Dahlia spoke back to him in French, her voice no less tantalizing and poetic in another language. All the while, she continued to stroke his face until the man slowly began to lean into her like a babe would his mother. She sat back, coaxing more out of him until his head was in her lap. She ran her fingers gently over the bridge of his prominent nose, his scalp, his ears, relaxing him. Tempting him. Assuring him. My French was shit, but I was able to pick up a few words. Not enough to understand what they were talking about.
“… Pour le fils d’Akareth,” he mumbled before his eyes closed and he went quiet.
“Shhh,” Dahlia hushed, leaning over the man and pressing her lips to his dirty skin. “Tu dois aller dormir maintenant,” she whispered, her song-like tones soaking through the man’s muscles until he was completely limp, curled in on himself like a child.
Dahlia’s eyes slowly climbed up and found mine. Gently, she set the man’s head on the sand and stood to face me.
“You may kill him now while he sleeps,” she said. “He wishes for it. I’d do it myself, but I wager you wouldn’t like the sight of it.”
I glanced at Tor, giving him a subtle nod, and he stepped in to finish the poor man. Dahlia was already halfway to the boat when I caught her, forcing her to look at me.
“You used the voice among my men,” I snarled.
“This place is cursed,” she said through her teeth. “These sands are haunted by things even sirens fear.”
“Was it worth it? Taking his free will?”
“I did not take his free will. Someone else did. The one carving her sigil into men’s chests.”
I was growing frustrated with her vague answers.
“You know so much more than you’re saying.”
She scoffed. “Of course I do. And I’ll tell you.” She stepped in close, lifting her chin. “If you make it worth it.”
The briefest sense of desire flashed through my thoughts, followed immediately by disgust and I shoved her away from me. Amusement curled one side of her lips before her eyes shifted away from me toward the sandy hills. I glanced back to see a dozen silhouettes manifest on the null. When they emerged from the fog, they looked similar to the two men on the beach in tattered clothes. They were all starved. Crazed. Some had swords. Others had stones. Sticks. Whatever they could find.
I knew Dahlia couldn’t control them all. Nor did I want her to. Seeing her do it to one man chilled me. If I could avoid seeing her do it to another, I would.
The men began to charge, all consumed with madness like it was a disease they longed to spread. My men started firing, but with only one shot in every pistol, we were outnumbered.
