Page 41 of Siren in Love
“Be ready to get out!”He laced the command with song, pulling the car to a halt moments later.They were at the back of the building, where a loading deck allowed easy entrance.Mike had no idea who made sure the abandoned structure wasn’t used by transients or teenagers looking to party, but he was glad they did.“Out, now,” he ordered John and Corvin.
With the force of his voice, the other two obeyed.Mike hummed once he was on his feet, then reached for Corvin’s hand, interlacing their fingers.They sprinted into the building.John stayed close, even if Mike was pretty sure the werewolf could’ve outrun them.
The darkness of the cotton mill soon swallowed them, and Mike had to navigate it as much by memory as by sight.The echoes of his own humming helped too.
Navigating by sound and echo was a trick all sirens had up their sleeves, but it wasn’t one widely known by others.The sounds of growling and sniffing and clawed paws giving chase followed them.
“Why are there dogs behind us?”Corvin asked.“Mike?What’s happening?”
“Just—the people after me have dogs.Like bloodhounds, you know,” John said while Mike was busy humming.
So nice to hear that werewolf say something useful at last,Mike thought.
The pillars inside the building cast eerie shadows and split the sounds like giant blades.The floor and walls were spider-webbed with the cracks of age and neglect, and broken window glass added even more edges to the sharp, broken darkness all around them.
Echoes told Mike there were loups-garous behind them, four in total, though more might still be outside.It was difficult to fathom what they wanted with John, but it wasn’t anything that was relevant in their current situation, so Mike chose to not dwell on it.
Stairs tucked away behind a standing wall to their right led to the second floor, and there, Mike knew, a row of offices offered a good place to hide Corvin for as long as it would take him to deal with the loups-garous.
The beasts in question snarled and snapped their vicious jaws shut around nothing but air.They wanted blood.Mike heard it in their every noise, felt it in the vibrato of their heartbeats.
The cotton mill, although it was a large space, was small enough for his siren sense to know what the beasts would do if he stopped singing, if he ran out of breath, if they got to them.
They reached the stairs, and Mike waited for John to go up first.He followed with Corvin, his ears tuned in to the sounds of their pursuers.As they reached the landing, Mike heard all of the loups-garous take deep breaths.It made him uneasy, and then when he realized what they wanted to do, it made his skin tingle with ice.
As one, the loups-garous howled.The sound came together, the sharp edges of their voices still disparate but no less forceful for it.
It was loud, loud enough to drown out Mike’s voice, and one of the loups-garous peeled off from the group and sped up the stairs after them.One set of jaws would be enough to kill three people.
Mike turned and saw the black fur, the dark eyes, the light gleaming off sharp claws.He felt Corvin’s fingers tighten around his own, heard him gasp in fear.
But what Corvin couldn’t know was the true strength of Mike’s song or the way he knew this building like the back of his hand.If Corvin hadn’t been with him, Mike would’ve sharpened a melody against the loup-garou, but with Corvin here, Mike simply…screamed.
The way he held his head as he let the sound out allowed the noise to ricochet off walls and beams like a silver bullet, and it struck the loup-garou that had come up after them, taking the beast down.It hit its jaw on the stairs, and the noise of that maw snapping closed was incredibly satisfying.
“Come on, hon,” he said before resuming his humming.The loups-garous still howled, but they were running out of breath, and one of the four was already down; not dead, but at least out for the time being.
Mike led the way toward the offices, pulled open a door, and shoved Corvin inside.
“Stay here.Hide,” he told Corvin, his song an irresistible command.Mike closed the door and ran, John at his heels.
“Why’d you stop singing?”the werewolf asked.
“Shut up and stay behind me.”
With Mike silent now, the loups-garous closed in.Mike’s theory had been right, they weren’t interested in Corvin at all, but very interested in John.Their growls and snarls spoke of all the things they wanted to do to the werewolf, both in fur and human shape.They made cold shivers run down Mike’s spine.
At the end of this floor, there was another set of metal steps.Mike sprinted toward them, taking them two at a time.He tossed a few hummed syllables at the loups-garous, just to make sure they wouldn’t catch up before he wanted them to.On that floor, there was a walkway snaking along an outside wall lined with large, evenly spaced windows.
Sirens could lure, but as his mom had told Mike, it was only good to lure if you had a hook and the strength to get it into someone’s heart and pull them under with it buried deep.
“Shit, we’re high up,” John said as Mike pushed him onto the walkway.It overlooked the floor of the cotton mill, where once the fabrics would have been woven on large, noisy machines.
The walkway and its railing were metal, and Mike heard it creaking under their combined weight.He’d have heard it if it had been rusted through, but it wasn’t.It sounded sturdy, despite its age.
Still, Mike forced himself to look uneasy as he kept himself between John and the snarling shadows following them.The loups-garous sounded victorious now, gleeful.They thought they had cornered their prey, thought Mike had run out of breath.
Nowhere near.You’ll regret hunting this poor werewolf kid.
