Page 60 of Song of Lorelei

Twisting back, Nireed signed, “Close,” and Lorelei appreciated the warning.

They came to a circular cluster of seaweed stalks that grew closer and more densely together. Some shoots looked younger than others, as if they had been nurtured to grow there. And tethered to each stalk by rope, floating in place ten feet up from the sea floor, were humanoid cocoons made of seaweed. Grave bundles? She didn’t know what else to call what she saw. Mummies maybe. The seaweed wrappings reminded her of them, but that’s not what they were.

Lorelei swam just a little bit closer to examine them, but not too close. She had no desire to touch them, afraid of what lay beneath. Bones couldn’t hurt her, but knowing that they had once supported a life, a soul, now gone, cut too deep to bear.

It stunned her how intricate and complex the weavings were of the seaweed wrappings. A lot of time and a lot of hands must have gone into threading these burial shrouds. Little trinkets hung from each grave bundle—carved bits of driftwood and stone. Like wind chimes that caught the current, not air. Each were different from the next. Mementos. Markers. These graves were art as much as they were a display of respect. A craft imbued with sorrow and regret. An apology.

Her chest tightened and her eyes began to sting.

Some additional seaweed had been cleared away in front of the grave bundles, so that there was an open path encircling the site. She could swim right up to each to visit and pay respects without having to bend around seaweed stalks. Such a simple physical task, but mentally she couldn’t do it. Maybe someday she would have the fortitude to swim right up to them and lay a hand upon the woven shrouds, but not today. This was close enough.

Nireed wrapped an arm around her waist and rested her head against hers. Lorelei returned the one-armed hug, unable to feel the touch of her own tears, all claimed by the ocean the moment they fell.

She didn’t regret seeing the siren’s grave bundles for her crew. There was closure in it, but it was still hard.

There was something unnerving about paying respects to a body, much less a whole crew’s worth. She had never liked open casket funerals. The departed never looked real to her, a macabre imitation of the person they once were in life, as cold and motionless as a wax museum figure. When her mom died, there had been enough funds for a casket and a traditional burial, but she had her cremated. She couldn’t bear the thought of her mother in a casket—open or closed. Instead, she gave her ashes to the wind and Lake Superior.

Lowering her gaze, Lorelei took a moment to herself.

Gold lettering caught her eye.

The section of ship that bore The Osprey’s name rested at the base of the grave site, scratched and faded, but propped in place by sea rock. She clasped a hand across her mouth, another choked sob escaping her lips in a cloud of bubbles. This wasn’t just a grave site. It was a memorial.

Spinning in the water, she pulled Nireed into a hug. “Thank you,” she said, though the sea took words, rendering them nothing more than moving lips and bubbles. But the siren squeezed her back, swaying them from side to side in the water, and Lorelei thought she probably understood.

Chapter Thirty-Two

KILLIAN

Dawn Chaser had become a common meeting ground.

A group of ocean-born sirens sat on crates on deck, interspersed between the humans. There were five in total—three Killian knew, two he didn’t. Lorelei handed one of them a pair of sunglasses to wear and showed her how to put them on.

Killian was at a loss for how they were going to get the virophage into the mermen. The brain virus affected them more severely, and unlike the sirens, they couldn’t exactly be reasoned or bargained with. They were utterly feral. Baiting and attempting to capture them like they had with Undine would be dangerous, and he had a nauseating suspicion that simple human blood wouldn’t lure them.

More sinister cravings drew them from the deep.

Because why else had they never been seen before?

Heavy sedation would be involved—he knew that much—even before Will pulled out a case filled with tranquilizer syringes. Where his best friend got this shit in such large quantities, he didn’t know either. Probably a military supply store. This was Maine after all.

The tranquilizer gun had made a reappearance, as well.

They had tools and heart and little else.

But that was why they were all here. The sirens had come up with a game plan, one they had pieced together amongst themselves after Lorelei told them about “sleeping shots.” There was nothing the humans could do beneath the waves, but even if they could, this was the merfolk’s fight now.

Their fight for salvation.

Chapter Thirty-Three

NIREED

For days, Nireed and her siren sisters—Aersila, Undine, Melusina, and Delphine—had watched their targets from a distance, a pod of eight, led by a shimmering, bronze-scaled male and a golden one.

That was a big grouping for mermen. Any larger and they would have torn themselves apart, too many territorial, sickness-addled creatures in one place. They couldn’t live in communities like Nireed and the rest of her siren siblings did.

If it weren’t for the sickness, all would be ripe for mating with. But that’s why they were here learning the male pod’s patterns, waiting for the right moment to strike. Shorewalker and Cure Creator may have saved her sisters, but now it was up to them to save the rest of their people. No matter how long it took, Nireed would fight to reunite them, one male pod at a time.