Demon Song (32 page)

I couldn’t resist. I pulled it gently from Adriana’s grip and put it to my lips. She shrugged. “I already tried that. No noise comes out. Even though they don’t feel magical, there must be some sort of spell to make it work.”

I took a slight breath and blew. A low, mournful sound erupted from the opening. I’ve always loved the sound a conch makes. But Dawna covered her ears like she was in pain and Adriana dropped her head into her hands. God, it wasn’t
that
bad. But apparently I was wrong, because the car’s windows started to vibrate. There was a loud
pop
and a crack appeared across the lower half of the windshield.

Oops.

Adriana pulled the horn away from me and stared alternately at me and it with mingled fear and amazement. Dawna was trying to recover her hearing by shaking each earlobe and opening her mouth wide.

“Um…”

The horn went to Adriana’s lips. I saw her cheeks puff out, and then … nothing. No sound. And I mean
no
sound. “I have to admit that’s a little odd.”

“Let me try.” Dawna held her hand over the seat confidently and Adriana passed the shell to her. I turned in my seat to watch, ready to throw my hands over my ears. But again, no sound issued from the horn. Dawna handed it back to me with an odd look on her face. “What are you, the chosen one or something?”

“God, I hope not. I can think of a thousand things I’d rather do than ever stand in front of that rift again.” Adriana gestured,
Do it again
. Once more I blew, just a tiny bit—and the horn sounded. The volume didn’t seem to be tied to the amount of air. That spoke of powerful magic. The windows shook again, but at least nothing shattered or cracked.

Fuck a duck. “Let me say for the record that there have
got
to be other people who can blow this horn, and if it takes the next three weeks, I’m going to find them.”

There was a long pause in the car. It was quiet enough to hear the gas nozzle click off. I handed the shell back to Adriana and opened the door.

“We can do little with only one horn, so rest easy for now.” I knew Adriana was trying, in her own way, to be thoughtful. But she could have left off the “for now” and I wouldn’t have minded.

While I was paying for the gas, I checked on Gran. She told me the bus had come and gone while she was in the church across the street and she hadn’t liked the look of the driver. She decided there was no reason why she couldn’t stay where she was and just ignore the parts of the service she didn’t believe. I couldn’t find any fault with that logic and was happy to learn that the priest there was a former member of a militant sect. He promised to keep his sword behind the pulpit for the whole service … just in case. I didn’t tell her about the horn. She’d only worry.

We spent the next hour driving quietly with the radio playing bubblegum rock. I wish I could say I was thinking lofty thoughts, but all I was really doing was trying to figure out some way out of this.

When we were about an hour from home, something occurred to me. I clicked off the radio and glanced at Adriana. I could feel the furrows in my forehead. “Do you think the other horn is the same way?”

She got a confused look on her face. “I don’t understand. What same way?”

But Dawna got it and I could see in the mirror the moment she realized what I was asking. “Omagawd. That one in your collection!” At Adriana’s look of puzzlement, she explained, “Celia collects seashells and has a bunch of conch shells. But there’s this one, a king conch—”

I interrupted, “That has never made a sound. Not for anyone. My grandpa gave it to me as my very first shell when I was about five and I’ve always been disappointed it’s silent.”

“Do you mean that it doesn’t blow a good tone or it’s silent—”

“It’s silent like
this one,
” Dawna said with significance. “I never could figure out why you couldn’t even hear air come out.”

My voice sounded very small and scared, because I had just remembered why the inscription had seemed familiar: “There are carvings inside it, too. They looked like the kind of scratchings a kid might make. I’ve never had them checked out because I figured my grandpa had done it. He said he’d had the shell all his life.” And we both knew that
his
father had been Queen Lopaka’s brother—who probably had also been around during the fall of Atlantis.

My cousin’s voice was thoughtful: “In the first age, the Isle of Serenity was the home of only the female sirens. Hearty seafaring men were lured to the island for breeding and then were sent away. Male children either were given to the father or … well, only girls remained.”

Well, the sirens certainly weren’t the first society to favor a particular gender, and even though I didn’t like it, I couldn’t change the past. “So why would a male have one of the Millennium Horns?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. It was a long time before we realized what had happened at Atlantis. The queens knew because Eris sent them word of the crisis, but the general populace didn’t. It wasn’t until the sailors started to arrive with tales of destruction and great floods caused by tsunamis that we knew for certain that the rumors had been fact. Could it be that a sailor found the horn and took it to a male siren?”

“Were you born yet? What stories did you hear?”

Adriana shook her head. “I was born many hundreds of years later.” But that still made her several hundred years old. Yowzer.

“Maybe we need to not worry about how they got where they are and concentrate on why they’re still here
at all
. If Atlantis disappeared into the rift, shouldn’t the horns have gone with it?”

Adriana’s head was moving up and down like a bobblehead doll created by Tiffany and Max Factor. “I’ve asked that since this one was brought to me. Of course we already knew Stefania was trafficking with demons, so I wondered if perhaps it was a gift from them. I’ve also been concerned that the horns were a double-edged sword of a kind.”

“Ooh,” Dawna said from the backseat. “You mean that maybe the horn can
open
the rift instead of close it and maybe that’s why the wicked queen of the west had it?”

Oh, that would be bad.

“Indeed.” Adriana’s perfect nails were tapping a staccato on the tote. I flicked on the right turn signal and eased into the exit lane. We were getting nearer to finding the answers to a lot of questions. “There is every chance that the records I’ve found are wrong—changed
after
the memories of the queens were altered. I fear using the horn unless we have some authority.”

I pulled my cell phone from the dashboard charger and tossed it backward over the seat. “Dawna, check my voice mail and see if Dr. Sloan has called back. I only called him yesterday, so he might not have, but if he has, I want to talk with him while we’re all together and nothing’s trying to kill us.”

There was silence in the car other than the clicking of keys. I could hear my own voice far in the distance, and then Dawna was writing on her hand while nodding absently—just like she did at the office. “Yep,” she said after a few minutes. “He called you back, and left a number. Want me to call him and set something up?”

“It’s illegal, so yeah, I don’t like to, and I hate the way calls sound on those Bluetooths. Or is that Blueteeth?”

She smiled and even Adriana let out a small amused sound. Dawna paused and then her smile turned to a grin. “Two other calls, by the way.” Her voice went singsong. “John and Bruno both wanna see you. Celia’s got two boyfriends.”

I looked over to catch Adriana’s reaction, but it didn’t really mean anything to her. Why would it? She’s probably completely used to men falling over her. Dawna must have noticed Adriana’s lack of reaction, because she leaned over and whispered, “Her first triangle.”

I swatted at Dawna and she ducked. But Adriana let out a
real
laugh. “My first was amazing, but it’s also the most difficult, Celia—especially if you find them both attractive in return.”

“Oh, she does. Both are mages and both are completely
hot
.”

That grabbed Adriana’s attention. “Mages. Are they skilled?”

I nodded, fighting off the blush that was probably making my white skin a vivid pink. “Very. Bruno is more powerful, but John has an amazing talent.”

Adriana touched the tote as I came to a stop at the light heading toward the beach. “Would they be able to feel the magic in the horn? Perhaps even know what spell was cast on it?”

That was such a logical question that I kicked myself for not thinking of it. “It’s sure worth asking, but I don’t know if we can reach them. Were they still down at the prison, Dawna?”

She glanced at the time display on the face of my cell. “The messages were both about an hour ago and they were just leaving for the night. Again, want me to call?”

What the hell. “Sure. Call all three. Have the whole bunch meet me at the guesthouse. That’s where the other shell is. But I have got to have something to eat first, so tell them to make it in an hour or so and if they get there before us they should wait.”

I figured if they were early and we were late, we could focus on the shell and not on … well, less comfortable subjects. I glanced in the mirror to see how Dawna took my instructions while I turned away from my house. Her brows were raised and there was a small smile on her face, but she didn’t say a word.

That was best, because I had suddenly become a bundle of nerves. I didn’t want to have “the talk” with Bruno and I certainly didn’t want him to see the effect Creede’s magic had on me. Nor did I want John to see the pain in my eyes when I looked at Bruno. Damn it. I could really use one of those cleansing rituals right now, because I wanted to throw up and was brushing back tears. If Adriana noticed my slightly green expression, she didn’t mention it, but I was betting she didn’t notice.

Apparently I was wrong, because moments later she spoke with absolute seriousness: “This is something you must learn to live with, Celia. None of us
chose
to be a siren. If you spend all your time worrying about what effect your beauty and natural attraction will have on the hearts of the men who love you, you’ll curl up in a corner and die.” She stared at me so intently that I couldn’t help but turn to meet her gaze. “I mean that literally. Others have.”

“If that’s supposed to be encouraging, it’s … well, your delivery needs a little work.” I turned back to concentrate on my driving. I was glad of the ocean breeze coming through the open windows; it helped me calm down. “Let’s find somewhere to get some food before I start chomping on necks.”

19

There were
three cars parked at the guesthouse, but no people were visible. As I pulled in, I spotted Inez slowly climbing the stairs back to the main house.

Oh, shit. She’d let them in. Great. They were probably pawing through my stuff right now.

Nah. They wouldn’t do that. Would they?

At least the house was still standing and the walls weren’t melting … yet. That was a plus. I wasn’t as emotional anymore, either. Apparently aggression isn’t the only thing that happens when I get hungry. The people at the Italian restaurant had probably never seen a weepy vampire before. Interestingly, spaghetti with marinara sauce isn’t half-bad in a blender. Definitely on the keeper list.

But my emotions weren’t in perfect order, because my stomach did flip-flops when I saw two men watching me arrive from my own living-room window. So when I parked the SUV next to a rental Mustang that was as red as a certain Ferrari but not as fast, it wasn’t much of a struggle to answer the cell phone when it rang. Dawna let out a clucking noise and leaned next to my ear to whisper as she was getting out, “Chicken.”

I shooed her away. Adriana had an amused look that said she agreed with Dawna. Just what I needed—two amoral compasses. I pressed the green button as both doors shut and they walked toward the house. “Celia Graves.”

“Afternoon, Ms. Graves. It’s Mick Murphy.”

It wasn’t Monday. “I’m sorry, Mr. Murphy, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to those people yet. Didn’t we say we’d talk tomorrow?”

“We did. Yes, ma’am. But something interesting came up and I thought you’d want to know about it.”

Okay, that got me curious. I got out of the car and started to walk toward the stairs … not to climb them to the door but to stand under them where there was shade. It was December, but I was suddenly dying in the car. It hadn’t really hit me until the breeze stopped moving and I started sweating. But out in the open air a cool wind took away the heat and the sounds of gulls and of waves crashing against the rocks calmed me. “Tell me about it.”
And please take a long time doing it.

“Well, I got a call today from an older gentleman named Nathan Fulbright. His family has been in the county for generations, but I’d never really talked to him before. Called me right out of the blue and offered to sell me his ranch. The interesting part is he’s asking the exact amount of money Ms. Cooper is leaving me.”