My Immortal Playlist (The Siren Collection #1) (17 page)

“What? No smarmy remarks? No retorts? Just a weak and insecure denial? Alexandra, you disgrace your people.”

“I would like to hear about them,” I said, accepting her cuts. “If you don’t mind.”

“I figured as much,” she said. “You have been lost all this time, and without a guide to bring you back on track. To show you what it truly means to be a Siren.”

“Where are our people? Is there a community?”

“None,” she said sharply. “And if there is one I don’t know about, it certainly couldn’t be labeled a community. Perhaps a handful of sisters.”

“So you’re here all by yourself?”

“I have many warriors at my disposal,” she said, folding her arms again. “But they are not needed at the moment. I have them on call, should I need them to dispatch someone. In that regard, I am not alone. But to better answer your question, concerning my time here in Casper, I do not feel loneliness in any regard. Should I need someone to talk to, there is Lucas, but more importantly, I have my music,” she tapped the side of her head. “Hundreds of spells, songs and incantations for a variety of situations. Memorized and sealed away at my disposal and for my use. I don’t have time to entertain guests or feel the sting of loneliness.”

I had to admit that I was in awe. Even in my basement, there were only a hundred sheets of music. To know that there were hundreds more made me both excited and terrified.

“Have you begun deciphering the music?” she asked me. “The little you possess?”

“I sing it to my victims when it’s time to feed,” I said.

“You haven’t tried to break down the lyrics themselves?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Do they teach you nothing in school? This is basic. When you sing the songs to your victims, do you learn the meaning of the song, and in general, the words?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know how to pronounce the words themselves? You must, if you have had successes. Surely you can read the lyrics.”

“I can, but I don’t know what the words mean. There’s a difference
.”

“Then why can’t you sit down with the music and
try to come up with an alphabet of your own? You already have the rough meaning to some words, and you can pronounce them. Knowing that, you can put the two together eventually. You can decipher the other pages without having to wait and see what they do.”

I was so stupid…why didn’t I think of that before? Was I so afraid of what I had to do
to people that I neglected who I was altogether? If I had studied the music in depth instead of cowering in fear, I could have at least chosen the proper song for each victim. Elliot and Henry didn’t have to be zombies, Noah didn’t have to drink blood to survive…

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked her. She gave me a smug smile.

“That is the question. We are a dying species. There was a way to create more of us, but that knowledge has been lost.”

“How is that possible? Seems pretty important.”

“When one is immortal, they don’t think much about how to extend the lives of others, nor that of the species. That is a human notion. The thought that by having children, your bloodline or legacy is secured. Yes, the child inherits the last name of the father and that family name extends on and on, but the father who bore the child is good and dead. It serves him no purpose.”

“Then my mother…she was not my mother at all, was she?”

“Very doubtful,” Pamela replied. “She was more than likely a Siren of ancient times.”

“But if there’s no procreation, how am I here? I’m not that old.”

“A mystery that I would love to solve,” she said, studying me. “But that will surely require much study and possibly some more knowledge that has been lost to us.”

“How did we lose so much knowledge
?” I said. “Was it taken from us?”

“It has been suspected…a
nd this is just oral tradition…that our loathing for man started centuries ago. Back then, there were thousands of Sirens and in the ancient times, there were usually specific sisters in charge. While most of the Sirens played and sang, the sisters in charge would task themselves with preserving our most sacred and complex songs. It has been said that eventually man discovered not only our private lands, but also whom was in charge, and they decided to take our leaders for themselves. It has been said that when you have been made into a sister in charge, you become a Goddess. You literally transform into a higher state. While you are still a Siren, you are an elevated one. The knowledge you gain is beyond the comprehension of the others.”

“So you think that man took our Goddesses and kept them from us?”

“Again, this is only speculation, but that is what has been passed along in our history. Driven by their lusts for beauty they could not have, and power they should not have possessed, they took the Goddesses and either made them forget about their former lives or dismembered them and scattered them throughout the world.”

“Forget?”

“We are immortal, not invincible. We’re still able to be disfigured, hurt, dismembered, and even traumatized. Knock us on the head, and we may gain amnesia. Take our tongue and we can no longer sing. It has been said that some of the first Sirens in America were mistaken for witches.”

“But the men might have simply been retaliating, for all the lives we took from them.”

“Not according to legend, Alexandra. When we Sirens were alone, on our islands and with our Goddesses, there was said to be no need to feed. The Goddesses had the proper songs to give us all we need, bringing forth sustenance from the very earth itself with mere words. Back then we still had to choose an immortal form, but the deadline was far off. It’s not like today. You’re not even twenty, and you’re already feeling the deadline approaching. In ancient times, centuries would pass before we were required to take on an immortal form. But that was when we fed on divine fruit. Now we feast on the souls of filthy men, which might as well be empty calories. Cakes and twinkies, where once we were given meat, vegetables and fruit.

“We are creatures of discovery and wonder. The deadline is supposed to be far off so that we may explore the world at our fing
ertips and examine new things. And the songs were once not so permanent. We could revert back to our Siren form after a year or two. Choosing an immortal form in the end was about mastery. It was saying to everyone else that you had chosen that form because you knew above all others what it entailed. It’s like going to college and choosing a major, sticking with it until you’ve earned your doctorate. Sure, many chose the form of the mermaid, but that was because the sea was so vast and magnificent that even in all our years, we had not discovered all of its secrets.”

“I’ve always wondered about that,’ I said, looking down at my legs. “Why I’m not a mermaid. Though, it would have made feeding a lot more difficult.”

“When man came, and took out goddesses, we were left defenseless and deeply wounded. No leadership, no guidance, no power – many Sirens spent their endless years at sea, trying to find word of our loss Goddesses. Others, those of legend, turned even more hostile, singing to sailors and causing their ships to dash against the rocks. They would sing, even when they didn’t have to feed, just so more men would lose their lives. However, too many were confined solely to the sea, and even those that came on land had to choose a final form quickly - some of those forms not being so favorable. Many were buried forever. As we fought to survive, we divided. Arts were lost. The basics were diminishing. We forgot our songs. We wrote them down just for the paper to be burned. And now…there is no telling how little of us there are. We may be the very last two.”

“So then why were you spying on me? Why not just come to me as soon as you found out
what I was?”

“Because some Sirens, out of necessity
or fear, have given into men. For shelter and safety, they become prostitutes or battered housewives. Some have taken final forms knowing full well that they would become dirt or some other element, just so that they wouldn’t feel anymore. I had to see what kind of woman you were, and if you were strong…or posed a threat.”

“And do I?”

“That you do,” she said with a smile, and then turned toward the kitchen. “Where is our tea!?” she screamed. Lucas scurried out with the cups and handed us each one, with a saucer secured underneath. I tried to make eye contact with him, but he refused to look at me.

“Now go to the bathroom and lock the door,”
Pamela ordered him. “Wait there until I call for you.” He obeyed, and I made sure not to take a single sip of the tea. I knew this game all too well.

“Why am I a threat?” I asked softly.

“Because you care for them.”

“Who? My roommates?”

“Men.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“We are on the verge of extinction, Alexandra,” she said, taking a long gulp. “It is my job, as well as yours, to ensure the Sirens do not die out. That cannot happen if you’ve taken a liking to their kind.”

“Maybe like other
extinct animals, this is the natural course. Maybe Sirens weren’t meant to survive this long.”

“And next I assume you’re going to say the same about the victims of genocide throughout the years. Or perhaps let’s think more on th
ose animals you’ve mentioned. Most animal species in this age do not go extinct because of natural order. They die because of poaching. Men, once again, kill, for money and pleasure. A serial killer takes the lives of several victims. Does anyone think, ‘well, the victims were just weak?’ No. They understand that they were unfairly targeted and murdered.”

“We kill,” I retorted.

“Out of necessity. Not desire. And if it wasn’t for man, we wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. We are like the animals that are forced from their habitat in order to give man his homes and plazas. The animals try to adapt to their new environment, but ultimately, because it is not the home they need to thrive in, they slowly perish.”

“But even you said that the history between the Sirens and man is just speculation. We don’t know for sure.”

“Man has proven on more than enough occasions that they are not worthy to survive.”

“We can’t just kill them all.”

“Why not? What do you think will happen after the Sirens are extinct? Do you think man will just be done? No. You see their actions on the internet. You read the stories. Of what they do to their own women. They treat them as cattle and property. Separate but equal they believe. They may not say it, but they certainly believe.”

“So the plan is to wipe them all out?”

“Slowly but surely.”

“How?”

“By converting more to our cause. The enchantment I told you about? It binds them to us once they’ve transformed. The key is to sing the proper songs to a great deal of men. For example, an army of a thousand vampires would cause a great deal of damage. And that is just the beginning. There are much more powerful creatures at our disposal, and hybrids you haven’t even imagined, just by a simple lyric change here and there. The men in your life? The ones living at your house? If it wasn’t for the spell binding them, you would find your house quite empty. And if you don’t believe me? Use this.”

She got up from the couch and walked over to the
lamp, lifted it, and grabbed a small sheet of paper underneath. She handed it to me and then sat back down after putting the lamp in its proper position.

“I can’t do anything about their
condition,” she said. “Only the goddesses know those songs. But if you would like to remove the enchantment, these are the lyrics. You must sing it to them since you are the ones they are bound to. After it is done, then you will see the truth in my words – that it is only the spell that is keeping them. Of course, you would also be taking a big risk if you had told them already about the cure within you. The enchantment serves as insurance so that those you have turned cannot get to your blood. But…the choice is yours.”

“This could
all be a trick.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. You claim to know hundreds of songs. How am I to know what this song does?”

“Then perhaps
you should get to your studies, though I still haven’t decided if I should even allow you yet. Let’s say I allow you to live. You and your boys. What happens when I send an army to decimate this town? What will you do then?”

“Why Casper? No one does anything here.”

“Exactly. They are not heavily interconnected with other towns and communities so there won’t be a whole lot to miss. Especially if I make it look like a tragic, town wide accident. But you didn’t answer my question. What will you do? Will you stand back and watch? Will you assist me? Or fight me?”

“There are innocent people here,” I said softly. “Good people.”

“There are only men and their slaves.”

“No, that’s not true.
It seems like you stay in this house all the time so you couldn’t know, but there are really good people living here. You can’t just wipe them out. How is that any different than the men who attacked our lands long ago?”

“They attacked first.”

“And we can let it stop with us.”