Elegy (A Watersong Novel) (46 page)

“This would be easier if you put that wing away,” Marcy said as she brushed a bloody feather out of her face.

“I can’t. It’s broken. It’s healing, and it won’t go back until it’s done.”

“Well, hurry up then,” Marcy said, and picked up her pace. Gemma was clearly in trouble, and she probably needed all the help she could get. “Maybe a car will drive by and stop for us.”

“Penn chased away the neighbors because she likes privacy, so we’re the only ones who live up here now,” Thea explained. “And I’m also pretty sure that nobody would stop for the two of us.”

“What? You have wings. You could be an angel,” Marcy said. “Who wouldn’t stop to help an angel?”

“You realize I’m actually more of a demon, right?”

“Yeah, I do, but a car driving by wouldn’t.”

FIFTY

Ordnance

Alex was almost to the top of the cliff when he heard the crash. He’d been running up through the trees, trying to go a shorter route than on the road, and he’d had to stare up through the branches. But he’d seen it just the same. Two large birds crashing into each other.

They were in the sky, so Alex couldn’t really help much, but if he got to the house now, it would probably be a good time to try to get Harper and Daniel out of there.

When he made it to the house, the front door was still open, and Harper’s car was parked and running right next to it. Before he even made it in, he could see that it was a disaster. Pieces of wood, food, appliances, furniture—everything was broken and strewn all over the house.

“Harper?” Alex shouted as he stepped over the debris.

“Alex!” Harper shouted from the back of the house. “I’m back here.”

He ran back to see the sitting room near the windows that faced the bay mostly intact, and Harper was sitting in a pile of fragmented wood and random knives. He was about to ask her what was going on when he heard a banging sound.

“What’s that?” Alex asked, looking toward the ceiling and the bedroom directly above them.

“Daniel. He’s fine.” Harper shook her head and stared at the mess around her. “I need to find something to help Gemma.”

Alex crouched to look at what she had. “Like a weapon?”

“Yeah, anything that can help when they come back down.”

He turned back and looked up through the hole in the ceiling. A solitary black feather had fallen through and was slowly floating to the ground.

“What if they don’t?” Alex asked thickly, and he hated to even think it.

“Daniel is trapped here. Penn will come back eventually, and when she does, we have to be ready for her.”

But she’d failed to say that Gemma would come back, and that’s when Alex knew the situation had to be dire. He knew that Gemma had been practicing to control the monster, so she could fight Penn, but he had no idea how strong she was. She might be drastically outmatched.

If she was, that just meant that he and Harper would have to step up their game.

“Okay, so what have you found?” Alex asked, looking back at her.

“It’s mostly stuff like this.” She held up a broom that had been snapped in half so the end came to a sharp point. “I can stab her, but she’s not a vampire. Staking her won’t do much good.”

“What does kill them? The head and the heart, right?” Alex asked, and Harper nodded. “So let’s find something…” He’d been looking around the room, but he stopped when his eyes landed on the sharp, jagged edges of the broken fridge door. “What about that?”

“I thought about it, but I can’t really lift the thing. Gemma might be able to, but…” She trailed off. If Gemma were incapacitated, it wouldn’t do them much good if they couldn’t easily maneuver it.

“The steel is just a façade. It’s like glued on, sorta.” Alex walked over to it and pulled at the metal to confirm this. “We can rip it off.”

Harper got up and rushed over to help him. They carefully grabbed the edge and tried to tear it off, but the sharp edges made it harder for them to grasp it. The metal was slick and glued down tightly, but Alex had just started tearing up one of the corners when the remaining windows behind them shattered.

He leaned over, shielding Harper with his body since his back was to the windows, as glass, feathers, and wood rained in around them. Penn was screaming in an odd, birdlike way, as she and Gemma crashed back into the house and rolled across the floor.

FIFTY-ONE

Slaughter

Gemma got up and shook the glass from her hair. She could feel the blood soaking the front of her shirt. Her entire body ached, and Penn had bitten into her left arm so hard that it had snapped the bone, and the arm hung at an odd angle.

Penn stood across from her, circling her slowly, and at least it was nice to see that Penn didn’t look that great, either. Bites and claw marks had left her a bloody mess. Two of her fangs had broken in half, and she had a limp.

It was good to know she’d inflicted some damage, but her energy was waning. She wasn’t sure if it was because she’d lost so much blood from the throat wounds or simply because she hadn’t eaten in so long. But the fight was going out of her.

This was her last chance to get Penn, so she had to make it count.

She waited until Penn charged at her, then stepped to the side at the last minute. As Penn ran past her, Gemma grabbed onto her wing and spun her around. Then she leapt on her back and knocked her down.

Penn’s wings flapped hard, beating against Gemma, but her teeth and claws couldn’t reach her. Gemma pushed her down, stepping on the small of her back with all her weight. And then with the last of her strength, Gemma tore her talons into Penn’s back, between her wings.

Penn shrieked and tried to buck Gemma off, but Gemma just tore in deep, breaking through her bones until she could feel the beating of her black heart. She wrapped her hand around it and ripped it out.

And then Penn pushed back, finally knocking Gemma off her. She fell back and tried to get to her feet, but her legs kept slipping underneath. They were weak, and the floor was slick with blood.

Penn came at her with full force. Gemma held her arms up to shield herself, but Penn was like a rabid animal, just biting and clawing without reason.

“Gemma!” Harper shouted, and Gemma saw her sister running toward them holding a long sheet of metal in her hands.

Penn was too focused on getting her anger out on Gemma to see Harper. Not even when Harper ran at her. With the steel in one hand, she swung to the side, like she meant to slice through Penn’s neck.

Unfortunately, breaking the siren’s bones required more strength than Harper had, so the metal only made it through her windpipe and throat before stopping against the bone. She tried to push it in deeper, but Harper only succeeded in slicing her hand open. As the blood began to flow, her grip began to slip. When Penn staggered back as blood flowed from the wound, the sheet of metal sliced all down Harper’s forearm.

Blood began to pour from Penn’s throat, and she made an angry, guttural sound.

Still lying on her back, Gemma reared up and kicked the steel. The sharp edge cut the bottom of her foot, but she pushed it through Penn’s neck.

With her mouth still open in an angry smile, Penn’s head slid off her torso and fell to the floor with a disturbing splat. A few seconds later, her body collapsed next to it.

FIFTY-TWO

Bloodied

“Harper!
Harper!
” Daniel shouted, and he slammed into the door again. His shoulder would be bruised after this, but he didn’t give a damn.

Trapped in the bathroom, he’d been unable to see anything or help in any way. The only thing he’d relied on had been listening to the sounds of things breaking and people shouting at each other.

But a few minutes ago, everything had gone silent.

“Just a second, Daniel,” Gemma said, and he heard metal groaning.

When the door finally opened, he’d never been so relieved in his life. Gemma was standing in front of him, looking fully human. She was covered in blood, her clothes were ripped, but he couldn’t see any wounds.

He put his hands on her shoulders, just touching her to make sure that she was real and safe. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Penn’s dead. And Harper’s fine. Mostly.”

“
Mostly?
” Daniel asked, and his eyes quickly darted past Gemma and saw that Harper had just reached the top of the landing, with Alex’s help. Her right arm was covered in blood, but she was alive, and she smiled at him with tears in her eyes.

He ran over to her and pulled her into his arms, probably hugging her more tightly than he should’ve, but she didn’t complain. She hugged him back, and he lifted her off the ground.

Then he set her down to get a better look at her. He brushed the hair back from her face and looked her in the eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “What about you?”

He grinned. “Never better.” Then he looked at the gash running down her arm from her inner elbow to her palm. “Your arm. You need stitches.”

“No, it looks worse than it is,” Harper assured him. “It’s not that deep. I don’t think it hit any of the major veins.”

His eyes darted around the bedroom, looking for something to wrap Harper’s arm with. Penn had torn his shirt to bits, so it was little more than fabric and confetti; and he doubted that Harper would want to use the silk sheets Penn had just tried to bed Daniel on, even in an emergency.

Penn had draped a shawl across her headboard, and it was still there, so Daniel ran over and pulled it off. The fabric felt like gauzy satin, so it didn’t feel superabsorbent, but it would help slow the blood flow at least.

“Here.” He wrapped it around Harper’s arm, tying it tighter just below her elbow, so it would work like a tourniquet. “That’ll tide you over.”

“What’s going on? Is the party over?” Marcy asked.

Daniel glanced over the railing just as Marcy and Thea came into the house. Marcy looked a little rough, but Thea looked like she’d really been through hell. She was fully human, no wings or claws, but she was completely covered in blood.

As soon as Gemma saw Thea, she took off downstairs and ran over to her.

“Every time I come to this house, there’s a decapitated body in the living room,” Marcy said. But she didn’t seem to mind it. She crouched to inspect Penn’s headless, winged body.

Gemma and Thea stood in the doorway, talking in hushed murmurs to one another. Daniel put his arm around Harper and watched them with his brow furrowed.

“Is everyone here?” Daniel asked, and looked around. “Is everyone okay?”

“Liv and Penn are dead,” Alex said, and Daniel looked over at him for the first time. Then Alex’s expression darkened. “But Kirby didn’t make it.”

“Oh, no,” Harper whispered.

“How are you holding up?” Daniel asked. “You look pretty banged up.”

Alex glanced down at his shirt, which was stained red with blood. “Most of this isn’t mine. I’ve been hugging Gemma a lot. So I’m okay.”

“So is this curse broken then?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t know,” Harper admitted. “Diana said that if we killed Penn, we wouldn’t need to break the curse. But Gemma still seemed to have her siren strength when she opened the bathroom door.”

“She just healed up. Maybe the siren blood hasn’t completely evaporated,” Alex suggested.

Harper shook her head, like she wasn’t convinced, then stepped away from Daniel and walked over to the railing. “What’s going on? Is the curse broken?”

Gemma turned and smiled thinly up at her. “Yeah. It’s over.”

“But…” Harper trailed off, and Daniel stepped behind her and gently put his hand on her back. “You’re still strong, and Thea is still here. I thought if the curse was broken, she’d turn to dust.”

“That was one theory, but it’s wrong,” Gemma said.

“Then what’s the correct theory?” Daniel asked, and Gemma glanced back to Thea, like she needed answers herself.

“That we’ll just slowly become mortal again,” Thea supplied. “The siren powers will slowly drain from our body over the next few days, then we’ll be regular humans again. I’ll live out a natural, human life.”

“Then how do you know it’s over?” Harper asked. “If nothing’s changed, then how can you be sure?”

“We didn’t say nothing’s changed,” Gemma corrected her. “I can feel it. Inside.” She paused, and her cheeks darkened. “I’m not as hungry.”

“So you’re sure?” Harper asked again.

Gemma nodded. “Yes. I’m sure.”

Thea said something to Gemma too quiet for Daniel or anyone up in the loft to hear. Then Gemma nodded, Thea turned and walked away. Gemma hugged herself and watched as Thea departed.

“What happened?” Harper asked. “Where is she going?”

“She wanted to go see the mountains or the plains or a desert.” Gemma shrugged. “Anywhere she hasn’t been able to see in thousands of years.”

“So what does that mean?” Harper asked. “Are we finally free of the sirens?”

“Yes.” Gemma let out a deep breath. “We’re finally free.”

FIFTY-THREE

Depletion

“I swear, Dad, breakfast has never tasted this good,” Harper said as she shoveled another forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth.

Brian watched her eat with a mixture of amusement and surprise. “I’ve made you this same thing a hundred times before.”

“Nope.” She shook her head. “This is better. This is the
best.
”

Last night, after they’d all finally finished dealing with the mess of dead bodies and crashed cars out on the cliff, Harper and Gemma had gotten home very, very late. And then they’d sat up for a long time explaining everything to their dad.

Harper had hardly eaten anything yesterday, but she’d been too sore, tired, and anxious to eat when they got home. But when she woke up today, she was absolutely ravenous.