Into the Deep

The storm comes out of nowhere.

One moment, I'm adjusting the hydrophone array, recording another sequence of those impossible sounds. The next, the sky tears open and the sea rises to swallow me whole.

My research vessel, twenty feet of reinforced hull, my home for the past three weeks, becomes a toy in the grip of something vast and furious. Waves crest at fifteen feet, then twenty. The engine screams. I scream. Neither makes any difference.

Lightning splits the darkness, and in that flash, I see the rocks.

Wraithrock Island earns its name. Black stone teeth jutting from the water, hungry and patient, waiting for ships exactly like mine.

I throw myself toward the radio. Get out a partial distress call. Then the first rock hits.

The impact throws me across the cabin. Equipment shatters. Water pours through a gash in the hull that wasn't there a second ago. Salt stings my eyes, my throat, my lungs.

Another hit. The boat shudders, groans, begins to come apart.

I grab my emergency pack, waterproof, always ready, because I'm nothing if not prepared, and scramble for the deck.

The deck is gone.

What's left of my vessel rolls onto its side. I'm thrown into water so cold it steals my breath, so dark I can't tell which way is up.

Swim. The word pounds through my panic. Swim or die.

I swim.

The current is stronger than anything I've experienced in fifteen years of marine research.

It pulls me down, away from what little light filters through the storm-churned surface. My lungs burn. My limbs go numb. The emergency pack drags at my shoulder, but I won't let go. Three weeks of recordings are in there. Evidence of something no one believed could exist.

I'm going to die clutching data.

Somehow, that seems fitting.

The darkness thickens. The cold sinks deeper into my bones. I stop fighting the current because there's nothing left to fight with.

This is it, I think. This is how it ends.

Then something grabs me.

Arms. Not human arms, too long, too strong, with something textured dragging against my skin. Scales. I'm being held by something with scales.

My waterlogged brain tries to process this. Fails.

The something pulls me through the water at impossible speed. Up? Down? I've lost all sense of direction. My lungs are screaming. My vision is going dark at the edges.

A face appears in front of mine.

Not human. Definitely not human. Sharp features, high cheekbones, a jaw that ends in something almost like a fin. And eyes, green eyes, bright as bioluminescence, fixed on mine with an intensity that cuts through the cold and the dark and the dying.

Lips press against my mouth.

I try to pull away, but the arms around me are iron. Something flows from that mouth into mine, not water, not air, something else. Something that burns going down and then spreads through my chest like fire.

I gasp.

And I can breathe.

Not oxygen, not exactly. But something. A warmth that fills my lungs, drives out the cold, keeps me conscious when I should be dead.

The green eyes study me. Satisfied with whatever they see, the creature pulls me closer.

We dive.

I black out somewhere in the descent.

Not from lack of air, that impossible breath keeps flowing, in and out, defying every law of biology I've ever studied. I black out because my brain simply refuses to process what's happening.

When I wake, I'm lying on stone.

Dry stone. In a cave that glows with soft blue light, bioluminescent algae, my scientist's brain notes automatically. I'm still alive. I'm still breathing, though the air tastes strange, metallic.

I'm also not alone.

He stands at the edge of the water, watching me.

He. Because even with the scales that glimmer along his neck and shoulders, even with the webbed fingers and the too-sharp teeth, there's no mistaking the masculine lines of his body. Tall. Lean. Built like something designed for speed and violence.

His hair is dark, shot through with silver that catches the blue light. His skin is pale where it's not covered in iridescent scales. And those green eyes, bright as sea glass, haven't left my face.

"You're awake," he says.

His voice is strange. Musical. Like wind chimes made of glass and stone, like waves breaking on a distant shore.

I open my mouth. Close it. Try again.

"What are you?"

The question comes out raw, barely a whisper. But it comes out, which is more than I expected.

His mouth twitches, an expression I cannot read on those inhuman features.

"You should be screaming," he says. "Running. Begging for your life."

"Can't run." I gesture at my legs, which feel like they're made of wet cement. "And screaming seems counterproductive."

He moves closer. Each step is fluid, predatory. I should be terrified. I am terrified. But underneath the terror, curiosity coils, the same hunger that sent me to Wraithrock Island in the first place.

"What are you?" I ask again.

He crouches in front of me. This close, I can see the individual scales, each one catching the light differently. Can see the slight movement of something along his neck that might be gills. Can see the points of teeth behind lips that look almost human.

"I am siren," he says. "And you, little scientist... are mine now."

The words should terrify me.

Instead, all I can think is: I was right. The sounds were real. It's all real.

My last coherent thought before exhaustion drags me under is a question.

What happens now?