Chapter 03 | The Devil of Siren City

Adrian

I wait in near dark. The lamp on the bedside table beside me has seen better days.

Not that I’m one to talk. And I have plenty to occupy my thoughts in the meantime.

Skylar Jean Green.

Twenty-five years old. Earned her Bachelor’s in Nursing from UMKC before she could legally drink. Advanced certification in multiple areas. More than qualified for what I need her for.

But what is a woman like that doing here in Siren City?

She’s running from something or someone, that much is obvious. No belongings. Bleached hair. Should be easy to control, at least.

Ultimately, it’s not my business. But I need to know who is in my home right now, lest she become an issue. 

The digital clock on the desk turns over to eight and I hear a key jiggle in the lock. I nearly smile. Candy always was punctual. Glad to see that some things haven’t changed in my absence.

He opens the hotel room door with a customer-serving smile, but the edges of his mouth fall the instant he sees me sitting here. In the moment, I catch the changes in him since the last time we spoke. He’s thinner. Weaker. Silver eyes, once bright with youth and possibility, are now dim and grey. And his golden hair. He used to wear it long. He was proud of it, took care of it. Now it’s too short to even grip.

“What kind of sick joke is this?” he asks.

“Close the door, Candy,” I say.

“Fuck you.” He closes it anyway, giving the lock a firm spin to keep out the world. With one palm flat against the door, he takes a moment before turning, his one-size-too-small jacket straining against his flat back as he breathes. “Are you real?”

“Yes,” I answer, the question not at all ridiculous. “I’m real.”

Candy stutters as he runs a hand over his scalp. “How? Wh—?” He stops, starts again. “They killed you.”

“They tried.”

He exhales a dry laugh and swallows hard, his eyes glistening now. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, this... this isn’t real.”

“Candy.”

“I can’t let myself believe this. No, I must have taken too much of something. Yeah, yeah! Or it’s food poisoning. Or something. I’m dreaming. This is a dream. Because there is no other explanation for this. Nope.”

I stand up. I say nothing, knowing that he just needs to vent, knowing my continued existence is something people will need to see to believe.

He looks me up and down, the doubt still lingering in his gaze. His words quickly fail him, so I step closer, calmly reaching out to flip the golden pendant of his necklace forward. It always did get turned around on him.

Candy releases a quivering breath in response. To see is to believe. But I’ve always found touch to be a far easier sell.

“Adrian?” he asks.

“Yeah, Candy. It’s me.”

His tears cling to his long lashes. “How is this possible?”

I give him space. “I didn’t die,” I say as I return to my chair.

“Okay. But how? They said you...”

“What did they tell you?” I ask.

Candy sits on the edge of the bed. “That you had to go,” he says, the words a struggle, his hands shaking in his lap. “That you wouldn’t let them change, so they had to...”

“It’s okay, Candy,” I say. “Just tell me what you remember about that night.”

He scoffs. “I don’t know shit, Adrian. I remember hearing whispers in the weeks leading up to it. Some new guy with a vision for Siren City, but I didn’t think anything of it. No one did. I mean, who would dare take you on? Then, Morgana asks me to do her a favor and go entertain a friend of hers for the night. She would pay more than my usual fee, so I thought okay. I met with the client and it was fine. A little kinky for my taste, but fine. But then the next thing I knew, I woke up groggy the next morning, you and Dom were dead, and the rest of them were...” His jaw drops. “Wait. Dom! Is he with you? Is he…?”

I shake my head.

“Oh.” His shoulders sink. He takes a breath, grieving all over again. “Shit. I’m sorry, Adrian.”

“Then you had nothing to do with it?” I confirm.

He snaps his head up. “What? No! Do you really think that I--”

“No,” I say, the truth written all over his face. Candy never could tell a lie. At least, not to me. “I don’t.”

“I wouldn’t! I couldn’t. You...” His chest quivers. “They set me up. Made sure I wouldn’t be in the way so that they could...”

I stand up again. Crossing the small room in a single stride, I place my hand on his shoulder, letting my cold fingers caress the back of his neck. “It’s all right, Candy,” I say.

He touches his head to my thigh. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I knew something about that assignation was off. I just didn’t—”

“I know.” I run my fingers through his hair, missing his soft locks. “There wasn’t anything you could do. Be free.”

With that, he exhales slowly until he has no more air. When he inhales again, it’s stronger. Deeper. “They wanted you out,” he says at length. “So the new guy could come in. He promised them the world, and they took a knee.”

I release him, moving to lean against the writing desk across from him. “Who is he?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know,” Candy answers. “Everyone just calls him Zeus.”

Zeus.

“I need a real name, Candy.”

“I don’t have one. No one does. Believe me, if I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you?”

“A face, then. What does he look like?”

“I don’t know,” he says again. “I’ve never met the guy myself. He doesn’t leave The Tower. Your Tower.” He chortles. “Guess what people call the old neighborhood now?”

“Olympus?”

“Not exactly subtle, huh? And the others, they took the city and split it up among themselves. Started calling themselves Poseidon and Ares.” He scoffs, disgusted. “They cosplay as gods while the rest of us fight over their scraps.”

“How bad is it?” I ask.

“It ain’t good.”

“How bad?” I ask again, gently.

Candy rises and walks across the room to the mini bar. “Bad. Not as bad as it could be, but it’ll get there soon enough.” He breathes a laugh. “Bad enough that Aphrodite’s prized whore has to turn cheap tricks on the side to pay his rent. No offense,” he adds as he opens a tiny bottle of rum. “I assume you’re covering this?”

I don’t stop him. “Aphrodite?”

“Morgana,” he says, pouring his drink. “That’s her new persona.” He drinks it down, grimaces as it burns, then pours another one. “As soon as you were gone, she took over Scarlet Street. Quadrupled the rent. Doubled her fee. Anyone who could pay, paid, but everyone else? Booted across the bridge into Old Town.”

“Did anyone fight back?”

“A few,” he says after a quiet moment. “Not many. Those who did ended up in the harbor full of holes, so...” He swallows. “And it wasn’t just Scarlet Street, either. It happened throughout the city. That’s the thing about Olympus. In order to live there...”

“You have to be a god.”

“And fuck everyone else from the bridge to the harbor.”

I bite down. “That’s a quarter of a million people.”

“That’s a quarter of a million of your people, Adrian,” he says. “You gonna let them suffer?”

No.

No, I’m not.

“What happened to you?” I ask him.

“Well, luckily for me,” he says, “because of my vast client list of powerful people who threatened to take their money elsewhere if Aphrodite kicked me out, I grandfathered in. Of course, she punishes me for it. Takes seventy percent of my fee for all assignations.”

“Seventy percent?” I say, genuinely surprised she’d go that far. “Did she take your hair, too?”

He nods. “She keeps it in a drawer,” he says. “Makes me look at it sometimes.”

I bite my cheek until I taste blood.

“It’s been rough. Without you,” he says. “Siren City isn’t the same anymore. I mean, you and Dom ruled this place with... well, your fists weren’t exactly made of marshmallows, but you were fair! This...” He gestures toward the windows, toward the city and the harbor and everything in between. “This ain’t right. It isn’t what our ancestors wanted.”

“Why didn’t you leave?” I ask, curious.

Candy blinks twice. “I could never leave,” he says. “Siren City is... it’s home.”

I nod. “Yes, it is.”

And it’s under attack.

“What are you gonna do?” he asks. “Now that you’re back, I mean. You are back, right? I’m not hallucinating or anything?”

“Yeah, Candy,” I say. “I’m back.”

Candy exhales, relieved. “Good.”

And there’s only one thing a captain can do when faced with mutiny by his crew.

“They killed me and took my city. They killed my brother,” I say, the words tight in my throat. “I won’t forgive that.”

Kill them all.

Every last one of them.