Chapter 06 | The Devil of Siren City

Adrian

A woman stands behind me on the path. She’s middle-aged but frail, with one hand gripped tightly on a walking stick. Her black garb hangs loosely on her thin frame, with her dirty blonde hair fixed back with a long purple sash. The edges of it drag across the ground as she walks, but she doesn’t seem too worried about tripping.

“Ah! Yes,” she says, her voice raspy and low. “I knew it was you.”

As she raises her head, I get a better look at her face. Tight and pale, with high cheekbones and sharp, painted lips.

And her eyes. Glossy and white.

I silently raise my palm and wave it from side-to-side. Her gaze doesn’t move; fixed in place on my face.

She’s blind.

“It’s a puzzle, innit’?” She chuckles as she steps forward. I shift to let her pass me. “Well, come on,” she says over her shoulder, urging me to follow her.

I go with her, keeping a few paces behind. She reaches the stairs and, before I can warn her, takes them one-by-one to the top and continues forward through the church’s open doors.

We cross the quiet hall leading to the chapel within. I pause in the doorway, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. About a dozen pews line each side with a dark, red carpeted aisle in between. Candles sit atop tables on all sides, only a few of them lit here and there. There are collection plates by the doors, but they’re empty. Full of dust.

It’s been a long while since I’ve been here. Even before, I didn’t pay tribute as often as I should have. Perhaps, if I had, things would have turned out differently.

“You’ve lost your way, haven’t you, Adrian?”

I glance at the woman still standing beside me. “No,” I answer, turning to face her. “How did you know who I am?”

“One does not need eyes to see what they already know.”

I exhale hard. I didn’t come here for riddles. I came here for Ethan.

Scanning the pews, I catch sight of a few people sitting around. A couple near the front, their heads bowed in prayer. A man in the center near the aisle. Another in the furthest pew, his head also bowed, his features obscured beneath a deep brown hood. Either could be him. But my money is on the robe.

Before I can step forward, the woman grabs my wrist, her touch as cold as mine.

“Don’t,” she says.

“Release me,” I say firmly.

The edges of her lips tick up. “Do you promise to behave?”

“I promise no harm will come to you.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Still, she releases my wrist. She shifts forward, blocking the path to Ethan. To vengeance. “This is a house of worship. Of grace. No blood will be spilled here on this day, nor any other.”

“He and I have unfinished business,” I say.

“Yes, you do. But this is a sanctuary.” She shakes her head once. “As long as Ethan stays within these walls, he is under our protection.”

I grit my teeth. She doesn’t need eyes to see what she already knows, huh? And how much does she know?

“Nothing will stand in the way of my vengeance, witch,” I warn. “Not even you.”

She says nothing; her smile digging in as she stands taller. Her weight shifts, her posture stronger, the walking stick more of an accessory than a requirement.

“You think you can stop me?” I ask.

“I think you’ll stop yourself,” she says, amused. “You walk the earth today in no small part due to St. Nicholas’ mercy, do you not?”

I don’t answer.

“You have so few friends left in this city, Adrian,” she continues. “His grace, his sympathy for your mission, is a loss you cannot afford.”

“If he is so sympathetic, then why do you stand in my way?”

She tilts her head, her fixed eyes locked on my face. “Why are you here?” she asks.

“You know why I’m here,” I say, bored with this witch’s game. “Either you give me what I want, or I take it.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ve already said—”

“No, you haven’t.” She turns toward the candles behind her and reaches for a box of matches sitting on top, finding it with ease. “In fact, I’d wager you have yet to admit, even to yourself, your true purpose for coming here.”

“Since you clearly know everything already,” I say with a sigh, “why don’t you tell me what that is?”

“Salvation.” She lights a match. “For Dominic.”

“Don’t,” I warn, my heart clenching. “You have no right.”

“Because you killed him,” she continues unfazed, lighting the candle nearest to the table’s edge before blowing the match out. “That is what you believe, yes?”

I stare at the flame, not wanting to blink, not wanting to see the images in my mind with any more clarity than I already do.

My brother. Beaten. Bloody.

Reaching for me.

“It wasn’t your fault, Adrian,” she says, gently.

“No, it was theirs,” I say, the words harsh in my throat. “And if I have to drag Ethan outside of these walls myself, I will.”

“Not today.”

I turn away, frustrated, ignoring the light bursts of pain in my chest with each heartbeat. I search across the chapel again, ready to do as I said I would. The pew, however, is empty. The robed man, gone.

Ethan, gone.

I roll my fists, submitting. As much as I despise admitting it, this witch is right. I’m alive today because someone, whether it be St. Nicholas himself or something else, saw me fit to keep on living. That is a certainty. If Ethan is now under the same protection I benefited from, then I won’t accomplish what I came here to do.

Not today.

But someday soon, Ethan will have his comeuppance.

They all will.

“We understand your stubbornness,” she says, still at my side. “Do not think that we are without empathy, Adrian. What you seek is...”

“Righteous,” I say.

“Mayhap. But you are not ready for this path. There is still so much you do not understand.”

I walk away from her. “I’ve heard enough,” I say, annoyed.

I exit the church, pausing at the bottom of the stairs as my eyes adjust to the sunlight. The pain in my chest subsides, my pulse calmer as I take a breath of sea air drifting this way on the wind.

“Consider that your salvation lies not in the vengeance you seek,” she says from the top of the stairs, “but in the company you keep.”

With a scoff, I step forward, more than finished with this. However, my curiosity piques and I stop on the path, reluctantly turning back. “What do you mean?” I ask.

She regards me, her hands folded in front. “Beware, Adrian, of a maiden with two faces. One, kind and gentle, powerful enough to save your soul.” She pauses, knowing she has my full attention now. “A healer.”

I don’t move.

Skylar?

“The other...” Her voice dims as clouds pass in front of the sun. “Dark and seductive. An alluring temptress... who will bring you to your end.”

“How do I tell the difference?” I ask.

“You’ll know.”

“How?”

She turns to leave. “The same way we all avoid danger,” she says over her shoulder. “Put simply: when you feel pain, stop.”

With that, her figure disappears into the darkness of the chapel.