Майкл Салливан - Deep Magic. Fourth Collection

She flourished her hand, stretched delicate fingers. Soft webbing curved between each.

“Surely you know me, sailor. I have many names. You would call me a sirena .”

“I must be dreaming,” he said. “The visions of death.”

She lifted a nacreous shell to his lips. "These grow here, in my cave. They are very old, and are sacred. They condense the aura I radiate. Drink."

The shell was as smooth and flawless as Castilian steel. Capricho lifted his head, let her spill the cool, briny dewdrops over his tongue. He swallowed.

Quicksilver flashed through him.

She gently tilted his head back against her. “You see? Not death. Life. Daughters of the sea take pride in saving sailors.”

“Why sailors?” His vision crackled with clarity.

“Your mortal hearts sing with love for the sea, and when you touch water, it’s like a stone tossed into a pond. Ripples fan out, brush our realm, and if the song entices, we are drawn.” She smiled, teeth as lustrous as pearls. “Your song, captain, is especially strong.”

“Thought it was the other way around. Sirena sing to us. You twist my dream.”

Quizzical light swirled in her eyes. “If you think we’d sing without first being aroused, you are much mistaken.”

She tilted back her head.

A heartbeat throbbed in the veins of her throat.

And she sang.

Her voice sprang as from the heart of the sea. It rolled like frothing surf against the cavern walls, a brilliant liquid tremolo wrought from the emerald flash of the sun as it sinks into the sea. Capricho’s breath caught in his throat. One note, held quivering upon the air. One molten note was desire, was the burning, was the pleasure, was the epiphany, was th—

She clamped her mouth shut, severed the melodic umbilical. The death of the note made him gasp. His blood thundered.

“Madre de Dios,” he sighed when he could speak again. “If a man must die, that . . .” He shook his head. There were no words.

She looked down. “I told you. Not death. Life.”

Capricho did not know what to believe.

The sirena arched a brow. “Questions?”

“What of my ship? My men? Are they safe?”

She eased his head into her lap, looped a fingertip down his breastbone. “Your ship escaped the Howlers. Not without help.”

That blasted name again! Capricho shuddered. “Who are these Howlers?”

She dragged her fingertips through the curls of his chest hair. “The Ruarchan. Demigods of wind and water. As a sailor, surely you believe?”

“I did not believe. Now? Here with you? I confess I am not certain.”

“Tell me, which Howlers attacked your ship?”

Why couldn’t his dream just leave them be? And if she was a mermaid, how did she speak his tongue so fluently? Proof this was a dream! Unless ... he wasn’t her first?

Her tone compelled. “Speak. Howlers. It is important.”

“Alright. The first was a flying snake.”

“ Koosh. That would be Kukulcan.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That’s what the Maya call him, the people of my waters. Your Cortez knew him by another name, assumed his identity to deceive Aztec worshippers.”

“Quetzalcoatl. The feathered serpent.”

“Correct.” She traced the chain that draped his chest. “Any reason Kukulcan might feel the need to destroy Spanish galleons?”

Capricho grimaced. Curse the conquistadors and their relentless bloodlust! “I see your point.”

“This god is trouble, but not so strong, as Cortez himself proved. What else did you see?”

“Jaguar, wrought of water.”

“ Koosh-koosh. Balam. The jaguar god assumes many forms, but he is a protector and won’t travel far from his worshippers. Was that all?”

“No. There was another. A giant, with a lightning staff.”

She frowned. “One leg, or two?”

“One.”

“ Kooooosh. Bad. That is Hurakan, the Ruarchan that controls the wind. Very powerful. Others might give up chase, but Hurakan will track your ships to Spain and beyond. Your people have roused a great enemy.”

Could such a wind god exist? If so, what might happen if it tailed them "to Spain and beyond"?

“Bad timing,” Capricho said. “Spain prepares her Invencible, a great fleet for war with England, the size of which the world has never seen. There is no way those heretics could defeat us. Unless . . .” Capricho shuddered as he remembered the ferocity in Hurakan. “Sails require wind’s blessing. If Hurakan stalked us up the English Channel, it would be disastrous.”

"Of this there is no question." The mermaid dropped the cross from her fingers. “Vengeance is mine, saith the lords.”

“Vengeance? Not against my ship. My men did no harm to his worshippers.”

“Did you not? Whose blood is on the gold in the belly of your galleon? You think Hurakan cares whether you did it with your own hands?” She flicked the cross. “You bear the mark of the god that destroys Hurakan’s people. You flaunt your god’s emblem on towering sails as you move through Hurakan’s waters. Your arrogance is boundless. How could you believe you would not draw his wrath?”

Capricho had no answer. Word by word she left him naked and exposed.

“Did they kill others among my men? Salvador, did you recover one by that name?”

“Your ship and men are safe—I am not without my own power in these waters. But I found you breathing brine without gills," she raised a scaled brow, "unhealthy for your kind. So I gave you the mist-kiss, and now you are mine.”

“Yours? Because you found me? Señorita , I am not some bit of salvage for you to claim for your trove! I am Captain Don Capricho Delgado y Cervantes, appointed by his Majesty King Philip II of the glorious realm of Spain!”

Slits underneath her jaw flared a moment, exposing red gills. “You would steam like this? When you are more corpse than captain? You should thank me for saving you, instead of filling your chest like a puffer fish.” She paused. “And it’s Silganna.”

"Qué?"

"My name. It is Silganna."

Capricho winced. “ Por favor , Silganna. Forgive me. Death has cramped my manners.”

Silganna chuckled. “Forgiven. And you are right.” She brushed a fingertip over his lips. “I cannot claim your love. I must earn it.”

“Love? Who said anything about love?”

“Why do you think I saved you? Did my mist-kiss mean nothing?”

Capricho vaguely recalled the caress of lips, a static charge, then darkness. “I am certain it was wonderful, but as to my heart, you cannot have what was lost.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“If this is death, then there are no secrets.”

“And if, by chance, it’s not?”

“Then I can help you. Tell me .”

Capricho felt his pain unraveling, a knot coming undone under the fingers of her tone.

“Diedre was my betrothed.”

“Tell me.”

“She was from another realm. Scotland.”

“Tell me.”

“This was ten years ago. I first met her on the Guadalquivir Quay—the docks where the gold from these lands gets unloaded.”

“A long way from her realm, it would seem.”

“Scots come to Spain for education and alliances against our mutual enemy, the Protestant English. The day I saw her is branded on my mind. Diedre was the fairest of the señoritas who swarmed the quay when we were unloading the treasure fleet. Skin like cream, hair of bright burnished copper—Diedre was an emerald among stones.”

“Koosh.”

“I had months before next passage, and I spent it all with her. I invited her to my family’s estate, walked with her through our vineyard, picnicked beside the big willow on the river that borders our property. My madre was not pleased.”