nightsinger

prologue - shipwreck

JAMESON IS A SIREN. This is all he knows. When he sings, the ocean listens. The ocean waits and lingers, her waves coming to a standstill as the moon dips itself in for a taste. When he sings, the sky shudders, and he collects the stars that fall down around the waters only to string them around his neck.

This is all he knows. He knows the sea by the way of her currents, he knows the age of the sand, he knows how humans look when they reincarnate into their next lives and still find ways to hunt him down. He knows how to snap their necks before they do.

This is all he knows.

Jameson sings the ocean to sleep, voice a slippery sheen of pearlshine, made of soft lullabies and sensuous croons. His throat vibrates with the magic of the sea goddess. She blesses him with immortality so that he, too, may watch how the years blend into decades and the decades blend into eras and the eras blend into time.

This is all he knows.

Jameson collects treasure. He picks up cracked seashells, blood diamonds, dropped wallets with scrubbed-out drivers license pictures, green bourbon bottles that have been smoothed out from nature. Takes them to his cove and sets them on dry ground so he can add it to his prized hoard.

This is all he knows.

Jameson knows souls, too, and their colors. Whether they're milky or rugged or glowing or dark and sour, left out to rot underneath those fluorescent lights they like so much. When Iris Monroe falls into his waters after a hunting boat sinks, Jameson almost lets her drown with salt filling her lungs. Her body is almost graceful as her back arches into the waves, white hair glossy like his prized gardens of seaweed. He almost lets her life slip between his fingers, just like how his kind has been murdered for the past century.

This is all he knows, after all.

But when her soul warms at his touch, when it turns the same iridescent color as his tail, when it sinks into his system and shoots through his blue blood like a shot of the strongest liquor, Jameson shoves out an arm and hauls her upwards as they break the surface together. He doesn't know why, or how, he's come to the realization of his actions. Only that he must do this now, because otherwise she will die, and he'd rather be the one to kill her rather than anything else. The others on the boat have surely drowned. Their waterlogged bodies will be collected tomorrow, or maybe he'll feed them to the fish when the sun rises. But right here, right now, Jameson can't remember the last time he held a human so fragile. He wonders if his heartbeat would be slamming against his ribcage if he had one, his bones creaking in earnest.

The sight isn't pretty, but she is. This pretty young little human, with pretty cheekbones and pretty eyelashes and pretty ears that are studded with pearls. With the gemstone of the sea. Jameson holds her in his arms and fights his instinct to bite, to rip into the human's throat just to see her blood stain the water a dark, dark red. How beautiful her flesh would look torn to ribbons.

He knows his eyes turn into slits. He knows when his teeth sharpen just barely, ready to take his prey for the night. He knows when his eyes flash a bright shade of silver, when he looks like the monsters written in fairytales come to life. With one arm underneath her knees, he can feel the strength slip away from the muscles in her body, delicate collar bones exposed for him to break. She goes limp.

Jameson knows many things. Some say he is older than the land itself. Some believe that he existed with the darkness of the water and the trembling of the tides from the very beginning. He knows many things. He knows what they call him.

Nightsinger.

What he doesn't know is how it feels when the human's eyes open just barely, pupils dilating until they're nearly entirely black. Her chest rises slowly, so slowly, breath coming out in steaming puffs due to the water temperature. It's only at this point in time that Jameson realizes that it must be cold. Winter is here, and it starts in the water.