The Siren's Curse

Twelve

JACK POV

I made it onto deck just in time to watch them toss Henri's bright, pale figure overboard. The storm was worse than anything I'd ever seen before, lighting strikes so close I could nearly taste the electricity in the air and rain so heavy it was hard to see anything in the torrential downpour. Still, I held my knife firmly as I tried to reach the murderous crewmates. Dominic and I were sliding around with everyone else, being knocked about by what I thought must have been a hurricane. There was no way Henri could have survived falling into these waters, and there was no chance of a rescue mission.

My body moved with single-minded intensity, just trying to find the person responsible, hardly noticing Dom stopping to pull Miles off of the ground.

"KRETCH!" I shouted, drowned out by the wind, "I'LL KILL YOU FOR THIS!"

Just as quickly as the storm had begun though, it suddenly ended, leaving us all peering around in shock. I began to run forward towards the direction I'd seen Kretch escaping to, only to lose my visual of him as a silent, eerie fog encased the entire ship.

I paused, unable to see anything further away than a few feet.

It was unnatural, how silent it had become. There was no more sound of waves or thunder, just a pale grey hiding everything and everyone from sight.

SPLASH

I jumped, unsure of what direction the noise had come from.

THUMP

A man screamed nearby. I rushed forward, tripping over something.

The body of one of Kretch's buddies lying face down in a pool of blood and seawater. My hand reached out to turn him over, freezing when the sound of another splash nearby was punctuated by another scream.

Again, I ran to the source, careful about where I stepped, until I reached the deck railing where one more body had been draped over the side, wet and dripping blood from several bloody gashes across his arms and neck, face frozen in a silent scream.

This time, when I heard the splash again, I didn't wait for a death wail to run, weapons ready. Right as the shouting started, my feet brought me to the thrashing feet of none other than Kretch himself, accompanied by another familiar face that stopped me dead in my tracks.

A small figure with pale hair had pinned him to the deck, dripping with blood and hissing before lunging in and taking a bite from his neck. His thrashing stopped as soon as she pulled away, spitting out blood and turning, alerted by my presence.

It was then that I noticed the tail. It was a deep, glittering blue even in this gloom, in stark contrast to the pale skin of her arms and torso which had been left completely bare as her nightgown must have been ripped away or lost. Her eyes though, were what truly startled me. They were no longer dark blue light that of the tail, they were bright pale silver, the same colour as the fog, and filled with a feral bloodlust I'd never seen in any human before. It twisted her normally soft features, making them fearsome and dangerous.

Against better judgement, I lowered my weapons, taking a cautious step forward.

"Henri, it's okay..."

She hissed, swatting me away with her tail, which packed such a punch it threw me back. Still, I took another step towards her again, speaking calmly and attempting to reassure her.

"It's okay, really!" she started moving towards the nearby railing, as though she would fling herself back overboard, "Nobody else is going to hurt you, I promise."

I must have taken one step too close, because she hoisted herself up, ready to fall back into the sea, only to pause as she looked down. There was a moment of confusion, then disgust as she saw the waves, all within a fraction of a second, just long enough for me to lung towards her, swiftly removing my coat and using it like a net to pull her back onto the deck with a resounding thud and tying her arms quickly with the sleeves in the absence of better options. She was unable to properly move, now that she'd been restricted, hissing and thrashing before trying one last time to throw herself towards the sea before coming back down hard enough that It must have shocked her out of whatever state she'd been in.

"Jack...?"

The pale silver of her eyes muted to a dull grey, and recognition swirled across her face as she looked towards me. That mysterious fog that had hidden us from view up until that point had started to dissipate, leaving me to think fast, slinging her suddenly very heavy body over my shoulder and running back into my cabin before anyone could take a good look at her. An involuntary grin pulled at the corners of my mouth as I set her down on the floor, still soaking wet and confused.

"Now this is certainly an interesting development."