The vision cleared and he was back in the red room with his Siren dancing in his lap. Something about the thought of Selene niggled at the back of his mind until some sense of clarity broke through the fog.
“Selene,” he said. “The story you told me about the moon goddess and her three babies. You were speaking of Selene.”
She continued her seduction slowly, hesitantly almost.
“I was.”
“Who told you that story?”
“Someone I knew a long time ago thought it may be of value to me.”
His sluggish wheels tried turning to piece together thoughts.
“Why would it be of value?”
“Because,” she said in a low voice, her lips back to his ear. “Selene is my mother.”
There was a storm brewing in her eyes, the irises the color of the sea during a hurricane. The roiling blues clashed violently with grays as turquoise boiled from the abyss, raging on as lighting illuminated the battle.
He could imagine that they used to be the color of seafoam with specks of cerulean throughout. Through time and tribulation, Brooks could envision the stark black of her pupil mixing with the colors of the iris, draining them of their vibrancy and birthing the storm in their place. Vibrancy was replaced with brilliance as the moon took her in and lit a fire in her soul.
“Close your eyes,” she murmured. “Listen to my voice.”
At her command his eyelids fluttered closed and he focused on her breath at his ear, the sound rousing his passenger once more. Her breaths made him ravenous as a starving man with a buffet laid before him.
“I’m in trouble, Brooks,” she whispered. “I think– I think he’s going to kill me.” Her voice held a hundred emotions, but the most pressing were fear and sadness.
“I…” he faltered. Bells were ringing in a distant part of his mind, but whatever drug laced his system blocked any sort of clarity. She continued to ride his lap so that any onlookers were none the wiser to her pleas.
“You’re not just a human. I can feel the power caged inside you. I tasted it in your blood. I don’t know who or where you are, but you’re all I’ve got. Please, you have to believe me.Helpme.”
His movements were lethargic, the room spinning around him faster than his mind was able to comprehend.
Something glistened, an opalescent sheen in delicate patches along her exposed skin, but he was too drugged to discern exactly what it was.
“You have to go now, Brooks,” she peered over his shoulder. “They’re coming, and they don’t take kindly to strangers.”
“I– I can’t,” his speech fumbled, lips heavier than lead.
“Shhhh,” she soothed, trying to calm him even when her own anxiety was a rising tide. “It’s just the song making you feel sluggish.”
He tried to talk, to move, to do something, but was fading quickly.
Her head dipped to his neck and a sharp, searing pain along his collarbone pulled his awareness back toward his secret beauty. He raised shaking hands to put out the fire that was blazing on his skin as red bloomed through his shirt and spread like watercolor.
Her eyes were urgent, his blood staining her lips and tongue as two pointed canines stood starkly against the redness. The color was striking against her pale skin and roused the predator within him.
“You have to go now,” she urged again. “I’ll be there when you wake up, I promise.” Her hand stroked his cheek, a lover’s caress.
The drugged feeling faded, but so too did his grip on the room, onher. The last thing Brooks heard before fading into his depthless dream was rattling his bones.
“Xia. My name is Xia.”
***
Brooks stood in a desolate landscape surrounded by disfigured bodies covered in flies. Their skin had taken on a green pallor as the sun accelerated its decay.
It was an absolute war zone.
