“Falcyn… don’t you want to see Hadyn again?”
He patted his ear. “Is there a way to get rid of it?”
“They fear hellhounds… light.”
Urian grimaced as he cringed from a piercing cry. “But apparently not dragons or Daimons.”
“Or Deathseers,” Blaise added.
“Anyone have Aeron’s number?” Falcyn asked, thinking of the Celtic war god who traveled with a Cwn Annwn. They’d get a twofer with him and Kaziel—actually a threefer since Aeron had once been cursed to be a púca.
More whispers began to echo and sing with the first voice, adding to the volume and making the lure harder to ignore.
Their combined voices became deafening to Falcyn’s sensitive ears. Blaise stumbled and went down.
Urian cursed at the sound.
Her features pale, Brogan turned to Medea. “What should we do?”
“Is there a way to kill a haunt?”
“Not that I know.”
The men were now on their knees with their hands over their ears, in utter agony.
“Me-dee-ah!” They continued to try and call for her, too.
But that singsongy tone gave her an idea.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and started singing her favorite Adam Ezra Group song at the top of her lungs to drown them out. “She puts a light to the candles ’round the room like a shrine.…”
Oddly enough, it seemed to be working. At least Falcyn had a bit of a reprieve.
Hesitating as their eyes met and she saw his deep gratitude, Medea began to sing louder. “She says, ‘If it don’t come in vinyl then it ain’t music divine… she calls me her lost and found!”
Falcyn blinked as he heard Medea’s angelic voice over the pain of the haunts’ cruelty. Like a heavenly choir, it overrode their agony and drove it from him. More than that, she wrapped her arms around his head as if to protect him from them while she continued to sing in the most incredible voice he’d ever heard from anyone.
It was as if she were part siren or miren. And it captured him fully, pulling him away from the haunt’s lure.
She held his head against her thigh. “Her voice finds hope and diamonds and fables all around and I’m taken over now, by the soul of a taste of a sound… when I’m lost in the darkness… when I’m cut at the knees… she says ‘you can give your soul to the city… you just bring your heart home to me’… she says ‘I know ’bout your problems… take a rest for a while,’ and every sign on the highway says I’ll be home again soon.”
Closing his eyes, he savored the sensation of her hand in his hair while she sang and held him against her body. No one hadeverheld him with such affection.
Like he mattered.
Like I’m human.
As if he were hers to hold and keep…
Words failed him utterly as inexplicable emotions assailed him. An unknown wave of tenderness rose up and swallowed him whole. No words could describe this… inner warmth. It tasted like honey on his tongue and left him even more helpless than the haunt’s crooning.
And still she sang while she gently swayed. Never once in his life had he ever wanted to belong to anyone. He’d always prided himself on standing alone. On being the sinister, solitary beast.
I am drakomai.
Yet in this moment, he surrendered himself to her completely.
Then, in a single heartbeat, the haunts were gone. And so was any resistance to her that he might have ever had…
