Mordred was still a thousand feet above them when the sirens climbed out of the portholes just below where everyone had landed. They clawed their way up and over the railings, moving toward the team, who were themselves heading toward the nearest door to take them into the ship. It looked as though they were unaware of the danger of the approaching enemies, but Mordred knew that wasn’t the case.
Encased in a shield of dense air, Mordred disconnected his own parachute and plummeted to the ship at high speed. He hit the swimming pool with an explosion of air and water, using his water magic to freeze the contents of the pool as it exploded up around him. Thousands of shards of ice drove into the dozen creatures who were all in front of him, waiting to move into the ship. None of them had time to escape the frozen projectiles. Most of the water dropped back harmlessly into the pool, and Mordred walked out completely dry, deactivating his magic.
The door to the ship opened, and Hel stepped out. She looked down at the bodies of the sirens. “Nice work,” she said. “We could have taken them.”
“Not quietly,” Mordred said. “At least one of them would have made a noise or jumped overboard. Couldn’t risk it. Besides, there are plenty more inside you can deal with.”
“Where to first?” Zamek asked, poking one of the sirens with his foot. It had a three-foot spike of ice embedded in its eye and emerging from the back of its skull. Sirens looked human, right up until they were hunting. Then features became almost serpentlike, with long, thin gray-skinned bodies covered in hardened armor across their chests and necks. They were made for killing. Their razor-sharp claws on long bony fingers and their sharklike teeth were more than capable of tearing a human adult to shreds in seconds. “I always thought sirens were female.”
“No one really knows,” Diana said. “They can change their appearance at will. Lots of sailors were men, and these things like humans. To eat. Turns out when attractive women make suggestive comments to large numbers of sailors who have been at sea for months, they become easy prey.”
Mordred and his team unslung their weapons and reentered the ship, moving from the bow through to the main living areas of the guests, who would normally be out and about. It was eerily quiet.
“Nothing good happened here,” Diana said. “It reeks of death.”
“A lot of death,” Remy said.
There were chandeliers in the middle of the main foyer, as well as a stunning staircase that Mordred assumed would normally have a mirror shine but right now was, like everything else in the foyer, drenched in blood.
“This was a massacre,” Hel said. “How many people were on board this ship?”
“Just over four thousand,” Remy said. “The distress call was sent out for exactly twelve seconds, before someone cut it off and said that it was a false alarm.”
“And no one came to check?” Mordred asked.
“USS Burton,” Hel said. “A destroyer-class ship was the closest one to the emergency signal.”
“What happened to the destroyer?” Mordred asked as he looked around the foyer for signs of anyone who might still be alive.
“Two hundred men died,” Hel said. “Those sirens out there tore the inhabitants of the destroyer apart. It was found floating a hundred miles off the coast of Nova Scotia with all hands lost.”
These creatures were not pushovers; they had murdered thousands of people in their insatiable need for blood and flesh.
“Why, though?” Remy asked. “Sirens are a pain in the arse, but so long as you’re not a horny, drunk sailor, you’re pretty safe. And for them to attack a cruise ship is unheard of.”
“Did you read the mission briefing?” Diana asked Remy.
“I skimmed it,” Remy said. “Sirens, missing ship, bad guys, possibly some kind of mobile prison. The ship has been missing for three months, the tracking removed. All attempts to get out here have been met with hostility. It’s all very interesting, but nowhere does it explain why they attacked and took control of a cruise ship. Nor does it explain why they didn’t just blow it up.”
“There are innocent people on this ship,” Diana said. “Not sure how happy the public would be to hear that a government blew up several thousand people because they were scared of sirens.”
“Besides, someone is leading them,” Mordred said. “We find out who and stop them, and hopefully nothing gets blown up.”
“Do we know who’s behind this?” Zamek asked.
Mordred shrugged. “I have no idea. That’s why we’re here—to find out.”
“The intel said something about prisoners,” Remy said. “We know how many might still be alive?”
Mordred shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not sure what to expect. This ship has docked in three separate ports in South America. Each time it docked, we have intel telling us that prisoners were brought on board. We don’t know why. We just know that they were Avalon prisoners, so we can assume they’re high-value targets.”
“A rescue mission where we don’t know who we’re rescuing,” Diana said. “Sounds about right.”
“So we don’t even know if they’re still alive,” Chloe said. “A lot of people have died in here already. There were a lot of passengers on this ship too. I wonder how many of them became food after the initial attack.”
Diana picked up a piece of blood-drenched uniform. “Marines died here,” she said. “The sirens waited until this ship was boarded before they attacked.”
“So if you’re in charge of this ship, I assume you’d want to stay somewhere nice,” Zamek said.
“We’ll try first class later and go from there,” Mordred said. “Bridge first.”
They slowly walked up the staircase, Mordred wishing the floor wasn’t so sticky.
Diana led the group up a second flight of stairs, these thankfully clean, to the floor above, which was devoid of blood-splattered surfaces.
“Someone cleaned up,” Remy said as the group stopped just outside the door of the hallway where the first-class cabins were. “I smell lemon disinfectant.”
Mordred looked out of the massive windows beside him. The uninterrupted view of nothing but ocean stretched as far as he could see.
“How long do you think before the rest of the sirens go looking for us?” Chloe asked.
“I imagine they’ll be with us soon enough,” Mordred said. “Whoever is in charge probably knows we’re here. Maybe they want to meet us themselves first.”
They moved around the top floor of the foyer toward a sign that said EMPLOYEES ONLY. There was a bloody handprint on the white door, next to the card reader.
“So, key cards,” Remy said. “Anyone have one of those?”
Chloe placed a hand on the card reader and used her power to burn a hole in the door, completely destroying the lock.
Chloe took a step to the side, frowning as everyone else filed through the door, leaving Mordred last. “You okay?” he asked.
Chloe nodded. “Missing Piper is all. I read the manifest for the people aboard. Most were couples just wanting a romantic getaway. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“We’ll make sure to get justice for them,” Mordred said, walking through the door after Chloe and up the short flight of stairs. “How is Piper, anyway?”