“Hold on!” Judd flung his coat aside. “I’m coming!”

“Judd, stop!” Aalis grabbed him as he went to dive off the ferry.

“There’s a woman drowning out there!” He pulled against her grasp.

“There is no woman! It is a monster of Maul!”

Judd stared at her, reason fighting with overwhelming pheromones and lustful suggestion. “I…I…”

“Judd,” he turned to look fearfully at the woman who was beginning to sink beneath the waves, “my knight…my saviour…hold me…”

“I…” He banged the side of his head as the woman began to weep then choke as she started to drown. “I…I have to help her!”

He flung Aalis aside and she hit the ferry hard, seeing Judd about to leap…

…when Verne grabbed his arms and heaved him backwards, slamming him into the rotting ferry platform.

“Let me go!” Judd screamed, desperation turning him violent. “Let me go to her!”

“What do we do?” Verne cried. “Aalis…Caste!”

Aalis saw Caste leaning out to the woman who was drawing back into the water, her eyes glowing with a lustful fire. Aalis gasped and lunged for him, grabbing his tunic and pulling him back, his clerical body scrambling to reach the woman. It was like trying to hold onto a wild cat!

“The only woman to ever love me! Let me go!”

“Stop it, Caste! She is not real!”

“I would sing a song of endless love to you all!”

Aalis groaned and only just managed to catch Giordi by his belt before he plunged headfirst into the water where his audience of many siren beauties simpered and flirted. She heard a sharp slap and looked up. Judd ignored Verne’s strike, still trying to save the drowning woman.

“It’s like they can’t hear us anymore!” Verne yelled over the sound of the shrieking of sirens. “What do we do?”

“We have got to get out of here…”

“If we let go, they’ll fall into the water!” Verne tried to grasp the ferry wheel but needed both hands to hold onto Judd who was by far the strongest out of all of them.

“Tie them down?”

“To what?”

Aalis felt like she was going to be torn in two, Caste and Giordi pulling her in different directions. Then revelation struck.

“To each other!”

She threw Caste, the lightest of all of them, onto the ferry floor, unhooking one of her belts, threading it through Giordi’s belt, wrapping it around Caste’s waist who was trying to crawl to the edge of the ferry, nearly tipping them over in the process. She heaved the two ends together and pulled tight.

“Here!” Verne put all his strength into a powerful thrust and shoved Judd into the middle of the ferry. As Judd stumbled, unable to stand upright as the ferry teetered and tottered, Verne yanked his belt from his trousers and strapped Judd to Giordi and Caste.

Now bound together, they were all fighting against each other to go in different directions. Verne managed to slip the loop of the belt over the keel and in their delirium, the three bound companions couldn’t muster enough logic to free themselves. They were wild and desperate, straining against sense and reason, their minds completely overrun with the need to reach the women in the water.

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And then things took a drastic turn for the worse.

No longer content with enticing their prey to them, the sirens began to churn the water, the waves becoming violent, thrashing beneath the ferry, tossing it this way and that. They rose in the waves, their pretty façade gone, snarling, predatory fangs appearing in their mouths and their screams became howls and wordless threats. Aalis dug her fingers into the boards, clinging on.

“We have to reach the island!” She cried, flicking water out of her eyes.

“Turn the wheel!” Verne barked, pulling out his bow and loosing arrows into the sirens who darted and dodged, their laughter jarring them to their core. Aalis crawled to the wheel and began to turn it, holding on as the ferry tipped dangerously to one side then to the other.

“They are trying to tip us!”

“They can’t while we’re tethered to the pulley! Keep turning the wheel!” Verne ordered, firing arrows into the water. “Blasted things! I can’t hit them! I can only slow them down! Get out of here!” He stomped on several hands reaching over the edge of the ferry, their limbs dissolving into water, two reaching out for every one that he destroyed. “Aalis!”

“I am trying!” Aalis cried.

“Aalis!”

She looked up to see water hands grabbing Verne, pulling him towards the edge.

“Verne!”

“Behind you!” He cried before falling into the water.

Aalis spun around to see an army of sirens leering at her, rising out of the thrashing depths, made of water and fog. She picked up the rotted oar and swung it wildly as the sirens lunged for Judd who was closest to them. He groaned and tried to grasp their hands.

“Leave him alone!” Aalis cried, running the oar through the sirens but they reformed around the oar, laughing maniacally at her. “Verne!”

“You’re all alone now! My sisters will feast upon flesh tonight!”

Aalis was splashed with water. She shook her head madly, trying to see through the blur of salty water, unwilling to take her eyes off a siren that was so close it was within her reach. The siren laughed as the oar swiped through its body, uninjured and undeterred. Aalis’ wild blow unbalanced her precarious footing. She collapsed onto the ferry, the oar flying out of her grasp, landing with a splash in the water. Aalis hung her head, defeated and defenceless.

“Pathetic, foolish human!” The siren closest to the ferry hissed, a forked tongue appearing from between its pointed, flesh devouring teeth. “No mortal can touch us!”

Suddenly it gulped, its eyes bulging, its mocking voice silenced as Aalis’ hand wrapped around its neck…and held firm. The siren spluttered and gasped, its watery fingers trying to free itself but Aalis’ hand would not be moved.

“Not…possible!”

Aalis breathed in and out slowly, then looked up…her jaw clenched, her hair wild and her eyes filled with dark teal that thrashed like the ocean, white caps dancing across the peaks of her rage. The siren yanked and pulled but Aalis refused to let go. All gentleness and helplessness was gone from her countenance. Her expression was as hard and merciless as theirs had once been.

“Please…” The siren begged, its rippling body churning and convulsing, shrinking down within Aalis’ grasp. “Please…”

Then with a small ‘pop’ it vanished into a mist of tiny droplets.

Aalis let her hand drop, the other sirens cowering together, unable to take their eyes from her. Aalis saw the question in their eyes and unclenched her teeth. Fog escaped from the corners of her mouth, almost hissing away, their departed siren sister no more than vapour. The sirens were still, frozen and frightened…then Aalis took a step towards them…and they faded backwards, disappearing into the mist and the water of the channel finally became still.

Aalis blinked and swallowed then turned, her eyes immediately lightening.

“Verne!”

He coughed and spluttered, clambering onto the ferry. Aalis did what she could to pull him onboard.

“What…happened?” Verne spat up water, soaked through. “I was being dragged down to the bottom, hands clawing at me and I swear something bit my leg…then they all vanished and I swam to the surface.”

“I am not sure,” Aalis lied, “perhaps we drifted too close to shore?”

Verne puffed, still trying to fill his lungs with air. “I don’t suppose you could pull us all the way in?”

“I can.” She stood and turned the wheel, the ferry shifting through the water that had grown calm almost immediately after the sirens had disappeared. Judd, Caste and Giordi were in a befuddled state, almost as if they’d suffered blows to the head, dazed and confused. The fog began to lighten and lift and it wasn’t long before Keenstone Isle came into view and only a few minutes later the ferry scraped the beach, the ferry house and its wheel a mere stone’s throw away.

“I’ll get the gear.” Verne offered, grabbing the packs and hauling them to the beach.

“Judd,” Aalis knelt in front of him, “can you hear me?”

“Yeah…”

“We need to get off the ferry.”

He nodded and she undid the belts and cords that had bound all three together, releasing them from the keel. They walked like they were drunk, staggering and weak, following Verne’s footprints up the beach to the ferry house. Aalis picked up her own pack and hauled it over one shoulder, sparing a glance at the water of the channel. She shivered, turned her back to it and hastened after the others.