Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires 5)

She barked out a laugh. "I grew up near Paseo Boricua.

Born and raised in Chicago by parents from Puerto Rico.

The nymphs aren't exactly a diverse crew. They see me as the odd one out. An interloper in their pretty little world of magic."

"How so?"

She looked up at me curiously. "You real y don't know, do you?"

I shook my head, and she muttered something in Spanish. "The lake turns black and I get the vampire right off the assembly line," she said, then cast her own apologetic glance. "No offense."

"None taken."

Lorelei sighed and dipped a hand back into the water.

Her features relaxed a bit, as if touching the water soothed her.

"Being a siren isn't like being a nymph," she said. "They are born into their roles; their mothers are nymphs, as wel .

A siren's power doesn't work that way."

She pointed to a table across the room. Propped upon it was a dark, iron disk about six inches across. There was writing on it, but it was too far away to read.

"Piedra de Agua," she said. "The water stone. The siren's magic is carried within it."

I frowned back at her. "I don't understand."

"To own the stone is to become the lake siren," she said.

"To trigger its magic, you must request the stone, but it only accepts certain owners. Once it's yours, it's yours until the next owner comes around."

"So you chose to be a siren?"

Lorelei looked away, staring down at the water.

"Technical y, I had a choice to accept the stone and its burdens, although my options were limited."

"And the boats at the shoreline?"

She looked back with pride in her eyes. "I chose to accept the stone, but I work things a little differently. I'm the siren of the lake, and I have to sing, but I picked the most isolated spot I could find. Rosa and Ian, my husband - they help steer the sailors back to the mainland. The damage to the boats I can't do much about." She smiled a little. "But everybody's got insurance."

I couldn't fault that logic. "How long do you have to serve as siren?"

"The Lorelei before me - we al take the name to keep the myth alive - lived here for ninety-six years. Of course,"

she said with a burgeoning smile, "she was forty-two when she became siren, so that's not a bad perk."

Because I had a sense it might help, I offered up my own story. "I was made a vampire without my consent. To save my life, but it wasn't something I'd planned. That came as a surprise."

She regarded me with interest. "So you know what it's like to rewrite your life. To weigh who you were against who you must become."

I thought of al the things I'd done and seen over the last year - the death, the pain, the joy. The beginnings . . . and the endings.

"Yes," I quietly agreed. "I know what that's like." That thought reminded me of my purpose. "Lorelei, if you didn't cause this, do you know who might have?"

"If the nymphs aren't involved - if this wasn't caused by a water spirit - then I think you need to look more broadly."

"Such as?"

She looked away, guilt in her expression.

"Lorelei, I need to know. This isn't just about the nymphs.

Our Houses are at stake. Humans are already blaming vampires, and if it goes any further, I can guarantee the registration law wil pass."

"There's only one group as tied to the natural world as we are," she final y said. "We find our solace and our awe in the water. In the flow of it, the power of it, its ability to cleanse and destroy." She closed her eyes. "They find their power in the earth. They treasure it - the woods, the wilds."

My stomach sank. "You're talking about shifters?"

"The Pack is in Chicago, isn't it?"

"Because we asked them to stay. They wouldn't do this."

"Did you think they'd attack your House?"

Technical y, only a handful of vengeful shifters had attacked the House, but I took her point. "Of course not."

"You can't turn a blind eye to who they are or what they're capable of. You are aware of the chemistry between nymphs and shifters?"

"It's hard to miss."

"It's because of the chemistry between earth and water,"

she said. "A kind of elemental union. Maybe the water's sickness is because there are too many shifters and nymphs in one city."

Not that I had any better theory, but it seemed too convenient to blame shifters, a group with whom nymphs and sirens clearly had a tempestuous relationship.

A man suddenly walked through the front door, a handful of cut logs in his hands.

Despite the chil in the air, he wore grubby jeans but was naked from the waist up, his torso soaked with sweat. He smiled and kept walking through the living room to the other side of the house.

Grubby clothes or not, he was undeniably gorgeous. He was tal and wel -built, with short wavy hair and a day's worth of stubble along his square jaw. He had long, dark brows and deep-set eyes, and curvy lips above a dimpled chin.

When he disappeared through a door on the opposite side of the room, I looked back at Lorelei. She smiled knowingly.

"That, of course, is Ian. We've been married for four years. He knew me before I became siren, so he's immune to the songs. He was thoughtful enough to fol ow me out here to the middle of godforsaken nowhere. I try to accept my lot graceful y."

As soon as she'd gotten the words out, she put her hands on her forehead and bent over, clearly in pain. The woman who'd answered the door hustled into the room, muttering words in Spanish. She leaned beside Lorelei and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Be wel , ni?a," she said, and then whispered more words I couldn't understand.

I stood up, taking the hint. "Thank you for your time. I don't want to bother you anymore."

"Merit." I glanced back. Lorelei had lifted her head again, tear tracks visible on her cheeks. "If this doesn't get fixed soon, it wil be too late."

I promised her I'd do my best . . . and then I hoped I'd made a promise I could keep.

I let my [="3do mself out and walked back around the house to the path. Ian was outside again as wel , and the air was thick with the scent of fresh resin.

Axe in hand, he stood in front of an upturned log. A second log stood vertical y atop it. He pul ed the axe over his head, muscles rippling, then heaved the axe down. The log split cleanly, its twin halves fal ing to the ground. Ian put another log onto the stump, then glanced up. His breath was foggy in the chil .