Chapter 8

Elsie Eillenheart

Sirens.

That’s what Sixty-Six said.

Elsie heard stories about them. Flesh-eating water goblins that surfaced from the voids of the oceans. They haven’t been spotted in decades, until now.

A part of Elsie’s fighting spirit was eager to see a siren up close, but her more logical self was worried sick for the others. If the sirens tore a hole in the bottom of the Vadstena, that meant the sinking of the ship was practically imminent.

Unless they got there as quickly as possible.

She heard heavy thuds above her, as if several dozen footsteps clashed against thin metal. The sirens were already in the vents.

“Like rats,” Sixty-Six snarled, his emotions, for the first time, were sprawled out over his face.

Eleven and his brothers quickly brandished strange mana-glowing pistols. Each side of a pistol had glowing blue runes that sang like a whispering parakeet. Elsie strained her ears to listen to the strange hum and heard a beautiful song of nature and freedom in the form of chirps.

The Sanctuary had lots of strange things. Things everybody seemed to take for granted. Elsie was grateful to be an empath, that way she could listen to beautiful things.

Certainly, not everything was full of sunshine and rainbows, but Elsie loved that spark within things and people.

But right now, she felt sick to her stomach even when she was nearby such historical artifacts. The crowd of sirens, even when Elsie couldn’t see them, felt like a seed of bilious flesh that eroded her sense of smell.

Why are they here? Elsie thought, If I could figure out why, maybe we could convince them to-

The vents above her collapsed. Debris of silver metal fell towards the raven-haired girl. A bile wall of flesh paralyzed her through her empathic senses.

A powerful force in the shape of a hand flung her across the room, away from the sirens and debris. She collapsed against a chair; the wind was knocked out of her.

She gazed back at the sirens that emerged from the broken vents. Elsie never experienced such malice before. They were angry. Furious. Seething. Frenzied. Why?

Straining her empathic reach, Elsie tried to worm her way into the sirens’ hearts. They were the very definition of wrathful. However, even underneath that sea of rage and fury, Elsie managed to find a directive: [Guard].

The sirens were guarding something. Was it about the Harpocrates Caverns?

A single watery flesh eater lunged at her. Within seconds, the siren’s mouth would chomp on Elsie’s neck, tear her jugular apart, and then feast upon her dying mortal flesh.

A block of mana smashed through the siren’s skull, tearing apart its pointy teeth like a compactor.

Instinctively, Elsie raised her arms, clad in hardened red mana, and haymakered the little monster. In a blink of an eye, Elsie assumed the Kokutsu Dachi stance.

She calmed her breathing, looking over the others. Sixty-Six and his brethren were using the pistols to shoot the sirens, but the creatures were swift, dodging the aimed death lasers.

The sirens were dodging by watching the eyes of the Sanctuary Elves. Although these creatures were mad with bloodthirst, they were also cunning and intuitive.

However, as soon as one got close enough to slice an elf’s neck, Leylon’s wind barrier repelled them by dragging them into a mini-tornado, throwing them halfway across the bar room.

It was the perfect strategy if one considered it short-term. Unfortunately, Leylon’s fatigue was visible, his mana straining over constant fueling over his [Wind Barrier] spell.

There were too many in the vents and under the floor. Hands would suddenly pop out of the floor and claw at Elsie’s feet like spiked traps.

Searing pain flashed through the meat of her legs like heat on a pan. Two tiny holes, made from the claws of a siren, were visible on her calves.

The Elves, although strong, disciplined, and synced together even through Elsie’s empathic gaze, grew exhausted.

Elsie’s mana martial arts, dubbed Mana Arts for short, also chipped away at her stamina and mana reserves. It was a fighting style she couldn’t keep up for long.

Her legs felt heavy as blood poured out of her calves. She ignored the pain and ran to Leylon and the others, but her speed was that of a crawling toddler. Although Elsie could move her arms well in self-defense, pummeling anything that came near her, her legs felt on the verge of collapse.

She wouldn’t make it to the others even though they were so close.

Until she felt a pair of arms grab her sides and lift her from the ground. Looking up, it was Escee Thirty-Four.

“I’ll open the barrier! Make sure no siren gets past us!” Leylon barked out. Thirty-Four slipped through the sirens as his brothers provided cover fire.

A siren lunged forward, brandishing its claws about to slice through Thirty-Four’s head when a beam of light tore through its skull, rendering it lifeless on a pool of its boiled blood on the sleek metal floor.

Thirty-Four slid behind Leylon, who brought the barrier back up nearly immediately. Elsie was settled on the floor and noticed Escee Zero Two’s hands over her legs. A warm yellow light glowed from his hands, enveloping her wounds. Her legs were wrapped in healing magic like a warm comfortable blanket against the cold.

Finally, that unbearable pain was gone and she was able to stand back up again.

But a creepy feeling crept up her spine.

She felt an emotion from someone. A cowardly, fearful emotion. An emotion opposite of self-sacrifice. It was self-preservation at all costs.

Turning to the exit of the bar room, she noticed a young man with short black hair staring back at her. It was Michael Hernold, holding onto that strange book tightly against his chest. He had somehow managed to slip past all the sirens and reach the door.

Like a snake, he slithered through the door and closed it behind him.

“Michael just left us!” Elsie screeched, “He’s planning on using us as bait!”

“What?!” Leylon startled, “Where-” He was about to say “Where did he go?” before he heard a strange clicking sound against the door. It was the sound of ice.

Michael Hernold froze the door from the outside, trapping them in a room full of broken metal, glass, and a horde of bloodthirsty sirens.

“MICHAEL!” Elsie screamed, “YOU LITTLE SHITHEAD!”

She knew Michael was a coward. She also knew he was a creep.

But a part of her wanted to believe he had some heart. Sometimes his love for Veronica felt so innocent, but then, after a while she felt it warp into something akin to greedy desire.

Sixty-Six immediately aimed his weapon at the frozen door. Firing a laser through his pistol, the beam pierced through the metal but dissipated against the blueish-black ice that stood in the door’s stead.

“What?” Sixty-Six seemed utterly flabbergasted. His high-tech weapon was reduced to nothing more than a plaything.

“Shoot the floor!” Leylon screamed, “Now! I can’t keep up this barrier for long!”

In complete sync, the elves aimed at the floor and shot lasers which cut through the metal like a razor through paper. A burnt circle appeared on the floor. Sixty-Six nodded at Elsie.

He wants me to kick it down? Elsie thought, I can do that. Putting all her concentrated mana into her right leg, she raised it and smashed the burnt floor with ease, falling through into the second most bottommost floor, dragging everyone with her.

The sirens quickly crawled through the opening and onto the ceilings like spiders, snarling at the group.

“Ah hell.” Elsie cursed, wiping an eyebrow.