ℤ𝕒𝕟𝕖

Kami slips another gun into the holster around her waist before strapping a set of silver daggers to her upper thigh.

"Did you get any sleep on the plane?" she asks as she pulls on a set of black tactical gloves.

"None," I huff. "Three separate flight attendants insisted on chatting me up. Be glad you had the window seat."

"It's probably because we killed another Siren. We've tipped the power scales again. Hopefully what we do today will solve that."

"Here's hoping."

I add a pair of hunting knives into my belt and tuck my vest into my jeans.

Another man from the team walks up and throws a metal box into the helicopter. It's Blake, a towering brick of a man brought in by the Council to help handle any trouble that comes our way. He's a Cusith, a fiercely strong fighter with absurdly quick reflexes and rows of sharp fangs in place of a smile. The man probably never had much of a career path as a model, but he seems a perfect fit for special ops.

Our other team member, Valentina, is a small but serious woman and a healer of some sort, in case of unexpected trouble.

After a few minutes of loading up, we get into the helicopter and the pilot starts the blades rotating. We each put on a headset and slide the doors closed. The copter heads up and before we know it, we're several thousand feet above the Mediterranean Sea.

"The rest of the team should already be on the ground by the time we get there," Blake says, his voice humming through our headsets. "With any luck, we should just be air support confirming that we can see around the volcano. All you lot will need to do is confirm any effects you may be sensing as Sirens."

"What is the ground team doing?" Kami asks.

"We know there's some kind of device installed off the shore of the volcano," Valentina explains. "It seems to be relatively straightforward tech, apparently geologists have used similar techniques to manage magma flow in active volcanoes. The main goal is to shut it down, possibly remove the equipment entirely."

"How defended do we think this place is?" I ask.

"Not at all, as far as we can tell. Initial reconnaissance showed no defenses."

"Yet we're still armed to the teeth," Kami says, raising a brow.

"We don't expect a fight," Blake says, "but we are prepared for it."

"You're always prepared for a fight," Valentina jokes.

He snarls at her slightly before turning to look out the window.

"We can't all be hippie flower-child types, going into battle armed with love and positivity."

"It's fine, I know you're not used to using your brain."

Kami shoots me a subtle smile, likely pointing out the familiar dynamic between them.

I watch the ocean outside the window. From here, the surface looks simultaneously rough and still, one wave blurring into the next in the light of the sun. There's no land in sight, now, and probably won't be much more until we reach the island.

*****

"We're here," Blake says as the helicopter approaches a group of islands, jarring me from a near-sleep against the window.

"This isn't really how I remembered it," Kami says, looking over the shallow hills surrounded by cerulean bays.

She's right—none of these look like a volcano. But then again, it's been almost a lifetime since we were last here. I can't actually bring to mind a single memory of the place.

"It's in the middle there," Valentina says, as if preempting our question. "The previous eruption sank it lower into the sea, but it's still active."

The island is encircled in black sand beaches and doesn't come to a clear peak, but its dark gray, jagged terrain surrounds a small crater at its center.

"Connect me to the ground team," Blake says to the pilot, who gives him a quick nod. We make wide circles around the island as Blake mumbles into his headset.

"I'm was seeing a lot of bubbles in the water just south of the volcano," Kami says, "but they seem to be dissipating. Is that us?"

"Yes," Blake says. "That's expected. They've turned off the machine, now, meaning that a lot of the lava that was being diverted underwater is now going back where it's supposed to be."

We watch the crater at its center in nervous silence for a moment as smoke begins to build. After a moment, a projectile shoots up from the haze. Black wings sprout from a naked body, stretching outward into immediate flight.

"Whoa," Kami says. "Seems like a pretty good sign, right?"

"Yes, mission success," Blake says. "We just need to refuel and head back to the mainland. Do we have a-"

We hear a series of loud bangs and see running and fighting erupt on the island beneath us. From this height, it's hard to make out who is who, but it looks like our team is being surrounded.

"Get us on the ground, quickly!" Blake shouts to the pilot, who nods and takes the helicopter quickly down as we see another Siren emerge from the volcano. Blake fires several shots out the door of the helicopter, but the mob seems barely affected. "They're all demons, they have to be. Not sure which kind, but they're not going down easy."

Kami grabs a knife in each hand.

"Well," she says, "we prepared for a reason, right?"

I grab my knives as well, since guns aren't much help against demons and I'm more comfortable with hand-to-hand combat anyway. If only we hadn't just weakened ourselves by restarting the Siren birth cycle.

We land in the closest clearing and immediately jump out, all four of us armed and ready. We duck beneath the blades and run to the beach where we had seen much of the commotion. Valentina sees two ground crew members lying on the ground and rushes to tend to them. The rest of the team is further ahead, fighting off a horde of demons.

Blake is already far ahead of us, ripping into one demon after the other with surprising ease. He tears one in half at the waist, tossing him aside as if it were nothing before he bites into the next.

As we catch up, an ally calls to us.

"Don't let them touch you," she groans. "Some of them are Shayatin."

"Wasn't planning on letting them get the chance," Kami says to me with an assured nod, before launching into the chaos.

Her newly-sharpened knives slide through a demon's legs in an instant, dropping him to the ground. Several more surround her and I join to help, sweeping my knife across the throat of one, and then another. In just moments, we're huffing and covered in blood as more demons approach.

I suddenly feel a cold, hard object against my throat. I look to Kami, who seems frozen in place. A pinch of pain confirms what I had hoped wasn't the case: this is a Kheru knife, and it can pierce my skin.

"Hey there, pretty boy," a man says behind me. "You're surprisingly difficult to get in touch with, you know that?"

"Is that so?" I ask. "Did you ever try giving me a ring?"

The man lets out a laugh that tells me he's teetering on the edge of sanity. Fighting has mostly stilled around us, the remainder of our team clearly unsure of what to do.

"Why would I? The Kings knew you would come to us, we just had to wait for you. And here you are."

"Okay, I'm here," I say. "So you don't need them. Leave them be."

I see Kami dart forward with a look of panic, but my vision blurs before going black, and only echoes of voices remain.