Sirenz - By Charlotte Bennardo Page 0,67

Jeremy’s unlucky fate in the subway.

“That’s the only way it’ll work. And once you have him under your spell, Demeter can’t do anything. She can’t reverse a Siren’s power. Rules are rules.” Hades winked and sat down. The chair spun once, and he was gone.

“R-remind me n-never to sit there,” Shar stuttered.

“Steady there,” I said. “When you talk fast, you start to caw.”

“So now what?” Shar fumed, trying to speak slowly.

“You heard him—we have to get close.”

“I don’t want to.”

“We have no choice. At least we can get to him in the office.” I shivered, trying not to think about just how close I’d have to get to Arkady.

Shar cringed and pushed the half-eaten piece of cake aside. “We’re not going to be alone.”

“If we have to, we’ll entrance Reynaldo just to get rid of him, and Jeremy still might be under the thrall,” I said. “Once we have Arkady entranced, he can give the orders for everyone to get out of our way—they won’t question him.”

Shar shook her head. “We can’t do this without some kind of a plan.”

“Well, when Jeremy goes in, I’ll stop him and entrance him again if I have to. He’ll let us in, and then we both get close enough to do our thing.” The thought made me feel like gagging, not just because of the condition and contents of the ear I’d be whispering into, but because I didn’t want to use the power—again—on Jeremy. The effects of the first use were still unknown to me. “I’ll tell Arkady to put on his glasses, so he’ll see you. Then we can both work on him; he’ll be assaulted from all possible sides.”

Shar absently rubbed her beak. “I don’t know. Then we have to get him out of there. There’s going to be a lot of people in the way. Are you sure there’s no other way?”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

She twitched her head, and I took that as a no. It was going to be a bad day.

For the first time since this affair started, I slept deeply, and when the alarm rang, I was reluctant to get up. Lazily, I stretched, and noticed that my blankets were gone. My bed was lined with molted feathers. My feathers. I leapt out of the bed and backed away. Feathers, talons, bird seed, and now nesting instincts! What was left? I didn’t want to look at Shar; our transformation was dangerously close to completion. Arkady had to go, and something told me that if it wasn’t soon, I’d be digging for worms and shiny objects.

At 7:30, we were out the door and headed toward the office.

“Third time’s the charm, third time’s the charm,” Shar chanted as we walked along. I could hear her practicing slow speech, even through the scarf she wrapped around her beak. We stopped at a Duane Reade and picked up a package of surgical masks and more allergy pills.

“It’s my turn to be sick,” she said. “Not that it will earn me any sympathy, but it might make Reynaldo keep his distance.”

“And it’s not like Arkady can catch something,” I reminded her.

Deftly, she slipped the surgical mask on under the tangerine pashmina that she’d wound around her face. The weather was drizzly and raw, so she wouldn’t look too out of place; neither would I when I kept my hat on all day. Ruefully, I had to admit that the feathers were very warm; if only they didn’t keep poking out.

How good would it feel to let the wind ruffle them?

Stop thinking like that!

“Think they’d mind if we showed up to work in burkas?” I mused. Everything I wore was tight. My wings made it impossible for me to wear my coat, so I donned baggy sweats and plopped on a short cape.

“We will finish this today,” Shar said in a determined voice. “I’m not walking around with a beak. And I think it’s turning orange!”

We reached the House of Romanov, and went in and up with no problems from the security desk. Everyone was similarly bundled up. I was ready. I didn’t care who was there—I was ready to march right down to Arkady’s sanctum and deal with him. No one was going to stop me.

But when we got upstairs, it was deathly silent. There was no one there to stop us.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Well, the runway show’s done. Maybe this is their down time,” Shar rationalized.

“But I know they had to go over the runway show, the