Deadly Song - 1. Chapter 1

From the terrace a long lawn stretches down to the banks of the lake. Behind me the sounds of the party spill out along with the warm yellow light that nudges at my back, pushing me away from the house onto the cool green grass.

The moon is almost full and the cool moonlight is so much more alluring than the harsh brightness I am leaving behind me. I take a deep breath, glorying in the pureness of air untainted by the stink of bodies and cigarette smoke.

I take off my shoes and socks and leave them on the last step like some kind of Cinderella fleeing the ball. However, I don’t think that any Prince Charming is going to be picking up my shiny black, size nine dress shoes any time soon. Even if he did I don’t give much for his chances of finding me, not where I’m going.

“Daniel.”

No. I will not turn. I will not look back. I will not let anything from my old life touch me ever again. I will not...

“Daniel, please.”

Oh hell; the desperation in that voice is impossible to ignore.

“Go back to the party, Emma.” My voice surprises me. It’s so much colder than I intended.

“Please Daniel, don’t do this. I can’t just stand by and let you do this.”

“Then go back to the party, Emma,” I repeated

“I can’t. I...”

“Go back to the fucking party will you; for Christ’s sake... just...” Why did I have to turn just at that moment and see the pain on her face; the tears in her eyes? Still, I don’t take one step back towards her. “Emma... please let me go. We talked about this. I know that you don’t understand; you can’t, but please don’t try and make me stay here. I can't.”

She runs down the steps, the red sequins on her dress glittering sharply in the spun gold light, but stops before she reaches me. With the soft golden glow behind her she looks like an angel.

“Please Daniel. I... I love you.”

“I loved you too Emma but I can’t stay with you. You know that I can’t stay with you. I can’t live in this world any more. I tried, you have no idea how hard I tried, especially in these last three days, but there’s nothing here for me any more.”

“Then we’ll leave. We’ll go away; anywhere you want. We’ll...”

“No Emma. It’s not just here; not just this part of the world. I can’t live in any of it any more. Nothing has meaning for me. Food tastes like cardboard, music is nothing more than clashing cymbals in my head, art is just paint on a canvas. Please try to understand Emma; it’s over; it’s all over. There is nothing for me here any more.”

“Not even me?”

I look at the floor and shake my head. “No,” I whisper, “not even you.”

“I hate you Daniel O’Connor. I hate you. I hate you.”

Before I know what’s happening she throws her arms around me and hugs me, kissing me on the lips; just one bright burst of passion and then she moves to whisper in my ear. “I don’t want you to go Daniel, but I understand why you must. I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

“It’s too late Emma, way too late for it to be any other way.”

She raises a tear stained face to mine and bites her lip, struggling for control. “Did you ever love me?”

How can I tell her? How can I explain?

“Yes I loved you. I loved you with all my heart... when I had a heart.”

She searches my face with her eyes and then places her hand over my left breast. “You still have a heart, Daniel.”

I smile at her but it’s just with my lips. Gently I take her hand, moving it from my chest to my mouth to kiss lightly. “No Emma: not one that beats, not one that loves, not any more.”

“But...”

“Emma... please. I have made my decision. Don’t make it harder for me. I can't go back.”

“Daniel, I don’t want you to go, not like this. I don’t want you to walk away from me, from your life...”

“This isn’t about what you want,” I say softly, without rebuke.

She bows her head and shakes it. “No,” she says and steps away from me. I don’t pause. As her arms fall so do the last vestiges of the life I am leaving behind. I turn away and don’t look back. After a few steps her soft weeping merges into the background.

As the gentle breeze teases my hair with soft fingers I loosen my tie and slip it over my head, letting it fall to the ground. My jacket and shirt quickly follow and by the time I reach the banks of the lake I am naked. The house is still close, close enough to hear the music floating on the still air, the laughter and calls of my party guests, but I am in a different world now; for me the house, the party, the people don’t exist any more.

Here the light is softer, tinged with blue as the moonlight reflects off the water. The soft caress of the cool air brushes my skin and my senses are overloaded with the scent of lilac and roses. I close my eyes and then I hear it.

Softly, like a whisper on the wind, a song floats to me over the mirrored surface of the pool. When I open my eyes curls of mist rise like steam from a boiling cauldron. The song floats across the lake, reaching for me with the fingers of a lover, caressing my mind and body, wrapping me in an unbreakable enchantment. I can’t go back now. The song has me. The past slips away. There is nothing to go back to. I have no life but the song.

As the song swells ripples appear on the surface of the lake, spreading outwards from where something is rising from beneath the water. I wait and watch, calmly and quietly as the figure rises and rises until it is standing on the surface.

She is beautiful; more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen. She smiles her cold blue smile and, still singing she floats towards me, her glittering blue and silver dress swirling around her like the mist through which she glides.

The music of the night still tumbles from her lips and she tilts her head to one side to give me a long cool look from the stunning blue eyes. I take a step forward, drawn into the glacial beauty of her long white hair, glistening with diamond drops, and her foam white skin shimmering with pale blue moonlight.

Lifted by the song she reaches out her white arms with their pale hands and frosted blue nails and my own stretch out towards them of their own volition.

I remember the first time I came upon her in this very spot. The house was silent then, the windows dark. I had come here to die. I had everything; money, looks, a promising career... a perfect life. Except that it wasn’t perfect, it was fatally flawed, an empty shell and I was sick of the facade. I was tired and I couldn’t take any more. I was alone and drunk and ready to leave it all behind.

I was sitting on the banks of the lake with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other and I had taken maybe three or four. I was about to lift the bottle to my lips when a strange lassitude washed over me and the world blurred before my eyes.

I thought at first that it was the effects of the drugs and alcohol but surely I hadn’t had enough. I was pondering the strangeness when I felt a light touch on my shoulder. I was too caught in the spell to move my head.

Two pale hands slid around my neck and slipped under my shirt. The touch was cold and it chilled me to the bone but was strangely comforting. At last I was freed to look up into the face of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I couldn’t breathe. Slowly she leaned forward and brushed her lips over mine. I closed my eyes and took in my first breath with a gasp.

Without saying a word the woman, who was naked; long, slender and pale with small breasts and a narrow waist, pressed me back onto the grass. There was no blemish on her anywhere. She was perfect to a degree that was unnatural. It crossed my mind then that she might not be human but I didn’t care.

My arms encircled her as she slid her body over me and covered my lips with her own. The kiss was the sweetest I have ever tasted.

Slowly she undid the buttons on my shirt, one by one. After each one she kissed me on the chest, just above the one she was working on so that kiss by kiss she worked her way down to my waist. The buckle on my belt seemed to open at a single touch and before I knew it I was naked and I lay staring at the sky as she explored my body with her lips and tongue.

I have never been satisfied by sex. I’ve had many partners, male and female, but I’ve never found anyone who really excited me. The closest was Emma and even she wasn’t ‘right’. But this... this was...

Raising her head she smiled for the first time and stroked my face lightly with her fingers, brushing my lips with her thumb. I shuddered, feeling as though that light touch had leaked magic into me and it had taken possession of my whole body. I let my mouth fall open and she slipped her thumb inside. I sucked eagerly, seeking to draw her essence into me and she laughed softly before working a different kind of magic on my body.

I was paralysed, my mind divorced from my quivering flesh but hyper aware of the feelings she was evoking as she raised me up and sent me crashing down until there was no more up or down and I dissolved in a thousand stars.

Somewhere, somewhen, I felt her hands on my inner thighs, moving upwards with light strokes, making me moan aloud. I struggled to bring together all the scattered pieces of my being but her touch, her long slow strokes made that impossible. Her fingers brushed across the tip of something that was no longer even physically part of me but an aching throb at the centre of my being. She teased me and tortured me until my body lifted from the ground, floating in an unimaginable crescendo of sensation that overwhelmed me and sent me spinning to oblivion on the sound of a sigh.

When I opened my eyes she was looking down on me, a bright pink tongue flicking out to moisten lips that curved gently upwards.

“Oh Daniel, Daniel,” she whispered. “I came here to take your soul and instead you have captured my heart. From the moment I saw you I knew that you are unlike anyone I have met before. Your soul is a pillar of flame and it has consumed me. You are so beautiful and so alone. Go back to your life and let your soul blaze you a trail of glory.”

“I have no life.” I said. “At least I didn’t. Now my life is you. I came here to die and instead I am more alive than I have ever been. You saved me. Stay with me.”

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “If I could I would, but I don’t belong in your world and you don’t belong in mine. If I stay with you I will have to complete the task I was sent here to perform.”

She rose from my arms leaving me cold; colder than I had ever been before, both on the outside and on the inside. I knew she was going to leave me forever and I was possessed with a desperation so strong I could not bear it.

“Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

“If I stay you will never be able to go back. If I sing my song to you then you will have no choice but to follow me. You came here seeking death and you found it. Now I am giving you a chance to live. Take it. Go back.”

“I don’t want to go back,” I cried desperately. “I can’t go back. I want to follow you wherever you lead me.”

“Are you prepared to die for me?” she asked softly, a terrible sadness in her eyes.

“A thousand times.”

Then her glance turned tender and the blush that rose to her cheeks was the only colour anywhere in her cold, blue loveliness.

“Three days, Daniel. Take three days. Try with all your heart to find a reason to stay, just one reason to live. I will come here on the third night from this, at the full moon. If I find you waiting I will take you away from your life, your family, your friends; from everything and everyone you ever knew and we will be forever bound. There will be no going back.”

“I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to wait for three days. Take me now.”

“Three days Daniel: one reason to live. If you are not here when I come I will mourn for me but rejoice for you.”

So for three days I have tried with all my heart to find one reason to stay in a life so empty that the shell is nothing more than an illusion. I found nothing and no one, not one reason to stay but a thousand to leave.

And so here I am watching the most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes on reach for me across the water. Her voice rises and I answer its call.

Briefly I glance back and am surprised to see how far I have come from the shore. A pale figure stands on the bank, watching and then slowly it falls to its knees and sinks to the ground. I am not interested. I raise my eyes to the slender form in the sparkling red dress that seems to fly across the grass, the light from the house illuminating her. I’m not interested in that either.

Emma raises her eyes to meet mine and the scream dies in her throat. All colour leaks from the scene and from the world I am no longer part of.

Smiling, I turn and take the outstretched hands. I gaze into the beautiful blue eyes which are, at last, alive with love. My heart soars as my love takes me into her arms and I take her into mine. Her slender form moulds to mine and I am happier than I have ever been; happier than I thought I ever could be. She rests her cheek against my shoulder, still singing and I lay mine against her hair, still smiling, and as we slowly sink beneath the water of the lake I surrender myself utterly to the song of the Banshee.