The Summer Solstice of Psychedelic Sirens - Part One

It would later be said that the strange summoning of June 21, 1971, was only a natural coincidence. It happened under the light of a full moon, during the opening ceremony of a music festival in a remote part of Northern California. The drums of the celebration welcomed in the longest day of the year, accompanied by the frenzied wailing of the festivalgoers. They danced around a bonfire that ignited the northeastern horizon in a blaze of glory. High on acid and revelry, however, the festivalgoers unknowingly welcoming in not just the summer solstice, but something else; although by the time anyone realized this, a few of them had already become its dinner.

If anyone had been sober minded in the hours after the opening ceremony, they may have seen the strange, silvery creatures creeping out of the woods, drawn to the festival by the lights and music. They looked to be made from moonlight, they could change their shape, and they weren't necessarily dangerous but definitely didn't belong in the world of human beings and Jimi Hendrix. While the Grateful Dead reverberated throughout the natural stone amphitheater, something else crept along the shadows, seeping through the rift that had been torn open in the world.

It was the fact that the festivalgoers had begun going missing, and the fact that the festival dragged on much longer than its original planned duration, that summoned the black Mustang Mach 1. It tore up the coast of Northern California, parking on a ridge overlooking the valley, and an individual clad entirely in black stepped out.

Being immortal wasn't all everyone cracked it up to be. There were far too many fads to keep up with - fads that, if not followed, could reveal one's immortality in the most inconvenient ways. One might use a nineteenth century word in the twentieth century, for example; and although it would be appropriate in the year 1901, it would be especially revealing in the year 1971. It was the language - lingo, Orion called it - that threw Jasper most of the time.  He never knew what anyone was talking about these days, and it put him in a permanently foul mood.

There were also the cars - one became overly attached to the cars, Jasper noticed, and no amount of enchanting seemed to keep his from doing its very best to fall apart. 

It was a temperamental thing. The last few months driving it had revealed that, and traveling through riftgates wasn't something a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 was necessarily built to do. Still, it held up much better than the Pacer, which had made it over the riftgates only three times before the floor had fallen out. 

There had been no saving the Impala. Nothing about that car had been salvageable after the gorgons had taken it for a ride, and he would be eternally bitter about that.

Standing on the ridge, Jasper could see the festival at a full swing. It had run seven days past its intended schedule. He would never understand why people elected to attend these things. 

It wasn't that Jasper didn't like music - that was far from the truth. The guitar rift from Won't Get Fooled Again was still making its way through his brain as he took in the sight, and an ever-present part of him longed to get back in the car and drown in the music. He simply didn't like the proximity to other people, particularly the inebriated type. Music ought to have been a holy experience, shared with a sacred few. Not...whatever this was. 

As he surveyed the scene, he took mental notes: the volume, the type of music, the resounding, not-exactly-human voices rising into the night. Barty's brief had given them some idea of the threat, but Malcolm hadn't been able to identify exactly what it was. Jasper, however, already had an idea.

He didn't worry about what the festivalgoers would think when they saw the Mustang, for two reasons: the first was that although it was an impressive-looking creature, its paint only swirled when one got close enough to leave a mark, which Jasper never let anyone do (not even Orion, although he tried). The second was that although the runes inscribed into the paint occasionally showed themselves in starlight, the festivalgoers, if they made it this far up the ridge, would likely attribute anything strange to the psychedelics they'd enjoyed during the night. 

His ears prickled as the sound of crunching gravel and dirt echoed across the ridge.

A bright purple Plymouth Superbird rattled as it pulled to a stop beside the mustang, the noise inside rivaling that of the festival in the valley below. Black Magic Woman barked from the radio, and Jasper glared at it. Steaming from its tear up the road, the Superbird hummed, even as Zephyra turned it off and stepped out. 

His companion flashed him a wide grin. 

Jasper's spirits lifted when he realized that it was only the Superbird, and there was no trace of a third car climbing up the ridge. Ever since Orion's Challenger had been totaled, there was always that chance that he wouldn't be a part of these missions - at least until they'd found him a replacement. The third member of their party, however, disembarked from the passenger's side and rose, several heads taller than both Jasper and Zephyra. The trio was now complete. 

Zephyra and her Superbird were one in the same: both shimmering, shifting between shades of purple that made Jasper's eyes ache. Today, her long hair was a light shade of lavender, falling stick-straight to her narrow hips and glimmering in the moonlight.

Orion, however, had donned a hand-knitted sweater vest over a tie-dyed shirt with billowing sleeves, his light wash denim flowing over tattered sandals. His greasy blond locks were held in place by a pair of perfectly round, mirrored sunglasses. When he got to his feet, he looked down on both of his companions with a smile that suggested Orion's brain might have been totaled alongside the Challenger in that last skirmish with the gorgon.

The glamour they wore to cover their pointed ears and shimmering skin was, in Jasper's view, obnoxious. Orion looked as though he'd taken a clipping from a 1971 fashion magazine and plastered it to himself. Zephyra was elegant and beautiful - she always was - but her outfit only had a vague understanding of what humans wore in this decade, as though she'd read about it once but never met an actual human.

Jasper, for a reason none of the Fae could explain, had been cursed with human-looking features, and didn't need a glamour to look human. He simply dressed the part. Even if that part included a black trench coat and his shiny balmorals. 

"You look like you lost a street fight to a rainbow," Jasper noted, wrinkling his nose at the nauseating sight of his companions.

Orion looked down at himself, and then back to Jasper. "You look fresh from the morgue," he replied, although there wasn't any trace of malice in his voice. He tipped his head in the direction of the festival and said, "this party looks groovy. Any chance we clean it up and stick around for a while?"

Jasper flattened his stare at Orion, positioning himself protectively between the male and the mustang. Orion pretended not to notice as he dragged a hand through his messy hair.

"The complaints from the locals are mainly that the festival has gone on much longer than expected," Jasper explained. "Festivalgoers are reluctant to so much as send a message home."

"So they're having a snazzy time," Orion suggested. "Why are we here, unless it's to gatecrash?"

Orion gave Jasper a once over, and then shook his head. "If that's the case, Jazz, your outfit is outta' here."

Jasper glared, but Zephyra interrupted, stepping between them. She tossed her lavender locks over her shoulder and said, "sounds like a siren to me."

"It's been an age since I've seen one of those," Orion replied. Jasper blinked. Was he drooling?

"We're not going to attract attention," Jasper reminded him. "Get in, get out, right?"

Both Zephyra and Orion turned to look at him, and Orion said, "the only one attracting attention here is you, bub. Only real weirdos wear all black to a party."

"I have a change in the trunk," Zephyra said. "I've always thought you'd look stunning in pink."

Jasper blinked again, realizing that she was completely serious. Then he shook himself, his inky hair falling over his eyes, fighting the wave of irritation rolling over him like thunder clouds sinking into the valley.

"Let's find these sirens, so I can go home," he growled, taking the first step into the valley, hoping the others might just not follow.

Barty had briefed them, of course.

After the last assignment had gone so horribly, leaving a gash through Orion's Challenger so deep that the Order had begged him to scrap it instead of trying to save it, Barty have given them the strictest instructions: no flash, no flare, and, most importantly, no more arguments. Jasper, at least, intended to do his part. As he descended into the valley, the raging of the festival growing only louder, it was hard to keep up his end of the bargain. All he wanted was to whisper the words at the tip of his tongue, to gather his shadows like a shield of darkness and disappear into the coolness of the night. Somewhere quiet; somewhere he could think.

Somewhere without Orion to grate on his nerves.

The first and most important thing to understand about the rifts was that, unless it was sanctioned by the Order, passage through them was illegal. Magical creatures were not meant to find their way into the human realms, in the same way that the humans had no business being in the Fae realms, and the Knights of the Order, such as Jasper and his companions, were tasked with keeping it that way. 

Jasper kept a good ten paces in front of the other two, leading the descent, crossing the dark valley with only the light of the stars to guide them. Orion and Zephyra chatted while they walked, discussing the music, the food, the activities they might find in this mystical place. Jasper's only concern was the wet grass sliding over his balmorals. Black like the rest of his outfit, he'd already spent too much time cleaning and oiling them from their last misadventure, Apparently, gorgon blood didn't come out easily. Now he knew. Next time he'd wear his wellingtons.

They were still a few yards away when a lilting voice cascaded over the festival tents. Jasper stopped, ears tingling at the noise, the quavering of his heart familiar as the sound began to tug at his sternum, urging him forward. He resisted, looking back at his companions watching from a few steps away.

"Hear that?" Jasper asked. He stuck a finger in the air, as though he could touch the sound as it passed him. Zephyra's lilac eyes widened.

"Sirens," she breathed, her small, white hands covering her mouth.

"Groovy," Orion said. He was drooling - now Jasper was certain.

Zephyra dragged her hands away from her mouth, clapping them once. The world around them went quiet, the three suddenly encased by a wall of air which caught the sound waves and turned them back on themselves. Jasper nodded to Zephyra in thanks and turned, continuing the approach.

The three walked, now pressed closer together to stay within the range of Zephyra's air-shield. The noise around them dulled, but the vibrations in the ground told Jasper where to go, and within a few moments they'd stumbled on the massive amphitheater. From this vantage point, Jasper immediately knew what was happening, why the festival was long overdue, and why none of the attendees had any interest in returning home.

On the stage were seven human-looking females. Although they appeared the same as many of the other human females attending the event, the trained eye would recognize their glowing skin and flowing hair and know right away they were not from this realm. They'd commandeered the electric sound equipment and were using them to enchant the attendees, who were sprawled out on the floor of the amphitheater, groaning and moaning at the sound.

"Moonbeam sirens," Jasper said to his companions, now flanking him on either side. "Delightful."

"They don't need us to clear this up," Orion remarked, taking in the frighteningly fantastic complexion of the seven sirens on stage. "Just wait until the sun comes out, and poof. Up in a cloud of dust."

"They've been here for days," Zephyra said. "I'm sure they've come up with a way to keep out of the sun."

"Tents," Jasper said. "There are plenty. We need to get these things out of here before they eat someone."

Actually, if he was being honest with himself, Jasper realized it was not a matter of stopping the sirens from eating anyone, but stopping them from eating anyone else. They looked plump and healthy from here, and if he poked around the back of the stage he was certain they would find more than enough ghosts.

"Barty wants them sent home, for trial," Jasper reminded the other two, tugging up the collar of his coat around his ears. Although it was a warm night, something about the wind on his skin made it crawl. "There's an unmarked rift somewhere, and that's how these things got in. The most important thing we can do is find it before it lets anything else wander through."

He scanned the dark line of trees to the northeast of the amphitheater and nodded. "If I had to guess, they came through there. It's dark, cool, and since no one's seen it by now, likely well hidden."

Orion's blond brows rose. "You want us to go in there and look for it? The freakin' Zodiac killer might be hiding in those trees."

Jasper's answer was a scowl.

Zephyra shrugged, her lavender-dress shimmering with the movement. "Wouldn't be surprised if the Zodiac killer came from our world, too, Orion. If we find him, we can just push him back through, with the sirens."

"Stay together," Jasper said, looking pointedly at Zephyra. She would be responsible for keeping Orion's ears free of the titillating music of the sirens. If she didn't keep him out of trouble...well, Jasper had no interest in explaining to Barty why his coworker had been eaten by Moonbeam Sirens.

"You've got somewhere better to be, Jazz?" Orion asked, when he realized that Jasper wasn't accompanying them into the woods.

Jasper bristled at the nickname. "Yes," he answered flatly. "Now get going - both of you. I'll meet you up at the car once you've found it."

Orion narrowed his eyes, but Zephyra smiled, turning towards the trees. When she and Orion were about ten feet away, the wall of air left him, and sound was suddenly loud and close, threatening to overcome his senses. He turned back to the performers on stage, watching them as they danced. Something was missing amongst the scene - something that, even through his increasingly addled senses, Jasper realized with a jolt.

This situation was far too organized for Moonbeam Sirens. They were beings of beauty and chaos. They used their voices to lure in their victims, and as soon as their song ended, they devoured whoever was close. Here, however, Jasper saw an extraordinary level of restraint. As though they were being commanded - controlled - by something else.

An eighth siren, he mused, as the sound swelled in his ears. Jasper twirled two fingers and summoned a blanket of darkness, cloaking him, blocking out most of the singing. His head cleared as the darkness gathered, his body flushing with relief. An eighth siren, watching for the sun, orchestrating this feast.

An eighth siren would not be on stage, but would face the east, watching for the first glimmers of sunlight over the distant coast. Someone crafty and cunning, commanding the other seven.

Someone powerful.

Someone who would put up a fight.

Jasper stalked through the shadows, weaving between the festival tents as his mind slowly picked apart this revelation. Could the sirens have known that a rift would open? If not, how would they have been so organized? Perhaps it hadn't been the festival goers who had opened it, but someone on the other side, someone who'd used the solstice as a ruse to get them through. After all, a party full of highly intoxicated, love-crazed individuals who worshipped music and sound would certainly be a hearty feast -

Jasper rounded a corner and crashed into a figure standing in the shadows. He stumbled back, startled, and she whipped her head around to stare at him with wide, owlish eyes. Jasper skidded to a halt. he was completely transfixed by her gaze, by the way they nearly glowed in the dim festival lights. 

Ever so slowly, she blinked.

Bingo. His heart skittered under her gaze. Sirens were known for their illusions - for their temptations. Jasper had no patience for such temptations, scolding the nerves in his body for responding to a beautiful female. Like this one, a pesky voice in the back of his mind whispered. Sirens where not psychic - at least not any that he'd met - but had an incredible knack for making good guesses on what any person would find attractive.Curse the Order if she wasn't the most beautiful one he'd seen yet.

It always went this way. Jasper scowled at the thought. His only advantage was that Orion wasn't here to make this more difficult.

The female's pretty mouth, a deep, blood red, quirked up into half a smile, and when she spoke he watched for teeth. Normal teeth - not spiked, not made for shredding flesh - but sirens could hide that, too. That wasn't the most alarming thing about her, though: because despite his cloak of shadows, she could see him. 

"You're in the wrong place, mister," she said, her silky voice cutting through the wall of darkness. Jasper's senses flared and he battled them back with a tightly-coiled irritation.

"So are you," he countered. "Why aren't you down there?"

He nodded to the crowd. The groaning grew, loud and suggestive of carnal pastimes, and the sound made Jasper want to light the place on fire.

The female blinked, looking up at him through long, dark lashes. She had dark, black hair, longer than Zephyra's, and braided through with fresh flowers. A flower crown sat atop her shiny head, and she was dressed in a rainbow of colors. Her feet were bare, adorned with a fine, silver anklet. If she wasn't one of the sirens, perhaps she was one of Manson's ilk - another problem on his list to be dealt with.

"I don't like crowds," she said, that smile growing. "And you never know who you might meet, hanging to the back."

Jasper kept his expression neutral as he said, "do you like the music?"

"Do you?"

He didn't answer, and the female's eyebrow arched up. "I'll take that as a no," she said. "But it's got a good beat. My name's Delia. What's yours, mister?"

Delia. Jasper gave her the first name that came to mind other than his own. "Drew," he said. He instantly hated it.

Something mischievous danced in Delia's eyes as she said, "nice to meet you, Drew. Dance with me?"

She didn't wait for him to answer, but reached to take his hand. When her fingers touched his skin, Jasper recoiled. His vision flashed red, the instant urge to vomit overriding any bit of his common sense. His heart jumped into his throat, and he snatched his hand away, momentarily losing control of himself as he jumped out of reach.

Delia's brows knit together.

"No, thank you," Jasper sputtered, clutching at the hand she had touched, while his skin crawled, while every fiber ignited, while nausea rolled over him in wave after wave. "I don't dance."

Delia frowned at him. "You okay, mister?"

"Quite." The siren song was growing far too loud, his cloak of shadows diminished in that momentary panic, as though Delia's touch had blasted them away. He fought to swallow, packing those racing thoughts into little boxes and shoving them back on their shelves. "I'm in the wrong place, I think," he added. "See you around."

"See you," she said. Jasper turned, stalking away, gathering the shadows, cloaking himself again. He conjured up images of a night without stars, complete darkness, the coolness of a sleeping world. No lights, no noises, no...people. No one to look at him, no one to reach out and -

Get a hold of yourself, Jasper, he thought, rolling his shoulders back. Standing straighter. Fixing his tousled hair. It had been styled before - but was starting to go limp. And he'd left his styling cream at home.

Jasper didn't wait for the others. He climbed back up the ridge and sheltered in the mustang, closing the door and locking it with a satisfying click. The runed vehicle shut out the rest of the noise, the darkness nearly complete as the shadows circled around him, engulfing him in that silence he craved so much. But the silence didn't drown out the ringing in his ears.

Get a hold of yourself, Jasper, he thought again. You've seen these things a hundred times. This time tomorrow, it'll be a memory, and you'll be at home. In the dark.

Where there were no strange voices in the night. No eyes peering through the earth. No chance that something buried might rise -

As the thought surfaced, Jasper put his feet across the passenger's seat and retrieved a flask from his coat pocket. The whiskey was strong, burning as it went down, and it softened the edges of the sharp night. Jasper kept this little habit from Orion and Zephyra. It chased away those voices ever whispering in his ears, eased the ache of that harrowing awareness of the line between life and death, and it filled the hollow places in his mind where memories should have been. It was something his companions, and Barty, could never know about. 

Drinking on the job, and all that.

Little did they know he spent all of his time only mostly sober. He supposed that having no real identity or core memories could do that to a person.

The car, although parked, the keys still tucked in his pocket, gave a little whine. "We're not going anywhere," Jasper murmured, leaning his head back against the window. "What do you have for me tonight?"

Without touching it, the radio turned on, flicking through a few channels until it came to something Jasper could stand - just loud enough to block out the ringing in his ears. Mozart lilted through the speakers, grainy but tolerable, and he closed his eyes and breathed deep.

The darkness was his solace. His friend. His comfort. But in the darkness...something moved.

Jasper's eyes flew open, and he shot up so quickly his head bashed against the car's roof. A blinding pain went down his left eye, and he cradled his aching head as he tried to make sense of that shifting sensation. Like the world was tilting, sliding away from him. Like reality had detached itself from him for a moment; like a rift was forming underneath him, through him, unraveling his being like it did the fabric of the world. 

Then Jasper's eyes adjusted to dark, and he let out a breath.  He'd fallen asleep - at least for two hours - and while the festival's music still raged, his companions hadn't returned.

Beside him, Zephyra's Superbird sat, cold and quiet. No one was about. Not even...Jasper shook himself, not wanting to summon the others unintentionally. If he didn't think about them, they tended to ignore him. The moment he conjured them in his mind, however, they came surging out of nowhere, screaming, making demands, pounding on the walls of his mind.

Jasper unlocked the driver's door, stepping back out into the cool night. His back ached from sleeping in the car, and he took another deep drink from his flask.

He could see better than most in the dark. The night was peaceful, in spite of the festival on the valley floor. A slight breeze played with his fine, dark hair as he looked in all directions for the sense of the disturbance.

And then he saw something. Not what had woken him - he knew right away this was a casual appearance from one of them.

A child stood in front of the car, holding a stuffed dog. The dog was missing an ear. So was the child. Blood dripped from a hole in his head the size of a baseball, and he looked at Jasper with imploring eyes.

Jasper took another drink.

The child blinked up at him. He didn't need to ask; Jasper already knew what he wanted.

"No," Jasper said. His throat went dry, despite the whiskey. "Go away. Not today."

The child didn't move. Jasper opened the door of the mustang and crawled back inside, shutting it and locking it again.

The child appeared by the window, peering in. Up close, the injury made Jasper's stomach turn.

"I said no," Jasper hissed through the glass. "Go back to...wherever you came from."

The child blinked.

Jasper twitched his fingers, summoning more power than he needed, slightly intoxicated by the drink now swirling in his system. The shadows crashed in around the car until it dissolved into nothing but inky blackness. When he released his hold on them, they dispersed, and the child haunting his car was gone.

Jasper closed his eyes, wrapping his mind around the urge to turn on the car and drive away, shoving it down as deep as it would go.

Click Here to Continue to Part Two

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