This chapter was sort of inspired by Syren, the fifth book in the Septimus Heap series, which everyone needs to read.

It was also quite fun to write.

O-o-O

-water-

"Carter!"

"Sadie? Sadie, where are you?"

Carter's hopes weren't high that he would get a response. Sound carried strangely down here—wherever here was—besides, even if he heard Sadie, she probably didn't know where she was either. He'd already tried every spell he could think of to find her, but something was messing with his magic; something, he knew, that inhabited this ancient building.

Something that he was pretty sure wasn't friendly.

He kept running, turning blind corners and doubling back at dead ends. The passageways were convoluted and seemed to be changing, guiding him to a destination of its choosing.

Carter didn't know what it was, but still.

He tripped over the malevolent being's destination—a circular chamber, with a floor sunk maybe six inches into the rock. There seemed to be five doors set into the rock, and after a moment three of the doors spit out Sadie, Walt, and Zia, all of whom tumbled to the floor with a yelp.

"Fantastic," Sadie grumbled, rubbing her bruised elbow.

The walls rumbled with gleeful laughter.

Then, go figure, the doors started to slam shut one at a time.

Zia was the quickest to recover. "Run!" she yelled, and yanked Sadie to her feet. She grabbed Carter by the collar and dragged them to the last door still open, Walt dashing behind them, and Zia threw Carter and Sadie through the door and flung herself into the hallway—

And the door slammed shut with Walt trapped inside.

"No!" Sadie screamed, pounding on the solid rock slab with bruised and bloody fists.

Zia grabbed Sadie's shirt and dragged her down the corridor, shouting, "Leave him and get a move on!"

"You soulless bitch!" Sadie yelled. "How can you just leave him? He's probably dying right now—"

Zia spun her around. "We're leaving him," she said, sounding surprisingly cool, "because if this place is what I think it is, we need to leave this instant or we'll all run happily to our own deaths. Clear?"

Sadie seemed unable to respond, which Zia took as an invitation to keep dragging her.

"What's going on?" Carter demanded as they ascended a crumbling flight of steps.

"There's a Siren here," Zia said.

"Huh?"

"Siren. Possessive spirit. Sings to lure sailors to their watery graves and all that." They turned sideways to squeeze through a passage. "It probably lives here, but it can't take a physical form unless—"

Walt appeared around a corner and grinned at them, his electric blue eyes sparkling.

"—that happens," Zia finished.

"Come here, little girl," Walt said, cocking a finger at Sadie. "Come give me a kiss."

Sadie took a step forward, but Zia clamped down on her shoulder. "It's not him," she hissed. "Cover your ears."

"You don't want to do that," Walt said, and Carter, who had almost clamped his palms over his ears, stopped. "You want to stay right here. You want to do whatever I tell you." Walt smiled reassuringly.

Doing whatever he wanted didn't sound like such a bad idea, Carter decided. He liked Walt.

Zia slapped him. "Snap out of it," she said.

Walt glared at her. "You need to calm down," he told her.

"I need to calm down, my ass," she snapped. "Go away."

Walt started singing.

It was the most wonderful sound Carter had ever heard. Wordless, tuneless, lovely, enticing—he felt the sudden urge to walk forward, to join Walt, to do whatever he wanted—

Zia screamed.

Carter turned around. She was standing with her hands clamped over her hears, screaming at the top of her lungs, staring straight at him. The sound bounced off the walls, reverberated in his skull—

And a little niggling thought formed, something about Walt, about singing…

Walt couldn't sing.

There's a Siren here, Zia had said.

Two and two crashed together in his brain and he ran, dragging Sadie by the arm behind him.

He heard Walt—the Siren, he corrected himself—scream in frustration, boots slamming against the floor in chase, and Zia reached one hand behind her and yelled "Ha-di!"

The corridor exploded. It must have been below the water level, because as the walls imploded the sea came rushing in, washing over everything, and he and Zia barely pulled Sadie up another staircase before they were washed away.

Carter glanced behind him. There was no sign of Walt.

He ran.

O-o-O

Ah, I do love combining mythos.