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After the conversation with Claire, Alex arrived at the Cape to finally get a firsthand record of how Melissa and Luke got to know each other and how his transformation occurred. Although Melissa had once told it to me out on the deck on a clear summer night, I would gladly listen to it again.
“Do you have the whistle with you?” I asked Alex when I met him in the driveway.
“Yes, Ma’am. Always in my pocket nowadays. I want to try it, simply to see what it does.”
“Don’t,” I warned him, and held up my index finger. “You never know if you might need it one day. You’ll just have to be extremely quick, then.”
When we were all seated around the dining room table, Alex had a steaming cup of coffee in front of him and took out a pen and a paper.
“I’d like to take notes if that’s okay, in case I find something important later.”
One thing Cathy and Luke still disagreed about was what influence the relationship between the male Siren and his creator had on the outcome of the transformation.
“Um, okay. I feel like I’m at a police interview.” Melissa chuckled. Luke shrugged and nodded.
“So, how did you guys meet?”
Melissa began. “Luke used to work for the NYPD. One day, we met at a crime scene.” She shot her husband a tender look. “I waited around for the ambulance to arrive. Usually, I leave before anyone sees me, but this time I thought I should give out some information.” She wrinkled her nose. “Because this time, it wasn’t about a human mistake that resulted in an accident – it was a disgusting and sickly planned rape.” She shook her head, and Alex jotted something down and turned his gaze back on her.
“In the meantime, other curious passersby had come to the taped area and were waiting. I watched the police officers take notes and pictures and carry other stuff in and out of the car. After a while, a police officer in his early thirties walked over to me and introduced himself as Detective Sasha Morris.” Melissa smiled and tilted her head toward Luke. “He asked whether I was the one who called the ambulance.” Then, she turned to Luke and asked hesitantly in a slightly different voice, as if she was performing a play, “Yes, how did you know?”
“You were standing here from the beginning. It was either you, that elderly lady or that chatty couple over there.” Luke pointed to a few invisible people. “But you seemed like the most likely bet. If it hadn’t been for you, this woman would have been dead by the time somebody found her. It will be a long way to recovery, especially mentally, but she will make it.”
Melissa faced me and Alex again. “At that point, I went over my story again in my head and wasn’t convinced he’d buy it, but I wanted to give it a shot.” She turned back to Luke.
“I think I know who did it.” She winked at us. “That really seemed to catch the officer’s interest.” Then, she explained to Detective Morris, “I saw someone coming around the corner of this building, and the way he was walking seemed odd as if he was pulling his pants up. I thought, ‘Gross, he went back there to take a leak.’ And then I thought I had seen him somewhere before. It bothered me that I couldn’t place him right away, but a little later I saw him clearly in front of me. He sells coffee from a trolley on Broadway. I always thought he looked somewhat filthy. Suddenly, I heard someone moan and came back here to have a look. That’s when I found her. It had to be him.” She turned to us again. “At that point, I was holding my breath because I was sure that he wouldn’t believe me.”
Luke continued the story. “Thank you, we will have a look at that. Could you wait here for a moment, please, Miss...?”
“Parker.” Melissa filled the gap. “I could have hit myself for telling my correct name. Usually, I wasn’t that careless. But his smile was so lovely.” She sighed and laughed. “Mr. Morris talked to his colleagues, they spoke into their walkie-talkies, and he came back with another man in tow.”
“Miss Parker, could you please describe the man in a bit more detail to Detective Lockwood? He will draw a composite sketch on the computer,” Luke said, making himself sound important.
“Then, I described the man who really sold coffee on Broadway to Mr. Lockwood, and with that and the help of forensics, the rapist was arrested the next day.”
I nodded, shuddering to think that people like that were walking around on the streets.
“And the next day, my phone rang,” Melissa said, and picked up an imaginary phone. “Hello, Melissa speaking.”
“Hello, Miss Parker, this is Detective Sasha Morris,” Luke said into his own imaginary device. “You’ve done a great job and had it exactly right. Thanks to you, this fellow won’t be selling coffee again anytime soon.” He made a short pause, but it was too short for Melissa to say anything. “Speaking of which, would it be possible for me to buy you a cup of coffee? Not from a trolley, in a real coffee shop.” Luke made a face as if he were holding his breath.
Melissa put her hand down and spoke to Alex again. “I was so perplexed that he called and somehow got my number that I couldn’t answer right away.”
Luke went on. “Not work-related, either, more like a... Well, I’d like to see you again, if that’s possible.”
“Okay,” Melissa breathed into her invisible phone.
“Okay?” Luke probed again.
“Yes, I’d like that.” Melissa turned back to us. “I was surprised by my answer, myself.” She took a breath. “Well, that’s how our relationship started. We only had to go through some more name changes.”
I applauded. “You should bring this to a real stage.”
“Well, we have told it so many times – it’s less boring this way.” Melissa shrugged.
“Yeah, and you know, when I saw her standing there, I knew I had to talk to her. She was a goddess,” Luke raved. “You can’t imagine how nervous I was when I walked toward her – the whole time I wanted to turn around, but my legs somehow made their way over there.” Luke pretended to wipe sweat off his forehead.
Melissa chuckled. “I was used to that look. Men look at us in a different way than if we were human.”
Yes, I’d noticed that already.
“Of course, part of it is natural, but there is also something chemical about it. Our attraction is like a magnet to most men, which is kind of sad because that means in ninety-one percent of cases, they see us as purely sexual objects and wouldn’t care for anything else.”
“And what exactly is the difference in that from any normal man and woman?” Luke interrupted her.
“That Sirens used to kill the men once they attracted them.”
“What are the other nine percent?” Alex asked.
“These men either have a higher interest in you, a more spiritual one we can just call love...” Melissa smiled. “...Or there are the men who had a rough life and something so bad or sad has happened that their antennae are broken. They don’t pick up our vibes.”
I looked at Alex. “I hope you belong to the first part of those nine percent and don’t wake from this spell one day.”
“If I wake up someday, I’ll just fall in love with you again.” He flashed a broad smile at me.
Melissa sighed. “Young love – wonderful. Yet, I still can’t understand why I said ‘yes’ to that coffee. I didn’t think then that you were different from any other man.”
“Why, thank you for that compliment. And you didn’t say ‘yes,’ you said ‘okay.’ I must have picked up the phone, dialed your number, and hung up at least five times before I finally summoned up the courage to call you. I expected a no. No way in the world someone like you would agree to a date with me. When the ‘no’ didn’t come, my mind was somehow too slow to decode what ‘okay’ meant, since it didn’t seem as clear to me as a ‘yes.’”
For a while after that, they argued about which reaction would have been better. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve known each other for fourteen years.
“And you never told Luke about your secret?” Alex asked. “It would have made life so much easier for you.”
“Yeah, didn’t you trust me, honey?” Luke said in mock indignation.
Melissa rolled her eyes. “I would have trusted you with my life. I just didn’t want to endanger yours.”
“And I never suspected anything, anyway,” Luke said. “When I first got to know Melissa, I couldn’t believe my luck that someone like her would actually talk to me without an official letter stating that she had to do it. Or, even better, that she seemed to like me back as much as I liked her. In time, I also met Rosin, Cathy, and some other family members. I thought they all must have the same lucky genes, but in all those years, I never imagined anything that crazy behind all this. I was blind to the facts that Melissa hardly drank and ate anything, or that she often seemed to be a step ahead of me in the cases I had to solve at work. To me, she was that wonderful, smart woman – who, on top of that, was better-looking than any Victoria’s Secret model.”
The affectionate way Luke described Melissa warmed my heart. I gave Alex’s hand a squeeze.
Luke continued. “After going out for two years, I finally convinced her that we should move in together. That was a big step for her. Firstly, because she had been living with two women for so long, and secondly, because she was afraid that I would find out her true nature if we lived together. But I didn’t.”
“Which was hard work for me,” Melissa interrupted him. “Especially at night. So many times, I would have loved to get up and do something, but I was afraid that he would wake up and find me gone. Hence, I stayed next to him – awake - the whole night. And I tried to get as many night shifts at the hospital as possible,” she said with a laugh.
Luke shrugged. “After another year, we got married. But soon after that, Sasha Morris had a terrible day.” He let the words sink in for a moment. “I went to buy some milk and other small things at a little convenience store. Have you ever noticed how many kinds of milk there are? There is organic, two-percent fat, low fat or whole milk... It took me at least ten seconds to spot the one I wanted. During that time, a young guy came in, threatened the cashier with a gun, and demanded that he gave him the money from the register. As the cashier packed it into a paper bag, the guy noticed that I was in the shop, as well. We’d probably have gotten out of this mess all right if I hadn’t been so stupid as to tell him to drop his weapon because I worked for the police. Just like I learned in training.” Luke cringed. “Before I could even take another breath, he shot me.” Luke leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “After that, I don’t remember a thing until I came to myself, so I can only tell you what Melissa told me.” He shot a glance at her.
She threw in, “Yes, of course I was there right away. I had felt that something was wrong with Luke.” Melissa touched her chest where her heart was supposed to be. “I found two bleeding bodies in the shop. The guy must have shot them both and taken off. Luke had lost a lot of blood.” She furrowed her brows. “I had to save him. I went to extract the cashier’s adrenaline and returned to Luke. Like with Cathy’s boyfriend, a shocking thing happened. Instead of falling into a month-long transformation phase to give his body time to change, Luke was unconscious for about a minute. Then, he woke up already having the new Siren energy,” she exclaimed.
Alex nodded and scribbled across the paper.
“Apparently, Melissa had always been watching over me, like a guardian angel,” Luke said. “I’d have died if she hadn’t stuck that needle into my heart, fully aware that she could be creating an uncontrollable monster which rips anybody with a beating heart open.” Luke’s eyes widened. “Because that’s what happens in almost one-hundred percent of cases. That’s why there are only five known cases of us male Sirens.” Luke sighed and Alex frantically wrote down keyword after keyword.
“When I first came to myself,” he continued, “I was beyond furious. I was so hungry and felt all kinds of desires at the same time, which I felt the urge to satisfy immediately. Luckily, Melissa didn’t leave my sight for a minute and looked at me intensely while talking nonstop about what we had lived through together. All our wonderful moments. That she couldn’t lose another love.” Luke faced Alex directly. “You may know that she had been married barely a year, and on top of that, was pregnant when she had an accident with her bicycle. And during her transformation, the baby died.”
I threw an empathetic glance at Melissa, whose nostrils quivered slightly.
“She wasn’t ready to let go of her life and loved ones then. And now she was facing the same thing a second time. It seemed to be her fate to lose the ones who were important to her.” Luke pursed his lips. “She told me that I had to trust her, that she was still the same, only the circumstances were a little different.” He took a breath and continued, “I let her lead me out of the city. I felt like I was drunk because everything was swooshing by.” He gave a short laugh. “We ended up on a rock somewhere ahead of the coast.”
“There, I asked him over and over to promise me that he wouldn’t kill a human,” Melissa added to his recount. “He was a police officer. It was his job to save people.”
“I promised, although I didn’t know what I promised.” Luke turned his head and gazed into the distance. “On that rock, I felt more relaxed. No temptations around. I still was baffled about what exactly was happening, though. We stayed there for several days. Just sat there and talked. It was summer. It was still cold during the nights, but we both didn’t dare leave, and spent the nights huddled together.”
“When Luke felt ready to return to civilization, we also had to explain it to the others,” Melissa said. “And they still weren’t convinced that Luke would be able to contain himself.”
“Melissa fought for me – said that she’d watch me, train me, so to speak. That if I resisted once, I could do it the rest of the time, too. And so far, I have.” Luke smiled at us.
“Phew.” Alex stroked his fingers through his dark brown hair. “So, your birth wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.”
“No. And still, the initial irritations – like headaches from too many heartbeats – continue to bother me. Being a Siren is not always agreeable. That’s why I like it in quiet areas. It takes a huge amount of self-control to sit opposite of you and act so civilized.”
Alex smiled crookedly. “And our job now is to find the reason behind this safety barrier,” he said. “After hearing this, I’m also pretty sure that it has something to do with either your relationship to Melissa or the way she treated you. Perhaps a close mentor would be enough?”
“I don’t know.” Luke shook his head. “And this is not something we can find out by trial and error.”
Baffled silence filled the room.
Alex finally broke it. “We can hope that your DNA shows something we can use.”
“Yes,” Luke said. “Otherwise, we are walking into a dead end.”
Melissa got up and returned with a pile of paper. “I printed some flyers with our hospital’s official letterhead. It states some addresses of public bunkers and gives a fake explanation why the bunkers are safer from the flu than staying at home or walking around on the streets. This way, people might be less afraid to go and save themselves from the bombings.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Did the chief of the hospital really approve this?”
“I didn’t ask.” One corner of Melissa’s mouth lifted. “But who says it was me?”
Our eyes interlocked and we smiled. Even with the difficult task of facing Dr. Palmer, I felt a lot calmer because I had found my way back to Melissa and Luke. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I needed my new family, and in my heart, I knew they were good people. And even good people make mistakes sometimes.