The Siren's Dance by Amber Belldene Read Free Book Online Page B

the full force of his lungs.
    The tornado swallowed her name. It brooked no sound but its own deafening roar. But for all its churning energy, the swirling funnel stood perfectly vertical and still. He jogged toward it, even though his shoulders tensed and his skin prickled with the urge to run the hell away from the danger.
    “Anya!” How had Dmitri calmed her before? He’d told her to--“Breathe!”
    Silly, since clearly she had no actual lungs. But the wind flickered, possibly only in his imagination.
    “Do it again, Anya!”
    That time, the wind discernibly slowed. It still swirled, but now gently enough that he could make out her shape, just a silhouette within the cloud’s vapor. The sight of her, straight-backed and calm in the funnel, reminded him of a painting he’d once seen in a museum in Belgrade when he’d gone to a detective’s conference. A vila , a wind nymph, brandishing a bow and arrow and troubling some Serbian prince. Only Anya spun like a pirouetting ballerina instead of taking aim like an archer, graceful and terrifying.
    Sonya had said Anya was a rusalka , a vengeful water sprite, but this funnel cloud would beg to differ, though he didn’t precisely know what difference her breed of ghost made.
    There was bound to be some difference, because that’s how the damn fairytale logic worked. God, he hated this superstitious shit. But that wasn’t Anya’s fault.
    “One more breath,” he called out, “and then come get Gregor’s ring.”
    The tornado collapsed like a deflated balloon, and he lost sight of her in the melting wisps of cloud. Had she collapsed too? Had he lost her for good?
    A moment later, an icy breeze brushed against his fingers. He braced himself for her touch, knowing instinctively that it would be unpleasant--another thing his mother’s fairytales had taught him. Don’t cuddle with ghosts.
    On second thought, he took hold of the loop of packing twine her sister had fashioned so Anya could wear the enormous ring as a pendant. Threading his thumbs into the rough strand, he held it open, and seconds later, her fine-boned face appeared, her semi-nude, entirely svelte form next.
    He dropped the string and stepped back. “Hi.”
    She smiled, somewhat sheepishly, if such a thing were possible on a face set in such a permanent scowl. “Hi.”
    Her sudden demureness was enough to tickle the corners of his mouth with his own smile. “You’re not embarrassed, are you?”
    “Of course not. I’ve lost my shot at the national ballet. An audience of bumpkins to admire my tornado will have to satisfy me until we find Demyan.” She glanced around behind her, crossing her arms and shivering.
    “Lisko said you mean to talk to him.”
    “Yes.”
    “And that’s all? You don’t plan to start a tornado and suck him up into it?”
    She blinked, her dark brown eyes widening in surprise. “No. I didn’t even know I could do it until just now, before that, I’d only managed to stir up the wind. Fast sometimes, but not like that.”
    “I see.” And that much, he believed. In spite of her efforts to hide it, she’d been shaken.
    Sergey was an investigator. Long before this moment, he should have formed several working hypotheses about why she wanted to see the man who might be his own father. Yet, between Lisko on death’s door and a ghost appearing in the interrogation room, he’d been distracted. Also, she was pretty. But none of that was an excuse for the oversight. This case was personal.
    He needed to get his act together, draw on his expertise. Motives, at their core, were basic. They all boiled down to the three categories: greed, jealousy, and ego.
    Had Demyan taken something from her? Possessed something she wanted? Or wounded her pride in some unforgivable way? His cop’s intuition told him it was the last choice. It seemed the only thing worth holding a grudge over for so long. And if there was one thing this ghost seemed to have, it was pride.
    Of course, there was the