Karma's Spell (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 1), Lacey Andersen [best book club books .txt] 📗

though, so I glanced at my friends, all of whom looked just as shocked as me. None of us had expected this. None of us thought Henry was a killer either. In all our planning, we’d only discussed being able to reason with the sirens if he hurt one of them. The ladies had said that the sirens were crueler than the vampires and the shifters, but even they might hesitate to sacrifice a human who had ties to the supernatural world.

But in the books I’d read stories about people who had killed sirens. None of them survived once the other sirens found out. And the other supernaturals seemed to accept that one life for another was a fair exchange. I didn’t think my friends would be able to stop the sirens if Henry had killed someone. I wasn’t even sure if Karma could.

Now we just had to find out if it was true.

20

Emma

“Hold up.” I held my hands in the air. “That’s not possible.”

“If he actually killed a siren, he has to die. This is an ancient pact made between immortals to keep the peace. There’s no way out of it.” Beth's words were like daggers to my heart, each one of them.

I took a deep breath. There was no way Henry intentionally hurt someone. I knew it, knew my brother, and I wouldn't doubt him just because some fish lady said so.

The people—sirens?—in the boat pulled Henry out and carried him onto the shore, over the rocks. Now that I looked at them, the rocks lined the beach in a straight, perfect line. Like they were intentionally placed. They set him on his feet and maneuvered him toward us, presenting him to the siren in charge.

The men who carried Henry took off the black bag that covered his head and backed away, bowing slightly to the women. “Male sirens are submissive,” Deva whispered.

Clearly.

“You must state your side of the events,” she said, looking down at my brother somehow, even though he was a little taller than her. Her expression said she thought of him like something gross she'd stepped in. “It is our way.”

Henry was clearly terrified. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind and had blood dried to his face. What had they done to him? The thought of them hurting my brother made a sob catch in my throat. Somehow, through all of this, I hadn’t wanted to think about what he was going through during our search. Maybe it was because my brain just couldn’t handle it, but now it was all I could think about.

That, and what would happen next. These people might think that if he killed someone his life would be forfeit, but Karma or no, I wouldn’t let him be hurt. No matter what I had to do to stop it from happening.

“Speak!” the siren shouted, her eyes filled with fury.

My brother’s gaze met mine. I swallowed down the sob building in my throat and steeled my face. If he saw I wasn’t worried, I hoped it would give him the strength to explain himself, which was something he wasn’t normally good at.

“Deep breath,” I whispered.

He took a deep breath and a little of the panic eased from his expression.

“It was an accident,” he began slowly, but with an edge of fear in his voice. “The vampires and shifters were chasing me, and a siren jumped out at me. I reacted by punching him. In the dark, I didn’t even know he wasn’t one of the people trying to hurt me. He fell back and hit his head and I didn’t know it. But he died. I didn’t know until they came and got me at home.”

Henry's eyes were wild, and he tried to take a step toward me only to have the cord that bound his hands yanked on by one of the male sirens. It pulled him toward the male siren, making him stumble and almost fall.

The longer I looked at him the angrier I got. I understood grief, I knew the anger and denial and rage that it came with, but that was no excuse to execute someone for an accident. He'd been in these clothes for days and judging from the dirt and blood caked on his skin and the way his hair stuck up at various angles they hadn't given him a chance to clean himself. He looked bewildered by everything and as though he was about to pass out. I wasn't sure whether it was from fear or lack of food and water, since I was fairly sure they hadn't exactly been keeping him in good conditions.

“You left him to die,” one of the sirens in the crowd said.

“Silence,” the siren queen called. “Now we’ve heard the truth from your own mouth.”

The siren queen turned to me. “You see? There is nothing you can do.”

“No!” I screamed. Surging forward, I pushed past the two males that had been blocking the path and threw myself in front of Henry. “I didn’t make the pact. It was an accident. I won’t let this happen!”

The females seemed to just add me to the list of problems to be solved via murder. They formed a circle around us all, tightening it as they pushed my friends toward Henry and me. The female sirens all pulled out sacrificial daggers from belts I hadn't even noticed before, probably because I was too busy trying to keep my eyes on their faces or something equally polite like that.

The blades were curved in a wicked way on one end. There must have been a handle bit in the middle because the other end was a flat, short blade. The short end reminded me of what people used for shucking clams and oysters, while the other end looked like something out of one of Henry's video games. It looked excessively nasty.

Once they had all drawn their blades they began to speak, all at once. Creepy as