Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

She met his question with a gaze that was impossible to read. It made him uncomfortable, needlessly defensive. “It’s perfectly safe,” he assured her. “I’ll show you—”

She knelt again at the spot where she’d been working and began to make notes on a pad. The wind was rising now. Tendrils of her hair pulled loose from the braid and brushed her cheek.

He watched her, wondering what he’d done wrong. Had he offended her? No, he decided, she was just playing the game. She liked being pursued, and she was well worth pursuing.

He knelt beside her. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do? I’ve always wanted to make love outdoors during a storm.” He nodded toward one of the large mesquites farther up the wash. “Perhaps… under that tree.”

Liora didn’t look up from her notes, but a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play in washes? She didn’t tell you la llorona would get you?”

La llorona, the wailing one. He hadn’t thought of her in years. The spirit who haunted the washes, a Latino Medea, grieving the children she’d murdered, and searching for others to take in their stead.

“Not my mother,” he told Liora. “My abuelita. Every time the wind rose, she was sure it was la llorona calling for me.”

Liora’s black eyes bored through him. “Like now?”

His grandmother’s healings were one thing, her stories quite another. Even as a child, he’d been skeptical of them. La llorona was no more real than the bogey man or Santa Claus. But here in this wash with the clouds darkening and the wind keening through the trees…

“Maybe she is calling you,” Liora said. She tucked the pad into her pack and stood up. “You’re the hydrologist. You ought to know it’s not a good idea to hang out in a wash with rain coming.” She started toward her vehicle. “It sweeps things away, Enrique.”

“Thank you for explaining that,” he said curtly. The last thing he needed was an archeologist lecturing him about floods.

He caught up with her as she reached the Jeep. “You didn’t give me an answer,” he said. “How about going out? Just until you return to Mexico?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? A relationship with a pre-arranged date of termination. Clean, finite. Saves on all those messy break-ups.”

“Why are you twisting around my words?” he asked, exasperated. “I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just trying to ask you for a date.”

“It’s not a good idea,” she said.

“Well, if it’s such a bad idea, then why did you bring me ‘a gift’ all the way from Jerusalem? Why’d you bother to call at all? Is this some kind of payback?”

“For what?” Liora asked, seeming genuinely surprised. “You and I had a fine time together.”

“That’s what I thought.” He was going to ask if she was teasing him, but the calm in her eyes told him that she wasn’t. “So… why the souvenir?”

“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” Liora asked.

The chill was back, racing through him like a disease. They were still in high summer. Since nine this morning, the mercury had hovered near 103. And he could see goose bumps on his arms. He forced himself to speak normally. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re the perfect candidate.”

It was all he could do not to shake her. “Liora—”

“I can’t tell you everything,” she said, cutting him off. “If I did, you wouldn’t believe me. But the statue, it’s meant as a warning of sorts.”

“A warning,” he repeated blankly.

“She is very ancient. The Babylonians called her ardat lili, the ‘maid of desolation’… not so dissimilar to la llorona.”

“My grandmother isn’t even dead yet and she’s haunting me,” he muttered.

“The ancient Hebrews called her Lilith, the word for screech owl. They said she was Adam’s first wife, even before Eve. They said that she would not submit to Adam’s will, and so she fled from the Garden of Eden to a cave on the shore of the Red Sea. There she mated with demons and gave birth to all the evil spirits in the world.”

Enrique stared at her wordlessly. The last thing he’d expected was biblical fairy tales.

Liora went on, “According to Hebrew legend, she was a shape shifter, who often took the form of a cat or an owl. And like la llorona, she was a baby killer—though she was typically said to take children in the first week of life. Right up through the Middle Ages, the Jews regularly used amulets that invoked the angels to protect their children from her. She is also known as a night demon and a seductress, who preyed on men who slept alone, who possessed them and drove them mad. She—”

“Why are you telling me all this?” he broke in.

“You wanted to know about the statue.”

He shook his head, weary of explanations. “Forget the goddamned statue. Just tell me whether you’ll go out with me.”

“I can’t,” Liora said. “You’re not for me anymore, Enrique. You already belong to someone else.”