Notes: Behold, it lives! I am so, so sorry for taking so long to update this, but I was sidetrack by many other projects. But here is the next installment, even if ridiculously late.

Even though Giovanni made sure that I didn't have his voice on tape, I did take some comfort in the fact that, at least, I knew what to do in order to stop these siren-mermaids. All I had to do was hope that the eight instruments hadn't been sold since I had last left that antique shop.

The slight hiccup in all of this was that my car was still up at the lake. I doubted that Giovanni would be willing to give me a ride to the antique shop, but, fortunate, the "shadow" that Wainwright had assigned me showed up at just the right moment, after all the business with Rausch was over and done with, of course…

"Hey, Kolchak!" Gorpley said, driving up. "There you are! How'd it go with Rausch? I heard you were brought in."

"Obviously, I got out," Kolchak responded.

"Where're you headed, then—back to the lake for more investigating?"

"No… Actually, if you can give me a ride to this little antique shop downtown, I'd appreciate it," Carl said, handing Gorpley the business card that the proprietor had given him earlier.

Gorpley's shoulder's slumped in disappointment.

"Antique shop?" he asked. "You're not going back to the lake to check out the story? Or at least get your car back?"

"And get on Rausch's bad side again? Nah," Carl bluffed. "I need to buy a thank-you present for one of my colleagues, Miss Emily—I have a feeling she's going to end up reviewing that Julius Caesar production instead of me."

Carl had been banking on Gorpley losing interest, and he was right; soon after Carl had darted inside the antique shop, Gorpley began to drive away. He eventually stopped at a parking garage and headed for a nearby bar, aiming to take the bus home after a few well-earned drinks at Happy Hour.

Gorpley didn't pay much attention to the man already sitting at the bar, drinking a glass of milk, of all things. He handed over his ID to the bartender, ordering a double bourbon, which he gladly accepted.

"Long day, Mr. Gorpley?" the bartender asked.

"Yeah. Been chasing after a fellow reporter trying to follow up on those disappearances at the lake. Shadowing him, you know? Helping him out on his story? He got sidetracked, so I figured I'd earned this before I head back to the Chronicle; I've got a bit of a backlog thanks to this guy."

"…You work for the Chronicle?" the milk-drinking man asked, arching an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Yeah."

"That's Wainwright's paper, isn't it?" the man continued. "You and this other guy both work there?"

"Nah; we're trying to convince the other guy to join us," Gorpley said, without thinking about it. "He works for some cheap wire service that doesn't appreciate his journalistic skills, so we're offering a friendly hand."

"Is that so…?" the man asked. "Well, can you do me a favor? The next time you see Wainwright, can you give him a message?"

"Sure; what do you want me to tell him?"

"Tell him to keep his mitts off of my staff!" the milk-drinking man barked, a look of annoyed rage crossing his face.

Gorpley nearly choked on his bourbon as he finally realized just who he was sitting next to.

"You… You're Vincenzo," he realized, and promptly did his best to backtrack. "Look, Mr. Vincenzo, I was just—"

"Don't both trying to explain; you just sidle back to Wainwright and tell him what I told you," Tony ordered. "I know that he's been having people go dumpster-diving for Carl's stories, and now he wants to hire him. And so he's using you to try to convince Carl to take the job, huh? If you're supposed to be shadowing him and helping him out, how come you weren't arrested along with Carl this afternoon when Rausch brought him in for obstruction? How'd you miss that?"

"I… wasn't there?" Gorpley asked.

"Yeah, interesting that you skipped getting brought in when you're supposed to be a shadow…" Tony pointed out.

"Look, Kolchak said he wanted to go up to the lake alone; I decided that if he wanted to cross Rausch, who was I to stop him? Anyway, you can relax; I think he's done with all that stuff about the lake."

"You don't know Carl Kolchak," Tony muttered. "Unless he's solved the case, he's not done with it."

"Yeah, well, he's in some antique shop right now; you can ask him yourself," Gorpley said, handing Tony the business card that Carl had given him. "I'm telling you—he's out shopping right now!"

If he had been hoping that the card would distract Tony from him, he was right; the editor recognized the name from the shop that had distracted Carl the previous evening. Knowing that Carl Kolchak would certainly not be shopping while unexplainable goings-on were still happening, Tony quickly paid the bartender and left as Gorpley heaved a sigh of relief and ordered another drink.

Tony, on the other hand, proceeded to drive to the antique shop. He paused outside as he noticed an empty display area; he could've sworn that there had been a display the previous evening…

Pushing the thought aside, Tony entered the shop, hoping that Carl would still be there. A quick glance revealed that he was not; Tony must have just missed him.

Like Carl, Tony did a double-take as he noticed the bored shop owner chewing bubble gum as she leaned against the counter, counting out some money. She looked up as Tony closed the door behind him, looking surprised.

"Another customer?" she marveled aloud. "Lucky me. Looks like the fortunes of this place are changing."

"Er… I'm not here to buy anything," Tony said.

"Oh." She returned to counting the money.

"I just wanted to know if you saw a guy in a seersucker suit and a beaten-up hat," Tony said.

"Yeah; he just brought me my first revenue in a long time," she said, holding up the money she was counting. "He gave me four hundred bucks for eight instruments that someone left here the other day."

"Four hundred bucks!?" Tony exclaimed. "What's he doing, throwing money around like that!? He can't afford to be spending that kind of money! I can't even afford to be spending that kind of money—not on a few instruments!"

"For four hundred bucks, I don't ask questions; I just sell the merchandise," the girl said. "He paid in cash, too. I never had those things appraised; if they were worth something, I'd have asked for more, since they were in great condition. But since I didn't know how much they were, I couldn't really feel good about asking for more than four hundred. And I made it very clear to him that if he got them appraised and found out that they were worthless, I wasn't giving his money back. That's the risk he was going to take since I don't know what I should've sold them for."

"Great. Just great," Tony sighed. "He's going to get himself into more trouble with all of this, I just know it. What does he want with eight antique instruments, anyway? He's no musician!"

"I told you, I don't ask people why they want to buy the merchandise," the proprietor replied. "All I know is that he was in a hurry to take those Instruments of the Sirens up to the lake."

"Yeah? Well, with all the stuff that's been going on up at that lake…" Tony trailed off as he registered what she had just said. "Instruments of the Sirens?"

"That's what they are, apparently," she said. "The man who donated them to the shop insisted that they were called that. I tried to research them, of course, but I didn't find any information on them."

"…Sirens. The lake. Oh, no. He wouldn't…" Tony sighed, a look of resignation on his face. "Who am I kidding? Of course he would."

"I'm not going to pretend that I know what you're talking about," the shop owner said. "But if it'll help, he left probably five minutes before you got here, so you might catch up with him if you're lucky. I should let you know that we have a strict 'No Refund' policy, so even if you find him, I can't give him the money."

"I'm not worried about that now," Tony insisted. "Right now, I'm worried about him losing more than four hundred bucks!" He darted for the door, but paused on his way out. "Ah, thanks."

Without waiting for a reply, he left, leaving the shop owner to merely shrug at the weirdness that had just occurred.

Carl, in the meantime, had been relieved to find out that the Instruments of the Sirens had been untouched since his last visit to the shop. Of course, the probability of someone else buying the instruments within twenty-four hours had been low, but knowing his luck, Carl was willing to enjoy the little victories as they came. A bit of haggling got him all of the instruments at fifty dollars apiece, with a large sack thrown in free of charge; though four hundred dollars would set him back in his personal finances for a while, he decided that it would be worth it if it meant that the siren-mermaid hybrids in the lake would stop taking middle-aged boaters and fishers.

Another little victory was won when Carl found out that he still had just enough money for a cab ride back to the lake. The cabbie gave Carl a skeptical look as he saw him carrying a large sack, but finally agreed to take him.

Rausch was nowhere in sight—little victory number three. The few officials who were there to continue combing over the scene were too absorbed to notice what Carl was up to as he carefully made his way to the boat rental dock.

The first real snag in the plan occurred when Carl attempted to rent a boat at the dock. The instruments and the cab ride had wiped out Carl's cash reserves, and his credit card was rejected. It took a bit of pleading, but he managed to convince the dock owner to let him pay by check—requesting that he wait a few days before cashing it.

After making sure that he was still being unobserved, Carl took the boat out onto the water of the lake.

"Alright, Ladies," he said, quietly. "You can show up whenever you like. I've got some things here I think you've been waiting for."

There didn't seem to be anything at first, however; the only noises seemed to be from the shore. Sighing, Carl turned on his tape recorder and placed it back in his pocket, hoping he could pick up something of the Siren Song.

Several minutes ticked by, but nothing appeared in the water. Only the reflection of the waning gibbous moon was visible. It was then that a thought occurred to him; perhaps the sound of the instruments themselves would draw the siren-mermaids out. Slowly, he unloaded the instruments from the sack onto the boat. They seemed to glow under the moonlight, leading Carl to wonder just what they were made of.

He picked up the conch shell, and then decided against using that; the sound would carry all the way to the investigators, which was something he could do without. Placing the shell back in the boat, he picked up the small harp instead and began to pluck out a random tune on the strings.

To Carl's amazement, after he began to strum on the harp, the strings began to vibrate on their own before playing a brief tune that lasted all of twenty seconds.

"What the…?" he began, before trailing off as another sound appeared—a familiar one… one he had been waiting to hear.

"O, ye who dwells upon the land…"

The harp slipped from Carl's hands and landed back in the boat beside the other instruments, beginning to play quietly on its own again as the reporter turned in the direction of the voice. There she was, her face looking up at him from just beneath the surface of the water—the same siren-mermaid who had approached him both the previous day and earlier that same day. Her warm eyes were fixed on him as her lips moved with every word she sang, and the moonlight glistened and danced off of the numerous pieces of jewelry she was wearing. There were other shapes in the water, swimming around her, all looking similar—humanoid, but with a long, aquatic tail, and soon their voices began to harmonize as the first siren-mermaid continued with the melody.

Every thought of what Carl had to do vanished—even though the instruments were right there in front of him and would have ended the whole mess in an instant. There was one part of his plan that he hadn't fully thought out, despite his brief glimpses of the siren-mermaids earlier; though he dealt with the supernatural a lot, Carl Kolchak was merely human—and was just as susceptible to the song as any other man.

His purpose forgotten, Carl continued to stare in wonder as the siren-mermaid singing the melody now extended a dainty hand from the water; rings decorated her fingers and bracelets adorned her wrist.

Slowly, Carl extended his own hand towards hers. A moment after their hands touched, the reporter found himself yanked off of the boat, plunging into the water.