The water tests my resolve, as it does every night when I turn away from the flagrant parties, gambling, and prying eyes in the casino. The water calls to me, promises me eternal life as a siren. Rather than the kind of woman that’s leered at and called a ‘discount doll’, I’d have a mouth filled with teeth that would put alligators to shame. I’d be the kind of woman who could rip into men without knives or a harpoon gun and ask if I’m just as pretty dressed in sea foam and their still warm blood.
I stretch, dipping one toe into the manmade lake that creates the end of Mirage Marina. I know how to swim, but my parents and locals whisper about monsters lurking below the placid surface, monsters that greet newcomers with a bite that won’t be forgotten and heaven help you if they like the taste.
Predators in the Dark
What if I bit first? What if I don’t believe in heaven? What if I believe in blood letting and the vicious beauty of the old gods and want to tempt some creature below to give me their power so I can become amphibious, a woman so far beyond what any would expect that I can-
“Look, the discount doll of Mirage Marina,” a skeevy voice purrs. “Does your daddy know you’re out here and not spinning the roulette wheel?”
“Does my father know that your hands wander when I stand there?” I ask, meeting his eyes without fear. “Do you think he’d pay you if he knew all the things you’ve tried to steal.”
“It’s not theft if you give it up willingly. And when you see what we’re working with, you will. You’ll spread those pretty legs and welcome us both, see if your little body can take us at the same time,” one of the men says.
“Or if we’ll break you. You are a discount doll. No pretty eyes or training,” the other says.
I turn around, stand up, then look between them. Once a week these Core snakes slither into the Marina. All the lights turn on for them since all of us here have our eyes on their pockets and the money they provide. They think because we smile and offer up drugs, because we understand the allure of parties and scant clothing we’re lost in the haze of our own design.
They’re wrong. We make the Core look cozy, their politicians look honest, and their greed look like a child’s temper tantrum. A person can’t thrive in the marina unless they’ve committed enough sins to become a demon and know how to inspire that same addiction and love of terror in others.
No, I’m not a doll, I’m a fucking nightmare and these men will learn why my father pulled me from the roulette table, why I’m not allowed to deal poker, why I’m not even fit for the stage without a cuff around my wrist attaching me to the pole.
“You miss me at the club?” I ask them both.
“Miss you plenty, but the club isn’t required. I hate all the ways you’re kept from us,” one man answers.
“What wording?” I tease.
“We’re kept from you. Never allowed to touch, to taste, to … enjoy,” the other says, looking me over hungrily.
Ah, they feast with their eyes, not their mind. If they even have a mind. They won’t when I’m done with them. I’ll rip their skulls apart, crush them under the weight of my past sins and feast on the knowledge they keep locked in their pretty heads.
“And what am I worth to you?” I ask.
“Who’s going to stop us? It’s all dark on the dock and no one’s looking for you,” one of the guys says, cutting off my escape. As if escape is on my mind. I’m thinking of food.
“You’re fishing for me,” I counter. “With very flashy bait.”
One of the men grabs me and I fling him into the water. Those in the Core don’t swim. As a rule. They don’t have the lungs, the muscle, the need. Why swim when you can pay to put up pretty docks to keep them from the water?
“What the fuck!” The second man says, shoving by me to go to his friend. “You’re going to pay.”
“And you’ll be chum,” I reply with a smile. I pull my knife from my boot, slip out of both boots, and slit both the man’s ankles from the back, ensuring that his feet are useless. Then he’s shoved in with his friend. I watch from above as the monsters below, my constant friends, come calling. I lick the knife free of blood. “One day, they’ll give me gills too. They’ll accept the right offering, pull me in and let me join them.”
“You’re insane! You’re fucking insane!” The one man says. “Max!”
Beneath the Waves
I watch as they struggle, failing buoys that bob and bob, slipping deeper into the starving water, my own cemetery without a stone for anyone. I lay down on the dock, watching as they sputter and spit their bloody water from between gnashing teeth. Even as the water sucks them deeper, as the monsters beneath flash their fins and nip at the men, they spit and hiss at me.
“You bitch! Get us out of here or … Or …”
“Or what?” I ask, dangling the knife over them. “You’ll drown right there. I pull you out, that’s breaking my deal and welcoming you to sink your teeth into me, to ruin me, to own me. I’m not owned by anyone.”
One of the men grabs onto the wooden pole that keeps the dock up. It won’t save him. I’ve seen this before. I bring the knife down on his fingers, removing four. The smaller fish eagerly steal their new snacks and hurry off.
I turn on a torch to call the big ones, the monsters that people only experience in their nightmares, the one that make them swear away water and cling to their bed like it’s a life raft that will save them from what’s below, but the water is never far and I love my beasties. I love their sharp teeth, their stingers that burn through bodies until a person wishes for death itself. I love their tentacles with sharpened barbs that grasp and don’t let go. What is love without some bloodshed and death? What is hunger if a creature won’t kill to get what they need?
Those beasts understand the pace and emotions we humans only pretend to have. Need, desire, hunger, determination, my beasts and me … we know the price for living is always paid in another’s blood if done right and the only thing to lose is life. What’s death other than a chance to stop swimming for a bit, to rest, to regain some energy, then come back with more knowledge and more ability to murder, to satisfy that constant hunger, to inspire fear and stories that will outlive every life?
“Come, come, sweet beasties,” I sing. “Come and calm your teeth. No hunger will last. Stomach pangs are past. Feed and take me with you. Take me and make me … one of you.”
“She’s fucking insane!” One of the men screams, but his friend is too busy screaming.
I moan as the screams wash over me, drowning the sounds of the casino and club, drowning out every sense of humanity. Those screams are sharp and primal, they’re real. Every pretty compliment and pretty sentence I’ve heard is fake. The way people dress and act as they’re expected to is purely smoke and mirrors as they used to say.
We’ve come too far from what we were meant to be. Bloodthirsty, demanding, eager creatures who take what they want within their alliances. Creatures who feed, take, who claim what they need without pretending to feel shame or guilt for doing what it takes to survive.
We’re all animals once we strip away the fancy clothes and enforced rules. We’re just animals trying to pretend we’re more even though we constantly fill our hands with weapons to make up for our lack of claws and learn what to say to rip a jugular out, leaving an empty husk of a person in our wake. Our words, our guns, our knives, our poisons, they’re all a reminder that we’re not as domesticated and tame as we want to think. I simply don’t hide it.
“Help me up!” The one struggling man demands as he climbs up. He’s the first one I pushed in. His friend is nothing but a corpse, being fed up on by the monsters as his eyes roll back, showing the whites as beautiful as the moon. “Help me up!”
“Don’t you understand?” I ask, completely confused why he’s still fighting.
“It … it was just an accident. And if you save me, then you’re a hero. So save me! Cassandra! Save me,” he begs.
“You do know my name. I thought I was a discount doll. I thought I was a bitch,” I sigh.
“Cassandra! I’m … I’m one of your father’s partners! If I die, think of the connections he’ll lose. The money, the … the everything. He’ll be so furious that he throws you in too,” he yells, trying to pull his feet up as something hisses below him.
I lean closer to him and put the knife at his throat. It glints in the yellow light of the lantern, shining into his face until I see his fear in the knife. He has no power, no real power. He uses his wealth as a shield for all the true terror in the world, but he’s penniless where it counts. He’s empty, moving through life as a ghost of what he could be.
If I was as large as him, I could be a beast. I’d be feared for reasons beyond siccing real terrors on others. I wouldn’t rely on money, I’d rely on my hands, my teeth, make myself into something that makes other skitter away. I can see myself walking through the fringe with those drugged zombies suddenly remembering religion as they get down on their knees to lick and kiss my shoes. They’ll beg for me to teach them my ways, worshiping me as a force of nature, an old being that climbed from the water to remind the world that while the waters are calm on the surface, those below will always rise to feed.
“Please! If you don’t save me, he’ll throw you in next. He will. He’ll see you for the monster you are and toss your ass right here!” the man yells as he kicks another monster away from him.
I lean closer, the flat side of the knife pressing against the pulse that’s obviously throbbing in his throat. I grin. “Promise?”
His eyes widen as I drag the knife across, giving him a second smile. This one is ear to ear, forever … or at least until he’s ruined beyond recognition. His blood warms my face, sprays across my eyes.
It’s the law of give and take and when he splashes below, the final sound proves that I’m the only evidence he ever lived. When I clean the blood off my face, burn my clothing, and forget everything but his final smile, he’ll be gone forever. He’ll exist in the belly of the beasts below. He’ll exist in my fantasies when I’m the one eating him rather than serving him up, raw and panicking in his own mortality.
“One day,” I say as a set of luminous eyes light the water before the monster’s bioluminescence lights along it’s long, eel-like body. I reach a hand down and touch it’s head. It lifts into my hand, it’s slippery body moving against my fingers. It’s the creature’s will, not mine that makes this possible. I close my eyes as it lifts itself from the water and presses it’s forehead to mine. “One day, we’ll be together.”
Bound to the Pole
The creature nips at my jaw, then disappears back into the water. Everything in life is balance. Life and death, action and consequence, prey and predator. I helped the creature when a few fisherman wanted it dead. They served to save my beastie. I fed them to my beast, made sure it was patched up from the hook lodged through it’s jaw, and it hasn’t forgotten. Neither have I. It tasted my blood, left me with a tooth.
The scar on the inside of my thigh burns as I sit back. I dangle my feet over the edge just as another girl comes up to me. “Cassandra?”
“I’m with my beasties,” I say.
“Sure you are,” she snorts. She rolls her eyes. They don’t believe me. They never believe me. I’ve told them I’ve killed people when they’ve asked about their regulars and am dismissed as if my truth is merely a show. “It’s your turn on stage.”
“I’d rather be a mermaid. I’d sink ships,” I whisper.
“Yeah, yeah,” the girl helps me up. “Come on. I’ll lock you to the pole so they can’t touch you.”
It’s not for me, it’s for them. My father knows. Of course he knows. He’s not stupid. He knows I don’t lie because lying is stupid. He saw the fresh wound on my thigh and he knows that the bite infected me in a way that medicine can’t explain.
My thoughts keep me busy as I dance, not that the men need any encouragement. Throw a woman in body paint and a thong in front of them and they aren’t going to care about that woman’s face. My eyes flick in their direction, but I don’t see them.
There are eyes and mouths and greedy hands that want to grab me tossing dollars instead. They too cloak what they are. If I danced in front of my beast, it would take me, break the cuff and carry me away. If a man dangled in front of me, tried to tempt me, I’d do as I wanted. He’d rejoice until my hunger struck.
Father’s Fury
My mouth waters and then the lights on me darken. Another girl takes up dancing on another stage, all the lights on her, and like minnows, the men flock to her with the promise of pleasure and the briefest glimpse of a meal that could fill them if only they could touch. I eye their necks, their pulses.
How many more can I sacrifice before I’m locked away or tossed in, left to swim.
Promise? My one whispered question echoes in my ears until I realize my mouth is moving to the word. Someone jerks me up and I see my father. “Where are Max and Stark?”
“I don’t know who they are,” I answer, as demure and innocent as the daughter he used to know, the one he taught to swim and fish, the one he held on his shoulders so she could see the horizon and giggle as she moved it further and further back over the lake until it became an ocean.
“Don’t play this game with me, Cassandra,” my father snarls as he jerks me by the cuff through the back and to his office. He knows I don’t care about the ones. The waitresses will get them.
“It’s not a game. Who are they?” I ask.
He motions to my face, then slaps me. My head turns down, but my eyes stay on him. He takes a step back. “Don’t do this. I’ve let you … deal with things as you’ve seen fit for how long now? I’ve swept it under the rug. You can’t show up to dance with blood on your face.”
“No one noticed,” I say calmly.
“I noticed. Others will notice. This isn’t the fucking Fringe. We need people. You can’t keep killing them and …”
“They’re predators. Only those that think they can just have me are sacrificed. I wish I could eat them just like the beasts do.”
“There are no beasts!” My father yells. “There’s nothing in that water but small fish! You made that scar on your thigh yourself! You have ruined all endeavors to go deeper into the lake! You can’t continue this lunacy!”
“I’m not insane. They’re real! I’m just like them. They told me so!” I yell back.
I wipe my thigh to show my father the scar. It looks like someone stabbed me over and over again in the shape of a mouth, but I couldn’t have stabbed the back of my thigh and I’ve seen those. I stand up and show my father the imprint of the open maw that gripped me and let me live.
“I’ve been chosen.”
“You’re insane and I can’t keep locking you to the pole and refusing to allow you to dance privately so you don’t bite the guests. We’ve worked too hard for this.”
“I’m not lying!” I scream.
My father looks at me. My teeth are so rattled by my scream that they feel loose. I’m so close to becoming a beast. I can pry my teeth from my skull to make room for the dagger-like fangs I’m meant to have.
My father and I stare at each other as I pant. I grip the pen on his desk and his eyes flick down. I see fear in his gaze. He’s prey, nothing but prey and my job, my whole existence as predator rests on being better than anyone who would do me harm. I have to be faster, stronger, and resist every urge to hesitate. I can’t harm like most humans. There’s no option to protect myself, it’s kill or be killed. Kill or become nothing but a stain that’s easily cleaned up.
I’m no stain. I’m no delicate ‘discount doll’. I’m not the daughter of the man who pulls casinos from the ocean and calls his dancers Sirens and lets people touch the women who spin roulette wheels and deal hands of poker. I’m a beast with teeth I’ll sharpen myself, with the drive to survive and the ability to drink the water that would fill the lungs of a lesser person.
“I’m a beast,” I snarl. “People will hear me. They won’t be able to ignore me anymore, Dad. They’ll taste the blood in the water that I put there. They’ll hear the screams of the people I eat. They’ll believe it when I say the monsters are real. They’ll believe it when I show them that I’m one of them.”
My father cowers back. “You’re not my daughter.”
“You made me the lake and all the monsters under it. Stand in my way and I’ll make sure there’s nothing of you to bury,” I snarl. “Give me a list of people you like enough to die for and maybe I’ll leave them.”
My father glances to the side and shakes his head. “You belong in the Fringes. You belong in the Deadlands!”
“I’ll eat everyone there too,” I promise while licking my lips. “All I need is a reason or an empty belly. Are you going to give me either?”
