by Jess C Scott
[“Furniture by Michel Haillard” | Grand Home Design]
“While most mega-yachts are ‘vulgar’ statements of wealth and power, the interior design of the Mystère was designed to be in harmony with the sea and nature,” Aleksandra went on. “This boat has elegance and intelligence. It is not trying to show the money.”
Laer’s attention was fixed on the crocodile-skinned chairs. He thought he saw one part of the chair rear back and take the form of the crocodile’s head, as he heard the screams and cries of the animal as it was bludgeoned and skinned alive. The animal’s eyes were glistening.
The vivid image played out in Laer’s mind. No faking it. Those crocodile tears are real.
“Do you like animals?” Aleksandra asked. She admired the trophies on the wall when her teenage guests didn’t answer. “I do—nothing screams wild and luxe like exotic animal hides.”
Laer was close to throwing up, and it wasn’t because of the ocean waves.
“It’s…a…abuse,” he managed to stammer.
Aleksandra tossed her golden honey blonde hair back and tilted her chin up slightly, observing Laer from the tip of her nose. She gave a little shrug and a cold smile. “It isn’t animal abuse if the animal is dead.”
But that isn’t the case. A blinding anguish scorched Laer’s mind and seared his soul. You bloody well know it!
“I have a true passion for exotic-skin footwear and fashion accessories.” Aleksandra was proud of her fashion sense, as proud as she was of the floating paradise she and her husband loved to show off and throw parties on. “I love alligator and crocodile shoes and boots, belts, and wallets, as well as luggage, bags and furniture. Eel-skin is nice, ostrich as well, and stingray, sure...but my favorite is real, proper, sea turtle skin. My custom boots made of sea turtle belly hide—with a lambskin lining for summer and detachable mink lining for winter—is one of the crown jewels in my footwear collection. I can show it to you later.”
Aleksandra had a look her perfectly pedicured feet, before adding, “The bar lounge in the Mystère—bar stools, tables and lounge furniture—is upholstered entirely of alligator belly skin. I was included in every step of the design!”
A brilliant idea struck Aleksandra just then. She made a mental note to create bar stools covered in whale foreskin. She thought it’d be a good way to shock future guests.
Laer was thinking of setting off a round of explosives in the expensive yacht, but he realized it wasn’t the best move. It was too guerrilla, and wouldn’t humiliate or shame the Nikolics. He had to make a more sophisticated statement, to be taken a little more seriously by haute couture devotees who reveled in cold-blooded vanities to pass their time.
Arguing and activism didn’t interest Laer. He was clearly picturing a better way to make a statement. The energy he felt gathering within himself came as a surprise, like he was gaining a sense of some kind of new purpose in life.
“Sorry,” Laer whispered to Stefan from the back. “But I have to do what I have to do.”
He stood behind the unsuspecting Stefan, covering his friend’s eyes with his hands. “Lanta kaima’lova handasse.” The spell would keep Laer’s human friend asleep and unconscious for the next hour.
“Where’s Stefan?” Aleksandra called out, just as Laer turned around to face her with his piercing green eyes.
“Va, vine, viata,” he murmured, waving his hand toward the stunning silver snake arm band Aleksandra was wearing.
“Is Stefan all right?” Aleksandra inquired. The Elven words Laer was muttering were gibberish to her ears.
A chill ran through her lithe frame when she saw the absolute lack of any human warmth in Laer’s striking gaze. “Wh—”
She gave a bloodcurdling shriek as her hand went to her throat.
Laer stood still and watched as her eyes began to roll back—she was lying on the ground, convulsing, immobile after her snake arm band had come to life and slithered up her arm to bite her on the neck. Her blood was now poisoned and saturated with pure, undiluted mercury.
“I—” was all Andre managed to utter when he stepped into the room.
Laer waved his hand to the billionaire, who collapsed onto the ground alongside his former Yugoslavian pop-star wife once the silver snake had punctured his jugular vein too.
“Neuma en’ templa,” Laer chanted, to trap the 30-strong crew onboard in a sleep spell as well.
He had to work fast—he was simply not yet strong enough as a dark arts practitioner to keep a large group of people unconscious for an extended amount of time.
“Lietha guldur!” He dispelled the charm on the silver arm band. With a metallic clink, the snake band returned to its original form and stayed on the ground, unmoving, as Laer went forward to pick it up.
Once he’d disrupted the power grid of the yacht’s integrated surveillance system, Laer whistled as he worked, dreaming of skinning the Nikolics like how an animal was skinned, unfazed by the quick, unmessy murders he’d just committed.
“After all, it’s not abuse if the animal is dead…” he muttered over the Nikolics’s corpses.
But it was tricky to skin a human body. He didn’t have the time or knowledge to drain all the blood without making a big mess. He also didn’t know if he could undo any mistakes he might make, especially if it involved the removal of the head.
The young dark elf chose to strip and drag the bodies out instead, placing them on the grotesque Michel Haillard horned chairs covered in crocodile skin, with the tails that slunk out onto the floor.
The Nikolics’s stark nude bodies were displayed in the same fashion as the chairs, with their arms and legs resting on and splayed out the exact same way that the horns and tails on the chairs curled up and out.
“Two for the win.” Laer stood back, re-positioning the bodies a couple of times, admiring his precise handiwork, when he decided to add a few more things.
“Skalle,” he said, conjuring up two blood-spattered human skulls.
He placed one skull below the tiger and lion heads hanging on the wall—one human skull for each animal head—before having another flash of inspiration.
“Sk’aal’burdur,” he said as he snapped his fingers at the animal heads on the wall, replacing them with real-life replicas of the heads of the Nikolics.
“Skål,” Laer chuckled, enjoying the word play, holding one hand up like he was holding a wine glass. A Skål was a Scandinavian toast of friendship usually offered when drinking, as a casual toast. He toasted the moment to his first kills as a dark elf. It’d been worth it, and something to brag about if he ever felt like it.
Laer grabbed Aleksandra’s snake arm band, taking it as his trophy and souvenir, and as his future weapon of choice.
A thin smile appeared on Laer’s face as he looked upon the scene of his slaughter. Suddenly, the croc skins seemed to be shining even brighter than they had before. With each passing second, they were looking more and more alive under the pallid remains of Mr. and Mrs. Nikolic.
One more finishing touch, he said to himself.
He went over to their laptop, ran a quick search on how the fur trade worked, and printed out the paragraph:
“Fur items come from animals who spend their short, miserable lives in cramped, filthy cages until they are slaughtered, or they are trapped and beaten to death in the wild. Fur farmers and trappers often use the cheapest and cruelest killing methods available, including suffocation, electrocution, gassing, bludgeoning, drowning, and poisoning. Many animals are still alive and able to feel pain when workers begin to rip the skin off their bodies.”
Laer signed the paper off with “We (The Dead Animals) Are Watching You,” to infer to the authorities that it was the dead skins that had come to life and taken their revenge on the hard-partying socialites.
After scribbling one final thought that summed up his entire feelings on the exotic skins trade, Laer tacked the piece of paper onto the side of Aleksandra’s death-trapped face. He thought it was fitti
ng that she had died with her mouth open, akin to the head of the jaguar rug on obscene display in the middle of the room.
He carried the still-asleep Stefan over his shoulder and vacated the scene, getting into one of the Hov Pods stored aboard in the side tender garage of the Mystère. He had just enough manna left in him for the day to accelerate the motor and head back to shore, somewhere faraway from the luxury yacht and scene of the crime.
As he felt the delightfully warm sun and fresh breeze on his face, Laer thought of the line he’d written down at the last minute, in his small, neat handwriting:
We should all learn to feel comfortable in our own skins.
