Waltzing into Damnation

by Rita Stradling

  Thankfully, from what I can see of the pool, there are only crewmembers. In assorted colorful bathing suits, they gather around a large inflated orange and green raft. Theo's familiar form and strangely flowing green hair is immediately recognizable within the small crowd of bathing suit clad crewmembers.

  Stepping to the pool's edge, I glance around and then spin to my sister. I whisper, “Okay, you take the towel, and I'll jump in right away.”

  “Uh, Raven, Nicholas is acting weird.” She maneuvers Nicholas under one arm, but the bunny barely seems to notice, as if he’s vigilant to some predator. His little rabbit body holds rigid. He looks more tense than I've ever seen him as a rabbit.

  “Nicholas?” I ask, reaching to pet his head.

  He doesn't look at me as I say his name. His attention stays fastened to the windows we just passed.

  Suddenly, Nicholas starts kicking Linnie, wriggling and pushing, desperate to get out of her arms.

  “Nicholas? Nicholas? What--” Linnie tries in vain to hold on to the small wiggling rabbit, but with a smack to her face, he leaps out of her arms and runs across the pool deck.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Two Days Before

  As Nicholas’ small cotton tail vanishes into the crowd of passengers, Linnie spins to me, terror falls over her features, and she hops in place. “Do I… do I go after him?”

  “I'll do it.” Grabbing a handful of my towel, I bolt forward, but Linnie grabs my arm.

  “Raven, your . . .” She nods down to my bathing suit where the red straps slipped out. “I’ll go, okay? You do what you have to do, and I’ll be right back. I can handle this.”

  I hesitate, biting my lip and thinking she probably can’t handle this, but Linnie doesn’t give me time to argue more. She runs off after the bunny and disappears into the demon crowd.

  Running after my sister and Nicholas would only put them and this mission in more danger, but oh, how I want to. My legs literally itch to run. I’m just about to do it when I realize there’s a very real possibility turning away from the pool could be considered by Barbas as turning away from my quest. As little as I want to resign myself to letting my sister fend for herself in a boat full of demons, I quickly set the towel down on the pool's edge and slip into the lapping warm water.

  Water splashes against my chin as I duck most of the way under the surface. Feeling like I’m doing a real good impression of an alligator with only part of my head above the water, I approach the crowd. They work, tying ropes to the raft. Shaped like a large orange cone, it towers several feet over the surface of the water. Under the cone, another thicker neon-yellow raft sits as a foundation, buoying in the water.

  “Everyone,” Theo calls out in her melodic but clear voice. “Grab a rope.” She gestures to the yellow and black ropes webbed around the humungous inflatable. “Imagine you are in the open seas. This will not be an easy task. Make sure you do not tip over the raft.”

  Like the rest of the crew, I swim to the raft, trying to insert myself next to Theo. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one who wants to be close to the beautiful instructor.

  A large, hairy man who looks like he could bench-press me with one hand shoves me over as I try to grab the rope by Theo. He inserts himself between us, and so as not to make a scene, I only reciprocate with a glower. Theo continues to call out her instructions, telling us the only way we can all manage the raft and to safety on the open seas is if we work together. She says if we all only fend for ourselves, we’ll never get in. I’m pretty sure my hairy neighbor doesn't get the message because he immediately attempts to muscle his way forward and upends the raft, wasting precious minutes where we all have to right it together.

  Thirty minutes in, I want to scream. Looking over my shoulder for the millionth time, I try to catch some sight of Linnie, Nicholas or Cassidy. Nothing. This all feels so stupid and pointless, as I’m learning how to board a life raft I’ll never need to take while getting no closer to talking to Theo.

  When we finally have the boat ready to board again, Theo repeats her instructions, likely only for annoying Mr. Brutish and Hairy next to me. All together, we use the ropes to launch ourselves out of the pool and grab on to the holes evenly dispersed around the cone-top of the raft. I push myself through the little hole, finding it a tight fit, and I can’t help wondering how the big man beside me is possibly squeezing through. Little light ventures inside the raft as I push through. Inside, immediately thirty bodies crowd in around me. Limbs narrowly miss my face, and people wedge against both of my sides. They’re too close, and the smell is a mixture of body odor, chlorine, and plastic.

  Theo calls out, “I know this is a tight fit, but there will be at least ten more people per raft. So, try to get comfortable.”

  Her words are met with muffled laughter and groans of displeasure. I attempt to scoot closer to the direction of her voice.

  “Um, Theo,” I call over as I press my hand into the plastic and peer past Mr. Hairy. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  There could not possibly be a less private moment to speak to her, but I also know it might be my only opportunity ever.

  Large and Hairy, whose entire body length presses against mine, growls, “I'm out of here!”

  “Wait, wait, we have to all dismount the raft at the same time, or it will flip,” Theo calls out, but the man isn't listening.

  He flails and kicks, fighting his way out of the raft’s interior. Somehow, he gets a handful of my hair and pulls it along with him.

  Grabbing the strands, I yank back and push the man toward the side, hoping to help him on his journey. Unfortunately, he must think I’m attempting to prevent him from leaving, as he lashes out, smacking me on my cheek. Covering my face, I just manage to restrain my instinct to kick him.

  Some man cries out, “Fight!”

  All the raft’s passengers start scurrying to escape the raft. I lift my hands up as the huge plastic inflatable cone flips. My body smacks into another and then another as all the crewmembers fight for their escape.

  Beside me, Theo yells, “Please, everyone calm down.”

  They don't.

  I too feel the impending need to escape the raft, but again I resist all my better senses.

  As if I planned the whole thing, which I definitely didn't, I find myself alone with only Theo and one other crewmember. We all lie at the bowl shape in the inside of the raft’s cone.

  “Okay,” Theo says through labored breaths. “Now if we all work together, we can turn this raft back right side up.”

  The last remaining crew member, a small female with purple fur sprouting over her face and body, climbs up onto my back, knocking the wind out of me. Standing on me like a platform, she pushes her way through one of the small holes. Thankfully, her small size and quick, lithe movements don't send us spinning as the others had.

  Theo lies under me, her slightly scaly skin pressed against my back. She groans a little and then says on an exhausted sigh, “Well, it's just us, then. Why don't we each just make our way out at the same time, and we can hopefully get a couple of those crew members to help us turn the raft back over.”

  “Can we just wait a minute?” I ask as I crane my neck to look back at her. Bringing up this conversation is just a little awkward, as I’m lying on top of Theo and we’re both pretty much stuck at the top of the inside of the cone. But I know for a fact I’ll never get a better opportunity to talk to the former mermaid.

  Theo looks up through her green hair at me, a little warily.

  “I'm not hitting on you, I swear.” I hold up hands in a gesture of surrender. My words come out all jumbled, wrong and on top of each other. “I am on this boat for a reason, a really important reason, and I need to talk to Santiago, the hypnotist.”

  If anything, Theo's beautiful features only look warier as she asks, “You want to speak to Santiago? And what do you think I can do about that?”

  “I… I snuck into his performance last night. I saw the story of t
he mermaid.”

  The wary expression hardens, and Theo, who had since we arrived been only kind and sweet, fixes me with a look of loathing. “I have no interest in bringing more trouble to Santiago. Please, get off me.”

  “Yeah, I will, but please just hear me out.” Carefully, I try my best to roll off her without upending the whole raft.

  The thick orange plastic of the raft squeaks a protest as I manage to untangle our bodies and slide off her. Theo turns to the nearest hole and makes toward it but pauses.

  Even though she doesn’t turn back to me or give me a signal to continue, I figure this is the only opportunity I’m going to get. “Okay,” I say, clearing my throat, “I can tell your situation is complicated, and I hate to ask this favor of you when you so clearly don’t want to help. The thing is, I have to talk to Santiago in the next thirty-six hours—less than that, actually—or the world as we know it will end.”

  Looking back at me, her dark-green brows come together as clear mistrust radiates from her expression.

  “I know it sounds . . . ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But it’s also true. Santiago is the only person on Earth who can help me, and if Santiago can’t help me . . .” I pause, not sure how much I should confide in her. Honestly, I might have already confided too much. “If I don’t speak to Santiago, I can guarantee you there will be a demon apocalypse and--”

  “How will that be any different than the world we live in now?” she interrupts. “No, I won’t help you.” In a motion displaying the slippery grace of her fishy origins, she dives through a hole in the side of the raft, wiggling through.

  “Wait. All these demons are the legions of just one greater demon, and there are seventy-two greater demons . . .” I trail off because she’s already gone.

  For a few seconds, I just sit there at the bottom of the raft, thinking of all the ways I could have said that all better. My cheek and stomach burn from the hairy jerk’s frantic attack, but it’s nothing compared to the sinking sensation of realizing that with less than two days left, I’m no closer to reaching Santiago.

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I whisper the words my father would have told me at this moment, “You don’t have time for a pity party, Raven. Get your act together, buck up, and keep going.”

  I’m not even convincing myself, but my sister and friends are out there, and every moment I sit in here is another moment a demon could kill them on a whim. Feet first, I wiggle into the hole that leads downward.

  The confining inflated plastic hole grips my hips, pulling the pilfered red bathing suit into a full wedgie over my utilitarian white cotton boyshort underwear.

  Plunging back into the water, I duck under the large raft. Surfacing several feet away, I only stick my head out, again imitating an alligator. But what I see has me standing up fully, not caring at all about the pilfered red bathing suit.

  Demons lie across the floor of the pool deck, bowing so low, their faces press into the fake wood. Many of the other supernatural creatures have seemingly fled, while others prostrate themselves like floor mats. The crewmembers who had been in the raft training all fled the pool, leaving me its solo occupant. Most of the crew lie with the demons on the deck in deep bows.

  I stand alone in the water, looking up at the three other standing figures in the midst of the crowd. Truth be told, I’m only looking at the central figure.

  The very first time I saw Stephen’s scarred face, I thought it was fractured. I thought it had once been beautiful, but someone destroyed that beauty when they carved the scar deep from the bottom of his ear down to bisect his chin.

  I was wrong.

  Stephen's face, even with the deep scar, had always been perfect. He looks tall, even though I know he's only a couple inches taller than my five-ten. Blonde hair curls around his tan features. Full lips curve into a smile—and with sunglasses on, I can almost imagine it’s Stephen smiling at me.

  But it’s not Stephen.

  Andras hasn't changed Stephen’s appearance at all. The clothes clinging to his lean, muscled frame are finer perhaps than what Stephen might have picked. Stephen had always seen such an outsider in the fancy, opulent life he was born into. This Andras version of Stephen wears a suit that just screams ‘excessively expensive.’ He opens his arms as if I might walk up there and simply hug him.

  I tear my gaze away from him, worried in my confused and shocked state I might do something completely stupid like actually walk into his arms.

  Beside him stands another person who I couldn't loathe more. May is still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Her features would make angels weep with envy. Lustrous black hair falls around her face and down her front. She wears an emerald green sundress that similarly screams expensive. The last time I saw her, she had been playing the minion of the flamboyant and cruel sorcerer, The Spider.

  In her arms with his head against her shoulder, a redheaded child, looking to be less than a year old, rests. He snoozes peacefully, sucking on his fist.

  “Kidnapper,” I say as I look directly into May’s amused gaze.

  She meets my glare with an exasperated sneer as if she really doesn’t have time for my nonsense. She rocks her stolen child from side to side. “Hello, Raven.”

  “That child should go back to Madeline, his mother—” On a list of fantastic people who deserve wonderful things coming to them, Madeline is nowhere near the top for me. But no one deserves what happened to her. “And you deserve to die for what you did to Stephen and Pom. They were your friends, and you poisoned them. And, you know, you committed mass murder; let’s not forget that.”

  The small boy whimpers, and I wonder if maybe mentioning Madeline affected him somehow. He stretches out his little arms, and I'm just thinking how beautiful Madeline’s child is when his arms recede into his body and his form uncoils from the solidity of a child into a long snake's body. Scales form over the snake skin, and red stripes weave through his whiteness. The snake slithers up around May’s neck, settling on her shoulders. Bright blue slitted snake eyes fix on me as a pink forked tongue darts from the snake’s long slit of a mouth.

  Eyes wide, I just gape for a few seconds at the snake that gazes back at me.

  The antichrist.

  Right.

  I’m going to have to remember that.

  “Are you afraid to look at me, Raven?” Andras asks as he takes off his sunglasses. “Are you afraid to speak to me?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two Days Before

  Slowly, I look back to Andras’ luminous emerald eyes. It's the one feature that, no matter the body he steals, he can never disguise for long.

  Last summer when he impersonated Stephen after possessing Stephen's body, he had kept his face unnecessarily beaten and bruised so I wouldn't be able to see those tell-tale eyes.

  In my dream memories of Elena, the eyes are what I immediately recognize there, too.

  Only half-aware of my movements, I find myself walking into the shallow end of the pool and up the steps. Dripping water, I make a slow approach.

  It's only then I notice the third in their party.

  Chauncey.

  Wonderful.

  I'd seen her only yesterday morning, but somehow she not only traveled the length of the United States and Mexico, she changed from her skin tight leather commando suit—demonic multitasker.

  I'm about to say something to flat out announce to Andras how many attempts Chauncey has made on my life when I notice Chauncey also holds something in her arms. Nicholas.

  Chauncey smiles as her clawed fingers comb through the fluffy gray rabbit fur at Nicholas’ sides. A drop of blood wells up on his throat where one of her claws digs into his flesh.

  Nicholas stays so stiff, he might be attempting not to breathe. Only the slight movement of his inhalations lay testament that he's even alive.

  On the balcony above the group, there’s a flash of black eyes and tawny-brown fur, and I force myself not to look.

  Chauncey demon smiles at
me, her teeth holding just the slightest edge of fangs.

  “Hello, Birdie,” she says, all bubbly and sweet, with a tilt of her head as her blonde curls fall over her shoulder. “Miss me?”

  “Only because I want to be present when you finally die,” I say as I step onto the pool deck.

  A peal of girlish laughter erupts from the she-demon as she rolls her head from side to side.

  “Stop laughing, and let go of the rabbit,” I say, afraid that she's moving so much, she might accidentally slit Nicholas’ throat.

  “But I really would love to have a rabbit hat. Don't you think I would look lovely with bunny fur trimming my dress?” She gestures down to a short black cotton sundress.

  “I think you would be too warm,” I say as I step toward her. “Why don't you hand over the rabbit, Chauncey?” I freeze five steps away from her, conscious of how close I am to Andras, but I ignore his proximity.

  Something about standing so close to Andras terrifies me more than words could say, but at the same time, I’m not about to let the love of Cassidy's life die right in front of me.

  Andras reaches between us, grabbing Nicholas by the scruff of his neck. Chauncey lets go just in time for Andras to shake bunny Nicholas and throw him into the pool.

  At that moment, a lioness pounces from the balcony above us, and in one continuous lithe movement, Andras reaches up, grabs Cassidy and tosses her to splash right on top of Nicholas.

  “No!” I spin to where the water still sloshes. Running forward, I'm about to dive in after them when both Cassidy and Nicholas surface, human, buck naked, and sputtering.

  “You are so determined to ignore my presence,” I hear Andras say from behind me. “Do I need to send everyone away so you can’t find another excuse?”

  I turn back slowly to find him only a few feet away, staring down at me. “I still have a day,” I say through my teeth. “You can't take me yet.”

  “I just asked for you to greet me,” he whispers, stepping even closer.

  “Hi,” I bite out.