I knew the body was going to be a sticking point. Christians, always so concerned with safeguarding the dignity of rotting meat. Oh well, I didn’t much care for Frezzetti’s generous ‘offer,’ anyway.
“The body’s gone. Pauly was one death, if it’s revenge you want you’ll get one life. Take me and let her walk.” I motioned towards Karen as I regained my footing.
“Bullshit!” My protégé interjected. “I’m not letting you take the fall for this! Listen, old man, I killed your son-”
“Karen, don’t.” I tried to stop her, but she just kept on talking.
“He died like a pussy, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? Choking on his own vomit on a pile of trash in a filthy alley…and I saw it happen. This guy, he doesn’t own me, he wasn’t there. But you want to string me up, or torture me, or kill me, you just go right ahead, because anything would be better than listening to that prick trying to get into my pants one more time.”
Caesar stared at her for a long time.
“Plant them,” he closed the laptop on his end and cut the feed.
Ray raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. “Not smart, guys. Not smart at all. Pauly was a good kid.”
“Get moving.” Eddie growled and gestured to the door with a bob of his pistol. I held my hands up. Even now, I still owed Caesar a life. But he had gotten greedy. Two lives for one. That wasn’t compensation, it was an insult. And then, there was the look on Karen’s face. She could convey so much with a single shift of her heterochromatic orbs. There were times when words could do her a disservice, so pure were the tempest of emotions beyond her eyes. She was confused, hurt. My actions had caused her to feel that way and I hated myself for it. Karen didn’t need a protector. She may have wanted me to act like one, but a knight in shining armor, I’m not. Rather, I like to think of myself as a teacher. Maybe, there was a lesson I could offer her in all of this. I admit, a mob-assisted death march down to the wharf was an unconventional classroom.
Good thing I’ve always liked a challenge.
My two favorite made men, Eddie and Ray, were in charge of escorting us out onto the open waters. We were sitting on a small motor boat with Captain Eddie at the wheel and First Mate Ray in charge of looking over the passengers. The boat sped across dark, slick water that reflected the lights of the city off of its surface and twisted them amidst rippling waves. Karen was sitting by my side across from Ray. Her vibrant hair seemed muted in the darkness. She hadn’t spared me a second look since we began this trip. The majority of the cramped boat’s deck was taken up by two large five gallon buckets, filled to the brim with dried cement, a long stretch of chain sprouting from the centers of each. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what those were for.
“What are you waiting for?” Karen muttered the first words she’d spoken since the meeting with Caesar.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, octopus, we’ll be there soon.” Ray answered.
“Not you, dipshit. I get it. No one will hear the gunshots or screams out here. This is better.”
“Better than what? A massacre? Karen, I asked you to trust me.”
“You know you can end this at any time. This is only happening because you’re letting it happen!” Her eyes dragged up towards me. The shadows softened the difference in color between them.
I looked away.
“Don’t be too hard on him, he’s had a bad night and it’s gonna get a lot worse before it’s over.” Ray muttered. “Shame. You had some real talent. Good music. But, in a lot of ways, you did this to yourself.”
“I know!” Karen snapped.
“I don’t think you do. It’s destiny.” Ray sighed. “It was all in the name.”
“Please, don’t start that shit again.”
“You’re the one that named your band Kraken and the Mob. And here we are–Kraken,” he pointed a finger at Karen, “and the mob,” the same finger curled to tap against his chest. “And what, pray tell, is your band’s, most popular song?”
She glared at the gunman.
“It’s Cement Shoe Cthulhu,” Ray motioned towards the buckets of cement. “I mean, they aren’t classic cement shoes, those are just impractical. It’s a high speed world, no one has the time to wait around for cement to dry around peoples ankles anymore, am I right? I mean they’re heavy as hell, but basically portable, easy to prepare ahead of time and if anyone asks: they’re there for the weight, babe.”
Ray scanned Karen’s face for any signs of recognition.
“No? Nothing?” he clicked his tongue against his crooked teeth, “I…damn. I woulda thought a singer like you would have appreciated the classics.”
Eddie cut the engine.
We had arrived at the Frezzetti family’s infamous garden.
Our driver turned back to face us and took a moment to light a cigarette. The lambent glow of lit tobacco illuminated him in sinister crimson.
“C’mon, Ray. I don’t want to be out here all night,” he growled around his smoke.
“You don’t have to do this. My debt is with Caesar, not you. Back in the office it was his choice, not yours. But out here, it’s different. I owe you nothing. What I expect is for you to do nothing. Allow us to leave and you will owe nothing.” I interrupted.
“I don’t work for nothing, and I don’t work for you.” Eddie rumbled.
“Getting nothing is better than owing something.”
“Jesus Christ, who even talks like that?” Ray laughed at me. “I mean what is your deal?”
“You know the deal. Make your choice.”
The two men shared incredulous looks. Eddie shook his head, taking a long drag from his cigarette before fishing two padlocks from within the folds of his coat.
“Let’s get this shit over with,” he told his associate.
Ray sighed in resignation. Previously, his arm was resting casually on his leg, but now it was taking a more active role in aiming that hand cannon at me. Eddie’s lips tightened their grip around his smoke as he bent down to wrap his mitts around a length of chain. It rattled threateningly as he tried to loop it around Karen’s leg. She flinched, pressing closer to me on our seat.
“Don’t you touch me,” she spat, her leg raised and poised to turn Eddie’s nose from an outie into an innie.
“Lady this is gonna happen. Now you can go into the drink with a hole in you, or you can calm the fuck down and spend your last breaths on prayin’ or something,” Eddie menaced.
“That’s good advice.” I offered. Never underestimate the power of prayer.
“You want me to let him kill me?” Karen was tearing up, looking to me for hope. A shame that I never promised to give her any.
“Yes.”
“Why should I?” she snarled.
“Because you promised once that you’d always trust me.”
Karen hesitantly lowered her foot back into Eddie’s reach. He wrapped the metal around her leg roughly. She shivered at its cool kiss, tears sliding down the sides of her cheek and gathering into drops at the edge of her jawline. I brushed them away with a soft swipe of my thumb. She stared at me, tensing only when she heard the click of the lock fastening the heavy length to her calf in binding loops.
“Now stand up,” Eddie commanded. Karen did as he said, breaking her stare to close her eyes and bow her head. “Pray,” I whispered, “like you were taught to pray.”
She swallowed nervously. “We offer our fealty to our Father and our Mother. To their children, the ones who dwell amidst the deep. We offer our secrecy. We offer our progeny. We offer blood. Ia, Ia Dagon, ma’rkul en’kamath targu’l ek gaft, ek myr’ja, ek prog’shek. Dagon ka’zuth, Hydra fyrzha, Cthulhu fhtagn la’mosh.”
I felt her words slipping through me, each syllable resonating within. Such pure, unabashed faith. I reveled in it but I also understood that such a display could be unsettling to the uninitiated.
Ray laughed, but it was a small, troubled thing.
“I-isn’t that from that song of yours?�
�
“Cement Shoe Cthulhu,” Karen said softly with a nod.
“Yeah, I thought I recognized it. Gives me the heebie-fuckin-jeebies in person. You’re as creepy as Mister Moss over here.” Ray said. The playfulness had fled from his voice.
“Will it hurt, Dagon?” Karen asked.
“Yes. When you hit the water, take the ocean into your lungs. Breathe deeply. It’ll help the transition.” I said.
“Jesus, man. You think I’m gonna let a girl die like that? What do we look like to you? Monsters? Christ!” Ray scowled in disgust before he buried a bullet into Karen’s skull. The retort of the gun echoed outwards on the open water, even as her lifeless body toppled overboard with a splash. The length of chain rattled and raced along the floor of the boat like a steel serpent as Karen slid deeper into the murky waters of Narragansett Bay. Eddie grunted as he hefted the heavy, cement-laden bucket up and over the side. It made a more solid splooshing noise than Karen had, with a larger burst of water splashing up from where it impacted. “I mean, we were told to make it messy. The boss did not take to her at all. But I mean, she was just a kid. I don’t think she even knew any better. Biggest mistake of her life was listening to a guy like you. You got her mind all twisted. Now I understand why she called herself Kraken.”
“Don’t pretend to know anything about her.” I snarled. Ray responded by dragging the hammer of his pistol back until it clicked.
“Your turn.” Eddie snuffed his smoke out on the side rail of the boat before tossing the spent butt out into the water. He wrapped the chain around my leg and snapped the lock into place. When he was satisfied that I wouldn’t be going anywhere, he moved back to the steering well. “Okay, Ray. Make him hurt.”
The name-obsessed gangster dropped his aim by several inches with a dip of his wrist and he fired another shot. My world became agony as the bullet slammed into my leg, tearing through the meat of my calf. I stared up at Providence’s muted starscape and gritted my teeth to choke back the cry of pain that clawed desperately at me. But I wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of my screams.
Steely fingers grabbed a thick clump of my hair and tore my attention back down from the heavens. Eddie wound back and slammed his fist directly into my face. The cartilage in my nose crunched revoltingly as warm, new suffering spread across me in waves. He had broken my nose with the one blow, but he didn’t stop there. Eddie rained his punches down. I lost track of how many times he’d struck me, but when he was through he was panting, trying to catch his breath. His own knuckles were raw and his fingers were coated in his blood and mine. Even though my left eye had been battered shut, I could still tell the difference. His was a vibrant crimson color, mine, less so.
“Alright, hold him,” Ray said as he flicked open a wicked looking blade. “There’s something I gotta do.”
Eddie slapped his palm over my throat and squeezed as he all but pushed me out of the boat. His arm bent me back at a harsh angle; my shoulders were forced painfully against the hardwood rail.
“What the hell is that smell?” the bruiser gagged.
“Guy probably crapped himself. Look at him, he’s got no fight left,” Ray answered.
“I-I…want you to remember. You chose this.” I said weakly as I choked the words through Eddie’s stranglehold. He just laughed.
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll remember,” Ray chimed in. “I don’t get you, man. You put your neck out for this girl, and all you accomplish is getting yourself whacked right along with her. You don’t fight. You don’t beg. What did you think was going to happen? You say you’re sorry and then Mr. Frezzetti lets bygones be bygones?”
“If it makes you feel better, don’t think of this as your death. Think of it as a science experiment. See, me and Ray are gonna find out if Moss grows on a sinking stone,” Eddie laughed darkly.
“Hey, Eddie. That was actually pretty good,” Ray snickered.
“Yeah, I swear I been waiting this whole time to say that,” he said proudly.
Ray drew closer, looming over me with that gleaming blade. “He’s not wrong, Dagon. But first, I’m gonna make sure you don’t die without fulfilling your destiny. That would be just awful.” His eyes narrowed as he jabbed the steel into my gut. It tore through my suit and the once-white shirt beneath it like they weren’t even there. I like to think that I had become accustomed to pain over a long life of persecution. But there’s something special about a stab wound. The way the knife twists just so, igniting every nerve it touches with liquid hell. I’m ashamed to say that I screamed as he sawed up through my stomach. It turned into a strangled choking when the blade caught on my ribcage. I coughed up the warm liquid gathering in my throat, and tasted salty copper as it flooded my mouth. Ray grunted with effort as he placed his foot up on the side rail and pulled the knife free with so much force that he came within a hair of throwing himself off the other side. My suit was wrenched open, the ruined button-up beneath was stained with the brackish rust brown of my blood. Eddie’s face twisted in revulsion.
“Oh, Christ! It’s him…” he covered his face with his forearm as he recoiled from me. Freed from his grip I pushed myself up. My legs were unsteady, my gut shredded and dripping warmth to the deck. I staggered forward towards Ray, but the chain was making a difficult situation even worse. Ray pushed me away with a frantic kick. I doubled over as his boot found purchase against my sliced-raw abdomen. As I hit the deck I could feel my insides twisting. My blood was forming a pool beneath me, but more than that, a handful of small, silver scaled creatures thrashed below me. I looked up just in time to see true fear overcome the men. That’s right, those things-like fish, but not enough like fish-had come out of me. The pain was distant now; the call was upon me. There is a weakness in flesh. If the Christian God truly made man in his own image, how frail must God be?
Eddie and Ray were the ones screaming now.
Again, I fought to stand. It was a slow, sporadic thing, raising up, still bound by skin and viscera, that I had pushed to its limits. Their terror, the scent of their fear. It was intoxicating. How could I help but laugh? I could tell the difference in my voice, no longer disguised, but reverberating with a guttural nuance that made my Father’s language that much easier to speak.
Ray finally managed to lift his gun. He drew first, but Eddie was right on his heels. Their rounds tore through me, but I was numb to the pain. My body jerked back with each impact, my feet leaving the boat as I was pushed over the rail and down into the water. Moments later, I was joined by the heavy bucket of cement and the long chain that tethered me to it. It sunk past me, the chain pulling tight around my calf and dragging me down towards the Frezzetti family gardens. I stared up at the shadow that was my would-be-executioner’s boat. My words flowed with the last blisters of my breath as they frothed towards the surface. Eddie and Ray wouldn’t be leaving. In that moment I knew that they would try to start up the boat’s engine and try to escape the truth that they had just witnessed. But my words, my will, would not allow it. And then, that sweet intake of saltwater that burned away the last vestiges of my putrid humanity. I welcomed the death throes that consumed me. My body went still, but my eyes, unmoving, unblinking and unfeeling, still saw. I watched as the corpses of Casesar’s enemies swayed with the shifting currents, arms raised as if to greet me.
There were at least a dozen bodies tied down to the seabed. Each of them had suffered the ravages of the ocean–they were rotted, bloated, partially devoured shells of former life, men and women both. Rusted chains held them in place and among them, my protégé, Karen had already begun to move. Her chrysalis was underway. For all her faith, she had avoided taking that last step; she had never allowed herself to be forged anew in the image of our God. She never swam to the darkest depths, she never tasted the sweet secret ecstasies of the sea-swallowed City Below. She never danced with our God’s chosen, those that dwell within the deep places. A tragedy–one that needed rectifying. Karen should be able to see and feel what she believes so f
ervently in. Otherwise, what’s the damn point?
My suit, my demeanor, my fortune–while all necessary to complete the obligations that I had inherited–were only a facade. It was a rare pleasure to be allowed to cut loose, to truly be myself. I could feel the rushing water running through the slit-like gills that ran perpendicular to my ribcage along my sides. While my wounds were a minor annoyance, my blood floated upwards from me in smoke like wisps from a dozen tears in my flesh. My Father’s power radiated from Karen in heady waves. She convulsed with the pain that change always brings and her face twisted between torment and elation. The dead took note of the metamorphosis, as is sometimes the case. Strange aeons and all that. Their rotten, necrotic forms began to move in jerky, unnatural spasms. The corpse closest to me groped blindly at my coat, tearing into it with fingers ending in sharp bone shards. I ripped away from the living dead thing, as far as my metal leash would let me wander, which seemed just far enough as it began to feel around blindly once more.
For a moment, I wondered what alien will had possessed this once-dead girl, but my thoughts were interrupted by the unmistakable feeling of familiar movements just beyond the boundaries of my vision. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the approaching tremors beyond the sporadic thrashing of the reanimated within Frezzetti’s garden.
My backup had arrived.
Tcho was going to be pissed that I had left him short-staffed, but the deal was that my church’s business took precedence. Mandy and Chilly were some of my earliest converts when I claimed Providence as a staging ground. They were both lost souls in need of something to live for, a purpose, a change. When society could only give them a slow, pauper’s death, I offered them a chance at an eternity of grace beneath the waves. They were loyal, discreet and, as it appeared, punctual. I had known about Frezzetti’s garden, if my negotiations went poorly, it only stood to reason that Karen and I would wind up here. Relief swept over me as Mandy swam into sight. Her sinuous form coiled like a serpentine shadow. Gone was the waitress and sometimes bar-top dancer. She was beautiful, twisting towards me, a dark scaled silhouette. She swept past the thrashing dead thing beside me and with a smooth swipe of wickedly sharp, clawed hands tore its jaw free in a cloudy burst of putrescence. Mandy darted low, her slender, deadly arms reaching for the chain wrapped around my leg and pulling it taught. But it was Chilly who set me free, the rows and rows of serrated teeth in his distended maw snapping down onto the length of chain between Mandy’s grip and tearing through the links with a savage shake of his head. The chain came loose, and though I was still dragging a few feet of metal behind me, I was feeling much more spry. The truth, no matter how horrible, is always more comely than a lie. Mandy and Chilly were basking in the truth of their shared reality and it–very literally–pained me that I could not join them. It physically hurt to resist the Call. But I had work to do, and I needed to stay on task just a little while longer.
Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 3 Rev3 Page 46
