Acquaro

by Trevor R. Fairbanks

  They did, standing about in their scarves and denim and leather, smoking cigarettes and whispering in that odd language that sounded more like a shrill whistling than speech. They had done their best to be human. Their fine straight hair had been cut and bleached into punk rock styles. They had mohawks that were shades of purple and yellow and fell low over their eyes.

  The one that Molick had brought in smiled. He was the obvious leader, dressed in a nice suit, unlike the studded punk rock garb of the others. He grinned at Molick again, but it was a shy smile. Molick had caught him hanging out with the trolls. They had been having a conversation.

  Last night the rest of his elf-gang had been caught drinking at one of the bars on the wrong side of town. Homophobic slurs had been said and a near riot ensued when they clashed with the redneck truckers and other human scum. Fred had been there. He still looked empty, as if the soul had been sucked right out of his body.

  Molick couldn’t help but smile at his former partner. “Two more last night,” Fred told him. “We caught two more last night. Fucking dragon men. Can you believe that? They had scales. Man, they had fucking tails. I mean it, the whole bit. We caught them lighting cigarettes with their flaming breath for beer money. Had to lock them up outside in one of the animal pens.”

  Molick shook his head. He knew the animal pens that Fred was talking about. They were out door, made of sturdy chain link cyclone fence. Every jail had them. They were meant for the most anti-social of prisoners, and outside so that the human rights people could convince themselves that it was for fresh air and exercise.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Molick asked his partner and rolled his eyes. “These are mythical creatures, shit from my childhood. Hell, the other day I saw a unicorn running down the street. This can’t be happening. I don’t need a gun, I need a fucking sword!”

  “What are you thinking, Mr. Police Chief?” Fred mocked. “What’s the answer? Better come up with something quick before this entire city is turned into goddamn Fairy-Land.”

  Fred’s words had an edge to them that grated on Molick’s ears. He was still pissed about Molick’s promotion. There were only five cops in all Varmint Ranch, and all of them considered themselves lucky. Most of them came here because the town was so quiet. There was no danger here. It was a town where they could relax and wait until they were old enough to retire.

  And now this. And now Molick, another beer drinking lazy bum like the rest, was his superior officer. “I don’t know,” Molick said.

  Fred smelled blood and continued to dig. “Well how do you plan on stopping this, man? The mayor ain’t happy. He knows his hands are tied. Most of these freaks ain’t even citizens. What are we supposed to do, deport them to fucking Mexico?”

  “I don’t know,” Molick sighed. “They don’t mention stuff like this at orientation. No one taught me how to deal with fucking goblins.” He looked at Fred and decided to turn the tables. “What do you think we should do, officer?” It was one of his classic moves, asking Fred for advice. It flipped the switch and put pressure on his deputy.

  But Fred was ready. “Let me have one of them,” he sneered.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Let me have one of them.” Fred lowered his voice and came around the desk. “Let me take one of these fucking elves home and make it talk. You know, torture the fuck out of it. Make it tell us what’s going on and what we need to do. Hell, make it tell us a way to fight all this shit.”

  Molick rolled it around in his brain. He knew Fred. He also knew how sadistic Fred could be. If anyone could peel anything out of one of them, it was him.

  “Which one?” Molick asked. “Which one do you want?”

  Fred’s eyes roamed across the cell, going over each elf in turn. “That one,” he finally said, pointing at the leader, the one they called Lordax. The one that Molick had found with the trolls. The one dressed in the suit. “He’s the one.”

  “Why him?” He was so thin. He had to be a junky, despite his authorial air.

  “Because he looks weak. He’ll break, fast. Besides, he knows me,” Fred nodded. “He’s afraid of me. I can see it in his eyes.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Molick asked.

  “If he isn’t he will be.”

  ***

  “So, what’s the deal, pretty elf?” Fred asked, circling his prey like a shark. They were down in the basement of Fred’s single-story home where there was no escape. The water heater was on and it was hot. Sweat dribbled off the elf’s face.

  Upstairs his daughter was asleep. Luckily there was a metric ton of stone between them. Fred knew. He had built this basement himself solely for nights like this. It was all his design, based on medieval drawings he had seen of dungeons.

  “What? They don’t speak English in fairy land? Is that it? Is that why you can’t answer my fucking questions?”

  The elf only smirked. The slight showing of teeth infuriated Fred. He looked like a dog smiling at its master. A dog that needed to be whipped.

  “Tell me! Talk, dammit!” he spit and slapped the elf across the face so hard his fingers stung. The elf’s skin was soft and wet. It did not feel human, but thinner somehow, like striking toilet paper. The slapping sound echoed in the basement. Porcelain skin glowed deep scarlet which made Fred feel good. These fuckers had blood after all.

  The elf brought his face back and smiled again. Red welts were all over his cheek like a mask and his eyes appeared to be more sunken then before, as if they were retreating from this debauchery. But he was still smiling. Still smiling and Fred wanted to shatter every crystal tooth in his fucking mouth.

  With a sigh Fred turned and took another long sip of scotch. The basement was getting warmer. He was down to a tank top under shirt and plaid boxer shorts. The drink burned his throat going down like firewater. He looked at his victim.

  The elf was in an old-school torture position. He had been tied to a chair, with only a single lightbulb to see by, like in a film noir movie. But the elf hadn’t seen those films because he was not talking. He did not know the severity of the situation. Fred wondered what he would do to fix that. He took another sip of scotch and the answer came to him. It was time to get psychological.

  Yeah, Fred was drunk enough for psychological torture. He opened a box and took out a needle. Heroin was inside.

  “This is what you want, right?” The elf’s eyes opened wide and became bloated with desire. He nodded. “Been awhile since your last fix, eh?”

  He nodded his head again. Tears slipped from his eyes. Fred could see the pain written in dirty rivers flowing from his cheeks.

  “Well, I hate to see you in pain, buddy. Pain is not a good thing. Contrary to popular beliefs we police officers are not sadists. I will give it to you. I want to give it to you. I will give you whatever you want. I want to give you whatever you want. All you have to do is talk.”

  The pretty face lowered, flushed with shame. He nodded again.

  Fred took another drink then switched on the tape recorder. “Start with your name,” Fred ordered.

  “Lordax,” he said. “King of the Elves.”

  “King of the fucking elves,” Fred said, shaking his head. “If that don’t beat all. And tell me where the elves live.”

  “Next door,” he laughed.

  “Next door?” Fred didn’t understand. His neighbor was an old perv named Larkins. Did he have something to do with this?

  “The paths flow parallel,” the elf whispered. “Your world. Our world. All you need to do is reach through. Gurkiel is everywhere.”

  “And how do I do that?” Fred asked.

  “Blood is the easiest way,” the elf said, looking at him with a scowl. “Blood is the river that separates us.”

  “Blood,” Fred smirked. He took a final drink and looked into the elf’s eyes. “Blood. I know a little something about blood. That little girl I got upstairs, you see her when we came in?”

  The elf nodded.

  “On
her period. Can you believe that shit? She’s on her period and her mom is out fucking half of Arizona. How am I supposed to help her? I ain’t never bled for seven days without dying.”

  “I can smell it,” Lordax whispered. “The blood in the air.”

  Fred hurled the glass against the wall, listening to it shatter. “You talking about my daughter?” He narrowed his eyes, looking right at Lordax. “You smell my daughter’s pussy you stinking ...”

  “Can’t you feel it?” the elf smiled, returning his gaze. “It’s getting closer.”

  “Feel what?”

  “Your heart,” the elf said slowly. “Can’t you feel it beating? Like goblins, knocking at your door.”

  “I ...” He could feel his heart. He could feel it beating. It was beating so hard, threatening to break his rib cage. It felt as if he had just run a mile. The elf smiled. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m only opening the door,” the elf said. “Isn’t that why I’m here? Isn’t that what you wanted? You wanted to see what was on the other side, didn’t you? You want Gurkiel?”

  “I ...” But he didn’t know. Now he could feel the throbbing at his temples, the trembling in his fingers. A numbness all through his left arm. A pulse that would not be stilled. Fred reached for the bottle only to find it empty. It slipped and shattered on the ground. His body followed.

  The elf shook his bonds free. He looked at the man laying at his feet. Another one, dead. He picked up the needle. Now this world was going to fucking burn.

  ***

  The girl lay sound asleep in her bed with dreams of dragons running through her head. The elf lord could see those dreams. He could reach out and touch them if he so desired.

  He desired.

  It was not difficult, not for him. He took them and twisted them, spinning them between his fingers like lamb wool. Then he began to weave. He took sweet dreams and transformed them into nightmares.

  The girl was bleeding. She was at the age when human girls bled. Lordax had been correct when he told that fat stupid cop he could smell it. There were portals in human girls, he knew. Such deep pools of creativity. All one had to do was reach inside.

  Gently he drew the blood from her until she was drained dry. In the night he listened as her heart began to still. The skin started to burn. The girl began to change. She shot up in bed and screamed. The elf only laughed. It was too late.

  All her dreams were about to come true.

  Her mouth opened wide, lips splitting and bleeding even more. Sharp inhuman fangs sprouted from her all too human gums, letting more blood flow. She was slick with the stuff, wearing it like a prom dress, and she leaned forward, clutching her feet. Nails grew. Soon they turned into talons. Lordax took a step back. He wished that the room wasn’t so small. That was going to piss the dragon off.

  Black wings shot out of her shoulders, ripping through the thin night gown she wore. The girl screamed again, but half way through that scream turned into a flame filled roar. The snout wormed its way out of her face. Her eyes were ripped away, replaced with glowing coals that smoldered and burned scarlet in fury. Her body bloated, expanding like a bellows. Scale blossomed from human flesh. Dark scale, like chain mail. And bullet proof, Lordax knew. The creature he had called up was powerful. Nothing from this world would be able to stop it. This world would burn.

  “Hot in here,” Lordax said, taking a step out of the room. He shut the door behind him as an inhuman shriek cut the night in half. He did not need to see the rest of the transformation. He was confident enough in his magic that he no longer had to witness it.

  Quickly he made his way outside and stood on the lawn. Now he turned to look upon his art.

  The small house was destroyed in an explosion that could be seen from miles away. Just like that, the home that Officer Fred had worked so hard on was gone. In its place stood a dragon.

  The Last Ride

  When they left the bar, the world had changed. The van was still there but the desert was gone. In its place stood a town that Hector had seen before. “Is this ..?” Lila asked.

  Hector nodded grimly. “Gurkiel.”

  Gurkiel was silent. It was an empty city, as if everyone had moved on to greener pastures. There was even a tumbleweed, Hector noted, moving on its way through the streets, headed towards dusty oblivion.

  “First, we need to find a bridge,” Hector told her, grabbing Lila by the hand tightly. Fear was welling inside of him. She should not be here, he knew. She would get lost here, so he decided to keep her close. “Trolls are always under bridges.”

  “Why is that?”

  Hector shrugged. “No one can say. The Elves have spent millennia at war with the trolls, but eventually they came to an understanding and a certain peace. Granted, the trolls had been stealing elf women for ages, but that was okay. The male elves could look beyond that. And the female elves even enjoyed the primal ministrations of the well-hung trolls. Besides, trolls made for excellent slaves because they’re so stupid. Half the time they don’t even realize they are slaves and just happy to help.”

  “Weird.” She wondered how he knew all that.

  Numerous bridges crossed Gurkiel, some crossing over lazy rivers, and some built for no other reason than to house trolls. Elves would stop by the bridges sometimes during their wanderings to see what was happening, or simply when they were in the mood for debauchery. There was always something fun to see underneath a bridge. It was interesting for the elves, always a clean race, to watch the trolls roll about in their own filth, embracing an indecency the elves never had. It was entertaining watching them make love in their own distorted style with a passion that no self-respecting elf could ever match. Sometimes the elves even joined in, persuaded by the thick smell of salt and vinegar and filth to come down off their righteous pedestals and participate. Elf women always loved trolls. There was an old elf saying: “If you are looking for a wife, check under the bridge.”

  “Funny,” Hector mused. “That two races both so long at war could come together in the discovery that each shared a certain fondness for grubby degrading sex.”

  But there were no elves around. There was only him and Lila and them.

  Dimly Hector recognized his brother and sister. Looking at them like this he was too stunned to even remember their names. They did not have names like we do. They were only BroTroll and SisTroll now. There was not even a shred of humanity left between them. Gurkiel had taken it all away, stripped it off layer by layer to leave behind these two naked mewling creatures.

  “These are your siblings?” Lila asked, scrunching her nose. “They smell like shit.”

  Hector nodded. It took a lot for him to see past their filth and find Jimmy and June underneath. “My brother and sister. Right here in Gurkiel,” he whispered.

  The whisper was enough on this quiet night to draw BroTroll’s attention away from SisTrolls nose for a moment. He had been intent on picking it, looking for snot to use as a lubricant. But eventually he had just shoved his whole penis into her nostril, trying to literally fuck her brains out.

  Now he looked up at Hector, his brother. There was something in his eyes, something he remembered. Those eyes gleamed yellow against a full moon that shined silver under the bridge. Then those eyes looked at Lila. When was the last time he had seen a human woman? Ages ago.

  “Pretty!” he spit, reaching for her but slipping in the muck. He still craned his hand out, trying to grab her. Lila stepped back, afraid of his touch. Ever since puberty she had been the attention of men and she always enjoyed this fact. Now it made her feel dirty. “Pretty pretty pretty! Come play with BroTroll! BroTroll!!!”

  “Ew,” Lila said and threw herself into Hector’s arms, shoving her face into his chest so that she would not have to look at it.

  BroTroll would not have her turn away from him, so he collected a large ball of snot and hurled it at her. It struck, catching Lila between her breasts and sliding down her body.

  “Jimmy!�
�� Hector snapped. “What the fuck are you doing?” He was about to wade in and give the little boy a piece of his mind when she stopped him.

  “They don’t know you anymore,” a woman’s voice said. “You are no longer from the same world.”

  Hector turned. His mother was standing underneath the bridge.

  Hector took a deep breath. She looked old, as if Gurkiel had aged her well past a human lifespan. She appeared to be three hundred, every decade etched on her face in solid lines. But he could see it in her lizard-like eyes. This was his mother.

  “I was looking for you,” he said.

  “Hector.” She smiled and reached out to touch his face, gently letting her fingers stray over the few days scruff of beard he had cultivated since leaving LA. “You’ve grown up.”