Cast In Dark Waters

She brings her knee up into his groin, hoping his instinct remains if nothing else human does. He bends and lets out a grunt of laughter as if surprised to find that he still cares about such things. At least there's that. It's all she needs to wheel aside and reach beneath the bed.

Those new teeth are growing in him once more, all of them curved and stuffed down his throat, perhaps into his chest as well, wrapped around his heart. He is nothing but fang, inside and out.

She goes right for the ash wood stake and the twice-blessed iron pike, filling each hand. He lets her. She knows that he's letting her, and that perhaps this is the last act of the man he'd once been, fighting the demon. A moment's hesitation so that she might do what she's best at.

But she's wrong, of course, as she remembers that now. She's mistaken each night. He's only allowed her this period of grace so that he might swoop upon her in one lissome pounce.

Her hands tighten on a stake of ash but she's unable to use it as he squirms against her, already sneaking out from under the bed. His muscular forearm holds her down as if preparing for some assertive lovemaking. His mouth slips to her ear and he hisses more words, but she's straining so hard that she can only hear the mad rush of her own desperation.

He gnaws and scratches, licking the way he used to do in the tropical mornings. This is a foreplay and hunger of a different, ravenous kind. He moves from her neck to her lips, where he forces his tongue roughly against her own. She tastes the malignancy within and tries to bite down on it, but he wafts aside. She chokes on sediment and seaweed.

Such a strange dance. Mama is screaming now. The room fills with the overpowering stink of rotting fish. She hauls her arm back and drives forward, stabbing repeatedly with the stake. But she never touches him. He is smoke, even as his arms encircle her.

"It's time, Cassie."

"Like hell, you sodding corpse!"

He nudges her back upon the mattress, all those many teeth biting into her chest at once. There is no pain, only a consuming sense of eternity that's more hideous than anything she's ever known. His tongue snakes its way deep into the wound, and she shrieks and weakly struggles as her own blood splashes into her eyes and mouth. The cage of fangs grows around her heart.

~* ~

Crimson awoke with her fist throbbing, two fingernails split and peeled back. She'd gouged them into the sharpened piece of ash and it took some minutes for her to clean the splinters out of her hand. She quickly dressed and crossed to the main thoroughfare and continued on past the promontory. The rapists were still hanging, now with their eyes pecked out.

She met with a porter at the L'Hotel D'Avignon and paid him to take a note to the Maycombs and awaken them at this early hour if necessary. It wasn't. Maycomb was already up while his exhausted wife slept on.

He met her in the lobby, gave a stilted but mannered bow, and said, "Lady Crimson."

"All right, I'll take you to the damned island," she told him. "Once there, you've got five hours of daylight to find your daughter and compel her to return with you. If you fail to return in that allotted time, believe me, sir, I won't wait an extra minute for any of you."

"Thank you."

"No, Mr. Maycomb, hold your thanks. I fear you might wind up cursing me to your grave for ever having agreed to aid you in this venture."

His chin snapped up as if he'd been struck. "Well then, exactly what made you alter your decision?"

She started to answer and then thought better of it. There are some things that can't be explained and shouldn't be lied about. "We'll leave tomorrow morning. With good weather it should only take four days. Perhaps less if the crew is worth their ballast."

"You've a ship already in mind?"

"Yes, with a captain much more commendable than old Dobbins, I assure you."

"I believe you."

"I've still yet to formally hire him but he is available, and I feel there'll be no obstacles so long as you meet his charter price."

"I heard the fishermen saying there are storms to the south."

Her heart raced with the idea of it, but she declined further comment. She noticed the silver cross around his neck as it clinked against a stone medallion. She didn't recognize the odd symbols.

"And who is that helping to guard your soul?"

Maycomb's cheeks took on a healthy pink glow. "Anu, mother of the Celtic gods."

"Don't know her. Are you a Christian or a pagan?"

"Neither," he admitted. "Or perhaps both, I'm not quite certain even at this stage of my life."

"One will get you tied in the faggots and burned alive in Mother Europe. The other might get you hacked to pieces on one of these islands."

"We'll have to see which happens to me, won't we?"

She nodded. "I'll be watching," she said, and turned away to make preparations for a voyage into black, insane waters.

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