Waltzing into Damnation (The Deception Dance Book 3)

by Rita Stradling

  To my surprise, the door yields easily, opening up to reveal a metal stairway leading down. Thankfully, this area was saved from the light smashing. The sharp contrast of the halogen lights glaring down at us makes us all blink around the metal stairway shaft. Our footsteps echo as we descend-- and here’s hoping there isn't another demon ambusher at the other end because they’d have one hell of a heads up that we’re coming.

  “Let me go first,” I call to the pair. Cassidy just shoots a glance over her shoulder and rolls her eyes.

  “Lioness,” she says simply and then continues to run down the stairs.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, thankfully the only thing waiting for us is a closed door.

  Pressing on the long panic bar on the thick industrial door, Cassidy peeks out first. “We need to crouch down,” she whispers and waves in a flat-handed motion downward.

  Opening the door only a crack, we all crawl out on hands and knees onto a cold, reflective marble stairway. Impersonating a meercat, I steal a look over the half-wall railing to find staggering opulence. Wavering tempered gold walls weave around a giant half-circle shaped theater. Lights dance in every direction over the rows of red velvet seats. The whole scene looks like we’re inside an oddly luxurious slot machine. Arched lines of seats spread in every direction, from the stage to up into a balcony. Hundreds…maybe thousands of audience members sit transfixed by the empty stage.

  Our stairway sits to one side of the large stage under a lit sign that reads ‘emergency exit’ in neon. Thankfully, no one seems to see us at this angle, but unfortunately, the large curtains will likely block most of our view of the stage.

  The lights dim and orchestra music crescendos through the room while the many creatures in the audience clap their multiple appendages, tentacles or human arms. The noise grows deafening.

  The heavy red velvet curtains part, and a man walks to the edge of the stage. He’s young, appears Hispanic in ethnicity, and is staggeringly handsome. I only see his profile, but from that, I can see he’s the type of beautiful that’s immortalized on cinema screens and magazine covers around the world. He bows as the clapping continues on and on. With a somber expression, he nods to the crowd. Their cheers and whistles don’t let up for at least three minutes. From the few audience members I can see around the very end of the stage, they’re standing.

  He patiently waits, and when the clapping finally dies down, he says, “Thank you. I haven't even done a thing yet, and already a standing ovation? I have to say, I love this crowd tonight.”

  A smaller round of applause rises up and quickly dies.

  “This night, I want to tell you an old story, a tale very close to my heart. I know some find my stories too immersive. If this is the case, simply plug your ears, and within five minutes the images should go away.

  “This story takes place many centuries ago, when only flowing trees and wild animals crowded around the freshwater lakes, deep within what we now call Mexico. A young warrior stopped by the banks of a glistening lake.”

  As he speaks, the theater blurs slowly around me. Where there was once red curtains, colors swirl and solidify into shapes. Trees rustle their leaves. A gentle lake forms where stairs and our scant view of the theater once was. Linnie and Cassidy disappear, and the only sight remaining of my true surroundings is Santiago. As he speaks, his clothing shifts, his tuxedo giving way to coarse, colorful cloth that falls about his shoulders and drapes down his front.

  “This man held a secret from his family. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was not completely human. He realized this one night as a child when he shifted into a bat in his sleep.

  “He was afraid to admit his strangeness to his father-- for his family had long regarded the bat an omen of evil. The bat was uncommon even among human animal shifters. Fleeing his father’s scorn, the man stopped by the shore of the lake, thirsty and tired. And there he witnessed something he had never even imagined could be possible.”

  A collective gasp rises from the invisible crowd, as in the vision a creature breaks out through the shining waters. She’s unquestionably a mermaid, but not quite like the European portrayal. Gleaming scales and gill slits cover her torso and neck, and she’s more beautiful for it. Her hair clumps in green organic plants and eyes shine with all the colors of the lake and the sun dancing across it. Her sea plant hair sways out of the water as it would beneath it. Reaching forward with webbed fingers, she beckons to the man.

  “This warrior fell in love with one of the many daughters of the moon goddesses on earth, the mermaid Theodora.”

  Santiago raises his hands in the air and dives into the lake, and the lake rises, quickly filling the space.

  Warm water splashes over my toes and up my ankles, quickly rising all the way over my body and head to high above so I’m deep in a lake. Sitting on the Rocky Lakes bottom, I gasp for air, grabbing my throat until I remember I’m sitting in a theater. My hands go to my ears, thinking this is the moment the show is too immersive, but I stop.

  Closing my eyes, I concentrate on breathing, finding it’s as easy as any other time. I open my eyes to hundreds of the mermaid-like creatures. Their black tails and deep luminescent dark complexions contrast starkly with the clear aquamarine water around them. They swim, twirl, and flip through the water.

  Santiago swims deep in the water, and from his arms sprout leathery wings, just like the bat he professed to be. The wings help him move faster in the water, but he can’t move like the mermaids. It's the most beautiful dance I've ever seen for mere moments before Santiago flies up to the sky and breaks out of the water. In the vision, the lake’s surface plunges downward, and I dive out of the water and into the air. Instead of stopping at the Lakeshore, Santiago and I fly into the sky as the Earth drops away from me. I feel the wind buffet me and the moisture of the clouds as we take to the sky.

  “He couldn’t survive underwater, so he flew away,” Santiago says.

  We settle slowly back to the ground. When I land softly in the spot where I began, the lake drains away before my eyes. The mermaids surface from the lake, pale corpses no longer luminous or full of life.

  “Many centuries later,” Santiago says as he appears again, approaching the vanishing lake, “the man returned to find little left of his immortal love’s lake. He came too late to save her family.”

  From what little remains of the lake, the same beautiful mermaid emerges. She lies across the sandy shore, still luminous yet changed.

  “This man made a deal, if his love could live, he would spend the rest of his immortal life as a slave.”

  The beautiful mermaid on the shore glows with a sharp red luminescence, and her fishtail splits up the center, becoming crude legs still sheathed in scales. The woman stands, reaches up to Santiago and takes his hand.

  The scene falls away once more, and Santiago stands alone on the cruise ship’s stage.

  The audience erupts in applause so loud that the sound shakes the chandeliers above. Santiago bows over and over again as the thunderous ovation continues.

  I almost forget all about the fact that we’re hiding for our lives and join the crowd clapping.

  “That was by far the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. What a beautiful love story,” Linnie whispers.

  While I agree it was beautiful, instead of filling me full of joy, I only feel sad.

  Santiago raises his hands, and another figure paces across the stage to stand with him.

  I automatically recognize her, Theo, the beautiful fish-like woman who lives in the cabin across from ours.

  She’s not dressed in the jeans and a T-shirt she wore when we first saw her. Instead, she wears a gown that’s black below the waist while brown and luminescent above, clearly mirroring the mermaid from the show.

  “And my love has stayed with me through all my years of servitude,” Santiago says.

  Somehow, I hear him over the roar of the audience. They must've heard him too because their cheers only increase
.

  “This may be harder than I thought,” Cassidy says as she leans into my ear. “He has something to lose if he helps us.”

  All of it, Santiago, Theo the entire performance and roar of the audience--it sits uncomfortably with me, and I’m not even sure why. But I know what Cassidy said is both spot on and very ominous about the task we have to accomplish in the next forty-eight hours.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two Days Before

  I stand behind a line of passengers waiting to order a salad. After living in the Leijonskold for almost a year now and eating rationed bread and drinking musty water, ordering at an all-you-can-possibly-eat salad bar almost makes this long, pointless morning on the cruise ship feel worth it.

  I don't even feel guilty about the fact that I’m eating a salad while a good portion of the world humans have to raid diminishing supplies at grocery stores for food. Maybe I’ll feel guilty later, but work this morning was that bad.

  I grab a bowl with my bleeding fingers. All of the cuts that healed in the night reopened while scrubbing, and I head for the table, where Cassidy, the rabbit, and Linnie huddle over their trays. As I walk through the buffet style cafeteria, my gaze searches all the diners for Theo or Santiago; again, it’s in vain. We stayed up the entire night in shifts, waiting for Theo to return. She didn't.

  This morning, before our shift, we'd asked her roommates where she was, saying we need to talk to her. They gave us vague, if not vaguely hostile, responses that she was already gone for the day and not expected back anytime soon.

  Linnie, Cassidy, and bunny Nicholas all glower at me as I take my seat across from them.

  “We need to come up with a plan,” whispers Cassidy under her breath.

  I look around us, quickly taking in the tables full of demons, creatures, and deities. I don't hush her, even though I want to, but hushing someone is a sure way to catch eavesdroppers. Instead, I lower my voice and say, “I'm working on it.”

  “Well, I'm hoping ‘I'm working on it’ means you have a plan you can enact as soon as we replenish our strength.” Cassidy’s gaze darts over to Nicholas, and panic floods her eyes.

  “Um…” Linnie speaks up as she peers at us each a little cautiously. “I have an idea.”

  “No offence, Linnie, but I think you should leave the planning to Raven and me,” Cassidy grumbles before taking a bite of steak.

  “Actually, I'd like to hear what Linnie has to say,” I say, probably a little too snappily back at Cassidy. I know all of us are stressed out and snappy and terrified every moment, so I do my best not to start a fight with one of the only friends and allies I have in the entire world.

  Cassidy is by far the expert on the situation, but she was the one who told my sister to take responsibility for herself.

  I get it.

  I understand what’s going on, but my sister is only going to start acting helpful if we treat her as such. My sister used to be happy, outspoken, quick to laugh or cry. Lately, she's only seemed defensive, insecure, and exhausted.

  “Uh, well.” Linnie winces. “It's just an idea, and it might not work, but I woke up early this morning and was talking to José, our roommate. I don't know if he was hinting or what, but he told me this crew optional life-raft drill thingy today is taught by that woman Theo. He said we should go.”

  I can't help giving Cassidy an ‘I told you so’ look.

  “Why didn't you tell us this earlier?” Cassidy asks, though her question is obviously a little annoyed there’s no heat in it. And I wonder if she realizes she should put a little faith in my sister’s mad social skills, too.

  “I tried. But that nasty bog creature kept peeking in at us all day long. I get a really bad feeling about him. It almost makes me wish we had that other Texan demon from yesterday.”

  “Hopefully, we won’t run into either of them again,” Cassidy says.

  Stuffing a big bite of salad in my mouth, I focus on crunching through the lettuce. I don't know why I feel such resistance to admitting I killed the weasel-faced demon, but for some reason, I still can't make myself say it.

  Linnie leans in. “The only problem is, we needed…” she lowers her voice to almost inaudible, “to steal bathing suits—”

  “Are you out of your mind? You want to steal from demons?” Cassidy says, leaning over the table so far, her uniform almost brushes her steak.

  “No...I want to borrow bathing suits from demons who are off the boat for today. We can wash them, dry them, and return them before they come back,” Linnie admits.

  Cassidy shakes her head, and I find that I’m wholeheartedly agreeing with her. It's too risky. If those demon passengers return early and see us in their bathing suits, all three of us would be dead.

  In the paperwork delivered to our state room last night, in the section that details those crimes that make crewmembers exempt from the rules of sanctuary and are punishable by death, stealing from passengers was up there at the top of the list.

  “Well…” Linnie looks around, obviously a little nervous. “I already took them.”

  “Are you kidding?” Cassidy’s nostrils flare and eyelids spring wide. “We have to return them. We’re the only ones who cleaned those rooms today. Any theft from those rooms will automatically be blamed on us.”

  “I’m—I’m sorry, I—”

  “No, it’s my fault. I pushed you. We’ll return them—right now. We’re going to fix this.” Cassidy says quickly. “I'll do it. Please don’t think I’m criticizing you. I know I was hard on you last night. It’s a good thing you saw an opportunity and took the initiative. Perhaps, just discuss it with me first next time--”

  “I’m going to do it,” I say.

  “Have you both lost your minds?” Cassidy whispers across the table at me. “Do you know how probable it is that we’ll get caught and die doing a stunt like this at midday in the most public area of the ship?”

  “Yes, I might be a little out of my head right now.” Sighing, I add in a whisper, “But truthfully, this plan isn’t any more irrational than yours last night. Time is almost up for us, and I’ll have this two-hour period before we start our next shift and work until midnight. There’s no show tonight, so who knows where they’ll be? Searching through the ship for them will be another plan where we risk death. At least this way, I can possibly arrange to meet Santiago secretly after our shift tonight. We eat. We go back downstairs and ask crewmates if we can borrow their bathing suits. If they don’t have any, I’ll wear Linnie’s and you two return the others.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’m pushing up my underwear, trying to get it to fit in the revealing one-piece Linnie stole from a demon.

  It’s the best of the three pilfered options, though the underwear bulge looks both obvious and awkward. But the other option is going commando in a demon’s bathing suit.

  Not a chance in Hell.

  “Just use this until you can slip into the pool,” Cassidy says as she wraps a towel around my waist. She didn’t warm up to the idea, but she’s voicing no more than a few objections.

  In both Linnie and her eyes, I see a mirror reflection of my own mounting desperation. After noon passes, it marks only thirty-six hours to go. Six of those hours, we would be required for cleaning.

  I haven't even made contact with Santiago yet.

  There’s a very high chance that in thirty-six hours Barbas will drag me to Hell, kill me, and Andras would break the seals of Solomon.

  It almost feels inevitable now, as if I've been trying to stay awake for days but eventually sleep will take me along with the nightmares that wait there. It's as if I've already lost.

  Perhaps it's just the exhaustion speaking.

  “And I suppose I’ll take these two other swimming costumes back to their rooms.” Cassidy wraps the two other bathing suits in a towel. “Linnie, you take Nicholas. If someone catches Raven or me, you jump overboard with Nicholas and swim ashore with him.”

  In the mirror of the dim, utilitarian crew bathro
om, I give Cassidy a look I hope displays how thankful I am to her. Returning the stolen bathing suits will be by far the most dangerous part of this mission, but if we don't return them, capture is guaranteed.

  Leijonskjöld will protect Linnie and Nicholas both if they can make it ashore. Even if demons actively hunt them, what real difference would it be to the life we’re already living?

  “When you're done, meet us at the pool, okay?” I say to Cassidy.

  “I'll be there,” she says with a smile that isn't quite reassuring.

  I pull up the towel around under my armpits and tie it on securely as best I can. Linnie and I are careful to stay out of the guest areas as much as possible, going up the crew stairs. There, we plunge back into the crowd of passengers streaming in all directions. All day as we wear ship uniforms, demons’ gazes slide over us in a sort of servant class invisibility. But walking out now in my bathing suit, more than one gaze finds me and sticks. A stick-thin male demon tracks me with his eyes, and the bear-like creature playing chess with him leans in and growls something in his ear.

  I press my inner arms against my towel, hoping to hide Räum’s demon mark there.

  Like the last time we were at the pool, sunbathers, drinkers, and mid-meal snackers surround the area. The major difference is that most of these passengers are of the stranger, more inhuman variety. Many complexions veer toward the more vivid colors of the spectrum. Many have visible scales or horns or other supernatural qualities.

  As far as I heard, Mexico and Central America remains still mostly spared from the raven plague and natural disasters that had consumed Asia, most of Europe, parts of Africa and the majority of the west coast of the United States.

  Out of one of the wall of windows that close in the pool area, palm trees sway in a light breeze. Workers and uniforms walk or drive vehicles around a bustling port. Passengers line up to cross a customs booth. Large tour buses unload and load brightly dressed demons and human skin.

  “At least you won't have to deal with any creepy demons in the pool,” Linnie leans in to whisper, yanking my attention back to our surroundings.