The Kraken Club
The Kuntilanak’s name was Indah, at least, it was in the strip club. Her long, black hair wrapped like a shroud around her body as she circled the pole. When her hair coiled past her shoulders, it revealed the nail sticking out of the back of her neck, thick as a child’s fist, the color of rust and blood. Black rope was tied around her legs, cuffing them to the soles of the boots she wore as heels. A tall and thin man, a fairy, with willow-emerald skin and eyes the color of lotus leaves, held out a wad of dollar bills. He placed them at her feet.
“Smile,” he told her.
She did, baring her fangs.
The fairy grinned. “Ah.” He traced his thumb against those fangs, still grinning as she sank them into skin that tasted of rotting leaves and nectar. The fangs retracted when he didn’t flinch. “Like a vampire.”
Indah laughed, bending over to pocket the bills in one smooth movement. “The vampires wish they were Kuntilanak like me.”
***-
As soon as she pressed the bills to the glittering zip up pouch at her thigh, they disappeared. The fairy waggled his long, thin fingers. “Alakazam.” He chuckled even though this wasn’t a laughing matter. Being of fairy blood, he couldn’t care less.
“Fae magic doesn’t feed me. Money does. So, if you’re not willing to pay with real cash, then get out.” She spat at his eye, praying he went blind. “Setan.”
She moved toward the bathroom, taking the long way around so she wouldn’t run into the handsy Ljósálfar manning the bar with his light-blond hair and translucent skin. He thought he was handsome, and he took many a mortal woman to bed, but his overconfidence turned the Kuntilanak girl off him.
Overconfidence just made you all the more of an asshole, and she knew his type. Pelle was just another elf acting as a handler in this gods-forsaken place.
She slammed into the bathroom and took the sink covered in the least amount of glitter and wadded tissue paper. She splashed under her armpits and near her groin, counting the feeble bills she’d collected in the first hour of the night.
The blue bathroom door swung lazily open behind her, screeching against tile. “Fuck off, Pelle!” She screamed it out, hoping she could scare him off.
Instead, it was the green fairy. He stood in front of her with his legs splayed wide, his eyes focused on her face.
“You again? I’m not for free.” She raised her middle finger, water trickling down the sides of her face. Smelling a sweet-smoky mix of nail polish and cigarettes in the back.
No reaction. His eyes stayed focused on her face. “Hello? Fairy dude, you doing all right?”
His neck bent backward then slammed forward again. Something splintered: wood, blood, and bone. “They’re coming,” he said. “The ones who see all.” Then he struck.
His weight slammed into her, willow skin flaking off into the sink. She scratched at his arms, but he wouldn’t stop, not even as the room erupted into the scent of overdue flowers and root rot. He went for her throat, taking her long wrap of hair and tugging backward. She choked and gasped, her hands against his chest, fingers digging into his skin.
Fluorescent lights flickered above her as she stared at the ceiling. One moment, then two.
Death called to the death in her blood.
She reached back to the nail behind her head, the one she promised not to remove if she wished to stay in Gamin. She’d heard what happened to the old Greek goddess, the one who couldn’t control her bloodthirst and went mad. She knew of the demon who played detective, the watchdog over all their sorry souls. Maybe Indah might look like a pretty jinn or guardian spirit, but she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.
She couldn’t hold back her true form.
She dug the nail out with a screech. Her long hair grew to her feet, her teeth extending past the pretty fangs. Blood dripped from her eyes and her tongue split into two as veins stood out against her skin, the muscles creaking and stretching to their full potential. Her feet and hands hooked like claws. She grew a head taller than the possessed green fairy.
“Setan,” she spat.
It was the last thing that echoed in the green fairy’s skull.
*
Moments later, Pelle, the bartending Ljósálfar, brought some of his pretty elf friends to see what was going on in the locked bathroom. When he brought the door down, Indah was sitting with the green man’s contorted body resting on her lap. The nail was back in her neck.
“He attacked me,” she explained, her gaze the glassy calm of shock. “I don’t know what he was on. Something strong. Something that made him forget himself… Forgetting.” She paused. “Do you think Lethe is at it again?”
“Call the detective,” Pelle told his elf buddies. “Whatever this is, making everyone lose their heads”—he grimaced at the choice of words— “we don’t want it in Gamin.”