On the island of Alapora, only the elite and wealthy priests and priestesses, known as the Holy Ones, are permitted to safely use the magic of demons, but that doesn’t stop the common people, or the demons. For years, demons and humans have been mingling in the mysterious Masked Market, where demon magic is traded in secret. 

One day, Zomoc, the overeager student of a powerful priestess, seeks out the Masked Market to investigate, and meets a girl named Mola. The two become involved in a shocking chain of events that unravels everything Zomoc thought she knew about herself and her home. 

Over the next three years, Zomoc and Mola give everything they have to spearhead a movement to use magic to take down the Holy Ones…or die trying. 

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Trigger and Content Warnings

On page: Slavery, dead and decomposing bodies, suicidal ideation, severe injuries, loss of a limb, attempted murder, disassociation, forced pregnancy. 

Referenced/discussed: suicide, death of a parent, childbirth, death of an infant, death after childbirth. 

Implied or mentioned: rape.

Please be aware: while the conflict between demons and humans is inspired by, and very similar to, issues in real human society, it is drastically different in many ways due to the fantasy setting and is not meant to directly parallel real-life conflicts.

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Excerpt:

Prologue

Kelp

The octopus had turned itself gray and wedged itself between two rocks.

At twelve years old, Kelp had the nimblest fingers and thinnest claws out of the sea demons in his pod, but not even he could squeeze deep enough into the crevice to get that octopus.

“Leave it be,” his father said as he slowly swam by.

“I almost got it!”

“Trust me, an octopus isn’t worth losing fingers over.”

“Of course you would say that, you don’t even like octopus.”

“Why would I? Fish taste infinitely better.”

“We have fish every single day!”

“Because they taste better than octopus.”

Kelp hissed. The octopus was watching him, its sideways pupil boring into his own.

“And besides, soon you have to take Mola to land.” Father’s voice became unusually gentle, he knew it was a sensitive subject, as most things relating to adolescence are.

Kelp wanted to groan, but he kept a calm expression and nodded.

Most sea demons gained the ability to turn their tail into a pair of legs at about ten. Kelp couldn’t do it until a few months before his twelfth birthday.

He was assured this was normal and that he just needed to give himself time, but he hated how weak it made him feel. All around him, other demons his age were exploring the bright new world of the land, while all his efforts had rewarded him with unusual and painful panging in his muscles.

“I’ll never do it,” he’d lamented. “I’m not strong enough.”

“Calm down.” Mother had said. “You’re almost there.” But he could tell the way he’d said I’m not strong enough nagged at her. Kelp had been born too early, too small. He barely survived infancy. Since all sea demon parents name their babies after an attribute of the child’s, this ordeal had earned him his very name. Kelp. Small and thin, but durable. Flexible. Flourishing, under the right conditions.

Kelp could go on land now, but that place did not hold good things for him.

Due to having just gained the ability to walk, he relied on a stick of driftwood to help him balance like most of his peers. Sometimes, the sea demons would run into humans their age, and that always filled him with shame. The humans, keeping their distance, would run and leap and climb while Kelp dug his stick into the sand and tried to perfect his walking posture. It didn’t help that his sister, Mola, had gained her land form far younger than he had, and was already walking as a toddler, much to the jealousy of both her brothers. Gull, just about a year older than Mola, could still only swim and loudly longed to experience the magical world of land. Kelp wondered if he would look less pathetic while walking now if he had been able to start learning when he was her age.

Mola was a special case, he reminded himself. Mola was a hybrid who had been born on land. Kelp’s pod had found her alone on the beach, just hours old, and claimed her as their own.

Hybrids were half-human, half-demon, and completely unwanted. Most of the time. Kelp didn’t really understand it, and all the adults he’d asked so far said he was too young to know all the details just yet. What he had learned to grasp over the years was this:

In some places, humans and demons were free to intermingle and have as many babies as they wanted. This island, Alapora, was not one of those places. Kelp and his pod migrated with the tides, but they always came back here, and if he hadn’t loved the tropical waters he lived in, he would have believed that to be unfortunate. Humans and demons had once had much more equal standing here, but over the years, they were forced apart. Demons now had free reign in the jungles and the seas, while humans stayed mostly within their own communities they’d carved out of nature. Up until recently, the remaining exception to this had been the Crestwave pod, a pod of sea demons who exerted impressive control over their oceanic territory and even had a home on land where they were seen as equals to some humans. But the last of the Crestwaves had just died last year, and pieces of the newly available territory had been seized by any demons strong and scary enough to claim it for themselves. The fighting amongst the groups was terrible and frightening, and Kelp had heard Songs, whistled underwater messages that travel long distances, about Boulder, a demon who was rising to the top amongst the carnage and seemed primed to seize all of the former Crestwave territory.

And now in the midst of all this, his parents were sending him up to land with his two-year-old sister. Alone. He’d been told time and time again that they were far away enough from the fighting to be safe, but that still guaranteed nothing to him.

But still he went without complaint.

Mola toddled onto the soft pale sand of the shore, already giggling with excitement. Kelp managed to stop her just long enough to pat down his loincloth, made of woven seaweed and excellent for navigating both the land and sea. He then made sure Mola’s own tunic of seaweed was wrapped comfortably around her body. He then righted himself with his stick and they set off.

The sun was low in the sky, but wouldn’t set for a long while. Normally that mattered nothing to a sea demon whose eyes could easily see in the dark, but nighttime emboldened Boulder’s jungle demon allies.

“We won’t be up here long, all right Mola?” He told his sister. “It will be getting dark soon.”

She nodded eagerly, but he doubted she fully understood.

The one benefit that the widespread fear brought was that there were now far fewer people around, so his chances of public humiliation were slimmer.

Kelp took note of a strangely shaped rock formation sticking out of the sand. It was a landmark he could sense by clicking with his Extra Sight to help him find their way back to where they’d come from. He would need to teach Mola how to refine her own abilities soon, she still often whistled and clicked with the obliviousness of an infant despite already being two. Maybe on land he could show her how long to hold your clicks and whistles, how long to wait until they bounced back off of objects and you could see them in your mind.

The duo set off on their walk, one significantly more enthusiastic than the other.

“Kelp!” Mola pointed at the trees in the distance, where the jungle met the shore.

“What?”

“Kelp! Kelp is over there!”

No Mola, those are trees. Not a kelp forest, a tree forest.”

“Trees!”

They’d had this lesson a couple times already. It was common for even sea demons six times Mola’s age to mix up sea things and land things as they learned about the entirely new world, so he wasn’t worried she wasn’t learning or anything.

A bright red bird flew overhead.

“Fish!”

“No, bird. Remember, bird.”  

“Cloud. Cloud up there.”

“Yes, you remembered! Yay, cloud!”

Mola giggled, and someone else laughed with her.

Kelp stopped, cold.

Mola, still giggling, reached for the air with her chubby hands, smiling at something he couldn’t see. Then there was a flicker of light above her head, and it darted away like the bird Mola had just seen.

Before he could process what just happened, Mola broke into a run, following the light far away from him.

“No!”

Why was she so fast? Why did he have to be so slow? Why did she have to go and just keep going, seemingly unstopping, for far too long, until she finally ran out of breath at the door of an unfamiliar building by the ocean.

This was no ordinary building. It was massive, and crafted with the same elegance as the temples of worship he saw in human cities when he’d dared to peek over there during his trips to land. But instead of reliefs of gods and ancient warriors, fish and whorling symbols had been carved lovingly into the gray stone. This was unquestionably a place that held its head high, and expected anyone who entered it to do the same.

To his horror, Mola knocked on the door.

“No!” he wheezed. He hobbled up to stand beside her at the doorstep, shielding her a little with his body, ready to apologize to whatever rightfully annoyed human would open the door. No human wanted a demon on their doorstep around these parts.

The door opened.

Kelp had seen a lot of humans, usually from a distance. He had never really gotten that close to most of them. So he was not exactly a human expert. But he was fairly certain a human was not supposed to look like the person standing in front of them.

She was human- shaped, with the standard arms and legs and torso and all that, but her skin was as translucent as a jellyfish. She wore pale clothing and her dark (but still translucent) hair was in a long braid down her back.

“Name?” she asked politely.

“Uh.” Kelp swallowed hard, barely able to think through his shock. “Kelp?”

“If it is your name, why do you sound so unsure of it?” she asked teasingly.

“Uh-”

She cut him off by laughing. “I’m just joking. I just like to pretend, to toy with our guests sometimes, I like seeing their faces. Come in, come in.”

Helpless, as if he was pulled by a riptide, Kelp and Mola followed the woman inside.

The hallway was decorated minimally, with only a few elegant carvings here and there.

“I-I’m not sure we’re actually guests.” Kelp spluttered. “We weren’t invited.”

“No one needs an invitation to one of these parties.” she said, smiling.

“Yeah!” Mola said in agreement.

Kelp simply shrugged.

“Why did you come through the human entrance?” the woman asked. “We do have a special underwater gateway for sea demons, you know.”

“You do? Oh, we came because my sister ran to the door and knocked. I was- we were sent on land for unsupervised walking practice.” Why am I telling her this?

“That’s nice.”

The long hallway the woman was leading them down was coming to an end. The chatter and laughs of a party were growing louder and louder.

“Here we are.” the woman said.

Kelp’s jaw dropped.

He was standing in the biggest room he’d ever been in in his life. The walls were inlaid with carvings of silver fish, gold had been put into the walls, and gemstones twinkled from the eyes of the carvings. In the center was a pool of water, the underwater entrance the woman had mentioned. At the furthest wall of the room, a staircase led up, up, and up. Kelp had never seen a staircase in real life before, only in his father’s stories of how people lived on land.

I did it, Father. I actually saw a real staircase. For a split second, all his pain and exhaustion disappeared, and he was filled with pride at the story he’d tell his parents.

“Oh!” an unfamiliar voice cried. “There are some new guests I haven’t greeted, one moment.”

Before Kelp processed what was happening, a shirtless young man as translucent as the woman had walked up to him, grinning. He wore a white cloth around his waist, and his long hair flowed freely down his shoulders.

“Hello!”

“Oh! Uh, hello. I’m Kelp.”

“Good evening Kelp. Welcome to the Crestwave Manor. Unfortunately, our hosts are a little busy at the moment, and I have been given the task of greeting people in their stead. Is there anything you need?”

“Somewhere to sit would be nice.” he admitted sheepishly. I’ve never walked this far in my life, I think, and I hope he can’t tell-wait, did he say Crestwave Manor? As in the Crestwave Manor? Am I really in the headquarters sought after by some of the most terrifying barbarians in the land, surrounded by ghosts?  

His heart began to pound, and his steps were shaky as he was politely led over to a waiting empty mat to sit on. Despite his apprehension, he lowered himself into it gratefully out of necessity. His legs hurt in ways he didn’t know were possible. And if I need to make a run for it, I need my strength. He sighed. Stupidly, he hoped that no one would offer him something to drink. Sea demons could not drink liquids, they got all their hydration from the food they ate. He didn’t know what would happen if he choked to death on a ghost drink at a ghost party he wasn’t even supposed to be at.

“You look exhausted,” the translucent man noted, concerned. “Do you want to hear a joke? You look to be in dire need of a joke.”

“...will saying no get me killed?”

“Not unless you die of laughter!”

That got some laughs out of some nearby creatures who overheard. So much for thinking I wouldn’t get publicly humiliated today.  

Kelp swallowed, licking his dry lips and looking around. He wondered if he seemed as monstrous to these beings as they looked to him.

He was an adolescent sea demon, so he was already taller than most humans by at least a head. His own head had short black hair more comparable to fur. His eyes were almost nothing but black, and he had to stretch them very wide for anyone to see the whites. His nostrils were two slits in his face above his nearly lipless mouth, and they both opened and closed very tightly to prevent water from entering them while swimming. His mouth was full of sharp yellow teeth, and the voice that came out of it was high and raspy like all sea demons, sometimes sounding as if it was being forced in hard bursts out of his throat. His skin was gray and often a bit slimy, and he had whorling dark markings and some scars branching over his torso. His only item of clothing was the seaweed loincloth wrapped around his hips.

A monster, indeed.

But no one seemed afraid in the slightest.

Maybe it’s because I hobbled in here with a walking stick and a toddler. If they saw me at my full strength, they’d really be scared.

I hope.

The host who’d helped him to the seat was still hovering very close by, seemingly distracted.

Sir?” Kelp asked.

The man winced a little. Kelp didn’t know why. “Yes?”

“I don’t want to hear a joke, but I’d like to hear some answers. Who are you? What are you? And who are all these people? And why are none of you afraid of Boulder?” his voice rose unintentionally. “I’m sorry if I sound rude, I’m just so confused-”

“Oh.” the man blinked, looking almost as confused as Kelp was. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought you knew. I should’ve guessed by your expression-” he cleared his throat. “Well, Kelp, this manor was the ancestral home of the great Crestwave pod, and I-we-” he gestured to the crowd. “Are now ancestors ourselves. We come back here once a year for a night of revelry. The reason we do not fear Boulder is because he and his cohorts fear the likes of us. Ha!”

Kelp was going to pass out. From both fear of spirits and Boulder, and the realization that he’d walked further than he ever had in his life and was now exhausted.

“Easy, easy. Have you never seen a ghost before? I can assure you we are not dangerous in the slightest-”

He had not. They did  have ghosts in the sea, jellyfish-like wraiths that could not be sensed by clicking and only seen far under the water. But just because he knew they were out there didn’t mean he’d ever expected to be invited to one of their parties. What-

It’s the Night of Spirits. Exhaustion had made him foolish and uncaring. He had forgotten that tonight was the famous Alaporan celebration of the Night of Spirits, when the spirits of the dead walked among the living for a night and a day. Or was it a day and a night? No matter, it was all the same difference in the end. Ghosts could interact with the living outside of dreams right now, that was all he cared about. Being demons, his pod worshiped nothing but the tides and the sea they lived in, and performed no rituals but celebrations around birth and death. He barely ever thought about the Night of Spirits or other goings-on of the land people. But up until now, his closest exposure to the Night of Spirits had been watching people performing ceremonies on boats and beaches from afar, rituals meant to guide the souls of those who had died at sea back to land. He heard they worked most of the time. Sometimes they didn’t. He looked around, wondering if any of the ghosts before him had been brought home by that very ritual, and how it would feel to die so lost and far away from your natural habitat, and how he might learn what that felt like himself if something went wrong tonight-

The man was still trying to talk to him, but he had stopped listening. The man was swiftly quieted by a woman’s voice saying: I think he needs a moment.  

“Yes, I just- Mola. My sister. Where’s my sister?”

“She’s in good hands with the mothers.” the woman assured him, at the same time the man said:

“Your sister?” in an inquisitive tone.

“Where is she?” Kelp asked again, looking around frantically. He saw Mola standing, babbling contentedly to a circle of women who were fawning over her. Some of the women had swollen bellies, others were clutching small ghostly children of their own to their breasts. Kelp suddenly remembered the tale of his own premature birth and his world swayed a little as he realized he and his sister could’ve ended up ghost babies themselves.

“You said that girl is your sister?” the young man asked again.

“Yes.”

“Would you happen to know if she was found? Alone? With no adults in sight?”

Kelp nodded, just barely. His head was wobbling with the weight of all these strange events and he feared it may fall off if he moved it too much.

The man paused, mulling over this information. He looked the most serious Kelp had seen him so far. One of the women scooped Mola up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Mola giggled.

“Good.” the man said.

“So, are you going to explain, or are you just going to keep staring pensively off into the distance?”

Now it was Kelp’s turn to make the man laugh, even though he hadn’t intended to be funny.

“I think I’m going to keep staring pensively off into the distance. You’ve given me a lot to think about, Kelp.”

“I’ve given you a lot to think about? I’m talking to a ghost in the Crestwave Manor who knows things about my baby sister’s birth family!”

“There’s no need for this to be a fight, Kelp.”

“I’m not trying to fight you, I’m just-shocked.” he deflated a little.

“As you have the right to be.” the man said heavily. “I’m sorry, Kelp. I didn’t mean to distress you so much. There’s just- there are many things you don’t know.”

“That’s obvious. And it would be really helpful if you could at least give me a hint about what I’m missing here.”

The man sighed, seeming to get aggrieved in earnest now. “As much as I’d love to tell you, it would involve a lot of painful memories for myself and many of us here. And I’m just not sure now is a good time.”

“Well, when is a good time?”

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“And your sister, how old is she?”

“Two.”

“Hmm. All right then, I shall tell you the truth in ten years’ time.”

“Ten years? Wait, are you joking?”

“I am not. You said you did not want jokes, you wanted answers. So I’m giving you the best answer I can right now. On this date, 1-...” he trailed off at the look on Kelp’s face. “Right. Sea demons keep their time through the movement of the water and moon. What is it now?”

“Full moon, low tide, the fifteenth day of the ninth tidal cycle of the year, thirteen-hundred and sixty-seven.”

“All right then, on the fifteenth day of the ninth tidal cycle of the year thirteen-hundred seventy-seven, come here. Do not come without Mola present, it is her truth after all.”

“All right. Is that all I have to do?”

“Yes. That will be all.”

“Do we have an agreement, Kelp?”

Come here.

In ten years.

With Mola.

That doesn’t sound so bad.

“What if I can’t make it? What if something happens and I can only come in eleven years? Or twenty?”

“That is fine. I can wait.”

“How am I going to find you if I don’t even know your name?”

“I forgot to tell you my name?” the man smacked himself on the forehead. “I am Matlaihutl.”

“Matlaihutl.” Kelp tried out the name in his own mouth. It came out with clunky syllables, a drawn-out airy M and an odd emphasis on the hutl, the result of his demonic voice. He felt ashamed of not being able to capture the true musicality of Matlaihutl’s name, but the man himself did not seem offended in the slightest.

“Now, do we have an agreement, Kelp?”

Kelp had once swum by an underwater ravine. He had hovered over it, marveling at how if he wanted to, he could swim in it, going down, down, down...

In that moment, he was unnervingly aware of just how deep the ocean was, and how not even the oldest and wisest of sea demons in all existence knew all of its secrets.

This was how he felt now. He was floating almost powerlessly over a sea of secrets, terrifying in their incomprehensibility.

Matlaihuitl’s eyes were almost as dark as the depths of that water. And the look in them was calm. Patient. He would wait for Kelp’s reply.

Kelp did what anyone preparing to take a deep dive would do and took a very deep breath.

“I agree. I promise.”

“Excellent!” Matlaihuitl was jovial again, but there was now something heavier in his eyes that Kelp could not quite place. He was now burdened somehow. They both were.

But the celebration around them had resumed, so soon the atmosphere felt so light and gleeful that secretive promises and hidden truths hardly seemed to matter. At some point Matlaihutl even picked him up and spun him around as they both laughed and laughed and laughed...

Kelp didn’t know how he made it back home. One minute he was laughing with the ghost man, the next he was floating, gratefully back in sea form, blearily rubbing his eyes while his father shrieked.

“What could you possibly have been doing up there? You were gone for hours! I searched and searched but couldn’t find you, and your sister was crying from exhaustion by the time you finally staggered your sorry self back to the water. Oh, and might I add that you were leaning on the arm of a stranger? A strange creepy looking human-like man?! And when I clicked at him, I couldn’t sense him?” he shouted as if it was Kelp’s fault. “There was just nothing- poof! Like he was made of thin air and my sounds couldn’t bounce off of him. And yet you were holding onto his arm!

“I was?”

“Yes! Your mother said it was probably fine but how could she say that? I mean, he was more of a boy than a man really, but still! He didn’t even tell me his name!”

“His name’s Matlaihutl.”

“Good to know. Him and I will be having some very strong words about what my son is and isn’t allowed to do on land, especially with invisible, formless, men-!”

“Quiet, you don’t want to wake up Mola and Gull.”

“Her and your mother are floating above the water right now so it’s easier for Mola to breathe.” Kelp’s father sighed in a cloud of bubbles. “I don’t-I can’t-what-just, come here, Kelp.”

Kelp swam into his father’s arms and gratefully accepted his hug. He needed something to help him feel tethered to reality right now.

“I just want to know that you’re safe. That’s all I want.” his father whispered.

“I don’t think  I was in any danger up there.” he whispered.

“That’s not comforting.”

“I’ll tell you all about what happened. But right now, I just want to sleep.”

“Want to sleep holding onto me like the old times?” very small sea demons hung onto the arms of their parents while they slept so they wouldn't float away.

“...maybe. Yes. I don’t want to feel alone.”

Father flipped onto his back, and Kelp held onto the crook of his arm and closed his eyes. That night, and for many more nights to come, he would dream of laughing ghosts in a grand house.

Chapter 1

Blood Drinker

Blood Drinker leaned against the wall, lazily skewering a piece of cooked gull meat on one claw and eating it as he watched the patrons and proprietors of the Masked Market walk by through the flap of his tent. True to their name, everyone, human or demon, wore a mask to protect their identity. Blood Drinker’s own mask was a simple one: a slab of wood with holes for his eyes, nose and mouth. It was painted in berry juice and blood. 

The Masked Market had once been the massive home of the Crestwave pod, the last wealthy demon pod on the island. But when Blood Drinker was about eleven, a series of tragedies struck, killing the Crestwaves and scattering any unlucky survivors across the seas. Other demons swarmed the prime territory, taking it over as their own, and after years of fighting and the overthrow of the vicious leader Boulder, the Masked Market was created, the one place on the island where anyone could make a deal with a demon and get a taste of their magic. 

In what had once been some sort of gathering space for the pod and guests, Masked Market demons had set up shop. The almost cavernous room was filled with tiny tents that lined the walls, and demons and humans milled around in the center, around the pool of water that connected to the ocean to provide sea demons an entrance or exit. 

In one far corner, demons who’d made the maximum amount of deals they could relax for the rest of the day, gorging themselves on fresh meat or any food offerings humans gave them. This was all lit by scattered torches, and often kept dim on purpose. Less light meant more secrecy. And in a place where both the rich and the poor mingled with disguised demons, secrecy was everything. In the Market, names were never exchanged between humans and demons. You were only known by your mask and your scent, kept cataloged by some jungle demons who worked for Serpent, a sea demon who ruled this whole operation with an iron fist. 

Blood Drinker shoved a bigger hunk of meat into his mouth, uncaring of the stains it got on his mask. It would add to his reputation. 

A shadow moved in front of the flaps of his tent. A hand reached up and knocked on one of the wooden poles. One, two, three times. Blood Drinker was a sea demon, much less territorial than a jungle demon, so knocking wasn’t a requirement. But he liked that they knocked. 

“Come in,” he rasped after swallowing his snack. 

The human who crept in was bundled in a damp black cloak, and wearing a rather simple yellow mask with blue spots. They were shaking like a leaf. 

“Did you bring me what I asked for, Blue Spots?”

They nodded, and with a trembling hand, reached into their cloak and pulled out a piece of palm bark. 

Blood Drinker smiled. “Show it to me and tell me everything.”

The human angled it towards him, exposing a painstakingly carved sketch in the bark- a field full of tall grass. In the foreground were massive animals: a leopard-like thing with a huge mane of fur, eating a dead deer-thing, and next to it, a towering animal covered in spots with the longest neck Blood Drinker had ever seen. He stifled a chuckle of wonderment. 

“This is all true? All of it?”

“All of it, Blood Drinker, sir. I snuck into the library and copied this all by hand. Memorized all the information they had on it, too. The tall one, that’s called a giraffe. They eat leaves and walk slowly, and don’t have much to fear from predators when they reach adulthood. As you can see why. And the jaguar-like thing is called a lion. The males have those manes of fur, but sometimes females grow them too. They live in complex little family groups made up of females and their children. I think the thing the lion is eating is called a gazelle. That’s all I have, Blood Drinker, sir.”

“There’s no need to call me sir, Blue Spots.” He couldn’t help smiling. “When I travel the world one day, I better not find out you lied to me. I’d hunt you down and cut one of your limbs off for lying.”

Blue Spots whimpered. 

“I’m just joking. The whole reason I asked you to supply me with this knowledge is that a sea demon like myself will probably never be able to travel inland for very long, and I will only ever see the coasts of foreign countries. The knowledge you provide gives me a taste of the wonders of the world, and for that, I think you’ve earned your prize. It’s time for me to fulfill my end of the Deal.”

In exchange for a detailed description of the inland of a foreign land, Blood Drinker had agreed to provide one week’s worth of Extra Sight magic to Blue Spots, who needed it to uncover whether or not someone was lying to them and their superior about important legal information. Blood Drinker didn’t understand all the details Blue Spots had anxiously explained, but he grasped enough to deem it worthy of just a little magical assistance.

Using two of the claws on his webbed hand, he punctured two small wounds in the tip of the humans’ pointer and middle finger. Then he pressed his palm to the droplets of blood that beaded at the surface and breathed hard. He closed his eyes. He felt small fragments of his magic trickle into the human’s bloodstream. When he opened his eyes, he pulled his palm away and saw a silvery thread of magic escaping his hand and slipping into the wound. 

Blue Spots made a strangled noise. It could not be any more obvious that this was their first time. 

“Shhhh.”

The human steadied their breathing. 

“Good job.” he said. Some first-timers had meltdowns or crying fits, and while it was clear this human wanted to do both, they were trying their hardest to keep it together. 

“Thank you.” they were pumping their hand up and down as if it burned. It probably did.

“Excellent.” He said. “I will see you in one week. Understand? One week.” That was when the magic in the human’s body would die and he would need to collect any possible remaining scraps. 

“I understand. Um, thank you Blood Drinker. Have a good day. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” 

Blue Spots ran out of the Market as if he had chased them. 

Humans and demons alike looked down upon Deals. 

He’d heard that the pod of a demon named Redfang’s had screamed and cried when they’d found out. “Just kill me now!” Redfang’s mother had allegedly shouted. “My daughter, serving humans? We raised you to have dignity! Dignity! And then you go do this? Everyone in the sea will see our family markings and think ‘those people that think nothing of themselves and are content to send their children to Deal with humans!’”

Blood Drinker shuddered to think of what Redfang’s mother would say about his family, given that his sister sometimes helped him in the Market. His parents knew he made Deals, and they’d accepted it with tight-lipped smiles as long as he swore it was a temporary thing. Yes, it had been long enough for them to doubt how temporary it really was, but they still loved him and tried to believe it was not permanent. The idea of their son casting aside the pod’s pride to eat from the hands of humans was almost too much disgrace for them to bear. Almost.

To enter business at the Market meant to enter a sick symbiosis. Market demons were no longer free to live as they pleased among their own kind, they were tethered to this place, to the people who frequented it. Now, the two worlds and their ways bled into each other. This gave some particularly ambitious demons incentives to aim higher, to deliberately unmask their clients and find who had the most money and most influence outside of the Market, and whisper certain suggestions into their ears. The bond between friends in the Market was a strong and consensual tie, but the tie between Deal-makers was more akin to a chain. 

If no one else treated Deal-making with respect, then the Deal-makers had to do so themselves. Blood Drinker and the others of the old guard had it down to an art form. Some thought of it as like how some humans caught fish with hooks. Bait. Hook. Pull it up. Do it all again. Blood Drinker thought this was an inadequate metaphor and he personally thought of it as a dance. A strange dance, where each person wants to think they are the stronger one. In reality, the Deal brings an odd sort of equality. Each person is weakened, temporarily dependent on the other for something, and this is a delicate balance that must be maintained. Deals in of themselves are delicate, complex, oxymoronic things that require a certain level of skill. A Deal was physical but not erotic, intimate but removed, and tender but not loving. Blood Drinker had to hear some of the deepest secrets of stranger’s hearts in exchange for his own hidden wants, and then do it all over the next week. The items he received from Deals were precious but sometimes he questioned if they were worth it. 

Most Deals only last a week or less, most demons reasonably accomplish two Deals a week. But there are some particularly large Deals that last weeks, months, and most rarely, years. The last kind are the most serious, the most intimate. No demon would give a human their magic for years unless something immensely important to both parties was at stake. He’d only heard of a Deal like that happening years ago, when Boulder had come to power and given some magic to a human named-

Suddenly, there was a terrible scream. 

He ran outside, seeing a jungle demon named Rath bursting out of her tent. There was a writhing human in her arms. Their mask had been ripped off, but their face was so covered in blood it was impossible to make out any defining features. She threw the human to the ground and dug her claws in their stomach, then carved downwards. She then picked the human up again and half-carried, half-dragged them out of the Market, while they screamed and sobbed all the way. 

Rath was known for being temperamental, but she never did something like that without good reason. The human must’ve broken one of the most sacred rules of the Market.

Do not disrespect a demon. Attempting to harm, steal, lie, or cheat will cost you more than anything you are prepared to pay. 

“RATH!” Serpent bellowed as the bloodied jungle demon walked back into the Market without her victim in tow, wiping blood off her whiskered face and tunic. 

Serpent the Sensible was a sea demon who had been effectively crowned queen of the Market once she took over after the overthrow of Boulder the Brute (Also known as Boulder the Bloodthirsty). Boulder’s “Market” had been little more than a fragmented hotspot of debauchery full of reckless Deals as Boulder himself plotted to gain more power. Once in the metaphorical throne, Serpent had sharpened the Market into the successful place it was today. She never spoke of her age, but based on her gray-streaked hair and mannerisms he guessed she had to be at least over forty. She’d wrapped herself in a loose white tunic that matched the streaks in her hair. Dried mud covered her pod markings, like all sea demons had to do when hiding their identities. Also to hide her identity was her iconic mask, which she was never seen without. It was painted green and made to look like a snake’s face, complete with small carved fangs positioned right above a scar that ran down her lower lip. It created the illusion that she had scarred herself on the fang of her own mask. Right now, her scowl exposed her missing yellowed teeth and emphasized said scar. She was short, even shorter than some humans present, and thus far smaller than Rath. But even Rath, a jungle demon who resembled a fusion between a human and a leopard and was strong enough to snap Serpent’s neck with little effort, cowered before her. 

“What exactly was the meaning of that outburst, Rath?”

Rath swallowed. “She insulted me.” 

“What was the manner of this insult? You can answer that question privately, if you wish.”

“Uh, yes, I do wish.”

Rath’s spotted tail swished slowly as she was led to Serpent’s tent. A hush had fallen as everyone tried to eavesdrop. 

Rath didn’t leave Serpent’s tent until Blood Drinker was done Dealing for the day. She seemed chastised but not devastated, so Blood Drinker guessed she’d just been lectured and allowed to return to her Market duties. 

They walked out of the Market together and both flopped down on the sand. Blood Drinker would have wanted to collect his sister, but she was a Market laborer, not a Dealer, so she stayed later to do more of the cleaning. 

“So, what did that wretch do to you to earn their punishment?” he flipped onto his belly, looking up at her with interest. 

Rath exhaled loudly and slowly, making her whiskers fan out a little. “She’s been one of my regulars for months now. She makes the same Deal every time. A Deal to make her beautiful.” 

Blood Drinker raised an eyebrow. 

“The first time she asked me that, I said: ‘I am a jungle demon. I cannot make you beautiful. But I can make it so that fruitful plants sprout from your footprints. I can make it so that flowers always turn their faces towards you wherever you go. I can make it so that trees move their branches so the light always dapples on your face just right. I can do that.’” 

“She agreed. So she would come frequently, and sometimes we’d get to talking, like you do with regulars. I learned all about her family, her friends, her lovers. I looked forward to hearing from her, I got simple pleasure from using my magic to help bring happiness to her. She was a kind soul. Or so I thought.”

“Today, she’s about to leave, and she turns to me and says ‘I’m really grateful for your help, Rath. Magic may be the only thing a filthy idiot like you is good for, but by the gods are you good at it!’”

“No.”

“Yes.” Rath hissed, eyes alight with rage. “So, I ripped her mask off and gouged her eyes out. Can’t hate your appearance if you can’t see it, can you?” her voice was full of contempt.

“And slicing open her stomach?”

“That was just to be certain she truly understood that no human insults me and gets away with it. And, it makes it look more random, so if she dies and anyone finds her body, they’ll be more inclined to think it was an animal attack.”

They both knew what would happen if the poor soul lived. She’d either play along with the animal attack lie, or spend the rest of her life hiding in fear and shame for Dealing with a demon. 

Rath’s malicious glee faded, and she sighed again. Blood Drinker stood, then walked behind her and sat down again. He began rubbing her shoulders and back. When he was done she would do the same. It was a small ritual they’d begun so long ago neither of them could remember why it had started in the first place. But they enjoyed it too much to ever stop.

Rath closed her eyes and made a small sound of contentment in her throat before speaking again. “What about you? How was your day?”

“Had just one Deal, a newcomer called Blue Spots. It went painlessly. For me, not so much for them. It was their first time and all that. They provided me with information about faraway lands, with a picture and everything.”

“You and your endless quest for knowledge. You going to tell the children what you learned?” 

“Of course. You too, if you want.”

“I would love that.” Rath preferred her knowledge of faraway places to come in the form of imported spices she scrounged up through Deals, but she liked stories too, so she relaxed and let him tell his.