Lady of the Lake

An epitaph scored into the topside of the concrete block that engulfed the man’s feet and ankles sloshed, barely visible beneath the murk pooled in the bottom of the rowboat. 

Here lies a restless soul, asleep at last in the arms of his mistress. 

The man reread it. Again. He glanced at his watch–a Patek Philippe he’d won two weeks ago in one of his usual hot hands of poker. The gold-flecked nebulae strewn across its deep sapphire face danced in the holy glow of Las Vegas light pollution seeping from behind three sharp peaks on the far side of the lake. 

“What time do you have?” The gravelly voice wrenched his attention to the stout man rowing the boat, who hadn’t spoken a word since he’d hauled him out of the trunk and into the rickety aluminum vessel. 

“So you can talk. Why are we here?” 

The oarsman tapped his own nondescript digital. It glowed obnoxiously green. “Mine’s always fast. Didn’t want to pay the extra.” 

“You should upgrade.” 

“Should I?” The oarsman nodded at the man’s entombed ankles. 

The man cleared his throat. He’d gotten out of worse spots before. He just had to find his angle now that the brute was talking. 

“You want it?” He gestured at the timepiece. 

The oarsman’s head shook enough to jostle the boat. 

“I know better than to take from The Mistress.” 

“The Mistress? Is that who you work for?” 

“Yes.” 

“Never heard of her. Cartel boss or something?” 

“Or Something.” 

“Well whoever she is, how did I piss her off?” 

“I bring The Mistress what she wants. She never asks for more.” 

Silence. 

The man watched the stars’ reflections shiver in the inky water below as he grasped for a plan. His hands were untied. Maybe if he could get in close … “Got any smokes?” 

The oarsman pulled out two cigarettes, lit both on a single match, then flicked one at the man, who barely managed a catch. 

“So much for that,” the man muttered. 

“What?” 

“What does your mistress want with me?” 

The oarsman shook his head. 

“Our mistress. She gave you the watch.” 

The man stabbed his chin at the haloed peaks. “There’s a Chinese businessman with a bad gambling habit and worse luck that disagrees with you.”

“You misunderstand.” 

A horrendous electronic beep; the oarsman’s watch glowed again. 

“It’s time.” 

“Your watch is fast.” 

The oarsman shrugged. 

Lapping water struck the boat’s sides. There was no wind. 

“At least let me finish my cigarette.” The man took another drag. A pale glow engulfed the tiny boat from the water below, refracting in thin, writhing beams like bioluminescent tentacles. 

The oarsman stood up. 

Bubbles lumbered from the deep, lolling across the surface in an increasing boil. The man felt the the cigarette burning his fingers, looked down at his watch, tried to ignore the hiss of foam and the writhing water and the hungry glow devouring the night around them. 

The air was so still. 

A sharp wallop to his solar plexus forced a billow of smoke from his mouth and nostrils. The man doubled over. Strong hands clamped down on his arms, just below the shoulders. The oarsman held him at eye level, the weight of the block stretching his hips and knees. 

“Lady Luck is an insatiable mistress, friend. There just isn’t enough flesh between all the men in this whole valley to keep a maw like hers full for long. You gave her seven great years, but there’s fresher meat out there for her to chew on.” 

The man croaked against the invisible plug in his gut. 

“Lady Luck? What are you–” 

“The Mistress. She heard your prayers.” 

In the water beside the boat was now a whirlpool, beams of light stabbed from its center. 

“My … prayers?” 

“The ones in the closet before each big streak. The ones you address to ‘any of you up there who’ll listen.’” 

The man’s eyes went wide. “Who are you?” 

Then he was airborne, crashing into the chill deep of Lake Mead. The remaining air in his lungs exploded in a mushroom cloud of bubbles, billowing from his mouth and nose. The weight around his ankles dragged him down into the dark with so strong a pull that he felt a lure, though he still had no idea what had taken the bait. 

His diaphragm spasmed beneath his empty lungs, pulling hard at the inside of his sternum as he plunged deeper and deeper. He looked up toward the surface through the blinding glow. The ethereal shimmer of the boat’s aluminum underside and the pale face of the moon blazed at him from the fast retreating world above. 

The pressure in his ears was growing, but as he stared, wide eyed, the lights did not shrink but grew larger. As they grew nearer, he saw in them pupils, and behind those glowing eyes the gargantuan features of a woman’s face, gruesome and frigid in her beauty. 

“COME.” Her voice beat on his eardrums, reverberated in his teeth. A final spasm pulled water past his sealed lips and filled his lungs. He tried to scream, but the water slid across his vocal chords and out his throat like the Great Serpent himself emerging from the abyss. His feet came to rest in the muck and the dark and the shrieking.