The Shark Shack of Las Diablesses

Her Momma named her Ayoola three hundred years ago, but she took the name Diavola when she and her wife made a deal with the Devil.

In a forsaken cave of Trinidad, Diavola hunches over a woodblock and chop-chop-chops a white fungus ridden with sanguine droplets—the Devil’s Tooth.

Shark flesh sizzles on the frying pan atop the pilfered clay stove, and squish-squish-squish she stirs tomato and lettuce in a bowl, coating them with fruity tamarind-and-pepper sauce. She licks a fingerful, spreading sauce on her rotting gums.

“Delicious. Wanna try some?”

The gagging man on the floor groans.

“Thought so,” Diavola says.

She scratches her right leg—the one that ends in a cow hoof—itching with anticipation. Soon, she’ll reclaim her wife from her abductors. Then they’ll return to the shore, hand by hand, cold wind blowing the salty sea-tang into their lipless mouths and their fine perfumes seducing village men into the devil’s belly.

All this revelry will come to pass when Diavola is reunited with her love Satanya, whose mother had once named Felicia. 

†

Diavola and Satanya were fifty and fifty-one when they sold their souls.

With youth renewed and skin unwrinkled, they danced at Trinidad’s carnivals, keeping an arm’s length from one another as the watchful eyes of their parents once demanded. But with the passing of years, their perfume could no longer obscure the decay, nor their wide-rimmed hats shadow the facerot. 

So they fled.

Finding freedom in decadence, they built a shack of their own on a cliff-cloistered cove—sands long untouched by man’s feet.

†

A fortnight later, when the full moon cast silver ghosts upon the shoreline, Diavola and Satanya were visited by mermaids. After a brief startle, a warm greeting followed—the camaraderie of shared hatred for cruel human traditions.

The merfolk tasted the immortal couple’s cooking and craved more. They returned carrying shark carcasses. They splashed and played, sharing stories of sailors lured to the depths with siren songs. And together they all feasted on shark-and-bake.

That night, Diavola and Satanya wed in the merfolk tradition, baptized in saltwater and sharing clam flesh until their lips met.

But the next day, Diavola awoke to the Satanya’s screams. Men yelled “demon!” as they dragged Diavola’s wife by her hair into their boats.

Merfolk hunters. They traced the mermaids here.

Diavola rushed to save her, but the men wore their clothes upside down, under their priest’s instruction, and were immune to her spells.

She fled before they caught her, cursing the men as she swore she’ll have her love returned. Swore that the men would bring her back, begging for Diavola’s forgiveness. 

†

The aroma is sour enough to make a mermaid weep. But with no mermaid around, the man’s tears will suffice. Diavola hums to the rhythm of the foaming waves crashing against the sea cave walls, scoopings the fungal slices of Devil’s Tooth and tossing them over the sizzling. But she remains unsatisfied.

“Somethin’ missing, don’t ya think?” she asks the gagging man.

†

After fleeing the hunters, Diavola found refuge in a sea cave on a distant island shore.

There she summoned the Devil again. Goat-entrails formed a pentagram on the rough floor, with a mound in the center: culantro herbs, fisheyes, and dried fronds. With an incantation, she set the mix aflame.

From the blooming smoke, the Devil emerged. As black as the disguises of the Trinidad carnivals, but the horns folded into themselves and his tongue reached down his chest.

“Who calls the Devil twice in one feeble existence? Can it be the husk whose soul left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth?” His tongue wormed toward Diavola’s cheek.

“Bitter?” Diavola gently pushed away the squirming tongue.  “I’d expect my soul to pack a punch, a kick, a spice. But bitter? Well, Devil, no matter. My soul didn’t satisfy? I can offer a thousand more. What about a household and a village whole?”

“I’m listening, mi Diablesse.”

“No soy tu Diablesse. I belong to Satanya and she belongs to me. You can keep our souls in your belly, but leave bodies and minds well alone. Now, darling,” she smiled, feeling bold, thinking back to that middle-aged woman called Ayoola that quivered before his presence, all those years ago. Ayoola was gone now, and Diavola took no nonsense from man, god, or devil. “I have a plan to lead the men into your belly. I’ll need your help to hypnotize the priest who sways the minds of men.”

“Are you not satisfied with the power you already have? Dare you throw it back into my face?”

“Not quite. But the village folk found a counterspell. Upside down they turn their clothing and walk backwards from me. A trick the priest bid them do, as if the spell were a flimsy puppet-string.”

The devil’s nostrils flared bull-like and Diavola suppressed a smirk. Be it demon, god, or mortal, the male’s heart is always swayed by rivalry.

The devil snarled, exposing his ribbed teeth, and pinched an incisor—where his fingers squeezed the tooth bled out sanguine droplets that froze like rubies as he popped it out. He proffered the tooth on his uncreased palms. “Feed the priest this. Not raw. Add your own cooking to it, and he’ll be yours.”

Diavola scooped up the tooth—its texture spongy, mushroom-like. “Thank you, dear. I promise you’ll have the priest’s soul first,” she said and that brought a smile to devil’s face that was so crooked it warmed Diavola’s heart. 

†

“This should do it.”

Diavola adds the priest’s own severed tongue into the stew. The priest no longer begs for mercy, as he did when she first snatched him from his bed and dragged him across the floor. His eyes are caked with dried tears and his mouth remains shut, lips sucked inward and teeth biting hard as if that could bar her food entry.

“Now, let’s pry that mouth open,” she says, as her iron spatula draws closer to the priest’s puckered lips. “A new tongue will sprout, using your mouth to preach my words, and bid your flock return my love to me.”

© 2024 Akis Linardos

About the Author
In a cove of a Greek island, Akis was born a rather peculiar infant and has only grown stranger every year. By day, he's a researcher of biomedical AI and ethics, hoping there's something less dystopian to come from this technology. His words have wormed their way into Apex Magazine, Gamut, Strange Horizons, Flame Tree, and Uncharted, among others. Visit his website for updates on his dreadful machinations:https://linktr.ee/akislinardos