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The Demon’s Cantos

Part 7


A sound of thin waves breaking and the scent of brine cut through Byron’s dull sleep. The rising sun shone blood red through his eyelids as the warm tide tugged gently at the bottom of his legs. His hands came to groggy life, opening and closing in cool, wet sand.

Byron couldn’t remember falling asleep. The adrenal chaos of the adventure in the car must have left him even more drained than he’d thought. He had a headache. Dehydration, he guessed.

With reluctance Byron forced his eyes open just a crack. Even the delicate light of sunrise sent an ache through his forehead. Byron lifted a creaky hand up to shade his eyes as he got his bearings.

The sunrise reflected on an unusually calm Atlantic ocean. Thin clouds, painted in streaks of violet and crimson, were mirrored in the mild chop. To his left and right the expanse of Ocracoke’s pristine sand beach stretched out as far as his eye could see.

Floating obediently at his side, as if tethered to him somehow, the Demon’s Cantos glowed bright golden in the sunlight. About twenty feet to his right, submerged in the tide and already filling with sand, Nan’s old sedan rested where Byron had materialized it out of thin air.

Propping himself up on his elbows in the sand, Byron eyed the car’s remains with remorse as sea water coursed back and forth through the open windows. Another tie to the past severed.

After a long moment Byron looked down at himself in the sand and gaped in surprise. His once gray T-shirt was stained bright blue, almost neon at the abdomen. Seawater washed up and over the blue portion of the shirt, then receded, but the color did not change.

Something about the color unnerved Byron terribly and he felt himself fall into a neurotic spiral. He pawed at the blue color nervously and the pads of his fingers came up slimey. Overcome with a sudden anxiety Byron began pawing at the shirt, trying to wash it off in the water. When that did nothing he tore the shirt off.

What he saw underneath elicited an audible yelp.

The skin of Byron’s stomach was also stained bright blue.

Byron sat up ramrod straight in the shallows and gaped at his navel, palms hovering upturned and uncertain. Eventually he began swiping at the area with almost frantic intensity, as if he’d found a school of leeches adhered to his belly.

In the middle of Byron’s futile scraping the water about ten feet in front of him exploded outward, as if an artillery shell had landed beneath the shallow waves. The chaos snapped Byron out of his anxiety attack and forced him to focus on not inhaling the sudden wall of water that washed over him. Despite his efforts salty brine ran up his nose freely and down the back of his throat. Byron came out the otherside of the wave sputtering.

At the epicenter of the watery explosion a slew of tentacles waved through the air, several of them empty and a brighter red than Byron remembered. One of them was curled around something of not insignificant size. The object was held aloft over Korbius’s massive central form.

Master Cantor! You have awoken!

Byron tried to speak, coughed instead and decided a nod would be sufficient.

I have begun to explore your seas, Cantor Byron. They are filled with weakness. Have you no Glom Nemotodes? Or Tarakaks? Where are your Tarakaks?

Byron’s head was aching something terrible and he could hardly take his eyes off his neon stomach. “Taraks? I don’t know what…”

Korbius, with uncharacteristic excitement, interrupted.

Tarakaks. Fighting fins? Shard teeth? They have many names, but they are fiercesome. Surely you’ve encountered one in your travels.

Byron rolled his eyes and pointed at his stomach. “Korbius, something’s happened to me!”

Korbius’s single pupil swung down, focused in on Byron’s stomach, and then swung back up. Byron got the distinct sense that if an Octopodiae could smile, Korbius would be wearing one right then.

Have no fear Cantor Byron, the coupling fluid is not dangerous.

Byron paused. “Coupling fluid?”

Korbius has expressed his coupling gland. With this act Korbius has brought great honor to Master Cantor. No octopodiae, of any rank, has ever coupled with a human before. Congratulations!

To drive his point home Korbius swung the tentacle grasping something down in front of Byron. It impacted with the water’s surface, splashing Byron again. When he wiped the water from his eyes Byron found himself face to face, eye to dead eye, with the top half of a bottlenose dolphin.

Byron recoiled in the water. “Jesus, Korbius, that’s a dolphin!”

Is that what they’re called? Doll-fins. Your bloodless waters teem with them. Fast creatures and delicious.

With another two tentacles Korbius pried open the dolphin’s skull, using the jaws as pry bars. The dolphin’s bones creaked and popped until the skull was torn in half cleanly, revealing a large, pink brain.

Korbius has saved Cantor Byron the choicest morsel.

Byron dry heaved and would have puked if he’d eaten anything in the last 12 hours. “Korbius, you can’t eat dolphins!”

Korbius’s eye widened with concern.

Why? Are they toxic?

“No, they’re not —” Byron stopped short and reconsidered, “Yes. They are. Highly toxic. Highly.”

But Korbius has not experienced any digestive distress—

Byron interrupted, “and delayed. The symptoms have a, um, delayed onset. I mean, it’s possible you ate too few to cause harm, you just shouldn’t eat any —”

Byron was cut short when Korbius, wasting no time, began to convulse up the length of his massive central form. As his flesh rippled it made a wet squeezing noise. After a few seconds Korbius fell backwards into the water, bringing his underside level with the tide and revealing his beak. As Byron watched, the beak opened, distended, and spilled out a horrendous melange of partially digested dolphin corpse.

Byron gawked at the horror show as the viscera spread in a crimson cloud through the shallow waters. He was only dragged out of his stupor when the cloud approached to within a foot of him, at which point Byron rushed to his feet and ran out of the surf.

Korbius meanwhile unceremoniously expelled the last remnants of his dolphin meal before shooting away several meters to cleaner waters and popping back up, his eye blinking.

Once again Master Cantor has saved Korbius’s life! Curse the doll-fin! If Korbius harbored any doubts about coupling with Cantor Byron, they are dispelled!

Byron’s head was one terrible ache, and he struggled to keep his footing in the sand. Eventually the small specks of light in his vision disappeared. Byron looked down at his belly in the sun. The blue color looked like a strange, formless tattoo made with ephemeral ink.

Byron was about to start asking Korbius about the coupling, and what the hell that meant, when he heard the faint roar of a pickup truck in the wind. Turning, Byron saw a black truck entering the beach through a gap in the high sand dunes. The first of dozens of beachgoers.

Panicked, Byron turned back to Korbius. “You’ve got to hide! If people see you—” Byron had no idea what would happen and could hardly guess. “— we can’t let people see you!”

Korbius eyed the pick up truck in the distance.

Very well Cantor. Korbius must feed again anyway. Are there any other poisonous creatures in your bloodless seas?

Byron gave it a brief thought and couldn’t think of anything. “No,” he said, and then had the wherewithal to add, “People! Human’s, we are, uh, deadly when ingested.”

Korbius blinked.

Truly? Humans? Korbius had no idea. To think, Korbius considered devouring Master Cantor. Hah! An ignoble end indeed!

“Wait, what?”

Korbius didn’t acknowledge the question. Instead he chimed in happily.

Very well. No humans and no doll-fins. Korbius will see Master Cantor in due course.

Korbius disappeared under the waves without another word. Byron didn’t have a moment to say anything. He could only watch as Korbius sped out to sea leaving a trail of air bubbles in his wake.

Byron looked back toward the dunes where the pick up truck had entered. Beyond them would be the route 12 and down at the end of the road would be Ocracoke proper.

If Nan – was it her ghost or spirit, or just a delusion – whatever it was, if it was to be believed the Preceptor waited for Byron somewhere in that small town.

Byron still didn’t know what a Preceptor was, or if he’d find one in town. But he knew he would find water, and for now that was goal enough.

With that in mind – shirtless, brown hair tousled and matted, trousers and sneakers sloshing audibly with each step – Byron hefted the Demon’s Cantos and began to walk.



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