Kraken (27 page)

He knelt at the base, finding the hollow where he had nestled his back. The bark was long gone, but he chipped at the smooth wood with his fingernails, trying to prise out splinters. Lightning lit up the sky, and he flinched at the crash of sound. The dry wood had absorbed the rain. There were no convenient crevices offered for his scrabbling fingers.

“It’s inside.”

“What?” shouted Aiden.

“It’s inside! Inside the tree. We need an axe or a saw or something.”

Aiden threw his head back and laughed. Will looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

Aiden drew Will to his feet and wrapped his arm around him, resting his nose against Will’s. They were both shivering.

“There’s no axe. There’s no saw. I told you I was underprepared.”

Their mouths met, tasting, licking, playfully nipping at each other.

“I wish it could have been different,” said Will. He looked up into the falling rain.

He felt Aiden turn his head, and followed the movement. Sina stepped out from the trees into the clearing, holding a torch.

There was a blinding moment of chiaroscuro. The noise was so vast Will didn’t even realize there was one until it dissolved into a burning crackle, falling back into human realms, before shocking silence filled his ears. Shards of wood flew around them. The rain abruptly ceased.

Sina was talking now, he thought, mouth opening and closing as if words were coming out. Will could hear nothing. She pointed, and he turned.

The light from Sina’s torch played over the ruined tree, cleaved through the centre. One section had fallen away, disintegrated. A festival of sharp wooden shards covered the clearing. Will stepped close to the split trunk. Deep in the centre of the bone-white wood nestled a shiny black stone, held forever in the grip of a skeletal hand. His eyes followed the long lean line of the bones as they disappeared into the standing trunk.

“I don’t . . . what happened?”

He could barely hear his own voice. He tried to yawn, opening his jaw wide to pop his eardrums.

“He staked him out,” said Sina. Her voice was strangely flat. “He gave him the stone, and he staked him out against the tree. And he let the tree grow over him. Around him. Through him. Keeping them both safe.”

“That would have taken . . .”

“Hundreds of years, yes. But effective.”

Aiden shook Will by the shoulders. “Stop thinking about it. We have to go. Stone?” he asked Sina.

She handed him her treasure, wrapped in a piece of cloth. Aiden took the catch bag from Will, placing it inside. He leaned into the tree trunk, ripping the black stone free from its guardian without hesitation.

As Will’s hearing crept back he became aware of crashing and shouts in the forest to the west, very close now. He gripped Aiden’s head between his hands. “I need you to take these and go. Please don’t argue with me. I might be able to slow him up. I don’t know how long the furnace needs. You have to reach 1080 Celsius. Basically two thousand Fahrenheit.”

He kissed Aiden fleetingly. “I wish I could have had the chance to fall in love with you.”

They could hear Cyrus’s shouts now. He didn’t sound so much angry, as determined. Will turned away from Aiden and faced the sound. He didn’t look back as he heard Aiden’s quiet running feet, leaving him behind.

Sina didn’t move.

“You’re staying, then?”

She shrugged. “For now. I can’t directly act against him, though. I think you should know that.”

Will stood, calmly, waiting, listening to the drip of water in the foliage. Cyrus stepped out from the trees in front of him, he walked right up to Will, reaching one hand out and stroking his cheek.

“Oh, lovely, you’ve been a disappointment to me after all.”

He threw the backpack into Sina’s arms. “I think this belongs to you.”

Will looked into Cyrus’s face. He heard Sina unzip the bag and tip out the contents with a thud. It took a moment for her torchlight to play over the object. Parker’s head stared back at Will, its hollow eyes and mouth set in a rictus of fear.

“When I took his first eyeball he begged for you to save him,” said Cyrus. “He promised me anything. Too bad he had nothing I wanted. This is my island. Mine. Fuck off. You have no rights here. Leave now, and tell any others you meet not to come here.”

Will’s eyes were fixed on Cyrus, but he heard Sina heave a sigh.

“You’re being too obvious, Cyrus. Killing too many people. It won’t matter if people don’t leave the island: the humans have ways to bring the outside world in. They don’t keep secrets any more.”

“I’ve been here long before the humans arrived, and I’ll still be here when they’ve gone. And while they’re here I intend to enjoy them. In every way.”

“The world is changing. We have to change too. The old ways are gone.”

“You can change somewhere else. Not on my island. This is my place. My rules. And they’ve been broken.” Cyrus smiled at Will. “That means someone has to pay the penalty. Isn’t that right, my love?”

“Yes, Cyrus,” Will said.

“Get undressed.”

Will complied, peeling the wet fabric off his skin and throwing each piece to one side. “Who was holding the stone in the tree?” he asked.

Cyrus shrugged. “One of my toys.”

“I mean, what was his name.”

Cyrus laughed. “There have been so many, how could I be expected to remember one more?” Cyrus circled him once, then nodded at the ground. Will knelt. “If only you could have been this obedient all the time, lovely. I do so like it when my toys stay where I put them. It didn’t have to come to this. Well, not so soon, anyway.”

The sky was clearing overhead now, the towering thick clouds moving off to the east, casting just enough light to show Will an elegant, twining arm snaking out from Cyrus’s body, hovering in front of Will’s face.

Will’s mouth was dry, and he licked the rainwater from his lips for the moisture. “I thought I was ‘the one’, Cyrus. I thought you’d been waiting for me. Was any of it true?”

Cyrus’s voice was conversational. “You were indeed the one, Will: the one who got away. That novelty is the only reason I wanted you. The only reason anyone would want you. You’re old, Will. You’re used up. I’ll enjoy taking you apart so much more.”

“So I’m not your other half after all, huh?”

Another arm was touching Will’s nipples lightly, flicking them and wrapping the suckered hooks around them to pull and tweak. “Pretty words are irresistible to humans, like a glittering lure to a bass. And fishing is my favorite sport.” He reached up and plied the tip of his tentacle against Will’s lips. Will opened obediently, closing his eyes and sucking Cyrus down. The knobbly texture of Cyrus’s suckers forced their way past the back of Will’s tongue and up again.

Cyrus teased at the roof of his mouth. “You know, I could drive straight up through your soft palate and into your brain. It would be over in less than a second.” He pulled his tentacle out with a slurp, and ran the gooey tip back and forth over the skin on Will’s face.

“But where’s the fun in that?” said Will. “I know it’s the last time. I want you to hurt me. Make it last. Please?” Every second gave Aiden longer to get away.

“Of course you want it. You were born to enjoy it.” Cyrus knelt in front of him, caressing the back of his head with one of his tentacles. The suckers left his face. “Spread your legs,” Cyrus ordered.

Will shifted his body, positioning his knees wider on the ground. Wood chips and twigs bit into the skin and he moaned. A suckered tip stroked and probed him between the legs. Cyrus extruded warm sticky gel over Will’s hole, where it mingled with the rain still coating Will’s body, and dripped down to his balls. His moan grew into a shriek as an arm forced its way into Will’s arse, pushing, stretching, diving inside, more rapidly than Will had ever experienced.

The pain was terrible, pulsing, feeling like a live thing eating Will from the inside out.

Cyrus leaned in close to Will’s face. “You were a gift I barely got to enjoy. Bill made you just for me. And I do so like gifts.”

The arms delved in deeper, reaching higher in Will’s body. Things were ripping, tearing, now. He knew there wouldn’t be any coming back from this.

“Your mother left you here for me. She abandoned you so she could leave. She saved herself: traded you for her life off the island. And then that bitch went back on her word, came back for you. I enjoyed killing your grandparents. A part of me hoped you’d come back then, but mostly I just wanted to show them what happened when people don’t take care of my things.”

Will coughed, and Cyrus tenderly wiped away a bubble of warm blood.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a choice. For old time’s sake. I can make you want it. Would you like to want it?”

Every movement was crushed glass in his flesh, knives in his neural pathways, but Will shook his head.

“Is Cyrus even your real name?” he managed to rasp out.

Cyrus threw his head back and laughed.

“Of course not, lovely. I took it long ago. The original owner had no more use for it. A name seemed a useful tool. And so it has proved to be.”

A long cry was forced out of Will’s body as he felt the dreadful pain deep inside. He gagged, as Cyrus’s arm wriggled up his gullet and penetrated his throat. The tip forced its way into Will’s mouth with a gush of warm, coppery liquid that streamed from Will’s mouth and nose. Cyrus’s suckers caressed the back of his teeth, his cheeks, his soft palate. Will felt him flex his arm, making it wider, fatter. The hooks extruded into his flesh and Will whined in terror, his lips clamping down around the thick length that forced its way between them, from the inside out.

“Oh, I do so love your pretty mouth,” said Cyrus. “You put it to such good use.”

Will’s lips stretched painfully, his head tipped back, as Cyrus supported his whole body, spit-roasted completely through. Cyrus tilted Will from side to side, looking at him consideringly.

“I suppose that’s enough fun for now. I’ve got your friend to find. Whatever shall I take for him as a memento?”

Fresh pain stretched across Will’s chest. He felt Cyrus’s tentacle pressed to the skin over his heart, then the sharp tear as Cyrus’s hooks dug into the flesh around his ribs. The pain flowered inside him, bright and terrible. There’s was a ripping, crushing sensation, a terrible breaking in his chest, and then, abruptly, Will could no longer breathe.

“I’m holding you in my hand,” said Cyrus.

And then he pulled.

Cyrus’s tentacle held its prize aloft, so Will could see it glisten in the dim starlight. It was larger than he expected, the ragged end of an aorta flopping like a surrealist handle.

With a terrible slither Cyrus shucked Will’s hollow body like an empty peel. He didn’t feel himself hit the ground, but suddenly he was looking sideways at Cyrus’s feet, as his own fluids dampened the ground beneath them. He opened and closed his mouth, gasping. His tongue tasted bitterness.

“Well, I guess I should be going,” Cyrus said. “I thought I might see what entertainment your friend can provide. Just for a few years. I hope he can wield a shovel well. I might even let you have a stone to hold, lovely. Isn’t that nice of me? A nice deep hole and something for you to do for the next century.”

Will could see Cyrus’s feet, right there in front if him, but his voice was far, far away. He couldn’t have many more seconds left. Would it take longer, now that he was . . . whatever he was?

“And just think, soon Ryan will be ready too,” said Cyrus. “Such a lovely boy.”

Cyrus left Will’s vision, each of his steps in slow motion. A tiny blade of grass twitched and rose slowly from its compression. Behind it Will could see the base of the stricken tree. The hand and arm of the unknown man trailed from it, and Will could almost see the rest of the skeleton, caught deep inside. It seemed a peaceful way to spend forever, wrapped in heartwood, marking time listening to the great systolic thump every spring.

He wondered if the dark ground would be as kind. He gasped in one last breath and his chest bubbled, as the air boiled through his torn lungs like fire.