The demon had died.
Not fallen. Not fled. Died.
Shattered into ruin by the cannonball, his body reduced to gore and smoke and meat confetti. But I'd seen what death meant to him after the blood entered his body. It was never final. Never honest. His blood didn't know how to stop. Even now, the shattered chunks of him—chunks that should've been carrion—were twitching. Writhing. Searching. Like worms hunting warmth. Like they knew they still had a job to do.
I crouched low, ignoring the roar in my skull, and dug the bone shard out of my eye. It came out with a wet pop, red and pulsing at the tip like it still remembered being alive. Another was lodged in my chest, jutting out like some grotesque badge of honor. I tore it free with a hiss and blood followed. Then I laughed. Of course I laughed. What else was there to do beside watch and gain insight on how the blood works even if it was an inferior work.
I threw the shards into the center of the deck—toward the slithering mess of demon flesh that hadn't yet stopped trying to make itself whole. The pieces twitched in delight. They welcomed the gift like starving dogs. The blood moved faster then. Like it had been waiting.
The merman stepped forward. His movements were stiff, haunted but necessary. His eyes didn't leave the writhing mass as he raised what was left of his hand—maybe to gather the bits and toss them overboard, maybe to end it cleanly.
But I stopped him.
I laughed again—sharp and guttural. Not joyous. Never that. It was hunger now. Curiosity. Something mean and sharp buried behind my ribs. I wanted to see what would happen. Not because I hoped. Not because I feared. Just because I needed to know.
The merman froze, eyes darting from the mess to me. He didn't understand. How could he?
But I did.
The blood took the shard I'd thrown and welcomed it like kin. Fleshy tendrils reached out, curling around the bone, fusing it with other shards. The mass began shaping itself. It was patient. Deliberate. It wasn't frantic like before. It was... precise.
That's when I saw it.
The shape.
Not random chunks. Not meat glued together. A skull. It was building a fucking skull.
At first just a curve of bone. Then the eye socket, deep and hollow and dripping. The back of the cranium sealed itself with red filament, like spider silk spun from arteries. I crouched closer. Couldn't look away. I watched veins thread themselves through the open cavities, watched flesh slide into place like puzzle pieces made of sin.
Beneath the skull, brain matter squirmed into existence. Little pink-grey folds rising from sludge. It wasn't just coming back—it was reconstructing itself. Smarter. Meaner.
A sick part of me admired it.
That's when I snapped.
"No."
My voice broke, a whisper drowned in blood and surf. I grabbed a chunk of rib that had embedded in the wood and flung it into the sea. The water hissed, then frothed. Something massive tore the shard apart—a flash of scaly limbs and snapping jaws. The komodo-dragon-bastard. Still circling. Still hungry.
Good.
I stumbled across the deck, hurling every shard I could reach into the deep. Femurs, vertebrae, finger bones. Anything that wasn't his head. His skull.
The merman just watched me throw body parts that I had previously stopped him from throwing. Watching me throw it while laughing from time to time.
The spine was forming now, fusing with the base of the skull. Vertebrae clicked into place like teeth snapping shut. I saw the pattern. I saw the logic. And I hated it. And I liked it. I needed it.
I turned and stomped the forming spine. Bone cracked beneath my heel like dry bark. But more grew. Blood twisted around the break like a loving parent and rebuilt it, stronger this time. Smarter. Every time I destroyed a piece, another wriggled in to replace it.
My laughter came back, but it was different now. Harsher. Rasping. I sounded like a man breaking down and loving every second of it.
The blood in the demon was making him go through more than reconstruction. I could feel a guess move in my thought.
I could see it in the way the jaw formed—not the same crooked teeth as before, but sharper. Cleaner. It wasn't trying to be what it was. It was trying to be better.
That's when the realization hit:
The blood was more than just reconstructing. It was molding it for the better and for worse.
It was evolving his body.