The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (7 page)

I saw Elish in the corner of my vision, catching up to me with only a few long strides. “Yes, but I am ninety-one years old. I have learned how to deal with what ways my engineering wishes to sabotage me. If you wish, I can teach you to deal with your own, but you must listen.”

He was quiet for a moment, though the silence between us was deafening. “Lycos and Greyson tried to teach you how to be the best person you could, the best arian. Now it’s my turn to teach you how to be the best chimera.”

My head turned towards him. “They failed though.”

“Which is why I had to take over.”

It almost felt like I was being dominated again, though this assault grated against me mentally, not physically.

Still though, like Leo and Greyson I held a respect for Elish. Looking back on my childhood, all the times he was there without me even knowing it. If there was one thing I was lacking right now it was men I could trust.

I didn’t trust anyone outside my core group but since the incident in Aras, that group had been whittled down to two: my boyfriend and my best friend.

Elish was the last man in charge; the only one remaining who knew what had to be done to kill Silas. So far I had had no choice but to trust him. Now he was almost approaching me with the prospect of training me.

That made a bitterness flood my mouth. “I am not your pet.”

“I’m not seeking a pet.”

“Then what?”

“An ally eventually, but for now... my student,” Elish responded. “We will be spending an eternity with each other running Skyfall and the greywastes. We may as well start getting used to each other.” Then he gave me a cold look. “I have been making an effort to get along with you, Mr. Merrik. I have been more than patient with your inexperience and youth. Especially considering my pet is missing because of your errors. I urge against making my attempts be in vain. Seeking council and help from someone who holds more experience is not a shortcoming. It does not say anything against your pride or dominance. You would be a fool to convince yourself to already know everything and a bigger fool to convince yourself you know more than me.”

I had known everything, back when my world was centered in Aras.

More bitterness in my throat. I didn’t like that he was making sense. I had been the king in Aras... I had been in control of everyone and everything.

But here? And in Skyfall? Or amongst my chimera brothers? I was more inexperienced than Jade, and that stung.

I felt like I was letting go of control, which, especially at this moment... I didn’t think I could do. I wanted to hold onto every bit of control I could, because I felt like I was twisting in the breeze right now.

In Aras... I controlled the residents and made them fear me. I controlled the legionary by killing and sniping them. Hell, I even controlled my boyfriend and my best friend. I was the dominant alpha male and those who didn’t bow to me wound up dead.

Then I learned I was a chimera... and in quick succession, all of the control got taken away from me. Men, engineered from the same DNA, the same strands as me... had come. They had dominated my life, killed my dads, stolen my best friend, destroyed my home, and... had tried to enslave me.

I was a fool right now for thinking I could get that control back in the state I was in. I had to submit myself to someone who knew more than me so I could rise from the ashes and be the immortal-killer I was.

“Okay,” I said simply. I nodded my head and took in a long, drawn-out breath. “You got me. I... hate it, but I’ll trust you.”

No expression came to Elish’s face as I said those words. No relief, no acceptance, nothing but his usual frozen gaze which continued to scan the area around us.

“Good,” he said. “The first thing you will do... is tell me everything that happened with Nero.”

I looked at my hand and wiggled my fingers, then glanced at my wrist. The wrist that, not even a week ago, had been severed with my teeth. Now it had fused nicely back to my skin, only the still aching steel wool marks remained. My entire body was still hurting from those rub burns.

“You learned something valuable in that bedroom.” Elish broke the heavy silence that had fallen over us. It was night time, the evening of day three on this highway, and we were taking a break. Since we were both immortal we decided there would be no need for us to take watch. We were sleeping underneath a black tree; all of the vehicles we had come across were too rusted out and dirty to make adequate beds. Being the chimeras we were both of us would wake up if so much as a scorprion coughed. So if we had anyone passing us by on the highway we would know.

“Oh?” I ran my fingers along my wrist before flexing my thumb until I saw the tendon move under my skin.

Elish was leaning against the tree; I still couldn’t get over how different he looked. I bet it would have been even more of an adjustment if I had seen him in Skyfall.

“Your body is a weapon, and because you are immortal your physical body is a weapon. What you figured out is something no human would ever think of doing. Because you can mutilate yourself if needed be. Your ulna and radius...” When I stared he gave me a pained look but dumbed it down for the greywaster. “Your...
arm bones
can be snapped and carved to be a weapon. Your hands can be chewed off to avoid cuffs; even your intestines can be used to strangle someone if needed be. Sanguine was always fond of that method. If you can stand the pain, which you can, and you can do it in a way that minimizes blood loss... you can get out of situations in a way that will kill you, but will kill you after you’re free.”

He was right about that. There were a lot of fringe benefits to being able to regenerate yourself after you died. My chewed on arm bone had done a good job on Nero’s face.

After we took three hours to rest we were back on the road again. We were in the dead of night now; everything was so quiet out boot steps seemed to echo in the valley below us. It was dark too, but the snow absorbed the moonlight so, for the greywastes anyways, it was rather bright.

Then the sun started to rise, coating the world around us in a silver blue until it began to peek over the mountains. As the grey sun burned away the night and our quick walking started to affect our energy, the conversations between the two of us trickled down to nothing but short exchanges.

Though it wasn’t just the fatigue that had halted our conversation. We had both been walking at a quickened speed, much faster than the caravan would have gone. And though the boys were probably a few days ahead of us, the closer we got to the summit the more tense the air seemed to get.

It was a weight that was on both of our shoulders, and the more distance we covered the more we knew we would start to see signs of the slave caravan. Both of us had no idea how long it had been since the snow had fallen, for all we knew we might start seeing tracks soon, or at least some bosen shit.

Elish had taken the left side of the highway which stretched off into miles of bush and bare rock, and I had taken the right near the tree belt. We were high above sea level now though the sharp drop offs and sheer cliffs we had started out on had rose up to naked valleys and flat rolling hills. Everything was flatter the more north we got and Elish said it would carry on as such until we hit Melchai.

I glanced down a single-lane road which curved off into the black trees. “The trees might be bare here, but it’s still a pain with them being so close together,” I commented.

Elish was quiet; his sharp eyes were continuing to sweep the area.

“Do you think –” I shut my mouth when Elish raised a hand. I started to listen but I couldn’t hear anything.

“Nose. Smell... don’t use your ears,” Elish instructed. “There are ravers near here.”

For a brief moment I stared at Elish in shock, before, not missing a beat I started to walk around the area. Trying to pick out tracks, blood, any sign that something had happened to the boys.

Though as I looked and picked apart every tipped over median, every old highway sign, Elish’s eyes were fixed on a sloping ridge a few yards from the highway. I followed him as he glided towards it, my hands starting to itch from wanting to grab my gun.

But there was nothing but the faint aroma on the air and even that smelled stale. I jumped up onto one of the medians as Elish walked along the ridge.

“If it’s ravers... they’re gone,” I spoke my thoughts out loud. “It hasn’t been snowing enough over the past two days for it to cover fresh tracks...”

Elish turned from the ridge, his face showing me no window into his emotions but a tightness in his lips. “Yes... let us continue.”

Then, despite all of my self-control, I felt a strong surge of anxiety shoot through me as I spotted something.

“Elish...” He immediately turned at the tone of my voice.

I jogged over to the winding road and kneeled down. I brushed my hand over a spot of red.

My heart dropped as I dug under the fresh layer of snow... there was blood.

I brushed more snow aside... more blood. I rose to my feet and scanned the winding road.

Elish bent down and picked up a mound of the bloody snow. He put it to his lips and tasted it.

“It’s not chimera...”

I tried to hide the relief on my face. Elish looked behind me and started to walk down the road. I got out my gun and so did he, the tension inside of my body now reaching a boiling point. I wish I could hide the heart hammering in my chest, or at least calm it down like Elish seemed to be able to do.

The road had trees on either side of it, large, twisted trunks with raised roots that contorted into each other. It carried on as we walked down the incline, twisting through many turns but continuously leading us downhill.

Then more signs, footsteps mixed in with the smears and sprinkles of blood. The bare feet of ravers, dozens of them. All of them moving around each other like they were in a frenzy. I knew ravers and this wasn’t typical behavior for them. They didn’t hunt like this, they perused their pray in a straight line. Never wavering until they either died or they couldn’t find you anymore. Not this sporadic, miss-matched pattern, and why only one direction? There were no prints pointing back up to the highway.

“What came down... never came back up,” Elish spoke my own realization out loud as we examined the prints. “All of them... are going downhill...”

“To where?” I almost didn’t want to ask. Alarm bells were ringing in my mind, flooding me with the urge to run down the hill to see what I would find at the bottom. What were the ravers running towards? It couldn’t be the caravan, why would they veer off the road?

“There was a sign a half kilometer back. A resort. They were heading towards the resort, where this road will lead us,” Elish replied placidly.

“Why?”

Elish continued to stare down at the road, analysing the tracks. “I think perhaps the caravan got caught in the first snowfall. They may have sought the resort for shelter.”

Elish looked up from the tracks and down the road; an odd expression crossed his face. “It is time we run the rest of the way.”

Elish started to jog down the hill, I followed behind. “But... Jade can’t be down there... your tracker hasn’t gone off.”

I kept pace with him, our boots landing heavy on the ground. We weren’t even trying to keep our movements silent now. The calm atmosphere that had followed us since the Falconer had taken off had disappeared the moment we saw the blood.

“There are many things that could happen to his tracker. Anything from a strong electrical charge, a heavy blow to his head, or a gunshot wound,” Elish responded in a tone that told me he wouldn’t appreciate any more questions.

I was fine with that. Though I remained calm inside I was screaming, tearing out my hair, and shooting everyone at the faint prospect that Killian was in that resort. Killian hated ravers; he would have been scared shitless.

Calm down... they had guns, big guns. They could all shoot the ravers... use them for food... Killian is down there right now and he’s going to cry and sob knowing that you’re alright. Perish was experienced, so was Jade and, fuck, so was Killian – they would be just fine.

Let that be my reality.

Though as we rounded the last bend, and several buildings came into view, the real reality hit me.

Both Elish and I stopped in our tracks, for a fraction of a second we both stared stunned.

A massacre... deep red stains of blood on the old snow, pounded down with dozens of footsteps, clustered around a single-storey building with a large overhang. The blood framing dozens of corpses, most already eaten, with severed body parts holding thin layers of frost, strewn across this kill zone.

My eyes flickered to the corner of the building, where I could see two caravan carts. The bosen, dusted with snow, dead and frozen where they were left.

“KILLIAN!” I screamed, a desperate shriek that cracked my voice. I ran down the road, as fast as I could, hearing Elish’s quickened breathing behind me.

Then I slipped and fell. I looked down and saw a slick of blood, frozen onto the ice, leading to the decapitated head of Hopper.

No... no...

“Killian?” I screamed again. Elish was ahead of me now, standing in the middle of the worst carnage. His face more cold than the winter air around us, but I heard his heart... Oh god, I heard his heart. He couldn’t hide that from me.