The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (26 page)

Elish nodded and walked towards an old fire pit, the coals white and long cold, half-covered in a dusting of ash the wind had blown in. “You know more about ravers than I. Do they migrate?”

I shook my head no. “Not with all this free food around. I’m starting to think these are the townspeople we heard about in Mantis. I don’t think they were that successful. I mean, I’m seeing raver carcasses but not nearly enough of them to point towards some sort of stalemate.”

My eyes travelled to the door of the motel. I walked between the two decapitated arian heads and into the rank, disgusting lobby. Elish was behind me.

The inside was just as bad as I would expect. Though the ravers could shit outside they ate and made their messes indoors as well as out. The interior was covered in sticky, green-hued blood, and the bones were spread throughout the inside of the structure like the inside of a radanimal’s den. It was everywhere, and now that the insects were coming back it was loud with the echoing buzzing of thousands of wings.

This place had been abandoned for a while.

My mind started to race for an explanation. “They probably stayed here for a night and –”

“Jade would have never stayed here.”

I stopped and felt my lips press together. “Yeah, Killian wouldn’t have either…” I swallowed down the dose of poison those omissions brought and started checking rooms. Everything was just… disgusting, and disgusting by my standards was really fucking rank. This place was crawling with flies and death, chewed bones and severed limbs, all at least a week old. They had definitely cleared out of here a while ago.

I wiped my hands on my cargo pants after touching something sticky and walked into one of the back rooms.

My breath caught in my throat. I called for Elish and kneeled down in front of the nest of blankets. These were blankets I recognised, they were given to us by Elish before we left.

Shock rippled around me and the atmosphere suddenly became thick and weighted. I pushed the blankets aside, my heart hammering, and looked for any sign of Killian.

Anything, anything…

Elish was there; he picked up the blanket and threw it aside. He saw the bandage first and snatched it up from the ground.

“Jade… Jade was here,” he whispered. “Jade made it this far.”

The reality hit me like a freight train, a rush of emotions that hammered down on me, each blow bringing more depthless black into my eyes. With a scream I threw the blanket and kicked the side of the wall.

“Just fucking say it!” I suddenly lashed out, feeling every ounce of pain and fear suddenly come rushing to the surface. “Go ahead and say it!”

Elish rose and looked at me. “We don’t have time for –”

I screamed again and pushed him; his body firm in its stance and barely wavering under my weight. I raised my fist to punch him but he blocked it easily.

Though no sooner than he had done that, my other hand raised and this one connected with his face.

Elish’s head snapped to the side and I saw several drops of blood spill from his mouth. With the direct hit egging me on I grabbed his duster and tried to pull him onto the ground.

We struggled for a moment before, with a quick flash of grey, he backhanded me right across the face, in a manner that… reminded me of Greyson.

“Say it? Fine, I will say it. I don’t think Killian and Perish are with Jade,” Elish responded, his voice low. “But that changes little. Jade will know more than we know now. We must find him.”

I tried to push down my own personal feelings but I found my eyes raising to meet Elish’s. “Perish is going to hurt him and Jade isn’t going to be there to protect him. He can’t fucking protect himself, Elish.”

I never realized how much that scared me until I said it. I had felt better knowing Jade was there. My brother was friends with Killian, they had bonded during their time with the slavers. He would’ve never let Perish touch Killian.

Maybe that was why Perish had tried to kill him.

“I know,” Elish replied simply, “but Perish will also not fatally hurt Killian, the same cannot be said for my cicaro. Now let’s get out of here. I want to make it to Garnertown before dark. If Jade is alone… he could be staying there.”

Elish left the room without another word. I felt sour and angry but I also knew we had to move on.

I left too and we both walked out into the rancid air. The outside air was still putrid and rank but it was nothing compared to the stale rot inside the motel.

“Are you leaving with Jade once you find him?” I asked as we started to walk towards the town. “Will that be it then? You find your beloved little husband and you’re going back to Skyfall to think of a new plan?”

“You think so less of me?” Elish murmured, kicking aside a severed arm after briefly checking it over. He carried on walking. “I would think our time together would raise your opinion of me, if only in the slightest.”

This caught me off-guard and I hated being caught off-guard. I was pissed off and worried, still conflicted and frustrated and looking for a target to release some of those feelings on.

Fuck, I felt like such a weak piece of shit right now. I was tired of worrying and tired of losing my shit every ten hours. I was never like this before and though I denied it through and through… I knew a lot of it was from what had happened with Nero.

I just… didn’t feel like Reaver lately. I felt like an emotional wreck and I knew it wasn’t all caused by worrying about Killian.

“What if he’s hurt too badly?” I said back after over a minute of silence. “We’ve seen those bandages.”

“He’s a strong chimera and I doubt he’ll approve of me ditching him in the apartments while we have all the fun. No, Reaver, Jade will be joining our search and with his abilities he will be invaluable,” Elish said. “I do not plan on leaving once we find him. I need to find both Perish and Mr. Massey before I return to Skyfall.”

That filled me with a guarded relief over something I didn’t even realize I had started worrying about. I could move fast and I could find Killian alone, but, there was no doubt that having Elish beside me so far had been a benefit.

“I think it was Perish who tried to kill him,” I said after we had been back on the road for an hour. We were passing through a congested section of road, with several jack-knifed semis that we had to travel around. We checked each one for Jade but there were no signs.

“I think so too,” Elish replied. “I think the dog was dragging Jade behind on a sled, perhaps a piece of highway sign. That was the odd tracks we found. If the deacon dog is with Jade, he would have kept the ravers away from him. Which means Jade was in that motel after they left… I’m hopeful we’ll find him in Garnertown. I suspect we only missed him by a week at most.”

I nodded but my mind was just shot. I wiped my face with my hands and looked behind me.

All this time I had thought I had been tracking Killian, but now… no, all signs pointed that it was just Jade. But at least this meant… I mean, it meant that he was still alive, right? That at least he wasn’t leaving a trail of blood like the pet was.

But where was Perish taking my boyfriend and why? And what were we going to do now that Perish’s mind was intact? Elish said he didn’t know Perish before he had been compromised so we didn’t know just who the fuck that mad scientist was now.

Was Killian more safe, or more in danger...?

What if it wasn’t just about us finding him, what if the Legion or Silas found them first?

I reached into my knapsack and started sifting through the drugs. I popped a few opiate pills I found and checked out what I thought might be a higher potency Dilaudid pill. I’d be crushing that later.

While I was waiting for my therapy to kick in I noticed the raver tracks I had been seeing on and off were starting to head right. It did look like they were going somewhere but at least it wasn’t the town we were heading towards.

At least Killian didn’t have to deal with ravers… and the flies meant maggots so he was spared of that too.

Maybe Perish just wanted to be with him… be his boyfriend again.

Is he that lucky?

Before I could stop it I gave a dry chuckle and shook my head. “My mind is telling me it’s a good thing Perish loves him. That maybe… he will be taken care of even if I know he’s probably terrified right now. Funny how that works.”

“I went through the same thing when I dropped Jade off in Moros,” Elish replied quietly.

It took be my surprise he was saying this kind of personal information to me.

“And was he?”

“No, but at least he stayed alive.”

I nodded and hoped my overactive, racing mind would take that response.

“Do you regret doing it?” I didn’t know why I was asking that.

“Yes, it was an error in judgment,” Elish said back to me. “He suffers still from abandonment issues and many other problems I am still having to help him through.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty fucked in the head.”

Elish gave me a cold look. “I could say the same for yours.”

“I never denied it,” I shrugged. “Though chimeras are prone to acting like whack jobs, unfortunately mine doesn’t have an excuse.”

Funny enough, Elish chuckled. “He has quite the excuse.”

There was more behind those words than he was letting on. I opened my mouth to question his statement when suddenly I stopped in my tracks. In front of us just becoming visible over a dip in the road were over a dozen people. All of them were covered in bloodied bandages, hobbling on slowly but steadily towards the town.

I drew my gun. “We’re travelers and we’re going to approach you,” I shouted. Obviously these fucks had been through the wringer and from the looks of their wounds the wringer looked like ravers.

One of them, a middle-aged man with his throat bandaged looked at us in horror, but when he saw we weren’t approaching aggressively he calmed down.

“We’re just trying to get to Garnertown,” he said. He had his arm around a little boy no older than five; the kid was missing his hand. “They… they killed all of them. We’re all that’s left.”

“What did?” Elish pushed past me. “Ravers?”

The man nodded, a grim look on his face. He shook his head back and forth and pinched the inner corners of his eyes with his fingers. “I can’t explain it. They’ve gotten smarter… we’ve never seen it before. They’ve learned how to use guns. They’re evolving I think. They attacked our town in an organized fashion, with a plan. I heard the leader talk. He was an arian but they were all obeying him like he was one of them.”

At the same time both my and Elish’s pulses jumped. I found myself looking to the side, just as Elish looked at me.

Elish turned to the man, his face stern and unyielding, but I saw his hands were clenched into fists. “And this…
leader
… did you get a look at him?”

The man nodded slowly. “I could never forget a face like that. I hid like a coward to protect my son.” He put a hand on the back of the boy’s head and clenched his jaw.

“He was a demon that walks on earth. A man with yellow eyes and pointed fangs. He’s commanding over thirty of them I think.”

Elish’s eyes widened, and the hammering in my heart travelled up to my head.

I stared. I stared until I couldn’t take it anymore.

I burst out laughing, just as Elish put his hand on his forehead and swore.

Chapter 46

Killian

“Hey, little bee, are you still in there?”

“Killi bee bee bee.” He laughed at his jingle. I think he knew I was out of it, so he was pushing the charm. “Killi… Killi Cat? Come on, it’s time to get up.”

But I was staring at the heater, my knees drawn up to my chest and my face tight from my own dried tears. I shook my head and buried my head into the pillow with a sob.

“No,” I choked.

“Oh, Killian… come on,” he whispered with a sigh. “Going to Greyson’s will cheer you up. Come on, I’ll piggy back you.”

I sniffed and opened my eyes. I opened my eyes to Reaver smiling at me, an encouraging warm smile that held no darkness, no Reaper, just love. Inside this warm, comforting basement where all my happy memories stemmed from.

I nodded and wiped my nose with my hand.

“That’s my boy. Can I give you a kiss, just on the cheek?” he asked. I nodded again, and because I was expecting it, my body didn’t cringe away.

I smiled as his prickly skin rubbed against my own and at the sight of it, he smiled too. “There. Reno has nothing on me. Okay, get up… Greyson’s expecting us. I’ll carry you there.” He put a hand on my cheek and suddenly gave me a beaming smile. “But remember, Killian: if the food is gone, we’re eating one of the slaves.”

I recoiled back and stared at him, my eyes widening. “W-what?”

“If the food runs out – we’re eating them,” Reaver’s voice dropped. A cold look crept to his eyes. When he saw the look of horror on my face he let out a laugh and slapped my shoulder, before grabbing it hard and giving it a shake. “And guess what, Killi Cat? If you don’t satisfy me, every – single – fucking – night. I will rape you bloody. You know what right?”