The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (50 page)

I shifted into him and shook my head when he offered me more urson meat. I was still hungry but I wanted him to have some first. “You would be more than annoyed. Who else would ever put up with you?”

“Mmhm.”

Elish gave me a sideways glance and when he saw I was smiling he shook his head. “There is no reason to smile, Jade. We’re in a bad situation right now.” Though as he said that he put his arm around my waist and pulled a blanket over me.

“Yeah, but we are… not me, not you…
we
,” I said quietly. “I missed you.”

“Nonsense, you seemed to have been having the time of your life being a raver,” Elish responded casually. “Do not tell me it hasn’t been a dream of yours to tear out my throat?”

I pretended to mull this over. My heart sang when I saw just the slightest hint of a lightness come to his face.

I decided to be playful. I leaned over and nipped his neck. “Maybe we can try something new when we get home?”

“New?” Elish raised an eyebrow at me before brushing away my playful nip like he was swatting a fly. “Chimeras have been having death sex since the first of us became immortal. Never an interest to me though, I would give as good as I take and you are still very much mortal.”

Elish put the now empty plate down onto the ground, and I got up and sat down on his lap with my blanket. He tucked it under my arms and tightened his grip on me.

This, all of this, was how I knew he’d missed me too.

“How’s the seeds?” I asked quietly. “Are we okay?”

He was quiet for a moment; the sounds of the boys’ snoring drowning out any crackling or popping the fire might be making.

“Right now nothing else matters but making sure Killian is still alive.” Elish dropped his own voice, even though Reaver was snoring the loudest. It was obvious he was dead to the world right now. “I expected and calculated for none of this. All seeds I have carefully tended mean nothing if that boy dies. There will be no controlling Reaver and it will be years until I can get what I need from Perish once Sky’s O.L.S is removed.”

“I can still go into his mind… I know how to do it now,” I whispered. “Perish used sex as a way to focus my abilities; I could do the same back to him with your permission. Really, master, I know I’m sick but I can still do it.”

“Sex and pain,” Elish murmured. “An outside stimulus to focus all of your energies into one place. We have been using that method for quite a while. I used sex with you to draw out your own thermal abilities. But no, Jade, you will be doing nothing outside of aura reading until you are immortal. These cluster headaches are nothing to ignore. As soon as we have Killian and Perish, I must take you back to Skyfall.”

“Are you going to make me immortal?” I looked at him in awe, but Elish only shook his head.

“No, I always found it unfair when an immortal was made before their brain reached maturity. You’re only eighteen and you still have a year of growing at minimum. If I had it my way I would wait until you were twenty-five or even twenty-seven… but I feel that will not be an option,” Elish responded. “I wish we had developed that technology.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There was what Perish called a spider wire, a piece of technology that when implanted into the brain would make the host still age,” Elish began. “He developed it with Silas since Silas and the other two born immortals still aged until they were around twenty-four. Though it was never mastered or finished. Perish moved on to... create his abominations and fall further into his own mind.”

“Was he a mad scientist?” I whispered.

Elish smirked at my choice of words. “Sure, we’ll go with that. Perish has a lot of technology he never finished. It was unfortunate that Silas hated him so but I suppose it must’ve been hard for him to look at Perish. Silas would always see Sky in him and that would remind Silas of his permanent absence.”

I looked up at him in admiration as he spoke, not just from the story, but because I just loved it when he told me stories. When he spoke to me in that tone, it reminded me of the night I met him, the night my entire life changed.

“Well, we won’t have to worry about me for long. I’ll be nineteen soon enough.” I yawned and closed my eyes. “You missed my birthday you know. What a horrible master.”

Elish gently tucked my bangs back into my wool hat. “Mmhm, yes, I realize I did, as Reaver missed Killian’s. It seems we have bad luck when it comes to your birthdays, we always seem to be in the greywastes.”

“And you never tell me when it’s yours, aren’t you ninety-one now?”

“I am.”

“You look really good for your age.”

I grinned as he chuckled. He patted my head and said softly, “Very funny, Cicaro, sleep now. I’ll keep watch until Reaver wakes.”

He wasn’t shifting to put me down on the ground so I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the crook of his arm. If there was any subtle way for Elish to show that he missed me too, it was the small acts such as this: holding me while I slept. I was eighteen years old now; I was a full-grown chimera adult with an ability no other chimera held – and yet I think even when I turned ninety-one I would still be a boy curled up in his master’s arms.

I drifted off to sleep feeling comfortable and safe, the nightmares not ravaging my mind like they had been for the past few months. Elish’s crystal aura seemed to chase away the darkness from my mind and coat me in a barrier of calm tranquility.

I was jostled awake sometime later though by a jump in his heartbeat. I opened my eyes to ask him what was wrong when suddenly he jumped to his feet.

“Reaver,” Elish said lowly, but his tone was sharp.

I… I didn’t like his tone.

My head turned and Reaver was already standing. He looked around the dark camp we had made and I saw his pupils retract. “A truck?”

A vehicle? I craned my ears and the first shudder of anxiety found me. On the lower registers I could hear the high tones of struggling engines, engines trying to make it over the bumpy greywaste ground.

Elish put me down. I grabbed the assault rifle Elish had laid down beside where he was sitting and handed it to him. Big Shot and Deek were now awake; all of us standing tense beside the flickering fire, our ears now picking up the low rumbling sound.

“It’s a Charger plane and they have vehicles on the ground.” Elish’s tone dropped lower. I looked at him and felt a surge of fear rip through my muscles like they had just gotten electrically charged. The cold calm expression on his face was only a mask to hide the apprehension I could feel in his aura. “They already have seen us. I’m assuming your explosion in that abandoned house was noticed.”

My master’s eyes swept the dark terrain around us. “We’re going to have to kill them. There is no places to hide and even if there was, they would see we’re hiding and shower us with bullets. This has to be handled civilly at first, but the moment we have a chance…”

Reaver nodded grimly and his eyes travelled to me. Around us and above the sounds of vehicles could be heard. “You need to hide the kid.”

Elish was still for a moment before he nodded. “Come, Jade.”

“I can stay and fight!” I hissed but he grabbed my arm and started pulling me towards a mound of rocks, his grip was hard and his mouth a thin line. Elish didn’t answer me and I valued my consciousness enough to not argue any further. He found a split in the rocks and handed me his assault rifle.

“You… you’ll need it,” I whispered and tried to give it back but he shook his head.

Then Elish handed me our bag, the one with the laptop in it and said quietly, “This is an order and you will not disobey it. If Reaver shows any sign of releasing radiation, run. But for right now you’ll use your thermal abilities and make your body as cold as you can. If the Legion takes us escape during the struggle and find shelter. Then you will go to Garnertown and locate a town called Mantis. Go there and demand to know where Mantis is. Find him. Do you understand me, Jade?”

“Mantis?” I whispered. I hadn’t heard of him.

Elish nodded, his eyes watching the camp. I could hear ammo and guns being exchanged and the engines in the distance starting to become louder. “Yes, he in the greywastes. He is an arian made immortal but not a chimera, appears as thirty-three, dark brown hair, and a serious face. He’s an old friend and he will hide you.”

“Okay,” I whispered. Elish turned away from me but I grabbed his arm.

Like he knew what I wanted and needed, he leaned down and kissed me, the first real kiss we had shared in months. I took him in and as I felt his warm lips press against mine all of my fear washed away.

I was a chimera… and I was going to act like it. If there was anything I had learned about being a chimera and the cicaro of Elish Dekker, it was that I needed to follow orders even if I didn’t like those orders. Hiding while the others went to face the Legion head-on filled me with frustration, it made the blood under my skin simmer – but this wasn’t about me or what I wanted.

So I stayed put. Even though the atmosphere around me was tense and full of apprehension, I stayed still and watched Reaver, Elish, and Big Shot gather all the ammo and weapons from the bags and put it on their person.

Then the floodlights above us.

I shifted my body so I was tight up against the rock and stayed perfectly still, only a small sliver of the light was on my sleeve the rest was still hidden in the shadows. I couldn’t see much from this angle but I could make due enough to know what was going on.

Immediately I drew up my thermal abilities and started to spread the coldness to my body. I wasn’t as good at it as Elish, I had no formal training especially since it had been deactivated last year, but I knew enough. I managed to cool my body down just as headlights appeared over a ridge in the distance.

They were coming; they had seen us but it would be okay… I was in the company of murderers. Of men who would kill whoever needed to be killed to keep their secrets safe and to continue our search for Killian.

We would be okay; we were chimeras.

Elish, Reaver, and Big Shot were standing in front of the fire, their hair blowing from the wind of the chopper blades. In a stroke of intelligence I saw that they had only given Reaver a gun. Big Shot’s gun and Elish’s handgun were tucked behind their bags. I’m guessing in case the Legion demanded they surrender their weapons.

Dust was being kicked up everywhere from the landing plane, coating our camp in a cloak of dust and ashes. The fire was quickly extinguished and our world was now only illuminated by the vehicles, bright lights from the headlights in the north west, and the floodlights of the Charger above us.

And the noise. I wanted to plug my ears as the deafening roar threatened to slay my other senses. I found that I had to concentrate hard to keep my body at a cold temperature with the mind-fucking noises it was being exposed to. Not just the Charger plane, now visible in the sky and starting to touch down on the surface, but the single headlights now breaking the dome of night that had surrounded the camp.

Elish crossed his arms. His body stance rigid but confident; his face the solid form of acid. Reaver wasn’t any better, he looked like he was going to go Fallocaust on the legionary. I think I had him to watch out for. I just hoped Big Shot would have enough sense to run too.

The black plane touched down. I heard the engine give a shift before the motor waned and slowly died. The chopping of the air starting to become slower just as six legionary quads broke into our camp.

The twelve men on the quads got off, and immediately there was the sound of clicking as they all drew their guns.

“Hands away from your pockets, do not put them near your guns,” a man on one of the quad commanded. “We are the Legion of Skyfall. You will comply with everything you are asked.”

The quads all turned off but the air around us only seemed to become more tense as the tranquility of the greywastes started to seep back into the camp. It was a false calm, the eye of the storm, or perhaps the beginning of the storm.

“We have nothing to declare and nothing to hide,” Elish spoke calmly. “What is your business here?”

Suddenly there was a thumping noise from the Charger plane, everyone including the soldiers turned towards the plane as the sliding door opened.

When I saw who it was a sickening heat flushed my body.

Kessler appeared with another five legionary behind him, his grey eyes wide with incomprehensible shock and his mouth open. He was staring at Elish in stark disbelief, seemingly not believing who he was seeing. My heart dropped down to my feet, my insides twisted to ice making my body shiver even more.

Elish… Elish… what now?

“E-Elish?” Kessler stammered. His eyes shot from Elish to Reaver and they widened once more. He stood there for a moment, struck dumb, and shook his head back and forth. “What- what is this?”

My master didn’t even waver, it was impossible to read the emotions on his face. Reaver, on the other hand, I saw his eyes narrow and his stance change. His head lowered and his fingers flexed, and it was in that moment that I remembered – he had been taken by the Legion.

And not only that… he had killed Kessler’s son and had been killing legionary since he was a teenager.