Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (77 page)

I stayed there in silence for several minutes before I pounded on the brick one more time, and rose to my feet.

With my teeth clenched and the rage boiling my blood I stalked down the narrow hallway, filling the stairwell with noise as I stomped up the stairs towards the surface. No thoughts inside of my head but finding someone alone so I could punish them for the pain that had been collecting inside of my body since the day I crawled under the porch of Sunshine House.

I slammed the door of the abandoned office building. Two people a half-block down the street looked at me but they were females and I wasn’t interested in killing women. I wanted someone who would fight back, I wanted a brawl. Someone who would get a couple hits in and make me feel some pain. Maybe I wouldn’t even kill someone tonight; maybe I’d pick a fight and just let them beat me to death.

My eyes closed, and my jaw gave a jolt from the pressure of my pointed teeth clenching too tight. My entire jaw was locked in place like a closed bear trap and I wouldn’t be surprised if I broke teeth tonight.

There was something going on inside of me. Something was building, like a cancerous tumour that fed on my misery. A cancer that had always been there but had now grown to the point where my body could no longer sustain it. I swear I could feel it pressing against my skin, so much pressure I knew it was going to rip out of me. There was so much tension, so many taut wires wrapped around my body. I could hear the low twanging whine as they became tighter and tighter.

Tighter and tighter… they were going to snap. I knew they were going to snap.

Cypress stretched out in front of me. A poor district that was on par with the slums of Moros when it came to poverty, drug abuse, and everything else you would expect to find in this skid row of Skyfall. It was a sad and depressed place to be and the buildings only reflected the despondent atmosphere that seemed to encapsulate this district.

Almost none of the buildings had been repaired, most everything had been left as it was for time to slowly pick away. Skyland was constantly under renovation and the upper-class district of Eros as well. Nyx got what Skyland and Eros didn’t want but Moros and Cypress were left to fight over the materials they could salvage in the other districts’ shit.

But I was comfortable here; it reminded me of the greywastes I had left behind. Tall, dark buildings that stuck out like fractured bones, all of them missing their windows and some even stripped of their siding like nature had stripped their pride. There was nothing left in the world for them but to wait for time to bring them to their knees, then they themselves would be cannibalized to repair the buildings around them.

Like how we ate each other in the greywastes. The dead always had their uses and the rats and croaches could make their homes in what remained.

That’s all life is, waiting for your comrade to die so you can consume and grow stronger from his corpse. And you always knew that comrade was waiting to do the same to you.

There were many people in my life I was waiting to consume. I wonder what a chimera would taste like. I bet we tasted better than the malnourished greywasters I had eaten, and the starving Cypressians and Morosians I had killed and devoured. I had tasted a Nyxian just several days ago – the marbling on his flesh had been nice, melted wonderfully when I cooked myself a steak on top of the hotplate I had bought.

A jolt of pain ripped through my jaw from clenching it too hard. I flicked the butt of the cigarette onto the deserted streets and watched the blue fireworks explode from the still burning ember, before dying on the cold ground.

Immediately I lit another one and walked past one of the tallest buildings in Cypress. It was an empty shell, dark grey with black stains dripping from its windows like tears. The only colour, the only light it had was mismatched spray-paint. Declarations from Cypresses’s gangs or the occasional mural of wanna-be artists trying to add some colour to this monotone dystopia.

My head turned at a scratching sound, but all it was was a stray cat pawing at a cardboard box. I nodded at it but it was feral, so all I got was a stricken look for my efforts, then dilated pupils as he noticed the crows following behind me.

And at this inner mention of my friends the lead crow landed on my shoulder. His claws scraped against the leather of my jacket before he settled.

“Hello, Sanguine.”

A smirk found its way to my face, even though inside the tension was continuing to strangle me alive. I appreciated the greeting but the night was too silent to disrupt it with my voice. I carried on towards the foreshore in hopes to find some stragglers in the ocean-front park. A drunk personal may be more willing to brawl with me and if he was surrounded by friends all the better.

Several cigarettes were killed as I weaved through the abandoned buildings and alleyways full of garbage and dozens of scavenging animals. The deeper I went into Cypress the less people I saw.

Suddenly though I heard a sound. It was a male voice but it was faint, which meant it had to be far away considering the silence of the night on top of my chimera hearing. I paused and shooed the crow off of my shoulder so its heartbeat wouldn’t disrupt my hearing. Then I craned my ears and focused every sense into my hearing, even going as far as to close my eyes.

The voice continued. My brow furrowed as I realized it was a protesting, almost pleading voice; and there was another one as well, though I couldn’t hear it properly. The higher tenor of the male’s voice was louder, this second voice held deeper tones.

I sprinted to the edge of a sidewalk and kept myself in the shadows of the abandoned and boarded up shops that the sidewalk edged. I extinguished my lit cigarette and put it back into my tin before following the mysterious sounds that had piqued my interest.

The closer I got the more I started piecing together just what I was listening to. The two people were walking together, but one of them obviously didn’t want to be with the other. He was pleading and sniffing and several times I heard scuffing like he was being forced to walk with the other one.

The other one was another male, his voice was cold and biting but it had a slight slur on it that suggested he was under the influence of something. Whenever the first one complained he hissed sharply, most likely telling him to shut up.

When I got close enough to the two that I could make out their footsteps, I slipped my clown mask over my face and fingered the knife that was sheathed on my belt. The crows behind me seemed to sense my need for silence as well, there was not a single word from them, just faint rustling of feathers and the sounds of their claws scraping against the lamp posts and awnings when they landed.

“Let me go…”

“That isn’t going to happen,” the man said, another scuffling noise as the younger one stumbled. Then I heard the sound of a rusted door opening, I could hear it scraping against the dirty floor.

“Go in.”

“I’m not going in there!” the younger one choked. “Fucking let me go. I’m not going in there with you.”

The man laughed. My eyes narrowed at the sound of this laugh; there was something about it that was familiar. I had heard it before.

I sprinted to a four-way split in the road and turned a corner. I pressed my back against a phone booth and held my breath as I saw the glowing blue figures on the other side of the street.

One was cowering down, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. The other was a man with a backwards baseball hat, taller than the kid and dressed in newer clothes. He was holding the door open, his other hand pulling on the kid’s shoulder.

The two disappeared into the building and the door slammed behind them. I didn’t move though, I was still analyzing that voice, trying to figure out just who it belonged to. I didn’t think I recognized the man but he was far away and my chimera night vision wasn’t nearly as developed as my daylight vision. His face had been distorted under the blue glow.

I knew that person – how did I know that person?

Then a piercing scream sounded, its shrill desperation amplified by the empty building. It was quickly followed by an out of breath sob, and worse still – a gasp like he had just been punched.

Then it hit me, it hit me with such obviousness I felt like a fool. A naïve fool with his mind too focused on his angst to realize that there was only one explanation as to why someone would be taking a young man into an abandoned building.

My brain kicked into gear. I ran across the road, feeling the flames once cooled by the midnight walk start to gather fuel under the boy’s agonizing screams. Now falling into a rhythm that made the taut binds snap back around my chest.

“Ah-ah – ah – ahhh! Fucking take it out!
” He gagged on his breath before he said something I knew I would never forget.

“I’m only thirteen, I’m fucking only thirteen.”
– He let out another scream mixed in with a choking sob.

“Then what the fuck were you doing at an adult bar? Fucking liar.”

My entire body was shaking with rage; red was seeping into my vision, bathing the metal door in front of me in a bloodied haze. The pressure inside of my body was pressing against my skin like a balloon was inflating in me. Something was going to give, something was going to snap. I wasn’t going to exit this door the same person who was now swinging it open, it was impossible.

The metal door slammed against the side of the building. I saw him.

And I immediately recognized him.

Ludo looked up at me with an expression of shock and anger. He had his pants unzipped and open, pressed against the bare ass of the young man on his hands and knees. The kid’s arms were crossed in front of him and his face buried in the center. Something that I myself had done many times when Jasper was fucking me. Covering my face in shame, inhaling my own recycled breath, counting the thrusts as they slowly quickened, waiting for the grunt and the disgusting wetness that remained inside of you for hours after.

“What the fuck!” Ludo snarled, his cock still inside of his victim. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Then it seemed Ludo noticed just what was standing inside of the doorway. He paused and I saw a look of perplexity cross his face as he stared at this masked spectre, before it was replaced by nervous unease.

“I fucking said… get out,” the chimera said, his voice losing the snarling dominance it had had just seconds before.

I slowly shook my head back and forth before I started taking deliberately gradual steps towards him. The clicking of my boots echoed off of the high ceiling; they broke the silence with such an intensity it sounded like gunfire.

Ludo pulled his cock out of the boy, before quickly tucking the deflating flesh back inside of his pants. The boy, also afraid, scrambled away and out of my line of sight.

As Ludo was tucking himself back into his pants I took out another cigarette and stuck it into my mouth. Then, as the chimera watched me, now matching my steps as he walked backwards, I brought my fingers up to the unlit cigarette… and lit it with my heated tough.

A visible look of relief washed over Ludo’s face. He laughed and wiped his hand down his face. “You scared the shit out of me… I didn’t recognize you with that mask. Okay, you got me, who is it?”

I shook my head again and took an inhale of my cigarette. I blew it towards Ludo and continued to walk towards him.

The corner of Ludo’s mouth rose in a smirk, and he took another step back. The apprehension was creeping back to his face.

“Come on… you’re going to make me guess?”

I nodded.

Ludo gave out an uneasy laugh; he glanced behind him, most likely trying to spot an exit, and there was one, but the inside of this building was an open floor. He knew he would have to turn and run, and he knew since I was a chimera also – that I could most likely outrun him.

“Okay… y-you’re Jack?” Ludo said, his hands were fidgeting, he kept wiping his nose. “Jack finally g-growing some balls?”

I shook my head.

Ludo swallowed, and looked behind him again. His backwards steps were getting faster and his heartbeat as almost as loud as my footsteps.

“You’re too tall to be – be King Silas,” Ludo laughed nervously. “Apollo and Artemis would – would never…”

Ludo suddenly stopped and held up his hands in the
‘you got me’
posture. “Okay, I’m done; you’re scaring the shit out of me. You got me, fine. I’ll give you a congratulatory blowjob. Who is it?”

He didn’t move as I closed the last several feet of distance, but I could tell from the thrashing of his heartbeat that he was in a panic. Every step I took only accelerated the anxiety that I knew was eating him alive. He didn’t want me near him, and yet his trust in the family was strong enough for him to stay still and let me approach.

Ludo smiled nervously when I stopped in front of him, but when I got close enough for him to see I wasn’t one of his brothers the smile suddenly disappeared from his face.

His mouth dropped open and he stood, frozen, as I slowly raised my hand and grabbed the top of my mask. I realized with perverse joy that his night vision made him unable to see that my eyes were red.

But the chimera night vision wouldn’t spare him from my other genetic enhancement.

“Who – who are you?” Ludo whispered, taking a step back.