The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (51 page)

“I’m fine, no one saw us, we need to go… we need to go now, pack up the laptop,” Perish said hurriedly, wringing his hands and almost jumping up and down in one spot.

I shook my head. “No we have to stay here tonight; I bet the kreigers are already coming out. We’re moving to the roof and staying there until morning. Too many kreigers and I spotted Caligula and Kessler checking manhole covers. Rest assured by the morning they would’ve fucked off.”

“Clig?” Jade looked up at me, his eyes widened. He snapped the laptop closed and put it in the laptop bag with the remote phone. “His boyfriend got captured along with Reno, what the fuck is he doing here?”

They looked to me to lead them to the roof but in truth I had no idea where it could be, so I looked up and started trying to spot weaknesses in the ceiling.

“Unbenounced to me and apparently you, a signal was sent when we turned on the electricity. Caligula suggested it was a short but Kessler wants to check the sewers to see if the apartment was intact or something, either way, we’re out of there.”

I sprinted towards a missing chunk of ceiling and started to climb up the bookshelves; Jade took my lead and found another weak area.

“I had no idea, neither did Elish or he would’ve warned us.” Jade stood up on the bookshelf and poked his head through the loose ceiling. The ceiling tiles were one of those push up ones, though at least the rungs they were resting on looked solid. “If they can’t convince themselves it was a shorted signal, the kreigers will convince them to leave. Which reminds me…” Jade poked his head down and nodded towards his laptop bag. “We found an atlas of British Columbia, I’ll show you when we get settled in.”

At least we had that going for us, I slammed my fist up against the ceiling and hissed when it smacked up against something solid. “The awning overhang will make it impossible to get there from the exterior, I’d rather we put lookouts at the unstuck welding and camp in here.” I sighed, not wanting to stay in a place I hadn’t explored or mapped out exits, but I suppose I would have time to kill during the night.

I jumped down and so did Jade, hearing the floor crack and protest under our weight. “We’ll stay here tonight. Unpack some guns, Perish, and watch the exit. Killian, get some food out and some beds. Jade, start looking for Falkland on that atlas. I’m going to scout this place out.”

All three of them nodded and went off in their different directions. I was about to leave when I noticed Perish pushing the flap of metal open and looking outside.

“They’re starting to come out the windows,” Perish said, before, as quiet as he could, he let the metal cover retract back into place. “Take the dog with you; he really does not like those creatures. I’d rather him not near the opening. The kreigers have bad smell but very good hearing.”

I clicked the dog over, who had been sniffing the covered windows with long drawn-out huffs, when he heard me he walked over with his tail wagging back and forth. “Good idea, keep an eye on the kids. I want to find at least two places we can take cover in if something goes wrong. Tell me right away if you see any of the Legion, especially a chimera.”

I left Perish in charge of the door and walked into the darkness.

I spotted a flight of stairs and took them down to what seemed like a book depository, there were cardboard boxes, rat chewed and roach chewed, stacked one on top of each other and tables flipped over in the same barricade fashion we had seen upstairs. It was a large room, with a hallway leading to several others off to the left. No ceiling at all in this one, just hanging insulation and wires that hung down like rubber vines. It was that crappy push up ceiling that a lot of these government buildings had. As soon as one radrat ran across it, it usually collapsed and spilled its innards onto the floor below.

I wandered around, poking some of the bigger debris piles with the tip of my gun, hearing the dog occasionally sneeze whenever he tried to dig something out. The dust down here was incredibly thick, though that only meant the lizard men hadn’t been down here.

Wandering from room to room, I found several places I could stick the boys if they needed emergency shelter, but nothing solid just bathrooms with locks. The dog ended up luckier than I did though and found himself a radrat, he gave me a start at first as I heard the squeal of him snapping its spine but when he came out proudly holding it in his jaws he earned a pet. I let him eat it in peace and carry the head up to the first floor so he had something to chew on.

The boys were dishing out cans of fruit cocktail and had opened small cans of Good Boy for us to eat; Elish’s laptop switched off but for some odd reason the phone was plugged into it.

I looked past them and saw Perish by the door; he had wedged open the flap of metal enough for him to look out of it. His assault rifle held securely in front of him.

When Killian saw me his face brightened, something that always made me feel good, I didn’t even think he realized he did it.

“We found Falkland!” he declared with a smile but as his eyes shifted to Perish the smile faded, and was replaced with a nervous purse of his lips. “It’s about a hundred or so miles from here, north east.” He dropped his voice. “Perish… isn’t happy, I don’t think he wants to remember.”

Jade’s expression told the real story though. “He almost tore the page right out of the book.” His yellow eyes flashed in annoyance. “And warned me that if I fucked with his head again he’d kill me himself. He really thinks he can fucking win a –”

I rolled my eyes and held up a hand. “We have more important shit to worry about then brotherly squabbles.”

“It’s not a squabble…” Perish spoke up, not even turning away from the small opening to outside. “They are my memories that I do not wish to share. No one asked my permission to go and get that brain piece. No one asked me if it was alright for Jade to start doing his empath thing on me.”

I tried to hold back to snort but I couldn’t, even though I was just contemplating our improved relationship I felt the words roll off of my tongue before I could stop them. “Maybe it’s time for you to atone for all the horrible shit you did in this world, Perish? Do something to improve it rather than fucking it up with King Silas.”

Perish glared at me, before turning back out the window. “Maybe I don’t want to know what horrible shit I’ve done, Reaver?”

“Maybe this is a lot bigger than just what you want? Suck it up; running from the inevitable won’t help anything.”

“Reaver!” Killian the rescuer hissed at me. He reached up and grabbed onto my jacket sleeve. “You’re not helping, sit down and eat.”

As Perish let out a scoff I felt my insides prick with annoyance. “Running from the inevitable won’t help anything will it? Then call Silas to come and get you right now, Reaver
Dekker
, because if you think Elish’s stupid plan will work, you’re an idiot.”

What happened next was rather funny; Killian leapt up and grabbed me, even though besides feeling like bashing his face in, I had swallowed his words without need for retaliation. I had never expected him to be completely invested in Elish’s plan, the only reason I believed he was still with us was to be close to Killian.

As if to show just how off the mark Killian was with who he had to hold back, as he wrapped his arms around mine Jade jumped to his feet and stalked towards Perish. His arms open in the typical fighting stance of the slumrat Morosian.

“Say that again, retard?” Jade said loudly, arms open and back stiff.

Perish glanced up at him with minimal interest and said casually, “I’m saying Elish is an imperious, ego-maniac who has no idea what he’s up –”

Killian let go of me, and as Jade raised his fist to deliver a street fighter-style punch to Perish’s face I grabbed his wrist and pulled it back. In response, and to my surprise, the god damn pet whirled around and sunk his little metal teeth into my hand.

“You little shit!” I snapped. I grabbed a tuff of his black hair and wrenched him off of my hand, before delivering a backhanded smack to his face, not hard but hard enough to snap the little feral animal out of his state. “Calm the fuck down, Cicaro, or I’ll calm you down myself.”

“Elish has been planning this for over twenty years!” Jade snapped, a trickle of blood running down his nose. “He’s given up a lot to make this happen, Perish can–”

“I don’t give a fuck what Perish can do, you’re not here to become his fucking friend, Jade, you just have to live with him. Now go fucking sit and shut up, I don’t need to deal with your god damn attitude,” I snapped, feeling like I was channeling Greyson at that moment. I think I was slowly becoming him having to keep two mortals alive, one of them being a chimera that seemed to love getting himself into trouble. “That’s an order, go.”

“Yeah, go pet, obey your master, you piss-eyed little lapdog,” Perish said acidly.

“What the fuck!” Jade thrashed his arms, trying to get out of my grip. “Fuck you, Perish Fallon. You’re a fucking joke, that’s what you are, a sad, pathetic, fucking joke. Elish treats you better than King Silas. I’d treat him with some fucking respect.”

“One blond monster for another,” Perish said bitterly, his blue eyes were two slabs of ice. “What will change? Not much, especially since Silas will win. He’s been here two hundred fifty-five years, Elish only ninety. Elish isn’t as smart as he wants to believe he is. We won’t win… all I’ll have is new bad memories. What’s the use? No use, just more pain.” Those stone-cold eyes looked to mine, and with ours fixed together I saw a flicker of an inner pain not even the empath could see. “Why are you putting Killian through this? Can’t you just enjoy him while you have him? I’m the only one who knows what’s best for him it seems.”

I immediately stiffened as Perish mentioned Killian; my throat felt dry, but he wasn’t done.

“You only have another sixty years with him at very most, Reaver. Then an eternity visiting a grave. Why are you putting him in danger? You only have so little time before they die… so little time.”

Those words seemed to knock me off of my feet. Jade took this moment to shift out of my loosened grip but he didn’t attack Perish, he only stood beside me.

For reasons I didn’t know, perhaps for my own protection I had never thought about it that way. We lived in the greywaste and death came hand in hand with every day life. We all died one day; we all got eaten and chewed on one day… so we just never thought of it.

But my fate had been changed, I was now immortal… and as I took a step away from Perish’s glaring blue eyes I realized for the first time… my time with Killian would only be a blink of an eye.

And what time I did have with him… I would watch him grow old. I’d watch him pass my physical age and grow into a man. I’d watch him become tall and strong, then slowly deteriorate, get grey hair, become slower… become an old man, laying beside a chimera forever stuck at twenty-four.

Suddenly I felt a black smoke creep its way into my brain and heart, settling down and coating my emotions like soot. It made my body stand still, and for a moment I saw a future for myself that I never realized had become part of my destiny.

My insides stirred, my heart coiled in on itself. I felt like exploding, like an animal caught in a net my body felt the urge to thrash and scream until I could change what was already written on my slate. In the permanent etched stone that no immortal hand could erase.

“I… I need to go for a walk.” I didn’t know what else to say and though it felt outlandish to do this in the middle of the night, I had to get out of this situation before I lost my mind. Before my brain defaulted to the lowest setting of survival it had, I didn’t want to regress. I had come so far, Killian had brought me so far.

I was going to see him die.

Even if everything went perfectly, and all our hopes and dreams for a new world came about, I was going to bury him and stand by his grave to watch over his bones. I would live my life without him – without my Killi Cat.

“Baby…” His sweet voice fell to my ears, but in this moment I couldn’t look at him. If I did I might grab him and squeeze him until his body broke. Or kill Perish for implanting such a horrible realization inside of my head.

“I’m just… going to sit in a tree for a while…” I mumbled. “Don’t let the dog follow me…”

Before the kid could stop me I lifted open the metal flap and slipped into the darkness, away from the chasm of swirling thoughts in my head. Eating away at my resolve, my resilience and the steeled statue I had prided myself in becoming. I only had one weakness and Perish had drawn it up and smashed it in front of me.

My only weakness…

Killi.

I had watched King Silas and his brute shoot and kill Greyson and Leo in front of me. I had watched Garrett then steal my best friend and now Perish was shoving in my face the fact that one day, whether tomorrow or in sixty years, I would hold my dead boyfriend in my arms. Everything I loved would be carried away; it was the first sting of my immortality I had ever felt.

This is what being immortal was about… watching those you loved die all around you. It had happened to Elish I bet, Garrett, and the other immortals…

And it had happened to King Silas.

As I jumped onto one of the black trees, ignoring the heavy stench of the kreigers around me, my mind uncovered a small kernel of understanding. A solemn looking glass into King Silas’s mind, revealing what I suspected was a man who had watched generations of boyfriends, loved ones, chimeras and creations, some that he probably loved a lot… all die.