The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (65 page)

“We can’t stay!” I snapped at him, but I decided not to wake the kid. I gritted my teeth trying to figure out what to do next.

“Stay here with the boy and wake up Perish. I’m going to scout this out,” I said quietly, clipping my M16 to the holder on my back. I took a step towards the door before I stopped. I had to cover all of my bases, no matter what. “If I don’t come back, don’t move from this house until Elish gets you. If you have to physically restrain Killian and chain him to something you’re allowed, got it, Cicaro?”

Jade looked stricken and pale with fear but he gave me a nod. “Of course.”

I had nothing more to say. I slipped into the night and got as far away from the unassuming house as I could, crossing the street and running across the backyards of a row of bungalows. In the distance I could smell the distinct smell of burning treated wood. I followed my nose, weaving between the structures, mentally analysing which path would be the quietest.

Every loose piece of wood, every fallen over wall or hidden chain-link fence could easily be heard by a chimera, and for all I knew Caligula or Kessler could be in this group.

Finally I saw the faint glow of light and the sound of voices talking quickly. As I hugged the edge of a two-storey house I peeked down the street the slavers were on, and saw my marks.

Six legionary, nothing I couldn’t take on, but if there were six there were probably another dozen standing guard on the outskirts of the city, and for all I knew, looking around in the town.

I turned and walked behind a shed before climbing up a tree and jumping over the fence that separated the yard. The yards behind these houses were all clear and most of the back doors unbarred.

I had to get closer to hear this conversation.

To my luck the house I had eyed up as a good spy point had their backdoor open. I snuck in and lightly climbed up the stairs before finding another window and pulling myself onto the roof.

The roof was solid enough and the shingles in place. I dropped down to my stomach and lizard crawled to the peak of the roof. I pressed my back against a crumbled chimney and tuned in every bit of advanced hearing my chimera engineering had given me.

I used to think I was just born special...

Well, I suppose I was. I just thought I was some rare person, not a genetic clone of my mortal enemy.

Immortal enemy.

I swallowed down the bitterness of my own masochistic thoughts and put it in the void where that dream of my dads and Killian had been banished to. I closed it off.

“– their names are Reaver Dekker, Killian Massey, and possibly another chimera named Perish Dekker, two black-haired, the teenager Killian has blond. These are royalty, chimeras, do you know what a chimera is, ashmonkey?”

Well, it looks like they found us, though whether the idiots had figured out it was me who killed Timmy or just the patrol Elish said was after us I didn’t know. It didn’t matter in the end, legion soldiers were looking for us.

I wonder if their plane was the reason we were able to get that connection to the Skyfall Network. I wish I could pull one aside and give them a note to give to Elish but of course that was a fucking stupid idea.

I unclicked my gun from its holder and positioned myself and the rifle. I got Hopper in my sights and readied myself to blow his head off the moment he mentioned we were here.

“Yeah, I know what a fucking Skyfaller is –” I got his head in the crosshairs and rubbed my finger gently against the trigger. “– and we’ve been here for four days and we ain’t seen shit. You wanna look and check our slaves? Or every one of these shitty shanties? Go ahead, you got your damn bribe, let us get back to sleep, bessy.”

I narrowed my eyes and withdrew my twitching finger from the trigger, just in time for the legionary to deck Hopper right in the face.

The slaver leader was knocked to the ground and around him the several other soldiers started laughing, before the one who hit him kicked him in the ribs.

“That’s Officer to you, radhead, better than some shit sucker like you. Now you got another smart ass name for me, waster? Huh? You got something to say?” the officer sneered.

There was so much anger inside of me I could feel my shoulders shake, as soon as I killed Silas I was going to eradicate the Legion and replace it with my own. I would shred every single one of those big headed fucks.

“Nothing to say,” Hopper grimaced holding his stomach; his eyes were shut tight. “Nothing to say at all, Officer.”

There was another kick and the group laughed some more before turning to the others. “I’ve had enough of this shithole, take the slave and turn on the truck.”

I noticed a young man with a shaved head and a probably short future being held by a legionary recruit in the darkness. The legionary followed the others once they walked past him, and trailed behind with the bribe. I suppose everyone had their price and arian meat was good meat. Silas didn’t feed the lower ranking legionaries well so they usually turned to shadier means to feed themselves and afford luxuries like cigarettes, booze, or drugs. In all respects the shaved headed man’s fate would be similar to the one my boyfriend had almost suffered.

Except there was no factory town for him. He would be nothing but bones and shit by tomorrow evening.

And if I wasn’t careful, that could be our fate now. They were in the area, scouring the greywastes for me, Killian, and the mad scientist. We would be fucked if they caught me, and Elish would be fucked if they caught Jade. Not only did I have to get the hell out of here, and further away from Kreig, I had to do it without anyone finding us.

We could start walking to Falkvalley, the mountains would hide us well – I didn’t want to leave without telling Elish, but I knew I had no choice.

Though that brought its own slew of issues.

Four people travelling together with no purpose would be suspicious, especially with Jade’s eyes and implants. The legionary would pick us out if that plane flew by.

But –

I sighed and wiped my face with my hands.

– they wouldn’t look twice at a slaver caravan... and they would be going near some towns I would think. We could branch off and charge the Ieon... get that message to Elish about Reno.

One thing was for sure, we were sitting here with our thumbs up our asses currently, and I had shit I needed to do. Not only find out what was locked inside of Perish’s head, but now I had the responsibility to save Reno too.

It seemed like it was my job to save everyone now... I used to only care about myself.

Hopper rose with the help of Churro and an older man with a handlebar moustache.

The man with the moustache said to him in a gruff voice, “You know those three were the ones they were looking for, Hop.”

Hopper picked up his hat and put it on his head. “We’re going to need help crossing the Coquihalla anyways, and those four are going to need help too. If the evil one doesn’t agree to be our mercs now, they will once they encounter their first urson. We’ll be following them neck to neck once they get to the highway, there’s only one road.”

“I suppose you’re right, we need all the help we can get if we’re going to make the delivery to Melchai.” The moustache one sighed and looked behind his shoulder. “I’m going to follow the legionary and make sure they leave the town. Go tell the fucked up one what happened, if he sees that the legionary are close he might just go with it now.”

So I was the fucked up one and the evil one – I didn’t mind that.

And with that everyone but Hopper left.

I jumped down from the roof with a soundless thunk, and started walking down the street that would take me to Hopper’s camp.

In all honesty what Hopper said made me, if only a bit, more comfortable with mercing for them. If Hopper would’ve said he had some sort of moral code, or that he just did it to spite the legionary I would have suspected that he had somehow spotted me, or knew I was pointing a gun at him. That was suck up talk not realistic greywaster talk, and certainly it wasn’t slaver talk. No, this guy wanted something out of us to further his own agenda, getting to Melchai in one piece. Perhaps we could come to some sort of agreement.

Hopper glanced down the road, before doing a double take when he spotted me.

“You look like a fucking demon.”

“I get that a lot,” I said lowly. I decided not to mince words. “You know who I am don’t you?”

He didn’t look surprised, even if he was an idiot he could put together that I had been listening.

“I know who three of you are. You’re chimeras, huh? Well, I had you pegged right, you are a Skyfaller,” he smirked.

I really hated being called that, but instead of telling him to go fuck himself I needed to secure what I wanted. Do the opposite of what Reaver would do, like Doc always said.

“I was raised in the greywastes, I am not like them. I overheard you, and we’ll do it. Perish and I will be your mercs, Jade and Killian can do medical and cooking. Perish and I will work for the food and ammo, but with Jade and Killian we need money.” I would rather do merc work with Jade, he was more capable than Perish, but I needed to keep that little shit heads safe. Perish was immortal, Jade was not.

The slaver nodded, a half-smile on his face. “I would be more than happy to have a couple mutants on my force. You’ll get your pay when we sell the slaves.” He walked up to me and held out a hand. Though a handshake in the greywastes was supposed to be worth something, it was only so for the few moral people you came across and I think the last one had died in Aras.

But I shook it, because there was nothing else to do, even if it meant little to me. One wrong look, one wrong move and Hopper’s caravan would be extinguished.

And I knew he was thinking the same thing about me.

“Reaver?” Hopper called to me as I started to walk back to the house we were staying in.

I turned around.

“Why are they looking for you guys?”

“We’re mercs, not your friends, Hopper,” I said without missing a beat. “Just let us blend in and do our thing, and make sure your men know to leave my boyfriend and my slave alone.”

“Fair enough.” Hopper didn’t seem happy with that but that was just too bad. We weren’t a happy caravan bringing rainbows to the greywastes. I was a merc for a group of slavers.

I didn’t like it, but there was nothing more to be said about it. This was our best bet to get away from Kreig and the Legion stalking our heels. I had to take that risk, and if things went bad... I would just kill every single one of them.

Being immortal had it perks.

Chapter 23

Killian

I carved off a thick piece of skin and tossed it towards Deek, who raised himself up on his hind legs and caught the flesh in his mouth. His teeth flashing as he chewed the thigh skin before looking at me with hopeful eyes, waiting for more.

Jade was beside me, who happened to be a very bad cook considering he was a cicaro. But after my light teasing he had explained to me that in Moros, there really wasn’t that much in the way of meat.

Meat was pretty much all we ate in the greywaste, meat and canned goods.

“Alright, that’s the slavers’ food...” Jade wiped his forehead and slid the heaping pile of trimmed rat steaks off to where Chomper was waiting with the grill. The former cook of Hopper’s slave caravan, a gruff guy with a thick handle bar moustache and narrow but bright eyes didn’t give up control easily. Though he was happy for the help, he had still maintained that he would still control the flames. I suppose that made us prep-cooks, or that’s what they called them on the cooking shows.

I opened one of the totes and wrinkled my nose before grabbing the bag of meal that was the slaves’ food. It was Ratmeal, which pretty much explained itself. A powered substance that had all the nutrients you needed to feed the rats. It used to come from Anvil in big condensed blocks, and would expand four times its volume when water was added. Since Aras was a block controlled by King Silas Aras got access to the Ratmeal, it was how we could feed the rats and the block without it costing more money or resources than they were worth. It was also spiked with a growth hormone so the rats would grow faster, which also made it not fit for arian consumption.

It made me sad that we were feeding this shit to the arian slaves, but I guess they only had to stomach it until they were sold to Melchai. Hopefully not being on it for that long would save them from the worst of side effects.

I brought out the scoop and scooped it into the cleaned tote full of a couple inches of water. I sprinkled it in and watched as it expanded in front of us.

Jade dipped a finger in but made a face as he tasted it. “This shit makes tact look like fucking ice cream sandwiches. Well, let’s go feed them.”

We carried the tote over to the slaves and as Reaver had hammered into me, I didn’t make eye contact with them and I didn’t engage them. He had told me this over and over again and had even suggested Perish help Jade instead of me. But he was off scouting a few abandoned houses about a mile away and couldn’t stop me today.