Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (106 page)

“And what would Silas say if he knew you were the one behind his plane being shot down?” I suddenly said. “You were their secret informant.”

Elish froze.

I grabbed the chair he had just risen from and pulled it back out for him. Elish stared me down, his purple eyes blazing, and sat back onto the chair.

“We can make this easy,” I said to him coolly. “You use up that vial when you go back to Kreig and no one knows, and I’ll pretend I never heard Onik’s admission. I think Silas finding out you were the one that started all of this, including what happened to me while he was dead for four months, might trump a single missing vial. Or you tell me?”

He kept his face placid but I saw his jaw flex as if he was clenching it. I didn’t show it, but inside I was hollering my success. I wanted to jump up onto the table and just yell that I had outsmarted Elish.

“I think the last thing you want is for Silas to bring Sky back,” I continued. “A Sky clone would replace you in a second, that and the fact that Silas would be dead for months and I would be left alone and under your control – you just couldn’t resist the chance, could you?” I smirked and went further. “I bet you also arranged your chess pieces in a way that pitted the chimeras
you
found unworthy against each other. And I played right into your hand, didn’t I?”

Elish’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t want me as an enemy, boy.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t.” I extended my hand to him. “Which is why I think we would make better allies. We both have secrets we want to keep hidden – so why don’t we come to a mutual understanding that we can trust each other with them.”

He stared at my hand like it was poison, then slowly, like every part of his pride was screaming at him not to, he took my hand and shook it.

“I suppose you are right, Sanguine,” Elish said, firmly grasping my hand in his. Then he let it go and rose to his feet. “Enjoy your evening.”

I smiled smugly as Elish left; his gliding, confident movements taking him directly towards King Silas. I watched him go, feeling so satisfied and proud of myself I felt like I was floating.

Then I saw Jack watch Elish leave. My boyfriend came walking over with a grin on his face. He pulled up a chair beside me but I shook my head. I pulled away from the table and patted my lap and in response Jack sat down on my lap and wrapped his arms around me.

“I love you,” Jack said for the hundredth time this day and the millionth since we had been reunited after Irontowers. He nuzzled my neck and kissed it. “Make love to me tonight.”

My face flushed; I put my arms around him and leaned my head against his. We hadn’t had our first night together yet, we had been too busy adjusting to having Valen living with us now, that and the chaos of the wedding hadn’t given us any free time.

Though tonight was a night to celebrate – for more than one reason now.

“Alright,” I said with a relented sigh. “Tonight can be our night, just you and me.”

Jack grinned and nuzzled me again. “I’m so happy with you; it was a long road but – we made it.” He then stroked my hair back. “I don’t like the fact that Silas can control your psychosis but… at least you don’t need to suffer anymore. You can have peace and quiet now inside that poor mind.”

I nodded and absentmindedly touched my head, wondering to myself just where the device was in my brain. “I haven’t heard any voices. No sign of Crow, and Barry is just my bear again,” I said. “I miss them but… it was time to join the real world, and my real family.”

Jack sighed, a happy, content sigh. The two of us looked on at our family members. Some of them were dancing to the rock music, others, like Nero and Ceph, were sitting down sharing drinks and smokes, and everyone, except perhaps Elish, seemed to be enjoying themselves.

We were a family, and in no way were we the perfect family. We had our faults, our shortcomings; we did things differently than most families I had seen on TV. But we were close-knit and deeply joined with one another; we all shared a bond that went further than genetics, further than just being men living under one skyscraper roof.

I held Jack close to me and closed my eyes, taking in the loud music, the heavy smoke in the air, and the sounds of men laughing and having the time of their lives. I took it in and enjoyed it, reflecting back on how far I had come. I had come a long way from being a little baby hiding under a porch.

I had done it, I had survived.

And I had found a place where I belonged.

THE END

Twenty years later.

I ran up the steps to the front of Alegria, and even though the thiens would’ve questioned anyone bursting into the king’s skyscraper with a desperate expression on their face, they did nothing to try and stop me. All they did was back away from me as I pushed open the doors and ran inside.

If it wasn’t twenty-seven floors up I would’ve ran up the stairs to Silas’s apartment, and with anxiety like broken glass inside of my chest, I felt like it. But I knew the elevator would be quicker, so I pressed the button, ignoring the inquisitive looks of Silas’s bodyguards, and waited.

Was today the day? After twenty years would today be the day of reckoning for my best friend and his husband? It seemed like just yesterday I was watching Nero slip that ring onto Ceph’s finger.

But the desperate phone call from Kinny, now retired as a sengil and acting as Alegria’s personal physician, could only mean one thing. He said the only word that he could make sense of while tending to a hysterical Nero, was my name.

And I was the last man besides Elish and Ceph who knew our secret. My Valentine had passed away at twenty-four and until his last breath did he keep our darkest secret.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, the elevator doors opened.

I took a step inside but paused. Lying on the elevator floor holding a bloodied jaw, was Drake.

“Drakey, are you okay?” I ran to him and kneeled down. I put a hand on his forehead and tilted his head back to get a better look at the swollen and quickly blackening jaw.

My brother gave a whimper; I could see blood drying in his curly blond hair. “Master is so mad,” Drake said, his voice heavy with sadness. I brushed a hand over his jaw and winced – it was broken.

“Why did he hit you?” I whispered. I turned around and pressed the elevator button for floor twenty-seven.

Drake let out another whimper and held out his arms towards me like a child needing to be picked up. So as the elevator brought us to the floor of Silas’s apartment and Drake’s home, I held him and rubbed his back.

“Nero hitted me…” Drake said, then he sniffed. “I put a hand on Nero’s shoulder for comforts – Nero got mad. He’s in the bad place with – with Ceph.”

I pulled back and looked at him. “The backroom?”

Drake nodded, his orange eyes full of tears.

Without another word I turned around and looked at the keypad of the elevator. I knew which room that was; it used to be Nero’s apartment after Garrett moved into his own skyscraper and before Nero and Ceph moved into one of the Skyland mansions. It had been converted to what was now called the backroom, two flights of stairs that led from Silas’s top floor apartment, past the second floor that used to be Elish’s apartment, to a darkened room that had… that had…

The concrete tombs. The grave markers that cradled inside of their coffins immortal chimeras who had been condemned to spend their punishment in claustrophobic darkness. To live out their sentences, days, months, sometimes years, in sensory deprived nothing, with no water, no food. They would die, and resurrect inside their cocoons with only their insane thoughts to keep them company.

“Ceph’s already been… he’s already been encased?” I whispered.

When Drake nodded back at me my heart died inside of my chest. I looked behind me as the floor numbers steadily climbed, the sickness I felt rising with it.

I pushed floor twenty-five, the one that led to the back room.

“Get Kinny to look at your jaw…” I said to Drake with a gentle pat on his shoulder. “Stay away from Silas’s apartment for now. Maybe go see Garrett?”

The elevator came to a halt. I rose and turned from my brother and pressed Kinny’s hospital floor for Drake. Drake may be immortal and, as a cicaro, used to Silas’s moods, but I would feel better to know at least one of my brothers was safe and far from this hell I was about to enter.

The next movements in my body were that of a robot, or perhaps a soldier who was walking into the heart of the warzone. I knew chances are I wouldn’t be coming out of this alive. If Nero could hit Drake, our intellectually slow brother who had the mentality of a puppy rather than a chimera, I could only guess what he would do to me.

Someone who was there the day he made Ceph immortal – someone who, in all respects, was the one who got Ceph killed in the first place.

I took a deep breath, Nero’s old hallway in front of me, and started walking towards the double oak doors. No longer leading to my brothers’ bachelor pad, full of posters of naked men, dozens of gun racks, and every electronic on the planet; but now taking me to a dimly lit black panelled room with empty walls; the windows covered in a thick black curtain that let no light or fresh air through.

I pushed the doors open and stepped into a graveyard,

Darkness was all around me, the only thing breaking up the cold void were two squares of concrete in the back of the room standing like tombstones, an oriental rug underneath them.

And huddled beside one of the tombs, with his face buried into his drawn up knees, was my best friend. His shoulders were shaking and his breathing laboured. I could smell the agony on him, almost as pungent as the aroma of newly poured concrete.

“Nero…” I whispered, feeling my emotions crush under the weight of Nero’s despair. My gaze rose from my friend to the concrete block Nero was leaning against, hardened but with visible blood smears, dents, and claw marks on the outside.

Ceph was in there… lighthearted, carefree Cepherus. Who had a talent of making anyone he encountered laugh, or at least have their day brightened. A chimera who was fiercely loyal and such a good brother, such a good person…

He didn’t deserve this.

I walked towards Nero, the room seemingly getting colder with each step. I spared a glance and a fleeting moment of guilt for the other immortal, whose origins I was unsure of, and approached my friend.

“Nero?” I said again. I got down on my knees, my burly brother never looking so small. He seemed like a lost child in that moment, something that seemed alien on a visage that usually radiated smug self-assurance.

“Get the fuck out of my sight.”

Immediately I stood back up, and took a step back. “N-Nero, it’s Sanguine…” I stammered.

Nero raised his head and when his royal blue eyes locked on mine my heart jolted. The anger smouldering in his eyes, every ounce of it directed at me, was something I had never seen in him before. He was looking at me with such a focused hatred I felt like looking over my shoulder to see who he was really staring at.

“I should’ve left you in that fucking basement, you worthless piece of shit,” Nero said, in an inhuman tone. “You fucking pedophile’s slut. You-you fucking – you fucking…” Nero’s lower lip pulled and I saw his eyes fill. As he carried on I watched his countenance breakdown in front of me. “You – if you…”

Nero let out a strangled sob; he put his hand over his mouth and let out a heartbreaking wail.

I got down on my knees and threw my arms around him. Nero clung to me, drew me to his chest and clutched me hard as he started to openly sob.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered in his ear, though I was unsure if he’d be able to hear me over his own grief. “I’m sorry, Nero. I’ll talk to Silas. I promise, I’ll do all I can for him.”

“He hates enclosed spaces!” Nero managed to scream as he broke down in my arms; he was trembling hard and hyperventilating. I had never seen him in such a state; it made me fear for his sanity. It made me fear for his future.

“He’s claustrophobic. He – he hates enclosed fucking spaces!” Nero continued to yell. “He can’t be in there. He’ll go crazy; he’s going to be scared – he’ll go crazy!”

“Shh-shhh.” My eyes closed tight but the tears were already slipping down my face. I didn’t know if Ceph could hear us but I could only imagine what he was going through, only inches away from us. “I’ll talk to Silas.”

“SILAS!” Nero roared. He suddenly shoved me away and rose to his feet, his body heaving and his fists clenched so hard his veins were bulging out. I noticed then his hands were bloody and swollen. “I’ll fucking kill him! I’ll fucking kill him.”

I jumped to my feet, and put my hands on Nero’s chest to stop him. “No, you know that won’t help.” But what would help? “Tell me how did he find out? When did he find out?”

Nero’s tear stained face crumpled; he shook his head. “He was fucking bound to find out, Ceph is supposed to be forty-four and though we gave him glasses and dyed his hair, kept him in Cardinalhall as much as we could. I don’t know how Silas found out but he came back from the Kreig lab livid.” Nero’s teeth clenched. He whirled around and laid a hard punch to Ceph’s concrete tomb. I realized now where the dents and blood streaks had come from.

“What happened to Silas in Kreig?” I asked. I didn’t even try to stop Nero from punching the concrete, though even with his immaculate strength I knew he could never break through to free his husband.

“Sky,” Nero said the name like it was a piece of shit on his tongue. “Always fucking Sky. I hope he used up the last of that fuckhead’s brain matter so he can just fucking get over it already. I’m glad he’s going to fucking be alone forever; he deserves it. I want him to have all the fucking misery in the world, fucking emotionless son of a bitch. Fuck Silas. He deserves to be alone forever and I told him that. I’m glad he’s miserable.”

Another wave of agony swept Nero’s face. He turned from me and crossed his arms over Ceph’s tomb before leaning his head into it. More desperate sobbing reached my ears.

“Sky?” I murmured before glancing over my shoulder. “I… Nero, I’m going to go talk to Silas.” Silas and I had always been close and over the last twenty years we had kept our close bond. Silas spoke to me as a friend not just a master – if anyone was to get through to him…

Maybe… just maybe.

“He was screaming at Perish and beating on the sengil when I left him.” Nero’s tone was hostile and biting. “I hope he’s miserable – I hope he’s alone for the rest of his life. He’s only taking Ceph away because he – he…” Nero let out another cry and lowered his head back into his arms. “He’s going to go crazy in there, Sangy. Ceph – Ceph’s going to go crazy in there.”

Without another word, only a fleeting glance of sympathy, I left Nero and made my way back to the elevator.

Quietly I rode up to the twenty-seventh floor, Nero’s agonizing screams ringing in my ears and planting poison inside of my heart that I knew would quicken. There were images and sounds that lived in my head that I’d never been able to forget, ones that came forth in the form of vivid nightmares. Even at the age of forty I still woke up screaming, drenched in a cold sweat. Jack always beside me reassuring me that I wasn’t back in Jasper’s basement.

Jack and I had been together for twenty years now.

A part of me wanted him beside me for this, but a stronger part was glad he was back in our skyscraper away from this sea of chaos I was so freely wading in.

The door opened and like I had walked into a torture chamber, I was greeted with the sound of painful screaming and the snarling, rapid voice that I immediately recognized as Silas’s.

I ran into Silas’s apartment and when I saw Silas with a whip in his hand, viciously beating on Perish, I didn’t stop running.

“Silas!” I yelled. Perish was on the ground, his body covered in split open, bleeding lacerations; he was missing an eye and as I ripped the whip out of Silas’s hand I realized he had huge chunks of skin and flesh missing.

The reason was obvious when I looked down at the whip and saw it was embedded with blood-covered razor blades, some still holding bits of lacerated skin.

Then something else caught my eye. I looked to my left and my mouth dropped open. Silas’s sengil, a young man of eighteen named Dakota, was lying on his back in a pool of blood. His torso had been mangled; his stomach holding a gaping slash with a string of intestine that looked like it had been caught in one of the whip’s razors. It was stretched several feet across the carpet, leaving a bloodied shadow underneath it.

“What the fuck?” I screamed. I dropped the whip and took Silas by the shoulders, a vacant yet demonic look on his face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shook him, hearing the sound of shuffling as Perish scrambled away from him.

The devil stared back at me, his face pale and his lips thin. He locked those demonic eyes with mine before, to my shock; he raised his hand and punched me right across the face. The force of the blow knocked me off of my feet and I fell to the ground hard.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the razor blade-imbedded whip move. I managed one more cry of Silas’s name before I felt the first overwhelming stinging pain rip its way up my back, immediately followed by the snap of the whip before a second rained down on me.

“Silas, STOP!” I screamed. I tried to scramble away but a third hit me. This time I could feel and hear the skin getting ripped off of my back, followed by the coldness as the air hit what I knew was my bleeding exposed muscle. “Silas!”

“I will kill every single one of you!” Silas suddenly cried, though his tone held none of the hatred that his words implied. Silas sounded devastated, desperate, and as full of agony as Nero. “All of you! You’re nothing, you’ll never be him! None of you will ever hold a candle to him! You’re done; I will encase your mutated bodies in concrete, you fucking failures!” He shrieked the last part so loudly his voice broke under the strain, and at the same time another vicious strike hit my back, this one withdrawing with the feeling of two pieces of Velcro being split apart.