The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (31 page)

Silas laughed and held up the radio to his mouth, beside him Sanguine gave him another squinty smile, that guy was creepy as hell. “If they’ve been good, sure, tell the little shits I might give them their teeth.”

Garrett led me to our seats, I saw a blue object beside me and noticed with amusement Lance had brought me the potato chip bowl I had left behind in sadness. I could get used to this treatment.

Reaver would hate me so much right now... but well, if this was all going to change soon I might as well soak up some luxury before I had to go home. Back to the world of ash and half-rotten rat meat. I was going to miss potato chips.

Another young man, who I think was a slave like Luca rather than a pet, stood behind a small bar in the corner, beside him another plate with appetizer foodstuffs and bowls of soft candies and hard candies. I raided it and brought my stash to sit beside Garrett.

I heard him laugh, then a ring adorned hand reach in to grab a handful of two hundred-year-old candy-coated chocolate. He held them in his hand as he leaned over and kissed me. “For our honeymoon, I’m going to take you to the Dead Islands, to my vacation home. We’ll stay there together and do whatever you like. You just name it.”

The Dead Islands? Sounds romantic.

I kissed him back, feeling the knots in my body start to loosen under his warmth. “We could stay in a cardboard box for all I care,” I said, feeling my lips pull in a return smile. “Really, I’m not joking. I slept in a cardboard box once.”

Of course he thought that notion was hilarious. He kissed me again. I glanced over and noticed Sanguine; he had his hands behind his back and was standing with a smile on his face beside King Silas.

“That one, he’s creepy. Why the hell would you make them with red eyes?” I gave a shudder.

Garrett laughed; he reached up and grabbed a piece of shelled candy. “He’s King Silas’s personal servant and bodyguard. He is devoted to our king, in all ways. Sanguine is a lovely fellow.”

I shovelled more candy into my mouth. “I thought that was the brutes’ job; being his bodyguard.”

Garrett gave me a smile before with a narrowing of his eyes he looked at the servant. “Yes they are but King Silas wanted a bodyguard to protect him at all times. The twins and Nero, well, King Silas wouldn’t be able to stand them for long periods. Besides –” I blinked as I watched Garrett stick his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, a second later I saw a quick flash as he threw the candy towards King Silas’s head. It whizzed past my face like a small bullet; it had impressive force behind it.

There was the quickest blur of black, so fast if you blinked you would’ve missed it. My mouth dropped open as I saw Sanguine open his palm, revealing the red piece of candy Garrett had thrown. Without Silas even noticing what had happened, he flicked his crimson eyes up to Garrett and gave him a shake of his head with the same squinty smile. A moment later he tossed the candy up into the air and caught it in his mouth, before turning his attention back to Silas.

“– he’s quite good at his job, isn’t he?” Garrett chuckled, before giving me a squeeze. “If Perish was still around I would’ve gotten him to make me one. A tiger in bed as well.”

I gasped and gave him an elbow in the chest; he let out an
oof
, before putting his arms around me with a laugh. “One day I will show you just what I mean.”

Then our attention was diverted to the arena. The lights above the small field turned on and focused down, before a voice crackled below us. I leaned forward and saw a tall older man with the microphone in his hand.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to Stadium Night!” The crowd erupted into cheers; the lights flickered around like they were being controlled before focusing back on the man.

“Tonight we have for you –”

“Silas! Master Silas!”

Garrett and I both looked over as the high tones of a toddler came from the hallway. As the announcer spoke below us two young boys ran into the large skybox. They looked to be about five years old. Both with long black wavy hair, but one with royal blue eyes and the other red, just like the sengil’s. Silas must’ve liked the results. “We need our teeth!”

I watched with morbid fascination as Silas looked down at them with a smile. He adopted a look of confusion and waved them off, turning his attention to the arena below. The kids howled and jumped up and down, the red-eyed one started pulling on his blazer. “We need our teeth.”

“I don’t know; have you been good? You’ve probably been little shits all day.” Silas glanced down and shook his head. “Why would you deserve the teeth?”

One of the kids became dead weight as he hung on the blazer, making the jacket pull down off of Silas’s shoulder. I could see the other chimeras around them chuckling and looking on in amusement. I was more bewildered, Silas looked, well... I’d sooner expect to see him throw the kids out the window than play along and tease them.

“We’ve been good! Please, please!” The blue-eyed one dropped to his knees and pressed the palms of his hands together like he was pleading. “We didn’t get one spank today, not one!”

“Show us a trick!” Garrett called. He held out a cigar and beside him Lance lit it.

The two boys grinned and ran to the middle of the room. One of the little ones lay down on his back, and the other one stood over him, a leg on each side of his chest.

To the amusement of the room, the one on top, the red-eyed one, clasped his hands onto the laying one’s hands. With a hoist and a strength a five year old shouldn’t have, the top one braced himself on the blue-eyed one’s arms, until his legs were sticking out in a perfect horizontal point. Then the bottom one raised his arms out and as he did, the red-eyed boy raised his legs up into the air. He moved up until he was completely upside down, his arms extended onto his brothers and his little boots pointed in the air. A moment later they both released their grip on their left hand, until only a single continuous arm held them steady.

Then the top one jumped off and raised his arms out triumphantly with a bow, the blue-eyed one also sprung to his feet with the energy only a child could have and also took a haughty bow.

Everyone applauded them, including me. That was fucking impressive.

Silas gave them a whistle; I could see real laughter and delight on his face.

This really was a side of him I hadn’t seen before.

No matter... even if he showered the people below us in hundred dollar bills it wouldn’t change the fact that he had killed Leo and Greyson, raped Killian, and had tried to steal Reaver. No matter what show he was putting on now, I knew the real face of Silas.

These chimeras were like mental shape shifters, it made me a bit sick wondering if Garrett had a side to him I hadn’t seen yet.

The kids ran back to Silas and to their joy and my confusion Silas reached inside his blazer and pulled out two small sets of metal animal-like teeth, complete with very sharp little fangs. He gave the top and bottom set to each of them and they put them into their mouths.

“Rrrrrroww! Thank you, Master Silas!” The crimson-eyed one growled and gnashed his teeth at Silas’s hand, the new murder teeth clinking in his small mouth. The king ruffled his hair and with a boot in their butts he sent them both back out of the room. They happily ran off gnashing their teeth and hooting and hollering like all young kids do.

Garrett laughed and took an inhale of his cigar; he elbowed my side. “Those are two of our youngest. Hunter is the red-eyed one, and Chaser is the blue-eyed one. Both of them are destined to be bodyguards, anything where they will have to kill. They’re type is what we call stealth. We have science, intelligence, stealth, and brute.” Garrett leaned in, ignoring Lance beside him collecting the ash from his cigar. “Now with those two, we decided to raise them together. See how they feed off of each other? My first gen brothers and I were raised together but after the second gen it became more sporadic. It was a lot of work raising so many chimera babies at once. We did surrogates for a few of them.”

“Who is all first gen?” I asked curiously.

Garrett exhaled out of the corner of his mouth, making an effort not to get it near my face. “Elish, myself, our only sister Ellis, and Nero and twenty years later Artemis and Apollo our first successful identical twins. Then Sanguine, Jack, Valentine, and Ceph.” Garrett smiled. “After the second big batch years would pass without a birth. It is now every five or ten years, some we surrogate out and some we raise within the family.”

“Oh, more Reaver’s? Wonderful,” I said with a sarcastic smile. Garrett chuckled and kissed my cheek. We both turned our attention back to the arena.

Below us the crowd was going wild, cheering and hollering as two people in the arena went at each other with knives. Both only dressed in an undershirt and ratty cargo pants, they jumped around and slashed at each other. Red streaks and smears already spotting the grey marble of the arena floor.

As the first hour passed the chimeras around me started to get more and more liquored up, or as was some of their preferences, they smoked weeder or tainted smokes. That with Garrett’s cigars filled the room with a brownish haze that reminded me of every bar I had ever been in, and Reaver’s basement when we really got into our fun nights.

I watched as fight after fight took place, with small intermissions of performances with animals I had only seen in books or movies.

Everyone had a good chuckle at me when I had my hands pressed against the window when the lion came out. She was a slinky and quick female lion that could jump through hoops and go on sea-saws. They even threw her a few rats to kill. That was awesome to watch. She was Joaquin’s lion apparently and her name was Nala.

Real original.

When we reached the tail end of the evening was when the condemned came out. Three of them this week apparently. Skyfallers set to die but could still regain a full pardon by taking on the likes of Nero, Ares, or Siris. One-on-one combat (though Garrett told me they did tag team when they felt like it) with only a knife between each of them as a weapon.

Garrett explained in his slurred speech that it was rare for one of the chimeras to lose. They usually only walked away with a slash or two which the doctor patched up. It was a literal fight to the death, but the brutes were the only ones who came back afterwards.

I watched, feeling content and fuzzy as Ares the chimera stood flexing his muscles to show off to the crowd. Beside me stood Apollo and Jiro, shrouded in a haze of smoke and saturated with the smell of alcohol and weed. Apollo was rubbing Jiro’s shoulder as they both laughed and talked amongst themselves.

Further on in a partially hidden corner Drake was at work between Caligula’s legs, with Nico pumping himself into the pet chimera’s backside; his pants still on him but unbuckled at the front. I felt a small twinge at that since I was still Reno, so I made a point to stop looking though the damage had been done.

I cringed as I watched Ares slash hard at the convict’s throat; the guy was agile though and took a quick step back so it only grazed the flesh. The crowd responded in a hushed gasp followed by an even bigger increase in cheering and shouting. The announcer over the intercom praised Ares for his skills and said a few other things muffled under the room’s atmosphere.

I yelped as I felt arms pull me down; I landed on Garrett’s lap and felt him start to kiss my neck. I craned my head up as I watched Ares deliver a bone shattering punch to the guy’s jaw. He fell onto the ground with a hushed whisper from the crowd.

Ares spun his blade in his hand, before, almost like a professional wrestler, he raised his hands to the crowd making a
bring it on
motion.

The mass of people fed into it and started chanting the brute chimera’s name. I felt a pit in my stomach. It was no mystery what this action reminded me of. The same mass chanting I had heard when I ran into Aras, after I had been called down to help with the town meeting.

Reaver... Reaver... Reaver.

I rose up on Garrett’s lap, feeling him brush my hair back tenderly, I wasn’t paying attention though. I watched the thick and muscular chimera as he slammed his blade down into the convict’s heart before with his arm moving up and down he started to cut it out.

Even with the fun and casual smoke-filled atmosphere around me, I felt a cold sickening feeling in me. These small reminders of Reaver were starting to bother me more and more. Not because I missed my friend, and I did dearly, but because – they were all him.

The chimeras were products of Silas’s genes, and so was Reaver. They were all alike, but in my wildest dreams I had never fathomed just how similar they were. Every time I was around one of these mutants they played out a childhood memory to a tee, well, the savage ones at least. Garrett, the silver-haired twins, and Elish were a bit more removed. I guess they were the intelligent chimera type. They weren’t as in-your-face bloodthirsty but I’m sure they were just as psychotic.

I felt my shoulders slump. I dismissed the thought and hated myself for it but I couldn’t help what I saw.

Reaver would have been right at home here. He would’ve loved these people. Did Leo really do him a good thing by forcing him to be normal and stunting the bloodthirsty fire we had all seen in him? The fight he had had with Greyson was because he showed tendencies that Ares was doing to a cheering crowd right now. They made him feel shitty for feeling those feelings and even more so for acting on them. It was obviously a part of him that nurturing couldn’t destroy. They had been preventing Reaver from becoming who he had been genetically engineered to be.