The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (78 page)

Blood stains... there were blood stains on the claws.

I had done this.

I had been killing them... it had been me all along.

What the fuck was that mad scientist doing to me?

The apprehension and fear filled me to the point where I found my legs almost pivoting to turn around, to just get the fuck out of here and make my way back to Kreig. I could, I really could... the family didn’t know I was aligned with them I could... I could make up a fucking excuse as to why I was there.

I wanted Elish... why the fuck was I here? I had been sent here to get the information I needed out of Perish’s head and it looks like I had gotten more than I bargained for.

Something was happening with Perish though I wasn’t sure what. Why after all of this time would his mind start to come back? He was Silas’s age and he had been the manic man he was for at least seventy years. It didn’t make sense.

Though at this point I really did want to take off and run. I knew I couldn’t. I wanted to know what was happening to Perish, Perish was the key in finding out how to kill King Silas. Perish’s brain was the reason why we were in this caravan, going up a mountain to reach Falkvalley. When it all came down to it I had a job to do.

Tonight I would stay awake. I would watch Perish like a hawk and I would find out just what the fuck he was doing with me. And if he gave me the chance I’d go through that damn bag of his and see just what he was hiding. If he was slipping me scopa, like Killian had said Silas had been doing to Reaver, I wanted to know.

Then I could at least have some damn proof when Reaver came back with Killian. To not only clear my name but hogtie that fucking scientist until Elish came and then he could decide what to do with him.

“Look!” Perish came jogging up to me and to my own chimera amusement like a strange dog running up to a cat I immediately felt apprehension in my chest to the point where my entire body tensed up.

But he was only coming to show me a wristwatch. “It was on a corpse. It doesn’t work but I’ve always like repairing things. If you see any other corpses please look out for watches I may need parts, okay?” His voice was still that fast-paced tone, like he was speaking without commas or periods.

I nodded at him, adding a smirk and a shake of my head. He might be a born immortal but like Silas he had had enhancements added later on. I knew his hearing was good. “Sure, I’ll keep an eye out.”

Perish gave me a smile and looked towards where we were walking. The road snaked up the hill at a slow incline, gradually making its way up the summit like a grey ribbon or a smooth scar. Though, to my dismay, I could see another large rockslide about two miles away, another delay. I hoped Reaver and Killian weren’t waiting on us; Reaver hated being left to wait.

“Killian and Reaver will be back soon. I’ll give it to Killian for a present!” And with that he ran off to check more of the cars.

Sneaky... sneaky Perish.

Things were tense around the campfire that night. I swear if I got one more heated glare from these slavers I was going to burst into flames. No one trusted us, no one liked us, and I knew as soon as we got Killian and Reaver back we were going to have to find our own way. Even though it looked like they decided to keep us around at their slaver meeting, our time here was winding down.

Though in all respects they had been right all along. It hadn’t been a young carracat or just accidents... it had been me, I had been killing them.

Or Perish had anyways.

At this metal note I shot the scientist a sideways look. He was sitting beside me chewing on a piece of tact with some half-cooked Jimmy on top. He looked normal enough; it was only when I drew up his aura that I understood he was turning into a different person.

No... he was turning into what he had used to be, before the Fallocaust and during the early years of Skyfall. Before the piece of his brain had been removed and made into the O.L.S we were trying to find.

But would we even need it now?

I puzzled over this, chewing on my own Jimmy-tact and half-listening to the conversation taking place around me.

I sighed and popped the last bit of tact in my mouth before wiping my fingers on my duster. I got up wordlessly and walked past the slavers.

“Going to rest up before another night of killing, boy?” Churro said acidly. He held out his leg like he wanted to trip me. Everyone laughed, thinking that was the funniest thing in the world.

I ignored him; if I didn’t ignore him I’d rip his ugly face to bits right there and they had more guns than the one strapped to my back.

I walked into the tent Perish and I shared and kicked my bedroll a few times to make sure nothing crawling had gotten into it. I sat down on it and drew my legs up to my chest.

Perish’s blue bag was resting on top of his bed. He wasn’t overly protective of it which I would have suspected a normal person to be if it harboured some sort of secret. But even if his own mind was knitting itself back together perhaps his logic hadn’t changed yet.

I eyed he flap of the tent and paused, listening for the low-toned male voices and the sounds of water bottles crinkling under firm grips. I wasn’t sure if I should do this now or when Perish was asleep.

Well, he might not technically be a chimera but he had the enhancements of one. All you needed was a good surgeon and immortality and they could fill any chimera with the basic perks. I had my hearing permanently improved during my surgery last year. An enhancement I was implanted with as an embryo but had never developed successfully.

At this mental note I tuned my hearing to Perish’s voice and his movements. Then I quietly reached my arm over to Perish’s bag and picked it up. The scientist had his own hearing and I had to do this as quietly as I could.

I hated my hands for trembling at this moment but they were. I don’t think I was scared, I didn’t get scared anymore. I think I was just stressed out and edging the end of my rope. Though I had been raised a Morosian and now a chimera, being in the greywastes was new to me. I was tired and drained from all of this. I just wanted to go home.

I looked down at Perish’s bag and saw a crisp white lab coat. I gently took it out and rested it beside of me. I glanced down and started moving things off to the side.

It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for.

I swallowed the tightness in my throat and gave myself a small nod. I drew up a Ziploc package of syringes and stared at them.

There were three of them that were full, the rest empty. The full ones contained a clear liquid and as I glanced down into the bag I could see clear vials which I assumed contained the same liquid.

I put the Ziploc back into Perish’s bag and tried to read the writing on the vials.

Scopolamine...

Yep, I bet that was short for scopa. Liquid scopa.

Immediately I felt a surge of anger go through me. I clenched my hands over the bottle and resisted the overwhelming urge to throw the vial against the tent wall. Even more so I pushed down the twitching in my body to lunge at Perish and rip his windpipe out of his throat.

Why was he doing this? For fun? He wasn’t achieving anything by drugging me. Jimmy hadn’t done anything wrong, the old man I could see but not Jimmy. Perish was making me kill them for fun, but why?

Does he even need a fucking reason, Jade? He’s a mad scientist and you’re an empath chimera with a trillion little talents inside your head.

I was a fucking gold mine to him.

I had to know more, I couldn’t call him on this shit... not even with Reaver here. I had to wait for Elish to come and get me. I would tell him everything then, calling Perish out on it now would just put me in a lot of danger.

I jumped and my heart gave an anxious jolt as I heard Perish laugh outside the tent. I had been so focused on his voice the switch from low tones to high pitch laughter jarred my head. I took it as a sign to cover my tracks and started putting everything back.

Then my hand grazed something. I looked down and saw one of my water bottles full of water.

It might not be the most well-thought-out of ideas but right now it was really all I had. With the scientist exchanging campfire stories with the slavers, probably trying to remain in their good books, I unscrewed the cap and started filling syringes.

In an act of intelligence that surprised even me, I didn’t dump out the scopa he had filled in those syringes, I pocketed those needles and filled up the empty ones. We had empty syringes in our own medial supplies, the ones Elish had packed for me to use on the others.

Though my hands were trembling and shaking the entire time I managed to re-fill the syringes with water. The scopa was clear and once I was finished everything looked in its place.

My heart was pounding when I laid in my bedroll that night. I pulled my brown blanket up to my chin and tried to calm it down. Though it was too late for my body, I was already shivering underneath the blankets. The adrenaline and the prospect of remaining conscious during Perish’s next control over me had filled my veins with ice water.

The scientist came into the tent an hour later, when I was half-asleep and in my own head, pretending that the weight behind me was Elish, and not just the bag I had been packing around.

Perish yawned and I heard rustling before without a word there was the sound of blankets shifting.

At least I was sleeping on my stomach; he wouldn’t be able to hear my heartbeat.

But then again – it meant the back of my head was exposed to him.

I resigned myself to sleep and prepared myself for what was to come.

The sharp prick in the back of my head came sometime in the early morning.

My eyes snapped open and I gasped from pain and shock. Immediately I felt a hand on my mouth and the calm voice of Perish.

“Shh... it’s okay,” he soothed before driving the needle further into the base of my skull. I cried out as he wiggled the needle into the small pin-sized hole in my head, the pressure and pain was overwhelming.

Then he broke through with a soothing noise on his lips, and I felt the cold water flow into my head.

I groaned and clenched my teeth and though I knew nothing was going to happen I still felt apprehension inside of me. I didn’t know what was supposed to happen next but I knew scopa took away all of your free will.

He was going to make me kill again, though I didn’t know who.

“Sit up, Jade.”

My chest filled with a thousand small charges as Perish said those words. His voice had dropped. His tone was different. It was still Perish’s voice but his run-on sentence way of speaking had disappeared. He sounded normal; he sounded like he was in control of every corner of his brain.

This wasn’t... this wasn’t right.

I had known Perish was having slip-ups, telling us truths about his origins without him even realizing it but this was different.

It wasn’t just his aura...

It was him.

“Sit up, Jade.”

I felt a drip of snot run down my mouth as a blinding headache started to coat my brain, whether it was from the water he had injected or because of my realizations I wasn’t sure.

I shifted and sat up, wiping the snot absentmindedly from my nose. I gathered myself and found the chimera bravery I was born with and looked Perish right in the eyes.

Perish Fallon stared back, his jaw tight and his eyes taking in every bit of me with a coldness that rivalled my master’s.

He put a hand on my chin and drew it up, before tilting it off to the left and then the right.

“You are of good quality aren’t you, Jade?” Perish murmured. He traced a hand down and slipped it underneath my shirt. I tried not to recoil and I tried even harder not to look into his eyes. “Valen had so many errors in his coding... but it looks like I did a grand job with you.”

You made me?

Perish narrowed his eyes before slipping a hand to the back of my head. “It’s a pity you will probably be dead before Elish can fulfill his dream of you becoming immortal.”

He wouldn’t let me die, asshole.

“Now, draw up your aura.”

I stared at him, trying to look as vacant as I could and drew up my aura reading abilities.

My own flares of purple, black, and silver started to ripple off of my body like heat waves; coating my arms, my torso, every inch of my body in its opal-like glow.

“That’s it... now look at me.”

I drew my eyes back up to Perish and with that I saw his once fractured aura.

Still repairing itself; still knitting the small hairline cracks together. I could see colour coming back to it too. A thousand different hues of blue, twisting around the fragments and sticking to the cracks like super glue to porcelain. The auras around people had no physical shape, no light, and no substance but in my own mind I could work them like they were physical objects. They were real inside of my own head and held such a presence I used to play with the strands as a child.

“There we go...” Perish whispered, then to my horror he tightened his grip on the back of my head and drew me into a kiss.