The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (52 page)

Then the release, a silent but deafening expulsion of energy that made no noise, made no concussions or earthquakes. It was invisible to the physical world but on the mind it was fatal.

One by one Kessler and the legionaries dropped their arms, their faces becoming blank and void of expression. They stood like frozen sculptures for a single passing moment before they fell to the ground dead, blood trickling down their ears.

Elish watched them fall, an expression of disbelief on his face, but quickly he turned to Jade as the boy let out an agonizing cry. Elish caught him just as the boy’s legs gave out from under him, and swore as his cicaro’s eyes started to roll to the back of his head.

Then the seizure, the grand mal seizure like Jade had suffered the previous winter.

“Can you stand?” Elish barked to Reaver. He held Jade tight to him as the boy twitched, feeling his muscles rapidly contract and stiffen under Elish’s firm grip.

“Reaver?” Elish’s usually firm unwavering voice was strained with desperation. He watched with a grimness as he saw a small drop of blood fall down Jade’s ear canal, landing on one of the violet-ruby studs in his ears.

“I’m dying… but I’m… I’m trying,” Reaver rasped. He was being helped to his feet by Big Shot, who had two bullets lodged in his chest and shoulder.

Elish’s arms almost gave out, the fabric against his skin now wet and cold from the blood leaking from his back. “I have to get him to Skyfall. Silas couldn’t even kill one of us this way without it fatally destroying his… his brain. I need to get Jade to Skyfall.”

“Go…” Reaver took a step before he stumbled. “Leave me… a quad. I’ll go alone, I’ll be faster. Big Shot… is the dog dead?” The dark chimera sunk to his knees again and Elish could see now that he had several bullet holes in his back. He was dying and quickly.

Elish turned from the scene, from the dark chimera surrounded by bodies, and jumped onto the plane. He put his dying husband into the co’pilot’s chair and turned the keys on in the engine.

Big Shot was in the door dragging the half-alive deacon dog. He looked at Elish, his own face flushed and pale, and then to the cockpit. “He goes, I go. You help dog?”

Elish stared at him for a second, the fate of the deacon dog far away from his cares in the world but he nodded at the half-raver anyways. Elish owed the half-raver Jade’s life and if he was left with those bullet wounds he would die right there with the dog.

So he quickly helped the half-raver push the giant dog into the plane.

Reaver was leaning against a quad, staring forward as if in a daze. Elish stumbled over to him and pulled something out of his pocket.

“This won’t help for long but it will help,” Elish said to him. “It’s adrenaline and cocaine, with a bit of meth thrown in there. Take a token size amount through your nose and ride until you die. Get as far away from this scene as you can and die somewhere out of sight.”

Reaver took the bag, blood streaming down his forehead, and nodded. Then, to Elish’s confusion, he brought out his knife and sank to his knees in front of Kessler. With the plane roaring in the background and the scraping of Deek’s dying body against the plane’s floor, Elish watched Reaver saw off Kessler’s head.

“Throw it down the first hole you see, or a canyon if you pass it,” Elish replied when he realized what Reaver was doing. “He’ll be resurrecting for at least five months and it will take him a month if not more to find a legionary base this far north.” He got out his own knife and helped Reaver finish the job.

“As soon as the boy is stable I will find you,” Elish said to him. He wedged the knife into Kessler’s spine and pried it away from his skull. “Follow the highway I mentioned, look for yellow signs. Our meeting point will be the town Mantis, will you remember this when you wake?”

Reaver nodded and rose, Kessler’s head now under his arm. “I’ll be fine once I come back. With a quad I’ll make fast time to the plaguelands. Don’t worry about me, just go… go fucking save that husband of yours.”

Elish steadied Reaver and helped him onto the quad, the dark chimera’s face grey and his hands trembling from blood loss. There was blood everywhere, even dripping off of his boots.

There was little more to say. Elish turned on the quad and tied their bag of food and water to the back rungs.

“You’re set.” Elish paused. “Go to Mantis when you find Killian.”

“I will…” Reaver put his hand on the throttle and turned the headlights off. He hesitated for a moment for he gave Elish one last glance. “Thank you… for everything.”

Before Elish could respond he pressed down on the throttle, and sped off into the darkness.

Chapter 58

Killian

             
The last time I had looked in the mirror I hadn’t recognised the man staring back at me. This strange man, not a boy, had a thin blond beard over his face, dirt incrusted in every crease and divot, and an expression that held nothing but a blank slate. He wasn’t anyone who I had known, only his blue eyes were familiar to me, a blue that broke up the monotone landscape around me and the derelict houses I had once found myself walking through.

But now as I looked in the bathroom mirror I still didn’t recognise myself. Who was this person? His head was scabbed and his blond hair patchy, with unhealthy strands that looked more like dried grass than actual human hair. His face was gaunt and sunken in like a victim of famine and war, and his face… his face…

His face held no blank slate, instead there were wide staring eyes, the eyes of someone who had seen too much and had experienced worse.

I looked down at my clean clothes, a crisp lab coat and a pair of grey cloth pants with a black stripe up the side. I smelled of soap and what Perish had told me were dryer sheets. Pieces of fabricy paper that smelled like vanilla. He had stuffed them in our new clothes to make them not smell like must.

“Killian?” I turned towards his voice and my socked feet took me towards him, the sound of a spoon hitting the edge of a cup could be heard.

Perish’s face brightened when he saw me. He was holding two coffee cups in his hands, looking more than ever like the man I had met in Donnely. He motioned me over to the couch and I obediently sat down with my hands folded over my lap.

“Watch out… it’s hot,” Perish said lightly. “It’s old… really old, but it had enough chemicals in it to preserve the chocolate flavour. This is hot chocolate, you probably had the Dek’ko kind, right?”

I nodded my head. “It was in a gift basket that was given to us before we left,” I said quietly. It made me uncomfortable to think of anything that had happened in my previous life so I left it at that. I took the cup from Perish and blew on it. It smelled wonderful, this laboratory was full of good smells. Such a far cry away from the smell of rot and old buildings.

What an oasis…

But I felt like a wild animal being brought down here, an animal that was being forced into domestication. I knew even in my sore and weary mind that I didn’t belong down here and I didn’t belong with Perish. My place was at the surface with the people that I loved.

The person I loved… I knew if I even grazed over a part of my mind, the part I had closed off for my own protection, that I would remember him but it was too painful to think about. It was like I had blocked him out of my day to day thoughts. My brains last desperate act of self-preservation.

I knew I missed him though – I knew I had once hoped that he would rescue me.

Maybe deep down inside my heart had realized that he wasn’t coming for me.

I sipped the hot chocolate, this evening ending day three of being in this laboratory with Perish Fallon. He had spent a lot of time in the other end of the apartment, where the lab was and all of these large machines. He would come out every couple hours with a smile on his face, telling me that everything was going as planned and we would be ready to get to work soon.

Sometimes he came out sad though, still smiling but sad. When he had that expression on his face I’d give him a hug, even if it made the tears come to his eyes.

Perish had taken me to the safe place and even though I had mixed feelings over him and what had happened above us, it still hurt my heart to see him sad.

This evening he had come out for the last time with the same flickers of despair on his eyes. So I told him we could watch a movie together and sit on the couch with some good food. He loved this idea and that was what we were doing now.

He put on Jurassic Park and smiled when he asked if I remembered that that was his favourite, once I thought about it I did remember. I curled up next to him with the hot chocolate and a bowl of popcorn and we watched the movie. He was quiet almost the entire time. I think I remember that not being the case the first time.

Perish brushed my scabbed and unhealthy hair back. He had given me a pill he said would make it grow faster. He even apologized.

“My little sweety,” he whispered. I looked at him and smiled before letting him peck my lips. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” I said quietly. “It’s warm down here and the rashes are disappearing like you said they would.”

Perish nodded and gently touched the healing one on the side of my face. “They’ll be gone soon. I feel badly for sacrificing Jade for access to that laptop but... without the research I was afraid I’d end up killing you.”

The soothing energy between us halted as I pulled my face away. My brow knitted but before I could say anything Perish made a soothing noise and put his hand back on my cheek. “It’s okay, sweet one. Elish could always create another one.”

These names... I recognised all of them...

“Perish... why did you let Sky control you like that?” I whispered to him. “Why did you let him kill Jade?”

He gently pulled his chin up, a look of love in his eyes that I had seen many times.

“I don’t want to talk about that tonight. I just want to sit here and love you,” Perish whispered, the sadness came to his eyes again. “Let me kiss you, Killian.”

I stared at him back, feeling perplexed that he was asking me permission. No one asked me permission; they just took what they wanted.

“Okay,” I said more to be polite than anything.

Perish cupped my cheek in his hand and drew me in, I felt his still slightly chapped lips against mine before his mouth opened. I opened mine, unable to ignore the pressure welling in my chest; it travelled up to my brain and started making me feel lightheaded. In response I pressed back and felt his tongue slip into mine. Automatically I put a hand on his side, remembering this as something I often did, and stroked it.

We kissed deeply and when Perish pulled away I could see tears in his eyes. The sadness was back, so I wiped the tears away one by one.

“Don’t do this,” I suddenly whispered to him.

Perish froze, caught as much off-guard as I was by what I had just said.

“I have to, Killian.” He smiled again and leaned his forehead against mine. “We might be happy now but we won’t be for long. Please, sweety, just… enjoy the comfort and love we have now. Promise?”

“I promise,” I said back to him. He nodded at this and leaned in, and we kissed again.

“You’re strong enough now… it will be tomorrow. I have already put it off for as long as… as I can,” Perish said. “But don’t worry; it will all be over soon.”

He keeps saying it will all be over soon. I wish I had the will inside of me to stop him from doing what he’s doing… but I didn’t.

I’m tired. I’m just… I’m just tired. Not a fatigue that a good night’s sleep will cure, or a vacation to Skyland. There is a weariness inside of me, one imbedded in my bones that I don’t think any amount of rest and relaxation could cure.

This other man I had once loved is gone; the life I had once led was gone. I feel like a husk, a shell of a person who had once been so full of life. Now through months of careful bloodletting that boy has died, leaving no phoenix to rise out of the greywastes ashes, just the charred bones of another sacrificed soul.

I took his hand into mine. “I’m not worried, Perry. I’m okay.”

Perish didn’t respond, he simply stared at me seemingly taking me in with his pale eyes, two slabs of ice that once burned with hostility. That was all gone now, every bad thing about him seemed to have disappeared since we had left that abandoned shack.

Once he… no Danny, it was Danny, after Danny had hurt me and I got that last dose of radiation. Perish had started treating me nicer and now that we were in the lab… it was like he loved me again.

It was like Sky was completely gone now.

“You will be okay, you’re going to be amazing,” Perish said. “Just do everything I say, do you promise?”

I nodded. What else could I do? There was nothing left for me to say. No argument on my lips, no will in my body. “I will.”

“That’s my baby, good.”

We watched the rest of the movie together, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate. Perish only watched some of the movie, most of the time I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye. It felt like he was trying to get as much of me as he could. He was looking at me like I was going to go away soon.