The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (Fallocaust, #3)

by Quil Carter

Arms were thrown around me; I almost lost my balance as Reno hugged me hard. “I’m sorry, baby.” “Ah… you’d just slow us down; you always had clumsy, Bigfoot feet.” I tried to be supportive, Killian’s influence heavy on me. “I’ll come and get you soon, I promise.” “You’ll come and get me?” Reno’s voice suddenly went all high and squeaky. I smiled, even though he couldn’t see me. “Of course, we’ll always come for each other. You’re my bud. If you’re good I might bring you a slave boy too.”

“Do it. Scream, bite, kill… do what you must, just do not internalize it,” Elish commanded me. “I have dealt with chimera youth. I have trained Jade and I have counselled many others. You need to drain the infection, and to a chimera that is through blood, destruction, and revenge. I have no revenge for you, so scream.”

“The world deserved what ended up happening. We just showed it what it had done to us. We showed the world our hurt.” Then Perish held his palms out to the flames and I watched the orange fire lick his pale hand. “I wonder what you’ll do to the world, to show it what it had done to you? I wonder what Reaver will do, when he finally realizes what I plan on doing to you.” “You won’t do a thing to me or Reaver,” I suddenly said.

I think I missed a golden opportunity not calling him Twinkerbell. I wish I had thought of that.

“What’s five times twelve?” I blinked and hoped that question wasn’t directed at me, because fucked if I knew. “Sixty,” Elish replied coolly.

“Sure, but if you think you’re going to get away with not showing me how good greywasters fuck you have another thing coming.” I gaped at him, before giving him a smack on his thigh. “Language! We’re making love, asshole, and it’s going to be wonderful and magical and we’ll still be talking about it five hundred years from now.”

I think I realized in that moment I was making love for the first time.

“So then you made me?” “Eventually, yes. After I perfected it and knew it would work, I used some of Sky’s O.L.S material with Silas’s to make you.” I may be almost drunk, but I was sober enough in the head to catch the subtle admission in his words. “You perfected it? Before you made me? So where is that kid?” “In time.”

Then something happened. Something I didn’t expect or see, and in the heat of the moment – didn’t understand. Elish grabbed my chin and kissed me. He kissed me.

“He was a demon that walks on earth. A man with yellow eyes and pointed fangs. He’s commanding over thirty of them I think.” Elish’s eyes widened, and the hammering in my heart travelled up to my head. I stared. I stared until I couldn’t take it anymore. I burst out laughing, just as Elish put his hand on his forehead and swore.

“You are Silas, you blond little dumbfuck,” Perish snapped. “I remember you, I remember what you did. How could we forget? We said the radiation would stop the computers that were controlling the missiles, but now look at where we are. Look at what we did!”

Sounds like you’re a bit fucked in the head, buddy. “Sounds like you have it all planned out.” That though was what I said out loud; I wasn’t that stupid.

It seemed that once King Jade had settled him and his people down in Velstoke they had gotten bored.

“He grows smarter every year. I’m not sure how he found a way… but he did. Jade found a way to survive certain death.” I smirked. He looked like a proud husband in that moment. Though we’d been getting along well so I knew better than to say it out loud. One day I would.

Suddenly I chuckled. Elish looked at me. “I just got it. It’s usually the opposite when with Drake. Because Drake is the one riding you. You can be funny sometimes.”

“Am I an escaped slave?” Jade asked again. “You’re not a slave. You’re my…” Elish’s voice trailed. I elbowed him in the side, and at this gesture, he sighed. “You… are my husband.”

“No, Lycos didn’t know what he was doing, and I don’t believe he ever did. But in other ways he did succeed. I have my clone with all the qualities I had loved about Sky. Though the secret to how he did it died with him. Sometimes I regret shooting that man.” Silas’s face got dark. “Then I remember seeing the expression on Reaver’s face and that regret goes away.”

“Wouldn’t you love that, my beautiful fox? Would you like Reaver to come live with us?” Drake grinned and nodded, unaware or uncaring of the tense atmosphere in the room. “He’ll throw my ball for me, I bet.” “Of course, and when he’s bad you can rip him apart with your teeth.”

“Because the more people to protect my pet the better. You obviously failed at the task,” Elish replied crisply. “You’re the idiot who decided to kiss a raver,” I shot back.

“I love you, I’m sorry,” I whimpered. He shushed me. “What could you possibly be sorry about? Are you sorry you got your head smashed in without my permission? Or are you sorry for ripping out my throat, and murdering me while consuming my blood?”

Killian a chimera? That would be one horrible chimera. Discount bin quality.

“ –Reaver has been unstable. He is tapping into his own sestic abilities. No one was hurt but I had to dispatch him. I am not looking forward to telling him this news.” Reaver could do this shit too? I guess that was obvious since he was a clone, but god damn why didn’t they remove his abilities? Reaver was the most crazy and psycho out of all of them.

Goodbye, Edward. Now you’re… Deadward.

“Come on, little husband, look at me.” “Jade?” his voice broke. I heard a shudder come from him, a choked cry, and a warmth start to come to my head, an energy I had never felt before. It seemed to gather around me, inside me and out, like I was slowly drawing the energy of the universe into my body. “What have I done? – Maritus, don’t leave me.”

“When we got out of the city though, we realized – it had been a mistake. Just as I feared, not only did the electronics get fried… but the sestic radiation had… it had… killed the world. All we could do was run back to what would become Skyfall and clear it away, the survivors safe underground being minded by Perish.” Silas fell into silence. “Both of you sound like batshit crazy assholes,” I said, taking a drink of water before I lit a cigarette. “Especially Sky.”

“I’m not talking about the shit fucks in the greywastes or your stupid Skyfallers, I am talking about your family,” I said lowly. I started walking back towards the quad; I think we both realized no one was going to be sleeping. “You have like forty of those fucks, half of them are immortal, if not more. They aren’t people who live and die and yet you treat them worse than an abusive boyfriend.”

I was the Reaper and he was the Ghost, and his soul was long overdue for collection.

You’re Reaver’s, not mine. Over two hundred years, and that was the most painful thing for me to have to accept.

I will give up everything for you, Killian. I will give up revenge. I will give up hate. I will take you and find a small town and I will live with you forever, letting you win every argument, letting you bring home as many fucking stray cats and stray boys as you want. Killi Cat, just be alive. I don’t want to be the Reaper; I just want to be yours. That was all I was ever wanted to be.