Garden of Spiders Volume 2: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 3

by Quil Carter

“Silas has already done the same to you,” Julian pointed out. “You think your brothers and sister don’t talk about you? You need to up your game, chimera.”

  “How do you even know this information about my brother and sister?”

  “I had to get information on you, didn’t I?”

  I just stared at him helplessly. All I got in return was a half-shrug and a smirk for my troubles.

  “This is why you’re better having me as a friend rather than an enemy, my lion,” he said sweetly. “All I know is yours to learn. I, for one, would love to see the king under your thumb. It was really fucking difficult watching him treat you so badly.”

  “First off, stop calling me your lion. It’s stupid and starting to get old,” I said coolly. “And you did far worse to me than Silas at the time. Don’t forget that.”

  Julian’s smirk faded. “I won’t,” he said, his own mood shifting just as rapidly as Silas’s did. “I never will, Elish. My reason for being here right now is to make up what I did to you.”

  Before I could respond, which may have been good since I had no good things to say to him, I heard feet walking down the set of stairs, and then the doorknob turn and open.

  “ELISH!”

  I looked to see Jack burst out of the door, Finn with Valen wiggling out of his arms behind the boy, and Tyler with Kessler stepping down the last several stairs. I smiled when Jack beelined towards me his mouth open in a wide grin and his arms open.

  “I missed you! I’m so happy you’re okay,” Jack said. He hugged my waist and looked up at me with eyes full of admiration.

  “I am too,” I said to him. “I have lots of stories I can tell you now.”

  “About how you beat up the bad guys?” Jack said. Valen appeared and also hugged my waist and the two began peppering me with questions at the same time.

  “Did you kill them all by yourself?”

  “Did you use Master Silas’s mind melty powers?”

  “Did you bring me back a present?”

  But before I could answer any of them, Jack’s face lit up. “Guess what?” he exclaimed. He opened his mouth and pulled up his lip. “Look!”

  I peered into his mouth and found myself smiling. A real smile, not a fake one you put on when children were showing you something stupid and uninteresting.

  Jack had lost one of his top baby teeth, an incisor, and poking through the gum was a tooth with a sharpened point.

  “I work!” Jack exclaimed happily.

  “You most certainly do.” I got down on one knee and gently lifted up the boy’s lip, then a tested the edge with my finger. “That’s a pointed tooth alright. All of your adult teeth will be just as pointed as that. You’re quite the special boy.” I wanted to drag the child back to my lab so I could examine his mouth thoroughly, but now wasn’t the time, even though my scientific mind was begging me to do it.

  “His teeth are going to come in pointed?” I heard Julian say behind me. “Why… why would you do that?”

  Jack glared up at him, obviously taking umbrage at his tone. “My brother Sanguine and I, we are special chimeras, the most specialist in the world and the most advanced. We are Chimera D’s and we are nightmare fuel.”

  Julian stared at him and I had to chuckle. “You should see his brother Sanguine. He has red eyes to go with those teeth, and black hair. Do you not remember they were being planned out eleven years ago? I know I mentioned them.”

  “Yes, I believe I remember now,” he said with a shake of his head. But when he saw Valen he smiled. “You look just adorable with your pink eyes. What’s your name? Cupid?”

  Valen frowned at him. “I’m not adorable,” he protested. “I’m nightmare fuel too.”

  “Cupid is his middle name!” Jack said, his voice still shrill from the overall excitement of me being back home. “His name is Valentine. He’s special too because he can control people with his mind when he’s older. He’s an empath chimera. He was a Valentines Day present from Perish because Silas was sad so he made him. That’s why he has pink eyes.”

  “Oh, that makes sense,” Julian said. Then he looked to Kessler as the baby reached for me from Tyler’s arms. He had a plastic knife in his hand. “And who’s Chucky over here?”

  “That’s Kessler,” Jack explained. “He loves that knife. It’s not real though, but he still loves it. He got his vaccinations and he didn’t even cry. Valen cried though.”

  “I did not!” Valen suddenly yelled. He pushed Jack for this comment and they both began to fight right in my living room. This wasn’t the way that I wanted Finn to see Julian again, even though having children around would be an excellent way of making sure Finn didn’t kill him, but the noise level was getting to be a bit much.

  “Tyler,” I said. “I need to speak with Finn and Julian in private. Can you take the children upstairs?”

  “No!” Jack howled. I ignored him and handed Kessler back to Tyler; he also began to cry. “I’ll be quiet! I’ll be quiet!” I winced at the racket the two were making, and my temper then reached its limit.

  “Jack!” I snapped, my tone slicing right through their crying. “Crying when we do not get our way is not what chimeras do. You boast about being the most advanced and yet you’re acting like a remedial brat. Straighten up and stop embarrassing yourself!”

  Jack stared up at me like I’d just struck him. It wasn’t until I saw that surprised look on his face that I realized I’d never spoken to him like that before.

  Well, regretfully he’d been born and raised during my time of servitude. This was unfortunate, I didn’t have the respect of my younger brothers, not in the way that I wanted. At least the youngest four would be too young to remember much of who I was beforehand, and the fostered-out chimeras wouldn’t know about this part of my life at all. The most difficult brothers would be Ceph, Apollo, and Artemis who were raised with me being Silas’s slave bitch, but they would also be old enough to be told, and have them understand, what had happened to me.

  “Do you understand me, Jack?” I said to him. Tyler had gone upstairs with Kessler, Valen scurrying behind, the only child downstairs now was Jack.

  The small boy nodded, his long silver hair falling into his eyes from his lowered head. “Yes, sir,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry I complained.”

  “It is of no consequence,” I said and rested a hand on his head. “Go upstairs for now. You can sleep down here tonight if you’re good.”

  This brightened his morose face a bit. Jack nodded, a shine in his black eyes, and he scampered off to the stairs, closing the door behind him.

  Before the door could even latch, there was a blur of movement behind me, and an impact so loud I thought something had dropped onto the floor.

  I whirled around towards the commotion, just in time to see Julian stumble backwards, far enough for him to flip himself over the arm of the couch and onto the cushions. Unfortunately for him however, he landed there awkwardly, and rolled onto the floor in between the coffee table.

  And standing where Julian had been, was Finn with a look of pure hatred in his eyes, one that I had never seen before in my gentle sengil. His fist was clenched as well and his body was vibrating with rage.

  “You have some fucking nerve,” Finn snarled, the undiluted disdain in his eyes holding no candle to the absolute contempt in his voice. “And it’ll be the last fucking nerve you have, my friend.”

  I blinked, taken aback, but admittedly, a bit turned on by this sudden display of hate. Finn was as soft as marshmallow and just as sweet; I had no idea he had it in him.

  But then, just as I was admiring this change in my sengil, I remembered myself and why Julian was here in the first place. So while Julian was staggering to his feet, his jaw opening and closing as the man tested it to see if it was broken, I put a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Come sit down,” I said to him. “I have a lot I need to tell you.”

  Finn’s trembling shoulder tensed from my touch, the two sapphire flames he had for eyes still in the pro
cess of visually raping my ex-boyfriend.

  Then he said to me, through clenched teeth, “Yes, Master Elish. Let me get him some tea.”

  Julian glanced up from the couch he was now sitting on. “I don’t think he…”

  “You’re a wannabe sengil, Julian, you can make the tea,” I said, making my tone bored purely for Finn’s sake. I knew he needed me to be dismissive towards Julian. “The kettle is already plugged in and heated up and the teabags are in the cabinet above it, the cups beside it. Mint tea for me, Finn will have green.”

  “I don’t trust him…” Finn began, but then I gave him a cold look, one that melted the flames surrounding him.

  “Do you trust me?” I said to him. “Or is your faith in me so lacking you believe I would bring a dangerous man into my personal home around my young brothers?”

  And just like that, the fires around Finn were cooled, and he shrivelled on the spot under my gaze.

  “You know I trust you…” he said quietly. He sat down on the couch, Julian heading towards the kitchen, and I sat down beside him.

  “You don’t trust me, Finn,” I said simply. “You think I’ve gone insane for allowing Julian back into my life, but I owe my mind returning to him.” Finn looked at me in shock, but I raised my hand. “This is no manipulation, no fast talking. I despise him as much as you, and your faith in me is little if you think otherwise.”

  “You didn’t tell me he was the reason you got your mind back…” Finn replied, his voice now submissive but still holding sharp edges. He looked towards the kitchen and I saw his pupils retract. “I owe him thanks for that, but I don’t hate him any less. He’s the reason I was forced to watch Silas torment you for eleven years. You have no idea how difficult it was, Master Elish. No idea what it was like to be helpless while some monster tortured the man I…” Curiously, his words halted, then he said in a low voice. “… the man I admire and respect like none other.”

  “And you wish for Silas to stop treating me like that, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then we need Julian.”

  Finn gave me a puzzled look, then his eyes shifted focus when Julian emerged from the kitchen with a silver plate containing three mugs of tea. “What do you mean by that?” he said slowly.

  I took my tea and rested it on my leg. “He’s not here just to make you angry, Finn,” I told him. “After everything that Julian did… the ways he manipulated and controlled me. And not just me, how he did the same to survive in the greywastes. Julian knows the valuable craft of social engineering… and he’s going to teach me everything he knows.”

  Finn’s brow knitted, he stared at me with the same puzzled look. “Teach… you?”

  I nodded. “I’ve had eleven years of my life taken from me, Finn. And though I’m already feeling my intelligence return to me, I’d be a fool to say I was anywhere near where I should be if my brain hadn’t been altered. I need Julian’s skills. I’m going to use them to learn Silas inside and out, and I’m going to use them to learn that mad king as well. I will not be his kicked dog any longer, but unless I become something better to him, something more valuable, the first time I piss him off I’ll have my head cut right back open… and I will put a gun in my mouth before I let that happen, Finneus.”

  As I spoke to him, I saw Finn’s face crumble as if he’d become a statue weathering through time. I knew that he understood what I was saying, but the locked jaw and the clenched fists told me it wasn’t going to be that easy having him tolerate Julian again, or for him to feel comfortable enough to allow him near me.

  That sengil was fiercely protective of me I’d come to realize. And his bite seemed just as lethal as his bark. I found myself respecting him more and more each day. He was quite the formidable man; I’d truly underestimated him.

  ͠

  I wouldn’t have a sengil like that again until Luca. A boy who I also underestimated once. I believe I have a bad habit of thinking these little blond boys are as helpless as they look, and I keep being proven wrong, not only by Finn and Luca, but Killian as well.

  ͠

  I put my tea down and turned to Finn. The boy was glaring at the coffee table, a thousand and one thoughts coursing through his head like a movie on fast forward. “I don’t like it either,” I said to him. “My first instinct was to kill him where he stood, even with him being the reason I am back to my old self.” I touched his chin and made him turn his face to me. “But, Finn, what happens if I kill him? I’d go back to Silas, and if he didn’t restore those implants right off the bat, the moment I pissed him off… which wouldn’t be that far into the future, he’d have me on that operating table. Julian has already taught me something valuable. He’s taught me that I have more of a chance surviving Silas if I’m walking beside him, instead of being forcibly dragged along by the collar around my neck.”

  Finn was quiet, his eyes still locked.

  “Finn,” I continued, “we both know what happens when we go against Silas, don’t we? You’ve seen it with your own eyes, and I’ve been seeing it since my first memories of him hitting Cristo across the room. We cannot beat him while facing him head on, he’s too dangerous, too intelligent… he’s almost two centuries old and I would be a fool to believe that I am smarter than him. What we’ve been doing… isn’t working. It’s time for us to try a different approach.”

  Finn’s granite face began to soften, and the sengil I knew started breaking through the hardened rock. I saw his lips become a straight line, but his eyes refused to look at me. “And what is this different approach, Elish?” he asked, his voice low yet the tones were high, strangled almost. “We let him abuse you?” His eyes rose and finally looked at me. “You make me watch him demean the man I love?”

  I paused, caught off-guard by his choice of words. To my right, Julian’s heart jumped at this admission, but I decided in a split-second to believe his use of the word love was in the context of master and sengil, and nothing else.

  “No, not at all,” I said back with a slow shake of my head. “Because my goal now is going to be to change his opinion of me. I don’t want him to see me as a weak failure anymore. I’m going to make him depend on me, respect me, and rely on me. I’m going to learn him, every inch of him, body, mind, and spirit… and make myself too valuable, too respected, to ever hurt again.”

  And I would. For my future, for Finn’s, for my future boyfriends, husbands, whoever I decided to have beside me for eternity, I would do this for myself and for them.

  “It’ll kill you.”

  His words snatched me right from my internal oath.

  “You have so little faith in me?” I said, disappointed.

  “No, I know you can do it,” Finn said simply. “But it’s going to kill you. You’re going to have to suppress so much… I worry for what it’ll do to you.”

  To my right, Julian made a scoffed noise. “You’re holding him back, my friend,” he said. Finn’s eyes flashed dangerously. Again, his reactions to Julian were surprising and fascinating me. Never had I seen such an outburst of passionate anger from him. “Elish can do anything. He’s a damn god.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then why are you trying to hold him ba-”

  “I’m protecting him from you!” Finn suddenly whirled around and snarled. The tea he was holding spilled, sending a splash of near-boiling tea to his trouser leg, but he didn’t flinch in the least. “Like I tried to protect him from Silas for the past eleven fucking years.” Finn jumped to his feet, and as my eyebrows raised in surprise, the boy threw his teacup down, shattering it on the coffee table. “You’re filling his fucking head with dangerous thoughts, thoughts and ideas that will get him killed. He’s not your fucking puppet to mould and manipulate just to see what you can get him to do, all for your own fucking amusement. I don’t know what your real plan is, Jules, but I will not stand idly by while you–”

  “FINNEUS!” I bellowed. I rose to my feet, and while I did, Finn shrunk down under my
glaring gaze.

  “I am no weak fool in need of a sengil’s protection,” I snapped. “Nor am I a feeble-minded imbecile who can be easily manipulated and controlled by a man I have been fostering a hatred for eleven years. I know very well what Julian is capable of, and I know very well what Silas is capable of. This decision is mine and mine alone, and telling you the reason I have decided to let Julian back into my life was a privilege I gave you out of respect for you. A privilege I now regret giving.” Finn was an inch high when the last sharpened word left my lips. The pain in his eyes told me that what he’d been saying and what he’d been feeling were two vastly different things, but in that moment, it didn’t matter.

  “I don’t need a sengil’s approval for anything, least of all for the company I decide to keep. My reasons for keeping Julian around are clear, and I suggest you get used to the idea, because he will be around often.” I turned from him. “Now clean up the mess you made and stop embarrassing yourself with this outburst. Or embarrassing me by acting so revoltingly disobedient.”

  Behind me I heard a sniff, the familiar sound of Finn trying to prevent himself from crying. I was too angry with him to care, so I sat back down in my seat and stared forward as he cleaned up the shattered pieces from the tea mug.

  I knew this would be hard for Finn to accept, but my decision had not been made in haste. Already Julian’s teachings had started to work, and I found myself eager to begin the patient process of taking that extra several steps to have me walking beside Silas, and not behind. Yes, it would be difficult, I despised that man, but there was just no other way. I had to join my enemy, because I could not beat him.

  “Finn…” I glanced to Julian when I heard him speak. “The past eleven years have been spent trying to get to Skyfall so I could atone for what I did to Elish… I know you don’t trust or believe me, and I don’t expect you to. All I ask is that you tolerate me for the time being, until you can see for yourself that I’ve changed… and until you can see for yourself that my plan for Elish is one that will not only have him safe… but happy as well.”