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

by Quil Carter

  “Yes,” Silas said, rapidly nodding his head back and forth. “That is what you’ll do. You’re old enough now; you’re thirty-two now. I can’t… I can’t wait any longer, Elish. I need them immortal; I need you immortal.”

  I came home that evening exhausted and with my mind twisting around my brain like it was a tornado. There was a great deal of relief inside of me, but the glaring fact that I’d almost had my two brothers killed was a beast upon my shoulders.

  But it wasn’t anger directed at myself. I was angry at Ivan for putting Nero and Ceph at risk. His blatant betrayal of me had me wondering what else the man had lied about. That being said however, I’d never trusted the man with anything important. His job was to put on a show for the Skyfallers and to give me enough drama to keep Silas on edge.

  The only thing he could’ve done was sell me out, and since he was dead, that was no longer a worry.

  I’d spent the rest of my day at the Skyland military base, interviewing the three survivors of the ambush to make sure that Ivan was dead. The man was hard to miss, it was obvious that he was the leader, but even with the confirmations I’d still wished to see the body for myself. Unfortunately, that would attract too much unwanted attention, the eye-witness accounts would have to be good enough.

  Which meant the only surviving Skyfall rebel was Oniks, and whatever left over Bratva still lingered in Skyfall. Tomorrow I would send out my men, who Julian called my dogs for some absurd reason, into the territories in Moros that the Bratvas occupied. I wanted a clear number of how many remained, so when Ellis and her thiens raided Moros and slaughtered every single one of them, I wouldn’t have another surprise to deal with.

  It was time to put an end to this campaign of mine. The twins could have a bit more fun with their Dark Skylander, but that would be a side project. I was older and smarter now, it was time for me to move onto my next plan; my next seed planted.

  And that seed would eventually be our newest Sky clone. Silas was getting excited about starting up the cloning again, and because I promised him that we were close to the cure for death, he was most likely going to be putting more scientists on the project.

  “You look so stressed today,” Finn murmured. He shuffled up next to me in bed and I pulled him close. I loved being close to him. I looked forward to holding Finn to me during my busy days.

  “It’s been a long day,” I said. “There was even talk about cancelling the birthday carnival that Silas was planning, but Ceph and Nero raised hell. Nero especially, which shouldn’t be surprising; bright lights, adventure rides, and bad food is that man’s dream.”

  Finn laughed lightly and tightened his hold on me. I shook my head and glanced down at his hand. “You’re being extra clingy tonight. I suppose you’re happy Ivan is dead?”

  Finn nodded, a content smile on his sleepy face. “I’m glad it’s over with, you know how much it terrified me having those greywasters around. They’re such sneaky bastards. I always got such a horrible vibe from them.”

  “He had his uses,” I said, then a smirk came to my face. “And once his use ran out…” I made my hand into the shape of a gun and fired it.

  “You’re such a cruel cruel monster,” Finn said with a devious grin. “Shooting people you have no use for. What a maniac.” He reached up to grab my hand, then he began playing with my fingers. “I’m just happy you’re safe. But I won’t feel completely better until you’re immortal.”

  “Just like what Silas says,” I said sighing. “I’m going to be spending a lot of time in that laboratory from now on. Silas has his mind set on me working there until I find a way to make his chimeras immortal, and all other jobs will go to others.”

  “You’ll find a way,” Finn said, and he let out a yawn, his eyes beginning to droop. “You’re insanely intelligent… I bet the answer is right in front of your eyes but you just don’t see it yet.”

  I stared up at the ceiling and took in a slow breath. “I hope so,” I said. I stroked his side with my hand, his skin always feeling like silk. “But something tells me… my final act of destruction for Silas, will be the day that my brothers and I all die.”

  CHAPTER 59

  It was loud, and it wasn’t just loud, it was busy and chaotic and smelled heavily of deep fried heart attacks and enough cotton candy to turn any chimera into Chris Farley.

  But it was my and my first gen sibling’s thirty-third birthday, a special birthday that Silas had been planning for the past several weeks. Even though I wasn’t too keen on carnival attractions, I’d decided to humour my master with my presence. At least until I got annoyed enough to open fire on the crowds of screaming children and laughing adults.

  Amusement park rides towered above me, each one boasting flashing lights and newly painted neon colours. They were full of Skyfallers screaming and laughing, and were being run by workers who were getting triple their pay since they wouldn’t be able to enjoy the full day’s festivities. I wasn’t too happy giving the low-class workers that much money, but when Silas was in a good enough mood, he seemed to want to make Skyfall smile with him.

  And was he ever happy today. Silas had left cloud nine and was now floating on cloud three thousand. The king was walking around like any other Skyfaller, dressed in a blue and white striped polo shirt and beige khaki shorts. He wasn’t the only one dressed like a common arian, every brother I had was wearing shorts and casual shirts, the sengils as well. Ellis was even in a sun dress. I hadn’t seen a dress on that woman since her date with her now boyfriend Stellen, and even then I voiced complaint that she was falsely advertising herself as lady-like.

  Well, if they wanted to act like idiots who was I to stop them? I myself was dressed in my usual black trousers and a normal dark blue button-down. I had though, allowed Finn to dress however he liked… and unfortunately he’d opted for the idiot look, Julian as well.

  Nero wasn’t any better. He’d been released from the hospital four days ago (Ceph had been released last week), and even though he was covered in bandages and nicks and bruises from the shrapnel, he was wearing a white undershirt, or what was called a wife beater for reasons I’ve never uncovered, and neon purple shorts that rivalled the absurd colours Finn had once worn. He seemed to be enjoying everyone asking about his war wounds, and Ceph was no better.

  I let him and Ceph soak up the glory, though I did notice that the rebels he’d been battling against had multiplied with every re-telling of the story. I didn’t mind, Ivan was dead and I’d heard nothing from Oniks, so my secret was safe – which gave me an excuse to enjoy the day.

  A piece of fluffy blue cotton candy edged into my vision, one that was being held by a sticky, fat little hand that had already been dyed by the blue colouring.

  “Eat!” Drake squealed, waving the quickly dissolving candy around. He was being held in Garrett’s arms.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not eating that.”

  “Hey, Drakey!” a dark-haired boy, with violet eyes like mine, said. “Hook me up!” Beside him, his identical brother laughed, and they both held out their hands for Drake’s cotton candy.

  Ares and Siris had been picked up from Edgeview by Garrett and his newest sengil Tom on request from King Silas. Silas had decided that he wanted the entire family with him today, which included the twins being raised in Moros. Since Ares and Siris were both four years old and would remember such a day, Garrett had told them that they’d won a contest to spend the day with the royal family at the amusement park. The boys didn’t question this flimsy explanation at all, and had been having quite the riot hanging out with the older children… and also taking advantage of baby Drake’s generosity.

  But Drake wasn’t interested in feeding the twins. “Eat!” Drake said to me, waving his blue-stained fist around as the cotton candy continued to dissolve. “Eat, eat!”

  “It’s sticky and covered in drool,” I said to him. “I’m not going to eat that.”

  “Eat!” the boy insisted shrilly, but then he crammed the cot
ton candy in his mouth and gave me a squinty look of contentment. Ares and Siris laughed below him.

  I shook my head, and around me my family chuckled at the exchange. Drake and the youngest twins were the stars of the carnival, both with my family and the observers around us. We were attracting a lot of attention from them, but the Skyfallers were well-trained and knew not to bother us during our outing.

  I noticed Jack jumping up and down like he had some sort of neurological condition. Why, was soon made clear when we walked past the Zipper ride, the one that I’d previously mentioned was like a Ferris wheel on meth. It was basically an oblong track that held metal cages that two or three people could cram themselves into, then you rose into the air and spun around as the track spun around as well. It was nauseating to say the least.

  “You’ll throw up, there’s no way you’re going on that,” I said to Jack.

  Jack grinned, still hoping up and down. “Master Silas says if I didn’t eat any food or drink any pop beforehand, I could go!” Silas glanced to his side, and when he caught my look, he laughed.

  “Isn’t that the one you say you got sick on?” I said to him.

  “Oh yes,” Silas replied. “I still can’t listen to that song. He’s twelve now though, if he wants to brave it, he can.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Oh, stop with the scowl or I’ll make you go on the ride with him,” Silas said in a threatening, but still playful, voice. “I should’ve drugged you beforehand, you’re too serious!”

  “I’ve come to the conclusion that it physically hurts him to have fun,” Julian piped up. On top of wearing an absurd green Hawaiian shirt, his brown hair was in spikes today, and he was sporting diamond earrings on top of his usual silver hoops. Silas loved buying things for him; I wouldn’t be surprised if they were sleeping together.

  The thought made my skin crawl.

  “Elish, you have to do one fun thing today,” Silas said. “You can go on a ride, or you can play one of the carnival games, but you have to do something.” My teeth ground together, and to make it worse, Silas then looked at Finn. “You get to choose what he has to do, love. Make it something good.”

  Finn withered at the responsibility. The boy glanced timidly at me, and when he saw me staring down at him, he shrunk to an inch tall.

  “We can go do it now,” I told him. Really, I just wanted to get away from the family, their constant picking got to me after a while.

  “Okay, lovely boy. Julian, go with him and make sure Finn does his job and makes a request. I’m trusting you,” Silas called.

  I sighed and led Finn and Julian off into another area of the park. To my chagrin, this area seemed to be where all of those rip-off carnival games were. There were two rows of kiosks on opposite sides of each other, each with a worker in it shouting their challenges over gameshow beeps and trills. At the end of the row of games, were the bumper cars, and far off, the Ferris wheel.

  I didn’t know the names of these games, but several of them had been revamped to suit the Fallocaust. There was a game where you were in control of a squirt gun, and had to squirt the water into the raver’s open mouth. Amusingly, the raver’s head was a real one that was being held open by a mixture of sutures and glue. It looked like it had been embalmed, or dipped in some sort of preservative; which was good I suppose; the smell of rot didn’t really compliment the smell of popcorn and cotton candy.

  There was also Rat Races which I found amusing. You bet on a rat with a number jiffy-markered onto its side, and they let the rats go through a maze of tubes. Whatever rat got to the end, which was just a mountain of Cheetos, won.

  “Master Elish, look!” Finn said. To my surprise, he looked at Julian then. It wasn’t often these two were together anymore, but today I made an exception. “Remember Rat Races? They were popular in Edgeview.”

  Julian chuckled and nodded. “I do. They’re still really popular in Moros. Want to bet on a rat, Elish?”

  “I certainly do not,” I said, and we walked past the sawdust-smelling kiosk, occupied by a man who looked like a rat himself, looming over a large countdown on a digital scoreboard-like display. He was surrounded by several men and a small family, all eagerly watching the rats as they were put in their positions.

  “Look at this one!” Finn’s excited voice rang out over the shouting men and the annoying music. I looked over and saw him hovering over a kiosk. The game was unknown to me, but I could see why that particular one would catch Finn’s attention. Strung up on the wooden beams supporting the kiosk’s tarp roof, were large black and white plush cats. They were the typical tuxedo-style black and white cats, with black beads for eyes and a pink one for their nose. And on top of each of the cats’ heads was a matching headband which held an additional pair of cat ears, black ones, like the band itself, with pink in the middle.

  I groaned at Finn’s wide grin and walked up to the kiosk. Behind a smiling man with dyed pink hair was a corkboard covered in multi-coloured balloons, and more stuffed cats hanging from the ceiling’s beams. The name above the balloons held no surprises, it was a balloon-popping game.

  “You said you were quite the shot, right?” Finn said shyly. I could tell he was testing the waters with me. He wanted me to play this game but he was worried if he pushed me, I’d snap back. “How many do we have to pop to get a cat?”

  I noticed a twitch in the pink-haired man’s smile. I knew what he was feeling as well. The man didn’t really know what to do with the two of us. Obviously, he knew who I was, but he had absolutely no idea what to do about it. I could practically see his mind spinning like a washing machine. Does he charge the first-born prince of Skyfall money to play the game? Does he let me win? Most likely he was probably also panicking because if I didn’t win, of course it would make me look bad, and for all he knew, this could be blamed back on him.

  “T-ten,” the pink-haired man said, then he swallowed hard. “Ten, and you also have to hit the balloon that has the golden ticket inside. If you get the ticket, you get one of the cats. If you don’t…” He reached down behind the counter and presented us with a rather pathetic-looking sparkly wand. “You get this magical sorcerer’s wand!”

  “Oh sweet…” Julian said behind me. He reached over and grabbed the wand, see-through plastic with purple shining stars and a lot of purple and blue glitter. “I could take over the world with this.”

  “Keep it,” I said. And then I said, rather uncharacteristically, “If Finn wants the stuffed cat… I’ll win him a stuffed cat.” I nodded to the game operator. “How much for ten?”

  The man laughed nervously. “Oh, I couldn’t charge–”

  “I’m winning it for him, I’m not receiving handouts for him. How much?”

  Another nervous laugh, and I became aware of a thrashing heartbeat. “For ten, it’s ten dollars.”

  What a rip off, but well, all carnival games were. I reached into my pants pocket and fished out a ten-dollar bill. I handed it to the man and glanced over at Finn when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

  I didn’t want to smile when I saw just how happy I’d made him, but I couldn’t help it. What meant the most to me, was that the happiness radiating off of my sengil wasn’t a giddy or childish joy, it was deeper than that. I could see just how much this meant to him, and admittedly, my heart drank from it.

  The pink-haired man presented me with ten newly polished darts. “Good luck, my prince,” he said with a bow and then stepped back.

  I picked up the first one, and as an homage to the first balloon I’d ever seen, I aimed for a red one and popped it. Inside of the balloon, was a folded-up piece of paper which the man retrieved and held onto.

  Every balloon I aimed for and popped, had both Julian and Finn cheering. The two seemed to have formed a temporary truce in their dislike for each other, and were making a show out of me playing the silly game. I rolled my eyes at them and continued my concentration, and one by one I threw the darts and one by one, the balloons popped.<
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  When I got to the last one, Finn was grinning from ear to ear. I rolled my eyes at him, but I was smiling as well, and when I hit the last balloon, a purple one to match my eyes, the boy squealed like a teenage girl and clapped his hands.

  “Don’t get too excited. If he didn’t get the golden ticket all you get is the wand, which would make a horrible dildo I might add,” Julian said behind me. “Not to mention it’s mine.” I ignored him, and watched the man spread the slips of paper out onto the table. I was a bit invested in this game now, playing it had drawn up a competitive streak that hadn’t been triggered since my childhood.

  “Okay, let’s see,” the pink-haired man said. He began unfolding the pieces of paper, and every time the paper turned out blank, I saw Finn’s smile fade. When the man got to the seventh and there was still no gold however, Finn’s smile brightened back up. I think he suspected we wouldn’t be winning the stuffed cat and didn’t want to seem sad about it, but I knew him better than that.

  I was just about to buy myself another ten darts, when we saw gold. The eighth slip of paper revealed to all of us a golden underside, and when Finn saw it he gasped and cheered.

  And behind us, I heard additional cheers. I glanced behind my back and sighed when I saw Silas, Garrett, Jack, and Apollo and Artemis, lured in somehow and now watching us with grins on their faces. I shook my head with an exasperated breath, but decided to push down my slight embarrassment over the ordeal and enjoy that I had made Finn this happy.

  The pink-haired man declared me the official winner and presented Finn with one of the stuffed cats. Of course, the first thing Finn did as we were walking away from the kiosk, was to put the cat ear-adorned headband onto his head.