by Quil Carter
Silas, also dressed in the black and blue combat armour, but without the helmet, sighed and rested his hand on mine. “Okay, love,” he said with great hesitation. “This will be so much easier once my boys are immortal…”
“Once this is over with, Perish and I can put everything into our new theories, love, and those new machines Perish created,” I said to him. “You’ll have us immortal soon, and you’ll never have to worry about us again.”
“Oh, fuck me, I can’t wait,” Nero groaned. I could see the convoy of legion vehicles out of Nero’s pilot side window, just beige blurs against the slate. There were four other convoys like this, each in a cardinal direction to make sure no one escaped. “It’s a pain in the ass trying to get myself not killed, not to mention making sure shitface doesn’t die.”
“That’s Sexy Shitface to you, asshole,” Ceph called from the cockpit. Garrett chuckled, he was flying with us too.
The closer Nero got to the compound, the more the bloodlust took me. I hadn’t felt this strong urge to kill in years, not since I’d murdered Todd and his worthless boyfriend. Thinking back to the time I took his life, it made my body flush with a heat that was more than bordering on sexual, it was sexual. I knew it was a chimera thing, Nero had shown us that time and time again from his actions, and that fact had never been more clear considering what I was doing when I’d experienced my first orgasm.
I didn’t want to be high in the air. I wanted to be down amongst the smoke and flames. I wanted to smell the scent of burning flesh, of gunpowder, agony and pain. I wanted to wipe their blood across my face and eat them where fate had laid them.
“Heavy casualties,” someone said over the Falconer’s radio. “If you switch to channel twelve you’ll be able to hear their distress call. Too bad we’re in the middle of slitting their throats at Cormorant.” The man said the last part with a satisfied chuckle. Cormorant was a small town near the compound, completely controlled by the Jackson’s. “The blood tests were a great idea, Elish.”
I smirked and soaked in the praise. I’d given the leader of the Cormorant operation a mortified laptop with a blood tester installed into it. I’d gotten DNA from Oniks’ child, who I’d decided to name Nicholas, and since the boy had both Jackson and Bratva DNA, any unfortunate soul that was a match… was executed on the spot. The only ones spared would be the children under ten, who we’d be taking back to Skyfall and giving to Edgeview. If they were over ten, they were going to be put into the military where they would conform or be executed and used as food.
I meant it when I said I was eradicating the Jackson’s and the Bratva from the planet. I couldn’t give a lesser shit how it made my family look. This is what happens when you take away someone dear from Elish Dekker. Not only do you die, but your family dies, your children die, your entire line dies.
“I want to be down there,” I said, my eyes glued on the oily black smoke that the Falconer was now flying through. I was dismayed that I couldn’t see much because of that smoke. “I want to hear them scream as I slaughter their family members in front of them.” I looked to Silas and smiled, the urge to kill taking me so strongly it made me ignore the nervous look appearing on Silas’s face. “We could kill some together, my king. We’ve never taken a life together, have we? Wouldn’t it be something fun to do?”
Silas stared at me, and how a man could look to be drowning in the dry grey wasteland I didn’t know. “That’s a rathe eerie smile…” he said nervously, his Adam’s apple rising and falling with a hard swallow. “I don’t… I don’t like this air about you.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m a chimera, love,” I said sweetly. I knew I must’ve been acting insane to my family, but I was enjoying this temporary madness taking hold of me. I think perhaps I was realizing just how much I liked killing. “And I’m doing what chimeras do. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”
Silas looked at me through the reflection of the Falconer’s window, the cockpit now becoming dark as Nero flew through the smoke. He’d made a comment about trying to find some clear air, but Silas and I were locked in our own dialogue. “Are you okay?” he said quietly.
The smile on my face rose, or at least one corner of it did. “I’ll be all the better once I get to kill one,” I said. “I have never been able to test my aim. It’s been years since my military training.”
Silas just looked at me helplessly. I had to chuckle at the expression on his face. “You all complain that I’m too cold, too distant and uptight… yet when I finally do decide to have some fun, you all look at me like I’ve gone insane.”
My master continued to stare, before his green eyes deflected to the window. But there was nothing to see out this window, we were deep inside the black pillars of Hell, the Falconer flying around like a winged demon searching for the rising souls of the newly dead. “You’re right,” he said finally. His hand rose and grasped mine. “I’m just… I’m worried you’re cracking, love. I’ve seen it before. I’ve… it’s been me before and I know the signs.”
“Silas…” Garrett spoke. He was right behind me. “I think we should get Elish home…”
I turned around and glared at my brother. “Don’t speak to him like I’m–”
Suddenly I was thrown, every one of us not belted in was launched violently as the Falconer shook with an unholy force. I was flung against the window, my face smashing against the glass.
The normal expanse of time shifted then as several things happened in unison, each only taking seconds, but to me, it seemed like hours. My memory was also reduced to pulse of recollection, most trapped inside of complete blackouts.
What I do remember, is Nero yelling that we’d been hit. My eyes opened to see black smoke, amongst streaks of red from my bleeding head. I also remember hearing the Falconer’s engines struggle and whine, and the loud scream of twisting metal.
“Nero, Nero, land! Baby, land!” Silas cried.
“I’m trying! I’m fucking trying!”
The smell of burning reached my nostrils, burning metal, rubber, something. It was potent, and decades later, I would never forget that smell.
“DADDY!” the radio crackled to life. “DADDY!” It was Ellis. Nero reached over and turned it off, I could see blood on his face, blood and terror. And when I looked back out the Falconer’s windows, I saw my hands supporting my weight. I was… lying on the window.
We were crashing.
Then a lurch. I was thrown off of the window and I landed hard on the floor. The noise and chaos around me was at a nuclear level, as if the world was ending for a second time. There was an intense heat around me, smoke that choked burning lungs, and an engine that was revving and screaming as it was forced against its will to survive in this flash hell.
But even though my senses were being bombarded with these harbingers of death, there was a single sound that breached the madness – a sound that I would recognize everywhere.
It was Silas’s plea. His plea to the universe that I had heard several times before.
“Don’t let me lose them… don’t let me lose them…”
“Please. Oh fuck, please…”
“Don’t let me lose my boys.”
‘I can’t handle forever,’ I said to myself. That was what Silas always said when his chimeras were in mortal danger. ‘I can’t handle forever.’
My memory faded out, but it must’ve only been for seconds; it couldn’t have possibly been for long. I was jarred awake by the plane crash landing, and was flung again into the air as the thruster engines roared, wined, then died.
Then there was silence, for only a brief, brief moment, there was silence.
“Fuck…” I heard Nero whisper. “You’re going to put us in a fucking bubble now, aren’t you?”
Somewhere, Silas burst into hysterical tears, but my eyes were still on the smoke-covered ceiling. I was dazed, my face was throbbing, my injured chest sore, and my lungs aflame, but I was alive.
Nero said something but there wa
s a fog in my head. “Yeah,” I heard Ceph say; he coughed, and Garrett began to hack as well from the toxic smoke. “I’m… I think I broke my arm but it’s not major. We gotta get out of here though… like now.”
“Garrett?”
“I’m okay, just my – ELISH?” Garrett cried.
Ceph gasped. “ELISH?! ELISH?”
I’m okay god dammit, stop screaming!
“ELISH!?” Silas’s frantic scream was followed by a flurry of activity. I saw the king with a look on his face that I’d been seeing a lot lately, then he grabbed me by my combat armour and yanked me up. “He’s dead! He’s dead!” This hysterical scream was followed by a loud explosion outside of the Falconer, one that was strong enough to rattle the smoke-filled plane.
Then my reality hit me like a smack in the face, the stunned state the crash landing had thrown me into was wiped from my brain like a clean damp cloth to new dust, and my senses flooded me. I announced my return to reality with a gasping breath, one that was shared collectively with my family.
Silas threw his arms around me and sobbed; he was joined by Nero, by Garrett, and by Ceph. My brothers and my master all hugged me, tears mixing in with the blood from their injured faces.
“We have to get out of here.” I looked towards Nero’s voice, the smoke now searing the inside of my lungs and making my eyes water. “The wing’s on fire… thank fuck for the landing thrusters or we’d be dead, beyond dead. But we have to get out of here.”
I made sure the gun that had been strapped to my back was secure, then Garrett helped me to my feet. Soon there was the sound of stressed metal, and light streamed into the cockpit as Ceph opened the Falconer’s door.
The warzone that we’d created was in front of us. Nero had crash landed us in the middle of a street, and right in front of a fort-like compound that had taken a direct hit. The building was on fire, a crater centered in the middle like an asteroid from the heavens had fallen onto it, and I saw two dead bodies dressed in camo, smoking near their fallen automatic rifles.
Ceph paused and listened, remembering the same training that Silas had taught me. You don’t walk out into the greywastes, you listen, you look, you feel. He remained in the open door as the smoke rushed past him, then shifted to the side as Nero took the first step into the center of the Jackson family compound.
We all exited the plane as quickly as we could, our stinging eyes everywhere and our chests inhaling the toxic-smelling, smoky air. Nero motioned us to follow him and we sprinted behind his shadow as he dashed across the road. We ended up taking shelter in an overhang that was far enough away from the blast point of the building to be temporarily safe.
Nero glanced around and took out his remote phone, then handed it to Silas.
A gunshot suddenly cracked the air and two feet from Silas's boot a burst of greywaste ash exploded. Without missing a beat, Ceph raised his gun, broken arm and all, and fired off a round.
I looked in the direction of his aim and saw a camo-clad rebel fall off of another building, before landing on the ground with a low thunk.
“We need to be someplace safe…” Silas said anxiously. “This isn’t safe. I can’t–”
To our collective surprise, Nero shushed him, an annoyed look on his face. “Silas, this is my territory now,” he said sternly. “You need to calm down and let me do my thing, you’re only making this worse.”
Silas’s blood-streaked face stared at Nero in terror, the thousands of fears that his mind was throwing at him seen clearly in great detail. At first, I only watched him, perhaps my own mind fuzzy from the crash landing, but I myself was kicked into action, and I remembered what my own duty was.
I rested a hand on his shoulder. “We’re alive, and we’re safe,” I said to him. “You need your wits about you. Fear will get you nowhere right now, Silas. Remember… we’re chimeras.” I took his assault rifle from his back and handed it to him. “When your chimeras are at risk, King Silas doesn’t panic… Silas fights back like the mad man he is, right?”
Silas’s staring eyes bore deeply into mine, those fears freezing him on the spot. But then, just like I had hoped, the Mad King spun the wheel of emotion, and it landed exactly where I thought it would.
Pride flooded me when I saw the fear drip away from his face, and this was a pride rarely seen, for it was not one conjured up purely for manipulation, the emotion I was feeling was pure.
I was proud of my king.
“You’re right, love,” Silas whispered, behind him Nero was on the phone with Ellis. I could hear my little sister’s shaky voice on the other end. Silas then nodded to himself, and his eyes became dark, and his face hostile. “They dare shoot down the plane who holds the royal family?” Just then voices could be heard inside of the compound, and Silas’s eyes flashed dangerously. “They’ll pay.”
And did they ever.
Four unfortunate men, each not knowing that we were underneath the entrance’s overhang, burst through the double metal doors. With guns in hand they spoke quickly to each other, their voices overlapping like badly shuffled cards, and their startled eyes showing crescent moons of white.
“They’re out here, keep your eyes peeled!”
“What about the others? The commander is injured, Auldi. We can’t just fucking leave him.”
“When we bring him Elish Dekker’s head, he’ll understand.”
The… commander?
They didn’t see us – and it wasn’t until all four of them let out piercing screams of agony, did they know we were here.
The four dropped to their knees, their hands clutching their heads. I looked over with a smirk, and saw Silas’s eyes a jet black.
Silas could’ve killed them easily, but his mental abilities were hard on his brain. Knowing this, Nero, Garrett, Ceph, and myself, all opened fire on the four men, and with a spray of blood and brain matter, they slumped to the ground. I must admit, my tongue licked my lips to catch the warm blood, and when a chunk of brain stuck to the twitching corner, I brought it into my mouth and chewed on the tender organ.
The commander… there must be a new leader already. “There’s a commander inside,” I said.
I walked to the door and glanced through the small window. The deserted hallway was clear of smoke; they must’ve closed off the damaged area, or else the design of the building was sparing it.
“Elish, no!” Silas called after me. I opened the door and walked in, but Silas grabbed me.
“Come with me, love,” I said to him with a smile. “Kill with me.”
The fear was creeping back to Silas’s eyes, but I couldn’t have him scared. Silas didn’t have the ability stop me this time, the bloodlust had complete control of me, and I needed to satiate it.
Silas paused, then looked behind him. Nero was on his remote phone, Garrett and Ceph were in front of him guarding the spots where gunfire could reach. Behind them the Falconer’s wing burned and smoked, a sizable chunk taken from the black steel.
“Okay,” Silas said.
I wasn’t surprised at his agreement; I know I should’ve been but my mind had no room for such useless emotions. No, I was fully in the clutches of my chimera instincts, and I couldn’t rip myself from that steel grasp even if I wanted to.
Silas and I walked into the compound, our hearing maxed out as we listened for any noises that could mean more people were coming. We cautiously crept down the empty hallway, closed metal doors on both sides, one smelling heavily of smoke.
Then we heard voices. Silas and I stopped and pressed our backs against the dark grey brick walls. We exchanged glances, and the two of us listened to try and figure out what they were saying.
“Okay, I got off the radio with Grupper,” a voice said. “He has a legion vehicle.”
“A Legion vehicle? Fuck… I guess it’ll be more discreet than one of the trucks…”
“It’ll have to do,” a gruff, yet familiar, voice said.
My eyes narrowed. I knew that voice… how could I know that voic
e? It couldn’t be…
“Did they kill Elish?”
Ivan.
You’ve got to fucking…
Without fully thinking it through, I began to walk towards the voices, my heart now thumping wildly in my chest. It wasn’t fear that was making my heart race however, it was rage. A rage that made my previous anger cower in a puddle of its own piss.
Silas grabbed me but I jerked my arm away from him. I pinpointed the door that the voices were coming from, and gripped my assault rifle tight to me.
Ivan was alive.
And I knew now that Vlad was most likely following the orders of the boss, the commander of the Jackson family. His son was a plant; the order had come from the kingpin himself.
Ivan had wanted me dead. Had he ordered the hit on Finn as well? Or was my innocent sengil just caught in the crossfire.
It didn’t matter. His end would be the same.
A burly man emerged from the doorway, dressed in the grey camo with a rifle on his back and an ammo belt across his chest.
He didn’t even see me until it was too late.
The moment my eyes rested on him, rage burst inside of my body like an atomic bomb, a rage that controlled me like a willing puppet. I grabbed the man’s head with my gloved hands, and with a bellow of both fury and uncontrollable pain, I twisted his head violently, feeling the satisfying snap of bone reverberate from the head to my hands.
I dropped him, but the taste, the foreplay, wasn’t enough. Silas cried out behind me to stop, to stay, that this was an order, Elish, stay! But I was blinded, I was blinded by anger. I threw the man to the ground and charged through the open door.
In front of me I saw a well-stocked infirmary–
–and resting in one of the many single beds, was Ivan.
He was hooked up to an IV and his left leg a bandaged stump. The greywaster, with a burned face that had been left to the air, looked gaunt and sick, but his eyes burned into mine with a rage so bright it would’ve lit up the room.
