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

by Quil Carter

  “Only you can write an ending that seems so happy on paper… but everyone who knows you, knows it’s really quite sad,” I said quietly. “But it makes me understand you… and it makes me love you even more.”

  Elish shifted uncomfortably. “I suppose you can understand now why it was so maddening that my brothers thought I was insane and cruel for wanting him gone,” he said. “I admit… for many years after that book ended, we got along great. It was tested when Sanguine came into the picture, and tested many times more until those thirteen years were up, but… I’d thought at the time… we would be together.”

  I swallowed down the jealousy but it was an insect in my throat, crawling up and stuck to my tongue, making me have to swallow again and again.

  I didn’t want to ask it, but I’d been with him for so long by now, things had changed so much for us over the years, that I felt like I could. “What happened, magnus?”

  Elish inhaled slowly. “Sky’s clone,” he said simply. “There were other incidences, other things, but in the end, it always came down to Sky. He loved a dead man more than he loved me, and when I pushed back finally, when I had enough of it, when I forced him to chose him over me.” Elish’s mouth twitched. “He laughed in my face like I was making him chose between heaven and hell.”

  Elish’s violet eyes stared forward, locked in the past. “He did it at a difficult time in my life, when I needed him. I had… turned my back on potential relationships with men I thought I could start something with, because I wanted him to see how committed I was. I was his perfect heir, but in the end, I was wasting my time.” He chuckled dryly. “Of course I was not some innocent pathetic labrador, following him around like a spineless dog. I was sabotaging the clone’s progress left and right, and manipulating Silas in every way I could to get him to depend on only me…” The chuckle turned into a wry smirk. “But he didn’t know that, so it doesn’t count.”

  I laughed, and we both shared a kiss. “Are you going to write a Garden of Spiders 2?” I asked when our lips parted. “You only got to when you’re thirty-three, you still have decades left. And of course…” I flashed him a smile. “You never did get to me. Even though you said you would.” I poked him in the chest.

  Elish grabbed my finger and began to roll the digit in between two of his own fingers. “I told you I’d try but it may get too big before I got the chance,” he explained. “In the end, I had a lot more to say than I thought. So, there will be another one, one day.”

  “And I’ll get to read it?”

  “When you reach the physical age of thirty-three–” Elish squawked as I dug my hand into his side. He swore at me, grabbed my shoulders and pushed me onto the bed. As I laughed and tried to get away, Elish grabbed one of our pillows, straddled me, and put the pillow over my face.

  “Such convenience having an immortal as a husband,” I heard him say over the pillow being pressed against my face. I kept trying to laugh, but the fact that I couldn’t breath was stopping it. “I can kill you now and be rid of you for hours.” I flailed my arms, trying to snatch any part of him, but when I only got air, I settled for beating his legs with my fist.

  Finally, he released me, I gasped for air, still laughing, then I wrapped my arms around his neck, used it as leverage to pull myself up, and kissed him.

  Years ago, he’d told me that when I reached the physical age of twenty-seven, I could read his book. I’d never forgotten that day.

  Elish kissed me back, then swung a leg off of me and the two of us sat up.

  “Promise I’ll be in the sequel?”

  “I promise.”

  “Are you going to still call it How a Stupid Slumrat Ruined my Life and Other Bad Decisions I’ve Made?”

  Elish rolled his eyes, his smile lighting up the room. “I can’t believe you still remember that,” he said, and he welcomed me back into his arms.

  I snuggled up to him and sighed, another question on my tongue.

  “You might as well ask it.”

  I gave him a flat look. “The downside of being welded to your hip for so long… you know what I’m thinking.”

  “And I also know I won’t like it.”

  “Probably not,” I said cautiously. I looked up at him. My beautiful husband with his shining blond hair, so long it fell past his shoulders. “Why have you never mentioned Finn? I’ve… heard bits about Julian off-handedly. Enough to know he was your boyfriend for a while… but Finn…”

  I felt bad when Elish’s lips pursed, and my heart ached when I saw the briefest flash of pain. It was like a phantom though, and a whisper later, my master’s stoic countenance returned.

  Over the years, my master now showed me some of his emotions. He didn’t hide them from me like he used to. But even this was too much for him.

  “One of the reasons I wrote this book…” Elish began slowly. “Was to give him life again. It was difficult to speak of him, so I didn’t. I’ve always harboured a large amount of guilt over what I let happen.”

  I could only fathom how much guilt he had carried around over how Finn had died. When he was fifteen, he’d been blinded by love and was being actively manipulated, and when he was thirty-three, Julian had been right there beside him when the first bullets were shot. “You had no way of knowing,” I said when I thought of that fact. “Julian seemed to have–”

  Elish began to move and I jumped off of his lap. I shrunk back when I saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I do not need to be comforted over events that happened decades before,” he said sharply. “Especially not by you.”

  I stared at him, offended by his words.

  “I’ve been your husband for a long time now, and yet when you’re mad, you still treat me like your pet,” I said. “What do you expect me to say?”

  “Nothing,” Elish said, and he began putting on the clothes he’d taken off for his rest. “I expect you to say nothing, because this conversation should’ve never happened. You read the book, you got your wish, don’t make me regret it even more than I already do.”

  I threw up my hands and let them drop to my sides. “Stop being a dick. We were having a nice conversation.”

  Elish belted his trousers and grabbed his charcoal grey dress shirt. “And that conversation is over.” And at that, he walked out of the bedroom.

  Annoyance pinged every one of my nerves, an annoyance crafted uniquely by Elish to jab each one like a shank underneath my fingernails. “Come back here!” I demanded, and I began to follow him into the hall. “I’m not done talking about this.”

  “I decide when we’re done, Cicaro.”

  “I’m not your fucking cicaro!”

  “You are when you’re acting like a petulant brat.”

  “I am not!”

  Elish began to descend the stairs, leaving me in the hallway with not a second glance.

  Somethings will never change.

  Elish especially.

  After glaring daggers into the back of his head, I followed Elish to the main part of our house. The floor plan was similar to Elish’s old apartment that had burned to ash, but instead of a single floor, we now had three storeys, Luca even had his own wing.

  I remained a pace behind Elish as he walked down the carpeted hallway, to the stairs leading to the main living space. There was a living room there, a dining room, a sitting room, and the kitchen. This house was a castle on top of a tower, a place suitable for a god and his loyal subjects.

  I decided not to follow Elish like a shadow and to instead play my game boy in the study so I didn’t bother him. The study was a quiet area, one that Elish sometimes resigned himself to if he wanted to be left alone. It was a closed off room, accessible by a glass door, and inside were two dark brown fabric chairs, a persian rug with red and gold patterns and tassels, book shelves, and an electric fireplace.

  I was playing Pokémon but my thoughts were elsewhere. I was thinking about the end of Elish’s book, and how he’d cut Julian’s throat with Finn’s urn only a few feet away
, letting his former sengil watch what Finn would’ve probably loved to see.

  Absentmindedly, I looked onto the mantle of the fireplace, as if expecting to see Finn’s urn still there. I thought about asking Elish where it was, but with a cold rush of adrenaline, the kind you got when you just prevented yourself from doing something stupid, I remembered that Elish’s previous apartment had burned… meaning Finn’s urn had burned too.

  That was… really sad. All of his memories of Finn, I wonder if they were gone?

  I knew I could never ask if they were.

  Eventually I got bored of Pokémon and decided to see what Elish was doing. I found him on his laptop doing Skyfall work, and then noticed that he didn’t have any tea with him.

  I made us both a cup, and decided to give him some time to cool off from whatever he was pissed at. I thought it was downright retarded that he still bared his teeth at any kinds of sympathy or comfort. Why did he have to see my lending a bit of emotional support as some threat against his pride? After all these fucking years and me being older… he was still the same.

  But, well, I loved him for who he was, and I decided to reason with how he felt rather than just passive-aggressively deal with it.

  Elish… I knew the guilt he felt was real. Not even because he allowed Julian to be around the family, and in turn, Finn, but because he found out how to make them all immortal, only a couple months after Finn’s death.

  If it had been earlier… Finn would’ve been made immortal, possibly Julian too.

  Which meant…

  My eyes widened as I gazed out the window, Elish behind me typing away on his laptop.

  Which meant Elish would’ve been married to Finn, and he would’ve never looked twice at me.

  What would my life be like if that happened?

  Feeling in need of a bit of ressurance, I walked to the couch and sat down on the other end. I looked at Elish but said nothing, not wanting to annoy him since he’d snapped at me earlier.

  My heart sored when Elish glanced over and motioned with his head for me to come nearer. I smiled shyly and scooted myself over, and when he raised a welcoming arm, I snuggled up to him.

  “You seem troubled,” Elish said after several minutes of silence. “Don’t tell me you’re still upset about earlier?”

  I shook my head, letting my body relax under his caring hold. “I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

  “Well, that’s dangerous.”

  I gave him a look and breathed a huff of air out of my nose. “If what happened when you were thirty-three hadn’t happened… we wouldn’t be together.”

  “No, probably not,” Elish admitted. “But that thought is rather redundant. You can say the same thing for many things that have happened in our lives. What if you didn’t buy that keycard? What if Garrett heeded my wishes and aborted you? What if I had a lick of sense and kicked you out of that study?” I pinched him for the last comment and he smirked.

  “It still just, I don’t know, I don’t like thinking about what my life would be like without you,” I said. “It’s even worse to think of you with someone else, you belonging to me and all.”

  “Mmhm,” Elish said. He held me closer to him. “I admit, at times I have wondered what my life would’ve been like if both Finn and Julian had survived and been made immortal. I wonder if I would’ve still held such strong feelings for Silas. If I had, I may have broken Finn’s heart, if not… I would be a very different man than I am today. I’m not sure if I would wish to be that man.”

  “You like who you are today?”

  “Yes. I enjoy knowing myself. I truly didn’t learn who I really was until Silas… well, that incident.”

  “Then you looked in the mirror and said with a straight face: ‘I am a baby-switching, king-manipulating, clone-creating, cold-hearted dick, and I love it.’”

  And he laughed. He actually laughed, and I gotta say, I could’ve floated to mars on that laugh.

  “What do you think would’ve happened to me if we didn’t meet?” I asked.

  Elish thought for a moment. “Well, if I had Finn, you wouldn’t have been created.” I frowned. I hadn’t thought of that. “However, if you had, but never bought that keycard… since you were fifteen when we first met, I think Silas would’ve fetched you soon, and forced you to live with him, like he did with Sanguine. You may have been a little more civilized than Sanguine at least. We’d still know each other, but with who I think I would be, I don’t believe we would’ve been anything more than just brothers who saw each other at gatherings.”

  My frown deepened. “It sucks to be thankful that certain awful events happened, because they led me to you.”

  “It does.”

  I loved my master for who he was. I wouldn’t want him any other way, but I did wish that he’d had an easier life. At least an easy first thirty-three years.

  “The next book will have you kicking ass, won’t it?” I asked. “All that baby switching, and evil plots? Smothering poor baby Adler and packing his torso with ice?”

  “It will.”

  I smirked. “Wonderful.”

  Later that night, Elish and I laid in bed together, naked and sweaty as it was most nights. The conversation earlier had me feeling in need of a little more love, and the passion that was explosive between us, had me thinking that he was feeling the same way.

  After some unimportant pillow talk, we both surrendered to sleep. I was being the little spoon tonight, as was my duty, and Elish was behind me, with his arm over my side and near my chest.

  I fell into a dreamless sleep, still a rare thing for me, but I found myself waking up some time in the middle of the night.

  And I was alone…

  I opened my eyes and glanced at the bathroom to see if perhaps he’d needed to use it, but then I heard none other than the entrance door close.

  Where was he going? It’s…

  I looked at our wall clock.

  … three-thirty in the morning.

  That was too early even for our chimera sleep schedules. My brow furrowed at this, and on a half-asleep impulse, I got out of bed, sprinted down the stairs, then across the living room, and squinted my eyes as I opened the entrance door to the hallway.

  Where could he possibly be going? This was so shockingly unlike him I almost felt nauseas. I know it was stupid to think that he’d be cheating on me, that just wasn’t Elish. And if he’d gotten a phone call in the middle of the night, I would’ve heard it.

  After a minute of lingering in front of the elevator debating my options, I got an idea. With a silent praise for my genius, I was going to count the seconds it took for the elevator to return to me. I knew how many seconds it took for the elevator to get from the lobby to our house, so if he was going to the lobby, and not, say, his office, I’d know.

  I began to count. It took a minute and nine seconds for it to get from the lobby to our floor.

  And as I counted, I began to feel guilty. Maybe me talking about his past had stirred something up in him. Maybe… Elish was going for another one of his long walks.

  I sighed sadly. I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have brought it up.

  Sixty-four… sixty-five… sixty–

  The elevator opened… at sixty-six seconds.

  Then it hit me.

  I knew where he was.

  Wow. Did he… was it still there?

  I knew I should’ve left it, but I couldn’t. Call it insanity, I don’t know, but I couldn’t just turn back and go to sleep.

  I got into the elevator… and I pressed the button for the third floor.

  There was a bulge in my throat as the elevator descended. It wasn’t for me, or my awareness that I shouldn’t be following Elish down to that floor, it was for my husband, and what he must be feeling right now.

  The third floor.

  It had belonged to Julian, decades and decades ago. The skyscraper that Julian had lived in, would eventually become Olympus, my master’s tower in the sky, the second tallest
skyscraper in all of Skyfall. One that was beaten only by Alegria.

  What was I doing? I should turn back…

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.

  The elevator halted, my heart was thrown into a pounding rhythm. The doors opened, and that heart full-out seized when I saw a sliver of light through two heavy oak doors.

  There would be no peeking. No spying. I wasn’t going to do this underhanded.

  I took a deep breath, and walked to the doors, and gently opened one enough to stand in the archway.

  In front of me, wasn’t the ruins of an abandoned apartment like Elish had described in his book, it had been renovated. There were paintings on the walls, furniture, books, so many books, and a fireplace…

  Where Elish was standing.

  And on top of that fireplace, was a gold urn resting beside an orange stuffed cat.

  I stared at his back, my master dressed in a white bath robe that was tied in the middle. I realized then, he had something in his hand.

  A photo album.

  My eyes welled when I saw Elish raise a hand, and gently he touched the gold urn with the opal bands, an urn that still held cat ears wrapped around the top.

  “I was expecting you to ask about the cat ears…”

  I jumped a mile high, my heart leaping into my throat; the shock had me so rattled I put a hand to my chest.

  “But I know I closed off the questions rather soon…” Elish turned around, and although I’d expected an explosion of anger for me following him, the expression on his face… there wasn’t a shred of it. Not even those dormant hints I saw when he was outside of our house.

  It took me several seconds to get over the shock, but I managed to make my mouth move. “He… he got the cat ears right before it happened… I had wanted to bring it up at the time, but… then you’d know which part I was at.”

  Elish nodded, and he subtly waved me over, the brown photo album still in his hand. “I’ll tell you the story one day but… I suppose Luca just always reminded me of him. They both had that meek innocence I always found endearing. Even their mutual love for bright colours.”

  When I’d walked the last few feet of distance, I reached my hand up to direct him in for a kiss.