Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (63 page)

“As some of you might know this is Sanguine’s friend and housekeeper. I haven’t had that much time to talk to him. I came here right away. But he has Sanguine’s cat and he was the last person to see him before he left to torch Valen’s friends,” Ellis explained as the young man slowly walked into the apartment.

“Loren… put the cat in your room,” Elish said, taking the bag from Kass before addressing the scared housekeeper. “Did Sanguine give you him or did you rescue him from the fire?”

“He threw me out after a fight and after he torched the apartment he walked down to the lobby and handed me Jett,” Kass said. He seemed hesitant to give the bag to Loren but he didn’t raise any objections. “He looked really unstable, really shaken up.” Kass’s expression darkened. “Um, I don’t know the right protocol for this… can I speak freely or am I going to be tossed into Stadium if I do?”

“You have my permission,” Elish responded, his arms crossed over his red robe.

“He has a really warped view of his new family, and the wool is starting to be pulled back. He thought you guys were you know… not… um.” Kass coughed and after a moment of choosing his words carefully he seemed to settle on the least offensive. “Dangerous and above the law.”

“Interesting opinion, housekeeper,” Elish said darkly, but when Kass started sputtering apologies and excuses he raised a hand. “I will spare you the backtracking. We’re not idiots and we all know what you mean. What happened to start this?”

Kass shrugged and shifted his weight. “Everything was going good but we started getting on the topic of Valen and his habit of taking bar patrons into abandon buildings to… have relations with.” Kass’s ears started to redden; he took in a long inhale. “And it bled into how it’s rather common knowledge that
some of you
like to roam the streets and do the same. Sanguine flipped out, denying that ever happened and…” The housekeeper gave a nervous laugh. “And I… I obviously, um, thought that was a rather naïve thing to believe.”

“Indeed,” Elish said coolly; Kass shrunk down even more. The look on his face suggested he would rather be drowning in the greysea than standing in front of four chimeras. “And he–”

“Oh… fuck,” Nero suddenly spoke up. His eyes widened and he gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, Elish. He called me a few hours ago. It was right before you called me over. I was drunk as fuck partying with Ceph. I don’t –” Nero held up his hands as Elish glared at him. “You knew I was drunk when you called, bro. You told me to take some Intoxone and get upstairs. I fucking forgot, shit I’ve still forgotten. He sounded kinda upset though.”

“And you don’t know what he was upset about? You forgot all of this?” Elish hissed. He looked at Kass before pointing to the door. “You may leave. Tell no one about this meeting. I don’t need to tell you what will happen to arians with loose lips.”

Kass looked towards the door then back at the chimeras. “Could I help look for him or something? I’ve really gotten to know him and I’m worried.”

“No, get out,” Elish said before turning his back to the housekeeper. But as he turned away he saw that Garrett’s eyes were bright and full of wonder. Elish glared at the expression and tried to mentally warn him not to voice what was going through his –
“I want him!” Garrett suddenly said, clasping his hands. Elish sighed. “I need a new sengil. I want him. Can I have him?”

Behind Elish Kass’s mouth dropped open, before the housekeeper raised his hands and gave a weak laugh. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Elish gave Garrett a flat look. “You’re only looking for a rebound sengil after Silas murdered Tom. You can get a new one when they age in several years.”

Garrett’s mouth downturned. “I’m lonely.”

“Guys…” Ellis interjected. She was standing by the door looking impatient. “I’m going to the pub, are you coming or is arguing about enslaving arians more important than the brother we all had a hand in messing up?”

“I had no hand in…” Elish paused before waving a hand at Garrett. “Do what you want just have him checked for diseases before you mount him. Ellis we will meet you down there. I need to change into something acceptable first.” His eyes then travelled to Kass who was standing there looking stunned and in shock.

He didn’t have a sengil build. He looked like a street rat who happened to find a job in Skyland. But it would be Garrett’s reputation that would suffer for having a gutter rat for a sengil, not Elish’s.

Elish put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and pushed him towards Garrett. “This counts as a birthday present. Enjoy your last moments of freedom, sengil.”

The night was cold on Elish’s skin, and the breath from his mouth visible, though the vapour was mixed in with the blue-embered cigarette he had between his lips. He was standing outside of Popkin’s bar analyzing the burn marks on the ground.

“Where are the three?” Elish asked, taking a pair of white leather gloves out of his grey overcoat. He put them over his hands before running his finger over the burn mark.

Ellis stepped into view and watched as her brother brought his now black-stained fingertips up to his nose. His brow then furrowed and he wiped the fingertips onto his pants.

“In the hospital, they’re faces are badly burned. They’re in a medically induced coma,” Ellis explained. “What was it?”

“I thought it was lighter fluid like what he used to torch the apartment but this is moonshine,” Elish explained. There was a scraping noise as he dragged his foot along the char marks, seeing several blackened shreds of skin flying up into the air. “It matches the bartender’s story, all of it. We won’t interrogate the three then.”

“So, we…?”

“We see no reason to waste medical supplies on disfigured men. Their lives will be nothing but pain, isolation, and misery and we’re still relying too much on scavenged medical supplies for me to want to waste them on men who will contribute nothing to society but being freaks. Kill them and give their bodies to the sengils for food,” Elish replied, his eyes still carefully picking apart Sanguine’s murder scene.

“What do we tell Valen?”

“I don’t care what you tell Valen. Tell him they were executed, exiled, or the truth. I cannot suffer that little shit’s attitude for long, so whatever you do just do not send the imbecile to me,” Elish said. He glanced over and saw Garrett chatting happily to a terrified-looking Kass. The young housekeeper still hadn’t gotten over the shock that in a single evening he had gone from being a free arian to a sengil.

“He’s only like this because Silas, and to a lesser extent, the family, has rejected him,” Garrett said defensively, turning from his conversation with Kass.

Elish ignored his sister nodding beside him. Ellis crossed her arms over her thien uniform. “Maybe if Valen felt like he belonged somewhere he wouldn’t feel like he has to dominate and bully every–”

“I’m running Skyfall I don’t need to hear about teenage angst,” Elish responded sharply. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything more out of this scene. Give Mr. Mullins an acceptable cheque for the damage to his tables and make sure he keeps silent about what happened. Has he seen Sanguine before?”

Ellis shook her head. “No, but like I said he was close enough to Sanguine that he knows he’s a chimera, the patrons don’t though. Mr. Mullins has family in the military and he knows what happens to people who talk… but if Sanguine strikes again…”

The street fell into silence; only the light clicking of Garrett’s boots walking around the crime scene could be heard.

“If he strikes again tell me immediately,” Elish said.

Suddenly there was a loud crash behind the group. Elish turned around and faced a four-storey abandoned building, with half the windows boarded up and the other half missing entirely. As his eyes narrowed a second crash, this one sounding like sheet metal being dropped at a high distance, met their ears.

“Sanguine,” Elish said lowly. He started walking towards the boarded up metal door but Nero put a hand on his shoulder.

“Bro, Sanguine’s a stealth chimera… he wouldn’t make noise. The kiddo’s pissed enough to lay a trap though. I’ll go in,” Nero said in a low whisper. “He’s a shadow, Elish. You, Gare, and Perish designed him that way.”

Elish looked back at the tall building, made of grey brick with off-white plaster crumbling between sections. He tried to look inside but his night vision made everything inside a shade of blue, it was impossible to discern shapes.

“We both will,” Elish said. “Garrett, keep your new partner close and if you wish to keep him longer than an hour make sure he doesn’t follow, even if it is Sanguine.” Without another word the two brothers crossed the empty, paved street and climbed up the half-flight of stairs towards the barred metal door.

There was a screeching sound as Nero pulled the nailed board out of the door frame. He tossed it down the steps and kicked the door open.

The brute chimera coughed into his hand as several large pieces of crumbling brick came off of the upper frame, then motioned Elish to follow him.

“Sangy?” Nero called his booming voice bouncing off of the interior walls. “A – pup – pup – pup –
puppy
!”

“Must you?” Elish said irritably.

“He likes it, reminds him of when he was little,” Nero said defensively. “Would you prefer
here kitty kitty
?”

“I’d prefer you to act like an adult,” Elish responded, his boots crunching against the dirty floor. He looked around the abandoned building, an old warehouse full of rows and rows of rusted machinery and the remains of vagrant camps before the monarchy banished the homeless to Moros and Cypress.

There was nothing worthwhile here, nothing living.

The warehouse was open and exposed, the shelves of machinery sitting stagnant and useless, waiting with an almost lonely desperation for someone to remember it existed. Though the modern civilization that was Skyfall cared little for the skeletonized remains. There would be no repairing this building or its contents. In time it would be stripped of its innards and the forgotten artifacts of old sold for either scrap metal, or thrown into the ocean for the greysea to reclaim.

Elish looked around, seeing cobwebs flickering silver-blue in his night vision, every strand made to look twice its size with the dust of over two centuries of age. Though the stagnant dust was what interested Elish the most. It was all sitting still and undisturbed… which meant the noise had come from deeper inside the warehouse.

Elish followed Nero as the brute chimera walked through the small welcoming area of the warehouse and onto the main floor. To Elish’s annoyance he started whistling a tune, dragging his finger along the rusted remains of a forklift.

Then another crash. Nero stopped whistling and motioned Elish over before pointing to a distant door that was wide open in a soundless scream. They walked down several grate steps onto the main floor of the building and started walking past machines.

“Sanguine?” Nero called loudly. “It’s Nero, bud.”

Then a small voice, not belonging to Sanguine at all.

“I’m stuck, Nero.”

Elish’s molars ground together and he gave Nero a withering look, obviously for screaming the name of a man Jack wasn’t aware existed. He swallowed down the anger burning in his throat and responded curtly, “And how did we manage to get stuck, Jack?”

A sigh could be heard as the two walked up another set of grate steps and into the room they could hear the young chimera’s voice in. When Nero saw him he let out a barking laugh, but Elish found himself having to force down even more derisive comments.

Jack was hanging upside down, with his red high top sneaker stuck between two metal joists. He was dangling like a piece of string, his leather jacket and his purple shirt where gravity had left them, covering his face and exposing his pale chest and stomach.

Nero walked over, and because he never could help himself, he started tickling Jack’s stomach. Jack immediately squawked and started struggling. “Stop it! I could’ve broken my damn…” Jack laughed and started thrashing harder as Nero continued to dig his fingers in and tickle the chimera. “Stop it, asshole! I was looking for Sami Fallon. S-stop!”

“Nero!” Elish snapped. “Just get him down… did you see Sami enter in here?”

Nero grabbed Jack’s leg, and when Elish had the boy’s underarms in his grasp Nero pulled Jack’s foot completely out of the shoe and lowered him to the ground.

Jack shook his head as Nero jumped up and un-wedged the shoe from the two joists. “No, I just wanted to explore and see if I saw any sign of him.” Then Jack paused and gave them a confused look. “Who’s Sanguine?”

“No one,” Elish responded in a dangerous tone, a tone that told Jack he wouldn’t humour anymore questions about it. “How do you know what Sami did?”

“Ellis called me,” Jack said back, rubbing his foot before slipping it back into the shoe. “Asked me if I had seen Sami, and mentioned Popkin’s but she was gone when I got here. What happened?”

Elish and Nero both exchanged glances, and because Nero had been around his brother since before he was born, Nero knew to shut up and let the smart one handle it. This was a perfect opportunity to manipulate Jack into feeling affection for Sanguine and the smart brother wouldn’t let such a golden opportunity pass.

“A mixture of you ignoring the young man and his hatred for Valen, that’s what happened,” Elish responded, Nero gave a slight nod beside him but kept his silence. “And now we have a murderer on our hands and we don’t know where to find him.”