Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (64 page)

Jack looked up from tying his shoe. “Murderer? Ellis said they were–”

“They will be dead within the hour,” Elish responded. “And because Sami once considered you his friend we will be needing your help to apprehend him.”

The young chimera stood up and looked around the warehouse nervously. As they started to walk back out onto the street he ran his hand up and down his arm. “I really liked him, Master Elish. But he really hates Valen, and he wasn’t afraid of chimeras. I had to distance myself to protect him – I feel so awful about it.” Then a silence, followed by a submissive voice. “Why is Silas and the first generation so interested in him? May I ask that?”

“You just did,” Elish said, they all started walking down the steps. “And no, you will not ask why, just know it is Silas’s wishes to keep the boy safe.”

Jack let out a long breath and waited at the bottom of the stairs for Elish and Nero. “What can I do to help? I feel guilty this has happened, Master Elish. He’s just a greywaster and he has no idea the trouble he’s going to be in for threatening Valen.”

The three glanced towards Garrett, Kass, and Ellis talking quietly amongst themselves. Elish stopped before they got into earshot, or at least the earshot of the housekeeper-now-sengil.

“You’re semester is going to be cut short,” Elish said quietly. “You literally have forever to catch up on your studies. Sami is in Skyfall somewhere and most likely still in Skyland. You’re going to be combing the pubs, local hangouts, any place you think he would occupy and find out where he is. You may bring a brother along but besides that the media must not catch wind of this.”

Jack stood up a bit straighter and nodded. “I can do that. Sami’s shy; he doesn’t like large groups and most likely he’s going to be staying in one place.” But then he paused. “The family won’t hurt him if I find him, will they?”

“No,” Elish said. He took out another cigarette and lit it with his fingers, then spoke through the smoke. “Silas wants him safe. Sami’s safety trumps Valen’s. In no way are you to harm him or let Valen or the others harm him. Understood?”

The confusion on Jack’s face was palatable. The silver-haired chimera tilted his head to the side before his black eyes narrowed to slits. “He’s important… I can see that.”

“I will not humour any more–”

“Who is he?”

“Jack.” Elish’s voice was heavy with warning. A warning that any other chimera would’ve heeded without question. But Jack’s curiosities won out of his seemingly born-in fear of Elish.

“Does Silas want him as a sengil or something?”

Elish walked past Jack towards Ellis, Garrett, and Kass.

“I know he isn’t a chimera… obviously. We have none with brown eyes and black hair… so is he a new cicaro? Someone he wanted to train…?”

Elish slowly turned around and this time Jack visibly shrunk down. Elish’s eyes burned into him with the power of a violet sun, and three times the intensity.

Though no words left Elish’s lips, none were needed. Jack was frozen in place, his mouth tight and his shoulders square. And there he stayed where Elish’s frozen gaze had left him, not another question falling from his lips

I stayed in the back of the den; Barry was sitting opposite of me with a glass of water between his grungy, matted paws. I had ordered the water for myself and when the young boy had brought me a piece of taffy-like black substance I had sent it back and told him again: water.

Water meant something else here apparently.

My eyes focused to behind Barry. It was a strange sight to behold, because it seemed on first glance that I was in a morgue of sorts, but it wasn’t that at all.

The men behind me, outstretched like corpses, with grey skin and sharp bones exposed, were not dead, they were opiate addicts and this was an opiate den.

The den itself was filthy, completely covered in unwashed, rank-smelling blankets from wall to wall, and also on the dirty mattresses that held the addicts in their cradles like cadavers on slabs. This place was disgusting, but not as disgusting as the people who writhed inside.

I looked over at a man half-naked, a skeletal face and missing teeth, his lips blackened by the tar and his left eye missing. He was staring off into space was a smile on a mouth that seemed made for frowning. At that moment, as I watched him, a cockroach crawled onto a scraggly beard and danced along his lips as if hoping to find food for it to eat.

With a shake of my head I took a drink of my water and pulled my hoody back over my head. Underneath that hoody was a red baseball cap that I had managed to tuck my black hair back into.

I still had my colour contacts. And though I had lost several of my tooth caps, I had saved the important ones in my pockets; the ones that hid the front pointed fangs. It had been enough to get by; enough to not rouse suspicion as I hid from my former family and the chimeras I knew would be stalking my steps.

But I knew they would never look for me here, and though when I had first found and entered this rank, decrepit place I had told myself it was only because no chimera would step foot in it, there was another, more personal reason.

I took in a deep breath, filling my lungs with the smell of stale sweat, unwashed bodies, dirty blankets and fabric that had been soaked and re-dried many times, all mixed in with the slight scent of stagnant urine and insects.

It reminded me…

It reminded me of the basement.

The young boy, probably only sixteen, walked up to me. He had glassy eyes that were brown and he was boney and thin, with a dirty mop of brown hair that matched the dirt stained on his neck.

“Can I get you… something?” the boy asked quietly. He glanced behind him and I looked to see an old man with angular eyes giving me a glaring look, behind him were two little girls with the same eyes, must be his daughters.

I shook my head. “Water’s fine.”

The boy didn’t move but I saw a nervous expression cross his face. He moved on the spot like he was uneasy, or perhaps he was just high. Though the brown, sticky stuff seemed to sedate them rather than make them jittery. Perhaps this kid was on meth; Jasper had always liked meth.

“Look, I don’t want Giuseppe to get pissed at me. This is a business, mister. You need to order some drugs or… he’s going to kick you out,” the boy whispered, stuffing his hands into his pockets and glancing behind him again. I looked too and saw Giuseppe’s slanted eyes glaring at me, the two daughters standing on either side glaring at me too.

At first anger flared in me and I wanted nothing more than to dig into my bag and fling my black card at him, but that wasn’t something I could do anymore. One transaction from the Sanguine Sasha Dekker black card and I would have Nero barrelling in here and dragging me out by the neck.

Though I hadn’t been completely stupid. As soon as I had burned those three Valen sympathizers I had gone to the bank and withdrawn a large amount of money in cash. I had used it to buy a black satchel and a wallet and that was where my cash was being kept.

I shrugged and leaned back in my chair. The boy looked relieved as I started to open my satchel to get some a few smaller bills. “What do you have?” I really wasn’t interested in trying drugs; I never had since dealing with Jasper. But the negative association I had with Jasper doing and creating meth had faded since coming here. I had no moral dilemma; I had just never been interested.

“Everything…” The boy turned around and nodded at Giuseppe. Giuseppe nodded back and disappeared behind a water-stained curtain, his daughters following behind. “Opium, heroin, meth, weeder, twinkle, cocaine, opiate pills, ciovi. We have hallucinogens, PCP, and ecstasy but you’re not allowed to take them, or any of the other uppers, inside of the den. This area is allowed only for downers, since – since the uppers tend to want to start fights.”

I lit a cigarette and suddenly the boy’s eyes widened. “A Blueleaf? You’re from Skyland?”

I gave him a questioning look and moved the cigarette to the side of my mouth so I could speak. “Am I not in Skyland?”

The boy’s expression got even more bewildered. It looked like I was digging myself a hole. I had assumed I was still in Skyland but I had been wandering around for days now looking for a dark place to hide.

“No… you’re in the Cypress District, and we’re near the south wall that separates us from Moros,” the boy replied. Well, that made sense; I had climbed over a few walls that had been blocking the path my mind had absentmindedly set out for me. I guess it was obvious the districts would be separated by walls. I had never been out of Skyland so I had had no idea.

The boy looked behind him again, as if making sure Giuseppe was out of earshot. “You better not let him see you smoking Blueleafs. If a Skylander is here it means he’s hiding from the thiens or the Dekker’s and your bounty is more important than a few dollars revenue.”

Immediately I took the cigarette out of my mouth and pinched the flame. But as I did I realized this boy was doing me a favour, and I needed someone to do me favours right now. Kass had been my unofficial sengil and I could use someone knowledgeable of the area.

So I took my pack of Blueleaf cigarettes and pushed it towards him. “If anyone asks questions, tell me first. Especially your boss, capeeshy?”

The boy picked up the smokes and stuffed them into a pair of tan pants that were belted with an extension cord. He nodded and looked behind him again. “Sure, I guess I can do that. So… did you want some drugs then?”

I shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, opium I guess.” And then I said something I never thought I would say. Ever.

“And bring me a few bags of meth… for later,” I smirked, but when the boy turned around and headed towards the stained curtains Giuseppe had disappeared to, the smirk faded and I glanced over at Barry.

He didn’t speak, talk to me, or advise me, but his black eyes still stared at me with an expression of sadness.

“Why not see what it was like for him?” I said defensively, dragging the water glass over to me. “He did it a lot; he made it in the farmhouse. I’m an adult; I don’t need to fucking steer away from his drug like he has some weird control over me still. Jasper has no more control over me, just like Silas and Elish and all of them don’t. I’m my own fucking man. Fuck that rapist, hypocrite family and fuck Jasper too.”

Barry stared at me. I let out a frustrated grunt and turned his head away so he couldn’t judge me anymore.

I crossed my arms and looked away, though after several moments I felt a spring of loneliness inside of me. I picked up Barry and hugged him to my chest, watching the man a few feet from me give a groan, before flicking a cockroach off of his face.

I squeezed Barry and with that another pang of loneliness. I missed my friends, I even missed Crow. When bad things like this happened and I found myself alone again… they had always been there for me. First Barry as a boy and then Crow as my black-clad, demon-eyed monster friend. They may have told me to do bad things sometimes but that didn’t take away from the fact that no matter what – those two had always been there for me.

And I had let Barry kill himself after the first time Jasper had fucked me, and I had told Crow to piss off for warning me of the truth: that I deserved to be locked up, that I was incapable of functioning in society.

As much as I had wanted to be in denial that day, when I was new and in college and ready to take on the world as a chimera, or at least Sami Fallon the secret chimera, in the end the proof was all around me.

I couldn’t function in society.

“Here you go,” the young man came back. He placed four overstuffed bags of meth onto the covered patio table I had been sitting at, and then a smaller bag holding the black tarry stuff. “Fifty dollars for everything. I can take back some of the meth if the cost is too high.”

I shook my head no and brought out a new fifty dollar bill. I slid it towards the kid, and when he had stuffed it inside of a worn fanny pack over his waist he dug deeper into the pack and pulled out a little red tube-like device.

“Pin-sized amount, stick it on the needle and click the back until you smell or see the heat, and then put your mouth over it and suck it up,” the boy explained in a tone that suggested he was reading a script inside of his head. “One hit will do you for hours; feel free to lie down if you can find a spot. You’re welcome to stay but after ten you have to pay five bucks to spend the night. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, I’m a quick learner…” I said, before giving him a nod. “What’s your name?”

“Frank,” the boy said with a smile, but when I laughed the smile turned into a frown. “What’s wrong with Frank?”

I gave him a wave and started rolling off a piece of the brown tar. “Where I’m from all the cute little teenagers have cute little names. I think the family names them I’m not sure. Frank just seems like a thick-necked greywaster with a beard, not a twiggy little guy like yourself. Do you at least go by Frankie?”

He shook his head, not looking too pleased with my laughter over his name. “No, Giuseppe calls me
leng zai
sometimes which I think means something in his ancient language, but no just… well, just Frank.”

I wasn’t planning on calling a scraggly little kid Frank that was for sure. “I’m going to call you Mouse.”

Mouse’s frown deepened. “You’re not really getting us off to a good start,” he said flatly but with a loud sigh he shook his head. “But I’ve been called worse. What about you? What name do you have that I can make fun of?”

The thought of telling him my full name just to see the shock on his face was tempting, but I knew that really wasn’t an option. Arians immediately obeyed me when they found out I was a chimera and since I was just another drug-seeker in a shitty den I knew he didn’t owe me anything and had no reason to be friendly with me. I had to become his friend the old fashion way, without fear, intimidation, and class-status.

Though as I opened my mouth to tell him my name was Sami I immediately closed it and realized I couldn’t tell him that name either. Both of my names were now known to the family.

Mouse sat down and rested the side of his face into his hand. I didn’t think the expression on his face could get any flatter but there it was. “Does it really take you that long to think of a fake name?” He laughed at the surprised expression on my face. “It’s okay it’s typical for a customer to use a fake name … why don’t I name you then? I’d like to name you nosey jackass, but I think you’re kinda cute so how about I call you Pumpkin?”

Pumpkin? I glared at him, feeling rather matched. He seemed like a meek, quiet little mouse but the more he became comfortable with me the more I realized he had quite the sharp tongue.

“You’ll not be calling me Pumpkin,” I said flatly. When Mouse pulled out a pack of normal red-embered cigarettes I stole one from him and rested it beside my opium smoker. I had given him a pack of Blueleafs so I dared him to raise objections. “Anything but Pumpkin.”

“Sure, whatever you say, Pumpkin.” Mouse winked and nudged the opium smoker towards me. “After a hit of that you’ll be agreeable to anything. Have a smoke and relax, I’m off of work soon so I’ll join you in a bit if you’re willing to share.”

I saw nothing wrong with that. Mouse helped the loneliness that Barry the boy and Crow’s absence brought. So I nodded and picked up the opiate smoker, and clicked the igniter button.

My entire body was warm, like a blanket of tepid water had been laid over top of me. I don’t remember much of what happened after my first hit, only that I couldn’t stop running my hands up and down my body, and that everything seemed amplified when I closed my eyes.

I was in a corner with Barry beside me. I could see his paw with its dirty, formerly cream-coloured paw pad. Since Barry was here I was okay.

Sometime during the first day Mouse had lain down beside me, and I had heard the click as he took his own hit from the opium pipe.

I remember when he started running his fingers up and down my arms and chest, and in response, I did the same to him. His eyes were bloodshot and distant, and his mouth slightly slacked. A faint glisten of sweat was on his brow and it made his unhealthy brown hair stick to it.

“Want to make out?”

I must’ve nodded because he kissed me after. I opened my own mouth and welcomed his lips, but when his hand travelled lower I had grabbed it and pulled it away. He had respected that and time was lost again with our lips joined and our hands running up and down the upper parts of our bodies. Never touching too low, I didn’t want that feeling… I just wanted the pleasure that being caressed on this drug gave me.