by Quil Carter
And when I looked back to Silas, I saw there was fire in his eyes. Whereas my speech had been as bland and PC as possible, I knew Silas would be showing those watching that his family was not one to fuck with.
I’d expected this. It wasn’t my place to be pissed off and throwing around threats. Silas was the immortal king and the destroyer of worlds, I was the golden prince who didn’t do such things.
͠
Yes, this was going to change. Eventually I would be on par with Silas when it came to swinging the hammer of Thor at the residents of Skyfall. But that was not today. I hadn’t earned that yet; however, I was finally finding myself on the right track.
Patience was one of my many virtues, right now my job was to learn.
͠
“What happened, should not have happened.” Silas put both hands on either side of the podium and glared down at the people below them. The reaction between how they received me, and how they were responding to Silas, was night and day. In just one fell swoop, the atmosphere in the media room had sunk to the abyss, and now the happy media personnel were writhing in their spots, and the men and women behind them who had come to see me, were staring at the ground as if it were them who let me get kidnapped.
I was fascinated by this and it made me envious of Silas’s power over people. I wanted that reaction, I wanted the fear of the masses, the respect. Silas was over half a foot shorter than me, wavy blond hair and bright eyes that showed every emotion he was feeling. If you saw a photo of him, you wouldn’t think he could command a room with his presence, but the moment you physically saw him… you’d know that he controlled everything, and if you wished to stay alive, you better let him control you too.
In appearance, I looked more menacing than Silas. I was six-foot-four, with a muscular build that was long and lean, the kind of build they called ‘swimmer’s build’ even though I never understood that reference. My jaw was square, my dark purple eyes able to hold a glare that froze people on the spot, and my presence was one that garnered respect. I had the physical appearance that you would expect from a man to be feared… but the fact that Silas did not and he could still have a man like Nero on his knees with piss streaming down his leg… made me envious.
I wanted that.
And I would have that.
“I have let in thousands of greywasters over the years out of the goodness of my heart and for the benefit of our future goal of expanding this city and the human race,” Silas said, his tone low and growling. The entire room was hanging on his every word, all eyes fixed on the immortal king. “And now my generosity has been thrown back at me. My first born chimera, my heir, was kidnapped and beaten, held against his will. If it wasn’t for his intelligence who knows what might’ve happened to him.”
Silas stepped away from the podium, and clasped his hands behind his back. “So what am I to do? Many of my welcomed greywasters have become productive members of Skyfall, more than a few of them have risen the ranks and have graduated to elites. Hell, several of them now work for the Crown. But even though many of them have integrated into Skyfall, the facts in front of me show a breech of trust… that there is now a rebel group living inside of Skyfall.”
Yes, he’d bought it. Hook, line, and sinker, he had bought it. This was the morning after my rescue and I hadn’t had a chance to speak with Julian, but it seems that he was able to keep his story straight. Silas was now under the impression that I’d been kidnapped by rebel greywasters, and the real truth would remain a secret between me and Julian.
And the plan would continue on.
“For the men and women watching this, who had knowledge of this attack, or worse yet, participated in it, let this be known: I will find you, and you will regret the day your bitch of a mother decided not to abort you.” Silas was pacing now, and every time he turned and I could see the cold rage in his eyes, I felt relief that he had indeed bought our story. If Silas found out what Julian had done, and the fact that I’d willingly stayed in Irontowers for over a week even though I was well-enough to make the trek to Skyfall, or at the very least light something on fire to signal a legionary… he would kill Julian and beat me within an inch of my life.
No, actually that would be too easy for him. Silas would either kill Finn, or wait until I myself had a boyfriend, then years later peel his skin off in front of me. It was clear that Silas had been living through hell while I was missing, and there was no negotiating that he couldn’t know what had actually happened.
I was in a good spot right now, and if the thiens and legionary had to spend time looking for mysterious rebels that didn’t exist… well, it would give them something to do. A small price to pay for me to keep myself in Silas’s good books.
“Anyone with information about this kidnapping is to see Commissioner Talbot immediately,” Silas said. “And if I find out that someone is withholding information about this kidnapping… your wildest imaginations will not be able to fathom just what I will do to you.” He stepped back behind the podium and gave the quiet room one last sweeping glare.
It was so quiet, those without the gift of enhanced hearing could hear a pin drop. I, however, was treated to the sound of hundreds of thrashing heartbeats. He had them terrified, absolutely terrified.
“That is all,” Silas said. “Tomorrow will be a holiday to celebrate Elish’s return. Use it to spend time with your families, and keep your ears open. Good day.” And with that, he stepped off of the podium and walked past us, leaving the media personnel and the well-wishers either exchanging raised eyebrows, or staring frightenedly at the stage.
I turned and followed Silas into a smaller room with snacks and drinks laid out on white tablecloths, my brothers and sister following behind me. As my siblings began to attack the food, I trailed Silas to where the alcoholic beverages were. Kirrel was there with the other sengils, including Finn, and when he spotted Silas he began pouring him a drink.
Seeing this as an opportunity to secure my place as Silas’s support system, I rested a hand on his shoulder and stood beside him. “I always admire how you can command a room like that,” I said to him. “What advice do you have for me? I wish to do the same one day.”
Silas took the glass of wine from Kirrel but he didn’t drink it, he only stared down at his reflection, his eyes glaring enough for me to be surprised that the white wine didn’t start boiling from the heat of it. “Know you are a god and they are the insects,” Silas responded quietly. “You have to believe it in your very soul, if you’re pretending… they will know.” He took a slow drink, then lowered the glass. “Step up onto that podium and let them see you, feel you, hear you. Step up onto that podium, and know that you are better than them.”
I took his words and absorbed them, and as I thought of what he’d said, I realized with fascination that Julian didn’t have to be my only teacher. There was a lot I could learn from Silas, to only learn how to manipulate him would be a travesty in my teachings. He was over a hundred and ninety years old and he’d been making these speeches since the day he declared himself king of the first survivors of the Fallocaust.
Silas’s head turned, he must’ve seen me deep in thought. “You are better than all of them, Elish.” He said this with a solidarity in his tone that took me off-guard. “Even when you were altered you were better than them. It disgusts me that such dirt would lay their hands on you, but now I want you to learn from that experience. I want it to make you stronger. You have no reason to disappoint me further, Elish, no alterations making you into an obedient slave. Your only goal in life now is to make me want to keep your mind intact.” I realized without looking that the room had gone quiet, there were sengils and my siblings here, but every conversation had ceased…
… and all eyes were on the two of us.
“I will perform that surgery on you in a second if for one moment I think you’ll be better off,” Silas said, his flashing green eyes pinning me down. “Because having you as my loyal slave was better than having that
hermit maniac you were becoming.”
“I’m no longer that–”
“I know,” Silas said, cutting me off. “Which is why I’m giving you this chance. I loved you, I missed you, and not for decades had I felt the fear in my heart that I felt when I thought I’d lost you. My love for you, and my faith in you, is what is allowing me to let you prove you can still become the chimera I always wanted you to be, the prince and the leader I thought you would be when I pulled you from that steel mother.” He raised a hand and rested it against my cheek. “Don’t disappoint me, Elish. I’ve had enough disappointment with you, and now I wish for you to make me proud.”
I looked back at him, determination filling me. There was no manipulation on my tongue, no thinking of how I could twist this to my benefit. In that moment, my feelings were genuine. I would prove to him that I was everything he’d expected of me.
And while I was proving this to him, and to myself, I would learn my master… and it would soon be me controlling all those around me.
Silas included.
“I won’t disappoint you,” I said to him simply. “I’ve had enough disappointing myself as well.”
The king nodded, and his hand pulled away from my cheek. “It’s nice to have you back, golden boy.”
“It is surprisingly nice to have him back,” I heard Garrett say.
I turned around and saw my brothers and Ellis all standing beside the table of snacks. They were holding food and watching us like we were actors in a play, all with various amused expressions.
“And we get a fucking holiday! That trumps Elish coming back like ten-fold,” Nero said with his mouth full. He walked to me and put a burly arm around my neck, them pulled me close. “Look at him all Elishy now. I missed him.”
“I think we all missed him.” Garrett smiled and also put his arms around me. “The next thing you know, he’ll have us all immortal with his new smart brain back. Won’t you?”
I chuckled, and even though many dark thoughts were creeping through my mind, I felt genuinely happy. “I will,” I said, and took a butter tart from Nero’s plate. “There’s a lot of things I plan on doing now that I’m back.”
“So he didn’t threaten you?” I asked. It was evening, almost a day since I’d returned with Julian, and he was in my living room. Finn had been out for the last several hours accompanying Kessler, Jack, and Valen for their medical checkups and would be returning shortly. I wasn’t really looking forward to having to mediate between those two, but that was just par for the course right now. It couldn’t be avoided.
Julian shook his head. He was sitting with a mug of mint tea and was now cleaned and wearing normal clothing. Under all of that grime he resembled more the Julian that I knew, but his beard was still trimmed and washing off the dirt had accentuated the scars he had all over his body. Julian hadn’t had an easy life in the greywastes, you can fake a lot of things, but you can’t fake the fact that he was covered in silver pock marks and slashes.
“A bit,” Julian said. We were talking about what had happened when Silas had gone down to see him, not long after my return. “He asked me to tell him what had happened and I recited it for him. He also questioned my last eleven years, and, of course, near the end of it… he got his threats in.”
“What kind of threats?” I asked. I was sitting on the second couch with my own cup of mint tea. It had been a favourite when we were younger and I had developed a taste for it.
“Threatening what would happen if I hurt you again, of course.” Julian said this with a smirk. “Something along the lines of ‘Remerging like a cockroach. Will crush you like one if you hurt him. This is your chance for Elish to redeem himself and if I fuck it up I’ll be roasted alive in a brazen bull.” He glanced at me, an eyebrow cocked. “Do I even want to know what that is?”
“Probably not,” I said, briefly thankful that, besides the threats to all of us at one time or another, Silas had never created any of the ancient torture devices he was fascinated with. “It’s a giant hollow brass bull with a brass tube that has one end going into the hollow bull, and the other end going out its mouth. The victim gets placed into the bull and a fire is lit underneath it. The inside heats up, roasting its victim alive, and apparently the screams made from the victim pass through the brass pipe and come out the other end resembling a bull’s mooing.”
Julian stared at me, the teacup halfway to his mouth. “And this was created…?”
“Ancient Greece,” I chuckled. “Believe me, Julian, mankind didn’t start getting twisted during the Fallocaust. There’s a plethora of old torture methods I’ve found in books. Luckily, or unluckily, Silas prefers to come up with his own creative techniques. Some of which, however, would have you wishing he had a brass bull on one of the floors.”
Julian shuddered and put his tea down. “Yeah, like the frying method…” He glanced to the door that led up to Silas’s apartment, probably to make sure it was shut and locked. “How have things been with him? Nothing off-kilter? Normal Silas?”
“It hasn’t been long enough to know for sure,” I said. “His crazy comes in sporadic moments. You never know what he’s going to do next. One day he’s completely normal, the next day he’s batshit insane beating me half to death, then the day after that he’s hiding in his bedroom, refusing to come out, lamenting that he can’t understand why I fucking hate him.” I shook my head with a sigh and decided I needed an opiate cigarette. “I don’t understand him.” I put the cigarette in my mouth and grabbed a lighter.
My eyes flickered up when I heard Julian chuckle, the flame hovering over the unlit cigarette. “He’s easily understood,” Julian said amused. “From what you’ve told me, I have that man mapped and marked. Intelligence chimera? Pff, you’re so blind I’m constantly afraid you’ll walk into walls.”
I removed the smoke from my lips and took my finger away from the lighter’s flint. “I was made into a drone thanks to you, radhead. We didn’t all get the joy of sucking dick for water in the greywastes.”
“No, my lion… you did it for free!” Julian grinned.
I pursed my lips, but for some bizarre reason I found his brazen candor amusing. I hid a smile and lit my cigarette, enjoying, oddly, having someone back who treated me like an actual person. “Moving on then,” I said through a mouthful of smoke. “You can tell me all you want that you have him mapped, but you’d be wrong. If you’re going to help me with him, I don’t want you acting arrogant like you know him inside and out. That’ll only end up with both of us being killed. I’m trusting you, so put the cocky nature aside and actually pay attention to him.”
Julian raised both his hands in his defense. “I know, I know, you don’t need to get all serious on me. Can’t we just enjoy the fact I’m actually inside of Alegria?” He stood up with his tea and looked out the window. It was the best view in all of Skyfall, you could see the entire city in this skyscraper, every wall had its own set of windows, floor-to-ceiling ones on the west wall and normal windows on the other walls. “I never thought I would be up here. Even when I was fifteen, I never thought.”
I took a long inhale of my cigarette. “That wasn’t in your master plan?” I said bitterly. I wanted to get back to the topic at hand however, Julian could marvel at his change of location on his own time. “I take it right now I’m just observing the monster?”
Julian nodded, his back to me as he continued to admire the view. “That’s what you’ll be doing a lot of,” he said, then took a drink. “Observe and mentally record. You’ve been missing too much being brainwashed, and beforehand, you were too focused on your own life to pay attention to what he was doing and why. I promise you, once you start standing back and watching, your mind is going to be blown.”
“Focused on my own life?” I repeated, offended by his words. “I was trying to keep myself alive.”
“No, you were too absorbed in your own life to really care. You were doing a horrible job keeping yourself alive.”
I glared at
him, and when he met my eyes in the reflection of the window, he chuckled. “I bet you couldn’t even name Nero’s first boyfriend. I double bet you don’t know what made Ellis stop hanging out with her gothic friends.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I said, throwing my hands up into the air. “I had a lot to deal with at the time. Why the fuck do I have to know their personal garbage?”
“Well, they knew yours.”
“I’m not some god damn loser who needs to know about family gossip.”
Julian smirked, then slowly turned around. He walked towards me, the knowing smirk smug enough for me to tempt myself with scalding him with my tea. “Why? Because if you knew about Nero’s business, you would’ve known his boyfriend dated him for two years in order to get his family to rise in the ranks of the Legion, long before Nero did. If you knew that Ellis’s friends began gossiping behind her back, you could’ve warned her months before she had to find out through one of the lady’s brothers.”
I stared at him like the moron he was. “I’m not a super hero of gossip, Julian. I don’t give a flying fuck.”
“You should,” Julian said, and patted my shoulder in the most condescending way possible. “If you took the time to care about their lives, they’ll tell you about things in return.” He pointed to the door leading to Silas’s floor. “You have three confidants, three people constantly around Silas. Not to mention the little chimeras who Silas will say anything around. You’re insane and uneducated in the art if you toss aside vital information and the potential for three allies who’ll aid you when you need it… all because you think listening to family gossip is beneath you.”
I didn’t show it on my face, but what Julian said clicked with me. It made sense, even if my pride was demanding I not tell him that.