by Quil Carter
“Well, after you learn what Garrett and I did, you’ll be letting me call you whatever you want,” Julian said with a smile.
This piqued my interest. “What is it?” I said, his words alone giving me that last snap into awareness.
Julian changed momentarily into a Cheshire cat with the grin he was sporting. “Because of you securing Garrett… Well, I decided to speak with him and we ended up talking for the entire night. Good guy, I might date him once Kratz is out of the picture.”
I gave him a narrowed look. “Get on with it.”
Julian’s eyebrows lowered and rose guilefully. “Silas has cancelled the Sky clone, my lovely lion. Your heart attack, Silas believes that the normal human hearts he’s been using for the chimeras aren’t strong enough. He spoke with Garrett, a real conversation, Elish, like he listened and heard him. Garrett explained that the new heart just wasn’t up to par, that Kratz needed more time. Garrett had been telling Silas this previous, but you know Silas. He’s the type of person that would yell at a cook that the rice was taking too long and he needed it that instant, then shoot the guy in the head when the rice was delivered to him undercooked.”
Fitting analogy.
“Silas agreed to halt the Sky clone, Elish. All the plans for the clone are suspended until Kratz himself says that those hearts are ready,” Julian said. “Not only that, Silas has even gone as far as to mention testing the new hearts on those brute chimera twins he’d been planning.”
My own eyebrows rose. I didn’t know if this was good news or not. I was planning on putting Silas through another breakdown. I wanted the combination of the greywaster rebels and the clone dying to give me an explosive mental break. One I would help him through.
I wasn’t going to get that now. But with my heart how it is…
“I know you wanted to put Silas through a breakdown…” Julian continued, reading my expression once again. “But I think…” He let out a slow breath and his eyes closed. “I think what Finn screamed at me… is right. Having to put on this act around Silas, having to pick up his pieces whenever something you do to him breaks him… it’s too much for you right now.”
I growled. “I’m fucking–”
“You’re not fine, Elish!” Julian suddenly cried. “You almost died. That was a fucking heart attack, Elish. A heart attack caused by intense stress, and you’ve had a lifetime of intense stress. It’s catching up to you, and the people who love you, we’re terrified.”
His words brought a surge of anger. “It’s shit engineering, not from stress. I’m fucking fine, Julian!” I raged. “I’m healthy and–” A sucked in a sharp breath when a current of pain surged through my chest. It stole my breath and had me gasping.
“You’re not,” Julian whispered through a broken voice. “Elish. Everything that I have taught you, has worked, hasn’t it?”
I was silent. I didn’t want to admit to him that it had.
“Now, my lion… now I’m going to teach you patience,” he said. And when I gave him a glaring look he backtracked with both hands raised in front of him. “I know you’re the king of patience. Believe me, I know. But I also know you want your grand plans to be put into action… you want that huge breakdown, but Elish… you need to wait.”
He pulled his chair up closer and grasped my hand. I let him, I don’t know why, but I did. “The Skyfall Rebels coming will be enough to distract and stress out Silas. You can do a light version of your plan, and during that time, you can recover and continue working on the immortal thing. Silas… he’s also putting all of the Sky clone scientists, except for Kratz and several others, on the immortal project. He’s adamant now to the point of insanity.” Julian raised a hand and stroked my hair back. “Elish… let Silas put off the Sky clone. Use this time to get close to your siblings, use this time to manipulate Skyfall and Silas with Ivan’s rebels. Use this time to plant those seeds you need to plant, so when Silas starts the clone thing, or when something happens where you need to tip Silas in one direction or the other, the foundation is there.”
I didn’t like this… but I knew he was right.
And I was old enough and mature enough to know that he was.
“This is perfect, my lion,” Julian whispered. “Look at what you’ve done in a year? Think of what you can do in several? This can be your preparation period, your time to grow that garden inside of your head.”
I sighed. “I know,” I admitted bitterly. “I just… wish it were different.”
“Of course you do,” he said. He continued stroking my hair back. Why did I let him touch me like that? I still enjoyed it, and I found myself through questioning myself why. “You’ll have everything you ever want and more.”
Then he rose up off of his chair, and his lips gently pressed themselves against mine.
I still didn’t move away from him – and I still didn’t know why.
BOOK 4
The Spiders
CHAPTER 57
Julian slowly drew the silver smoke into his lungs, then handed me the cigarette. I took it from him and put it between my lips, then grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
“I like this tradition,” Julian said. He was lying on my black sleigh bed, his eyes fixed on the television resting on a credenza. “Alcohol, drugs, and media manipulation.”
“Opiate cigarettes are not drugs,” I said coolly. I wasn’t a drug user unlike most of my brothers and I prided myself with that. I did, however, smoke a lot, and now that I was older, I had to hide a great deal of it from Silas. He’d become all the more paranoid over my health since the heart attack.
“They are so!” Julian countered with a laugh. He beckoned me to lay down beside him but I slowly shook my head no. We were in here so we could discuss our plans in private, nothing inappropriate. That had never happened, and never would happen. “They make you all soft and squishy, which I love.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “Now be quiet, the news is starting.”
Julian let out a huff through his nose, but to his credit, he did remain silent. I sat down on the foot of the bed and the two of us watched as the SNN logo flashed on the screen. Then one of our top reporters appeared.
“New information on the terrorist attacks that left three dead,” the reporter, an older man who’d been working for SNN since I was a child, said. “Reports are coming in that the body of a well-known terrorist, a Mr. Lars Grey, was found hanging from a tree in the Greenland district of Skyland, his body mutilated beyond recognition. It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but this is the trademark of the Dark Skylander.”
“YES!” Julian cheered, his hands pumping the air. “They’re using his name! Holy shit, they’re using his name!” He crawled up to where I was sitting and let out a squeal of joy. “You said it was a stupid idea, but it worked, didn’t it? I fucking told you it would work!”
“It is a stupid idea,” I said, sucking in another inhale of the opiate cigarette. “But Skyfallers are stupid, are they not?” I turned back to the television. “If giving those retards a dark avenger to root for is what we need to make headlines again… we’ll do what it takes.”
And we were doing whatever it takes, but it wasn’t enough. It was 173 A.F now, and for the past six years Julian and I had been milking the battle between the Skyfall Rebels and the Bratva. At first it had been exactly what we wanted, the media was in a frenzy, Skyfall enthralled, and Silas stressed and pissed off about having to worry about his family whenever they left Alegria. It had been a golden six years for the two of us, and Ivan’s family as well, but now we were struggling.
We had been trying publicity stunt after publicity stunt. Two years ago, we’d even made it look like the entire first gen family, with Ceph tagging along, had stormed a ‘compound’ full of greywaster rebels and had come out of it blood-soaked and injured, but victorious. It had all been made up however, but at the time the opinion on the family was rather low considering an incident involving Nero and Ceph and two fifteen-year-olds. O
ne’s imagination will be enough to figure out the details, it was everything you could imagine and worse. That wasn’t even the only thing that pissed off the Skyfallers, Silas got so angry at them judging the family he mentally slaughtered five boo’ing Stadium-goers live during a Stadium night.
So, I’d decided to do some damage control, and have a bit of fun while we were at it.
And yes, over the last several years Silas had been gradually let in to a portion of our media manipulations. He had no idea that it had been going on for so long, but was quite pleased when I told him that I had contact with the Skyfall rebel group. Silas had become a great asset to me and Julian, and even though it did make me worry about having him so close to my underhanded dealings, I had firm control over it.
“We’ve received orders from Prince Elish himself to not push for an identity on the Dark Skylander.” We both turned back to the television as the reporter continued to talk. “But we’ll be reporting every and all occurrences we see of this hero.”
“Hero?” Julian chuckled, then raised his voice. “Are you boys fucking hearing this? You’re heroes!”
The door opened several moments later and a smiling Artemis popped his head in. “Can you fucking believe it?” he said with a laugh. “I don’t care what you say, Master Elish, I’m adding the logo that we designed. The Dark Skylander needs a logo.” Behind him Apollo appeared, also sporting the same smile.
Yes, Apollo and Artemis were our Dark Skylander. They really didn’t have a huge role to play in our current publicity stunt, all of the killing was done by Nero and Ceph, but when we needed the public to catch a glimpse of this mysterious figure, we sent one of the boys out with a costume and let him slink around the city. The twins quite enjoyed it.
“Perhaps,” I said, which brought hisses of victory from the two. They were still identical in every way but their hair, tall and slender with still not a single flaw to them. The twins were full members of the family now, and besides a few hiccups when their chimera natures broke through their usual grace (I did have to dispose of several bodies), I was pleased with how they’d developed. They were both hyper intelligent, and carried with them a calming, serene air. The two were already helping me with my Skyfall duties, but Artemis had aspirations to be the head of Culture and the Arts, since he loved both, and Apollo had become quite the business man and had dreams of running Dek’ko. They were both in college part-time currently, but they also spent a lot of time with me and Garrett shadowing us.
Once the twins had left my bedroom, Julian lit another cigarette. “I’m glad everything on our end is going well,” he said. He began playing with my hair. “I don’t think that’s going to extend to Ivan though.”
A growl rumbled in my throat. “Yes, him,” I said lowly. “His latest attack didn’t wield us much, did it?”
Julian leaned over and grabbed a newspaper. “It made fourth page… I’m surprised it was that bad, but well, with the Dark Skylander stuff happening… greywasters fighting greywasters is just old news. What did Silas think?”
I stiffened at the mention of Silas. “I don’t care,” I said coldly.
Julian hesitated, and then his eyes deflected. “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered. “I tried to stop him…”
The ice that was coating my body hardened; I found myself having to take a deep breath. “You didn’t watch at least. That’s… appreciated.”
I had one fucking request for Silas. One god damn thing I’d asked him to do for me.
My anger for the king had grown recently, after years of peace between the two of us…
He decided to fuck it up in one night.
I didn’t want to be in this room anymore. I rose from my bed and began to get dressed.
“Already?” Julian complained. “I’m sorry. I just–”
“Forget about it,” I said irritably. “Finn will be coming home soon. It’s time for you to leave.”
I could feel the room change in temperature at the mention of Finn. I glanced behind me while putting on my pants and saw a stormy look on Julian’s face.
“We’ve gone over this…” I began. And we had, many times. Finn still hated Julian with a fiery passion and I did everything I could to keep the two separated. Usually I would just let the two of them fight it out like cats, but two years ago, deep in the Julian versus Finn saga, I had suffered another stress heart attack. It had been mild, but it was enough for me to make the decision to permanently separate the two of them.
Only Finn knew about this, Julian didn’t. Julian and Silas were friends and even though I trusted Julian, I didn’t trust him enough not to share the information with Silas if he thought my health was at stake.
So, to Julian, this was me kicking him out of the apartment because Finn was returning… and he didn’t like it at all.
“Yeah, I know,” Julian said bitterly. “Precious Finnygin can’t stand to be in the same room with me or he’ll wilt and die.”
“It’s not for him, it’s for me. You two idiots stress me out,” I said and I threw his clothes at him. “And you’re stressing me out right now.”
“Doing it for you?” Julian snorted incredulously. “Bullshit. You’re doing it because you love him and you don’t want him to be upset.”
“I don’t love Finn,” I snapped. “He’s my sengil…”
“Loren’s your sengil, Elish. Remember the boy who’s still waiting for you at Autumnhome? Finn is thirty-two like you. He should be retired by now but you kept him around because–”
I left the room after that, ignoring the heat coming to my face and ears.
The next day passed quickly, and before I knew it, I was walking down the streets of Moros with sunglasses covering my eyes and a long overcoat shielding my frame from whoever might recognize me.
I pulled the black overcoat closer as I ducked into a narrow alleyway, the chill of the winter weather creeping into every inch of exposed skin. We were in the middle of an unusual cold snap, there was a layer of ice on the ground surrounded by compounded snow. I was looking forward to returning home to the warmth of my apartment, and Finn hopefully holding a hot mug of tea for me.
My nose twitched as the aroma of rotting garbage fought its way through the chill to attack my nose. I disliked Moros, but Ivan the terrible, a nickname Julian and I had given him in secret, hated Skyland even more and had moved his family to the slums several years previous. Truthfully, the man was much safer there, as was his family, and I was more than happy to fix up housing for him and his brood.
I walked through the narrow alleyway, my eyes turning up once to observe that it may snow again tonight. We’d gotten a large amount of snow this year, more than normal, and even though it was quite annoying, it had been a boon for the younger chimeras just itching to use the sleds and snowboards they’d gotten as gifts.
My feet took me to an unassuming metal door deep inside of Moros. I knocked on it once and waited, my ears craned to make sure I couldn’t hear all movements inside. I’d had this shelter built to be soundproof, and I enjoyed testing the guarantees of the workers I’d hired to build it.
This had been my first, but not my last, hidden shelter in Skyfall. I now had one in Moros, one in Nyx, two in Eros, and three in Skyland. I was also currently building my first hidden shelter in the greywastes as well. That project was slower going considering I was having it built inside of a mountain, but I was hoping it would be complete within the next five years.
“Glad you could make it,” I heard Ivan say from inside the warehouse. “Cigarette?”
I nodded my head and shut the door behind me. Ivan lit the bluelamp he always carried with him and handed me an unlit cigarette.
I pinched the tip of the cigarette with my fingers and lit it. “I trust you’ve been listening to the news?” I said as I exhaled my first mouthful of smoke. “And the Skyfall newspaper?”
Ivan nodded. He was wearing dark sunglasses and a burette; I myself had a panama hat on top of my head to try and hide my appear
ance.
There was barely a reason to disguise myself. We were in a rather empty part of Moros and there wasn’t a soul around. Not to mention, I had enough people with their ears everywhere to know if I was being followed. I’d done my job dipping my fingers in all aspects of Skyfall; I had friends in high places and low ones as well, and not much escaped me. “I saw. Your Skyfall Batman seems to be doing well. We got, what was it? Forth page?”
I reached into my overcoat and pulled out the newspaper article I’d saved. “Yes. We need new ideas,” I said unhappily. “Car bombs are barely making the news now, even though we’re spacing them apart. The Bratvas haven’t even hit Skyland in over a year. This has all been our own stunts. You told me Marcel–” He was the head of the Bratvas. “–was heading back into the greywastes to bring in more men to fight for their foolish cause. Where are they?”
“You have your damn headline with that stupid super hero.”
“Which has nothing to do with you,” I pointed out. “We’re working on the Skyfall Rebels versus the Bratva. Leave the super hero shit to us.”
“You want my family to get slaughtered like last year?” Ivan asked coolly. “That made the front page, didn’t it, Prince? Look it’s been years now and my family and I are about ready–”
“They’re getting bored of it,” I said lowly, both not realizing and not caring that I’d cut him off.
“Because we’ve won the god damn rebel war!” Ivan hissed. “What more do you want me to do? I’ve been prolonging their suffering for years now. I’ve been putting up with your damn publicity stunts and you and Remmington’s outlandish ideas. It’s over now, the Bratvas are dead. We won. Cheer your victory and allow us to go back home.”
My eyes shot up. “What?” I said through a mouthful of smoke. “You’re not done here.”