by Quil Carter
Are they? Interesting. Silas had strict gun laws for every district. You weren’t permitted to carry weapons outside of your own home unless you had a special permit and there was no way these filthy greywasters had such a permit. The rules weren’t as well-enforced inside of Moros, but the prospect that they were brazenly bringing such things to Skyland was enough to put them in the center of Stadium.
“Thank you for the information, Jaime,” I said. I took the handgun from him and tucked it into my belt. I knew I wouldn’t need it, but I’d take it regardless.
I left the receptionist where he was and walked towards the glass doors; my stride was authorative, my shoulders square, and my face ice. The greywasters hadn’t seen me, they were too busy harassing the thiens who seemed to be in physical pain trying to restrain themselves from filling the radheads with holes.
One of the thiens noticed me however, but I was annoyed to see no sweeping relief wash over his face, instead I saw a fleeting glimpse of annoyance. The thiens wanted Silas, they didn’t want me. Who could blame them though. What could I do? I was the boy who staggered out of Alegria beaten and abused, with blood pouring from fresh wounds. I was no King Who Ended the World. To them, I was the useless prince, and Silas’s punching bag.
But tonight would be different.
I pushed open one of the glass doors and walked out onto the marble stone entrance. My polished leather shoes clicked against the hard surface, filling the covered entrance of Alegria with the sound of my steps.
And all ten of the greywasters looked in my direction… and when the friend of the dead greywaster, and the female beside him, saw that it was me, the pampered elite, their mouths dropped open.
I drew in their shocked faces, and inside I smiled at the sudden jump in their heartbeats. The other greywasters, the ones who hadn’t been in the altercation, looked at them with confusion, then back at me, as if I would explain to them just why I was the last person they were expecting to see.
“I am Prince Elish Dekker, the heir of Skyfall and King Silas Dekker’s first born chimera,” I said to them coldly. Then my head turned to the other greywasters, all of them men but one, who seemed to be a relative of the female I’d seen earlier. “I am the one who killed that greywaster tonight, although your friends here seemed to have it in their mind that I was merely some elite.”
Ah, there it was. I watched with a song inside of me as the other greywasters gifted me a myriad of different expressions, some shocked, some horrified, and to my amusement, three of the greywasters turned around and disappeared behind the white columns that held up Alegria’s covered entrance and headed for the stairs.
“Stop,” I called to them. “Unless you want bullets in your back, I suggest you turn around. You will not leave my presence until I have given you permission.”
The friend of the dead man I’d killed earlier had his teeth pressed together. The front teeth and the two on the sides were a lighter shade of yellow than the others, suggesting that he’d found a tooth whitening kit in the greywastes but had failed to use it properly. He seemed angry, and to be honest, his anger acted like an active ingredient to the bloodlust that my intimacy with Finn had made dormant. Submission was fine of course, but the thought that I was going to have some defiance on my hands made not just the violent streaks inside of me come alive, but my groin tighten as well.
Oh, I was becoming a monster, wasn’t I? I liked it.
And it wasn’t just him, the female was livid too. She glared me down with her arms crossed over a bulging chest, barely contained in a ratty, bleach-stained tank top, and she only moved to spare a glance towards the three men walking back with their tails tucked between their legs. She had a furious glare for them as well; I could practically hear the whip cracking.
“Why did you think it right to come here in the middle of the night and not only harass my thiens, but demand to speak to the King of the World?” I asked, keeping my tone authorative and cold. There was no fear inside of me, or even the atoms necessary to create fear. On the contrary, I was feeling so much energy, so much power and control, it was reminiscent of the vigor I’d drowned in while having sex with Finn. “What makes you filthy grey rats think you have the right to demand audience with the king?”
The dead greywaster’s friend’s eyes bulged. “I don’t care if you’re a prince, boy. You don’t speak to people like that. You can’t just murder my god damn brother and expect us to fucking applaud you. I want to speak to the king about you. He’d do right to give you a public lashing for doing such a thing.”
A public lashing? I shook my head with a low laugh. “Oh, you certainly do have an attitude on you, don’t you? Yet when it was just you and that wench when I was frying your brother, barely a word came from you. Unless you count girlish screams as words, which I do not.”
The greywaster’s nostrils flared as he breathed in a furious breath through his nose. He was trembling with rage. I took that moment to notice a gun belted on his waist, and the woman had one sticking out of a black and brown purse. The rest seemed unarmed and their clothing was such that nothing could be hidden in it. “You seem pretty brave yourself being surrounded by two armoured thiens with assault rifles.”
I crossed my own arms, then glanced at the thien to my left and motioned to the roundabout in front of me. “Take a walk around Alegria, both you,” I said. “I don’t fear disobedient little pigs.”
The thien I was looking towards gave me a puzzled look, out of sight of the greywasters. But with a hard look back, he nodded slowly, and stepped towards the stone steps leading to the landscaped front of Alegria and the paved roundabout. He was followed by the second, and they left me alone with the ten greywasters.
All alone, except for the receptionist that I suspected was pissing himself.
But I had an idea, and also nothing to fear.
“Now are you going to answer my question? Or is the intelligence of greywasters even more pathetic than I’ve heard,” I asked coolly. “I asked you why you believe you have the right to come barrelling to the royal family’s skyscraper in the middle of the night. And why you think it wise to harass our law enforcement.” I looked behind them, both of the thiens kept looking over their shoulders at me, probably wondering to themselves just why they’d actually obeyed me. No doubt King Silas would skin them all alive if something happened to me on their watch.
“We want to speak to the king,” the man said angrily. He was in front of the other group, obviously the leader in all of this. I, quite frankly, didn’t know why most of them were there, they seemed absolutely terrified and I swear two of them looked to be Skyfallers, albeit Morosians or possibly now Nyxians, but Skyfallers no less. “We want to speak with him about you and your behaviour.”
I snorted, and held a hand up to my mouth as I laughed. “Really?” I said amused. “And you think charging up here is going to do that?”
The greywaster put his hands on his hips. Or at least I thought he was doing that. The embers of anger were fanned when the greywaster, with shaggy light brown hair and pale eyes, brushed a hand over the gun on his side. He was deliberately trying to intimidate me. What audacity to even fucking think he could do that.
“That’s what we were told.”
My eyes shot to a new one as he spoke; he was standing behind the angry greywaster. A shorter man with a receding hairline and bushy eyebrows. He looked fully intimidated when our eyes met; he didn’t want to be here.
“Told by who?”
The greywaster whirled around, his fists clenched. “Enough out of you, pal. I said let me handle this. It was my fucking brother that he electrocuted alive. My own fucking little brother this piece of shit mutant murdered!”
I’d had about enough of this. “Say one more disrespectful word in my presence and all of Skyfall will be seeing your head get pulled from your fucking body,” I snarled, the rage crawling up my throat like spiders. “Turn around when I’m fucking talking to you, and if you brush your hand over
that gun one more time–”
The greywaster turned around, his rage-filled eyes protruding from their sockets.
And I saw him reach for the gun.
My instincts kicked in, faster than I ever thought possible, and suddenly everything seemed to slow down, time stopping dead in its tracks before creeping along with unsure steps.
I closed the short distance between me and the greywaster, and while he was raising the gun, insanity as clear on his face as a brightly-coloured poisonous insect, I grabbed the barrel of the small 10mm. I wrenched it to the side, the greywasters behind us now gasping and swearing, and I clamped my free hand around his neck, and forced electricity into my touch.
But I didn’t electrocute him to death, I stunned him, like a cattle prod to his jugular, and let him fall to the ground, the gun now in my hand.
“Get him!” the greywaster snarled to the others. “You think you’re fucking better than me?” He coughed and gagged, his chest heaving. “Get him! There’s fucking ten of us, you dumb assholes. GET HIM!”
Suddenly a gunshot tore through the night air, and my arm was wrenched backwards as if someone had punched me in it. I looked down, shock temporarily wiping my thoughts clean, and saw a shredded hole in the cloth of my sleeve, and blood.
Everyone around me fell to silence, not a single soul moved or spoke, not even the greywaster I’d just electrocuted. I stared at the wound as it began to drip blood, then my eyes slowly travelled up to the group of greywasters.
The woman was staring at me, the gun pointed at my chest. There was a gobsmacked expression on her face that told me she was just as shocked as I was.
Then her bravery disappeared. Or whatever it was that inspired her to fire a bullet at a chimera prince. Because she dropped the gun, and before the weapon could clatter on the ground, she’d turned and ran towards the stairs.
Her steps were swiftly followed by the man I’d just electrocuted. The idiot scrambled to his feet and darted off into the night like prey that had just caught the scent of a predator.
I’m not sure where the anger was hidden during those several moments, but wherever it was, it came back to me with a vengeance, making my lips peel back in a snarl, and my hand clench the gun in my hand hard.
They were going to pay for this. These pathetic animals were going to regret the day their mothers whored themselves out.
“Grab them,” I snarled to the remaining eight greywasters, each one of them staring dumbly at me like remedial children during a math lesson. “Unless you fools want to face the Legion Gladiators in Stadium, you will bring both of them back to me and you will do it quickly.”
There was no hesitation, which surprised me, all eight, including the other woman, turned and sped off towards the stairs that would lead them to the roundabout, and eventually, the road. I followed them, daring any of the parasites to run from me, and sprinted down the stairs as the wolves fanned out and began pursuing the fleeing greywasters.
I couldn’t feel any pain in my arm, just a dull stinging, but the smell of blood was heavy in the air. It looked like it was just a graze, but I wasn’t sure, the only thing I cared about was that it wasn’t fatal – that was good enough for me.
Off in the distance, I saw the two fleeing shadows, only the cold glow of the LED streetlights illuminating their dark figures. They had separated at the road, twenty or so feet from the fountain centered in the middle of the roundabout. The man was going right, and the woman was going left.
I smirked as I watched them. They looked like a wolf pack that had separated deer from the herd, and now they were coming in all directions to bring the alpha male his dinner.
I walked down the steps, the rage that had been clutching my heart with both of its hands, now cooled, oddly tempered. I found that the anger was still there, but the outward reactions that all normal people got were gone. There was no blind fury making me launch into rash decisions that shouldn’t be made in such a state, no impulse to smash things or scream to let the world know my mental state. No, something entirely different was happening inside of me. Even though I was still feeling that furor, just as strong as in its natural form… I wasn’t just calmed, at peace even, I was in complete control of myself.
There was a shriek from the female, and as soon as my eyes found her, I saw her being swung by the arm by one of the eight greywasters and then thrown to the ground. I found the ‘brother’ by his colourful and rather energetic cursing, and was pleased to witness him being thrown to the ground by five of my obedient little greywasters. There was something just so… alluring, about having them obey me.
I seemed to have tasted the sweet ambrosia of power, and now my throat was parched for it.
I slowly walked down the steps, a wan smile on my face. I reached the bottom and sauntered along the roundabout, passing the fountain spouting off streams of water onto the smooth marble finish. I admired the flowers as I passed them, tulips of blue and red, the colours signifying the Legion and the Crown, and let the tantalizing ideas of just what I was going to do to these two, skate around in my head, my cold and calm attitude the perfect rink.
By the time I approached, both the man and the woman were on their knees, a fresh rash on the woman’s face that dripped blood. There was a man in front of each of them, standing close enough to the man and the woman to suggest that they didn’t trust them not to flee.
“You mutant fuck!” the greywaster on his knees snarled. His voice was a trill of desperation, but there was also a hint of acceptance. He knew he was going to die for this and he wanted to say his piece before the darkness took his consciousness. “We came here for a fresh start. You fucking piece of shit. You fucking piece of shit, his name was David Sigoah and he had two kids. You asshole, we came here to escape the damn violence of the greywastes!” The man grunted when one of the others kicked him in the back, and his eyes temporarily shut tight.
“What did you expect?” I said coldly. “Even dumb greywasters must know how incredibly stupid it is to barge onto the king’s property, his skyscraper, and start throwing their weight around demanding to talk to him.” I shook my head. “Your stupidity surprises me.” Then I looked at the woman. “And you–”
“We were lied to!”
I looked back to the man, his eyes now open and staring at the pavement in front of him. “You were lied to?”
“Prince Elish…” My attention turned to the balding one as he stepped forward. “I can… offer a little insight on this. I’m only here because… we were promised a reward for it. You… hear me out, please.”
I didn’t really want to hear him out, but curiosity had me. “Go on.”
The man stepped forward on unsure feet. “I was lingering outside of the pub when this man emerged from the back alley complaining about what you’d done with his brother. While he was ranting, a younger man came and claimed he saw the whole thing. He… he told us that he had insider information on… you.”
Me? Well, he had my interest at least. “Continue,” I said coldly.
“He said that King Silas was having difficulty with you.” My heart froze at this, but I didn’t let any of it show on my face. “Difficulty controlling you because of your violent, unpredictable attitude. He told us that Silas would reward us if we brought your… actions to light. That he was looking to catch you in the act. This other guy… he riled us all up, he touted you as being… an uncontrollable lunatic and… well, that we’d get something for it. That’s the only reason why I’m here. We wanted to see Silas and… rat you out, basically.”
I stared at him, and I knew I shouldn’t be missing a beat… but what he was saying confused the ever-loving fuck out of me.
My eyes scanned the eight greywasters. “Which one of you said this shit?” I said acidically.
“He was originally with us… but by the time you appeared he was gone,” the man explained. “I just… I just want to go home. I wasn’t looking for violence; I just need the money.”
“Indeed,” I
said lowly, my eyes narrowed. “And when you say this out loud… does it seem like something King Silas would say?”
The man shifted his weight. “No…”
“I don’t fucking care!” the greywaster on his knees screamed, beside him the woman had begun crying. “I don’t give a fucking shit if it was all a lie. You killed my god damn brother, and you’ll fucking pay for it. If not me, my sons, if not them, my damn family in Anvil will fucking murder you!” Tears sprung to his eyes as desperation grabbed him. “You fucking piece of shit, you evil, demonic piece of shit. You’re no better than your scum king. We live in hell in the greywastes because of that worthless abomination–” I wound back my foot and kicked him in the chest; this caused the man to keel over, his hands flying out in front of him to keep himself from face planting. “You idiots… there’s only one of him. There’s only one of him and you can take him right now! GET HIM!”
My eyes rose. I glared at every one of them as the greywaster’s words echoed through the crisp night air, mentally daring them to attack me. But there was no heroic, or rather moronic, moments for these arians. No spur of action fuelled by impulse, or some stupid need to avenge whatever personal problem they may have with the Crown, each of them deflected their gaze from my burning glare, and remained where they were.
The man’s head turned, and when he saw that no one was moving, I was amused to see hurt in his eyes. “Bill? Karen? Harry?” he said, his voice a whimper. “You… we came to Skyfall together. David… David worked for your mother for years. You were at my damn wedding, Bill!”
One of the greywasters, wearing a fisherman’s cap, pursed his lips, his eyes heavy. “Sorry, Terry. I… I have my own family I need to worry about. We… we told you things were different in Skyfall. We told you we had to obey them…”
“Fuck you!” the man, apparently named Terry, cried. “He’s one fucking kid. He’s just one fucking kid, you idiots! Kill him! We can run to Irontowers before they even find his fucking body. For fuck sakes, Bill. You’re going to let him kill me?”