The Suicide King Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 3)

by Quil Carter

  Elish walked to the front of Olympus and saw Garrett there, Artemis, and Ellis. They were standing in front of the door and Garrett was on a radio. Just as Elish stepped onto the concrete walkway, he saw a fireman run out with a sengil, half-conscious, in his arms.

  “Jade?” Elish asked. He tried to stand up as straight as he could, but he knew a lot of things were broken. “Where’s… Jade?”

  The look that the three of them gave Elish made a fresh injection of panic shoot into him. Without another word, he ran to the doors of Olympus and pushed them open.

  “Elish!” Garrett ran after him, his voice breaking. “Everything above floor fourteen has collapsed. The entire eight floors are smashed and melting together… Elish… Elish, tell me he’s not–” Elish turned and ran full speed towards the stairwell, a cry bubbling inside of his throat.

  This cannot be my reality. No. I refuse to believe this is my reality.

  Elish took in a sharp breath, his lungs filling with toxic smoke, and he began to climb up the flights of stairs. He passed crying sengils and their partners; some holding cats and dogs, others rabbits, and two people even birds. They looked at Elish but not one of them spoke to him, only their eyes stared back wide and unblinking; they seemed to glow in the ever thickening smoke.

  By the twelfth floor Elish had his nightshirt over his mouth, attempting to breathe through it. It was hard to get breath in this smoke and heat, and his head was pounding from the chemicals. A thick smoke and a burning heat was enveloping him like he had been submerged into lava, and as soon as he turned to the last row of stairs leading to the thirteen floor landing, it became a toxic black wall.

  Then Elish’s foot hit something. He looked down and saw a body beside his boot. Elish’s heart lurched; he bent down and turned the corpse onto his back.

  For a moment Elish’s eyes closed tight and his fists clenched. He put a hand on Lyle’s dusty shoulder but all he could do for his loyal former sengil was pat it gently. Then he rose and continued to the shrouded stairs. Four steps up he saw the body of Nels, and a slick of blood; that blood stuck to Elish’s boots as he climbed the stairs higher and higher, and soon he was crunching gravel.

  Elish choked and coughed, his eyes watering and burning from the toxic smoke. But he kept walking; he kept putting one foot in front of the other, as he climbed to where his husband was.

  “Jade?” Elish’s words were lost in the smoke and he realized he was sweating heavily. Each breath was like inhaling chemicals through a blanket and it was doing nothing to appease his screaming lungs.

  When he reached the thirteen floor landing, he collapsed onto the ground. Elish choked and felt the darkness press against his skull like he was stuck inside of a twisting vice. He gathered up as much strength as he could and pushed through it, and took another step.

  Then his head hit something. Elish put his hands in front of him and felt concrete and a twist of rebar. Elish shook his head, the panic now claiming him, and let out a cry. He raised his hand and hit the concrete, then felt around him for any opening in the stairwell. But there was nothing, the rest of the floors had collapsed like Garrett had said.

  There was no way to get Jade.

  “Jade!” Elish screamed. He clawed and ripped at the concrete, pulling on the rebar until its rough metal shredded his palms. A desperate bellow sounded from his lungs and he found his sanity slipping away. “JADE!” Elish pounded and pounded, his fists leaving smudges of blood like an ancient cave painting. He didn’t know how long he was screaming Jade’s name for, but eventually he felt hands pull him away.

  “Leave me!” Elish screamed.

  “I got him,” Ares choked, his voice wobbling. Elish heard a sniff and a hand clench his shoulder.

  “You… you…” Elish turned around and faced Ares, behind him was a similar shadow which would be Siris. “Move the… the concrete. Move the concrete we need to get Jade. We need to get Jade.” Elish grabbed Ares, a desperation etched into his face, and turned back to the concrete filling the stairwell.

  “I’m sorry, bro,” Ares sniffed. “We need to leave. It’s all on fire. It’s all gone…”

  “The fire truck,” Elish said hastily, his eyes widened at the thought. “The ladder extends to the top of Alegria, it can extend to Jade…” He turned and started running down the stairs, the speed he was going and the injuries he sustained from the fall making him stumble and trip, but every time he fell down he jumped to his feet and kept running. There was no pain inside of him, he felt nothing, every receptor in his brain was focused on reaching Jade.

  He was on the top floor… if the roof didn’t collapse on him, he’d be okay. He’d be okay. I can reach him.

  I have to reach him.

  Elish kept running down flight after flight. Once he got to the bottom he had lights flashing in front of his eyes, and a consuming heat kept descending in the form of conscious-bending darkness. He ended up staggering outside of Olympus’s entrance, and before he could fall to the ground, he grabbed onto the railing by the stairs.

  Garrett and Ellis ran to him and helped him stand. Elish looked past the two and saw Reno with his face blank and stunned, and behind him, Knight was holding back a screaming Big Shot. There were other family members too, all of them standing still like sculptures in a garden.

  “Jade?” Elish said, his voice now strained and sore from both the yelling and the smoke. He began to stumble down the stairs. “You need to get a fire truck’s ladder up there… it’ll reach. It’ll…”

  “Elish…” Garrett’s voice was choked, throttled from his emotions. He watched as Elish staggered to the bottom of Olympus’s stairs and onto the grass. “He’s gone.”

  “No…” Elish shook his head. The bottom of his boots now melted and sticking to the grass. “He’s immune to radiation. He–” Garrett gave out an anguished cry. He grabbed Elish by the shoulders and spun him around so he could see the skyscraper he’d just ran out of.

  The entire top of it was consumed in flames, the flames so bright it had burned the sky above them a burnt orange. There was no telling where his apartment floor was now, or the one below it, or anything above the thirteenth floor. There was nothing left; it was incinerated.

  Everything was destroyed.

  Everything…?

  “Jade?” Elish whimpered. He took a step towards the skyscraper, his eyes still fixed on the rippling white flames. “Maritus?” He heard Garrett let out a muffled cry of despair, but he ignored it.

  There would be no surviving this.

  This is it.

  Jade is dead.

  I was… I was too late.

  “The… truck’s ladder,” Elish stammered. He turned around and took a step towards the flashing red and white lights of the fire truck, but sunk to his knees. With his head shaking back and forth he tried to stand, only to collapse again. “The truck ladder can… it can reach him. It can reach him.”

  “Eli…” Garrett choked and took in a shuddering breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not too late; it’s not too late.” Elish rose again and took another step. His head was still shaking back and forth like his brain had taken this new information and had directly denied it. “It’s not too late… it’s not too late.”

  Elish paused, unable to take another step. He stared at the ground and saw a red glowing ember fall onto the green grass and smoulder, then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s…” Elish choked on his next words. He outstretched a hand and leaned against an oak tree in front of him. “It’s too late.” He closed his eyes tight. “It’s too late.”

  Jade is dead.

  My husband is dead.

  I had held his fragile weakening spirit in my hand and I had let him slip between my fingers. I had taken so many risks with him… I had rolled the dice for him countless times and now… and now… snake eyes.

  Because of my own stubbornness, because of my own need for perfection. Because of my unwillingness to give up yet ano
ther dream as every one of my gardens was razed in front of me. My seeds burnt to ashes, my plans, decades in the making, destroyed.

  My brothers turning their backs to me, one after the other.

  And because I wanted this wish for Jade and this one last wish for me. If I could at least have this, then perhaps I could settle for a life under Silas, if Jade was by my side…

  If he was…

  Elish slid his hand down the rough bark of the oak, and sensed Garrett behind him. His eyes shut as he heard the hurried and panicked voices amplify; one he recognized as Silas but he was far away.

  With his eyes shut, Elish took in this chaos; he took and drew in every sound, every inhale of toxic, chemically smoke, and every stinging burn on his skin. This would be a moment he knew he’d relive forever, and he might as well give his nightmares the vivid memories they deserved.

  He never wanted to forget this time in this life, for this was the last night that Jade Shadow Dekker lived.

  “You wanted to know why I didn’t make him immortal?” Elish suddenly spoke, his voice an odd tone. “You wanted to know… why I took the risk with someone I loved so much?”

  There was silence, before Garrett sucked in a shaking breath. “Yes.”

  Elish looked down at his bloodied hands, raw and bleeding from pulling on the rebar. “I… I didn’t want to keep him as a cicaro,” he said, and his hand slowly closed into a fist. “Because whenever I looked at him, I saw this teenager. I saw a cicaro who acted as a cicaro, and would until he grew out of it.” Elish shook his head and turned to Garrett, his purple eyes overwhelmed with sadness; they looked lost. “I didn’t want him as a cicaro forever, Garrett. I… I wanted him to grow to be my husband. My partner.”

  Elish walked past Garrett, and looked up when he saw Reno staring at him. The young man had no expression of smugness on his face; he looked to be in a state of shock and despair as the white flames burned above him.

  “YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE EVERYTHING!”

  “You’re going to fucking lose everything and all you’ll have to blame is yourself. You disgusting fucking monster! Just stop! JUST STOP THIS!”

  My husband, my Jade, is dead.

  “WAS IT WORTH IT?”

  Reaver burns. Killian is dead.

  “WAS IT WORTH IT?”

  Lycos dead. Lyle dead.

  So many different shades of red drip from my hands. I am coated in their blood, and their faces will now haunt my dreams. I will hear their desperate cries and demands for an explanation. Why did I let them die? Where did I go wrong?

  Or was I ever right in the first place?

  Elish paused and stared at the ember-covered ground. It was strange to feel so numb, and yet, holes were being ripped into every single wall he’d ever erected inside of his mind. What places that had once felt emotions had become dormant, but on the same hand, feelings he’d never experienced, doubts that had been buried like toxic waste, had been dug up to contaminate everything that it came in contact with. All at once, it came crashing down on him, with the only spectator to Elish’s revelation, his own self.

  “It wasn’t worth it.”

  Reno turned as Elish said this. And when he looked at Elish, Elish looked back and shook his head.

  “It wasn’t worth it.”

  Elish walked past Reno and onto the sidewalk. He staggered past shadows of people whose faces no longer mattered, and carried on far away from the flames that devoured what had once been his home.

  “Elish…” Garrett cried. His footsteps became louder as he ran to him. “Where are you going…? Elish, please come home with me. I’m scared for you.”

  Elish kept walking, one foot in front of the other, his hands and face bleeding onto the grey, chalky sidewalk. There was so much light around him, and yet the world had never seemed darker. A light had gone out inside of him, one he hadn’t realized had been illuminating everything.

  “I’m going for a walk,” Elish said. He paused and heard Garrett sniff.

  Slowly Elish turned around and saw Garrett and Reno staring back at him. Both of their eyes were red and puffy, and their faces flushed from their grief.

  “Where… when, when will you be back?” Garrett asked, his voice cracking.

  Elish’s eyes turned up to the pyre burning above them, now a tower suited for the King of Hell himself. A testament, a beacon that defied the very darkness that surrounded it; one that charred away the stars in the sky to replace them with crimson embers, and heat so hot it seemed to distort reality around it.

  “I don’t think I will be coming back, Garrett,” Elish said simply, his eyes reflecting the crystal inferno. “I think… I think I must take my leave.”

  Then, with a single nod towards the two of them, he carried on his way.

  And soon disappeared into the darkness.

  Chapter 17

  Killian

  Sometimes I wish I was an empath. Or maybe I wish I could just take a hammer to his head and spill his brains onto the floor so I can see everything that he’s thinking. I wanted to know what thoughts went through his head when he was staring out the window. I wanted to know what wounds he’d grazed over when I saw that tug below his bottom lip. If it was a penny per thought for Reaver Merrik I would’ve made him a millionaire long ago.

  But he was closed up tighter than Fort Knox. I rarely got a chance to peek in, and whenever I did, it was only what he allowed me to see. As our relationship continued to cling to time’s coattails I had been seeing more and more.

  And even though those fleeting glances into his subconscious were a double-edged sword, the older I got and the more I got to know him… the more I found myself rising to the challenge to calm the Reaper. I wanted to help him, love him, and perhaps one day… have him lean on me when he couldn’t stand on his own.

  Even if I knew he’d never let me.

  I put my book down. I was just too distracted to read. I looked over at Reaver who was reading a comic book at the table, and wondered if he too was having trouble registering the words that were appearing on the page… or, I guess, the drawings.

  My theory was confirmed when Reaver let out a sigh. He eyed the drugs he’d laid out on the table and set the comic down in favour of topping himself up. That didn’t sound like a bad idea so I did the same.

  This time when a scream rang out from outside, we didn’t even look up. There was no mystery behind it now, we knew what the Blood Crows were doing with their slaves. It didn’t make me happy, I still felt a queasy gurgle in my stomach, but what could I do?

  “And in goes the tube,” Reaver mumbled after taking in two lines. “And then the fertilizer…” He paused and craned his head, then smirked triumphantly when the second scream, this one noticeably muffled, sounded. “Yummy. Yummy.” He reached over and grabbed one of the cherries we had in a bowl and popped it into his mouth. “The suffering gives it so much more flavour.”

  Occasionally I wondered if I was making Reaver more complex than he really was.

  There was a knock at the door. I looked at Reaver’s wrist watch and saw that it was six in the evening. “I didn’t think we were going to get fed today considering the festival,” I mumbled. “Well, we’ll eat sparingly.”

  And eating sparingly wasn’t something that we were used to doing. Since coming here several days ago they had been stuffing us with fruits and vegetables. Zach or Charles had been bringing us food three times a day, and while we ate he told us about Lord Sanguine and all he has to offer us. It was obvious that we were being recruited, but while they tried to get us to adopt their insane religion… we were getting treated pretty well.

  Which was good considering I hadn’t stepped foot outside since we had gotten here. Reaver had, but only because he was driving me, and himself, crazy being cooped up all day. Reaver had been going for long walks around the outskirts of Melchai and where the Blood Crows had said it was okay for him to go. Though because Reaver was Reaver, I suspected he was poking his nose into places that it d
idn’t belong, but he was smart enough not to tell me when he did.

  We’d been learning a lot about these Blood Crows, and what Reaver hadn’t discovered, Zach and Charles had been more than happy to tell us. Even the most grisly of rituals, the most fucked up, disgusting tradition – they told it to us like they were telling their favourite story. I was taken aback with just how desensitized they were to human suffering. It was like once they had their prophet and their ‘god’ telling them it was okay, it gave them the moral freedom to do even the most depraved of things to their fellow man.

  Reaver got up and opened the door. I saw his eyebrows raise and he blinked. “Well, hello,” he said slowly. He looked over at me. “We have… lots of company.”

  I got up and opened the door all the way.

  In front of the mini house were about a dozen of them. Every one of them with their hoods drawn over their heads and their hands clasped to their fronts. They were looking at the ground except for the one at the front – the one I recognized as the ancient old man who had done the ritual.

  The leader…

  “Blessed Chance and blessed Jeff,” the old man said with a smile. He bowed his head and while it was bowed all of the others echoed their blessings. “I would like to come in and speak with you, if you will allow me.”

  If we would allow him? I exchanged puzzled looks with Reaver and I saw Reaver’s eyes flicker towards the dining room table, where his M16 was, but I put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Of course you can,” I said. Reaver would waste the old man if he became threatening, and it was the day of the festival so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they would be acting different.

  The crows bobbed up and down and exchanged pleased smiles. My hackles rose at this, they looked a little too happy right now, but… it looked like we were going to go with it.