by Quil Carter
Zach and the other two appeared with two more slaves. Zach left the slaves, these ones with grey skin and bulging stomachs, with the two and faced the crowd.
“Our next re-telling is of the blessed day that our prophet and our angel blessed us,” Zach called out. “However we were ignorant; we didn’t see it as a blessing at first.” He then turned around and smiled at the slaves.
Both of the slaves looked to be in a daze. They were dressed in rags and hunched over, looking at all of us with hopeless looks. My heart hurt for them.
“Twenty years ago,” Zach began. “A mysterious man started living in the mansion with a ten-year-old boy. I personally remember the day he came. I was only eight at the time but it has imprinted itself on my memories.” Blood Crows grabbed the two slaves. They both gave out animal-like cries and struggled, but they were too weak. “At first our leaders were outraged that someone would show such a lack of respect for our saviour, and the man who had cleared away our radiation. We all grabbed torches–”
It always has to be torches, what’s with mobs and torches? I shook my head and watched five Blood Crows surround the slaves with torches in hand, the fire illuminating their scared faces.
“–and walked up the winding hill and path to the mansion, ready to grab them and sacrifice them to our lord. Then the man and the boy came out and told us he was a prophet for Lord Sanguine.” Zach’s face became dark, and I saw all of the Blood Crows and the breeders lower their heads in shame. “We didn’t listen…”
Zach nodded to the Blood Crows with the slaves. I got another queasy feeling in my gut, and it only amplified when they picked up the screaming slaves and began bringing them up to the crucifix.
But they were fighting. The two bigger masked men got up and helped… and though I saw a flicker of worry in Reaver’s eyes when they did, it went away quickly… and he fucking began to help.
He knew he was going to get another chance with the flamethrower.
I hated my chimera boyfriend sometimes.
The slaves screamed as they drove nails into their hands, five of them in each palm and wrist, when they were secure, Zach nodded his approval and turned back to the crowd.
Reaver looked quite excited as he held the flamethrower’s nozzle.
“We didn’t listen, and we’re sorry,” Zach said, and he bowed to Man on the Hill, Angel Adi, and the two others. “And because we saw it fitting, we nailed them to boards like what had been done to Lord Sanguine, and we burned the man and the boy… alive.”
Wait…
He burned them alive?
But…
I looked at Reaver and saw a brief moment of shock before he hid it.
And, sure enough, Zach smiled and said. “And just like with Lord Sanguine, the man and the boy both woke up; they came back from the dead.”
The… fucking boy did too?
The fucking boy is immortal?
A born immortal?
My pulse started to race. What did that mean? Who was he?
I heard the flamethrower’s now familiar roar, followed by screaming, but I couldn’t concentrate. I just stared at my shoes, my mind racing.
And then I heard laughing, from not just Reaver, but the masked one who had been helping him.
Anger quickly followed, again.
I loved Reaver. Fuck knows I love Reaver.
But in this moment I wanted to gut him like a scaver.
“Wow, you fucking charred him good!” the masked one said happily. I looked up, my teeth now clenched hard, and saw a satisfied smile on Reaver’s face. He was standing beside the charred crucifix, the two bodies now slumped forward, their skin blackened, but with the occasional fissure of red from where the skin had split. There was liquid dripping off of them too, enough to create a small pool underneath them. That was their own fat, what little they had, mixed in with their blood.
I shook my head, the smell of burned meat and fuel was heavy in the air, and resisted the urge to run at him with a knife.
Reaver took off the flamethrower and handed it to the masked man. The man seemed happy at this, and he showed it by pressing the nozzle a few times to burn the crucified corpses some more. There wasn’t much left of them to burn though, but two grown men had flamethrowers so that wasn’t important.
“Bless Sanguine!” I heard the crowd start to murmur in tandem, a twisted chant that was said in a steady rhythm. Its pace reminded me of a slowed heartbeat. “Bless Sanguine. Bless Sanguine.”
Reaver walked back towards me, smoke coming off of his clothes. He looked happy but when he saw the expression on my face, the smile faded.
He stood beside me without saying a thing, but when I felt his hand grab my shoulder I yanked it away. And when he grabbed me a second time, this one rougher, I whirled around and pushed him as hard as I could.
Reaver took a single step back and I saw a face so cold even the flames behind me would’ve frozen to ice.
I turned back to the center of the crowd, completely ignoring Reaver, and my attention turned to the man still holding the flamethrower.
Two Blood Crows came and relieved him of the weapon, and once he was free, he clapped his hands together a few times and shook his head.
Then he pulled his mask up and over a frock of red hair. At first my heart froze, anticipating recognizing him, but I quickly realized I didn’t.
The man wiped his forehead, two dark green eyes flashing with an impish glee. He turned around with his smile and looked towards the three who were still sitting.
“See, I told you I’d make a good Sanguine, Nuuky,” he laughed.
No, there was something I recognized… but it wasn’t his face, or the name he’d called one of the other ones. I recognized his physique, I recognized parts of his facial features…
That was a brute chimera.
I thought my reaction was going to be fear, but I surprised myself when anger bubbled up inside of me again – anger towards the dumbshit who made himself stand out. Whose desire to use a flamethrower on three unfortunate slaves outweighed our safety.
And not only that… it was obvious that one was a brute chimera, and that one was immortal, and another was a fucking born immortal!
“You fucking idiot,” I said through clenched teeth. I watched the green-eyed man, his face shining with laughter, try to beckon another one up to join him. To his left, the Blood Crows were bringing in slaves, not the fertilizer slaves but the ones that looked cleaned up and primped.
“Excuse me?” Reaver said, his voice low and dangerous. “What the fuck did you just call me?”
The bubbling rage rose from my stomach and began pooling in the back of my skull, boiling my brains and filling my head with pressure.
There had once been a time in my life when I trusted Reaver completely, and trusted that he would never put us in harm’s way. But it looked like that time had passed.
“Tu sturdus?” I turned to him and snapped. “What the fuck–”
Reaver suddenly grabbed my jacket. I gave a yelp, and when he whirled me around, he pushed his face right into mine. “I told you not to fucking use those fucking words on me,” he snapped. “Now shut the fuck up. You’re drawing attention to us. Fucking idiot.”
“What!” I suddenly screamed. “You just went and fucking introduced yourself to them and now I’m the one that’s drawing att-” In a flash Reaver had his hand over my mouth, his other arm wrapping around me as I started to struggle.
I saw red. I fucking saw red. I was so infuriated with him I did the only thing I could think of.
I fucking bit him.
Reaver swore, loudly. He ripped his hand away, copper filling my mouth from the force of my bite, and then he smacked me in the back of the head.
So I turned around and slapped him right across the face.
Reaver’s head snapped back. I froze, surprised at my own response. I thought he was going to start beating on me and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. We were both two sticks of dynamite with
a fuse on one end and a lighter on the other. The two of us in this moment were dangerous catalysts and it wasn’t a question of if this would get explosive it was when.
“We’re leaving,” Reaver said. “Smarten the fuck–” I walked to him and shoved him hard.
As always, he didn’t move an inch, but he did grab my wrists with both of his hands and roughly pushed me backwards. I fell onto the ground, right beside two of the Blood Crows.
I got up and turned my back to him, fully prepared to ignore him and watch what was going on. But when I looked back to the torch-lit area, I realized everything had gone silent, and even worse… Zach and the brute were staring right at us. The red-haired one looking quite entertained with what was going on.
“You seem to not care that your shouting is disrupting this holiest time of year.” Zach’s voice was a shard of ice with a sharpened end. The calm and collected Blood Crow nowhere to be found. “Is there an issue, blessed Jeff?” He was standing beside the brute, and to his left were five male slaves, the cleaned ones, huddled together blind-folded and bound.
“Aw, lover’s quarrel,” the red-haired one laughed. I froze when he looked directly at us. I kept expecting him to yell our names or something, but he didn’t seem fazed. “What’s the fight about?” Then he looked towards the other three. My throat felt dry when I realized they were all standing.
Reaver was radiating anger. He pushed past me to the front of the group. “Little guy just wanted to use the flamethrower. You know how kids are.”
I could hear my teeth grinding together.
The red-haired brute laughed again and started walking towards us. I started swearing inside of my head. I couldn’t believe this was the situation Reaver had put us in.
The brute smiled a sunny smile at the two of us, then his eyes focused on Reaver. “What’s your name, peaches?” he purred.
To my shock, Reaver’s face paled and he went stiff. I couldn’t understand why, obviously he didn’t recognize him, or we would’ve been out of there.
“Chance,” Reaver said. He was standing rigid, a complete change in the countenance he’d had previously.
The brute winked at him. “My name’s Ceph.” He reached out his hand and pinched one of the black buttons on Reaver’s robes. Reaver licked his lips and pursed them. He was stressed, I knew that look and I knew those movements. “You wanna have some fun with us tonight, puppy?”
Reaver choked. No, it was like a dry heave. And he shook his head. “Ah, I’m with him. I’m… I’m good.”
Ceph smiled and glanced behind him. “Hey, Prophet, check out these two. I kinda like this dangerous-looking one.” He made a clicking noise with his tongue, and I saw he was still holding the button of Reaver’s robe.
Behind Ceph the one I knew now was Man on the Hill approached, and as he did, he took off his mask.
I felt was a flood of relief, I didn’t recognize him either and I knew just from his features that he wasn’t a chimera. He looked to be at least as old as Elish, with short dark brown hair combed to the side, short stubble, and a clean, almost primped, appearance.
His charcoal grey eyes looked Reaver up and down, a thin, almost invisible smile, on his face. There was definitely something about him that reminded me of the Dekker family, however; he had an air of narcissistic smugness.
And when those dark grey eyes fell on me and we made eye contact, that observation was all but confirmed. He was looking at me with pink lips that rose in a smirk and dripped self-assurance. Like he was a sophisticated aristocrat walking amongst the homeless on skid row giving them nothing but polite yet patronizing smiles, before he hopped back into his limousine.
I think I was looking at Mantis. That’s the only one it could be.
So who were the other two? And who was the born immortal?
“Yes, good choice, Ceph,” Mantis said as he picked me apart with his eyes. “This one especially… are you a virgin, boy?”
His comment completely took me off-guard, and I found myself stammering. “No… I’m… with him.” I looked at Reaver who still seemed frozen under Ceph’s touch. I realized grimly that Reaver hadn’t moved since Ceph asked him his name. I didn’t get why.
“Too bad,” Mantis said with a cluck. He took my collar into his hand and started pulling me into the middle of the crowd. I looked behind me and saw Ceph leading Reaver into the center as well. “One of my angels enjoys taking virgins. You could’ve had your consciousness for a little longer.” He turned and nodded towards the two other figures, both wearing their masks.
“Nero, come hold him still and make sure they stay put. I wish to look at our other offerings.”
Chapter 18
Reaver
Nero?
Nero was here?
How could he be here? In what realm of existence could Nero be here?
This didn’t make any sense, and the longer I stared at the mountainous figure the more I was sure I’d suffered some sort of stroke. It couldn’t be possible for many reasons, and it wasn’t just because of the laughably horrendous odds, it was because Silas had told me he was encased in concrete. Silas had told me he wouldn’t see the light of day until I told him Nero could.
But Nero was here, and he was reaching up and pulling the mask off of his face.
I looked at him, refusing to deflect my gaze. I was fully expecting him to ask for Killian personally. He might’ve mistaken Chally for Killian but he would know who he was now, and it would be Nero’s personality for him to take Killian right from under my nose, or fuck him in front of me while these cultist assholes held me back.
What the fuck had I done? What was wrong with me?
I was making so many mistakes tonight, and I didn’t even know why. I couldn’t fucking control myself anymore around carnage and death. My need to see those slaves burn alive had trumped everything else.
And Killian knew it, and I’d almost hit him for it.
I was a fucking idiot and I was losing myself – I was fucking losing myself and now Nero was here. Not to mention the two fucking immortals that had made themselves known through Zach’s story.
But to my absolute perplexity, when I made eye contact with Nero, he only stared back with a bored and rather disinterested look. He walked towards us, Killian whimpering beside me, and there wasn’t a hint of recognition on his face.
He wasn’t even fucking acknowledging us.
This was weird.
And it was only going to get weirder. When Nero stopped in front of me and looked down… I saw that he now had two different coloured eyes. The left one was still a mixture of purple and blue, but the right one was… black. Behind those eyes I didn’t see Nero either. I didn’t see the sadistic brightness I’d been forced to observe for an entire month; that cocksure smile that you could see as clear as day. Those mismatched eyes held a window to a different person, and that person standing in front of me was not Nero Dekker.
This person didn’t recognize me.
But no… no, I fucking didn’t care. We had to get out of here, and we had to get out of here right now.
My fucking gun was still stashed in the building behind us. I didn’t have anything useful on me…
It didn’t matter. We were done here.
Now.
And when Nero grabbed me and wrapped his arms around my torso, my brain kicked back into chimera mode, and like a switch had gotten flicked on, all of a sudden I felt myself come back.
Where the fuck had I been?
My eyes snapped open and I pressed my teeth together hard. I gathered up all of my strength and I raised my legs up off of the ground, making Nero have to bend himself backwards to keep himself from falling over.
Then, using the momentum gathered from my raised legs, I slammed my boots onto the dirt, braced my legs, and lifted Nero up off of the ground.
With a bellowed yell, my muscles screaming and burning from the weight of the brute chimera, I tilted Nero forwards. When he was on my back and I could see his head
over my shoulder, I thrusted my back upwards to flip his body over mine.
Nero landed hard. I reached into my cargo pants pocket and took out my pistol. I shot Nero in the head while I jumped over him, and as the Blood Crows cried out in shock, I grabbed Killian.
We made it two steps before something snatched me. I felt myself get lifted into the air and I heard Killian scream. I was tossed like a ragdoll and landed right on one of the torches. I saw embers spill onto the pavement like a dropped jar of glowing red beads and felt a searing pain in my side.
Killian let out a holler of rage. I turned around to see him with something metal in his hand. He was stabbing Ceph in the neck with a pocket knife; the blade sliding in and out of the brute’s neck and chest like he was stabbing soft butter.
I ran to him, ignoring the screams of the Blood Crows behind us, but I was too slow. Ceph raised a fist and crushed it against the side of Killian’s head, throwing him backwards into one of the crucifixes; blood erupting from his nose and spraying onto the pavement.
I ran past the brute but he grabbed me by the arm. He yanked my arm backwards with so much raw force it felt like he was ripping my muscles in half with his hands. I bit through it and tried to free myself, only to have a direct punch land in the back of my head, one that was so hard I temporarily saw black.
“Burn them both,” I heard Man on the Hill’s faint voice. My eyes went back into focus and I saw Killian. He was leaning up against the crucifix, blood pouring from his ear which was hanging lower than it should. The part that connected it to his head had been partially severed.
“You don’t want them for the proxies?” a male voice, an unfamiliar one, asked back. The last cloaked chimera, Angel Adi.
“They’re too injured; they’ll be of no use to me now; and no flamethrower, I want them to suffer.”
I slowly rose to my feet, taking in deep breaths to try and force energy back into me. My mind was too shot to even react when I felt stinging coldness get splashed onto my body, or smelled the intense aroma of gasoline. The only renewed sense I got was that of pain when the fuel soaked into the injuries on my body, especially the raw burn from the torch I’d landed on.