Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (83 page)

“Say what you will about meth – but in the end the Legion
was
after me,” Jasper said in a raspy voice. “Though I never realized just what for.” As Silas stared back at him the side of his mouth rose in a smirk. “Never in a million years would I have thought…”

“That you kidnapped one of my princes?” Silas said back.

“Princes…” Jasper seemed amused by the word. “The only man who would have a harder time believing that the boy was a prince would be the boy himself.” He tapped a single finger against the table and shook his head. “So much hypocrisy these days.”

King Silas’s eyes narrowed, refusing to acknowledge the surprise at how different this was going than expected. He hadn’t seen Jasper since the night they had rescued Sanguine from the basement. He had expected the same screaming madman, covered in lice and fleas.

“Hypocrisy?” Silas answered back coolly.

“I know why you’re here,” Jasper said back. “You’re here to arrange my death most likely, for what I did to a
chimera
, as he’s called. I have no idea why you’ve kept me alive for this long to be honest. When I went to the Skyfall harbour in my younger years I heard nothing but the stringent laws in Skyfall. And here I am still alive after everything I did to your…
prince
.”

“I’m not here to arrange your death,” Silas answered back in the same dead voice he had acquired since the night Sanguine had tried to come home. “It is not my place to kill you, it’s Sanguine’s and he’s not ready yet.”

“Sanguine…” Like when his mouth seemed to play with the word
prince
Jasper also seemed amused by this. “He called himself that as he got older, and the friends he spoke to called him that too.” Jasper then smiled, his finger still tapping against the table. “I miss him some days. He was – entertaining. He gave good reactions, and when you’re all alone, with every day the same as the next, you just love the reactions you can get out of people.”

“I know the type,” Silas said. “How long until he started developing those imaginary friends?”

Silas watched Jasper as he said those words, focusing his hearing and every other enhanced sense he had to try and determine if he was going to get any of the information he wanted out of Jasper. The man who had kept Sanguine prisoner had little to lose now, and he was either going to talk to Silas and answer his questions or flip him off and ask to be returned to his cell.

Though from what Silas had already been able to gather Jasper seemed open to talking to him, and he seemed to want to speak more. Most likely it wasn’t often that he had someone to talk to, and if he had been found with three other people it meant he had been lonely.

This was something Silas could play with, until he got the information he needed.

“He had them when I met him,” Jasper responded. “He was a really fucked up kid, naïve as all fuck in the beginning…” Then to Silas’s anger Jasper laughed dryly. “Though the older he got… oh fuck did he ever turn into a demon. I would have let him go once he started sprouting hair but I knew the moment I unclipped that collar those fucked up teeth would be around my neck. Plus I knew he would take my little boys, and I still had use for them.”

Silas’s insides turned to ice, but he didn’t show it on his face. He kept staring forward, a red haze threatening to creep into his eyes – he pushed it down with every ounce of control he had.

“Sprouting hair?” Silas’s tone dropped, he felt the air start to get sucked out of his lungs, the room around him seemed to be getting smaller and smaller.

Jasper looked at him again, the same derisive smirk on his face. “Yeah, at thirteen he start getting those soft little pubes, then his cock and balls started to grow. That sweet squealing little voice deepened and all of a sudden – I was fucking a man.”

The words hit Silas like a plane had crashed into the building, and this time he wasn’t able to hide it on his face. He stared, in a state of frozen shock, at Jasper, and when the man saw the dumbstruck expression he chuckled.

“Too graphic for the king who ended the entire world?” Jasper said amused. “You personally actually follow the Rule of Fifteen? You’re missing out if you haven’t had a screaming eight year-old-pinned underneath you, I suggest you try it.”

“Eight?” Silas uttered under his breath, then said to himself. “He was… telling the truth?”

Jasper snorted, his fingers tapping still against the table. “Telling the truth? What sort of bullshit is that? The guards beat me for it regularly.” Jasper held up his hands and wiggled the one finger and thumb he still had on each. “Nero’s been instructing them to take a digit each month from my fingers or toes. I lost my teeth trying to tell him about the night I took your damn prince’s virginity.” Then, as Silas still sat stunned, Jasper got up and pulled the dirty pair of sweatpants he was dressed in, over his groin.

There was nothing there but a badly healed purple scar surrounded by patches of oily black public hair. Everything else seemed to have been violently hacked away
“And I got this when I told him how I fucked Juni and Levi in front of him.” Jasper’s voice dropped. Then he pushed the table towards Silas in anger, a loud scraping sound echoed off of the walls. “And still you hypocritical fucks won’t kill me.”

Silas didn’t move; he still seemed stunned and welded into place. Jasper let out an angry bellow and slammed his palms down on the table. “What the fuck is it going to take? I raped your little prince when he was eight years old; he didn’t even know what was happening to him or what sex was. He cried for Nero every night until he lost hope and started acting like a lunatic instead. Don’t tell me he hasn’t said this to you?” Jasper snapped. “Or is he even still alive? Because if you’re not here to kill me then why are you here? To tell me he’s dead? Or maybe you’re here to ask me to take him back since he’s a fucked up, schizophrenic, worthless nut job.”

Jasper pushed the table again, this time hitting Silas as he sat quietly. He seemed frustrated with the state the king was in; even though Jasper didn’t know the king, he seemed to know something extremely unusual was going on with the king of the grey world.

Jasper let out an angry bellow; he raised the table and dropped it. “He would go into the same state. Dead to the world staring at the walls for days. Did a big bad man fuck you too?”

“Answer me, king!” Jasper yelled. “I’m taunting you, King Silas. I’m disrespecting you. What the fuck is it going to take for one of you, big scary chimeras to finally kill me? KILL ME!” Another slam from Jasper’s hand.

“You know what,
My Liege
.” Jasper’s tone dropped. “You should be thanking me. Because that naïve, idiot boy wouldn’t have lasted to twenty if I hadn’t kept him in that basement. He was so cripplingly lonely he would’ve gone with anyone who smiled at him. I kept him alive for you, King Silas. I did your fucking dirty work for you and all I wanted in return was somewhere to keep my cock warm. You and this bullshit family couldn’t have cared where that little fuck-up ended up if you thought leaving a kid who looked like a monster out in the greywastes was a good idea. You bunch of spoiled, pampered little rich fucks. You have no idea how bad it is out there do you?”

Jasper pushed the table again. “ANSWER ME!” he screamed.

The door opened behind him. “Get back!” Elish’s voice suddenly barked.

Jasper gave Elish a heated glare, before lifting up the table and throwing it off balance. It crashed onto its side as Elish pulled Silas out of the room.

“Silence him,” Elish said to the two legionary who were standing in the hallway. They both nodded, and with Jasper screaming in the room behind him Elish took Silas and started walking with him down the hallway.

Though they didn’t head out the door like one would expect. Elish took Silas through two metal doors and down another hall. He then pulled him into an empty room with a single bed in the corner and closed the door.

Elish locked the door; he turned around just in time to see Silas drop to his knees, a look of utter agony on his face. Elish rushed over to him and reached out a caring hand, but like he was father time as soon as his fingers touched Silas’s cheek the king seemed to age fifty years, then his face crumpled. With a gut-wrenching sob King Silas broke down in front of his oldest chimera, his most trusted advisor and counsel, and openly wept.

Without hesitation Elish took Silas into his arms and held him tight. He drew his cloak over the king and started to quietly soothe him.

As Silas sobbed into him Elish’s eyes glanced around the empty room. He knew cameras were not welcome in this area of the Cortes base but he had to be sure. King Silas rarely broke down but when he did he shattered, and with the rebels active and some of the second generation rebellious and losing respect for Silas’s vulnerable mood, if anyone saw the king in this state the consequences could be dire.

But they were alone, and since the room Elish held his king in was soundproof he knew no ears would hear the king’s heartbreaking wails. Silas had to breakdown in silence, away from those who would take advantage of the weakness, and Elish’s arms was the safest place for that to happen.

For I am the man he trusts the most,
Elish said to himself as he gently rocked Silas back and forth, still making shushing noises as he did.
Sanguine holds no candle to what I can do for the king. Perhaps I was worried for no reason; he could never be the rock to Silas that I am. It won’t be long, soon I will be king next to him.

When Silas’s sobbing started to die down, Elish gently started to stroke Silas’s back, rubbing it in small circles as he continued to rock him back and forth. He could feel his king’s pounding heart start to slow, and his body, tightly wound from stress begin to relax.

“I’m tired, Elish,” Silas suddenly whimpered. The voice of one of the oldest men alive in the world was weak and small. A shadow of the slippery, confident tones Elish and his brothers were used to hearing. “I’m so tired.”

“I know, love,” Elish said back to him, and he squeezed Silas tight against him. “For someone like you, who carries the weight of the world, I can only imagine what storms are ravaging your head right now. A normal man would’ve driven himself to insanity.”

Silas sniffed but besides a small shudder he said nothing back.

“Blow your nose, that’s always made you feel better after,” Elish whispered to him. Silas’s sobbing had been reduced to shudders and chokes. He shifted Silas slightly before reaching into his robes and handing him a small red kerchief.

Silas blew his nose and wiped his eyes, a miserable look on his face. “I hate doing this in front of you,” he said weakly. “I shouldn’t show weakness to anyone, in front of you most of all.”

“Nonsense,” Elish responded, taking the kerchief from him. “Even the King of the Fallocaust needs a shoulder to cry on and a pair of arms to break down in. If not me, who?”

Silas was silent for a moment. “I know, love.” His lower lip quivered and Elish picked up the kerchief again. He gently dabbed the tears still slipping down Silas’s flushed cheeks.

“I know this breakdown isn’t solely because of your confirmation regarding Sanguine,” Elish said as gently as he could. He knew he was treading on a field full of landmines; if he was going to continue to be his king’s one and only confidant he had to walk slowly and carefully. “Tell me what happened. Tell me what makes my king feel so tired?”

Silas sighed and closed his eyes. “When I was with Perish, taking care of baby Adler. Not only did I have to look at my Sky every day, hear his voice through Perish, feel his body hot against my own when I was intimate with him… I had to see the little baby in that glass tube look more and more like him every day.” Elish watched Silas’s eyes squeeze tighter like he was in physical pain “I was surrounded by my Sky, his essence, and I made the mistake of not only growing attached to that baby – but also the hope that this time it may work. That this time we might’ve successfully cloned the love of my life.”

Since Silas’s eyes were closed Elish’s own eyes narrowed and his face became cold. There was no question how he felt about Silas’s long dead boyfriend. A boyfriend who was no dream man, but a tyrant who was emotionally, physically, and mentally abusive to Elish’s king. Though time had seemed to have given Silas a pair of rose-coloured glasses. Silas saw nothing of the abuse he had endured under Sky’s iron fist, he only saw the good – what little there had been.

The stories Perish has told me makes my blood boil. I only wish I had been alive to beat that man into a bloodied pulp. It was a good thing the tyrant killed himself.

“It didn’t work though,” Silas continued, unaware of the mental poison running through Elish’s head. “Once again I’m back at square one and worse yet – Sky’s brain matter was nowhere to be found. The suitcase was never recovered and Nero says it must’ve been incinerated. I lost so much of his brain matter, now there is less of a chance of cloning him.”

Good.
Elish tightened his grip on Silas.

“I just wanted everything to be fine when I got back, but then I wake up and my Sanguine–” Elish felt Silas fidget and tense under his protective hold. “Sanguine is missing, terrorized by his own madness, the madness I brought onto him.”

“No, love… it wasn’t–”

Silas’s eyes opened, cold and glaring, and Elish stopped talking.