Текст книги "Bloodbreeders: Lies Beneath London"

Автор книги: Robin Renee Ray

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

What I saw when I turned my head was nothing more than a nightmare and all I wanted to do was wake up. There are no words to describe what my eyes saw, because whatever they were seeing was neither man nor beast. It was two creatures that had uneven limbs that were sewn on with heavy stitches that could be seen from across the room. The ungodly smell was coming from them. Tattered pieces of cloth hung from shoulders that didn’t match the other, and where a man’s hands should have been at the end of a masculine arm there were the long painted nails of a female. The closest was reaching out, opening and closing its odd hand as it came closer. Its mouth was hanging open as if it were yelling at us, but it made no sound. The other moved slowly on thin legs that held up a large, muscular torso with arms that hung by its side as if they didn’t work at all. The eyes that looked back were filled with nothing but emptiness. One was blue, one green, and both stared with no life at all behind them.

Derek, Garvin, and Jacob ran back in and began swinging their blades, chopping at the one that was trying to get to the opening. Tammy slid around the edge of the door, blocking my view and began pushing me to hurry and go down. Once Cates’ feet were on solid ground he moved with a speed that was hard to keep up with while holding Martin’s head. I could hear the others running up behind us, and Derek asking the two that ran with him if they had seen the beast pick up its own arm and try to put it back on. Those must have been the things that Alex was taking about when he said the doctor was given the remains to play with when Angelica had finished with them. I kept trying to look behind us as we ran through the tunnel, but I couldn’t see anything other than the faint light growing dimmer the further we moved away. We reached the torn up bodies of the walking dead in the tunnel. When Jacob relit the torch, the pieces that were lying still became active once again, wiggling and trying to reach us. Fingers on hands with no body clawed at the ground, while legs bent at the knee in a morbid attempt to stand.

I heard Jacob say the word ‘hurry’ but it was like he was miles away and I was in some deep well, waiting for someone to pull me up to the surface. We crossed the ten foot opening, getting a relief that I was grateful for. The stars of the night filled the sky and the cool breeze was welcome on my face. I entered the other side, remembering we had to go back through the church, as well as the ruins of the old part of the city. Jacob went up the steps to the churches basement first, where the bodies lay waiting in their carved out stone coffins, mocking us with their timeless gaping smiles. Martin moaned as Cates took the curve in the steps, having no choice but to press his body into the stone wall. “We’re almost home,” I said, caressing the side of his head, getting no response.

Jacob opened the door to our exit in the building of the church and I heard one of the priests scream out, “They return, father.” Jacob took off after him with me yelling not to hurt him. As we exited the stairs, Jacob had the man from behind, with his hand over the man’s mouth. The man was the same one that had been reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Jacob leaned into the man.

“See the woman holding the man’s head? She saved your life this night. Remember it well, for I would have drained your virtuous blood until your heart shriveled in this sorry encasement that you call a chest.” Then he raised his elbow coming down on the back of the priest’s head, knocking him unconscious. We fled, leaving the back door to the church open without a care. It was the same when Fala slammed his body into the gate and burst through as we ran for the alley where we had last seen Luther and Lane.

We were halfway down the alley when one of the black cats stepped out from the shadows, followed soon after by the second. They took off in the direction of the edge of the city, with us on their tails… literally. Martin’s blood must have alerted the fleshers in the graveyard, because no sooner than we met its walls, howls erupted on the other side. “Ready yourself to fight,” Jacob called out, drawing his sword. I pulled out my gun, while holding Martin’s head in my other hand and searched the graveyard over the crumbled wall as we ran beside it.

“There!” Derek yelled, pointing to the center, where several of the beasts ran our way, jumping over the broken headstones of the ones who lay in the graves where they belonged, good and dead.

I saw four before Cates moved with a speed that caused me to drop Martin’s head. I spun around in time to see one of the fleshers leap the ruins of the wall and land mere feet from Derek, who was trying to move to the side while swinging his blade up. He took the flesher across the face, causing it to scream out in a high pitched squeal, but that didn’t stop it from lunging forward trying to grab at any part of Derek that it could.  The sound of my gun echoed throughout the low lying area as the flesher looked down at its side where my bullet pierced through it. It dropped to its knees as Jacob ran up beside it, removing its head at the shoulders. He grabbed Derek by the front of the shirt and came running right at me. I began hopping backwards, turning as they got to me, and then we all ran. I saw Jacob turn his head to look back, causing me to do the same. The other fleshers that were clearing the wall lost interest in us. They fell upon their dead companion and began ripping his rotten flesh apart.

Luther and Lane slowed down as they neared where they had left their clothing, circling the area sniffing the ground. Once they seemed to be secure, they shifted just as smoothly back into their human forms as they had into their cat forms, and quickly dressed, showing us an easier way to the back of Martin’s estate.

“Come with us,” Derek said, watching them turn back toward what they called the forbidden zone.

“We belong here,” Luther smiled his gratitude. “But, we will be watching for your return.” Then just like that they were gone.

I knew why Jacob watched behind us every few feet; he was looking for the assassins to ambush us at any time. Fala tried to pull the gate open at the side wall that surrounded Martin’s estate, but just like before it wouldn’t budge and there was no way that we were going to get Martin up and over in the shape he was in. So we took him around to the front gate. We had to break the lock to swing it open to keep from having to take him over the top of it. Sydney and Tanda ran out the front door to meet us, saying that others had come by yelling outside the gate. Jacob went back outside the gate, with Derek and Garvin following him, while the rest of us took Martin into the house. Tammy took control of Martin’s head, while I rushed into my room and threw the covers off the bed. Tanda ran into the bathroom and started gathering towels and a pitcher of water so Tammy could start working on his wounds.

Cates laid him down on his side, bringing a cry from deep inside of Martin that brought instant tears to my eyes. I stood back as Tammy and Cates began examining his wounds. Tammy soaked a towel in warm water, then laid it across his back, rolling him over as gently as she could to inspect the front of his body and face, before she began sewing up the crisscross marks that gapped open, showing the bones of his spine. I grabbed my mouth when I saw what they had done to the front of his body. Cates stood and turned his back as Tammy spread Martin’s legs. The cruel sons-of-bitches had sliced his inner thighs to ribbons. His manhood was marked from his lower stomach to the tip of his penis, with two inch long marks crossing over the others, making so many that it was impossible to tell just how many times they had cut him. The ones on his thighs were much deeper and twice as long. His upper chest looked like it had been burned with some type of long, thin, branding iron. I could see now why he told them that I was his creation. Anyone would have broken under this sort of torture and someone was going to pay dearly for what they had done to him.

The others came in. Jacob had a rolled note in his had that had a red ribbon tied around it, but froze at the sight of Martin lying on his back. Derek stumbled back and left the room, while Garvin stepped up to the side of the bed, reaching down and taking Martin’s hand. He had just done the very thing that I should have done the moment Cates laid him down. Martin’s feet haunted me, as much as the rest of him maybe more. They stayed in the same deformed position when they rolled him back on to his side. His body had begun to heal and his bones were set in place just the way his tormenters had broken them. Garvin was looking at me staring at my maker’s mangled feet, knowing I knew what had to be done. If he was ever going to walk again his feet had to be re-broken. I went around the bed and crawled up on the pillows, moving them out of my way and laying Martin’s head in my lap.

Tanda kept bringing in more warm water as Tammy poured it over Martin’s body, filling the mattress with his blood. Once she finished with his back, she began on his face. She draped another clean, wet towel over his now sewn up back and Cates help her roll him over. I held my hand over his nose and mouth as Tammy poured the warm water over the top of his head, filling my lap. I used my other hand to help clean some of the blood away from his eyes, as his lashes fluttered under my touch. “You’re safe now,” I spoke softly as my tears dropped down onto his face. “They can’t hurt you anymore.” I saw the faint blue of his right eye as he forced it open to look up at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said so low that I almost couldn’t hear him.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I cried, barely able to see him through my tears.

“Forgive me,” he coughed, spitting blood.

“Shhh, don’t try to talk.”

“Martin, I am going to have to cause you pain to make you better. Your feet are badly broken. I need you to drink this,” Tammy said, pouring wine into a small glass.

“Won’t it make him sick?” I asked, grabbing her hand.

“A small amount will make his mind drunk. Too much will make his stomach ill,” she replied without looking at.

I moved my hand, helping lift his head, while she put the glass to his lips. “Swallow, Martin. Just a little, you must for the pain,” she said as it spilt from the sides of his mouth. He choked, trying to move his head to the side, refusing what she had to offer.

“Please, try Martin, for me,” I begged. Tammy didn’t hesitate; she held the glass to his mouth until she was sure that some of the liquid went down his throat. After he had calmed down she cleaned the wounds between his legs, as I stroked his hair, humming no particular tune. He screamed out when she lifted his privates, finding that they had almost castrated him. I leaned my head down by his ear and began telling him how much I loved him, and that everything was going to be alright. I told him he was going to wake in my arms and this was all going to be a bad dream.

“We have to do his feet at the same time,” Jacob said, setting the note on the dresser. “It will be too much for him to take one at a time.”

“How could he survive so much,” I asked, kissing his swollen cheek.

“The love of a woman fills the heart with much strength, Renee,” Cates replied, handing Tammy another needle with white thread.

Martin reached up and grabbed my arm, twisting his head in agony as Tammy placed the needle into his groin, but he did not cry out. “I’m so, so, sorry,” I said, pressing my lips to his ear. I kept telling him how sorry I was and how important he was to me and how much I loved him until she was finished. His breathing was rapid and I wanted nothing more than for him to pass out. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t. When he was sewn up as good as Tammy could get him, she looked up at me and asked if I was ready to handle the worst that was yet to come. I looked down at Martin who was finally resting without jerking and moaning, and remembered Garvin resetting my feet. Of course, mine hadn’t begun to heal and merely needed to be set into place; his had to be re-broken and then reset.

“Should you give him more of the wine?” I asked, hoping Tammy would say ‘yes’.

“We would be taking a chance that he could start throwing up, and that could tear open all the stitches.”

“Then do it, but do it fast.” I slid his head out of my lap, and turn so I could hold his upper body as well as his head in my arms.

I wanted to hold him tight while Cates took one of his feet, and Jacob took the other. I also didn’t want to see what they were about to do. Martin’s screams were heartbreaking. His body began to spasm as the sound of bones breaking echoed throughout the room. I held him as tightly as I could, crying so hard I couldn’t speak. He gripped my back so hard that I could feel the warm sensation of my own blood running down my side where his nails dug into my flesh. Then his arm fell away and he, gratefully, slid into unconsciousness.  I felt a hand on my lower back but I couldn’t let him go, all that I could do was hold him and cry. Had I not been so jealous and only listened to what he had to say, this would have never happened to him. The guilt was tearing me apart.

“Renee, you have to let Tammy do what she can now that he’s unconscious,” Jacob’s soothing tone and comforting hand made me lift my head. “He will survive, that is the most important thing.”

“They had no plans on letting him live, did they?” I kissed his swollen eyes. “They have to pay for this, Jacob.”

“And they will. I promise you that.” Then he lifted my arm away from Martin’s waist. “Come now, let her do her work.”

I nodded, letting him help me off the bed. There was no hatred, or anger burning when I looked down at his mutilated body. The only thing I felt was sorrow for the pain that he had to endure, and all that I could do was sit and watch him suffer through the healing. Dawn was close. I could feel it and knew that it wouldn’t be long until Martin would finally rest without pain. Garvin asked if there was anything he could do, and I had him go and check on Derek and Sydney before he went to bed. Cates was already headed to check on our prisoners and Jacob was going to be staying in here with Martin and myself. Fala was keeping guard outside on the front porch, and was planning on sleeping on the inside of the foyer by the front door just in case anyone, or thing, tried to come through while we slept.

While Tammy finished cleaning the rest of Martin’s wounds, Tanda went to get clean blankets and sheets. I glanced over and saw the note that was rolled up on the dresser and walk over and picked it up. “Have you read this yet?” I asked, walking back to the foot of the bed. Jacob turned and looked down at my hand and told me that he was waiting until Martin had been cared for, then reached over and took it out of my hand. He read it first, getting a slight smile then handed the note back to me, shaking his head.

I will do anything to get my Alex and Bernard back safe. I have information about your master that you may find very important. I beg of you not to harm the ones you have taken from me. My sister, the High Mistress, will stop at nothing to prevent you from taking her power, even harming the one who created you. If you wish to see him alive, you will bring my boys back to me and I will help you free him.

I beg this of you,

Mistress Inara

“Is she in for a shock,” I snorted, handing the note back to Jacob.

“Yes, but if we move quickly, we can use her to our advantage.”

“How so?”

“Give one of her boys back, with the promise of returning the other safe, as long as she cooperates.”

“Are you out your mind?” Tammy asked, dropping the pitcher of water she was holding. “You can’t allow either one of them to go free,” she added, bending down to pick the pitcher back up, but never once taking her eyes off of him.

“They will all be at the gala. We will agree to bring the one that we do not send back, along with us, then whatever happens, happens,” Jacob smiled, watching Tammy glare her disagreement.

“I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open, much less think,” Tammy said, setting the pitcher on the bedside table. “I’m going to have to go lie down, before the coming dawn has me down right here on the floor.” Then she walked over and kissed me on the forehead. “Rest well. I’ll see you when I wake.”

“Thank you… for everything.” I pulled her into a hug, and then she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Jacob and I changed the bedding, moving Martin as carefully as we could, rolling him to the side to remove the wet sheet, laying dry towels on the mattress, and then placing a clean sheet on top. Once we had him rolled back over and the other side made up, I pulled my wet clothes off, pulled my gown over my head and crawled in the bed beside him, while Jacob rolled him back to the driest side to keep him off of his back. I held him in my arms, laying his head on my chest. Jacob built a fire and sat down in the high-back chair in front of the fireplace, looked over at me once, then closed his eyes. The last thing I remember was stroking Martin’s hair.

Chapter Twenty

I woke the next night just as I had fallen asleep. My hand was still holding Martin’s head, and his head was still laying on my chest. As I had every time I woke, I looked over to see if Jacob was looking back at me, only this time I stayed still until he woke. After a while, he sat up and brought the coals back to life, giving the room a comfortable glow. Martin moved and groaned with the pain that still attacked his body. “Renee?”

“I’m here, just as I said I would be, holding you when you woke.”

“Where am I?” he asked, trying to raise his head.

“Don’t try to move, you’re home where you belong.”

“How?” he coughed.

“We went and brought you back,” I replied, smoothing his hair back, noticing some of the swelling had gone down.

“They told me you were all dead. I thought I had killed you,” his voice was cracking as he tried to look up at me.

“Why would you think that?” I asked laying his head back and sliding down in the bed so he could see me.

“I was weak…” he paused as tears slid down the side of his face.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart, please don’t cry,” I whispered, kissing his eyelids. “You’re the strongest man I know.”

“I told them,” he swallowed, taking a breath. “I told them you belong to me.”

I scooted further down so I could wrap my arms around him and put myself as close to him as I could without causing him pain. “I do belong to you, Martin. I always have.”

“I have been so dishonest with you. My life is nothing but shame,” he tried to say the last but it came out a sob as he fought to hold the sounds inside.

His shoulders shook as he gripped my arm, pulling me closer to his chest. I tried to talk but my words were held back by my own tears. I heard the door close as Jacob left so we could be alone. We held each other for a long while, until both of our tears had fallen. “I love you more than you will ever know,” he said, moving my hair away from my face. “I have so much to tell you about my past but I have been so ashamed of what my father was, that I just didn’t know how to tell you. The beast who owned this estate was not even the man who I claimed to be my father, Renee. The one who I called my father took this place many years ago and I, alone, took his name years after that.”

“You have plenty of time to tell me about where you really came from, Martin, if you choose to do so. And I’ve been a fool for not seeing how much you really cared. You’re not your father and it doesn’t matter to me what has happened in your past, because I love you, too, and I always have,” I replied, as the tears began running down my cheeks again.

“You are so beautiful. I do not deserve such a wonderful creature in my arms.”

“You just have to get better, so you can hold me for the rest of our lives,” I tried to smile but the quiver on my lips prevented it. “I thought you were going to die when I saw you hanging there. I thought my world had ended and it was all my fault.”

“I was not going to die until I took revenge for them killing you,” he tried to laugh through his own tears and pain.

“We are a pair, aren’t we?” I smiled, feeling his breath as he slid his forehead from mine and kissed me on the tip of my nose, causing himself to hiss from the gash on his bottom lip.

“We are indeed, my love.”

“You need to feed,” I said, lightly touching the marks on his cheek. “Then maybe drink a bit more wine to ease your pain.” Then I started to get up.

“You’re all the pain relief I need,” he replied, taking my hand and bringing it to his lips. “Hurry back. I think I will wait here for your return.”

“Are you sure? I bet you could beat me to the kitchen.” I laughed softly, leaning forward and kissed his forehead and got up as gently as I could.

“I do not know how your people were able to free me from Angelica, but I see now that you are truly the one to bring this way of life to an end for all bloodbreeders. You have amazed me by what you have done.”

“We’ll tell ya all about it. When I come back with your meal, I’m bringing the whole crew with me,” I said, walking over to the folded bed covers on the dresser. I covered his mid-section enough for privacy and looked back to see that he was resting as I left the room.

Jacob was leaning on the wall a few feet down from my door, pushing off when I stepped out. I walked straight up to him and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him, then kissed him on the cheek before I took his hand and started down the hall. “What was that for?”

I just looked over at him and smiled. “Because I love ya, Jacob, and I couldn’t have gotten him back without you.”

Cates opened the door to his room as we passed by, and he and Tammy joined us. I couldn’t help myself. I turned around and gave Tammy a hug and kissed her right on the mouth, then grabbed the big man around the waist. There was no way I could reach his cheek to give him a kiss, so I picked up his hand and kissed it.

“I would have thought Master Martin would have been too weak to make you this happy,” he smiled, picking me up around the waist, causing me to yelp like a little girl. “Now what will you do?”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Kiss ya, now put me down, you silly ass ox.”

Tammy was the first to start laughing at the ‘ox’ phrase, then Jacob and I joined in. Garvin was coming out of the family room, but Tanda and Derek were still in their room. Fala got to his feet from the pallet that he had slept on in the foyer, pulled his long black hair back into a ponytail, and stretched his arms over his head. He and Garvin, whose hair was sticking up in every direction that the strands of his blond locks could find, went out the front to go fetch the last pig from the stalls at the far right of the estate. By the time they had made it back in, Tanda and Derek entered the kitchen hand in hand.

“Sleeping in?” Cates smiled, bringing a blush to Tanda’s cheeks and a broader smile from Derek.

“Just catching up,” Derek winked.

“A gentleman is silent,” Tanda said, bumping Derek with her hip.

“Sleep, I was catching up on my sleep, sweetie, that’s all I meant.”

“I caught up on my sleep right before the dawn took my woman too, Derek,” Cates burst out, getting an elbow in the ribs from his woman.

“You’ll be catching up on your sleep alone if you don’t watch that mouth of yours,” she said, winking over at me as Fala and Garvin came behind me with the pig.

“I want us all to have our meal in the room with Martin. He needs to know what’s going on and what we plan on doing at the gala,” I explained as Fala held the pig and Garvin sliced its throat.

“Do you think it wise in his condition?” Garvin asked, from behind the table, while holding the bowl that was catching the blood.

“He has to know. I don’t want any more secrets between us.”

“The note will have to be discussed and the costumes for the gala will have to be found. We have three nights to be prepared,” Jacob explained, taking glasses down from the cabinet.

“I’m telling ya right now, I ain’t wearing no make-up,” Derek boldly said, shaking his head side to side.

“Don’t be silly Derek, they have masks for the men. Only the male eunuchs place make-up on their faces and of course those who like the company of men,” Tanda giggled, causing Derek to slant his eyes at Cates, who was now rolling with laughter.

“Well, I damn sure don’t like men, and as far as I know I ain’t one of them eunuch things,” Derek replied, bringing the whole room into a rolling thunder of laughter. “What? I’m not!”

I leaned over the table and whispered what I had learned about the word eunuch, and watched the horror fill his eyes. At first I didn’t know if he was going to storm out of the room in a fit of anger, but, as the boy was growing up right before my eyes, his lip raised on one side and he himself broke out in laughter. He looked down at Tanda, who shook her head, saying, “Nope, you are, without a doubt, not a eunuch.” Then she wrapped her arm around his waist trying to hide the blush that she had just brought to her own cheeks. We carried everything into my and Martin’s room and gathered around his bed, with me sliding back up as close to him as I could get. I lifted his shoulders while Tammy stacked the pillows up behind him, then I gently laid him back. The pain showed in his eyes but he tried to hide it with the smile that showed through the still swollen flesh on his face.

“You look much better tonight, Martin,” Tanda said, leaning over and kissing him on the forehead.

“I feel much better, little buttercup,” he smiled, taking her hand.

“I told you Renee would come back for us and she came back for you, too.”

“I know,” he said, turning his head to look at me. “I know.”

“You need to feed if you wish to heal this body,” Tammy semi-interrupted, handing me a glass half full to hold for Martin, then handed me a full one for myself, which I drank quickly so I could help him.

“I remember your manners being something quite different,” Martin said, taking a drink from his glass.

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m not much of a lady anymore,” I laughed, handing his glass back to Tammy for a refill. “We’ve learned to eat fast.”

“I saw that in the kitchen the other night,” he laughed, wrinkling his face in pain.

“Don’t do that,” I said, taking his glass, and gently smoothing his hair from his face. “You can laugh at me all you want when you’re healed.”

“But, you make it so hard, Renee,” Cates laughed from one of the high-back chairs.

“And you shut up, no one needs your input,” Tammy snapped, checking the cut on Martin’s face that was seeping fresh blood.

“There will be a gala at Angelica’s castle in three nights,” Jacob said, holding the note we had received the night before. “We intend to be there.”

“You can’t,” Martin said, trying to sit up.

“You want to rip open the stitches in your back, not to mention other areas?” Tammy scolded, putting her hand on his chest.

“There will be hundreds of breeders there. You cannot go in with a handful and think to kill them all, it is insane.”

“We have no plans of killing them all, Martin,” Jacob smiled. “We only mean to kill the three with the highest power.”

“Yeah, then the rest will get the picture,” Derek nodded, with his brows furrowed toward Jacob.

“Much like a war, one could say. We have a few things upstairs that will insure the help of one sister; the weaker of the two, to be exact.”

“You are the ones who took Inara’s pets? She came running down the steps where Angelica was…” he paused lowering his eyes.

“That bitch did this herself?” I asked, feeling the fire build in my gut all over again.

“Inara wants her pets returned right away. I’m not even sure she believed Angelica when she told her she didn’t have them because she has taken them before as a punishment of sorts.”

“Doesn’t one of them belong to Angelica?” Sydney asked.

“Yes, but Inara thinks them to be her own.” Martin coughed so hard that he almost threw up. “She allows them to be one with each other and Angelica uses Bernard and Alex to punish her when she has any form of disagreement with her sister. She has no care for anyone, especially one of her slaves.”

I fumed as he told us about the argument that the two sisters had, even getting into a slight fist fight, with Inara telling her sister that if she found out that Angelica had her Alex, that she herself would help the demon kill her. All that I could think about was killing the bitch myself. He then told us something that shocked me right back into reality. “The boy, Alex, was an orphan left to die when he was maybe two or three years old. Inara found him wandering, nude and hungry, in the forbidden zone when the last plague took London and took him in as her own. She found a boy close to his age, killed the boy’s parents and raised the two as brothers. Alex was her favorite, and Bernard was his whipping boy, as they called it the days when he was a child. Angelica would take Bernard to her home, saying that she too wanted a child, and Inara shared him. It was a mistake that she has always regretted.”

“Here I thought his dark secret was knowing that Angelica had planned on killing you in front of the crowd at the gala but this whole time he was keeping the fact that Inara was his mother,” I said, more talking to myself than the rest in the room. “No wonder she said she would do anything to get them back.”

“You have spoken to her?”

“No, this was left on the gate out front,” Jacob said, handing Martin the note, who handed it to me to read because of the swelling in his eyes.

“It was after what I had heard and most of what Angelica and her men had done to me that she told me that they had captured you in the tunnels and dispatched you all in battle. Only then did I fall to the pain and tell her that you were my own.” Martin lowered his eyes.