Текст книги "Bloodbreeders: Lies Beneath London"
Автор книги: Robin Renee Ray
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Felicia came back, sticking his head in giggling. “Don’t worry about them, they have no concerns on what we’re doing. They drink the drug and have no clue we’re even here.”
“What do you see?” I whispered a little too loudly.
“This you will see for yourself,” Jacob smiled and dashed out after the man called Felicia.
“I hate it when he does that,” I replied, waiting my turn.
I noticed Cates pause just as Jacob had, and then take off with Tammy in tow. Derek looked back at me after looking out quickly, grabbed Tanda’s hand, and told her to just look at his back and hurry. Garvin and Sydney ran for it, never turning around. I got to the exit with Fala behind me. I took in a deep breath then just walked out, seeing why everyone had been shocked at what they had seen. Men laid about everywhere, nude, and doing things I had never seen, nor had I ever been told about. Other than what we had seen in Caden’s estate.
They were wrapped about on each other like lovers, and others were feeding, while some had their mouths on other body parts that I care not to mention. The only females in the room were dead ones or those so close to death they had no mind that they were being fed upon by the undead. The room was filled with nothing but large pillows that covered most of the floor that at least fifteen men drunkenly lay about on, doing the most despicable things that I never wanted to see again.
Fala pushed me from behind making me yelp out loud, but also making me move to the next small flight of stairs across the way. We had to move through a few nude bodies to get to the steps that went up, because two men had made their way to the first two steps, bringing a young female with them. They were feeding from her even though she had taken her last breath and then kissed and rubbed each other’s private parts. I was about to bring my foot down on the back of one of their heads when my body went airborne and I was taken halfway up the small staircase, with Fala’s hands around my ribcage. He didn’t set me back down until we were a few steps from the top with the others. I turned around and slapped his hand, causing him to look at me like I was crazy.
“I know you did that for my own good, but you scared me half out of my wits too,” I said, slapping his hand again for good measure.
“I just didn’t want to be the last one left with them after you went up. I am wearing nothing but this torn cloth,” he replied, and smiled a few seconds later .
“Did you just make a joke?” I smiled back, talking as low as I could in the echoing staircase.
He looked down at himself, raised one brow then lifted his shoulders nodding. I laughed under my breath, about to put my hand over my mouth, making an open mouth―are you kidding me face―then gave him wide eyes. He rolled his eyes then turned his head away from me to keep from actually laughing out loud himself, which would have been a wonderful thing, because it wasn’t something he did often, if ever.
“Are you two lovers going to stay in there, or are you going to join us?” Felicia asked, looking down from the opening.
“We were just planning our own time for later,” I replied, as I started up the last few steps.
“Hum, can I join the fun?” he asked, licking his smeared lipstick covered mouth.
“Have to ask the big guy. He likes real women.” I raised my brows as I walked by, as in, not my fault.
“That was rude…no need to be a bitch,” Felicia snapped, swaying past me.
“Just stating the facts. No matter how much you look like a woman, Felicia, I, being a real woman, can still smell the real man that you are,” I explained, trying to recover the foot that I had lodged in my mouth.
“Do you mean that?” he turned, looking down at the floor then back up at me. “Do I really look like a woman?”
“Why do you think the rest followed you up here? I didn’t mean to be rude, but your beauty shames those of us who have no hope of ever standing in your grace. But, on that note, those with us who chooses the favor of a woman might be a bit offended if they find out your true worth.” I spoke low, sounding just like my mother, taking him under the arm, noticing Jacob and Cates speaking with the other one.
“Oh my, I do see the dilemma. There is a thing about you that would drive a great deal around here wild. Why haven’t we met before now? I’m here at least twice a month, it’s the only time I can live as the woman that dies to come out of the lost little boy that I’m forced to live like at my master’s little shanty across the city.”
Before I answered I looked back at the others, who were now watching us.
“They won’t start without us,” he smiled, sitting on a small stool messing with his shoe. “Please, tell me where you and your group came from.”
“We are guests of Lord Vegee Lebrun’s, he has allowed pleasure this night at the invitation of Lord Cheree,” I lied, hoping he would by it.
“Bon, I am in love with Lord Lebrun, and have been for a life time. But, he does not see favor in men. Poo, what can one do? As long as he can play well, does it really matter?” he laughed, standing up. “Come, let us go into the game room, we breeders haven’t the time of the fleshers.”
I had to talk to Jacob before we did anything. I had to find out who Felicia’s maker was. He belongs to one of the other corners of the city, so it had to be Angelica, or her twin sister, Inara. If we killed him, everything that we had planned with Martin would be out the window, if that even mattered after hearing the way Felicia said, ‘as long as he plays well’, because it sent a tidal wave of chills crashing up my spine. As Felicia walked over toward the others, running his hand across Fala’s lower abdomen, I waved like mad for Jacob to come over to me. Instead of having Jacob think I was meaning him, half the group came my way including the leather covered man. Cates caught the look on my face, clasped his arm over Bernard’s shoulder, and brought him into a hug.
“Where be that game room? I’ll be wantin’ to see how hard you can swing a flogger?” Cates growled in his fake voice right down in Bernard’s face, not causing fear, but a reaction that caused the lower part of his leather pants to grow tight.
“You will soon find out, intriguing one,” Bernard replied, running his hand up Cates rippled stomach. “So well built, such a shame you’re not a breeder.”
“And such a shame you are already someone else’s whore,” Felicia interjected, pulling a small chain out of his dress pocket and hooking it to the back of Bernard’s hood. “Now, open the game room door, before I remove another piece of your hide.”
“Well don’t say that, or you’ll never get the damn door open,” Bernard laughed, pushing Cates away and sliding the double door open.
Tammy grabbed Tanda by the shoulders as she stumbled to the side from the shock of seeing all the different devices hanging from the walls, and the many different shaped tables and chairs throughout the room. Candles burned everywhere in red vases that gave the room the appearance of being drenched in blood, just as Felicia had said. While the others were being taken in the room and with their host having plenty to show them, I explained everything to Jacob. Everything but what Felicia had said about Martin. I didn’t want him to be judged until I had a chance to find out, meaning, I would be asking him face to face. Then they could judge him; his reply would be his own defense.
“Then we have to get everyone out of here right now.” Jacob spoke low, looking back into the room at what could very well be our entrance into the main homes.
“How?”
“Hell for damn, I do not know?”
“Well, you better hell for damn think of something before Tammy kills leather boy for touching her man,” I snickered.
“This I well know.” Then we both took off into the room.
Tammy was messing with one of the curved blades on the wall when we walked in; as Cates was sitting Felicia down on one of the ‘S’ shaped lounge chairs. Sydney and Garvin were pretending to chain each other up, pulling their weapons out and holding them at their side. Fala and Tanda we locking Bernard into a square, metal contraption with his arms and legs spread wide. ‘What the hell was going on in here, during the few minutes that Jacob and I were talking’, I thought as I watched them move like the well-trained demons that they were.
“I’m afraid this night runs short and we will have to wait the next, but it has been an honor to make the acquaintance of such a lovely female,” Jacob smiled, giving a slight bow. “Our master bids our return before his day rest, as you can understand, I’m sure.”
“Oh poo, I will tell that old fool that you were with me,” Felicia said, sitting up, as Cates frowned at Jacob and myself.
“It would be a great honor to sneak out and play again, My Lady,” I added, winking at him.
“Do you know Castel Reynar? It belongs to my master, Mistress Inara. She is the true leader of London,” he proudly proclaimed, getting to his feet with Cates standing up beside him.
“Of course,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.
“Look under the gate box out by the entrance tomorrow night. I will leave instructions on how to find my room. And don’t worry, my mistress will be at her sister’s for the next few nights getting things ready for the gala and something about a meeting,” he laughed. “Your master will be there as well, I assume.”
Jacob snapped his fingers, getting everyone to stop what they were truly thinking about finishing, and just walk toward us. Tammy was glaring at me with her mouth held tight. I gave her the best look I could, to please just walk over to me, but she took the curved blade off the wall. I shook my head several times as she brought the blade back. Bernard saw her and began yelling through the gag that Tanda had placed in his mouth. Cates turned just in the nick of time to hit her forearm and send the blade spinning into the back area of the room. She fell into his chest and started crying, in jest of course.
“Was she going to…?” Felicia paused in his asking.
“Nae, she’ll be goin’ fer me again,” Cates replied, still talking in a deep slang tone. “Ye see the hen be thinkin’ she be me own.”
“Is that how you lost your arm?” Felicia asked, calming down a great deal.
“It is, almost lost a wee more that night,” Cates laughed loud, taking Tammy under his arm. “If’in I dennae like the wench I wud have already killed and cleaned her bones meself.”
We used that note to let Felicia and Bernard show us out the back way, pretending we wanted to spend as much time with them as we could. With Felicia being one who fell back into wanting a leadership role around the group of what they still believed to be flesh eaters, we let him take us toward the back door going down the same steps we had just come up. The only thing missing was the room full of nude men. Bernard made the comment that they had moved to the bathhouse and taken the party into the water. However, the bodies of their drained victims remained, some dead and some not.
“How can we just walk out?” Derek asked, stopping and looking down at one of the dead forms.
“Because, we will come back another night,” Jacob replied, gripping his shoulder.
“This is one time that we must all hold our patience for many reasons.”
“Take one with you if you like, no one will care,” Felicia said, looking back from the staircase, overhearing the conversation.
“Thank you…I will,” Derek said, going to the woman that was still breathing.
“Derek?” Jacob said reaching for him, being pushed away, as he leaned down and lifted her up like one would a sleeping child.
Chapter Seven
We continued down the steps, but instead of going into the lower levels back across the kitchen, we went into a hall to the left and out a door that took us to an outside covered walkway that led to the coaches. The very way Felicia had explained that he would lead us to… the main back entrance. We told them good night halfway down the breezeway, as Bernard had called it, so that they wouldn’t see that we didn’t have a driver, much less a coach to crawl into. Felicia gave us all a kiss on the cheek, which Jacob had already warned us was a natural greeting among most of the people from this part of the world. Bernard tried to give Tanda a kiss on the mouth, getting an “accidental” shove from Derek, who grabbed the man around the waist, saying he was sorry that he had tripped.
“As long as you save me from a fall like this, you can fall into me anytime, little one,” Bernard replied, quickly turning in Derek’s arms and kissing him instead.
Derek pulled back so fast that he actually ended up on his backside, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm, which was far worse than the mouth of the one that just touched his lips. Cates began laughing, reaching down to help him back up, stating that young Derek was a lover of women, but that he would take that kiss if it meant his woman could beat the shit out of Bernard this time and not him. Bernard looked back at Tammy who was standing with her arms crossed over her large breasts, right at the time a piece of gore fell from the side of her face, and he jumped. He shook his head holding out one hand and walked over behind Felicia, who grabbed his backside, giggling way too loud.
“I will leave the directions sometime before midnight. If you cannot make it tomorrow night then I will see you the night after. I’m sure your Martin will tell you about the night of the gala. I look forward to seeing you again,” Felicia said, curtseying then turning like royalty and walking away without another word.
We waited until they turned back into the kitchen entrance, then all took off running as if for our lives depended on it through the open yard, right beside the coaches, setting the horses in an uproar and waking every driver that was waiting for their master’s return. We hit the forest line like a small train of fire, dashing in and out around trees, not stopping until we were back at the tunnels.
“Please, don’t tell me we have to go back through there?” Tammy asked, leaning down holding her knees.
“Can’t we take the grounds?” Garvin asked. “I don’t think any being will try to deal with us looking like this and it will be twice as fast.”
“What about the girl?” Sydney asked, turning to look at Derek, who was laying her on the ground.
“She died a few minutes ago,” he replied, moving her hair away from her face. “I just couldn’t leave her in there to go through…”
“Let me take her from here. We can place her in the graveyard behind Martin’s estate,” Jacob walked over to Derek. “We’ll take the grounds. Garvin’s right, it will be faster.”
“Thank you, but I’ll carry her,” Derek replied, picking the girl’s body back up.
“Thank goodness,” Tammy added, letting out a breath. “I sure wasn’t looking forward to getting down in that again.”
“Neither was I,” Cates glared down at her, getting swatted in the stomach.
We moved with speed through the forest’s edge as far as we could. Fala stopped close to halfway there, squatting down. We followed his action, becoming as quite as we could to hear what he was listening to. He held up three fingers, pointing out to the center of the big forest and shook his head slowly, putting his finger to his mouth. Jacob pointed out to the direction to our left and took off. We ended up having to jump a six-foot tall brick fence, landing at the back of the graveyard that Jacob had spoken of, and one that I hadn’t seen when I had gone off walking the night before. Derek lifted the girl’s body up and Cates helped bring her over. Fala cleared the fence then jumped back up looking out into the darkness.
“I think they come,” he whispered.
“Who, Fala?” Jacob asked, pulling himself up on the wall and looking out.
“Night walkers, but not like you and the others. These are shifters like myself– but not.”
“I don’t understand,” Jacob replied dropping back down, with Fala right behind him.
“They are long dead, but can change from one form to the next. My people called them shadow walkers that feed from the souls of others.”
That’s all we needed to hear to keep moving. The graveyard was full of coffin length tombs and headstones that were twice my height. There were elaborate stone shapes of angles the size of Cates, all sitting in strange rows that seemed to be raised up off the earth. The trees were covered in long, draping moss that reached the ground and blew in the wind like tattered shrouds over the headstones. Derek stopped by one of the flat tombs and laid the girl’s body down. It was about that time a low moaning sound started up from the area that we had just moved from. Fala took off running, leaving the rest of us in his wake. I grabbed Derek’s arm just as he was about to reach down and pick the body back up. “We can come back,” I spoke harshly as I pulled on his arm.
“No!” he yelled, pulling away, grabbing her body, and throwing her over his shoulder. ***
Somehow I got lost from the others when Derek moved out into the shadows. I didn’t dare call out, letting those things know where we were, so I kept moving in the direction that I thought everyone else went. The moaning had turned into a deep growl, and then a soft purr. I thought I was going crazy until I looked back around the two-foot thick cross marker and saw one of the things walking at first, but then like liquid, moving in some sort of mist. The long white haired thing turned solid into the shape of a werewolf. Could it be possibly that it knew what Fala was? I thought as I watched it change into a woman with large breasts, but with no face…then it hit me. It was trying to shape into Tammy, and I turned and ran. I jumped over the headstones that I could, and darted around the ones that I couldn’t.
“Jacob, Cates,” I hissed as loud as I dared. “Derek, please?”
I was letting the panic take over and my mind was spinning with thoughts of being left alone and getting attacked by spirits of the damned that would suck out my soul. No one answered me, which made my fear grow higher. I heard rustling in the grass by the south wall that I had worked my way close to, and I dropped down on my stomach. My breathing was so labored that I couldn’t stop taking shaking breaths with small helpless sounds. I took in a deep breath to just hold it and felt a hand grab my ankle. I screamed out turning over kicking with everything I had and took off. I made it to fence and was taken to the ground hard with a hand clasping over my mouth.
“Shhhh,” Jacob mouthed and I began to cry. There were times like this that I wasn’t as brave as they all thought I was. It was easy to admit that the thing that I had just seen scared me worse than anything I had witnessed in the dark world.
He released my mouth and pulled me into a hug, whispering that it was going to be alright. I gripped his shirt tight, burying my face into the side of his neck, until I could control my breathing. He leaned back looking down at me as I nodded once. He rolled off of me, pulling me by the hand to the side of the wall. “Go to the far end then follow it back to the center. Most are waiting outside the main gate. I have to find Derek and Fala,” he whispered, pushing me in the direction he wanted me to go. I began crawling, looking back every so often then coming to a complete stop when I heard Derek scream out. I jumped to my feet and yelled out his name, then took off running back into the center of the graveyard.
I could hear him yelling, and took off towards the sound of his voice. When I came around a huge angel statue I saw him trying to hold on to the girl’s body as a werewolf was doing its best to pull it from his grip. Derek yelled out again. “They can’t have her.” He then pulled so hard that he and the girl’s corpse fell to the ground. The werewolf threw its head back and was about to howl out, when it stopped and spun around snapping its massive jaws. That’s when I knew it was Fala. My whole body jerked when I saw what he was looking at, because it was three figures that looked very much like him, Derek, and Tammy. How they had seen her over the rest of us, I couldn’t say, but they had Fala and Derek’s form down extremely well. It was the faces that were different; the mouths hung wide and the eyes were not even there, just empty socks of blackness with skin that looked slightly transparent. Fala’s look-alike was amazingly accurate compared to the others. The fur looked solid all the way to the snout, but like the other two, the jaw hung wide and it too had no eyes, and all three made horrible sounds as they made their way closer.
“Derek,” I said, jumping over the tomb, landing down beside him. “Just give them the body. She’s dead for goodness sake.”
“They want her soul. Didn’t you hear what Fala’s people called them…soul eaters, Renee, or some shit like that and they can’t have her.”
“God gets the soul, Derek. I’ve known that all my life. Those rules have applied since he created this world, not these things. They can’t have what belongs to the high creator, and you know that as well.” I gripped the front of his shirt.
“Look at us. Don’t you think things went a little wrong somewhere?”
Fala stormed over and yanked the girl out of Derek’s arms, by placing one of his hind feet on his chest. Derek yelled out, but Fala turned his upper body and flung the corpse into the air, it landed well behind the ghost things, and to me that’s what they were, shape shifting or not. They were ghosts that could mimic what they saw with their no eyes, and that was it. Our souls belonged to only one being. Whether or not a person believed it was his choice as to where that soul would end up spending an eternity, and it is written one of two places, not in the belly of one of those things. It took hearing one of my little one's screaming out to break the fear that was causing me to break down and convince me to run back into the graveyard. Jacob jumped over the same tomb and knocked my courage back down a level and I screamed out.
“Fala, let him go,” he demanded, pushing on his leg.
“I will not,” Fala growled down, pushing in harder on Derek’s chest trying to keep Jacob from pushing his foot off.
“I can’t breathe,” Derek said through clenched teeth. “Stop pushing his leg, or he’s gonna kill me.”
I yelled up at Fala to look at Derek’s face, which was turning a pale purple. Fala eased up and Derek was out from under him like greased lightning. He pulled his two-foot blade, screamed out in a full run and dove at the three things as they were fixing to lean down over the girl’s crumpled body. “Derek…no!” Fala screamed out in his werewolf voice, and ran out after him, regardless of his own built-in fear.
Derek kicked off one of the square headstones and leaped into the air, spinning around, slicing his blade through the midsection of the fur-covered thing closest to him. His blade passed through as the thing looked down, seeing the tip barely pierced the flesh on its stomach, but no blood spilled as Derek fell to the ground. His blade had gone completely through the ‘ghost’ body and did absolutely nothing. The fur-covered ghost threw back its head and howled out a gruesome sound that mimicked nothing that I had ever heard. As Derek got to his feet, it swung around and hit him so solid across the chest that he flew back into the angel statue, breaking it in half.
‘Maybe they weren’t just ghosts,’ I thought, running to check on Derek, while Jacob ran to help Fala. Derek was lying on his side with fresh blood all over the side of his face, with the upper half of the statue on his lower body. I threw it off in anger, and prayed that I would find him alive when I rolled him over. His eyes rolled back and the first thing he said was, “That hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.” I smiled, and turned back when I heard one of the werewolves begin to growl.
“Will you be alright here?” I asked, getting to one knee.
He nodded, closing his eyes. I laid his head back and ran to help the others. I stood up in time to see the werewolf with no eyes rake his claws down the side of Fala’s face. At the same time, Jacob came down on the back of its head with his blade going hilt deep. The same creature whose body was transparent earlier was now solid, and I was more confused now than I was when I first saw the things. It fell to the ground dissolving into a black mush that seeped into the soil, leaving nothing behind except Jacob’s blade. The other two ghost-like creatures turned into their liquid mist selves, with the girl in their arms and disappeared into the earth.
“Would someone please explain how that just happened?” I asked as I stared at the ground where the dead thing had turned to gore and sank in.
“Shadow walkers, they are like nothing, yet like everything,” Fala replied, dropping to one knee as he shifted back into his human form.
Jacob reached down to pick up his blade then slowly stood back up, watching steam rise where the black blood of the creature began to eat the metal. We both looked over at Fala, discovering the entire left side of his face was ripped open with four long indentions.
“It is in my system,” Fala said, then fell forward unconscious.
Jacob told me to go as fast as I could, staying far to the right, then follow the wall to the front and find Cates. Fala would be too much for the small frame of a fifteen year old to carry without problems, and I knew I couldn’t carry Derek, and help with a man the size of Fala. He would have to be bent halfway over at the waist to fit my much shorter height.
I ran over to Derek and told him that I would be right back. He didn’t open his eyes but he nodded a few times. I kissed his forehead and immediately wiped my lips on the inside of my shirt because he smelled like what I know I must have, I just couldn’t smell myself any more.
I did just as Jacob explained. I found Cates, brought him and Tammy back, and we got the hell out of there. Garvin tried the back door to Martin’s house but it was locked, so he leaned back and kicked it in. Sydney helped carry Derek inside, and Cates carried Fala. Tammy took charge, as she always did when wounds were involved, and I let her. She had Tanda cleaning the chips of stone out of Derek’s mangled cheek. Tammy then poured warm water over the side of Fala’s wounded face. “He shouldn’t get this infected so soon. Actually, he shouldn’t get infected at all. I heard weres don’t catch things like normals,” she explained to those of us who were watching, as she dug inside one of the wounds with a clean white strip of cloth.
“See the black, isn’t this what you said the thing turned into after you killed it?” she asked, holding the smeared cloth up to, Jacob.
“That’s it, no doubt,” I replied, first.
“It is,” was all that Jacob said, as he watched her clean out more.
“So, you don’t know anything about these things?” I asked, looking over at him. “None of y’all do?”
“Do you know that when you get nervous your accent from your home becomes worse? And no, I have never in my four hundred years ever encountered what Fala was calling a, shadow walker,” he replied never even glancing my way, because he was intently watching Tammy’s movements.
“I always talk the same.”
“No, you do not. You have learned a great deal from us, and speak much better because of it. But at times, you speak slang words like, ain’t and y’all.”
“Silly, those words ain’t slang, they’re Texan, and that’s where Derek and I come from. So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.” I explained myself beautifully, I thought.
“I have never smoked a pipe, and what would I be sticking in it? I don’t think I understand any of that statement,” he replied, finally looking at me.
“Never mind. You think Martin will know about those things?” I asked, changing the subject back to where we started.
“He should,” Sydney added, coming over by us. “He lives here and those things are in his backyard.”
“And he’s been coming to London for almost two hundred years,” Garvin said, setting down another pitcher of hot water on the table in front of the couch that Fala was lying on.
“Derek’s ready to be sewn up, Tammy,” Tanda said, rechecking her work.
“Almost through here,” Tammy replied, cleaning out the last of the four wounds.
“It’ll heal. I don’t need to be sewn up,” Derek interjected, holding the cloth to his face that Tanda was using.
“You’ll scar if you don’t let her,” Tanda explained, sitting on her knees in front of him on the other couch.
Cates was building a fire when he started laughing out of the blue. “I can do almost everything I did before I lost my arm, and you think Lord Derek is going to worry over a little thing like a scar?” He then asked me if I would hold the box still while he struck the long match, and the room erupted in laughter. Derek was holding his face, laughing so hard his eyes were closed tight because of the pain it was causing. Tammy was laughing but never stopped working on Fala, and Tanda snorted when she drew in breath, which caused everyone to laugh even harder. I noticed Sydney sit up straight and turned my attention to the living room doorway, where Martin was standing, watching us. His hair was hanging loose and his shirt was unbuttoned to his pants.
“Did we wake you?” I asked, trying to stop smiling.
“No, I just got in. I heard nothing of an attack on Lord Cheree’s humble abode,” he claimed as he stepped into the room. “So, tell me, how is it that you have wounded?”
“Why don’t you worry about your life and lets us worry about our own,” I said, standing up, losing my smile the moment he said he ‘just got in’ and looking like he did.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Renee. It’s been a long night and I’m not in the mood.” He moved to the side of the couch where Tammy was leaning back on the balls of her feet.
“Don’t talk to me like that, Martin. You won’t like the outcome.”
“Why are you so angry? Can you not just tell me what happened?”
“Fala was…” Jacob started to say when I interrupted.
“I’m not angry,” I snapped. “I just think you should mind your own business.”
He leaned down and picked up one of the blackish strips, smelt it, then put it back down. “Specter’s have infected him.”
