Текст книги "Bloodbreeders: Lies Beneath London"

Автор книги: Robin Renee Ray

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

I was snapped out of my thoughts when the wood began to snap and crackle and the worst thing of all could have happened. Spiders took off in every direction. Tanda had inadvertently found the mechanism to open the door when she slid her hand over the top of the desk while looking under it. She jammed her fingers into a small bronze statue of a boy holding a dog, that at first glance, one would think it was attached to the feather quill pen and ink holder right beside of it. I jumped back three times as the spiders found other places to hide. There had to be hundreds of the foul things, all bouncing as they ran, stopping when they touched one another then darting off again.

“There just tiny, little spiders,” Derek pretended not to laugh.

“They scare me too,” Tammy said, holding the shoulders of Tanda, who was also watching the wall.

“We had plenty. Even some that would crawl around in my room, but not this many,” Tanda said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t like them either, Derek.”

“I think all girls are scared of spiders and snakes, don’t you, Fala?”

Fala was looking at the wall with his brows pulled together, holding his reply as he reached up to the ceiling and brought down something black. At first I thought he had already lost his mind and grabbed a spider, then I saw him spread his fingers apart. “It’s black,” his tone was so low that we all stepped closer. “The web they make is black,” he said louder, as he spun around. Derek stood in place, but the three of us jumped simultaneously. I think I grabbed Tanda’s hand, because Tammy was still locked on her shoulders, making me wonder who was more afraid of the eight legged beast. We watched Derek take part of the dark web into his fingers, as the confusion spread across his face.

“I ain’t never heard of this before, and we have loads of spiders back home, don’t we, Renee?”

“Yeah, all types. But, I haven’t ever heard of any that makes black webs, never even read about it in school…and I read a lot, once we got the picture books.”

“Explains why these stones are black and not like the rest of the place,” Tammy said softly, looking to her right at the wall by the painting. “But if that were the case, why wouldn’t it be all over the things in the room?”

Fala took the few steps needed to put him in front of us, reached over and lifted the bottom of the painting, causing hundreds more to come running out. He dropped it and we three females screamed, moving to the center of the room with lightning speed. The ceiling above our heads was coming to life with a ripple that ran through the spiders that had made their way up there. “I want to leave this room now,” Tanda whispered, not able to take her eyes off the pulsating visual towering over our heads.

“Grab the torch and burn them,” Tammy said with wide eyes.

“No!” Fala quickly added. “You may cause the others to drop when you start bringing the flame close to the ceiling.

“Never mind,” she swallowed, as a fine tremble became apparent in her hands.

Derek took the torch off the holder as gently as he dared and thrust it through the opening of the wooden wall. He looked back at us and the dread showed in his eyes. “It’s a small passageway, and I can only see so far with the glow of the light.” He stepped in, holding the torch out in front of him, and we got closer to the opening with Fala stepping in behind us. The sizzling sound was loud as he burned the black web that was so thick it was impenetrable without taking it down. The web popped every so often, and the smell of something other than webs burning was noticeable as we passed, making our way into the narrow, damp passage, having no idea where it was taking us.

“I really don’t like the feeling of this, Derek,” I admitted, having a bad gut feeling that the tight slanted passage was leading us further down into something far worse.

“It’s gonna be alright. We’ll find our way out,” he replied, never taking his eyes off the area in front of him.

“Before dawn I hope. I really don’t wanna be stuck down here after the sun comes up,” Tammy said, making me wish she hadn’t brought that thought to mind.

“We won’t be down here that long, will we?” Tanda stopped, turning to look at me.

“I don’t know sweetie. I just don’t know.”

Derek stopped a few feet up ahead and told us the passage went two ways, and wanted to know which way he should go. Fala told him to look at the flames on the torch and see if they were pulling one way more than the other, explaining they would go to the flow of air. Derek turned to the right, calling back to watch our steps, that the floor was starting to get slick. The one good thing about the way he turned was, the deeper we went the fewer webs hung over our heads. About fifty feet down the stone floor turned into slick steps that opened up into another room, only this one was twice the size of the first. Tammy, Tanda, and myself stayed by the opening of the steps while Fala and Derek followed the wall looking for more torches or some form of wall sconces, finding two on the right side of the room and lighting it enough to look for more without having to hunker down.

“Are those what I think they are?” Tammy asked, pointing to the other side.

“They look like cribs,” I replied, staring in disbelief, thinking they had to be something else.

The room had streaks of the black web here and there, but nothing like the so– called study that we left crawling with an abundance of creepy crawlers. The walls were the natural color of sand, but the floor was stained with a mixture of the black coating and bones in piles that looked spread out on purpose close to the walls. After Derek and Fala lit the only other two torches on the opposite side of the room, we three began making our way to the center. I was intrigued to find out if what we thought were cribs, truly were. There were four in all, and they were indeed baby cribs. They were smeared in the black gore, but with no webs. It was then that Tammy and I saw a small room behind the two cribs in the middle, hidden from view due to the shadows.

“Bring me your torch, Derek,” Tammy snapped her fingers, not taking her eyes off the four little cribs.

My mind was spinning as much as hers, wondering why on earth there would be baby cribs in a place like this, other than it being a sick breeder like Cortez, but he gave the infant’s corpses as a show of some warped sense of gift to those he visited while in route for slave trading. Tammy gasped as soon as the light filled the small room and I froze as the knowledge sunk in. There was a birthing table in the center and larger piles of bones on both sides of the bed. The women must have given birth then were killed and dropped to the side like worthless trash. But, why? And why keep the babies down here? My mind was in so much turmoil, that nothing that I came up with made any sense.

“These are the bones of the little ones,” Fala said, standing up from one of the strange piles spread throughout the room.

“I think maybe that guy in the painting was one sick bastard to have women down here, just to kill their babies,” Derek said, walking around in the room with the odd shaped table. “Wonder why it doesn’t smell more like death down here?”

“This is long death. It doesn’t look like it has been used in a great many years,” Fala replied, turning to look at us.

“What do you think those big holes up there are? Drainage?” Tanda asked, raising her finger in the direction. “I think I just saw something.”

“Like what?” I asked, walking over to her. “Where?”

Fala turned to look up as Tanda and I screamed out with every ounce of air in our bodies. Fala stumbled back but was nowhere near fast enough to get away from the dropping spider that came out of the hole that Tanda had seen moments before. Derek came flying out of the small room, reaching for the blade that he no longer had, because I had it. The huge black and gray spider had its legs locked around Fala’s upper body. Its tail lifted and a shot rang out so loud that I went deaf, as the large body of the spider exploded, covering Fala in a greenish liquid of its body fluids. Fala was completely pale as Derek kicked the massive spider off of him.

“Did it bite you?” Derek asked, looking for the evidence, as Fala stood shaking his head over and over.

“Grab your weapons!” Derek yelled. “Better change before these other holes come to life,” he said, putting his back to Fala’s and looking up at the other places that more could come from.

Fala swallowed twice, then began taking off his pants. He tossed them to the side, and was about to remove his shirt when a second spider came down behind us. Tammy spun around as it legs reached for her, and sliced her blade through the air cutting off part of its front two legs, screaming the whole time. The same green liquid sprayed out, but the spider scurried back up as fast as it could, disappearing from sight.

“Wonder what’s kept them alive?” Derek asked, as a huge growl reverberated throughout the room. Fala had shifted.

“Why don’t they just attack at the same time,” Tanda asked, getting ‘shhh’s’ from Tammy and myself as soon as the words left her mouth.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Derek said, frantically moving his eyes around the room. “Fala, start looking for another way out, or we go back up the way we came.”

I counted eight holes in all, and one dead spider. We had no way of knowing how many had survived down here and how many would come out of which opening. Fala broke one of the sconces off the wall and held it up in front of the hole that the dead spider came out of and nothing happened. His werewolf form seemed to have little fear of the arachnids now, and he moved swiftly to the next hole. I don’t think any of us knew what he was doing until the flame of the sconce blew back into the room then flickered, and just as swiftly the blaze turned back toward the opening of the spiders dewelling.

“This way,” he said in his gruff wolf voice.

“Are you out of your ever lovin’ mind?” I asked. “You think we’re going to go into one of those things home?”

“They have survived somehow,” he replied, turning his huge snout back my way.

“He’s right, they’ve had to go find food somewhere and that might lead outside,” Derek explained with excitement.

“What about the coming dawn?” Tanda whispered, still watching for the spiders.

“Come here,” Derek said, holding out his hand to her. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.” Then he took her into a one armed embrace, while pointing his gun in the air.

She was right about the dawn, and we didn’t have time to argue about it. The sounds of clicking and an even stranger sound of hissing began as Derek got up on Fala’s shoulders to look inside the round hole that was nothing more than a manmade round tunnel. Derek pulled himself up into the opening that was four feet in height and width, and saw nothing in the way of eight legs coming at him, so, he yelled down for the rest of us to hurry.

“Tanda first,” I insisted, helping her up Fala’s back. “Grab her, Derek!”

“Come on Tammy, your next,” I said, holding my hand out.

“How are we gonna get me up there?”

“Quickly,” I replied, pulling her over.

Two of the damn things dropped to the floor with a line of black web behind them, as Tammy was on Fala’s shoulders and reaching for Derek’s hand, “Move!” I screamed, backing up into Fala’s hind legs. Both spiders moved forward and then stopped, pulsating up and down, my heart beat to match the rhythm, and then some. I dared glancing back to see Tammy’s legs being pulled through the opening, and the spiders took advantage of my stupidity and charged. I screamed and took off around Fala’s legs, getting his attention to our dilemma. He bent forward at the waist and let out a guttural beast of a yell, so loud that I grabbed my ears. The spiders hesitated, but I think they were more hungry than they were fearful of the big, furry monster in front of them. Derek yelled out for me to watch out, the blast of his gun went off again, and a third spider dropped down right on my back, knocking me to the ground with its weight, pinning me in place.

I felt the thing move on my back as I scrambled on my stomach to get free. I screamed in fear that it was about to stab me with what had to be a two foot stinger, and my adrenaline went into over drive. I rolled over closing my eyes, pushing at the sticky, hair covered legs, until I worked my way out from under it, taking the curved blade that Derek had given me and slamming it into the spider’s body until it didn’t flinch at the feel of my blade anymore. I turned in time to see Fala wading into the other two, slinging his open claws at them viciously, until nothing was left except a nasty pile of legs and gore. He looked back at me on my knees by the one that had had me trapped and in two big steps, came and lifted me off the ground and straight up into the hole with the others. Fala threw back his head and gave one more bone chilling howl, then jumped up, grabbing the rim and pulled himself free of the room of many unanswered questions.

Chapter Thirteen

Jacob and the others made it back over the gate to Martin’s estate; going back through the city without any problems, and without passing by the alley of what they now knew was the wrong side unless you were looking for the sort of woman they’d run into when they first left.  They dropped in the chairs on the front porch where the light was good and opened the silk cloth, not only finding a note, but a key with a red ribbon tied to the end.

 

The Gala has been changed to the night of the new moon. The mistress will be celebrating the fall of the one who comes to bring London down. As if that could ever happen. Sorry to hear about Martin, but you will have the freedom that all fleshers dream of now. The key fits the secret gate that leads to the tunnels under our castle. Look for the entrance at the base of the mountain past the marshland, left of the main road. We will meet you there; just follow the tunnel.

Alex, your Felicia forever!

 

“What does it mean, ‘sorry about Martin’?” Sydney asked.

“Foul play is at hand,” Jacob replied, folding the note. “I ask you all to keep this bit of information from the others until we know more about what it means. I do not want Renee rushing over and getting herself killed.”

“I thought she said he left a note saying he would be back,” Garvin said, getting to his feet.

“They must have taken him in the tunnels,” Cates added, getting to his feet as well. “Let’s go see if the others found anything while we were gone.”

“Things just turned bad didn’t they?” Sydney asked, following the others inside.

“I’m afraid it has,” Garvin replied, closing the door after Cates had opened it from the secret latch at the very top, since he was the only one tall enough to reach it.

The boy’s looked in the study, then the family room, thinking that we would all be sitting around waiting, but saw nothing and found the same when they searched in our rooms. Next they went upstairs, calling out our names getting no reply. It was then that they made their way into the beginning of lower levels, shocked beyond words that no one was around.

“Did they take them also?” Sydney asked with panic in his voice.

“I don’t know. Look around,” Jacob said, looking at the lit torches in the wall sconces. “Someone’s been down here.”

“If you concentrate can you tell if normals have been through here, Sydney?” Garvin asked. “Or see them in any way?”

“I didn’t feel a thing once we left the city, and no matter how hard I try…” he froze in thought. “Fala…” Then he grabbed his head.

“What about Fala, Sydney?” Jacob asked, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Tell me what you see.”

“Spiders! I see spiders,” he claimed, clenching his eyes closed tight. “He’s below us.”

“Then the rest are with him.” Cates rushed to the stairwell that led down.

“No,” Sydney called out. “They didn’t go that way.”

“What are you talking about?” Garvin stepped up beside Jacob.

“He’s below us, I’m sure of it. I just know they didn’t go down those steps.”

“You’re wrong. Look, it’s a button, a female’s button,” Cates said, picking it up and then rushed back in grabbing a torch before heading back down.

Sydney in a trance-like state, walked right up to the wall that opened and began touching it. “Here, they went in here. I can feel Fala in my head, telling the others he found a door,” he explained, confusing himself as he touched the solid stone. Jacob looked over at Garvin, who nodded, showing he trusted the words of Sydney, and both began searching the wall for anything that might open a passageway. Cates came back up the stairs to let them know that there were no other torches lit below and stopped to watch them run their hands over the stones.

“They made the latches up high in the days of old.” Then he, too, began helping by searching above where they couldn’t reach.

A soft clank and the wall slid in, with Cates turning to look back at Sydney. “They went down,” Sydney replied, then gave a sharp nod. They followed the same path, soon finding the room with all the tiny spiders, the same way the others had. From the smears on the desk and their tracks on the floor it was easy to figure out how to open the wall in the room that looked like a study, with all stepping in with the wall lifting and closing behind them.

“Trickery,” Cates growled.

“Black web, Cates,” Jacob said, pulling his hand away from the wall. “These are the spider’s younglings.”

“Hurry,” Cates replied, moving quickly down the slanted passage. ***

Derek and Tanda were a few feet ahead of the rest of us, crawling around the second bend with no end in sight. The air kept blowing the torch but now it was blowing the flames back in the other direction. Derek stopped and waited for us to catch up. “Thank goodness, my knees are killing me,” Tammy said, scooting around to where she was sitting on her backside.

“This is going nowhere,” Derek added, sitting back like Tammy, with the rest of us following his action. “Looks like we’re going to be stuck in here through the day, after all.”

“What if more spiders come this way?” Tanda asked, sitting straight up.

“Then I will kill them,” Fala replied, in his human voice, causing all of us to look back his way. “I should have at least grabbed the pants.” ***

Cates was the first one to the huge spider’s chambers, he first saw the dead spiders, then he saw Fala’s clothes thrown down on the floor. “Fala! Renee!” he called out in his deep, gruff voice. The others filled the room with Sydney stepping back up a few of the steps, not believing his own eyes.

“Where could they have gone?” Garvin asked, moving one of the dead beasts with his foot.

“Through one of those,” Cates replied, pointing up.

Fala held his hand up and turned his head back the way we came. “I heard something,” he said, then barked; it was all that I could call it. That’s when we all heard the echo of someone yelling, “Come back this way!” I think we all cheered, as Tammy grabbed Fala’s leg, telling him he might want to take the back again, so his butt wouldn’t be up in anyone’s face; namely hers. Jacob was up on Cates’ shoulders, looking into the holes that had marks showing that movement had recently gone through, then began calling out, and that was what Fala had heard. I was right behind Tanda and Derek and even past the glow of our own torch I could see the light shining from the opening of the hole, and the beautiful face of Jacob smiling in at us.

“Leave you alone for a few hours and look where we find you,” he said, hopping down from Cates’ shoulders, so that Cates could help us down. “What were you thinking climbing into this creature’s resting place?”

“We were thinking we would find another way out, after the wall shut,” Derek said, dusting the webs and dirt off of his knees, cleaning his hands at the same time.

“Count yourselves lucky. Most who encounter these creature’s domain, do not live to tell about it,” Cates said as he took Tammy into his embrace.

“Oh they tried to make us a part of this place forever, believe me,” she replied, wrapping her arms around him.

“Two things, what are they, and how the hell do we get out of here?” I asked, nervously looking up at the other holes.

“Its' family is known as the wolf spider. These are a mutant form that is much like their smaller kin, only these hunt without the use of a web,” Jacob explained, leaning down by the one that tried to hunt me. “It is said that these were only heard of in fantasy, but Cates and I found ourselves in their midst many years ago, in the underground lair of an enemy to our old master.”

“Any idea why they would be here, along with those,” I asked, pointing at the baby cribs.

“There’s a room behind those, with a table used in hospitals, or a table much like them, to help a woman give birth. The biggest difference with this one is the straps that hold the woman down, are there to keep her by force.” Tammy explained, as she walked closer with Cates.

“Not to mention the number of bodies that have to be in those piles of bones,” Derek added. “And I’m sure you’ve already seen these.” Then he squatted down by a pile of the smaller bones that were mixed with an odd powder-like substance.

“The owner of these kept them fed well, and must have used them to scare whomever into submission of his ways,” Jacob said, running his hand in the bottom of one of the cribs. “From the size of these I would say they were more like the owners pets, than merely inhabitants of his lair.”

“Can we leave now? I really want to go back up,” Tanda fumbled with her blade, nervously looking up at the holes that we saw nothing come out of. “Do you think there may be one for each hole, Jacob?”

“More than likely when they were placed in here. But, with the looks of things, it has been some time since this area has been used for the feeding of these being, so it would be possible that most have died by now.”

“Unless, they have a way to get out and go feed…right?” Derek asked, walking back to the group.

“True, but I believe more would have converged on you had there been more. They are a graphic hunter and when hunger is their foremost thought, they will hunt as one,” Jacob responded, looking back up to one of the holes.

“So how do we get out of here?” Tanda asked, a second time.

“We go back the way we came,” Cates replied, releasing Tammy and pulling Tanda’s tiny form closer to him. “That door won’t be a problem for me, sweetheart.”

“Then can we please go? I mean right now, I don’t want to be down here anymore,” she said as her lower lip began to tremble.

“Tanda, are you alright?” Garvin said, going down on one knee in front of her.

“No, brother I’m not. Yvette used to tell me that the giant bugs were going to eat me one day, if I didn’t do as she said…and now it’s coming true.”

“When did she tell you these things?” he asked, picking her up like a small child.

“For years after they took us from our home. She knew I was afraid of them, especially spiders. Remember the night she locked me in the wooden box, for not brushing my hair?”

“I do. I will never forget it.”

“I screamed, because I felt something crawl across my leg. It was then that she began telling me of the giant insects.”

“Let’s get her out of here,” Derek said, nodding at Garvin and taking Tanda into his arms. “No one’s ever going to hurt you again.”

Tanda wrapped her arms around his neck and up the stairs they went. The rest of us followed, with me and Tammy feeling two feet shorter for not paying more attention to her and letting our own fear blind us to hers. I told Jacob about the tiny bones in the desk drawer, and he explained that the owner must have kept them for souvenirs, having to take them before the spiders took the victim. He then explained that they would not still be as hard as they were had they been collected after the spiders had their way, or they would have been brittle like the others. I was floored, well beyond shock, to think that anyone; be it breeder, normal, floating creature, or anything else; could be cruel enough to cut the fingers off of newborn infants while they lived, or otherwise. It had to be the most morbid things we had witnessed, and something I wished I had never asked about. Now I had the vision of tiny babies screaming out as some horrid insect mutilated their bodies, with the one that was supposed to protect them lying dead on the floor a few feet away. ***

Cates and Fala were now sticking blades into the cracks of the second wall where it split and were trying to pull it out enough to get a grip on to push it down long enough for us to escape. Garvin, Sydney, and Tammy were rummaging through the room, when Garvin dropped what looked like a photo frame after he looked at me, and stepped back. The wall was halfway down when I started walking over to see what he had found, and why it had bothered him so much that he dropped it the way he had. Garvin stepped in front of me, and told me that we need to hurry.

“What did you find, Garvin?”

“Nothing, it’s not important.”

“It was important enough to make you look like you saw a ghost,” I replied, trying to move around him.

“It is best if we just leave,” he said, grabbing both of my arms.

“Take your hands off of me, right now,” I demanded, looking him right in the eyes, and he released me stepping to the side.

I leaned down and picked up the square object, and my mouth hit the floor. It looked like a plaque of some sort, but it was the name inscribed on it that turned my world upside down. ‘Philip Vegee Lebrun’, was the name that looked back at me. I began wiping the black gore off of the rest and uncovered a smaller painting much like the one we had seen on the wall. It was, indeed, the same man. Martin had lied to me about his father being a rich French aristocrat that Yvette had killed when she took advantage of him. I felt a hand on my shoulder and just knew it was Jacob.

“Martin is not his father, Renee.”

“Really, it doesn’t matter. Why did he lie about him, Jacob? Why did he tell us he killed the owner of this place and cleaned it?” I said, getting angrier by the second. “Why did he act like he had only been here for a short time? He’s known.” I spun looking Jacob in the eyes, with tears falling out of mine. “He’s known all along.”

“I wouldn’t want others to know my father had done these horrible things,” Sydney came up behind me.

“Perhaps he was saving you the pain of knowing what he had come from,” Jacob added, with too much sorrow in his eyes for my liking.

“He has never spoken of his father to us,” Garvin mentioned. “Nor did we ever hear tales of it in the home of our maker.”

“Are y’all kidding me? You’re actually taking up for him?” I said in utter disbelief at the response.

“I say he’s a lying no good piece of dog shit,” Derek replied, standing behind the desk and looking up at the painting, then, out of nowhere pulled his blade, jumped up and stabbed it into the forehead of the character on the painting and let the blade rip through the canvas as his body dropped back down.

“Thank you, Derek. I happen to agree. I was raised to believe that there was never a good reason to lie to those you care about…never, and that if the truth couldn’t be told to others then just don’t say anything,” I responded to them all, dropping the plaque back into the filth of the spider’s waste where it belonged. “When he gets back there’s gonna be hell to pay.” I stormed past Jacob, who had disappointed me to the very core by seeming to have compassion for the likes of anyone who would lie about this and so many other things; not to mention, doing it while looking us right in the eye. Where I came from, that made a person worse than the liar that told tales behind ones back.

Cates and Fala had the wall close to the floor when I leapt up on it and helped bring it on down; that hadn’t been my intention in the least. I just wanted out of the deranged room of sick deception and lies. My maker was the son of a baby killer; one who left the mothers to either die on top of the dead bodies of the ones there before them, or killed them out right before rolling their corpse off the birthing table. As I was making my way as fast as I could up the stairs and out of the hell we had discovered, another morbid thought crossed my mind. Father Lebrun could have been sick enough to remove the infants himself, and more than likely helped, in one way or another, to make the stupid spiders treat his belongings with so much respect that nothing in the dark study below had any of the black web or the spider’s black gore on any of it. I could hear Tanda and Tammy calling out my name as I ran up the last of the steps. I ran out into the kitchen then headed for my room and locked my door. I took a quick rinse in the stone shower and lay down on top of the covers on the bed in the same gown I had worn the night before. I wished so bad that we had had enough time to get back to the safety of the shelter in the tunnel. I wanted out of this place and would do so first thing when I woke. No one knocked on my door when I heard them coming down the hall. I just heard the doors to their rooms open and shut, and, with the exhaustion of the night, I closed my eyes and let sleep take me before the dawn had its chance.

Chapter Fourteen

I woke to silence, no fire coals crackling in the fireplacetonight. But, when I sat up to focus my eyes to the darkness of my room there sat Jacob, in the high-back chair, looking at me. He had turned the chair around so that he could do so, and my anger came back to life. “How did you get in here? I had my door locked for a reason, ya know?”

“I know,” he softly replied. “It was an easy entrance.”

“That’s not the point, Jacob. And why is that you keep waking up before me when I was waking before you on the ship?”

“You are very exhausted and you sleep past the setting of the sun, not just from the pull, Renee. You need to talk about what we found last night,” he said, coming to the foot of my bed and sitting down.