Blood Memory: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5) (23 page)

“Selena,” the woman said, offering her hand. “My name is Selena.”

Anne couldn’t help but smile at the formality. “I’m Anne. The other guys are-”

“Let’s save the introductions for later, shall we?” Jordan said
.

Selena pulled a face. “He is bossy, isn’t he?”

Jordan turned to Selena. “Which way?”

Selena arched her neck looking down each corridor. “This way,” she said, taking the lead.

She never hesitated once as she led them through the maze-like fort. They took turn after turn, too many times to remember. Finally she stopped and put her back to the wall. She nodded to the corner.

“How does it look?” Stan whispered
after Jordan had poked his head around the corner.

“Not good. There are two guards.”

“Unarmed?”

Jordan shook his head.

“What about the boat?” Anne asked. “Is it back yet?”

“No. Something must have kept him. The guards look
like they don’t know anything’s wrong. We’ve got to take out the guards before the boat returns. Preferably in silence. Does anyone have any ideas?”

They shared blank looks and shook their heads.

“I guess that leaves us with a fire fight,” Jordan said.

Stan’s expression turned ashen. “At least we’ve got the element of surprise on our side.”

“But if we don’t kill them quickly…” Anne began.

“The other guards will surround us,” Jordan completed. “We’ll be trapped.”

“But even if we’re successful,” Stan said, “the boat could be close, hear the gunfire and sail away without us.”

Jordan shrugged. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but what other choice do we have?”

Selena raised her hand like a kid at school. “Uh… I have an idea.”

“You’ll never guess who I saw the other day in the city,” Ben
said with a look of excitement.

Aleksy sighed. “Probably not.”

“I was near White City in London – you know, where the BBC centre is? And I saw – you’re not gonna believe this – I saw Jeremy Clarkson.”

“Who’s that?”

“You know – Clarkson. The car guy? You must know him, don’t you? Top Gear. The TV show?”

“I
never watched TV.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “The next time you’re off, let me know. I’ll take you to the video room and show you some old Top Gear videos. Bloody awesome, they are.”

“Great.”

Aleksy sighed. They
stood armed with semi-automatic rifles in the shadow of the fort at the junction where the jetties met the dock and splintered off. Half a dozen boats of various shapes and sizes were tethered to each quay. There was no land, nor other people, in sight. But still they had to guard the boats. Aleksy sighed again.

Ben’s ears pricked up at something down the jetty. “Hello.
What have we got here?”

Two women, their clothes barely covering them, sauntered down the jetty like it was some kind of catwalk. Trailing them were fellow Terry trench
coats. One older, one younger.

“Stop there,” Aleksy said. The women did – directly in front of the guns, barrels pointed at their chests. They weren’t perturbed in the slightest. Despite the sores around her mouth, the dark-skinned beauty in front of him was a stunner. She never took her smouldering eyes from his. He found he didn’
t want her to.

The younger soldier behind the women stepped forward, letting his gun hang by his side. Relaxed. “Special delivery. One for each of you guys.”

Ben turned and gawked stupidly at Aleksy. “That sure is nice of the boss, ain’t it?”

Aleksy made his expression unreadable. “Terry sent them? He never se
nt us gifts like these before.”

“They’re a thank-you for all your hard work,” the younger soldier said.

Aleksy cocked his head to one side. “Does Barry know about this?”

“Of course he knows.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Ben said. “The boss is good to us sometimes.”

Aleksy
raised an eyebrow. He’d like to know when. He eyed the soldiers. “How come I haven’t seen you two before?”

“We’re new,” the younger one said. “Came in with this new shipment. Terry thought you lads might like a taste before the punters show up. They’re more… passion
ate than you might be used to.”

The dark lady put her finger in her mouth and tongued it. The other woman followed suit. She circled the gun ba
rrel with her moistened finger.

A bulge formed in Aleksy’s trousers. He didn’t try to hide it. “From where?”

“Up north.”

“North? You can’t be more specific than th
at?” His trigger finger itched.

T
he older soldier stepped forward. “Don’t see why we should.” His voice was rich with Northerner nuance. “We’re all in this shit storm together now, aren’t we?”

“Aren’t you a bit long in the tooth to be in this racket?”

“Never too old, son. Not while it puts food on the table and a women in our beds. But hey, if you don’t want to take advantage of Terry’s kindness, we’ll take the girls where they’re more appreciated.”

“You look tense,” the woman in front of Ben said, raising her finger to the gun and stroking it.
“Is there any way I can help?”

“Hot dog!” Ben said. “These girls sure are different to the current lot, ain’t they?”

The painful throb in Aleksy’s pants overpowered the tingling warning sensation at the back of his neck.

“Okay,” Aleksy said, lowering his gun. “Where shall we do this?”

The women laid their hands on the men and pushed up close to them. They ran their hands through the men’s hair and kissed them on the cheeks, the neck, and the mouth. Aleksy shared an excited glance with Ben before he thrust his tongue into the woman’s mouth and closed his eyes.

Crack!

Aleksy was aware of a sickening crunch as his teeth sliced through his own tongue, the taste of liquid iron spilled over his teeth and down his throat, and a heavy flap of flesh fell from his mouth. It was then that he realised that perhaps he should have listened to that tingling sensation at the back of his neck after all – where there was now a dull fuzzy pain that diminished only when his body hit the jetty and darkness took him.

The fort loomed into view, a floating man-made mountain.
The hulls of a dozen frigates, ferries and galleons jutted out at various angles. Daniel slowed the nameless catamaran to a crawl as he approached the docks. It was quiet. Perhaps too quiet. As he approached the jetty, he could see the two guards still on duty.

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief and allowed a small smile to crease his lips
. “Guys! Guys!” he shouted.

Daniel pulled the boat up alongside the jetty and turned
off the engine. He hopped off and tied it up. Daniel chuckled to himself as he strutted down the jetty toward the guards.

Dooo-OOOP! Dooo-OOOP! Dooo-OOOP!
The alarm blared.

Daniel slowed
. The smile slid from his face. The guards turned.

Daniel’s face bleached white. He’d made a terrible mistake.

Daniel
was blindfolded with his arms tied behind his back to a Samson post. His cheek was busted open from the rifle butt he’d received from Jordan. A wet patch spread across the front of his trousers.

“I’ll get you!” Daniel shouted over the
piercing alarm. “Wait till I tell my sister what you did! Then you’ll be sorry!”

Jordan jammed an oily cloth into Daniel’s mouth and unshouldered his gun. “Stan, give your gun to… Ser…
” He gestured to Selena. “Sorry, what is it?”

“Selena.”

“Right, to Selena. You get the boat started and get us out of here. Take Jessie with you.”

Stan braced Jessie’s arm. “Come on, love.”

Jordan handed his gun to Anne. “Here, take this.”

Anne waved the gun away. “Whoa! I barely know how to shoot!”

“Picture the tin can. Just pull the trigger and make lots of noise. You don’t need to kill anyone. And be careful. It kicks.”

She
hesitantly took the gun.

Anne, Selena and Jordan ran along the jetty toward their new nameless catamaran. Jordan hopped off the jetty and into
one of four small tethered speedboats.

“Jordan,” Anne said, “what are you doing?”

Jordan took something resembling a small brick made of some kind of clay material from the bag. “Get on the boat. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“What is
that?”

“Our i
nsurance policy.”

“But Jordan…”

“Just get on the boat.”

Anne and Selena climbed aboard the catamaran. The siren still wailed but there hadn’t yet been a response. Anne watched as Jordan moved to the other three speedboats in turn.

“What is he doing?” Selena said.

Anne gripped her gun close. “Come on
,” she said under her breath. “Hurry up.”

There
were hectic shouts from the fort. Gunfire rattled off and echoed across the vast space. Bullets thudded into the fibreglass frame not inches from Anne’s head. She and Selena hit the deck.

“Jesus Christ!” Selena said.

The sails bellowed, and the boat began to peel away.

“Stan, wait!” Anne shouted. “Jordan’s still out there!”

Like a wraith out of hell, Jordan bolted along the jetty. Bullets thunked on wood, spitting up tiny columns of water. In some places small pools flowed through the holes and submerged the planks, taking the walkway with it.

“Let’s lay down some cover-fire,” Selena said.

Anne frowned. “Cover what?”

Selena rose, aiming the gun toward the fort. “Fire!”

A bejewelled hand rubbed a sore jaw. It clicked and crunked and moved unnaturally in its moorings. There was a faint throbbing w
here his jaw met his cheekbone.

Terry scowled as memories from his past life flitted in front of his eyes. A beer can thrown at the back of his head. A hideously drunk man taking a swing and connecting with Terry’s shoulder. A woman smacking him hard across the face. He’d seen his fair share of violence but he’d never been knocked unconscious before. Certainly not in the
New World. He ground his teeth.

There was a spot of blood on his shoe. He bent down and, with a handful of a dead guard’s hair, wiped it clean. The boat rocked gently. He growled. The boat he stood on had been cast o
ff and was floating out to sea.

Somewhere in the distance was the rattle of gunfire. Bursts of light flashed from the fort.
It was answered by fire from the nameless boat. A man Terry recognised immediately – the bastard who had knocked him out – hot-footed his way across the jetty and dived into the stolen boat.

The exchange of fire didn’t last long as the boat – his boat – peeled away. Despite the deal, despite the trade, it was
still Terry’s. In fact, every vessel on the sea was his. He was just kind enough to let people use them for a while – the way the king allowed people to use his land in the Old World. They might have paid for it, but they didn’t own it. His mood lightened when he saw his men tear down the jetty, climb aboard speedboats and give chase. The engines faded to an annoying buzz and the rattling gunfire continued.

There was a monstrous screech as a pack of angry wolves burst out from the fort and tore at the man tied to a pole
, who screamed. “Don’t kill me! Please! Don’t kill me! My sister! My sister – she’s one of you! She’s one of-”

Terry realized they weren’t really wolves at all, but something altogether more dangerous. They were the whores.
His
whores. They screamed, raising their arms into the air triumphantly, soaked bloody to the elbows. If he hadn’t known better he would have mistaken them for Lurchers.

Terry shrunk back a little into the safety of the boat’s innards. The last thing he needed was for them to see him.

The women, chimp-like in their bowed-legged gait, stumbled onto the remaining speedboat. They somehow managed to get the engine started and took off at widdenshins to the other departing boats.

His merchandise zoomed off into the sunset, but Terry
wasn’t worried. Let them have their few hours of freedom in the sun. It might even do them some good. But in an hour or two they would begin to feel that all-familiar itch that had to be scratched. It would be nothing at first, a minor irritant, but it would gradually consume them until they could take it no more. And with no one else dealing within a thousand miles, there was only one place they could go.

Terry crossed the deck and made his way to the cabin. At the console he pressed the start button, but nothing happened. The ignition key was missing. He banged a fi
st against the console. “Damn!”