Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others (7 page)

“The hook missed her spine, but she’s lost a lot of blood,” Tammy said rolling her back over, as Lilly cried out in pain.

“What happens if we feed a normal our blood,” I asked.

“No!” Jacob said grabbing my wrist. “You must not.”

“Why? It might give her strength.”

“It is against the rules.”

“Whose rules, Jacob? We make our own now, remember? Now tell me, will it kill her, or will she get stronger?”

He stood silent, so I bit my wrist. “You must not,” he demanded.

“Then tell me why.”

“Because she will crave you, until the day she dies…if her need for you does not kill her first.”

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take to give her back to her father…
alive
. Is there anything that will break the hold?”

“Yes, but only one of surety.”

“What? Tell me, I’ll do anything.”

“Your death, or bring her over where she cannot be with her own. The very ones that you wish to return her to.”

“Then we’ll find another way.”

I held my wrist over her mouth, but she clenched her jaws, saying “no” over and over to the point that I bent down and took a small amount of her inside myself, so that I
could control her thoughts. “Now drink.” She opened her mouth and took in the fluid that I offered. Jacob turned his back and walked around pretending to check for other things. She choked and my blood spilled out the side of her mouth. Jessie put her hand on my arm, and nodded that it was enough. I watched as the girls flesh became brighter. Her eyes rolled backwards as her back arched off the table.

“Hold her down,” Jacob called out coming back to us. “Place this in her mouth. Hurry!”

I put the end of the small hilt of the blade he handed me into her mouth. She bit down as the convulsions hit. Her arms and legs came up like she was having spasms, and every muscle tightened at the same time. After a few minutes she calmed, and soon fell into a deep sleep. Jacob explained that she would rest for a time then wake to a healthier feeling. I tried to thank him for stepping in and helping, but he simply reminded me of the future that would come because of my actions. While we were having yet another round of a few choice words, we hadn’t noticed that Sydney had been looking around the large room, more than likely for more survivors. It wasn’t until he screamed that we realized we had been so involved with our spat, that we weren’t keeping our minds on the most important things around us—each other.

“Sydney, where are you?” Garvin called out.

“Here, down here.”

He had fallen into some kind of pit that was full of the floating remains of hundreds of dead bodies. He was gripping the side of the wall, pressing his face into his arm. When we called down and asked if he was all right, he only begged that we get him out. Jacob removed one of the chains that was hanging and lowered it down to Sydney. He had to lie on his stomach, while Garvin and Derek held his legs, in order to reach Sydney’s desperate grasp. As we started to pull him up, the small form of a decayed infant floated right by his face and he fell back into the slime, blood, and gore. He yelled and started kicking it away. He grabbed the rope and almost pulled us all in with his manic movements.

“Sydney, look at me,” Jacob yelled.

“Look at him Sydney,” Garvin concurred.

Sydney looked up with more anxiety than I had ever seen on his face. It clearly emphasized what he was witnessing of the horror of what had gone on and now remained in the grips of the pit. We pulled him out and he immediately put Garvin in a death hold. Garvin pushed the gore away from his face, then told him that nothing could harm him and that we were about to take care of the one who had done all the cruel things that he had seen thus far. Sydney was the newest to our bloodbreeder family and needed more from his maker at times than the rest. We left them for a few seconds and found the door that would lead us out of this hell. We were now as ready as we were ever going to be and things were going to move much faster once we left this area. We all needed our heads on straight from this moment on.

“You’re going to be okay, Sydney. You can stay here with Lilly if you want.” I squatted down next to him and Garvin.

“I’m not staying down here, Renee. I’m fine, it’s just…” he paused shaking his head. “I can’t believe anyone could do this sort of shit.”

“The thing is, Sid, I think we’re going to see this sort of thing everywhere we go.”

“Not at our home,” Jessie said looking over at us from her place at the girl’s side. “I will stay with her.”

“You don’t have a torture room like this?” Derek asked.

“Not like this, no,” Jacob replied, frowning at the very thought. He then walked out of the room.

“But, you have one?” Derek lifted his head to see if Jacob was going to come back.

“You will all see soon enough, but now we must move. I saw no one in the next area,” Jacob added walking back into the room.

Jessie stayed behind with orders to get the girl out if she was strong enough when she came around. Tammy bandaged her up the best she could using part of her shirt, then she asked one of the boys to give her theirs so that Lilly wouldn’t be nude when they were ready to leave. It was Brandon who had his off first. He now looked extremely sun burned, his chest being stark white against the red paint on his face and arms. Tammy helped Jessie put the shirt on Lilly before we made our way out and into the other room. As we entered, the difference was as noticeable as night to day from the room we just walked out of. I hadn’t noticed us going downwards once we came into the estate, but now we were moving up a small flight of stairs. Jacob opened the door and the fresh smell was almost as overpowering as the bad. My body drank in the sweet smell of flowers and I was grateful, just as I was sure the rest were.

“Must I do everything myself?” a man said as Jacob slowly shut the door.

“Cortez,” Tammy mouthed.

Jacob put up one finger, then two, and on three he threw open the door. To our surprise no one was there, but we heard the cries of a baby. “Ready your weapons.” With Jacob’s words declared we readied our blades in our hands and off we went. Two men came around the corner carrying crates. One dropped his at the shock of seeing us and the other opened his mouth and started backing up. When the one that had dropped his goods started to scream, his throat was met with a flying blade from Jacob’s hand. The other man—who was also a breeder that one could tell by his scent, even if his mouth wasn’t hanging open and his fangs clearly showing—began shaking his head.

“He’s in the study. Two guards are with him and there’s at least ten more behind closed doors that he has waiting to surprise whoever.” He blinked rapidly looking at each of us one at a time.

“You tell us so you will live?”

“No, so he will not.”

“Then you have just saved your own life, but if you are wrong I will cut your heart out myself,” Jacob promised, removing his blade from the blackened ash pile on the floor.

“He thinks things are safer since you did not come for him these past few nights.”

“Where’s the baby?” I asked.

“What…baby?” he stuttered.

“Kill him,” I said clearly.

“No wait, please. It waits in the shipping room at the end of the next hall.”

“Do you know this room?” Jacob asked looking back at Tammy.

“I know it all too well,” she replied, getting a huge gasp from the man.

“You live, Mistress,” he said with the shock of her presence written all over his face. “He said you had died!”

“Did he explain my demise?” Tammy walked up closer to the man.

“He would not. Not to me,” he said, dropping the crate and clutching his hands and stepping further back.

“Tie him up and put him inside the dungeon door,” I said. Tammy and I headed for the shipping room while the others headed for the study.

I, more or less, ordered that the only one that was to stay alive, in the case that they went in before we found the baby, was Cortez. Tammy had a few things to tell him and I would not allow her to be deprived. Revenge is far to healing. The cries got louder the closer we got, but we couldn’t rush for the fear of being overrun by enemies. The shipping room was to the far right side of the large estate. We only saw three people inside; two normals and one breeder. We had slipped into a small cleaning closet when we heard them coming, and were now opening the doors to the room we were so desperately trying to get to. I wanted to be with my boys when all hell broke loose, and not somewhere separated from them when it hit.

Tammy pulled the door back to find a female breeder sitting in a chair by a wooden box that sat up on a table which held other crates lined in rows. The baby was being completely ignored and very much treated like the rest of the goods that were sitting around it. Tammy went for the baby, while I went for the woman. I didn’t want to give her time to tell me that she was under orders. I didn’t care. She could have offered the child some type of comfort instead of sitting there working with her yarn. She stood dropping the small basket of thread, but by then I had her throat in one hand and my curved jeweled handled blade buried in her chest. Blood poured from her mouth as she tried to speak. Her eyes became huge as her own death whispered in her ear, and once again a smile crossed my face. I twisted the blade once just as Jacob had showed us, and pulled it back out swiftly. Her body turned to a dark black color before she ever hit the ground.

“The baby’s fine, but it needs its mother’s milk or it won’t make it much longer.”

“Then we have to get the baby back to Jessie,” I said walking over and looking down into the tiny face of the screaming infant.

When we came back out the door my heart came up in my throat, because we were shocked as the boys came running around the corner. Brandon said that Jacob bid we hurry because once the door was open…he paused.

“There’s more?”

“It was what he said.”

“Well?” I added widening my eyes.

“I think he was meaning to say, ‘all hell was going to break out’, but what he actually said was, ‘before all dick breaks out.’ I really don’t think it’s a good idea for him to try and talk like we do. When I left, Derek was still trying to explain it to him.”

“I would have loved to hear that coming from him,” I laughed, and then the baby started squirming.

“You have the baby,” he said and went to it.

“We need to get the baby back to Lilly, she needs to try and feed it.”

“I’ll take him, or is it
her
?”

“Boy,” Tammy replied handing him the baby.

“Then I’ll take
him
.”             

We made sure that he got to the door in safety, then found Jacob and the others in the small room across from the study. I guess I should say that they found us slinking through the hall, hiding behind everything we passed, and called us over with a sound very much like Shyanna’s chirping. When we walked in and the door was closed, I saw five bodies on the ground and only two had changed into their death state.  The room we were fixing to make a grand entrance into was the one right across the hall.

“I think we all go in at the same time. Get them with the element of surprise,” Jacob said leaning on the closed door.

“I’m ready, how about all of you?” I asked.

“Yaw!” Derek loudly adding, “Hoop…apa…do,” slowing his tone when all eyes landed on him.

“Why’d you do that?” Sydney asked wrinkling up his face.

“Just giving a big ole hell yeah, in river language,” he replied and smiled wiggling his brows back at Sydney.

“Well, I think it was more like ‘haw’ than ‘yaw’, but on this one I’m with ya,” I added bumping Derek with my hip.

I pulled out my twenty-two in one hand and my jeweled blade in the other. Jacob looked out then waved us all out into the hall. “Master!” a man yelled from down the hall and Jacob kicked the door in. Garvin went for the yelling man as we walked right into his study. Cortez jumped so bad that he fell out of his chair, while his men tried to surround us. This place was almost as elegant as the one in Cuba, but the one who owned it was a little sicker. The point had passed perversion when we took Lilly off the hook that had been shoved deep into her back, and found out she’d given birth while hanging from it. It would be a memory that I would try to erase, but would fail in my attempts. Cortez was trying to get on his feet when Tammy stepped around the boys.

“You live, my little buttercup,” Cortez gasped, doing his best to smile.

“Bet you never would have guessed that when you gave me over the way you did.”

“No, it was a mistake. You were not there as a slave, but as my wife.”

“Shut the hell up!” Derek snapped. “The cats out of the bag and she knows you sold her to that crazy bitch.”

“Now there is no need to get so excited, I can explain everything,” Cortez calmly said sitting back down in his comfy looking brown leather chair.

“There is no need…” Tammy was saying as the doors on both side flew open and the room filled with men, breeders and normals alike.

“Remember, soft flesh,” Jacob yelled. “Step in.”

We all put our backs together making a ring, meeting shoulder to shoulder, as Cortez’s men pulled their ranks in making a larger circle facing us. We were also outnumbered three to one. Cortez, of course, leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I knew that the demons would follow me here, but I never once thought that my own wife would show them the way.” Tammy darted her eyes over to the beast who spoke and Jacob cleared his throat.

“Which of you is the one that I saw holding the flame? You owe me for my top in command.”

“I owe you nothing, but death,” I replied never breaking the tight circle that we had.

“My dear, are you so vane that you cannot see that you have already failed?”

“About as blind as you not seeing that you and these men are just walking corpses waiting to hit the ground.”

“Well, red one…make your move,” Cortez replied, lacing his finger over his chest and rocking back.

“Jacob?”

That was the only thing that I had to say. He yelled the cry of the fighting art, and we all took a step with our left legs and brought up our black weapons. All but me that is, mine was hard steel. No matter how much Jacob disapproved of modern weapons, guns more than anything. He had explained that honor stood among men who fought in hand to hand combat. But to me that made no since when those very men held very sharp blades. I would use my gun as long as I had bullets to go in it. Cortez’s men made grunting sounds, loosely swinging there blades. When Jacob started swinging, so did we.

I blocked the arm that was coming right at my head noting the hand wasn’t empty. I came up as fast and as hard as I could and shoved my blade into the man’s armpit. It wasn’t until the man’s arm came loose like a chicken being carved and merely hanging by the skin, that I knew he was a normal. It was one of the few times that I couldn’t tell due to the fact that the room was filled with the blood and stench of so many. I made a back handed motion and sliced his throat. I turned in time to see Jacob spinning around while going down on his knees, cutting open two men’s abdomens as they tried to make contact with him.

Tammy fought beside Derek who was using his legs, kicking the sides of jaws, then spinning around the man and pulling his black blade and damn near taking off the head. Garvin was slicing one after another, abdomen, after abdomen was opened and soon the floor was covered in entrails. Derek was holding his arm with the hand that held his blade, and I noticed the tip was missing. Jacob was knee deep in bodies and was now using his silver sword, plunging it into anything that moved. Sydney was down on the floor, gripping his side, but with the black shirt it was too hard to tell just how bad he was wounded. Garvin was bending over, but he was just relieved that this part of the battle was over, I think.

Tammy was now standing with her blade under the throat of her maker. “Where’s the messenger?” When he didn’t answer, she slid the blade into his flesh. He hissed, grabbing her wrist and tried to fight it away.

“I will kill you, you ungrateful wench.” Cortez yelled.

Derek rushed over and grabbed his arm and started pushing it back. Cortez now had Tammy by the hair with the other hand and was doing his best to kick at her. She was already leaning on him to prevent him making contact, when I grabbed his hand and started bending his fingers back, snapping one as I touched it to the back of his hand. He screamed and let go of her hair. I then pushed his arm back just like Derek had. Tammy sat down on his legs and asked again. “Where’s the messenger?”

“It’s too late, buttercup.”

“What’s he talking about?” I asked feeling the man’s arm relax.

Tammy’s eyes filled with tears as she leaned in and kissed his cheek. He closed his eyes, tilting his head into hers as he took in her scent and then she sank her fangs into his neck. His eyes went wide as he began to struggle. Derek and I held firm until his arms lost all strength.

“Not to death, Tammy,” I said putting my hand on her back, but as I did I saw his flesh turn black.

I watched as she sat back up and wiped her mouth, removed her blade and as his body turned to ash she dug out his heart. I was about to ask Jacob what we were going to do next, when gun shots started filling the night. “Jamous,” he said, and we headed for the door. As I was running by I saw Garvin helping Sydney and within minutes we were on the front colonel style porch. The yard was filled with chaos. Men wearing armored suits, like those out of a medieval story, were fighting with Jamous and his men.

“The messenger,” was all that I heard Tammy say, before the boys leaped off the porch, yelling indescribable sounds as they lifted their weapons over their heads. Brandon came running past us like a streak of lightening, yelling, “Not without me!” Tammy and I looked at each other and joined in the fun.

Blood flew, as blades sliced through the air. Guns went off and bodies graced the ground. The older the bloodbreeder, the more ash they became. The air was filled with a fine mist of those that once were, yet some were so young that they lay whole with just the harsh darkening of the flesh. I stood with my pistol in one hand and my blade ready in the other, with what had to be the biggest man that I had ever seen, breathing hard in
front of me and ready to attack.  He had an enormous club and a round metal shield. I acted like I was going to step back, but instead I came forward and planted my foot firmly between his legs. He grunted as he bent forward, and when he did I slammed my blade through the back of his neck. He stood so suddenly that I lost my grip. He started swinging the huge club in circles knocking me to the ground with one solid blow. I lay there, with my head spinning. My eyes focused just in time to see Garvin step in and slash his blade across the man’s stomach, then he spun back around and came across the front of his throat, as the man was coming down for a killing hit on me. The club smashed down two inches from my head as the big man’s body fell across mine. In awe, I watched as Sydney pulled my blade out of the thick black slime and then took the club, showing me the hilt of his broken blade.