“Thank you, Fala…I mean that,” I said as they disappeared through the small opening that we had all come through.
I turned to see Martin waiting halfway up the staircase. His expression seemed a bit confused, I guess because my body showed no signs of being pulled by the approaching light of day. I shrugged my shoulders, thinking if he had heard so much, then he should have known that I drained his maker, who’d drained an ancient, giving herself, as well as myself, the gifts of the old ones. I walked up the stairs, passing him as if he had no effect on me, and made my way out into an elaborate foyer, much like the one in Cuba.
“I can almost guess the decorator,” I smirked looking back, then immediately walked over where Cates had carried Tammy through one of the open doors beside the staircase.
“All the surrounding rooms have been made for our convenient. The windows have been sealed and coated with a layer of cement, and all have their own bathing quarters.” Martin explained, picking Tanda up and carrying her into the closest room.
It was Cates, Jacob, Martin and myself that got everyone that had been pulled under into a room of their own. Jacob stood back until I walked into the room closest to Tanda’s, then slid down by my door, and closed his eyes. As for where Martin had gone, I couldn’t say. No more words were exchanged and the day took control.
***
I woke in a soft clean bed, somehow thinking I was back on the ship. I stretched out my arms and looked to my right, realizing that I wasn’t anywhere near the water, much less my ship. A vase of long stem roses sat waiting, with a glass pitcher of dark red liquid. I then heard water running in the next room, which I assumed had to be the bathroom. I was so tired the last thing I remembered was walking into the room, looking at the bed, and collapsing.
Martin came out of the bathroom with a cloud of steam following him. He was wearing a pair of red silk bottoms and no top. His hair was as out of place as I had ever seen it, which told me that he must have just woken himself.
“Thought you might enjoy a peaceful bath,” he said, going to the closet and opening it. “There are clothes beyond your wildest dreams in here, choose what you want. I will return soon.”
“Thanks,” I replied, pulling my legs up to my chest.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“No, I’m fine,” I replied, noticing the way his body moved as he opened the dresser drawers.
“Here are the undergarments that you may need, and there are plenty of oils and fragrances for your bath and hair in the bathroom. Should I send Tanda in when she wakes?”
“I can take care of myself, and Tanda doesn’t have to serve anyone ever again,” I snapped, getting up and heading for the bathroom.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, stepping over and grabbing my arm. “She loves you very much and said she wished to be near you when she woke.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped like that, but things have changed a great deal since you saw me last.” I looked him in the eye pulling out of his grip. “I’m not the girl you took from her family anymore. She died a long time ago, back in that dungeon of hell in Cuba.”
“Will the new Lady Renee find room in her heart for the one who created her?” he asked, leaning down as if to kiss me.
“We have a lot to talk about before either of us decides what happens in the future.” I quickly moved out of his way and walked into the bathroom, closing the door before he could respond. But then I had a thought and opened it just a crack. “How did you get in here with Jacob at my door?”
“I simply stepped over his slumber state,” he smiled with a shrug then walked out.
Chapter Two
I was lost in thought with my body neck deep in the warm bubbled water that smelled of roses and lilacs, when a light tap sounded at the door. “Go away Martin, I don’t feel like talking right now.” I heard Tanda giggle from the other side.
“It’s me, Tanda. He told me you would not let him wash your back.” Then I heard her giggle louder. I told her to come in, but to close the door behind her. She did as I said then leaned up against it, smiling from ear to ear, waiting for me to say something. And I wasn’t going to, but she kept staring at me with her huge blue eyes and her slightly mischievous smile.
“Nothing’s changed, so you can wipe that smile off your face,” I said, right before lowering my head under the water, only to find her next to the tub when I came up.
“All things are coming together, don’t you think?”
“In what way? We came here to do the same thing we’ve been doing, and trying to outrun those assassins while doing so.”
“We all saw how you held him in the tunnels, Renee. You kissed him much like I kissed Derek,” she wiggled her brows, lathering up the sponge.
“You did what?” I replied, pretending to be shocked, taking the sponge out of her hand.
“It just happened, and it was magic,” she glowed. “He may be younger in years, but my heart has given itself to him, none the less.”
“So, that’s why you’re so giggly about me and Martin, who, by the way is nothing more than my maker. I have no place, or room, in my life for a lover,” I said, standing up and grabbing the robe that Martin had laid out. “I didn’t mean to cut you off earlier when you began speaking about the others. I thought it would be best if I told Martin about my brother.”
“Of course, I should have thought before I spoke. I’m just so excited to have found him. Now if we could all just live in peace,” she said drying the back of my hair.
“That sounds like something you were told to say,” I paused, turning to look at her. “Was it?”
“Martin mentioned that now that we had found each other that all of this could stop.”
“Do you think that it’s fair to the ones who are still locked away in the same kind of prisons that we were in to have to stay there because we found happiness?”
“Well, no….”
“He doesn’t have a clue about anything, because he hasn’t cared enough to try and stop it before.” I angrily took the brush and began detangling my hair. “Where was he for the fifty years that you and Garvin were in the care of that crazy bitch that he calls his maker? When he can say he has followed us, and taken out some of the evil that we’ve destroyed, then he can make judgment calls on what we should, or should not, be doing.”
“Why are you so angry with me?” she asked in a timid voice.
“Because you’re the only one standing here right now,” I smiled, placing my hand under her chin. “I’m sorry. You know it’s not you that has me so tied up on the inside.”
“Martin may not understand what we have been trying to do, but he loves you none the less.”
“How can you sound so wise and look so young?” I asked, kissing her on the forehead. “As bad as I hate to admit this…I love him too, but this isn’t the time for him to be thinking that we should leave things be.”
“May I come in?” Martin asked as he opened the door as I tied the sash around my waist making sure I had little flesh showing.
“Please don’t, we need to get the others together, and make plans about what we’re going to do about the crime here in London,” I politely said, then walked over and tried to close the door on him, only succeeding after the hard stare I gave him.
“They already wait for you in the study,” he called back through the closed door.
“Then go wait with them, and we’ll be down when I’m finished,” I called back as I started putting on the same dirty pants that I had been wearing.
“Did you not see all of those beautiful gowns?” Tanda asked, shocked at my choice of clothing.
“I would be so pleased if you could find me a clean shirt, but there is no way that I’m ever putting one of those things on again.” I looked out the bathroom door making sure we were alone, then hurried Tanda out.
Tanda smiled, giving me a little curtsey, and then dashed out of the bedroom in search of a top for me, giving me enough t
ime to braid my hair down my back, and smooth some sweet smelling cream on my face and hands. It was the first time that I had looked at myself in a full-length mirror in a long time. I looked boy-like with my hair pulled so tightly back, but my body showed that I was all woman. I touched the scars above my left shoulder, running my hand down over my breast, following the scar on the side of my ribs, scars that I could barely remember getting; all but the scar that clearly showed on my throat. Yvette was at least giving when she offered her blade across my flesh. It was then that I placed my fingers in the indention that her blade had made on my lower right side as I drained her of her eternal life.
I turned, looking at my full view, wondering at the back of my mind what ‘he’ would think of me now if he knew all and, in the same thought, wondered if I really cared. I wanted nothing more than to have him take me in his arms and never let me go, but only if he accepted our plight, which I feared, after hearing Tanda, that he never would. However, the deep feelings that I had bursting into my mind every time I heard him speak was driving me mad. It went from hate to love in swirls, neither able to agree with the other. It wasn’t until a vision of him and Yvette making love floated across the mirror that I knew why the anger lived inside. She had had him in ways that I could only have dreamed of. I knew a great deal of what they had done just by merely thinking in the fog of my own visions.
“Give her air…move back, all of you,” Jacob said in a distant dream. “Renee, can you hear me?”
“He speaks with her now. Beware the golden hair, for she will not be as easy a kill as I.” Then I collapsed back into unconsciousness.
I woke to the sounds of Martin and Jacob arguing about something that they were saying that I had said, but the last thing that I remembered was leaning closer to the mirror. “You cannot be serious to believe the words of a trickster like Angelica,” Jacob said, sounding clearer.
“She wishes to have a meeting and come to an understanding with no loss of life. How could that in anyway be wrong?” Martin proclaimed.
“You have lived in this world long enough to know the ways of a fearful woman, and yet you still fall for the beauty that lies before the beast,” Jacob growled.
“Can I ask why you two are arguing?” I asked, trying to sit up but falling back with a horrid pain in my head.
“You are awake,” Martin replied, rushing to my bedside.
“What happened?”
“You had one of your spells,” Jacob said, coming to stand at the end of the bed. “You spoke in the tongue of the ancient. It was he that warned of the golden hair, and this man wishes for us to meet with her on what he calls ‘equal ground’…her place of choosing.”
“He does not understand that she wishes to make peace, and stop what she has been doing,” Martin replied, raising my hand to kiss it, but I gently pulled it away.
“I want to see the rest,” I said, pulling myself up, grabbing my head from the pounding headache that hit as soon as I moved.
“You need to stay down,” Martin replied, beginning to push on my shoulders.
“This has nothing to do with you, and I can take care of myself.”
“And if she cannot…we will take care of her,” Jacob added, coming around to the other side of the bed to help me up.
I looked down and saw the sparkly, dark pink dress shirt that someone had placed on my body while I was out, and the soft pale pink sleeper bottoms, that I didn’t recall putting on myself. The first thing I did was pull the top over my head and lean down to grab my old shirt, looking back, seeing pure shock on Martin’s face as I showed no shame in showing my nude breasts. “I just wanted a shirt to wear with my jeans, not some frilly ball top that, more than likely, belonged to one of your past lovers,” I sarcastically glared at him, while I pulled off the soft pink sleeper bottoms. Jacob went into the bathroom and found my pants and handed them to me, allowing me to dress myself, showing Martin that we stood as equals, not one who answered to the other. “I do hope it was Tanda that took my jeans back off and dressed me while I was out.”
“Your honor is intact, I assure you. It was Tammy who helped Tanda while you were in your state of recalling.”
“Recalling,” I snorted out a laugh. “That’s one way of putting it, Jacob.”
We left Martin standing near the foot of my bed, as Jacob and I walked out. I could tell that he was having a hard time with the new me, and I wasn’t about to let that change. We had all sacrificed greatly in making it this far and we weren’t going to stop now. If this country was like the one we had just left then they, too, would have our mark on their scent, even if it meant losing the one thing that I truly thought that I had been seeking. When we walked into the study everyone got to their feet, as if given the order to do so, which made me smile. It was the look on Tammy’s face that made me burst out laughing.
“You would think I was at my own wake. Why do you look so sad?” I asked as I walked up and gave her a hug.
“We don’t want you to hurt, in here or…in here,” she replied touching first my head, then my chest over my heart. “This woman that your maker wishes us to meet with is said to be worse than the one that you carry inside.”
“I have no plans of meeting with this woman, for any reason other than to do what we came here to do. How stupid does she think we are? Surely they know about the elders?” I asked, turning to look at Jacob.
“It is well known, and anyone ready to break away from them would be hunted just like us. I say it’s a trap to get us in a place where she will have the power to hold us until the elders arrive. Or worse, take all of us out but the ones the elders would want. Namely, those who carry a medallion and the Red Devil.”
“Meaning everyone could, and would more than likely, be put to death but you and me?”
“Precisely.”
“But, why would Martin do this? He’s always been our friend,” Tanda inquired, unknowingly placing her hand on Derek’s.
“I think he believes that her words are true, but many like your Martin have fallen to the ways of a desperate woman,” Cates added, sitting back down and pulling Tammy onto his lap.
“Perhaps I believe that there is a better way than a battle that will end in blood shed,” Martin said, coming into the room.
“Then why haven’t you ever done anything about what’s been going on, you know, brought peace to your kind?” Derek asked, stepping out of a dark corner. “Whose blood are you really afraid of shedding…your own?”
“I will let that comment pass, because you do not know me well enough to judge me. But I would watch that tongue in future statements,” Martin replied, hissing the last.
“We didn’t come here to fight amongst ourselves.” Sydney stood walking around Garvin. “If you have heard what’s been going on, then you know we can’t take the chance of meeting this woman. You weren’t there when Yvette took the love of my life and our dear friend, with her words of good will. It’s you that needs to sit down and hear what we have to say, and not push down our throats what others wish for you to tell.”
“Well said young Sydney, I believe you are coming into your own,” Cates laughed out.
“Then tell me so that I will understand,” Martin replied, and we did just that.
He sat back rubbing his chin as each of us jumped in to tell a piece of the story up to the time that ended with us in the tunnels where we found each other. I kept the lower levels of the Cuba’s estate to myself, and Garvin and Tanda offered nothing in the way of my torture. It was for me to tell in my own time. We spoke of the ones we lost and lives that we took, leaving little out in the way of destruction that we found when we entered a new place of demented hell. He was intrigued throughout, until I told him of finding Johnny on the end of Chin’s golden leash, then explained how it was that my four year old brother suffered the curse of the bloodbreeder. That was the only time that I witnessed him removing a single crimson tear from his cheek. He stayed silent, never asking one single question as we went on int
o the wee hours of the night.
“So, you see why we cannot, and will not, trust this Angelica, Martin?”
“I do.” Was all that he said, then he stood and left the room.
Chapter Three
We carried on among ourselves; Jacob drawing out on a parchment what he remembered of the four estates that sat on the out skirts of London, one of which, held slavery on the highest of pedestals. As soon as we thought that Martin had gone for the night, he returned with an armful of rolled up maps. They all led from the place where we were at, to each of the places we would soon be visiting.
“These belong to Isa and myself when we once had hopes of doing the very thing you have begun.”
“Isa is a good man and he said to tell you that you were even now,” I smiled, taking a few of the maps from him. “He helped me escape because of the past that you and he had.”
“He helped me in the same way many years ago, but saving you does not make us even,” Martin replied, walking around behind my chair, lightly touching my shoulder. “I owe Isa so much more now.”
“We know of the four main estates that these tunnels lead to, do any of these maps lead to Mistress Angelica’s domain?” Jacob asked, unrolling one of the scroll-like maps.
“To her private resting place, no, but these will show you several different ways to enter the grounds, as well as what station they hold, in order,” Martin replied as he finished walking around my end of the long mahogany desk. “Here, this is the home of Lord Cheree Montclair. He holds the next highest rank in line to Angelica’s lead here on the Isle of England.” Then he reached over and unrolled another one. “This is the home of what is well known in London as Angelica’s sicker half, her twin Inara. It is said that the ancient that fell in love with their beauty, died with one on each side of his neck. She is her sister’s highest rank, and worst nemesis, when competing for trade.”
Bloodbreeders: Lies Beneath London Page 2
