***
We could see that Garvin and Sydney were now in the kitchen surrounded by everyone else in the house, including Martin. Fala excused himself and walked toward the stall where the pig’s carcass waited, empty of its fluid and hanging upside down from the barn door entrance. Derek stepped up behind me as my mind wandered on what it must have been like for my father being hung in that same fashion, scaring me before I could carry that thought over into something I needn’t be thinking about anyway. He reached up and opened the back door, partly raising the right side of his mouth, as his long blond bangs covered the left side of his face. That boy never needed to say he was sorry for stepping out of line when it came to Martin and me. I could see it in the one sparkly, hazel-blue eye that looked back at me.
“What would I do without my dark angel?” I smiled with both eyes full of tears.
“Be in a world of shit,” he replied, making me laugh out loud as my sad tears turned to happy rivers down my cheeks.
I hurried and wiped my face and as I walked by him to enter the house, I kissed him on the cheek, whispering, “thank you” with a quick “I love you too, kiddo” then walked into the best smelling kitchen since my ma’s homemade peach cobbler. The scent of fresh warm blood filled the air with a sweet welcoming aroma that had once plagued me with doubt of ever surviving the life of a night walking bloodbreeder. At that moment I craved nothing more than that moist texture running down my throat; so I walked right up to the counter, grabbed one of Martin’s fancy goblet style glasses and dipped it down into the silver bowl sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.
“I believe there is a ladle,” Garvin said, holding it in his hand.
I turned up the dripping mess, swallowed the warm liquid as fast as I could, and gulped loudly as the blood spilled from the sides of my mouth. Tammy was the only one smiling when I dipped the glass in the second time. “I know what made me that hungry,” she snickered, blowing a kiss at Cates. I rolled my eyes and smeared blood into my hair as I moved it out of my way to turn the glass up again. I drank half and then slowly set it back down.
“I’m full,” I belched, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, never once looking at the one that I was putting on the show for. “As our good friend, Bo, would say, let’s do this!” Then I turned and headed down the hall.
Cates yelled, “Let’s do this!” as he plunged his drinking cup into the bowl of blood, spilling it down his beard as he drank. I heard several cups clank together as everyone else followed suit, yelling out the same cheer. By the time they joined me in the basement, everyone had lines of blood from the middle of their face, in long, red, thick lines, to the middle of their stomachs. All but, Martin that is. He was wearing a black tuxedo dinner jacket that hung down in the back so low that it dusted the tops of his black shiny boots that held his matching slacks with a nice tuck. It was all fitted nicely with a dark burgundy silk shirt that he had buttoned snuggly around his upper neck. His hair was pulled back so tight that it looked as if he had cut it, giving my heart a small skip in its abnormal beat, until I saw the braided tail as he turned to speak to Tanda.
“Well, aren’t you Mr. Fancy pants tonight?” I smirked, walking around him in a circle as if I hadn’t seen him standing right beside me in the kitchen.
“I will be going to a different party. One where coating thyself in pig’s blood is not called for. Not in the beginning of things anyway,” he gloated, trying to make me jealous.
“We’ll be coated with a hell of a lot more than pig’s blood before it’s over with. See ya later, sweetheart,” I replied, mustering as much sarcasm into the last of my statement as I could.
“Have a grand time, love…and do take heed to remember that Lord Cheree has many sick friends who also join his tete-a-tete on nights like these. Many could out number your few,” he countered with as much sarcasm as I had given him.
“Look who is still standing, old man. We’ve been out numbered how many times?” Derek mockingly asked, raising his shoulders and once again jumping to my rescue.
“Well said, young man,” I concurred, slapping him on the back. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Five
We all walked out leaving Martin standing there with his mouth ajar, just enough to see his elongated fangs as he hissed and stormed back up the stairs into the comforts of the world he had known. We took to the lower levels that we had more than certainly become accustomed to the moment we decided that enough was enough. Tanda was the only one that didn’t wield her weapon, making grunting animal-like sounds to ward off any group of scavengers, no matter what number the tunnel dwellers carried. Those that craved the flesh of others were feared by the most feared; and we not only sounded it, we looked the part. It would be Cates and his missing arm, elbow held as high as the ceiling would allow, leading our way, grinding his teeth, scrunching his facial features and absolutely making the biggest fool out of himself as I had ever witness him do. My moans and grunts were more laughs and snorts being held back with the back of one hand, while I held my curved blade in the other.
It wasn’t the scavengers that stumbled on to us, it was Cates that boldly and blinded by his own torch, walked right out into their camp in the ‘T’ of one of the many tunnels we had already gone down. “Zombies!” one scavenger yelled, grabbing his sword. Jacob darted out around the big, one-armed man as Derek flew around the other side. It must have been a terrible sight to see, because all four scavengers turned tail and ran. They looked like dwarfs, not one over four feet in height. I caught a glimpse of their faces and all that I really saw and could explain was their huge bulging eyes that were just as black as Shyanna’s. The rest of their face was dark and they moved so fast, that it was all that I could make of them. That, and the fact that they stunk just like our skunks back home in Texas.
“That was easy,” Sydney smiled, lowering his club that was truly now just an extension of his arm.
“Hope that sick-o thinks we’re half dead and wants some,” Tammy smiled back at him, then winked at me.
“Bet he ain’t half as stupid as he is sick, you know what I mean?” I replied, causing all the smiles to drop.
“We all know exactly what you mean,” Jacob replied, putting his arm around my shoulders much like he had his sister’s. “What say we give this piece of bull dick a bit of our intellect?”
Derek burst out laughing, echoing through the tunnels the most wonderful sound I hadn’t heard in a long time. “To be so smart,” he laughed even harder, walking over and leaning his chin on the top of Tanda’s head, unable to wipe the hilarity off of his face. “You really need to figure out how to cuss, or this Lord whatever guy is going to think we’re just a bunch of idiots.” Derek nodded, getting a friendly slap on the arm from Tanda, who was smiling just as big of a grin as he was.
“I do not get what is so funny, but it is really good to see him happy, do you not agree, Renee?” she giggled, shinning her eyes up at me.
“Bull dick?” I grinned at Derek then looked back at Jacob.
“Was it not one of your good curse phrases?” he innocently asked, and even Cates, his close equal in age, burst out laughing.
“Dick-less, maybe dick-head, but animal personal parts just doesn’t work,” Derek foolishly explained.
“Yet, you once said the phrase asshole. An ass is a barn animal, is it not? I know the word dick to be the name of a man, not used as an insult. But I am learning, and would learn a great deal more if you would simply return to your prior self,” Jacob smiled, walking over to Derek. “The self I miss more than these lips can explain, young one.” Then he put his hand on the top of Derek’s head, sliding his cloak away from his face.
“I’m getting there, old man…I’m getting there,” Derek replied, nodding once then pulled his cloak back over his head, holding onto Tanda’s shoulders as we made our way deeper into the tunnels and further out of the city of London.
Cold air ran up my lower legs, climbing up my body the further and d
eeper we made our way out. Jacob stopped us in a junction in the tunnels and pulled out one of the rolled up map. “We leave our torches here,” he said after reading a small inscription on the parchment scroll. He rolled up the map, which had some type of instructions on the back, and put it back in the inside of his belt just as Cates lowered the last torch, smearing it on the damp earth until it went out. I didn’t know what we were going to do now, other than feel our way through the maze of unending catacombs of death that had turned into the roadway for the damned.
“Look,” Tanda said, as I noticed her body beginning to glow a pale greenish haze, then I looked up.
“What are they?” I asked in amazement at the little wiggly creatures clinging to the rounded ceiling of the slime-covered tunnel that now glowed as far as our breeder eyes could see.
“They’re Lichens,” Cates replied reaching up, taking one down with a sticky pop.
“Phosphorescent Lichens, my correct friend, with just enough luminescence to light the rest of our way,” Jacob explained, smiling like a proud teacher.
“Brandon would have loved this,” Derek said, saying his brother’s name for what had to be the first time since that horrid night.
“I think they all would have. Nobody would believe these things back home, that’s for sure,” I agreed, looking down at the thing wiggling in Cates’s hand.
Cates began to yell, screaming that the thing was biting him. It caused all of us to jump back, searching for others to drop down when we heard him and Jacob barking out in laughter. Tammy, out of nowhere, pulled her fist back and knocked Cates right across his lower jaw. She hit him so hard that he stumbled back and hit the wall of skulls and bones, sliding to the ground.
“Do something like that again when we’re in a place like this, and you’ll wish you had never met me.”
“And what do you think putting me on the ground in front of all these men makes me wish for right now?” he replied, rubbing his face.
“You just remember who made that remark when you try laying that oversized body of yours on all this comfy the next time.” She slowly said the last, bending over grabbing the bottom of her breast, lifting them, then turned standing with her back to all of us.
“It was a stupid joke, Cates, and nowhere near funny, Jacob,” I scolded, doing my best not to smile.
“And my bull dick, didn’t have you all rolling on the floor,” Jacob stated, which made us all start laughing again.
It was something we always did before going into a situation that was as uncertain as this one was. We joked about whatever came to mind to take the pressure of pending death away from the front of our thoughts. We had all lost someone in our lives that we cared for and would have the fear of losing more every time we entered the domain of an individual that was known for the sick and twisted. They were the ones who had no cares for the lost, that you may find in the hidden traps waiting in the corpse infested dungeons beneath what their master’s called home. The further Jacob led us down the twisting tunnels, the smaller they became and held fewer bones. I could feel the moisture absorbing into my shoes as they sunk deep into the earth that filled the half stone/half mud floor. The air became increasingly cooler as the front of my legs gave way to the burn in the muscles, which was due to the fact that we were now going up at a low-grade incline.
The closer we got to the exit, the heavier the density of vines and moss that draped down over our heads, pulling at bits of our clothes and hair as we walked past. Many times I saw Tammy, as well as Tanda, yanking at a group of vines that snagged their hair like a living, breathing creature reaching out and pulling it on purpose. Cates used his short blade, swinging as he walked, cutting little that he swung at and letting what bits he did cut, fall back on the top of Tammy. She pushed past him and put herself in between him and Jacob, but quickly moved back when she saw the opening of the exit.
I knew the smell was getting thicker. It was a scent that my senses would never be rid of, but actually seeing the stacked up bodies, decaying one on top of another was a different story altogether. Each, in many different stages of decomposition, showed the length of time this area had been used for a human dumping ground. It was also all one needed to bend over and lose the contents that were boiling in a sea of eruptive acid.
I was cleaning my mouth with the back of my hand, desperately willing the next wave of nausea to pass by without turning the liquid left in my belly upside down again, when I noticed Jacob, the man of steel, heaving with his back turned to the room, having faced the gore of bodies dead on…no pun intended. He stood up, leaned on the wall, and then looked back, asking, “Who wants to go first?” It was that statement that churned the last stomach remains and I lost it right there, getting old blood on Gavin’s feet. He took in a deep breath of air, which was the wrong thing to do, and turned throwing up on the wall behind him.
“Is there no other way?” Tanda asked, holding the bottom of her shirt over the entire lower half of her face.
“If we want to go all the way back and let them see us coming through the front door,” Jacob replied, looking a little green around the gills. “I do not want to do this either, but it will make us more appealing to the ones we come across.”
“I plan on killing ‘em, not impressing them with how putrid I can get,” Sydney added, with us all nodding in agreement.
Cates growled out a guttural roar and charged into the unbelievably thick layers of blood, bone and flesh with the worse thing of all being the slime that was making its own lake of decaying body fluids that was several feet into where we now stood. There were sounds of sliding in the remains of others, the grinding of his huge legs breaking through soft tissue, and crunching bone ringing out, as Cates forced his massive form into and over the mound that was just as wide as it was thick.
“Climb my back, but do not use my head,” he spoke softly. “Sentries, about a hundred yards away, don’t think they’re breeders, but who could tell by the senses.” Then he glared back. “Will I be like this until I join the dead’s placement…move!”
Jacob was the first to place one foot on the big man’s lower leg, his other leg bent at the knee on his buttocks, and both hands gripping his shoulders as he very slowly looked up and over Cates’s head. In one swift leap and two horrific plunges of his feet sinking in, he was safe somewhere to the right of the opening. Tanda was next, followed by Derek, then Sydney, and Garvin. I stood looking at the strain Cates had in his slanted position, using his hand on the wall to keep his upper body from sinking deeper down. He was now inches from touching his chin to the midsection of what was once a female, and without a doubt, must have been a normal.
“Renee, out…now,” Cates hissed, I wasted no time but my mind was consumed with the two people to follow, because neither was tiny in stature.
Fala was bent down with one of Tammy’s feet in both of his hands and we heard her speaking in a low caring tone. “I want to do this in one movement. Don’t move too quickly, Fala, or I’ll go face first in this shit. That would mean you getting your fur-covered ass stomped by a she-breeder. Do we have an understanding?” He said nothing in reply, that we could hear, but then she told Cates to get ready she was going to use only his shoulders. We watched as Tammy moved faster than any of us had ever seen her move. She twisted up, placing her strength on the big man’s shoulders, and with the perfect count of three, Fala’s push made her look like she flew from the mouth of the opening barely touching her feet down once, before she was reaching out and taking Jacob by one hand and Derek by the other.
Cates, who was on the other side of the equation, was pulling himself out of the gory demise with the help of Fala, who was apparently coming out last. I think we all took in a sharp, shallow breath when he exited the gore, because the lower half of his face was dripping. It seemed in Tammy’s moment of looking as light as a ghost, Cates was feeling the pressure of his face sinking in. You could tell he wanted to yell out that beast cry of his, but he held it in as he walked up t
o Tammy, who was backing up shaking her head rapidly, with both hands out. He didn’t pause as he approached her; he just reached in, grabbed her shirt and leaned over.
“No…please,” she protested, but she was already covered in as much of the mess from his face and hand as he could clean off.
“You told Fala what would happen if he made you fall face first.” Cates raised his head making himself eye level with her. “But you never made that deal with me, and well?”
Then Cates pulled her in tight and began kissing her all over her mouth, cheeks and even around her eyes, with her pushing him back with all her might, getting absolutely nowhere. She tried not to make any sound, but the more he smeared her face the more frustrated she became, and yelled out, “You stupid bastard, get off of me!” Both sentries came running in our direction, and all but Cates and Tammy, ran into the forest for cover.
“Who goes there?” one man called out.
“I am a guest of Lord Cheree’s and this wench is more than a handful,” Cates laughed, turning so they could see his elbow length arm, while pretending to hold Tammy by the throat with the other.
“He’s a flesher,” the other man said, sliding to a stop well before he reached Cates.
“A hungry one. Would you like to join me party so’s I can get to me meal just a wee bit quicker?” Cates asked in a strange accent, bending forward, while laughing in a low deep voice.
“I’ll be for no fleshing,” the one that called him a “flesher” said while backing up.
“Hum, I think I could be givin’ ye a hand with the lassie. I ne’re minded a touch o scaber’s from time ta time,” the other man added, as he stepped in closer, proving he was more than use to the odor that penetrated every last speck of air in a hundred foot radius.
Derek slid in behind the man that was backing up, not able to stop watching his companion who was lifting one of Tammy’s breasts. Silently and with accurate skill, Derek dispatched the backing man without attracting the attention of the one about to fall. Cates’ hand fell from Tammy’s throat as she pushed herself into the man’s hand. She ran her hand up the man’s skinny arm, told him she would do anything he asked if he would save her from the ‘flesher’, and then she winked at him, licking her lips. She quickly spit on the ground, and then, in a shocked manner snapped her head back around and whispered. “I hate the bastard.”
Bloodbreeders: Lies Beneath London Page 4
