Bloodbreeders: Lies Beneath London

by Robin Renee Ray,

  “We have to get him down,” Derek said, walking up to him.

  “Don’t touch him,” I replied, finally making my feet move forward. “His feet…you’ll hurt him.”

  “He’s tore up bad.” Tammy shook her head.

  “Go with the others, Renee. We’ll take care of Martin,” Jacob ordered, trying to take me by the arm.

  “Get away from me, Jacob. I’m not going anywhere.” I walked up, swallowed my heart, which had concreted itself at the back of my throat, and moved his long hair so I could see his face.

  I dropped to my knees and cried out. They had beaten him so badly that, had I not known he was my maker, I wouldn’t have recognized him at all. Cates lifted his body, while Garvin and Derek unbound his wrists. Jacob worked as gently as he possibly could to get the restraints off of his badly broken ankles, while I stood taking his head into my hands. “Is he alive,” I cried softly, praying that someone would say the word that I so wanted to hear. Knowing, that if he weren’t, he would be no more than a mess of gore on the floor, like the one that Fala had just killed. But my mind wasn’t anywhere close to thinking right. Hope filled my heart when I heard him moan my name. “I’m here my love and we’re gonna get you out this place, right now.” He tried to lift his arm and couldn’t, so I took his hand in mine and lifted it to my face, kissing the inside of his palm, telling him over and over how sorry I was. I heard the faint sound of him trying to sooth me with a ‘shhh’ sound before he fell unconscious.

  “We have to get him out of here right now,” I snapped, losing all care whether I was heard or not.

  “We will make haste, but you must control your feelings, Renee. It will do him no good to have us attacked because of your anger,” Jacob replied, lifting Martin’s body, helping Cates put him over his shoulder.

  “You’ll hurt him that way,” I said, reaching up for him.

  “We will hurt him worse by holding the wounds on his back.” Jacob grabbed me by both arms and shook. “If you wish to see him live, then get a hold of yourself, manage his head so that it does not fall hard on Cates’ back, but do not lose the reason we come here this night.”

  “I…I,” I muttered through my sobs.

  “I know.”

  Fala took the lead, with Cates behind him and me holding up Martin’s head, matching Cates' speed. I heard Derek tell Jacob that the door at the top of the stairs was opening and he and Jacob both pulled their blades. It was another slave dressed in the same type of black leather mask. He froze when he saw us leaving the room, and ran down a few of the steps reaching for a rope that was hanging from the ceiling. Jacob and Derek threw their blades at the same time, both making contact with the man as his hand locked on the rope. He fell off the side of the steps and yanked down on the rope as his body went over. Derek ran up, pulled his blade out of the man’s stomach and drove it through his heart. The man under the mask turned to ash, as to where the one that Fala had almost decapitated had turned to the black gore that some do.

  We moved as fast as we dared with Martin draped over Cates’ shoulder. The moment we stepped out of the room with all the tables, a putrid smell washed over us. It was like that of decaying flesh, mixed with a long-standing outhouse; gagging me the moment the smell hit the back of my throat. “Move quickly,” Jacob hurried us across the small area. Fala took the stairs first, making sure nothing was waiting for us to come back down into the tunnel, with Cates following him. He was about to step down onto the steps when the sounds of shuffling turned us around. Echoes of moaning and the sound of scraping, like whatever was making the moaning sounds was dragging something hard along with it, came from the direction that we had just left. Cates took the stairs carefully, trying not to jar Martin’s broken body. I was two steps behind him at the stairwell entrance, holding Martin’s head up off of Cates’ back, when I heard Tammy hiss.

  What I saw when I turned my head was nothing more than a nightmare and all I wanted to do was wake up. There are no words to describe what my eyes saw, because whatever they were seeing was neither man nor beast. It was two creatures that had uneven limbs that were sewn on with heavy stitches that could be seen from across the room. The ungodly smell was coming from them. Tattered pieces of cloth hung from shoulders that didn’t match the other, and where a man’s hands should have been at the end of a masculine arm there were the long painted nails of a female. The closest was reaching out, opening and closing its odd hand as it came closer. Its mouth was hanging open as if it were yelling at us, but it made no sound. The other moved slowly on thin legs that held up a large, muscular torso with arms that hung by its side as if they didn’t work at all. The eyes that looked back were filled with nothing but emptiness. One was blue, one green, and both stared with no life at all behind them.

  Derek, Garvin, and Jacob ran back in and began swinging their blades, chopping at the one that was trying to get to the opening. Tammy slid around the edge of the door, blocking my view and began pushing me to hurry and go down. Once Cates’ feet were on solid ground he moved with a speed that was hard to keep up with while holding Martin’s head. I could hear the others running up behind us, and Derek asking the two that ran with him if they had seen the beast pick up its own arm and try to put it back on. Those must have been the things that Alex was taking about when he said the doctor was given the remains to play with when Angelica had finished with them. I kept trying to look behind us as we ran through the tunnel, but I couldn’t see anything other than the faint light growing dimmer the further we moved away. We reached the torn up bodies of the walking dead in the tunnel. When Jacob relit the torch, the pieces that were lying still became active once again, wiggling and trying to reach us. Fingers on hands with no body clawed at the ground, while legs bent at the knee in a morbid attempt to stand.

  I heard Jacob say the word ‘hurry’ but it was like he was miles away and I was in some deep well, waiting for someone to pull me up to the surface. We crossed the ten foot opening, getting a relief that I was grateful for. The stars of the night filled the sky and the cool breeze was welcome on my face. I entered the other side, remembering we had to go back through the church, as well as the ruins of the old part of the city. Jacob went up the steps to the churches basement first, where the bodies lay waiting in their carved out stone coffins, mocking us with their timeless gaping smiles. Martin moaned as Cates took the curve in the steps, having no choice but to press his body into the stone wall. “We’re almost home,” I said, caressing the side of his head, getting no response.

  Jacob opened the door to our exit in the building of the church and I heard one of the priests scream out, “They return, father.” Jacob took off after him with me yelling not to hurt him. As we exited the stairs, Jacob had the man from behind, with his hand over the man’s mouth. The man was the same one that had been reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Jacob leaned into the man.

  “See the woman holding the man’s head? She saved your life this night. Remember it well, for I would have drained your virtuous blood until your heart shriveled in this sorry encasement that you call a chest.” Then he raised his elbow coming down on the back of the priest’s head, knocking him unconscious. We fled, leaving the back door to the church open without a care. It was the same when Fala slammed his body into the gate and burst through as we ran for the alley where we had last seen Luther and Lane.

  We were halfway down the alley when one of the black cats stepped out from the shadows, followed soon after by the second. They took off in the direction of the edge of the city, with us on their tails… literally. Martin’s blood must have alerted the fleshers in the graveyard, because no sooner than we met its walls, howls erupted on the other side. “Ready yourself to fight,” Jacob called out, drawing his sword. I pulled out my gun, while holding Martin’s head in my other hand and searched the graveyard over the crumbled wall as we ran beside it.

  “There!” Derek yelled, pointing to the center, where several of the beasts ran our way, jumping over the broken headstone
s of the ones who lay in the graves where they belonged, good and dead.

  I saw four before Cates moved with a speed that caused me to drop Martin’s head. I spun around in time to see one of the fleshers leap the ruins of the wall and land mere feet from Derek, who was trying to move to the side while swinging his blade up. He took the flesher across the face, causing it to scream out in a high pitched squeal, but that didn’t stop it from lunging forward trying to grab at any part of Derek that it could. The sound of my gun echoed throughout the low lying area as the flesher looked down at its side where my bullet pierced through it. It dropped to its knees as Jacob ran up beside it, removing its head at the shoulders. He grabbed Derek by the front of the shirt and came running right at me. I began hopping backwards, turning as they got to me, and then we all ran. I saw Jacob turn his head to look back, causing me to do the same. The other fleshers that were clearing the wall lost interest in us. They fell upon their dead companion and began ripping his rotten flesh apart.

  Luther and Lane slowed down as they neared where they had left their clothing, circling the area sniffing the ground. Once they seemed to be secure, they shifted just as smoothly back into their human forms as they had into their cat forms, and quickly dressed, showing us an easier way to the back of Martin’s estate.

  “Come with us,” Derek said, watching them turn back toward what they called the forbidden zone.

  “We belong here,” Luther smiled his gratitude. “But, we will be watching for your return.” Then just like that they were gone.

  I knew why Jacob watched behind us every few feet; he was looking for the assassins to ambush us at any time. Fala tried to pull the gate open at the side wall that surrounded Martin’s estate, but just like before it wouldn’t budge and there was no way that we were going to get Martin up and over in the shape he was in. So we took him around to the front gate. We had to break the lock to swing it open to keep from having to take him over the top of it. Sydney and Tanda ran out the front door to meet us, saying that others had come by yelling outside the gate. Jacob went back outside the gate, with Derek and Garvin following him, while the rest of us took Martin into the house. Tammy took control of Martin’s head, while I rushed into my room and threw the covers off the bed. Tanda ran into the bathroom and started gathering towels and a pitcher of water so Tammy could start working on his wounds.

  Cates laid him down on his side, bringing a cry from deep inside of Martin that brought instant tears to my eyes. I stood back as Tammy and Cates began examining his wounds. Tammy soaked a towel in warm water, then laid it across his back, rolling him over as gently as she could to inspect the front of his body and face, before she began sewing up the crisscross marks that gapped open, showing the bones of his spine. I grabbed my mouth when I saw what they had done to the front of his body. Cates stood and turned his back as Tammy spread Martin’s legs. The cruel sons-of-bitches had sliced his inner thighs to ribbons. His manhood was marked from his lower stomach to the tip of his penis, with two inch long marks crossing over the others, making so many that it was impossible to tell just how many times they had cut him. The ones on his thighs were much deeper and twice as long. His upper chest looked like it had been burned with some type of long, thin, branding iron. I could see now why he told them that I was his creation. Anyone would have broken under this sort of torture and someone was going to pay dearly for what they had done to him.

  The others came in. Jacob had a rolled note in his had that had a red ribbon tied around it, but froze at the sight of Martin lying on his back. Derek stumbled back and left the room, while Garvin stepped up to the side of the bed, reaching down and taking Martin’s hand. He had just done the very thing that I should have done the moment Cates laid him down. Martin’s feet haunted me, as much as the rest of him maybe more. They stayed in the same deformed position when they rolled him back on to his side. His body had begun to heal and his bones were set in place just the way his tormenters had broken them. Garvin was looking at me staring at my maker’s mangled feet, knowing I knew what had to be done. If he was ever going to walk again his feet had to be re-broken. I went around the bed and crawled up on the pillows, moving them out of my way and laying Martin’s head in my lap.

  Tanda kept bringing in more warm water as Tammy poured it over Martin’s body, filling the mattress with his blood. Once she finished with his back, she began on his face. She draped another clean, wet towel over his now sewn up back and Cates help her roll him over. I held my hand over his nose and mouth as Tammy poured the warm water over the top of his head, filling my lap. I used my other hand to help clean some of the blood away from his eyes, as his lashes fluttered under my touch. “You’re safe now,” I spoke softly as my tears dropped down onto his face. “They can’t hurt you anymore.” I saw the faint blue of his right eye as he forced it open to look up at me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said so low that I almost couldn’t hear him.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” I cried, barely able to see him through my tears.

  “Forgive me,” he coughed, spitting blood.

  “Shhh, don’t try to talk.”

  “Martin, I am going to have to cause you pain to make you better. Your feet are badly broken. I need you to drink this,” Tammy said, pouring wine into a small glass.

  “Won’t it make him sick?” I asked, grabbing her hand.

  “A small amount will make his mind drunk. Too much will make his stomach ill,” she replied without looking at.

  I moved my hand, helping lift his head, while she put the glass to his lips. “Swallow, Martin. Just a little, you must for the pain,” she said as it spilt from the sides of his mouth. He choked, trying to move his head to the side, refusing what she had to offer.

  “Please, try Martin, for me,” I begged. Tammy didn’t hesitate; she held the glass to his mouth until she was sure that some of the liquid went down his throat. After he had calmed down she cleaned the wounds between his legs, as I stroked his hair, humming no particular tune. He screamed out when she lifted his privates, finding that they had almost castrated him. I leaned my head down by his ear and began telling him how much I loved him, and that everything was going to be alright. I told him he was going to wake in my arms and this was all going to be a bad dream.

  “We have to do his feet at the same time,” Jacob said, setting the note on the dresser. “It will be too much for him to take one at a time.”

  “How could he survive so much,” I asked, kissing his swollen cheek.

  “The love of a woman fills the heart with much strength, Renee,” Cates replied, handing Tammy another needle with white thread.

  Martin reached up and grabbed my arm, twisting his head in agony as Tammy placed the needle into his groin, but he did not cry out. “I’m so, so, sorry,” I said, pressing my lips to his ear. I kept telling him how sorry I was and how important he was to me and how much I loved him until she was finished. His breathing was rapid and I wanted nothing more than for him to pass out. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t. When he was sewn up as good as Tammy could get him, she looked up at me and asked if I was ready to handle the worst that was yet to come. I looked down at Martin who was finally resting without jerking and moaning, and remembered Garvin resetting my feet. Of course, mine hadn’t begun to heal and merely needed to be set into place; his had to be re-broken and then reset.

  “Should you give him more of the wine?” I asked, hoping Tammy would say ‘yes’.

  “We would be taking a chance that he could start throwing up, and that could tear open all the stitches.”

  “Then do it, but do it fast.” I slid his head out of my lap, and turn so I could hold his upper body as well as his head in my arms.

  I wanted to hold him tight while Cates took one of his feet, and Jacob took the other. I also didn’t want to see what they were about to do. Martin’s screams were heartbreaking. His body began to spasm as the sound of bones breaking echoed throughout the room. I held him as tightly as I
could, crying so hard I couldn’t speak. He gripped my back so hard that I could feel the warm sensation of my own blood running down my side where his nails dug into my flesh. Then his arm fell away and he, gratefully, slid into unconsciousness. I felt a hand on my lower back but I couldn’t let him go, all that I could do was hold him and cry. Had I not been so jealous and only listened to what he had to say, this would have never happened to him. The guilt was tearing me apart.

  “Renee, you have to let Tammy do what she can now that he’s unconscious,” Jacob’s soothing tone and comforting hand made me lift my head. “He will survive, that is the most important thing.”

  “They had no plans on letting him live, did they?” I kissed his swollen eyes. “They have to pay for this, Jacob.”

  “And they will. I promise you that.” Then he lifted my arm away from Martin’s waist. “Come now, let her do her work.”

  I nodded, letting him help me off the bed. There was no hatred, or anger burning when I looked down at his mutilated body. The only thing I felt was sorrow for the pain that he had to endure, and all that I could do was sit and watch him suffer through the healing. Dawn was close. I could feel it and knew that it wouldn’t be long until Martin would finally rest without pain. Garvin asked if there was anything he could do, and I had him go and check on Derek and Sydney before he went to bed. Cates was already headed to check on our prisoners and Jacob was going to be staying in here with Martin and myself. Fala was keeping guard outside on the front porch, and was planning on sleeping on the inside of the foyer by the front door just in case anyone, or thing, tried to come through while we slept.