Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others

by Robin Renee Ray,

  “We stand seven men strong to join you. Most are too old or have suffered injuries that prevent them from coming.”

  “Your help is most appreciated Master Jamous, but this is not a battle for flesh as weak as your own,” Jacob said, stepping up to the head of our group.

  “Don’t take my help, but don’t insult my pride while doing so.” Jamous stood straighter.

  Jacob moved so fast that not even I saw him put the huge man up over his head. “You see my friend, I meant no disrespect, I merely told you the truth,” he said setting him back down. “We are a different breed and our skill outweighs that of a man of normal flesh.”

  “Yes,” he replied pulling his shirt down. “All are as fast?”

  “Some may be faster, others slower, but all can do this.” Then he spun and kicked the small tree behind him cracking its base and knocking me to the ground.

  Screams came from the women as the children began to cry. I stepped in and tried to explain the real difference without using a visual effect. I was sure the red paint on our skin was having a strong enough effect as it was. Once I explained the story of my first kill of the men that had taken the life of the woman that was with child, and how my arm slid through the man’s body like that of wet tissue…all that were watching understood. I tried to keep the graphic details to a minimum because of the children, but made sure to give Jamous a serious look during certain portions in my explanation. After that they thought it best to take us far enough in to see the estate, then stayed back while we took care of business.

  Jamous took the lead through the thick undergrowth, with one of us in between each one of his men in a long line. Every man with him was heavily armed with guns, blades and a few spears. No one carried any form of light. It was as if they could see as good as we could, and we all knew that wasn’t possible, so it had to be they knew the land well. We came around a bend in the river and Jamous put his hand in the air, and then slid into the undergrowth with us following his move.

  “The estate is further up this line. They’re already making their way into the bush. Be careful, we won’t be far away, need us or not.”

  “Be well my friend,” Jacob replied taking his hand before heading out.

  I grabbed Jamous’s hand when I went by, stepping up and kissed his cheek. “Victory is ours tonight,” I whispered before I joined my people. The gasp that came out of his mouth still had a curve on mine as I made my way up behind Jacob. We slithered through the long grass like invisible snakes to the normals of Cortez’s people, passing them as if they were statues placed for our viewing. So many times I wanted to pull one down and take my fill on the sick bastards who stood with the one we came to devoir. “Nothing, I think the old man’s paranoid.” One man said not five feet from where I was. If he moved too far back he would step on me and I would have that snack.

  “Cortez wants us to make a tight perimeter around the main house,” another man called out.

  After they started back to the main house as the man called out, we made our move and ran for the side of the estate, dropping down beside the group of trees fifteen feet from the two large oaks that were hiding the secret door. It was Jacob and Tammy who moved across first, as we watched for any of the men to come their way. A few minutes later we heard a sliding sound then a small bird call. That was my cue to send two more. The hall was as black as coal after the door was closed, but I could hear someone moving about, then a bright light burst into my eyes bringing back just a hint of the earlier sting. Tammy stood holding a wooden handled torch, which actually had cobwebs hanging off of it.

  “Stay with me, he may have added more of his stupid little traps down here.”

  “Traps? You mentioned nothing of traps,” Jacob argued stepping up to her.

  “I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t think of it until just this moment.”

  “A mistake that could kill us all,” he said sternly taking the torch from her hand.

  “Renee, I swear.”

  “It’s okay Tammy. We just have to be more careful.”

  “Why do you treat them like children? This is not a game!”

  “Look Jacob, you’re right, this isn’t a game and we’re not four hundred year old assholes either.” I replied with my own anger showing.

  “Asshole? What does this mean?”

  “That you’re being a real dick,” Derek added walking over to stand by Tammy.

  “I think what they are trying to say,” Garvin stepped up, “is that you treat us like we should be well trained warriors from your line, which we are not. Renee is the softer of the two, but you both are far more stubborn than either will ever admit. We have something to do here and war among us will not get that done. So do you not both think this can wait a bit?”

  “You tell ‘em, Garvin.”

  “Stay out of it, Derek,” Brandon added stepping back.

  “He is correct, but soon we will have to come to an understanding,” Jacob said and turned to go into the dark murky hall.

  “Yeah, well every time I think we have it worked out you start acting like an…”

  “Renee,” Jessie said taking my arm. “Please.”

  I felt the shame grow as she smiled at me. She knew him better than anyone on this earth, and knew it was time for me to shut my mouth. The flames took down many webs as we walked on the uneven stony ground that was covered in dirt, bones, and small rodents. It wasn’t until Jacob slid back the heavy iron door at the end of the very long hall that the intense smell slammed into us. Derek was the first to lose his meal, and I was second to follow. I thought that I had seen and smelled the worse in Yvette’s dungeon, but I was wrong. This individual made her look like a fairy princess. Body parts were covering the floor; half decade, to bare bones. The cages were full of rotting corpses. We didn’t find one living thing in that first room of a very demented man’s perversion.

  It was the next room that we stepped into that took my breath away in a different way. Many gasps of shock came from all of us as we entered. Bodies of women were hanging from hooks that hung from chains that were mounted to the ceiling. Small puddles of blood formed under each of them caused by the crimson liquid that dripped from between their legs. “She’s alive,” Sydney yelled. He was trying to lift the woman up so Brandon could unhook her, but when Brandon got to her back he fell backwards, falling to the blood covered flood. She wasn’t bound by chains; the hook was sunk deep into her back.

  “How do we fix this?” Brandon asked getting up, wiping his hands on the front of his pants.

  “My baby,” she cried in a soft voice, yet heard by us all.

  “We’ll find your baby,” Tammy said going to her. “This is going to hurt, but we have to get you down.

  The nude woman nodded. Her face was pretty; visible even through the filth that covered her. When Jacob pulled the hook out, she screamed so hard and loud that I jumped. Thankfully, she passed out before they placed her on a table that was in the center of the room. As she was coming to she was saying a name that we knew well. “Jamous,” she spoke once again and chills formed all over my body. We had found his daughter, Lilly. That’s when I prayed that she would survive and that we would find her baby.

  “Looks like she delivered very recently,” Tammy said after checking her over.

  “Today,” the girl whispered with what little breath she had.

  “Were you up there?” Derek blurted out, pointing back at the swinging hook.

  “Shut the hell up, Derek.” Brandon pushed him backwards.

  “What?”

  “Use a little compassion,” Jessie added then went to the woman.

  “You are, Lilly?” she asked.

  “I am,” Lilly said rolling her head to see her better. “My baby?”

  “Your father waits just outside. You must be strong for him. Live, and we will go get your baby,” Jessie proclaimed so softly that it brought tears to my eyes.

  “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.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  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.”