“Caden’s been waiting for you,” Cates said then he turned and started walking down the hall toward the door that would lead him to Jacob and the others.
“Where is Franklin?” one asked as they followed him in.
“He is seeing to the burning of a wench.”
The men started laughing and making comments on how Franklin, who I was thinking may have been the now dead Button’s, enjoyed himself when it came to sparking up a smelly whore. My fist closed around the handle of my pistol and I slid it out of my boot. I stuck my head out after they entered the room and closed the door. Derek stepped out of the room across the foyer and held up seven fingers, then stepped back into the shadows. The door that they had entered exploded out and two men fell to the floor. Cates came stumbling out with one man in each hand, slamming their heads together as soon as he got in the hall. Derek flew down the hall and slipped into the door. I ran, stopping when Cates slammed another man into the wall not two feet in front of my path.
“Jacob and the others fight.”
I didn’t wait to hear more. I pushed my way through the first door, and then hit the second. Jacob was pulling his blade out of the chest of the other big man. Sydney was getting to his feet, leaving a man gasping with his throat ripped open. He turned and spit a chunk of flesh onto the floor. Garvin was coming back in from another room shaking his head.
“Caden and the others are gone.” Jacob and Cates took off running in the direction that he came from. Derek ran in the side door as they were running out the back and took off after them. Sydney told me that as soon as Caden saw Cates in the doorway with the other men and not his “Button’s”, he screamed “attack”, and all hell broke loose. He said that once the closest men to them were down, Caden and the man that was standing at his back were gone.
Jacob, Cates, and Derek, came running back in. As they headed out the front door of the main room, they hollered that Tammy and Jessie may be in danger, with Caden and his men out in the brush. My blood went straight to my head, and I moved like I had lightning in my veins. Jessie screamed just as I came out the door and Derek flew into the air, vanishing over a row of shrubbery. You could hear his blade slashing through the cloth as a man yelled out in pain. Tammy fell out into the open with another man falling on top of her, swinging his fist at her wildly, screaming words that couldn’t be understood in his manic state.
Cates rushed in and yanked the man up by the neck and pulled his massive fist back. The man’s eyes widened as it careened with his face, breaking the base of his neck. Cates threw him to the ground and knelt by Tammy. She looked up through swollen eyes and splattered blood and simply asked, “What took you so long?” He scooped her up like a child and moved her out of harm’s way. That’s when I saw Jacob ripped his shirt off and throw his blade to the ground, while three men in filthy rags circled him with clubs and chains. He shook his shoulders as if removing a fine dust and pulled his elbows in. He stepped out, his action moving in a slow gliding pace. The man to his right swung the club at his back. Jacob bent forward, spun one time, kicking the man in the abdomen. He stepped back to the center of the men and smiled at the one holding his stomach, then went into an acrobatic of springs, kicks, and one fancy back flip, making them all back up several steps. I wanted to clap, he was moving like a well-oiled machine that was without a doubt, beautiful.
The three men looked around at each other while Garvin, Derek, and Sydney slid in behind them. As soon as the men raised their weapons, another pierced them through the back. Jacob jumped in the air, kicked out making a little yell and landed gritting his teeth and wrinkling his nose. He walked off as they fell to the ground, making Cates bellow out a laughter that sent the birds flying from the surrounding trees. Derek ran back in shaking his head. Caden had gotten away, but as Jacob liked to say, “we lived to fight him another night”.
Jessie was sitting on a log close to the house by herself, rocking back and forth. Jacob and I ran to her, reaching her just as she fell forward. Caden had sliced her abdomen from pelvic to rib cage, but because of her skills, she had moved quick enough to keep his blade from going to deep.
Jacob lifted her and headed out through the woods without saying a word. I told Cates to follow him with Tammy and that we would follow after we got the woman and child. Garvin and Sydney rushed in with me at their heels and found the woman clinging to the crying child. She screamed when the couch moved, but calmed when she heard my voice. Garvin carried her, as Sydney took the protesting child who didn’t stop screaming until Sydney placed her in her mother’s arms, forcing Garvin to carry them both. Derek took our lead and blazed through the hanging branches and heavy brush like it wasn’t even there. Sydney placed me in the middle and kept his new found club to our backs. He was indeed becoming the warrior that Jacob spoke of, and proved himself every time I turned around.
We broke into the opening of the graveyard and kept going. Not even the coming sun was going to slow Jacob’s pace. The whole time that we ran, I was wondering if we would soon pass up our enemy. Our legs moved as if they touched nothing, as we ran over the rocks that showed we were close to the shore. I spotted Cates on the lower slopes setting Tammy down and picking something up. We moved double time making our way to him, that’s when I saw Jacob leaning over Jessie.
“Is she alright?”
“She will live. Cates make a torch, get everyone in the boat.”
“If we’re in the boat when the sun comes up…” I paused in completing my statement.
He turned his head sharply and glared at me. I nodded and headed down to the water’s edge and began pushing the boat in. Derek was at my side shoving until we had it in the water. Cates had the torch lit and was swinging it high in the air. Garvin and Sydney helped Tammy and the woman with her child into the boat and then followed. Jacob picked up Jessie, placing her in Sydney’s lap, before pushing the boat into deeper water. I hopped over the side and Cates came wading out. He handed the torch to Jacob and grabbed the back of the boat and began kicking his legs, pushing the boat out. We moved swiftly with his legs kicking and Garvin and Derek rowing the boat. A heavy fog hung on the water making it almost impossible to see. Jacob stood swinging the torch calling out a single name. “Shyanna!”
We heard her beautiful cries coming from the thick mist that surrounded us and we started calling her name. A gust of wind from her wings brushed our faces and we cheered. “Me’om…Me’om,” she called out over our heads. A horn sounded and the ships lights came into view. Our excitement was short lived as the mist took on a certain glow and Derek and Sydney became so tired they both leaned over and held onto the side of the boat.
“We have to move, Jacob!” I yelled and dove into the water. Cates was already climbing up the ladder.
“Stay in the middle of the ladder, Renee. The sun rises, we’ll have to raise them up.” Jacob yelled as Derek reached for the ladder as soon as the boat touched the ship and fell back, looking at me like he had failed.
“Give me your hand, Derek. Now!” I screamed.
He pulled his self up, Garvin pushed his back and I grabbed his hand. He was light and easy to pull up to Cates who lifted him with ease. I knew he was safe when I heard others taking him below. Sydney was already unconscious when Jacob lifted him to me. His arm was turning to the every present state of death and chilled me to my bones when I pressed his body up against mine and felt the firm stone of his flesh. Cates took him from me pulling me up with his other hand.
“No Cates, let me go,” I protested twisting in his arms.
“Go below,” he yelled going down the ladder to get Tammy.
“Son of bitch, Cates, she’s my friend too.”
“She is more than my friend.” Then he reached down and lifted her out of Jacob’s arms and brought her back up.
He rushed her into the lower level and was back out grabbing me around the waist as Garvin fell over the side of the ship. “Cates let me go… you!” He didn’t drop me until I was in the safety o
f the main safe room then he turned and went back for Garvin. He and Jacob came in with smoke coming off their backs and Garvin in their arms. I opened my mouth to ask about the woman when I saw two of our normals pulling them onto the ship, then Cates slammed the doors closed. Jessie had fallen to the pull of the sun as Jacob mended her wound. He covered her so carefully that I thought he was in a calm state until he turned around.
“Caden will head straight for New York and we will follow.”
“I thought that was the one place that you didn’t want to go,” I replied, remembering him telling me that not even Chin dared to make port there.
“I will go alone,” he coldly replied taking his chair.
“Like hell you will,” I said crawling up on the bed beside Johnny. “We go together or no one goes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Jacob never replied and I left it at that. I curled my body around my brother and thanked the stars that we didn’t burn on the small boat. I didn’t, and wouldn’t, tell anyone how terribly afraid I truly was, but I said a small prayer that we would never be in that position again. Jacob was looking over a new set of maps when I decided to get up the next night. I laid there watching him for a change, until he told me to come see what he was doing without turning around to look at me. I laughed and crawled to the foot of the bed. I got up and leaned over and saw that he was looking at a map of New York, and he had a circle around the area of small looking islands, then Jacob pulled his blade and slammed its tip into the table.
“Here, Water’s Mill. There is a large group there ranging from rogues, to those who work the craft. It is the place where all evil ends up, and is the waist of our world.”
“No offence, but I thought I’d seen the ‘waist of this world’.”
“Not by any means,” he replied turning to look at me. “This is more than one single estate, Renee. It is a community of the pits of our hell. All who enter do so at their own risk and most never come out.”
“Won’t Caden fear the same thing?”
“Caden will fit nicely in their domain. He will think no one will follow him into the depths of Annanothra’s lair.”
“What exactly is an, Annanothra?”
“She is the slime of all that is the most evil of our breed, and older than the earth itself.”
“Please Jacob, I don’t buy that whole older than the earth.”
“Even the elders stay clear of her ways. Death is a gift to those who fall prey to her web.”
“You sound really worried about going to this place.”
“I would hunt Caden to the ends of the earth for what he has done to my sister, but I have no true wants to enter this land.”
“Then why are we?”
“He has marked her to show me that he could. He knew she was part of me the moment he laid eyes on her, for that he will die at my hands.”
“With us at your back my friend,” Cates yawned stretching out his long form. “It will not be our first taste of the wicked ways of the black widow. Caden would do good to stay in the slums of her community, for if she smells out his type she may make him into a permanent eunuch.”
“Now that I have heard of, and I wish this whoever she is would do just that. He was a weird little man, and did you see those two on the saw horse?”
Cates belted out a laugh that brought a smile to Jacob’s face. When I asked what was so funny. I was told once again like all the other many times…that I had much to learn. I sometimes felt like they were teasing me because I was a female, then others I wasn’t so sure. Nothing about the world in which I lived surprised me at this point, but I was learning fast that there was always something around the next corner that opened my eyes in a totally different way from my former way of thinking. Right now I was just glad to be back on the ship with our family.
Everyone began to wake and all concern went to Jessie who woke moaning in agony, gripping her stomach as soon as her eyes began to flutter. She needed fresh blood and she needed it fast. Derek and Sydney went where the livestock was held and brought the pig back to make sure she got it right away. After we were finished with the carcass, Garvin took it out to be cooked for the normals we had on board. Derek mentioned that the prisoners were asking if they would be served, then he left. Tanda added that they had been pleading for their freedom the night that she was in charge of Johnny and Shyanna, telling us that when she went to get Shyanna’s fruit, the breeders Ronny and Marcos, tried to bribe her. As for the moon clan people they remained quiet, saying nothing even when she offered them water.
“We have time to hold Yvette’s men responsible for their actions,” Cates said leaning back, watching Tammy as she removed the dressing that Jacob had put on Jessie’s stomach.
“Yes, it will take at least five nights to travel to Water’s Mill,” Jacob agreed, rubbing the back of Jessie’s hand.
“What about the woman and little girl? We can’t keep them on the ship, we have enough to worry about. I don’t think she has a clue what we are,” I said walking around the table, smiling down at Jessie.
“Our normals have given her and the child a bath and fed them well throughout the day. She has told them that her and her husband were traveling by truck to her mother’s old homestead when they broke down not far from Havelock,” Jacob explained wrinkling his brow every time Tammy pulled the thread through Jessie’s fleshy, opened wound. “We can leave them at a port with more money than they will ever need.”
“Yeah, that’s a great idea. She didn’t mention anything about the strange men, or the way they looked?” I added.
“She was hit over the head shortly after she heard her husband yell, then woke bound where we found her.”
“You know we could send our female normals with her. Set them free, we don’t need them and all that we have to do is make them forget, right?” I asked looking around, waiting for someone to agree.
“I have never known any to let a normal go free,” Jacob said, looking up at me.
“What could be the worst thing that could happen?”
“The word of our kind spreading among the normals for one.”
“How could they if you cleared their minds, Jacob?”
“A memory can resurface much like a dream,” Cates added.
“But who would believe them?” Tammy broke in as she cut the string. “They would be thought of as mad, or simply a wild dreamer.”
“Then let’s send them with her, tell her that we saved her and that we now need her to care for them. With the money we give her she won’t say no,” I pleaded hoping they would agree.
We had to relieve ourselves of the innocents on our ship. It didn’t matter where we went from here, we were going to be heading into bad situation, after bad situation, and one less to worry about was a burden off all of our shoulders. Tammy sat Jessie up and we all took a breath when she looked up and smiled.
“This one will leave a scar,” Jessie laughed then grabbed her side. Jacob stepped up and lifted his shirt.
“It will match mine.” Then he placed his forehead on hers and closed his eyes. Their love illuminated the room and it touched us all. Jacob looked back at me and nodded.
“We will send them with the woman and child. I will give the order to make port.” Then he and Cates left the room.
“I’m going to go below. I’ll be back soon,” I said leaning in and kissing Jessie on the forehead. “Johnny, you stay here with Tammy. Shya come.”
I took her with me, because I wanted her to be seen by Ronny and Marcos. I wanted answers before they were standing in front of everyone, and I wanted them to see her and my power over her, not to mention the way the four moon clan men dropped to their knees and feared looking directly at her. I made my entrance with her at my side, the four Indian men in the cells on the left side of the ship’s prison, did exactly like I thought they would, and dropped as soon as they saw her. Marcos and Ronny stood and backed to the rear of their cell as soon as they saw me. Their cell was across the wood
plank floor from the others and I kept my back to them for a few minutes, to first calm my own nerves, and try to make theirs more frazzled.
“You flap for me’om,” I whispered looking down at Shyanna, who jumped around in front of me.
“Me’s flap?”
“Big flap, me’om loves.”
Her big black eyes blinked and she chirped, hopping one time, spreading her leather wings wide, and that’s when I turned in slow motion to look at the breeders in the cell behind me. Their eyes grew twice their size as Shyanna lifted off the ground. It was apparent that they had never seen a creature like her and I loved it. I stepped up, but stayed a few feet back just in case one of them got the idea to try and get a hold of me, to somehow try to save their own hides.
“Both of you will go to trial just like you were told when we put you down here, but you have a chance, if you tell me right now, what happened the night my family died.”
“I will tell you anything you wish to know, Renee,” Marcos said stepping closer.
“It was Omar, he was the one who killed your family,” Ronny added rushing to the cell bars and grabbing them, causing me to step back and frightening Shyanna.
She landed in front of me and screamed right in Ronny’s face. He screamed, falling back into Marcos, and I ran with it. “She disagrees with that statement, Ronny. You see, she is a gift of truth and will be your punishment, if your trial goes bad. She has taken many breeders to their death and it is a grim thing to witness, just ask the four that are too afraid to even look at her.” Then I turned and pointed at them.
“Ronny killed your brother and helped Omar hang your father in the barn. I swear by the thing at your side that I harmed no one, and paid dearly for it.”
Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others Page 25
