Blood Renegades (Rebel Vampires Book 3)

by Rosemary A Johns

  And that image? Of the lid descending and the dark swallowing me up..?

  Paled me with terror.

  Captain didn’t need chains. He already owned me.

  Donovan’s mush – white against the blue of the heavenly ceiling – and then the lid was sliding across.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but silence, darkness and terror.

  And I was lost.

  I had no idea. Please believe it was no intention of this inquiry to subject you--

  But you did, you are, and I already told you before, remember? You didn’t believe me. What’s different now?

  The room you described; I’ve seen it. Captain is more of a delight to be around after he’s spent time there. With you, I assume.

  Question is: now you do know – what does it change?

  Nothing.

  I have my remit, and you have your witness to deliver. We have our arrangement. I will not be distracted by petty details.

  Figured.

  Because there’s a world of difference between knowing something’s wrong and doing something about it. And even if you do? Deciding what that something is?

  That’s the hardest part of all.

  I tipped back my nut to stare up at the wild reaches of the night sky and the real stars. Bright, blinding, mine. The wind whipped sharp across my cheeks, stinging them red. I took a drag of my e-cig: turns out no smoking inside means the artificial type as well.

  I prowled to the edge of Blake’s flat roof, which was alive with yellow flowers that absorbed the sun’s heat; the flowers were closed now against the moon. I rested my forehead on the laced chain-link: it was meshed into delicate ivy. There was a heart dead centre because doesn’t everything come down to the heart?

  Trust Plantagenet to have subverted even the security.

  I booted at the fence; the padlock – a gurning monkey mush – shook.

  I was beginning to feel we were less honoured guests and more prisoners.

  I had a gander down at the courtyard of the beached whale of a mansion, except it was more than a home.

  ‘Top floor? It’s my hermit-like genius off-limits penthouse.’ Blake had explained with a smug smile. ‘It’s the perfect cover, so you’re safe. There are private lifts down to my garage, swimming pool and gym.’

  ‘Hear that Light? A gym.’ Sun had dug me in the ribs.

  ‘This building, however, was designed for my company in seven sections, each a different department. Below here, the future’s decided.’ Blake had ruffled his hand through Plantagenet’s curls.

  ‘Ever heard of: all work and no play makes Blake a dull boy?’

  ‘Or very rich.’

  ‘Point made. So what’s this company all about?’

  Blake had stopped – grooming – Plantagenet, instead his fist had tightened, as it twisted; I’d flinched on Plantagenet’s behalf. ‘RE – Revolutionary Evolution. Our strategy? To be seven steps ahead of the trend; our solutions are unique because we base them on evolutionary advancement. How humans are evolving or may evolve. Then we invent: driverless cars, direct neural interfaces, metallic hydrogen… We work with Governments or the private sector. As our company always says: Let’s evolve this!’

  ‘Anyone would reckon you were after a Nobel.’

  Blake had shrugged. ‘A second one? Well, it would always be nice…’

  First Lifer workers were still scurrying in and out of the cone-like departments, which were between the concrete ivy-clad plinths.

  I wondered if Blake remembered humans slept at night; if Blake remembered he was human.

  St. Paul’s was a beacon, hazy in the black; it felt further away than the stars.

  When I slammed my fist into the fence, it rattled. Again and again I pounded, until the wire heart was crimson with my blood.

  ‘Stop acting so screwy and come rest your dogs.’

  I twirled round. Lost in my impotent rage, I’d figured myself alone. I was getting sloppy and that meant dead.

  Hartford was sprawled amongst the flowers: all cream linen suit and spun gold hair. Yet his expression was more fight them on the beaches, than strawberries and peaches.

  I sucked the blood off my knuckles, as I swaggered back and threw myself down next to him. I took a deep vape. ‘What’s all this about then?’

  Hartford nodded towards the CCTV cameras, which were perched like eagles on each corner of the security fence. ‘They can’t hear us beating our gums out here; it’s the only place we can talk on the up and up.’

  ‘I know this whole set-up’s not pukka--’

  ‘It’s all wet. Blake? He’s feeding us a line of bull. And Plantagenet?’ Hartford’s expression softened, before suddenly hardening. ‘He’s a regular guy, underneath the torturing and visionary leader hooey. But say, mac, there’s only one thing we need to decide: how we’re going to double-cross him.’ I startled. It did me in to see the bitter flash of betrayal in Hartford’s peepers. ‘Not you too,’ he was tearing at a loose thread on his trousers, unravelling it. ‘If you’ve chosen them..?’

  ‘Bollocks have I,’ I grasped Hartford’s destructive hand between mine, saving his new suit: he was cool and trembling, ‘but there are other ways--’

  ‘Dry up. What are they doing right now to Donovan? We already know what humans can do; these are Blood Lifers--’

  ‘First or Blood Life: it’s all the same.’

  Hartford snatched back his hand from mine. ‘Then let’s blow this joint and--’

  ‘Betray Plantagenet? That easy, is it?

  ‘And how!’

  I seized Hartford’s arm, as he turned to rise.

  Mistake.

  Hartford swung me up dangling into the air and then – slam – down again, crushing the yellow flowers.

  ‘Bloody well won’t be,’ I choked out, ‘I know I said turn your grief to rage but I was wrong. Turn it to strength because we need to plan a caper, proper-like. Don’t be a pillock.’

  I held my breath. If Hartford wanted to go rogue?

  The Renegades would have a genuine renegade after them.

  At last, Hartford grinned, as he took my hand. ‘I can ab-so-lute-ski not be a pillock. For you.’

  I took a shufti at our joined hands, trying not to miss the neon green snake of my bracelet. ‘Hold on, I promise, just hold on.’

  I’d left Hartford out on that wind whipped roof, flat on his back with his nut cushioned on his arms in his flowery bed. He’d escaped into the map of stars, adventuring beyond our concrete and steel prison.

  I didn’t blame him.

  When I’d prowled down the biscuit corridors on the hunt for Sun, however, I soon realised I was the dim prat who was being hunted.

  There was a shuffle style scampering behind me.

  Slam.

  A door on the right.

  I sniffed: not First Lifer, nor Blood. But predator…every nerve screamed it.

  A good barney would set me straight, yet the hairs on my neck were rising, as if I was in some poncey B-movie; I’d never been hunted like buffalo before.

  Shuffle scamper. Slam.

  Shuffle scamper. Slam.

  The – thing - zigzagged across the corridor behind me.

  Every time I twirled round, however, it’d hidden in another room, and there were only expanses of charcoal walls and doors stretching away, as if I was in The Shining.

  I gulped.

  We choose to be either predator or prey. That’s the truth of it. I used to reckon it was God or our DNA, which birthrighted the glory or the shame.

  But that was the bollocks.

  We shift between the two, and right now? Fear had transformed me into prey.

  So I ran.

  Behind me I heard a loping scamper. A banshee scream.

  I skidded round the corner to the ranks of pristine lifts. Brains beat…everything.

  I smirked: go evolution.

  Still, I couldn’t stop myself pressing the underground garage button – press, press, press – fren
ziedly. As the steel doors clanged shut, I caught a glimpse of bristling black hair, yellow canines and a pink whiskery mush, which grimaced in infuriated rage at losing its prey.

  I’d like to see any animal work out a lift.

  When the doors pinged open, my heart was rapidly beating, and I was sweating. I hadn’t got a hold of this being the prey lark.

  ‘Still traumatized by enclosed spaces, Light?’ Blake was leaning in inky black V-neck and trousers, against a BMW i8.

  I attempted to swagger out of the lift but with legs like jelly..?

  I didn’t even convince myself.

  Then I heard a ping behind me.

  It couldn’t be..?

  Shuffle scamper…shuffle scamper…shuffle scamper…

  That was sodding it: no more being the prey.

  I spun round to face my tormentor.

  A monkey.

  A bleeding monkey.

  He was now on all fours, with beady black peepers gazing up at me in cutest chimp at the tea party mode. No fangs or shrieking. Then he held out his disturbingly human pink hand.

  ‘Clear off!’ I pointed at the chimp. ‘This…primate is a bully.’

  ‘Nonsense. Shake Mr Darwin’s hand.’

  ‘Seriously? That’s what you went with?’ I sighed. ‘Don’t you dare bite me, you menace.’

  I edged closer, taking Mr Darwin’s hot rubbery hand in mine. When Mr Darwin squeezed so tightly my knuckles popped, I hollered.

  ‘Mr Darwin, stop.’

  At Blake’s sharp command, Mr Darwin let go. It was disturbingly like Plantagenet’s obedience; it made me wonder whether Blake had used the same training methods.

  ‘You taught him to use the lift?’

  ‘Just a party trick. He has a special one, as well as opposable thumbs. Plus opposable toes, which in some ways makes him better adapted than we are.’

  ‘Only if I’m figuring on hanging around in trees. And I’m not.’

  Nursing my swollen hand, I glared at the smug bastard, as Blake wandered between his sweet shop of luxury cars: Bentleys, Porsche 959 Coupe and an obligatory Rolls Royce Phantom. Of course the tosser also had a Ferrari: yellow because red ones are for the try-hards. Yellow are for flashy pillocks who truly do have it all.

  Blake stroked his hand over the cars’ bonnets; I reckoned he was only a whisper away from whisking his todger out and piddling over them to mark them. I wondered if he’d done that to Plantagenet… Then I shook my nut to dispel the image.

  I frowned when I realised I was trotting after Blake in his shadow, just like Mr Darwin. I stood still, thrusting my hands in my pockets, but Mr Darwin continued to knuckle-walk his way after his…friend, owner, master..?

  Mr Darwin was making these pant-grunts, holding his nut low.

  Blake paused by a neon green McLaren F1, which was like a futuristic beast, standing with his hands on his hips, as if an Emperor awaiting tribute.

  Mr Darwin squeaked, before crouching and presenting his rump.

  Well, I guess it was a monkey tribute…and it was clear who was alpha in this troop.

  At last, Blake grinned. ‘Come on then, you.’

  Mr Darwin turned and – God’s honest truth – signed something furiously with his little fingers, before grunting softly and launching himself into Blake’s powerful arms.

  Blake cradled the monkey, as Mr Darwin clung around his neck.

  ‘What’s with all the..?’ I gestured with my hands.

  Blake sat on the McLaren’s bonnet – bloody sacrilege.

  ‘American sign language.’

  ‘You’re taking the mick.’

  Mr Darwin gestured up and down in what looked suspiciously like a rude gesture.

  ‘Did he just..?’

  When Blake signed back, Mr Darwin clutched more tightly to him, as he howled with what sounded like laughter.

  ‘Why do I get the feeling you two are making a monkey out of me?’

  Blake’s expression was stern and impossible to read. ‘No speciesism, please.’

  Under the garage’s artificial lights, I shifted awkwardly. No one likes to be called out on being a…what now?

  I nodded towards Mr Darwin. ‘That bastard was hunting me.’

  Blake stiffened. ‘You’re mistaken.’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  Blake stood. Slow and deliberate. Like everything he did it was measured and had an impact.

  When he strolled towards me – his rich man’s night black costume against my true rebel’s leather skin – I had to remind myself at every step that I was the Blood Lifer.

  Blake pressed so close, I could feel Mr Darwin’s heat and smell his cabbage stench. Mr Darwin’s lips were bunched back; his teeth a furious yellow.

  Blake towered over me: he was tall, just like Sun. ‘Let me make something clear. I do not make mistakes, and the people at RE - in my life - do not question.’

  ‘More fool them.’

  Blake leaned even closer. ‘How do I know Mr Darwin wasn’t hunting you? Because if he had been? He’d have killed you and he’d have eaten you. He knows better than to eat my guests though, don’t you, Mr Darwin?’

  Mr Darwin grunted: the picture of innocence.

  The hairy wanker.

  ‘Even wild animals can be tamed. Trained. Mr Darwin’s mum died, when I was a kid, in what’s now the Republic of Congo. I was out there with my dad, who was running a study into primates. Now there was a great man. Mr Darwin was…depressed. He wouldn’t eat or play, so my dad gave him to me. We raised each other.’

  ‘I can tell.’

  Blake’s smile didn’t reach his pale peepers. ‘Chimps? They have cultures just like humans – and Blood Lifers. They adapt to environments and to survive. They’re bright with abstract thought and memories. Does that not fascinate you, when you have such talents yourself?’

  ‘Simply like to know I’ll survive mostly.’

  Blake laughed. ‘Follow me; I’ve something to show you.’

  Just like Mr Darwin had, I trailed at Blake’s shoulder, this time to the back of the garage.

  By all that was holy, no…it was sacrilege.

  A white striped travesty, as if some berk had stolen my best memory (Kathy blasting her way through ‘60s London in her little red number and saving me from the sun), buggered it, and then stuck a British flag on top.

  All in the name of reinvention.

  I glared at the new Mini; it glared back.

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘You’re off your trolley.’

  Blake looked thoughtful, as he did his heavy pace forward trick. I wasn’t stepping backwards this time.

  Sod it, listen to me feet.

  ‘Evolution: even in cars. Retaining the original DNA but making it better. That’s what RE strives for, and it’s what you are.’

  ‘You know,’ this time I took a step forward – good feet, ‘you haven’t a clue what I am.’

  Blake assessed me, which was bleeding disturbing with Mr Darwin’s nut right next to his, giving me the once over too. ‘Maybe not or maybe we’ll all find that out together. Anyhow,’ he rapped the Mini’s nose, ‘this is Plantagenet’s. It was my gift to him.’

  ‘Of course it was. Because it’s hard to buy for, right? That occasion: I chose you as a sex slave and now I realise I’m a big fat guilty prat. So…Mini. Why not?’

  ‘Do you have any idea what I’d do to Plantagenet if he spoke to me like that?’

  ‘Unluckily for you? Yeah, I do.’

  Blake pressed his left hand to his brow. Blinding – I was giving him a headache.

  There was a flash of silver; Blake’s ring (twin to Plantagenet’s), caught the garage’s light.

  ‘Are you a slave too? Or married?’

  ‘Both. You have a narrow view of love. When Plantagenet and your website educated me to the truth? I wouldn’t have him wear the S.L.A.V.E ring, but he’s still mine.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Of course,’ Blake arched a brow, �
�isn’t Sun yours?’

  That was different. Wasn’t it?

  I satisfied myself by shrugging.

  ‘I’m also Plantagenet’s, however, more completely than I imagined two creatures ever could be. In fact, before Plantagenet, I needed no one. These rings are bio: made from extracts of bone cells seeded and combined with silver. They’re unique. This one?’ Blake held up his finger, and I was spectre-chilled. ‘Is Plantagenet. He wears me too at all times; I’m always with him.’

  ‘This bone extract? How’d you get that then?’

  I wished I didn’t have to ask. I've written the…memoir…on obsessive love. I knew about needing someone, whilst being consumed by love’s blaze. But this possessive control frightened me because its shackles were as small as a pretty ring, but were as powerful as any chain.

  ‘Wisdom tooth.’

  ‘And for Plantagenet?’

  ‘Fangs, obviously. He has them removed anyway, when he has his venom drained. He sleeps through it regularly like a baby. Which reminds me, when shall we schedule your procedure?’

  That was it: no more holding on to plan a caper. Now it would be me acting the pillock because no bastard was ever taking my fangs again.

  And this First Lifer? He’d stolen Plantagenet’s fangs? He was still stealing them?

  My fangs shot out – take that, you git, this is what a real Blood Lifer looks like – and dived at Blake.

  Shocked, it was Blake’s turn to stumble backwards. When I clocked him across the jaw, he let out a nancy yip – and landed on his arse.

  Scream…

  Suddenly I had a mush full of enraged chimp. Mr Darwin clamped his long arms and legs around me, shrieking and barking. Then he opened his mouth wide and sank his teeth into my neck.

  ‘Buggering hell…’

  It wasn’t like a bite from another Blood Lifer: a mind-blowing pain-pleasure. This was jagged, tearing agony.

  I scrabbled at Mr Darwin’s hairy back, before slamming myself backwards and crushing him against the bonnet.

  Mr Darwin was heavy and powerful. How had Blake made him appear like a kid? His weight crashed me sideways over a motorbike, which was covered in a dustsheet. In my crazy thrashing, the sheet rose up, revealing a 350cc scarlet Triton.

  Still staggering under Mr Darwin, I gawped at my bloody god.