Blood Renegades (Rebel Vampires Book 3)

by Rosemary A Johns

  Blake’s panic was infectious.

  ‘We’re not chameleons,’ I clutched Sun closer, ‘we can’t just camouflage into the wallpaper.’

  Blake was banging about the dungeon, slamming open drawers, as if we could shrink down to fit. ‘You don’t understand; she’s up there now. Plantagenet’s my slave: he can be here when she arrives. But if you’re discovered..?’

  Mother spun in circles. ‘Stop tripping out, bitches.’

  ‘Not helping.’ I hissed.

  ‘Mr Darwin’s cage,’ Blake threw off the thick plastic cover. The cage was large – more than man-sized. Steel, sturdy and shiny.

  New.

  ‘Mr Darwin’s cage?’ I lifted an eyebrow. ‘Sure about that?’

  Blake shifted his feet. ‘It came with the room; I’ve never tried it out on Plantagenet. I wouldn’t.’ Blake undid the padlock, swinging open the door. He smiled, as he glanced between us Blood Lifers. ‘I am delighted, however, to christen it with you.’

  ‘Wanker,’ I muttered, before dropping to all fours and crawling into the cage. It took almost more courage than I had to shuffle, my knees pressing painfully into the metal, into that cage. To trust Blake to trap me and repeat what Master had done, stripping away my manhood.

  Then there wasn’t time to think because Sun was pushing into the cage behind me, and I was being shunted against the front bars.

  The bars rattled angrily.

  ‘Hurry up. I need to get the cover back over before--’

  ‘Hold on - what..?’

  A final push crushing me against the bars – three Blood Lifers in a cage built for one man – the slamming clang of the door being closed and locked, and then the cover being drawn back and over. ‘Wait…’

  I couldn’t stop the whining fear.

  Black, black, black.

  I was caged in darkness; terror infected, I moaned.

  ‘Shh…’ Sun’s lips were warm on my ear. A kiss. Just one on the sensitive pulse point. Then her arms were sliding around my waist.

  And I was safe. Home. The fear flew from her touch.

  Sun loved me.

  I knew it in that moment. That single kiss.

  Everything else was snowflake patterns.

  I could live with those differences. If Sun loved me.

  ‘I’m not at all displeased to discover you are capable of disciplining your slave, Jamie,’ some bint’s uptight voice, so close to the cage that if she’d reached out, she’d have been touching us.

  ‘The best gift anyone ever gave me, Ms Kane. I’ll always be grateful for our business connection.’

  ‘Why so formal? I hope our connection shall be fruitful for many years to come.’

  ‘Hasn’t it always been, Julia?’

  ‘Quite. This Blood Lifer problem, however, is not a simple one; we need to develop a long term solution.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Agreed? The tosser.

  ‘Your slave was from a genetically powerful bloodline; they were most uncertain he could be tamed. That’s why those Magnificoes, as they call themselves, rather than the weak children at the Blood Life Council, had possession of him. In a way, he was like tribute. Tell me then, how did you domesticate such a bitch? We understand you’ve used solutions such as defanging, and I can see here strict discipline. But what else?’

  My fangs were out, as I struggled to remain motionless. Behind me, I felt two other Blood Lifers fighting the same battle.

  ‘Conditioning. Punishment and reward. Blood Lifers are animals, when you come down to it; they respond to training, the same as a chimp.’

  ‘Intriguing.’

  ‘Of course, there’s a magic ingredient: they have to be motivated behaviorally to change,’ Blake was warming to his theme, ‘with fear or pain. Aversion therapy to human blood, for example, would be most effective. I’ve found, however, that allowing him natural behaviour and environment is better – as far as possible in the artificial.’

  ‘The CIE will bear it in mind, when weighed against cost. We’re considering a range of…solutions to the Blood Life disease.’

  ‘Wait,’ blossoming alarm, which tickled spider legs down my spine, ‘Blood Life is not a disease.’

  ‘Infection then.’

  ‘It’s not a disease or an infection. It’s--’

  ‘Thank you, Jamie. Always an education.’

  Silence.

  Then light, followed by the clang of the cage’s door banging open.

  We backed out one by one. My knees were stiff against the cold bars. I stretched, as I pulled myself up.

  Surprised, I clocked Blake undoing Plantagenet’s cuffs, instead of continuing the flogging. When Blake hauled Plantagenet into a bear hug, Blake’s powerful shoulders were suddenly rising and falling in waves, as he sobbed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Blake whispered, stroking Plantagenet’s curls all the way down to his waist, before tracing the scarlet weals, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Plantagenet pushed away. ‘You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Are you indeed with us?’

  ‘It’s too late; didn’t you hear her? The CIE think you’re an infection to be cured.’

  ‘Where’s Hartford?’ I stood in the center of that dungeon, staring at the rack Hartford had been stretched on for me and felt like the worst mate, family member, leader…ever.

  Because I’d only just noticed Hartford wasn’t there.

  What if the CIE bint had stumbled across him..?

  I’d been too caught up in the blood spell that was Plantagenet and Sun: together it was home, family and love.

  It was a fantasy.

  A bloody dangerous one too.

  I’d promised Hartford not to take any wooden nickels: yet my pockets were weighed down with them.

  I’d told Hartford he was my family. Yet who had I forgotten (we all forgotten), in the danger and the fear?

  Hartford had never forgotten me.

  Then everyone started talking, yelling and accusing. All at once.

  ‘Pipe down, for crying out loud!’

  As one, we shut up, turning to see an astonished Hartford peering in at us.

  I laughed then and once I started, I couldn’t stop. Since when has a little hysteria hurt a bloke?

  Slap – oh yeah, when he gets smacked in the mug by a Long-lived. ‘Stop acting screwy and spill. What is all this?’

  Hartford eyed the half-covered cage, flogger and us. Starkers – or at least Plantagenet and I were. Sun was just about holding onto her sheet.

  ‘Life, helmethead, bloody life,’ I was buzzing, as if I’d feasted on human blood, ‘and we’re going to start living it. We’re rescuing Donovan and we’re not going to be afraid. Why? Because we’re Renegades.’

  NIGHT 12

  Have I been in any way remiss in my duties? Unclear as to the nature of this inquiry? Perhaps I should’ve kept things visual, making the adaptations you need for your particular style of learning?

  Enough of that. Just spit it out.

  Your statement taken from last night: we’re the Renegades.

  It seems clear enough to me.

  Therein lies the problem. Today, tomorrow and then comes the trial.

  The flames are already warming me; I’ve made my peace with it. Why won’t you?

  Because that’s not how this works! I come in here and I untangle the witness, so the guilty can be punished. It’s what I do.

  Yet you hide truths and unmask lies. Confuse and manipulate, until I don’t know…who I am.

  Funny thing about who we are: no one can make us anything. Only we get to choose. Sometimes we get so buried deep under the controls of this world – family, society and love – we forget that and lose ourselves. Then we no longer know who we are or once were.

  We can become whoever we want because we do have a choice, and coming from a bloke who was once a slave, you have no idea how precious that is.

  That’s all there is to it? I choose to act?

  I tend to get booted
in the goolies first, and then tortured. But…yeah.

  Make the choice, lay the caper and act.

  Thank you, Mr Blickle, that was a fascinating insight into terrorist mentality.

  If I were you I’d make your remaining witness count. We only have one more session together after this.

  Tell me a story of hidden truths and unmasked lies: of a man who chose to act.

  ‘It’s been ages since Hartford bolted. And you?’ Aedan’s green peepers sparked, ‘You’re a massive idiot if you reckon you can pull that on me.’

  ‘Kidnapped. Researched on by mad scientists. Hartford to the rescue. Kept prisoner by terrorist Renegades. New caper to save Donovan: you in?’

  Aedan sprawled in his crimson looped cock of a seat, his elven mush screwed up with the effort to process the barminess of our Blood Lifer world.

  The Peter Pan was dark and silent before opening; it was eerie without its music, dancers and men in suits looking to lose themselves for one night at least.

  Reinvent or hide: what’s the difference?

  Hartford and I sank into the brocade and damask, but it wasn’t the same – because Donovan was missing.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I kept catching glimpses of Donovan’s dark mop of hair, as he danced sinuous in nothing but bowtie.

  No wonder Hartford was so tense.

  Aedan chewed at one braid in thought. ‘I know I said we all had our histories? Remind me what a thick tool I am for not guessing yours. You’re not exactly a choir boy, are you?’ Then he glanced significantly at Hartford. ‘Donovan wasn’t going to give me a love bite that time on the dancefloor..?’

  Hartford shook his nut, before to my shock – and Aedan’s – dropping to his knees next to the First Lifer. ‘I’ll lay it on the line, mac: I’m goofy over my sheik. I’d do anything to save him; I’d suffer anything. We could’ve fed you a line, but you’re my friend. I don’t want to treat you like some sap. Please help us.’

  Aedan threw himself to his knees next to Hartford, clinging around his neck.

  I’d forgotten this intimacy.

  Friendship.

  Aedan had taken us in and given us a home. He’d accepted us, even when he’d discovered we were something other than human. I’d only known one other First Lifer like that, and now she was dead.

  What else had Plantagenet’s…spell…forced me to forget?

  I coughed awkwardly. ‘We’re doing this then?’ Two resolved mushes turned to me – angelic gold hair, mingled with impish red – so close they were one. I couldn’t help the chuckle. ‘Are you climbing off him anytime soon?’

  ‘Why?’ Aedan rested his cheek against Hartford’s. ‘Am I frightening the horses?’

  I snorted. ‘Yeah, right.’ Both Aedan and Hartford goggled at me. Buggering hell… ‘It was nothing,’ I wagged a finger at them, ‘and this is a council of war, not a--’

  ‘Plantagenet,’ Hartford’s voice was flat and cold.

  ‘Look, I’m not--’

  ‘Says you. But from the moment you met Plantagenet, you were stuck on him. Sun was the same. Why do you think she let him…didn’t help me? See, what I can’t understand is why. A high hat, with his head up his ass.’

  Aedan sniggered.

  ‘You don’t have to understand, because I don’t. I know Plantagenet’s not bad, he just--’

  ‘Tell it to the marines. Because you see how you feel about a fella after you’ve been broken on the rack by him.’

  Aedan wound even closer around Hartford, and the look he threw me, should’ve staked me – with a sodding spoon.

  ‘Nothing’s changed,’ I said softly, ‘you’re still my family.’

  ‘And Donovan?’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I exploded up, knocking them tumbling back in a tangle of red and gold, as I paced the dancefloor in front of the cross-shaped stage. ‘I’m not perfect. I’m falling from crisis to crisis, surviving the best I can. It’s what I do. Only before? It was just me. And now there’s you lot. These others, who I love by the way, are looking to me for decisions, and I’m getting it wrong or getting it right, but the rug’s still pulled out from under me. I’m trying, alright? To do the best for everyone. If I could take it all on me – every hurt and blow – I would but I don’t know how. I’m sorry. This is new to me. This is--’

  ‘Being a leader.’

  Hartford fluidly rose, pulling Aedan after him. Then he sauntered to me, pausing my agitated pacing with a slight yet powerful hand on my shoulder. ‘Our leader.’

  I managed to smile. ‘Sure you want to choose me?’

  ‘In Blood Life leaders aren’t chosen. They’re authored. You’re my leader, poor little bunny, so stop acting like it’s giving you the screaming meemies, and let’s rescue my sheik.’

  Aedan patted my arse. ‘Not my leader, just so as we’re clear. I’m in though.’

  Hartford’s expression clouded. ‘What I can’t work out, mac, is how you plan to get Donovan outta there. The way I see it? There are only two ways: we double-cross the fella you’re now goofy over, or I sacrifice myself.’

  I wrenched back from Hartford, tremors bawling through me nancy. ‘What the buggering hell are you on about?’

  Hartford smiled sadly. ‘Captain wants the leader of the Renegades. But that’s bull. He just needs the big cheese to parade in chains before the Council to show how hard-boiled he is. He doesn’t care who it really is. You hand me in: I’m a Long-lived and an ex-slave. You reckon he won’t believe it? I confess to being leader of the Renegades, and then Donovan will be free.’

  ‘Hey, mac, you certain you heard..? What did you hear?’

  ‘You know…screams, like Blake was hurting--’

  ‘Plantagenet?’ Hartford spun round. I’d expected him to give me that same hard look, but instead there was only the anxious compassion Hartford had worn whenever Sir had laid into me at Abona.

  I flamed with guilt. ‘In that bloody playroom dungeon.’

  ‘Nothing play about it, fella.’ Hartford dove down the corridor so fast I couldn’t keep up with him. ‘Get a wiggle on! You want to save him or not?’

  Smash – there went the dungeon door splintering.

  I traced the sharp outline of the needle in my pocket; Kallis had half inched it for me, all overexcited in spy mode, from the research department.

  ‘Say, there’s nobody here,’ I heard Harford’s bewildered call.

  Hartford was hesitating in the heart of the dungeon, his feet almost touching the cage, which I’d hidden in from the CIE bint: he was transfixed by the rack. He was making these frightened panting gasps, so like the ones Plantagenet had made when Blake had discovered Plantagenet in their bed with Sun, that I had to steady myself.

  I could do this.

  I had to bleeding well do this.

  I tried to give a reassuring smile, as I sidled closer. ‘Don’t look at the rack. Sometimes things happen; we don’t want them to, but they do. I’m sorry, I wish I’d been better, that’s all.’

  ‘What’s all this baloney? And where’s..?’

  I stabbed the needle into Hartford’s neck. I pushed down, letting in the venom: Plantagenet’s venom, which had been separated by Fernando in his search for an antidote.

  Hartford didn’t react, as if my betrayal couldn’t be real.

  Then – for the first time – he unleashed his full Long-lived force on me, scrabbling the needle out of his neck and shoving me back. I flew the length of the room, slamming against the wall.

  Crack – there went half my ribs.

  I coughed, as I bent over.

  When I looked up? Hartford had slumped to the concrete, shuddering with cramps, and then collapsed onto his back, as the paralysis took hold.

  When mixed together our venom bite isn’t toxic to another Blood Lifer. It’s that ecstasy-thrumming line between heaven and hell. Yet when it’s separated to paralysis alone..? It’s none of the heaven and all of the hell.

  I sighed, trudging to kneel by Hartford.

&
nbsp; Hartford’s glare of hate filled accusation sliced me in two.

  He was trying to speak, but the paralysis was overtaking his control, trapping him in his own body.

  I leaned closer to catch his whisper and then bloody wished I hadn’t, ‘Double-crosser.’

  I avoided Hartford’s glower (the only thing he could now control), as I dragged him to the cage.

  When I unlocked the cage’s door – clang – carefully pushing Hartford in like a doll, mindful to leave his nut facing out towards the room because I remembered the crushing boredom of having nothing but wall to stare at, I noticed the slick of sweat on his forehead.

  I was a git.

  Because Hartford remembered that boredom too. He’d been caged – just as I had – by Master. The only difference was that I’d been at Master’s mercy for only a month, whereas Hartford had copped it for years.

  I’d never be able to understand everything Hartford had suffered. Yet here I was betraying him, entrapping him in his own body and caging him.

  I was the leader though. And sometimes? Leaders have to make the tough decisions.

  Wankering responsibility.

  I slid my fingers through the bars and then through Hartford’s sweat dampened hair, neatening it back into his matinee idol style. ‘It’ll wear off soon. I couldn’t let you sacrifice yourself, and we both know you’re too stubborn to… I’ve got a plan, but it has to be me who… I promised to rescue Donovan and I will.’ I cradled Hartford’s lifeless hands between mine. ‘It’s not goodbye or any of that nancy bollocks. But Sun has Plantagenet now, see? And Donovan has you. So if one of us has to play at hero and go out bloody..? I’m voting for me: I’m the one who won’t be missed.’

  …A black body bag in military bronze corridor... A tumble of blond curls…

  Rivers of tears were leaking from Hartford’s peepers.

  Tear ducts not paralysed then.

  I wiped the wet away: Hartford wouldn’t be comfortable like that. Yet as fast as I tried, the tears streamed.

  I gave up, pushing myself to my feet. ‘Soon as you’re together with Donovan? Take your fanboy – and don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about – and go. Be wild Blood Lifers again, free in the world. Donovan can run a music business, and you’re a singer: it’s perfect. Find your talent and live it. I wish I could’ve given you that. I wish…it doesn’t bleeding matter now, does it?’