Blood Renegades (Rebel Vampires Book 3)

by Rosemary A Johns

  Captain wanted to hurt me?

  Let him be Blood Lifer enough to use his own fangs and fists.

  The blow, however, never landed; Liberty had caught it.

  Captain stared at her neat hand encircling his fist; his mug swelling with childish outrage to match the colour of the walls. ‘Liberty, will you allow me to…chastise the prisoner?’

  Liberty squeezed.

  Captain yowled, hunched over. When Liberty dropped his hand, he shook it, before hugging it under his armpit.

  ‘This is my room,’ Liberty smoothed down her black wool suit. ‘My rules. No violence, remember?’

  ‘No violence?’ Captain held out his bruised hand beseechingly; I only wished she’d snapped off two of his fingers.

  Liberty smiled slowly. ‘Except by me. Especially when my inquiry session is interrupted on the final night before trial. It’s terribly irregular.’

  ‘Shall I show you irregular?’

  Captain snatched me by the scruff of the neck, hauling me out into the busy Council offices. I could sense Liberty behind: a strong, quiet presence.

  It made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

  Out here? It was bloody pandemonium.

  Blood and First Lifers alike were rushing from office to office with the slam of doors, as if they were the ones set to be burned alive. Everywhere laptops, TV screens and iPhones blared out scrolling news.

  I craned to see, but Captain dragged me on. I could earwig on snatches of conversation though… They’ve closed it all… He’s furious; they say he’ll eviscerate… Anarchy…

  I couldn’t stop the grin: until Captain smashed me into the window.

  The vast window, along the corridor to the heavenly blue room: witness to my weeks of dark and fire-scarred torture. Blink’s reward and Captain’s toy. A legend to be broken.

  Now crushed against that glass, I looked out at the black jagged skyline and the cruel bright stars infinite above.

  I heard Liberty’s sharp intake of breath behind me.

  I wasn’t broken: I was legendary.

  My name was Our Light: leader of Light’s Renegades.

  And this was it – my rebellion.

  Welcome to the Rebel Age.

  You were waiting for the hope, weren’t you? And like all the greatest stories, it always comes at the end.

  There was no traffic on London Bridge because the Renegades had come to take me home. There were no black cabs or taxis honking, as motorcyclists weaved between. No drably suited businessmen staggering tense and cocaine-eyed from the strip clubs and brothels. No pickpockets, junkies or bladdered clubbers with cheesy chips and kebabs.

  Nobody.

  Except my new family.

  Trinity swaggered at the head of her First Lifer crew, mutt proud at her heels. The homeless from beneath the bridge liberated for one night to walk magnificent on top of it. They clutched torches, large and small; the arcs of light swung angelic, burning across the hell red bleeding beneath the bridge.

  Kids, veterans, single mums and smackheads. It didn’t matter. They’d all donated blood to us Blood Lifers.

  Me.

  They were loyal to Trinity, and she’d voted in on the rebellion.

  The first of my alliances. The second?

  Aedan sauntered next to Trinity. He’d dressed for the occasion in a sharp russet suit, which matched his swinging braids. Trinity kept shooting him these glances, when he clung to her arm in excitement.

  Yeah, not figuring on them plaiting each other’s hair in a girlie night any time soon.

  Alongside Aedan?

  The Lost Boys from Peter Pan’s – my Lost Boys now. Except from the moment we’d started working there, they’d been ours because Hartford had needed that. A new tribe to save and care for.

  I caught a flash of Brendan’s neon green hair in the throng; Kyle’s determined mush was next to him. Even tiny Jamie.

  Behind the dancers came the third alliance: Kallis and the Renegades.

  They wore slogan t-shirts, with their declarations blown-up onto placards.

  REBEL HERE, YEAH?

  I’M THE BLOODY SUPERHERO.

  YOU CAN’T FLAY A REBEL’S SOUL.

  They waved the placards like grenades, as at their shoulders stalked the Blood Lifer slaves they’d rescued.

  Alliance number four.

  Mother led the Blood Lifers – if swaying from one to the other, licking and pawing was leading – dangerously in her element.

  An army of tamed Blood Lifers? I shivered with anticipation.

  I’d felt alone for so long – unloved. But here. Together?

  Yeah, I wasn’t alone.

  Because at the heart of the march was my infuriating, damaged, confusing family.

  I knew they didn’t – couldn’t – love like I did. Maybe we all love to different degrees. I crave every ounce of love squeezed dry because I give every drop myself. But try and hate them as I did?

  I loved them.

  Because there they were, riding to my rescue. They were the true heroes.

  They were my home.

  Sun and Plantagenet were grasping onto each other’s hands like brother and sister on the first day of school: except I knew they were more than that. It was lovers marching to war, each afraid for the other. Maybe? They were thinking of me too. Maybe? They wished they were also holding my hand.

  Fellah’s got to hope.

  I had to take a second gander at Plantagenet.

  Gone was that wankering white silk catsuit – the symbol of his slavery. He’d been transformed to the original Blood Lifer, and the bloke had style. A billowing ivory shirt over tight black trousers, with RAF leather coat to the bottom of his patent knee-high boots.

  That was one cracking coat.

  It was Hartford, however, glorious in cream linen suit and Long-lived radiance, who led the army. Even I quailed at his expression, as he swept along the center of London Bridge.

  Hartford’s gaze raised to the Blood Life Council offices, never wavering. I wondered if he could see me. For a mad moment, I considered waving. Then I remembered the needle, venom…and the cage.

  He couldn’t still be narked.

  I studied the fire blazing in Hartford’s peepers.

  He bleeding could be.

  Yet even after I’d taken Hartford’s place on the pyre, he was here. With the courage to stand up and lead First and Blood Lifer alike.

  Hartford stopped at the edge of the bridge; his gaze was still locked onto mine. I shook at its intensity. Then he nodded to Plantagenet.

  Plantagenet spun in a circle, as he waved at Mother. All of a sudden, a black ripple of iPods, speakers and phones rose in the air, like machine guns at a protest.

  A moment of silence, then “People Are Strange” rang out in the black in all its gothic joy. But no longer alienation because as every sod on that bridge sang along – Hartford’s bittersweet tones powerful underneath – we were joined.

  Every one of us.

  I noticed finally what my family had done: they had their fangs out.

  I laughed.

  This was the twenty-first century. There were no shadows or hiding, and this was my misfit rebellion: First and Blood Life united. No guns, just song.

  And fangs. Mustn’t forget the bloody fangs,

  We’d never be invisible – or silenced – again.

  When Captain twisted my arm, I hollered. He hurled me across the corridor – clang – against the opposite glass. Echo and the Bunnymen rose from below, filling the narrow space and hanging between us three like a question.

  I glanced down through the glass to the courtyard below.

  There was the bonfire, with the stake and ropes to tie me all pretty ready to roast for Easter.

  I twisted back to Captain. ‘Authority issues, mate. As in, I don’t accept yours. Now let Donovan and me go.’

  ‘The insolence,’ Captain’s shirt was skew-whiff. He pointed at me wildly. ‘You’re a terrorist, a disgrace and a--’<
br />
  ‘Music lover who also likes moonlit walks along the beach?’

  Liberty guffawed and then tried to smother it.

  Captain swung an outraged glance between us. ‘You’ve broken our most fundamental rule: you’ve exposed us to the humans. All of them. Every Blood Lifer worth their salt will want your head. This demonstration is already all over the Internet.’

  ‘It’ll be viral. Like us.’

  Captain stalked closer.

  Liberty was simply watching – like she always did: silent and calculating.

  The singing below grew louder – like an unstoppable force – as Light’s Renegades advanced.

  ‘There’s a balance,’ Captain blinked rapidly, ‘but what you’ve done? It’s…this is the end of the world.’

  ‘Now that’s what I call dramatic buggery. The thing about the world? Traditions, rituals and rules? They’re bollocks. The world is changing, so we need to change with it. That’s what happens: it’s called life.’

  ‘It’s called Light. You chose this.’

  ‘I chose to allow all humans to deal with this new reality ‘cos the idea of the CIE making the decisions alone gives me the willies. Now we all know the score – First and Blood alike. And the others – the wild Blood Lifers? At least they’ll get fair warning about what’s coming.’

  Captain bit his own lip so hard crimson beaded. He licked it away with one furious swipe of his tongue. ‘I don’t believe you’re on the same page as us, in fact you have the delusional notion you can rewrite the entire book.’

  ‘Sometimes a system becomes so bleeding corrupt – abuses so much power – that some poor pillock has to stand up and make it stop. Today that someone is me.’ I waved towards the window. ‘Oh…and several hundred others.’

  Captain took one step towards me, his body vibrating from his jaunty strawberry blond peak of hair to his quivering knees. ‘Your nonconformity has ceased to be cute. If I can’t break a legend, do you know what I do?’

  ‘Send it home with a pat on the head?’

  ‘I snuff it out.’

  Then Captain shoved. Not hard – for a Blood Lifer. This building, however, hadn’t been designed for Blood Lifers.

  Crack – the glass shattered in one long sharp line, before spiderwebbing out.

  Then I was falling.

  Funny how time slows, as your stomach lurches. They say your life flashes before your eyes: they’re wrong. I saw only two things as I fell.

  Kathy in the heather at Ilkley Moor.

  And Sun.

  Her cold hands between mine, as caught in a bubble between past and present, we laughed in each other’s arms on Peter Pan’s dancefloor, whilst “People Are Strange” played and the organ rose to its crescendo.

  I lived in that moment forever – one moment stretching on for eternity.

  If I was going to die, then I’d die a happy bloke.

  Because now there was no doubt or degrees.

  I was loved.

  So as I fell to earth, I smiled.

  Suddenly something yanked my t-shirt. Rip – the cotton tore but it held. Then I was being hauled back in through the window.

  I stumbled onto my mush. Breathing hard – facing second death and then life were both equally a shock – I stared up at Liberty.

  Stronger than she looked that one.

  Captain turned his astonished gaze on her. ‘Has the entire Council gone quite mad? I’m your Author. You don’t override my decisions--’

  ‘I think you’ll find I do.’

  Liberty swept her black briefcase into Captain’s stomach. He doubled over – oomph - before Liberty drove him back to the missing glass panel, as if the briefcase was a battering ram. Captain’s heels hung precariously over the ledge.

  ‘Liberty…precious…’

  ‘I was never precious. None of us were.’

  One push. Then Liberty let go of the briefcase.

  Captain flailed backwards, windmilling into the night’s cold air; I wondered if his life flashed before his eyes? I imagine it was bloody but boring.

  Then Captain was plummeting, as paper copies of the inquiry – my witness and secrets – fell like white tears around him.

  Captain screamed, when he landed impaled on the stake in the center of the bonfire, which had been built to burn me. He looked like a spiked voodoo doll.

  Even I winced; look what irony does to a bloke.

  I shot Liberty an anxious look, as I bottom shuffled away from the window.

  Was Liberty trying to hide a grin?

  Bugger that.

  I shoved myself up, crossing my arms in customary slouch. ‘Trial found me innocent then?’

  ‘You’re anything but innocent. The trial’s been postponed; the judge met with an unfortunate accident.’

  One of the denim bints gestured at Liberty from the end of the corridor; I didn’t blame her for keeping Liberty at arm’s-length. She lobbed an iPhone at Liberty, who caught it and answered without once looking away from me, like a teacher who reckons if they do, they’ll miss the culprit spraying graffiti.

  ‘I see,’ Liberty arched an eyebrow, ‘Well isn’t that interesting? Thank you.’

  ‘New reality show? Spurs lost? Bloody hell, the boy band you’re crushing on aren’t breaking up?’

  ‘Downstairs. It seems your Renegades have delivered a gift.’ I frowned. A fortnight I’d been playing this and for the first time I was off script. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘I just got to watch Captain staked on my bonfire in a sea of my words. Everything’s tickety-boo.’

  Liberty studied me narrowly. Then she nodded. ‘Follow me.’

  The rest of the Council was in the same palaver as the previous offices; you’d reckon an apocalypse had broken out. Word of coups spread fast in dictatorships; these toadies were fawning over Liberty like she was the new messiah.

  The pine crate rested at an angle across Captain’s bland office: this was the gift?

  I stumbled to a stop in the doorway, but Liberty didn’t seem to notice. ‘From Your Sun Girl,’ she read from the pink Post-it note, which was stuck to the front.

  I knew that crate: it was identical to the one I’d been delivered in to Grayse from Abona, when I’d been nothing but a slave picked by a slaver’s daughter.

  It was everything I hated and feared.

  It was the dark and nightmares.

  It wasn’t part of the plan.

  They’d been holding hands. Plantagenet and Sun. Like Sun used to hold my hand.

  Please…please…don’t let Sun have betrayed me. Not now. Not like this. Any way but this…

  To my shock, I realised Liberty’s arms were round my shoulders and she was calling my name. ‘Light, Light, Light…’

  Two jade – concerned - peepers were scrutinizing me.

  I pushed back from Liberty, before prowling to the enemy of my peace of mind. Then I sank my nails into the soft wood and ripped.

  The wood smashed against the far wall.

  Blake – starkers – was struggling against the red nylon ropes at his wrists, ankles and neck.

  Red nylon – nice touch that.

  Blake was shouting threats through the white catsuit, which had been used to gag him.

  ‘Shouldn’t mumble; I can’t make out a bleeding word,’ I patted him on the cheek, before turning to Liberty with a smirk. ‘One leader of the Renegades.’ I pointed at Plantagenet’s bio ring, which had been forced (and sodding hell did that look painful), over the purple head of Blake’s cock. ‘Even decorated. You want your trial still? After what’s happened today on London Bridge, I’m reckoning the Council will believe a human could be our equal or more than prey.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Liberty considered me and then Blake. ‘This is the bully who subjugates our kind?’

  I nodded.

  A cold smile crept across Liberty’s mush; I shivered. ‘I shall enjoy this fresh inquiry. Very much.’

  Blake began to truly holler then – but not threats.


  ‘Shh,’ Liberty leant over the crate. Her finger traced Blake’s lips softly, whilst her other hand..? Let’s just say Blake’s not a daft berk: he got the message. ‘You see,’ Liberty stroked Blake’s hair, ‘it’s all in the training. Punishment and reward.’

  When Liberty straightened, I caught her eye.

  ‘Guess that’s us all paid-up? How about honouring Captain’s promise? Give me Donovan and let us go.’

  ‘You’ll be wanting Will too..?’ Liberty’s cool look was amused.

  I took a step back. My arse knocked off that bastard yellow face – he bounced leering up at me.

  ‘I am the Jade spider. Do you think I played no part in this game of ours? Pet was without doubt the same boy you waxed lyrical about: he could barely be without you, as you could without him. The beatings Pet took for inattention… He was lost without you.’

  Crack – the edge of the ebony desk snapped under my clawed hands.

  ‘Not helping.’

  ‘Captain took him from the research facility, after you and the Renegades rendered it worthless. For now at least. Captain delighted in playing with humans, except they broke too fast. There were a number of young human subjects at the labs.’

  That black bag?

  It hadn’t been Will.

  In my tortured, helpless state, seeing Will and being unable to save him, I’d buried him in my grief-stricken panic.

  Love - it can do funny things to a bloke and love for the First Lifer destined to be born of your fangs..?

  You’d suffer torture. Die for them. Resurrect yourself just to offer the sacrifice a second time.

  You’d destroy worlds.

  When I’d first seen Pet and known – Christ in heaven – my Will is alive… Yet he was bleeding out, sliced open for me, and I had to drink from him..? I’d nearly blown everything.

  Because family make you weak.

  Instead, I’d decided to leave Will to Captain’s cruelty – in the heart of the Blood Life Council – for two weeks, treating him like a stranger.

  It’d seared worse than the white phosphorous.

  I’d hoped Will would cotton on to the game, however, because I’d trusted him, like he trusted me.

  If Captain had ever realised who Will was to me? If Blink had told him? If Liberty had grassed?

  Captain truly would’ve owned me.

  He could’ve ended the rebellion at a word.