Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others

by Robin Renee Ray,

  “Merna, we need your help,” he yelled. “Please, do not make me break your wards.”

  “Why have you returned?” she asked from the security of her home.

  “The others have fallen to the bite of the rogue. I know what you are and I plea for your aid.”

  “Go to the back. Wait by the door.”

  Jacob did as she asked and waited several minutes before the small window opened over the sink in the kitchen. “Come…quickly,” Alec said, and helped pull Jacob through. He followed them down into the basement and back into the same room that he was beaten in. He looked over at the man that looked a great deal like Alec, and flinched his shoulders at him. The man jumped and ran around Merna, who glanced up at the grin on Jacob’s face. He was the man that had taken the liberty in using his fist to find out information, when he already had been given the truth. Jacob did not care for the quiet one. Merna pushed a shelf of bottles and books, sliding it open to a secret entrance.

  “Come, I will make you a tonic and cream. The poison will hit the brain and take their sanity in twenty four hours’ time.”

  “What payment do you seek?”

  “You have given us payment enough,” Merna replied, causing her to get a look from both Alec and the other man. “You have taken away the pest that would have tried to claim our home, not to mention drain us dry.”

  “Then we will be beholden to you, Merna.”

  “Just tell no others of our whereabouts, young man. We have lived in peace, away from the ways of the elders and wish to keep it that way.”

  “Is there any supplies that we can bring on our return?”

  “Your plan is to return here?” she paused holding a glass flute.

  “No, we seek others as we move north.”

  “Then you may bring back a few items for my shelves.”

  “I could use art pads,” said the one standing behind Alec.

  “What is your name brave one?” Jacob asked watching Merna, instead of the one he was talking to.

  “Alex.”

  “He is my brother,” Alec added.

  “Twins?”

  “Yes, Merna was kind enough to take both.”

  “Enough of that,” Merna said, handing Jacob a glass filled with green fluid. “Make sure each takes two spoons full.” Then she handed him a spoon.

  She turned to mix a cream out of several different powders and oils, and while she did that Alex and Alec made a list of items to bring back. Alec leaned over and whispered in Jacob’s ear, that if it were at all possible, could he find some flower seeds for Merna. He said that it had been many years since she had been able to enjoy her sweet growing flowers. Jacob nodded at him and took the list, folding it and putting it in his pocket. Merna gave him the cream that she had made with instruction on how often to use it.

  “Make your mistress drink before you tell her where you got this, or she will not partake in its healing. She may live in the dark, but her soul is pulled between the light and that of what she has become. Regardless that fact, she takes life like a well-trained solder.”

  “Your sight is strong. She is a powerful leader. She just has not seen it with her own eyes.”

  “She is changing, and change can be as hard on one’s normality. I feel she will face many hardships with this course she is on.”

  “She will not face them alone,” Jacob said, bowing in front of Merna. “Look to the water’s edge. We will return soon.”

  “Let your legs be swift. The poison rages as we speak,” she called out as he dropped to the ground. “Thank her for the rogues.”

  Jacob brought up one hand then turned around no more. He ran as if his own life depended on it. Meanwhile we were all feeling the effects of the bites. My neck was pulsating with agony, and my arm wasn’t far behind. I had fed from Jacob and now the deer, and still I felt that if I stood I would lose it all. Cates went out and soaked his shirt in the salt water of the ocean that wasn’t too far away, then came back in and placed it on the one closest, going back out repeating the process with someone else’s shirt, until we all held one on our wounds. All the strength had drained from my body, and I was now lying over on my side. I couldn’t imagine how my little ones felt, but it had to be much worse than me because I had Jacob’s blood in my system.

  Cates spoke of how he and Jacob caught the deer by surprise and knocked it smooth out, to keep it from kicking them all the way back. We all took in his words of the tales that he and Jacob had done in the past. The gripping pain and the intense burning throughout our systems had each of us lying on our sides holding ourselves. Cates’ voice was like music to my ears, so I was hoping it was having the same effect on everyone else. Every once in a while someone would moan out in pain, and Cates would go to them. I clenched my teeth and withheld any expression of my pain to keep my little ones from worrying, but it was agonizing.

  “How long has he been gone?” I asked struggling to make each word sound as normal as possible.

  “It’s been a while,” Cates said coming back to me. “Don’t speak, just rest. There was a time when Jacob was but a boy like Johnny, and he got the poison ivy. He swelled and itched. When we laughed he rubbed his sores on us thinking it would spread to us, but it only spread more on him. He looked like an over ripe strawberry before he began to heal. Chin called him ‘strawberry’ for years, until he became a man.”

  I smiled knowing that if this, whatever it was that was rushing through my body didn’t kill me, I was going to have a new pet name for Jacob. No sooner than I thought it he stepped back into the cave. He rushed to my side first and pulled a glass bottle filled with green fluid out of his shirt, and another with a thicker substance. He pulled a spoon out of his pocket and opened the bottle with liquid. “No, them first.” I shook my head and closed my eyes, giving him no room for an argument. When I heard his feet move away I opened my eyes and watched him put two spoons full into Derek’s mouth. His face distorted as soon as the taste hit and as soon as he swallowed, he let it be known.

  “I’m gonna be sick.”

  “No! You hold that or you will take it again,” Jacob demanded, going to Brandon.

  “It’s horrible,” Derek heaved.

  “You have taken yours, it is over, think of the ones that still have to take it,” Cates said, smiling at him.

  “Use the cream on the bite, Cates,” Jacob said as he put the last spoon full in Brandon’s mouth.

  “What the hell is that?” Brandon yelled out as if it hurt to take it.

  “Be still now,” Jacob said going to another.

  I heard everyone’s reaction and wished I had gone first. Cates was rubbing the awful smelling cream on my neck when Jacob slid in next to me. Jacob filled the spoon to over flowing. I let out a hard breath and opened my mouth. It was the sourest thing that I had ever tasted, and I had to swallow it again. I took my medicine and wondered why it didn’t hurt our stomach like everything else had. I left the question for later and laid back down and let Cates put the cooling cream on my arm. My body started tingling from the inside out about an hour after we took the green elixir. Derek was the first to fall into a deep sleep. I had just enough time to ask Jacob where he got it from, and heard him say Merna’s name before I too went under.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I woke to the falling of the next day illuminating the front of the cave. I felt better, a great deal better. I sat up and put my hand to my neck and could barely feel where I had been bitten. I moved my body and had no more pain anywhere. I looked around and found Jacob sitting across the cave in a dark corner watching me.

  “How’d you find that stuff? You were gone almost all night.”

  “Merna saved you and your little ones.”

  “You used witchcraft on me?”

  “You are well, are you not?”

  “I don’t think I know how I’m supposed to feel about this.”

  “How about a little grateful,” he replied, getting to his feet.

  “Don’t talk t
o me like that. I’m grateful for what you did, I just wish it hadn’t come from a witch.”

  “Look Renee, everyone will wake to see another night in their right minds because of her. She is a good woman,”

  “You tell that to someone who agrees with the ways of witch, because I don’t buy it. Witchcraft is bad…really bad.”

  “Say what you will, but you owe her your life and your thanks either way.”

  “I see you two are already at it,” Cates interjected rolling to his back.

  “Why don’t you just curl back up to Tammy and shut up,” I replied, getting up and walking to the lights edge.

  “What is the real problem, Renee?” Jacob asked, walking up and putting his hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t you get it? That just took another piece of me away. I partook of something that was against my beliefs.”

  “Free your thoughts then,” Cates added, walking up to us. “You had no knowledge of what you were taking, therefore you have committed no sin against your beliefs.”

  “You both knew how I felt about it.”

  “And neither wanted to watch you go mad,” Jacob replied, turning me around. “The rogue bite brings on the madness that they live with nightly. We kept that information for the sake of worry.”

  “It’s the rot like Tammy explained that holds the poison that was eating through your body,” Cates elaborated.

  “Okay, I get it. But never pull that shit again, you tell me what I’m putting in my body.”

  “But, I have no clue what you put in your body,” Jacob replied.

  “Exactly!” Then I walked over to check on Shyanna, letting him figure out what I meant by my statement. Even though we all knew we put the same thing in our bodies.

  Shyanna was now curled up in front of Tammy. Her wounds had started to heal but still had a raw look about them. Her scales had fallen away around the marks on her body and the tear on her wing had hardened. It didn’t interfere with her ability to fly, nor did it affect her appetite. She normally ate fruit, but last night she ate on the deer’s leg that Cates had killed for us. I had to turn my head when she first started chewing on it, because it reminded me of how she must have chewed on the men’s faces who she killed. There were just as many marks on her victims from her teeth, as there were her talons. Her fangs were very much like mine, she just used them in a different manner.

  I was more than ready for everyone to wake. I wanted to get started back to our original destination, and see those who waited for our return. Once we were all on our feet and feeling ten times better, we hit the coast running. The sky was full of stars, but no sign of the moon. We ran free in the darkness of the night. Once we reached the area where the tide was washing in we climbed up. The cliff was steep and rocky. Jacob took the lead and we filed in letting Cates take up the rear. Tammy was right behind me and right in front of him. I heard her more than once tell him to stop getting fresh, and him return a comment like he was merely trying to be a gentlemen. I smiled all the way up listening to them, until Derek slipped and took me, Tammy, and Cates, all the way back down.

  I landed on top of Tammy who landed on top of Cates. I looked up to see Derek holding on to a root sticking out of a rock in the cliff about ten feet up. I crawled off Tammy who was trying to crawl off Cates, who was smiling from ear to ear, flashing his fangs for the first time. I had seen him grin, but never smile so fully. Tammy was cursing by the time she got up, because he didn’t seem to have a problem pushing on her backside.

  “Put your hands there again and you wake with one missing part,” Tammy said, then kicked him in the stomach.

  “Oh, My Lady,” Cates grunted. “Tis such a sweet threat for a deed so nicely done.”

  “Nice for whom? Your hands? My rear didn’t find any pleasure in those big burly things.”

  “Everyone okay?” Derek called down.

  “Yeah, nothing broken, you go on up,” I called up, wanting him to clear the top before we started back up.

  “That must have been a twenty five foot drop,” Cates said, getting to his feet.

  “Thank goodness we had a beast like you to land on,” Tammy smirked as she walked back to the cliffs side and started back up. “I’ll go first if you don’t mind, Renee.”

  “After you, but you might wanna give Derek a few more minutes?”

  No sooner than I said it, a rock came crashing down. Cates grabbed Tammy, pulling her into his embrace, as the rock landed right where her head had been. She held on a few seconds then looked up into his eyes, before pushing away, and walking back over by me. Cates puffed his chest out a bit more and looked up to see Derek’s progress. We all heard movement to our left in the heavy undergrowth. Cates spun around pulling his long sword.

  “Climb now!” he yelled and we didn’t hesitate.

  “What is it, Cates?”

  “Howlers, beasts of the moon.”

  “But, there’s no moon,” I called back.

  “I do not think they care,” he pushed my foot up and placed me a good ten feet up the wall, right behind Tammy. “Now move!”

  I did just as he said, I moved. I was in front of Tammy again and half way up when I heard the struggle hit below. I looked down to see dogs three times their normal size backing Cates up to the cliff wall. He swung out and got one in the side of the head, spraying blood over the front of his own chest. He made a figure eight and yelled out at the top of his lungs, as he brought his sword down on another’s back, splitting the beast in half. The other two backed off smelling their dead. Cates screamed an animalistic yell at them and they flinched, then turned and ran back into the cover of the forest. He turned and began climbing at a speed that would put him at our feet in seconds. “Move, yourselves!” he yelled. I stopped looking down and did just that. I reached the top, where two hands were reaching down for me. Brandon and Derek pulled me over the edge. Tammy was right on my heels, with Cates now on hers.

  Jacob had seen what had happened and made our feet move swifter, with a push and a yell. We ran like we were running for our lives. I saw how easily they fell and didn’t see what the importance of moving so fast was all about. Besides, how could a dog, no matter its size, climb a vertical rock wall? After a few miles I stopped and leaned on a tree, letting the others get way ahead of me. Once the silence of the night filled the air, my sensitive ears began to hear a low growl, and then I smelled the musk scent of their fur. I pushed off from the tree and caught up with the others.

  “They’re coming!” I yelled as I moved over the boulders at the top of the cliffs edge with as much speed as I could muster.

  “They’ve made the edge?” Cates asked slowing his pace.

  “I don’t know I just heard them, smelled them.”

  “Jacob!” he yelled and picked up speed.

  They both went to the cliffs edge and spoke among themselves as we all caught up. I didn’t like the look on Jacob’s face as he started walking over to all of us that had gathered in a group at the base of a fallen tree. “We have to jump.” Jacob spoke as if he knew none of us would be willing to do that. And he was right, as far as my objection was concerned.

  “You’re out of your mind. That has to be at least sixty, seventy feet,” I replied shaking my head.

  “The rocks? What about the rocks that are jutting out of the water?” Tammy asked wrapping her arm around Garvin’s.

  “If we jump when the tide comes in you will not hit the rocks,” Cates explained as he joined us.

  “That’s easy for you to say. I’m a big girl.”

  “The softer you will land, My Lady,” he replied walking up to Tammy and taking her hand. “I weigh a great deal more, and will go deeper. I have done this sort of thing many times throughout my life. Keep your knees up and your head tucked and you will be fine.”

  “We have stepped into the wrong territory, and we must move before they reach us. We do not know their numbers, but you can know there will be many,” Jacob explained, then walked over to the cliffs edge.<
br />
  “What are they?” Derek asked.

  “They are beasts of the moon.”

  “Why are they out if the moon isn’t?” Sydney asked, looking out past our backs.

  “It is just a phrase, not something to be taken literally,” Cates explained, rubbing Tammy’s arm lightly.

  “Come, we don’t have time to waste,” Jacob said waving his hand.

  “I’ll go first,” Garvin said looking over at Sydney.

  “Then I’ll go after,” he looked back smiling.

  “Fine, when I say go, you jump.”

  Garvin looked back at us, and then got in a bent knee stance. “Bring your knees up when you hit the water…go!” Jacob yelled and Garvin leaped off the edge as I uncontrollably reached out to grab him. I ran to the edge and watched him plunge into the black water that was churning white foam up on the rocks below.

  “Where is he? I can’t see him?” I asked as I looked frantically over the edge.

  “There, I see him on that rock. He’s crawling out, he made it,” Derek laughed with joy.

  “Sydney, come,” Jacob raised his arm. “Ready…go!” Then he too took the leap of faith.

  “I smell them!” Tammy screamed running to the edge.

  “Derek, Brandon, you go at the same time. Now, jump!” Jacob ordered practically pushing them over the side.

  Derek yelled all the way down, not from the fear of the fall, but he actually sounded like he was having fun, until I heard a different scream when he came up out of the water. “Now, Jacob?” I asked ready to jump. My boy was hurt and I wanted down.

  “Go, now!” I heard him yell, ‘pull up your knees’, right before I went under. I came up to waves pushing me back under. I fought my way back to the surface and held on to one of the jagged rocks. I got a glimpse of Derek holding on to Brandon who looked like he was unconscious, and tried to make my way to them, only getting myself pulled back out in the next wave. When I came up a heavy splash landed in the water beside me. I thought one of the others made the jump until a dark furry thing came to the surface of the water. I screamed and pushed it away, fighting the waves to get closer to the shore. The thing went back under, and I finally made my way to the boys, as another splash hit the surface of the water. Only this time Tammy came up screaming very much like Derek had. I saw her lift the fur covered beast and then go back under the water. I dove back under and started making my way to her, thinking it was alive and pulling her under. I pulled my blade and almost lost it when another massive thing splashed to my left, then another to my right. I went under when the wave rolled back out, and came up to the noises of what sounded like hundreds of animals howling. I saw a shadow swooping down then felt Shyanna pulling up on my hair. I had almost forgotten about her.