“You bastard,” Ronny yelled and dove on Marcos. “If you weren’t so afraid of Martin you would have done what I ordered and you know it.”
“What about Martin?” I yelled, which made Shyanna scream and take to the air.
“No wait, please,” Ronny cried and covered his head.
Marcos kicked him off and slid to the side of the cell. “Rebecca and Omar set a trap. They hurt him so badly that he could not break free and flee the coming day. I knew if he found a way, he would hunt us down and take his revenge.”
“What happened to him?” I asked trying not to show the tears that were building.
“Please do not be angry,” Marcos pleaded, wiping his own tears.
“Damn it, just tell me!” I yelled stepping up and grabbing the bars.
“We broke his legs. I think Omar may have even broken his back. He was unconscious when we tied him to the stakes in the ground.”
“You just left him to fry?”
“Yes…yes we did,” he said, shaking his head.
While I was looking down at Marcos, I wasn’t paying attention to Ronny who was slowly working his way to the cell bars. The more Marcos and I talked, the more I became engrossed in his words and not Ronny’s movement. Ronny sprang forward and grabbed a handful of my hair. Shyanna went wild and started screaming her ear piercing scream, causing the four clans men to get to their feet and try to break out the door, to come to my aid I believe, because they were saying that they would kill the one who harmed the wind on her wings. It was a strange thing to hear when Ronny was choking me. He now had his arm through the bars and wrapped around my neck, crushing my face into the bars.
“Open the door!” he screamed, trying to be heard over Shyanna cries.
“Go to hell, you piece of shit,” I said as I felt my lip bust open on the bar.
Ronny’s head pulled back and slammed into the bars once, twice, then his arm released me as the third blow split open his head and his brains and bones spilled down the front of his own body. Marcos tossed him to the side and asked me if I was alright.
“This doesn’t mean that you’re off the hook with me.”
“I know.”
“Thanks either way.”
Derek was the first one down the stairs with his blade in hand. He went right for Marcos. I had to put myself in between him and Marcos’s cell until Derek’s anger calmed enough for him to see Ronny’s charred remains on the floor. Jacob stood back and watched it all. I explained what had happened, right down to the four trying to help, but chose to leave out what I had been told about Martin and my family. I knew that he had saved himself from the coming day, but my heart felt heavy holding all the anger that I had held, thinking he was just not there when I needed him. He had been trapped and beaten, and I had been tricked. Marcos saved my life, but helped try to kill my maker and let the others kill my family. I would let my new family decide his fate, but I would have something to say.
“Your lip’s bleeding,” Derek said touching it.
“Ouch! Yeah, I was pretty stupid coming down here like I did.”
“You needed to find out,” he replied then lowered his head, then turned to leave.
He had been watching my back the whole time. Derek had changed, but not to the point that he didn’t feel like he needed to take care of me, the one who was responsible for him loosing everyone he knew and loved. Jacob watched him walk up the stairs then added that he had become a man and would need no more guidance in the art of fighting. In one way it was a hard thing to hear, and in another I knew I didn’t have to worry about his ability to take care for himself and those around him. Marcos went and sat down on the cot in his cell and looked as if he was mourning the death of the one he just killed. The four across the hall were back on their knees, only now they were looking at Jacob as if they were in a trance.
***
The woman was kept across the room from us as we spoke about the six normals that would be going with her. She began crying when she saw the amount of money Jacob was giving her, stating that it would have been all that she and her husband would have needed to keep her mother’s land alive. Jacob stood and added more to the chest, telling her that the ones we were sending would stay as long as she needed. I looked up wondering how he was going to pull that off, and would waited for the boat to leave the ship to ask. The ship made port and we placed the very grateful woman, her child, and six of our normals in the small boat. Two of our male normals rowed them in to keep the child from being upset. She, unlike her mother, seemed to know just how different we breeders truly were the moment the bindings on her eyes were removed.
“What did you put in their minds, Jacob?”
“That she was the mother of the earth. I told them that she was the one who saved them from the darkness, and that they should help her in every way, before they ventured out into the world.”
“Will they remember us?” I asked, watching them move further away.
“I think not. One day we will return and check on them,” he said smiling at me.
***
Later that night we all sat around talking about Marcos and what he had done to keep Ronny from hurting me more than he could have. Derek had nothing to say, but I could tell that he wanted to just by the way he moved every time someone mentioned leniency. I explained a bit about what I had learned of him not harming my family, but how he helped harm Martin. Jacob spoke up saying that not many could refuse the likes of Rebecca and Omar, and that he was lucky to still be alive as it was. Cates suggested that he remain in the ships prison for a time period, until we found that he had paid for his crimes. As for the four moon clan people, Jacob had a plan to use them when we made port not far from Water’s Mill, New York.
Jessie was doing a great deal better and things were finally getting back to normal on our floating home. Johnny had gotten to where he would get on Shyanna’s back after her wings were spread wide and take off with her for a small ride. My heart jumped out of my chest the first time I saw her take off with him, but laughed when I saw how he gripped her neck smiling and cheering as she swooped down close to us. She never took him over the water, staying right above the ship’s deck. I think it was in case he slipped, which made me feel a great deal better. Derek would turn away from his cloaked self momentarily glancing up with the slightest lifting of one side of his mouth. Once Johnny’s feet were back on the deck, he was off into the shadows. Not even the bond that he and Tanda shared survived his change that we all saw. Garvin named it accordingly— the bringer of death. Derek had become what he was always meant to be in the dark world, no longer the boy of a thousand questions and the cause of abrupt laughter, but the being that only nightmares could create.
It was easy to see how all of this madness came about. I felt the burning need and the want to kill, it ran through my body like a wild fire consuming a dry wheat field. Thoughts took me away more and more to the places that I craved to reach, to find those who had been corrupt longer than the history of the shores we followed. Derek wasn’t the only one taken by the horrors of this foul place that we now call our world. Where perverse, demented, and highly sadistic breeders took pleasure in the tormenting of others, and where we will take pleasure in hunting them down.
“Two nights,” Jacob said, bringing my mind back to where my body stood on the open deck.
“I think we’re ready,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the water.
“Everyone is waiting for you to come below. They wish to feed as one.”
“The last supper?”
“I do not understand. I’m sure we will feed again before we port.”
“Never mind,” I let out a deep breath. “I’ve been watching the way that you and Cates have been acting, with all the extra working out and sharpening the weapons, not to mention the looks on your faces when the two of you are talking when you think no one’s paying ya any mind.”
“This place that we go is one that we will all have to walk with our heads low.”
“If it’s a community, why doesn’t the town’s around it know about it?”
“You mean the normals?”
“Yeah, I can see how hiding in a house in the woods, or maybe even the way Yvette…no, I’ll never understand how the normals in Cuba didn’t know of our kind because that was there for so long.”
“Perhaps they chose not to believe, or truly did not know? We have lived throughout the years in privacy, because most never take from the land which they own and will defend it against any who try.”
“You mean slaves, don’t you?”
“I mean anything, other than livestock, be it slaves, mates, or a one night toy.”
“So, what about this community? What do you know about it?”
“I have been there only once, before there were any lights from the place now called New York City. When man moved in, they moved their huts deeper into the islands. Now that more normals come, they will again make their move.”
“You were here before there was anything?”
Jacob gave me one of his famous looks. I had asked another stupid question. Of course he had been, he was old enough to watch it all come to life. He began telling me about the things that he had witnessed in the village of mud huts that layered the foot of the grounds under the thick forest, to a large far better built home that looked like nothing more than a bigger mud hut, but ventured deep underground, where Annanothra’s delights came to life. He spoke of seeing the walking dead being torn to shreds by one like the moon people in beast form, while lepers, breeders, shifters, and those who ate flesh, grunted and cheered. He explained how it was a place for the sickest of the sickest, and all walks of life, down to mangled and deformed normals, like Tabor, that found it as a last result, with a nip from Annanothra to secure their loyalty.
I thought how she must be a horrid creature to bite the neck of a leper. Shaking the hand and claiming a friend is one thing, but to place ones mouth on the broken sores, filled with oozing puss is another altogether and one I couldn’t even imagine. My mind was intrigued as he spoke, knowing every word to be true, because I had seen most of the unbelievable terrors with my own eyes. As long as they fell when our blades struck out, I was happy. The fear of the unknown seemed to disappear with each night of my existence. Jacob claimed that I had seen little in the ways of things to come, but that was something that I found hard to believe. My heart was no longer filled with tender thoughts of a future of living out my life with those that I loved surrounding me in a world away from the madness in which we now lived. I looked forward to the future he now spoke of, wanting to hear more, finding his words familiar in the depths of my mind.
“Did Yvette know about this place?”
“She feared it like the rest of us. Why do you ask?”
“It just doesn’t bother me, Jacob. It’s like I’m looking forward to getting there,” I replied turning around and leaning on the edge of the decks rail so I could face him.
“Come, let us join the others. We can talk on this later.” Then he simply walked off.
His statement bothered me the rest of the night, but he changed the subject every time I brought it up. The next night he and the others were going over the maps that Tabor and Jamous had given us, marking areas where we would be making port, which looked on the map like a long way from, Water’s Mill. I walked around the table until I came to the end and then I slammed my fist down, getting everyone’s attention, namely Jacob’s. He stood up from where he was leaning down, and the rest looked up at him. Derek stepped up out of a dark corner, coming up at my back, showing where he stood if things should go bad.
“What’s going on?” Tammy asked sitting by Cates who was looking back from me to Jacob.
“Jacob doesn’t want to tell you the truth, Renee,” Jessie said coming and sitting down at the long table.
“What truth?” I asked never taking my eyes off of Jacob.
“That you become more like her every time you kill,” he replied.
“Watch…what you say,” Derek said in a low tone, stepping up beside me.
“No Derek, let him have his say.” I took his arm and felt the tension ripple through his muscles. “Please, Jacob, explain.”
“You asked about Yvette, I told you she feared the likes of the place that we go and you said you looked forward to going. In a short time you have grown from a creature that has walked the earth under the light of day, to one of us in less than what, a year’s time? Not only have I watched as you have become more like the ancient that she took, but you seek the kill with every ounce of lust that she possessed.”
“You once showed a great deal of kindness when you returned,” Tanda said, lowering her head.
“Finish what you were going to say,” I whispered swallowing back the lump that had jumped into my throat.
“I miss the way you hugged us and said you loved us when we…” she paused and wiped her eyes.
“Tanda, baby,” I said, going and sitting down beside her. “I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry, I do love you,” I took her in my arms and she wrapped her arms around me.
“We all miss the woman that came to us. None wanted to lose you to the blood that you took,” Garvin added sliding in behind me, embracing the two of us.
“Why didn’t you guys say something?”
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Johnny asked touching my knee.
Tanda leaned back and he crawled up in my lap.
“You haven’t been able to run up to me have you?” I asked then broke down.
“It’s okay, Derek catches me,” he replied clutching my neck as I turned noticing that most of us had turned to look up at Derek.
“Thank you,” I said, watching him nod then slip out of the room.
“From now on if you guys see me going someplace else, bring me back. Don’t let me forget who I am.”
“The ancient’s blood will be stronger in you for many reasons. It will be Yvette that you must learn to keep at bay,” Cates added winking at Tammy.
“What he means is, Yvette’s love for killing was more important than the living. She was like this long before she ingested the blood of the old one,” Jacob interjected.
“It’s true. I kept thinking about killing Caden, or anything that got in our way. I don’t think I once thought about the reason we started all of this, and you’re all right, I wasn’t thinking about all of you. How am I supposed to control that?”
About that time the piglet which was getting bigger took off running across the floor and Shyanna bounced several times trying to catch it, chirping and saying, “Me’s gets you’s!” over and over, making the room erupt into laughter. Johnny jumped down to join in their fun. I took Tanda back in my arms, looking up at Jacob who nodded with an ear to ear smile, so much so that his fangs were shinning in the lantern’s light. I knew that his little nod meant that my group and its love and laughter were what I needed to keep me sane.
“We will leave our ship here at Gardiners Island. Tabor has another clan of family that will give us aid on the inland,” Jacob explained leaning back down, pointing at the map.
“Why so far from this Water’s Mill place?” I asked pointing further down the map.
“We need to go in with a disguise, coming from a direction that will not bring up suspicions by any who may be watching,” Jacob replied.
“Caden will tell Annanothra anything to save his own life. She is not one to look upon one as pretty as Caden, so his words will have to be very smooth,” Cates added.
“Then why even go there?” Sydney asked.
“He knows she will fight and has the means to do so,” Cates replied.
“Do you think she will believe him?” I asked turning back to Jacob.
“She will find it strange that he came to her and that in itself will cause her to believe him and he knows this. Caden will give more than his word to get them to fight for him, only to slip out and head to yet another place as soon as the battle begins.”
“
Then how do we plan on doing this?”
“Go in as one of them. We take two of our animals down in the cells, in beast form, of course. You place Shyanna on a cloth chain and keep her by your side, she will be the best to show that we are a group of mutants, and not the ones that Caden will have told them about, even he will look the other way when we approach,” Jacob proclaimed sitting down on the edge of the table. “We ask that a few of Tabor’s kin accompany us and complete the look of our group.”
“It is not our plan to go in and break up the way of life in this community. It’s Caden and his men that we’re after, and that is why Jacob has come up with a plan like this. One that can get us in and close enough to explain the truth to Annanothra ourselves,” Cates explained, getting up from the table.
“You don’t think this place needs to be burnt to the ground?” I asked. “I’ve heard nothing but sick things about this place and the things that call it home.”
“We seek others in need of our help, Renee. They live the only way they know how. They keep no slaves other than those who give themselves over to her, because of their deformities, or because they are to the point of being a rogue, or mad,” he said coming around the table.
“I understand what you’re telling me, but what if those ‘mad’ things one day take out on their own? Isn’t that more or less what those rogues were that we killed?”
“Once they have her will, they remain, as they have for many years.”
“Fine, but we go in fully armed. If they start anything, we finish it,” I said then stood up and met Cates at the head of the table.
“Good enough. Can you hold that temper if you see things that do not pertain to us?”
“I’ll mind my own business if it means keeping us safe, but that doesn’t mean a thing if I see one normal being mistreated.”
“An unmarked normal,” Jacob added.
“A victim…better?”
“You and the rest of you as well, will see others die at the hands of a stronger opponent. You must walk with your heads down and act as if it is something that you witness as a nightly event. There is little structure in the way that things are governed, and the weak rarely survive.”
Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others Page 26