Blood Memory: A Post-Apocalypse Series (Book Five)

by Perrin Briar

  The nobles hissed, disdaining a woman speaking this way to their king. The king looked unperturbed.

  “Believe me, I realise what this sounds like,” Jordan said, “but we did not mean you or your family any harm. We just wanted to pass through the Suez Canal and be on our way to safer waters. We would be there now if we could have afforded it.”

  The king looked down on Jordan and Anne for a long time.

  “I’m afraid that’s the point after the fact,” King Haji said. “You decided to trust this man. You must live with your judgment. You will both be hung, drawn and quartered upon the rising of the new sun.”

  “No!” Anne said.

  The guards stepped forward, but before they got to Jordan he was already on his feet.

  “Your Highness, please,” he said. “I accept your punishment. I’m guilty of all charges, but please just punish me. Let this woman go. She was doing what I told her.”

  “Jordan!” Anne said.

  “You need to take care of Jessie,” Jordan said in a low voice to Anne. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

  The king pursed his lips and then spoke softly.

  “A man cannot die twice,” he said.

  “Then you have not seen the creatures out in the world,” Jordan said. “Kill me, infect me with their blood, and kill me again.”

  King Haji’s chestnut brown eyes scrubbed Jordan’s face. They had a tint of amusement in them.

  “Only the first death would count,” he said. “You would not be able to feel the pain of the second. Perhaps I was too lenient. You aided in the murder of our great king, and my beloved father. You offer no repentance. Your woman shall be punished and killed in front of you, and when your tears and cries and rage have turned your mind insane, the same shall be done to you.”

  “No!” Jordan shouted. “Please! No! Let her go!”

  King Haji turned his head to the side, not wishing to hear any more.

  The guards seized Jordan and Anne, who flailed their arms and legs, attempting to dig their heels into the parquet floor, but met no purchase, leaving only trails through the blanket of flower petals as they were dragged from the hall.

  23.

  Jessie gasped for air, instinctively pulling back from the cold. But something kept her down, forcing her head into the water, gripping her hair tight. Jessie screamed, swallowing mouthfuls of water. She tried to put her hands to either side of her head, but they were stuck behind her, as were her feet, curled up beneath her. She could feel the wire or string or whatever it was cutting into her flesh.

  The hand released its pressure and Jessie’s head burst from the water. She collapsed to one side, gasping for air, retching and almost throwing up. In her state of panic she glimpsed a series of images: the hatch door in the floor was open, the floor and sofa cushions were drenched, Ori had changed out of his clothes and into the black ones they’d found him in.

  “Rise and shine,” Ori said, kneeling before her.

  He had a smarmy smile on his lips.

  As soon as she could get her mouth around half a mouthful of oxygen Jessie turned to the cabin door and shouted: “Help! Help me! Please! Help!”

  Ori smacked her across the cheek, a fleshy slap that flared red on her pale skin.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Ori said. “No one’s going to hear you. And even if they did, you’re making the mistake of thinking they would care. I assure you, they don’t. Now, listen to me. I just need something very simple from you; something that will not hurt to tell me, unless you want it to. I need you to tell me the passcode for the safe you have here.”

  The sofa cushion was open, the safe’s keypad waiting to be used.

  Jessie spat at Ori, who calmly took out a handkerchief and wiped his face with it. He sighed, grabbed Jessie by the hair, dragged her to the hatch, and thrust her head into the frigid cold water again.

  This time Jessie stayed calm and relaxed. Ori took out a cheap cigarette and lit it. When Jessie’s breath ran out she pulled against Ori’s grip, but he wouldn’t let her up. She tried again to the same result. Then her body began to thrash as it had before, fighting for oxygen. Only when Jessie’s efforts became weaker did Ori let her up. She gasped for air that barely managed to squeeze through her constricted airway.

  “I’m not going to let you get away with anything near so easy as drowning,” Ori said.

  “Jordan and Anne…” Jessie said, her voice rasping through her raw throat.

  “Even now you think about your friends?” Ori said, shaking his head. “They’re as good as dead. By all accounts the prince is no more honourable than his father.”

  Jessie’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head.

  “No,” she said.

  “I’m afraid so,” Ori said. “Now the best thing you can do is take care of yourself. Give me the code to the safe and you can go. Scout’s honour.”

  “What about the people you wanted to help here?” Jessie said. “You gave your word you would help them too.”

  “The people?” Ori said with a sneer. “Do you honestly think I have any interest in handing food over to the scrabbling poor? They won’t even rise up to protect themselves! Or their children! The weak will perish. The strong will succeed. The world is, and has always been, about the survival of the fittest.”

  Jessie’s eyes became distant, her mind several months away, when she was content and at sea with Jordan and Anne, with their happy smiling faces and loving aura. How could she have ever felt embarrassed with the love they felt for each other? For her?

  Ori slapped Jessie again.

  “Wake up,” he said in an exasperated tone. “I need you present.”

  Jessie glared at Ori for taking her fantasy away from her.

  “There’s a box inside the safe,” Ori said. “What’s in it?”

  “The end of the world,” Jessie said.

  It was meant as a joke, but she couldn’t make herself smile. Ori snorted.

  “Come now, you must know,” he said.

  “It’s something a friend gave Jordan,” Jessie said. “He never showed me what it was.”

  “Must be valuable if he chose to put that in the safe and not the food,” Ori said with the air of someone thinking out loud. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me the code for the safe, and then you’re going to go somewhere safe, and you’ll move on from this. Do you know how I know this? Because you’re like me. You’re a survivor.”

  “No,” Jessie said, her expression dark. “I’m nothing like you.”

  Ori sighed and shook his head.

  “I thought that might be the case,” he said, taking out a flick knife. “Then we’ll just have to do this the fun way. I have a great deal to do tonight. Last chance. Tell me the code or I’ll be forced to do what no civilised man should be made to do. I can assure you, it won’t be pleasant.”

  Ori lowered the knife to the soft skin under Jessie’s ear. Jessie shut her eyes, a glimmering tear of fear rolling down her face.

  “No?” Ori said. “All right. I guess it’s going to be a long night.”

  There was a tapping noise like bored fingers drumming on a table top.

  Ori looked up at a porthole. A hooked forefinger in an orange and green uniform rapped on it. The knocker was speaking with someone at his side and wasn’t looking into the cabin.

  Ori screwed up his face.

  “We’ll continue after a brief interlude,” he said. “You be quiet, now.”

  Ori jammed a dirty rag in Jessie’s mouth. He turned and headed up the stairs to the deck. Jessie could hear voices speaking in Arabic.

  Jessie grunted around the dirty rag in her mouth, tasting oil, dirt and Christ knew what else, producing little more than muffles. She poked at it with her tongue to work it loose, but it wouldn’t come free.

  Jessie pulled at her bonds. The wire – she was certain now that was what it was – cut deep into her wrists and ankles. Her blood oozed out, lubricating her bonds. She fel
t them loosen slightly, but not enough for her to slip free.

  The voices on the deck laughed, and Jessie’s stomach twisted. She had to get the guard’s attention somehow.

  Jessie peered around at the main cabin, her eyes fixing on the sofa behind her. The sofa had a wooden front and sides. Jessie shrugged her shoulders and shuffled over until she lay with her back against it. She braced her weight with her hips, balancing as best she could, and then raised her legs and brought them back hard against the wooden front.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  She listened, but the voices had stopped. Had they heard her? Her exhalations came in ragged breaths through her nose. She raised her feet again and threw all her weight into the wood.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  She paused and listened. Footsteps. Descending the steps.

  Yes! Hope blossomed in Jessie’s chest and she began making plans on how to get Jordan and Anne from their cell. Ori was their key. She would hand him in and claim the reward. All their problems would be over.

  “You can look if you want to,” Ori’s voice said, trailing the end of a conversation, “but you’re not going to find anything.”

  The guard came down the steps first. The smile on his face fell when he saw Jessie tied up on the floor. He reached for the sword at his hip, but was too slow as Ori knocked the guard’s hands away with a vicious thrust, and then reached for the guard’s throat. There was a tearing sound, and a splat of something on the floor. Ori had moved faster than Jessie had ever seen.

  The guard had a perplexed expression on his face. He raised his hand to his throat and found his windpipe exposed. It was in Ori’s hand. The guard fell forward onto his knees and then his face, his blood spreading across the floor in a wet gurgle. Ori tossed the trachea aside.

  “No…” Jessie said. “No! No! No!”

  She shook her head in horror, all hope of escape seeping away like the guard’s blood.

  “That’s nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you,” Ori said, flicking open his knife. “Now, where were we?”

  Jessie’s eyes snapped toward the open hatch to her left. Her mind worked on instinct. She rolled toward it, tucked in her legs, and fell through it, into the water and under the boat.

  The salt bit at Jessie’s wrists and ankles. The hulls of the moored boats made heavy thudding noises as they bumped into their adjoining quays. Jessie kicked her legs. Something snapped around her ankle.

  Jessie screamed, spilling valuable oxygen into the sea. She knew what had hold of her without needing to see.

  She kicked against Ori’s hand, writhing in his grip. He pulled her back, toward the boat, but his grip was not strong and Jessie felt his hand slide down to her shoe.

  Jessie kept kicking, the effort using up her oxygen. She squirmed side to side, twisting around, performing a barrel roll. Water rushed up her nose and she tasted the salt. She felt a jerk, the clamp on her leg coming loose. She thrust forward.

  Jessie wriggled through the water like a worm through soil, timing her movement so it was smooth, or at least as smooth as she could make it with her restrained hands and feet.

  Her lungs burnt once again. She desperately wanted to return to the surface, but knew she would only have one chance, and she did not want to do it within Ori’s field of view.

  The black wings of the fallen angel flapped in her vision once more, making a second pass. Jessie pushed herself a little further…

  A little further…

  A little further…

  Her head felt heavy, like it was taking on water. She ordered her legs to kick, but they were almost unresponsive, managing just a few small flicks at the ankle. The carbon dioxide-rich air in her body forced itself from her lips. She was rising, but slowly.

  She prayed she would make it to the surface before she lost consciousness. Her world was growing dark, and she so wished to see the light.

  24.

  Jordan ran his fingers along the grooves in the tiles. His finger caught on a sharp edge. He hooked it with his fingernail, black with dirt and grime, and pried it loose. A long triangular shape about four inches long came away.

  “Anything?” Anne said.

  “No,” Jordan said.

  “There’s no secret way out?” Anne said.

  “Not through the walls,” Jordan said. “But I did manage to pry away some of the tiles. Here.”

  He handed one of the shards to Anne and kept another for himself. She felt along the edge with her finger. The flickering light from the sconces along the narrow walkway made the tile look harmless. The point was too thick and dull to be of much use in stabbing someone, but the edge was a sinister kind of sharpness that when drawn across flesh would cut and leave fragments inside the victim.

  “We’ll just have to do what we can when the guards come in to take us,” Jordan said. “If we attack at the same time we might be able to take them out.”

  Anne took a couple of practice swings with the makeshift knife, gripping it in the palm of her hand.

  When the guards had tossed them into their shared cell their eyes had stung, faces curling up at the stench. It smelled evil, like souls had shrivelled up and died there. Somehow they had gotten used to it, although occasionally a powerful foul waft drifted up to their noses. There were a series of iron bars along either wall, leading to identical cells. On their floors was dusty dry straw. It did nothing to keep the room clean, nor the smell at bay.

  “I can’t believe Ori could do this to us,” Anne said. “We rescued him, nursed him back to health. We trusted him.”

  “We should never have trusted him,” Jordan said. “We were fools.”

  “None of this would have happened if we’d listened to you,” Anne said. “I was the one who insisted we help him. I was the one who saw goodness in him.”

  “Maybe there is goodness in him,” Jordan said. “It’s just buried deep inside. But you were right to help him, to want to help the people of Port Fouad. It’s that humanity that separates us from Lurchers, and from people like Ori.”

  “But he’s out there,” Anne said. “And we’re in here. Maybe we need to be more like him if we want to survive.”

  Jordan didn’t know what to say to that. He took to relaxing his mind, going through his plan of what would happen when the guards came.

  “Your plan won’t work,” a voice outside their door said.

  Jordan and Anne spun around, knives at the ready. They hadn’t heard anyone approaching their cell. They moved in close to the bars and peered up and down the narrow walkway. There was no one there.

  “I’m not a guard,” the voice said. “I’m a prisoner, like you. I’m in the cell opposite.”

  Anne tucked her makeshift blade into the waistband of her trousers and covered it with her blouse. She crouched down and looked through the bars at the heavy wooden door opposite them.

  At the bottom was a square hole with short iron bars running vertically across it. Brown fingers protruded from it, and a pair of eyes glinted in the light.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” the voice said. “But I’ve seen others attempt the kind of escape you’re thinking of, and they weren’t successful.”

  “What happened to them?” Anne said.

  “They were overpowered,” the voice said. “The guards come in with hosepipes and wash you down until you have no fight left in you. If you’re going to make the attempt I suggest you at least wait until they finish with the water. You’ll need to hide the shards in your cell somewhere, probably near the door so they don’t get blasted back by the water. You’ll have to put up at least a semblance of a fight. If you don’t, they’ll assume you’re up to something.”

  “Who are you?” Anne said.

  “Sambha,” the voice said, reaching his bony arm through the bars. “You can call me Sam.”

  Anne reached across the narrow path and shook his hand.

  “You’re from India?” Jordan said. “I recognise your accent.”

  “Mumbai,” Sam
said. “Have you ever been?”

  “No,” Jordan said.

  “Me neither,” Anne said. “But I’d like to.”

  “Are you in the same cell?” Sam said.

  He moved his head around his tiny window to try to get a better view of them.

  “Yes,” Jordan said.

  “You must have some powerful friends,” Sam said.

  “Why do you say that?” Jordan said.

  “Because you’re in the same cell,” Sam said. “They normally split everyone up.”

  Anne looked at the cells lined up in long rows on either side of them.

  “There isn’t anyone else here,” she said. “We’re the only ones.”

  “Right now we are,” Sam said. “It wasn’t like that when I first got here. There were two dozen of us. As the weeks went by they were taken away, one by one. They brought people down here sometimes, but not many. You’re the first new ones in about two weeks. Would you mind filling me in on what’s going on out in the world? Being stuck in here hardly stimulates the mind.”

  “After the Incident the virus spread across the whole world,” Anne said. “To every continent and nation. There was no stopping it. There are pockets of humanity left here and there, but not many. Port Fouad is the biggest settlement we’ve seen so far.”

  “So far?” Sam said. “Where have you been?”

  “Around the coast of France, Portugal, Spain, and Northern Africa,” Anne said.

  “Sounds wonderful,” Sam said, a smile in his voice.

  “Not so wonderful when you’re fighting for your life,” Anne said.

  “Still,” Sam said. “Beats being cooped up in here. Where are you headed?”

  “To the Indian Ocean,” Anne said.

  “Ah yes,” Sam said, his voice rising with fond memories. “I imagine you won’t be the only ones to do so. A great many Indians will be there too.”

  “Have you been there before?” Anne said.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “I would go fishing with my uncle. He was a lawyer in a small coastal town. They were good times.”

  “How did you end up here?” Jordan said.