In The Blood (Book 2): The Blood Lies

by Lee Isserow

  29

  Steve chuckled as he watched his prey standing, motionless by the door. They were trapped, and soon, he would devour them. Torture had proven fruitless, neither the boy, nor patient zero was giving up their secrets. He would slurp them down, as he had so many others, and see if that would pass their gifts to him.

  Ben took a deep breath, as Steve's 'goblin swallowed down the last of the scabby wall that once protected them. It smiled again, reared its head up, and tore those massive crimson jaws apart as it launched itself towards the three of them.

  It was time. Ben reached for the door and wrenched it open. A gush of red flew across the threshold into the building, becoming solid as it entered. Blood upon blood, each with jaws of their own, forming spikes and spears. They tore into the giant hulking beast before it had time to strike. Yet more blood washed into Thames House, taking form, aiming for the Tacks, tearing them apart with hard teeth that bit through them, splattering their fluids across the gleaming marble floors, making them slick and wet with a crimson sheen

  Kat ushered Luke out through the door, Ben following. The free blood retreated behind them, turning back to liquid, washing up against the door, forming a thick wall of solid brown, sealing the exit up.

  “Where now?” Kat asked. Once again, she was all too aware that they were being watched by cameras over the entrance. Wherever they went, there would be surveillance, she knew of nowhere that was truly safe.

  Ben dug deep, retreated into himself, embraced the pulsing pressure that rippled through his head. He had already asked the blood for so much, and it had helped him more than he ever thought he deserved, but he needed one last favour from it.

  A snake of blood slithered away from the wall at the door, circling them three times, then heading away from the building. Kat, Luke and Ben glanced to one another, and the three of them pursued the crimson creature as it slunk across the road, up on to the pavement on the other side, and continued along the banks of the river.

  They followed it, picking up speed as they passed crowds of tourists and locals alike. Nobody even seemed to notice the sentient snake that was leading them, too embroiled in their own lives and destinations to pay attention to such a thing.

  The blood took them to a rusting stairwell that led down to the banks of the Thames, and proceeded to make its way down to the silty sands that lay at the bottom. The tide was out, water low, but the old set of stairs was still wet with a thin spray of the river's dank fluids. Each of them held on to the rails as they made their way down, footsteps careful so as not to slip and fall down the rickety rusting stairway.

  Arriving on the soft, stinking shore, the blood snaked around to a tall, fusty archway that went deep under the city. The light only appeared to reveal the first few meters of the tunnel, and endless darkness lying beyond the mouth. Ben had never seen anything like it before, but the foul odour emanating from it made him wonder if it were an exit for an old sewer system – or worse, an in-use sewer system. This was, he realised, where the free blood of London had been hiding, beneath the feet of those who pursued it, in tunnels and shafts long forgotten. When the tide was low, its presence was revealed to those who were looking, but as soon as the tide came back in it would disappear beneath the water. The perfect hiding place, for blood and infected alike.

  “After you,” Ben said, gesturing as if he were holding a door open for Kat and Luke. He was wavering on his feet. The scabby exoskeleton was doing most of the work of keeping him upright. The adrenaline surging through his system had peaked a while back, and was starting to dissipate.

  The three of them entered the tunnel, where they found more jelly beans of blood waiting for them. The creatures helped Ben make his way along the slippery floor of the sewer, giving him support to move his aching, useless limbs.

  As they got deeper and deeper, the stench became greater, air warmer and thicker, they began feeling sick to their stomachs with the increasingly acrid smell of waste. But none of them complained. The place may have stunk, and they were surrounded by a myriad creatures that they knew had the propensity for horrendous, vicious violence, but it was the safest place any of them had been in a long time.

  “Where are we going?” Kat asked, trying to keep her breath shallow, inhaling through her mouth to minimise gagging on the smell.

  “Deeper,” Ben wheezed. “As deep and as far as possible.”

  “And then what?” she asked. “We live the rest of our lives underground? In a filthy sewer?”

  “Like the Ninja Turtles!” Luke shouted with glee. Now that they were free of the threat of gunfire, this was feeling like the start of a grand adventure to the child.

  Ben smiled, let a laugh out. It hurt his chest, but it was worth it, just for that moment of joy. He knew exactly what they were going to do next. “We stay wherever the blood is leading us. We recover. Then, if you're willing to come with me, I'm going to find my father...”

  “Because you think you're 'patient zero'?” Kat asked. “Steve could have just been lying.”

  “He might be, sure. But there's only one way to find out... I'm fed up of being lied to, I just want some damn truth for once. If he can help us, then great. If he can't, then we'll find someone who can.”

  “They're not going to stop coming after us...” Kat said.

  Ben looked around at the 'goblins moving alongside them. He caught sight of more free blood hiding ahead in the shadows. Their numbers were great, he could feel that, with who knows how many more all across the sewer system of London, let alone across the country, across Europe, across the world.

  He smiled. A calm rippling through his neural tissue once again, the blood speaking to him without words.

  “They want to come for us? Fight us? Kill us? Let them bloody come.”

  TO BE CONTINUED WITH

  IN THE BLOOD

  PART 3

  THE BLOOD FLOWS

  AVAILABLE MAY 5TH 2017

  Read on for an exclusive preview

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  IN THE BLOOD CONTINUES MAY 5TH WITH:

  THE BLOOD FLOWS

  SYNOPSIS

  Ben is in hiding, on the run with two other escapees, and they have only one resolution in mind. They're going to find his father, find the truth, wherever that takes them, however far they have to go . . .

  But the Squad is hot on their tail, and will do whatever it takes to capture Ben and his comrades. The only way they'll survive is if they trust the blood.

  The question is, given what they've seen it do – how many they've seen it kill – can they truly trust it?

  THE BLOOD FLOWS

  1

  The network of sewer tunnels under London was extensive, just as intricate as any map of the city that lay above, if not more so. Great brick and concrete vessels for excrement that spanned out under every borough, from every village and township that had been absorbed into the mass of London as it expanded over hundreds upon hundreds of years. The capital had spent the time since its establishment sprawling out like a massive amorphous beast, much like the blood, devouring anything that stood in the way, making them a part of itself.

  What started as a square mile of R
oman Londinium on the bank of the Thames became a walled city, that burst past those walls as the Tudors, then the Stuarts continued to feed the city's insatiable appetite and unrestrained desire to grow. The great fire did its best to try and quell the ravenous beast's hunger by destroying four fifths of its buildings, but that only gave the city a greater yearning to spread out, to consume. Over the centuries it would double, triple, quadruple in size, swallowing whole anything that came in its path. In the last hundred years alone, London had doubled in size again. And the tunnels under the city, a broad lattice of brickwork and concrete, were not its veins, but its digestive tract, disposing of the effluence of almost nine million people.

  It was deep in those bowels that Ben had been hiding with Kat and Luke, after they had escaped from the Blood Squad's headquarters at Thames House. When the prospect of living in the sewers was first raised, the child was excited. At five years old, he had no concept of the reality of the cesspool that was going to be their sanctuary. The word conjured images of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' lair, which was, unfortunately, not even close to the grim truth.

  As they traversed the odorous catacombs, the blood seemed to be able to sense the boy's disappointment, and four of the crimson jelly bean creatures darted off down the tunnels, as if they had a solution in mind. Since they first came to the rescue, Ben had noticed that these things, the free blood, as the Blood Squad had called them, appeared to have some sort of central and yet individual thought process that was beyond normal human communication. Each had free will of some kind to act alone, and yet there was also a hive mind amongst them that could be dipped into.

  The rest of the free blood led them to a junction between sewers old and new. Orange brick to the right side, a river of waste flowing through a large circular tunnel. The left side was constructed of brick at the mouth, that gave way to concrete, a square tunnel with sharp cuboid corners, leading to a newer part of the sewage system, a wide, short archway that was made of that same concrete as the walls. To the far left wall, there was a ladder, which led up to a balcony of sorts over the junction. This, the three determined, was what the blood deemed as a suitable area for them to stay. Out of the way of the flow of filth, deep enough underground that nobody might accidentally become aware of their presence, let alone actually see them.

  With his last ounces of exoskeleton-aided strength, Ben climbed the ladder and surveyed the area, holding on to the rails at the edge of the balcony for dear life. He was well and truly out of adrenaline, let alone energy, having not eaten or slept for days at the hands of the Squad. It might have even been weeks, there was no way to tell. Not that he cared at that time. He was on the verge of passing out.

  “We can't stay here...” Kat whispered to him, hoping Luke wouldn't hear.

  “It's safer than anywhere you were hiding out with your group,” Ben said, in a hushed tone, his words drifting out between slow, shallow breaths. “Plus, we've got twenty-four seven guards by terrifying shape-shifting monsters that are on our side...” He chuckled weakly.

  “Are they?” Kat asked. “How do you know they're on our side? Have you stopped to think how they survive outside a body? How they eat? What keeps them going?”

  “Blood needs oxygen... can probably absorb that better without lungs, it's just sitting in the air, isn't it.” Another attempt at a laugh, his muscles did not appear to enjoy being jostled, aching with every movement.

  “It needs iron too... and platelets don't last forever, where do they get more without bone marrow?”

  “What are you, their biographer?”

  “We've both seen the blood attack people, devour them alive, feed indiscriminately. Sure, they might have saved us, but what if they get hungry and we're the most convenient food source?”

  Ben didn't have an answer, and even the thought of speaking was painful. He glanced over to Luke, who was playing with three of the free bloods. The child was running in circles, chasing them. The jelly beans had grown legs, jumping around him like excitable puppies.

  He remembered Ailes saying the same thing, the first time he saw a 'goblin behind the glass. But that 'goblin was angry, gnashed its teeth at the barrier that lay between him and it. It desired flesh, wanted to consume. These ones, free from the bodies they used to inhabit, seemed almost gleeful as they played with Luke. They had no mouths, let alone teeth. Deep down though, he knew even the most playful puppy could turn, given the right – or wrong – circumstances.

  Three of the free bloods that darted off earlier returned from a passage at the rear of the balcony. One flat to the ground, the other two on either side, carrying a couch between the three of them.

  “Where the hell did they get that?” Kat asked.

  Ben still couldn't muster the power of speech, but a smile did crawl up his face. For now, at least, they were certainly safe with these creatures. They had not only found this unconventional hiding place, but were now going out of their way to make it something close to comfortable for their guests.

  The fourth blood appeared a few minutes later, looking very different to how it left. It was crawling, slug-like. The exterior of its skin was still a sheer, diaphanous red, but deep inside it there was a wide cube of brown. Through the jello texture, it looked a scabrous box that lay at its centre, like a chocolate filling to some gelatinous candy, around fifteen inches wide and long, six inches tall. The slug stopped in front of Luke, the cube ascending slowly through its mass with a soft gurgling sigh, until it came out the top of its body. The scabby lid lifted from the top of the box, steam rising from the contents, a warm, inviting smell filling the otherwise putrid air. His eyes became wide, a smile arcing across his face, showing the centimetre of gum where his front tooth once was.

  Kat looked over to him, tried to tell him not to reach inside the creature's scabby container, but he was quicker than she could form the words, and brought a slice of pizza to his mouth.

  “Just like ninja turtles!” he declared, his mouth full of an oily and cheesy and bready mush.

  The blood slithered over to Kat, who lifted two pizza boxes from the scaly container. The brown cube swiftly receded, its hard shell softening, returning to bright red liquid as part of the slug's body. She took a slice to Ben, well aware that he was probably too weak to move. As the melted cheese hit his tongue, he felt like he had never tasted anything so delicious in all his life.

  All three of them ate in silence, but for the wet, smacking sounds of their bites and chews. Whilst they did so, the blood under the couch wrestled its way out, and proceeded to belch out a skateboard, that rolled along the balcony and softly bumped into Luke's side. He turned, grabbed it with his greasy hands, raising it to the air, shouting “Cowabunga!”

  The word echoed through the tunnels, across miles and miles of brick and concrete hidden beneath the city.

  Ben couldn't hold the laugh in. It roared through him, aching with every guffaw, but it felt so good to laugh he dare not stifle it. All three of them laughed, and ate, and laughed some more. For that one night, all their troubles left them, in favour of embracing the ridiculousness of their situation and the weird altruism of their saviours.

  But reality was soon going to set in. They wouldn't be safe, not in London, not even hiding deep beneath the streets, deep in its digestive tract. Perhaps they wouldn't be safe anywhere in the country, depending on the Squad's reach. One thing they knew for certain, was that they wouldn't be able to leave the city, wouldn't be able to find true safety, without help.

  When the tide came in, and the water level rose in the tunnels, they felt fortunate for having been taken to the balcony. The rush of the Thames could have easily washed them down the tunnels. Perhaps even separating them at the junction below, or any number of junctions that lay ahead in the labyrinth of tunnels that forked out, and out, and no doubt forked out some more into the deep, dark dankness beyond.

  Contrary to Kat's fear, the 'goblins showed no signs of having anything close to hostile intentions towards the
m. If anything, they were getting the impression that each of the free bloods knew they were all part of the same organism, connected by an unspoken bond through the infection that flowed through their veins. That was how it was beginning to feel to Ben, that the creatures each had free will, much like they as people had free will, but were all united by this infection. That's assuming that's what it really was, an infection. He had heard so many lies from the Squad, from Steve, he honestly had no idea what to believe any longer.

  Ben woke with a start to a short, sharp squeal, an ungodly sound that ripped him from the blissful embrace of sleep. He turned, terrified that they had been discovered, that one of them had been harmed.

  Relief washed over him, when he saw two bloods sucking down the fluids of a particularly large rat that had the misfortune of wandering a little too close. That was how they had been surviving underground. Devouring whatever creatures dwelled down there. There were rumours of there being two, three, or four rats for every person in London, so the blood certainly had plenty of food. He compelled himself to remember to tell Kat, hoping that it would reassure her that they were perfectly safe with these creatures.