In The Blood (Book 4): The Blood Bath Read online

  A figure came to the gates, and Ben felt a tingle on his skin. It wasn't just on his skin, it continued through his circulatory system, making its way around his body. The first of them had arrived.

  Launching from his position on the roof, Ben carefully made his way down the precarious, rotting staircases, leaping over holes in the floor, all too aware of how dangerous the building was, especially with the scant light that was available, exclusively from the holes in the ceilings. His blood was primed, prepared to burst forth and act as longer, stronger limbs or a crash mat should his footing not hold. Seeing the light of day up ahead through the decaying archway, he knew it would not be necessary, and barged his way through the doors with his shoulder. The newcomer was making his way up the path towards the building, his hands thick with the rust and filth from the gates.

  Ben couldn't help but smile. Until this moment, he was doubting that the blood would bring people to him, doubting that it would act on such a grand request. But once again, it proved itself an invaluable ally, just as the free blood had when they broke them out of Thames House.

  “Thanks for coming,” Ben said.

  The man looked perplexed, burgeoning on fear. “I... I don't know why I'm here...”

  “I know,” Ben told him. “But I promise, it will all make sense soon.” He beckoned for the man to follow him around the side of the abbey. The potential recruit stepped behind him with trepidation, unsure of how or why he had made the journey, but desperate to find out.

  “I'm Ben.”

  “Craig.”

  “Nice to meet you, Craig, sorry about the... circumstances...”

  “Circumstances?”

  “Have you ever cut yourself?” Ben asked, as they walked around to the back of the abbey. “Shed blood, on accident, or on purpose?”

  The man shrugged.

  “Okay, what I'm going to tell you is weird, and you're probably not going to believe it...”

  Craig didn't believe it, nor did the majority of the one hundred and seventy eight people who wandered up through the gates of the abbey. But one by one, he proved it to them, and then the offer was made; fight or be free. Fifty three of them opted in. Ben was well on the way to having his army.

  8

  The recruits were told where they were to be trained, and disbanded, taking separate routes at separate times. Safety the number one priority. When they reconvened in container city, only fifty one of them were present. Ben stood by the gates until nightfall, praying for their arrival, that they were waylaid by something other than the Squad.

  It was deep in the night when he decided to search for them with the blood, and discovered they had absconded, fearful of the prospect of fighting a war they had no idea they were a part of. He could feel that both regretted not taking the option of the cure, and Ben tried to send thoughts through; that the cure was still an option if they wished for it, they still had plenty of clean blood to replace their infected blood.

  He didn't know whether they would return, couldn't feel their reaction to the thoughts, but they were both afraid, and he decided it was best not to use the blood drive again to bring them to him. It would be overstepping, misusing the blood, exactly the reason Kat took Luke and left.

  The next day the lessons began. It helped that Ben used to be a teacher, even if those he formerly taught barely came up to his waist. His lesson plan was solid, and even though he was dealing with grown men and women, the same rules applied. Fifty one students was not that many more than his old class, and he found that he was able to give more one to one time than he expected.

  Some of them were naturals, had felt the blood pulsing in their heads all their lives. Others were less adept, but caught on with enough positive reinforcement. The cutting was more of an issue for most of them, and that was where Ben gave the most individual attention. Even though he knew the blood could burst out through the skin as and when it was asked to do so, he was certain that notion would make his new recruits fearful of the 'goblins, and fear would only make it harder for them to live and work with it. They needed to trust the blood, and the first step of that was to bring it forth themselves.

  Another six dropped out when they refused to cut. It was just too much for them, and Ben understood completely. His father took them one by one and drained their blood, replacing it with new, clean blood. It wasn't a total loss, as for each person cured they had another free blood joining their ranks, and in this fight numbers were everything.

  The remaining forty six members of his army moved on to the next lesson, speaking to the blood as it emerged, asking it to take on basic shapes. Once more this was remarkably easy for most of them. It was as though the blood wanted them to learn how to use it, knew that a battle was coming and needed their hosts prepared.

  Ben was proud of his students, more proud than he had been of the kids at school, the things he was teaching now were actually going to be useful skills, they were going to change their lives, perhaps even change the world.

  But a thought lingered in the back of his mind as he lay down to sleep, a concern. It was remarkably easy for the recruits to learn to cut themselves, even those that objected at first. It was so easy for them to learn how to shape the blood, and soon he would teach them how to use it to attack, train them to work together, which would probably be easy too. What worried him, was where it had to go next, and how easy they were going to find it taking a life.

  9

  Ben dreamed of blood. Not the blood of nightmares, or the blood of his army, but of the blood itself. The cells, the platelets, a rush of movement as it whipped through a cardiovascular system at speed. At first, he couldn't tell who the body belonged to, he was so close to the blood itself it was impossible to tell.

  As the dream went on, for what felt like hours, the viewpoint slowly pulled back, and he could more. The blood was flowing through veins, but those veins weren't in a body. The plasma was streaming through a complex network of gossamer strands, the fibres weaved together as a plexus that forked this way and that. The further he ventured through the web, the more it made sense. It was a circulatory system without all the muscle and tissue, organs and bones, and it somehow felt so familiar.

  The disembodied crimson lattice was lying on a bed, a silken shimmer to the form, as blood flowed through the myriad arteries, veins and capillaries that hung in the air. In the shape of a person. The shape of a woman.

  He knew why this organic mesh felt so familiar. He knew her. He had shared a connection with her. Their blood ran through each other's veins. It was Tess.

  Ben woke with a start, a chill over his skin that was thick with sweat. He looked around the dark room, a circle of light on the floor, moonlight coming through the round window in the side of the shipping container. His lungs were working overtime, gasping for air, the dream had taken his breath away. But deep down, he knew that it wasn't just a dream.

  She was alive, she had survived the raid and was in her bed, in her room at the Squad's headquarters. Still working for them, and she had no idea that he was still alive. He delved with his thoughts into the blood, tried to find her, to communicate with her. She needed to know the truth, needed to know that Steve was lying to her about the blood-driven, about everything. He wanted to warn her to get out of there before she stopped being useful to MacGaulty. Because as soon as he was done with her, she'd be drunk down like so many others Steve had killed. But his thoughts didn't go to that warning first, he was also worried about her being present during the raid, and as quickly as he tried to find and send thoughts to her, he killed the connection.

  Sitting in the darkness, his pulse jackhammered through his veins. He had no way of knowing if that thought slipped through, how many other thoughts along with it. If she felt it, heard it, understood it, she might know their attack was coming. Worse still, she might know where they were training, let alone that they had a cure and were offering it to people.

  Training would have to step up a notch. Every one of his recruits
needed to be in full control of the blood in case too much information slipped out. For as good and sweet as he thought her, Tess was still under the auspices and thoroughly brainwashed by the Squad. It would be her duty to report it to Steve.

  If MacGaulty knew where they were, let alone knew how many infected were in one place, he would descend upon them with all the might and fire-power at his disposal, with the singular goal of devouring all that blood. It was just waiting for him, and his insatiable desire for power.

  10

  In between accelerated sessions learning to manipulate the blood, Ben decided it was about time he laid the plan out to his army. They had the right to know what he was intending, and the right to voice their suggestions for a more efficient assault.

  “The Blood Squad, the people who want to hunt us down, are based in the levels under Thames House,” Ben told them.

  “Is that the MI5 building?!” asked a tall, almost Amazonian woman. The sides of her head were shaved down to the ebony skin, the rest of her hair arranged in a single long plait that went down all the way to her lower back. Ben couldn't recall her name, he was having trouble remembering any of the new recruits names.

  Murmurs and whispers made their way through the group, a blanket of sibilance that Ben found disconcerting.

  “It is, but it doesn't matter that it's the MI5 building. They're no match for us... and it's not MI5 we have a problem with, it's the people working in their basement.”

  The hushed fears and concerns continued to shift back and forth between his recruits, and Ben decided that something drastic needed to be done to bring the room to silence.

  He inhaled, held it, and let out a shout of “Shut up!” as his skin tore open, spikes ripping through his clothes, digging their tips into the walls, ceiling and floors of the room. Tentacles burst out of the spears, each of them slicking through the air, lining up their razor sharp tips between the eyes of each of the forty six recruits. The spikes from above his hips elongated, grew joints, pulled themselves from the walls and found purchase on the floor, holding him aloft on giant spider legs. The door burst open and a tide of blood washed into the room, hanging in the air around him, a crimson tsunami frozen in time, ready to cascade down at any moment and bring devastation upon its target.

  `“Nobody can contend with what we have at our disposal!” Ben told them, as he scanned the crowd, insuring each of them had the fear of God in their eyes. “It doesn't matter if we're attacking Thames House, Ten Downing Street, or Buckingham damn Palace. Together nothing can stop us!”

  The members of his army were terrified, and he could see that. It was, he regretted, overstepping, and he pulled the tentacles and spikes back into his body, asking the tidal wave of free blood to break apart and leave the room.

  His feet found the floor again and the conscripts watched in amazement as his many wounds healed almost instantly.

  “If you can do all that yourself, why d'ya need us?” asked a young man with a shaved head. He had a European accent, perhaps French or Belgian, but once again, Ben couldn't recall where he had said he was from

  “Because no one person can take the whole squad down... We were held by them for weeks, tortured, and only escaped because of the free blood. They're led by a man who has more blood in him than you can imagine, on top of that they have their own group of infected people trained to use the blood to attack, and they have tactical units with all manner of firearms.” He sighed, his attempt at a rousing inspirational speech was getting off track, weighing the odds against them. ”But together, we overpower them. We can win. And then we'll all be free, with no fear of anyone hunting us down.” Murmurs picked up once again, and he knew what he needed to add to get them on side. “I picked you all up out of your lives, and I know that was an inconvenience... but most of you had no idea you were infected, no idea that you were on the Squad's radar... The would have come along one day, killed you, perhaps in front of your families, your friends, taken them out too. If you leave now, try and go back to your old lives, and we fail because of your desertion, then you are guaranteeing their deaths on top of your own. These people don't screw around, they'll take someone out if there's even the vaguest chance they're a carrier. So we're going to take them out. All of them. Any questions?”

  There were no questions. No further whispers or hushed tones. As Ben laid out his plan, there were only helpful suggestions added in to the mix.

  They were to split off into teams, attack through the main entrance, side entrances and through the parking structure. From there they would take out the Tacks first, draw the Squad's infected out, and deal with them as a team. Then it was on to destroying records; paper and hard drives, threatening the techs to get access to cloud systems and off-site servers and destroying all that data too. When it came to dealing with Steve, all of them would converge, all forty six of them coming together to insure he did not survive the incursion. That was the most important of all their objectives, the only way they would be safe.

  Ben left the assembly, proud of himself and his speech. He returned to his room and dug a bottle of whisky out from amongst his belongings. It was unopened, waiting for the right moment to break it open and celebrate. This was the closest he would get to such a moment until their assault, their victory. He knocked it back and felt his throat burn as it trickled down.

  He had grabbed the whisky a few days before the recruits were due to arrive, thinking that he would be sharing the drink of success with Kat. But in the grand scheme of things, he was glad that she and Luke were nowhere near the training, let alone the incursion itself. He couldn't bear the idea of them risking their lives. It was better that he did this alone. Lead the army alone, and ultimately, that he died or survived alone.

  11

  Ben was half way through the bottle of whisky. It was twice as much it would normally take to send his head spinning, but he didn't feel drunk. It was the blood, he could tell. It wanted him clear headed for what was to come, and was filtering out the alcohol from his system, whether he wanted it to or not. The blood was doing it for his benefit, and he appreciated it, but it wasn't what he needed. He wanted to slow his thoughts down, distract from thinking about Kat. But when he stopped thinking about her, the needle skipped to thoughts of Tess, which was worse. He wondered if he should leave their compound, find a pharmacy and steal something to help him sleep. At least sleep would bring the thoughts to a standstill.

  Then he remembered the dream, the flowing blood. The lady of red. He found himself absent-mindedly humming the Chris de Burgh song that was off by a word.

  There was a knock at the door, soft and surreptitious. He was angry at being disturbed, but also glad of the distraction from his own internal meanderings. There was only so far that train of thought was going to get him, and it was nowhere good.

  “Come in,” he said, putting the lid back on the whisky bottle and placing it on the floor by the bed as he sat up.

  “Hi,” said a quiet voice as the door was pushed open. Small footsteps tapping against the container floor as the knocker walked through the threshold. It was Kat.

  Ben sat bolt upright, his spine straight, shoulders knocking back, chin up, eyes alert. He wasn't sure how much of that was his doing, and how much of it was the blood. It certainly didn't feel like all his doing.

  “Hi,” he said, seeing the sheepish expression on her face and feeling himself mirroring it. “You came back!”

  “I heard your speech,” she said, quickly correcting herself. “I felt your speech. And I felt the freedom your gave all those people, A hundred and thirty of them... just like you said you would.”

  “A hundred and thirty two,” Ben corrected, with a wry smile.

  “I'm glad you did that.”

  “I wasn't going to force them to fight. I don't want to force anyone to do things they don't want to do...”

  “Except when you brought them to you.”

  “That needed to be done. And a hundred and thirty two people are free
of this thing as a result.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you back?” he asked. “Not that it's not good to have you back... But, I thought you were done with this fight.”

  “I'm still a part of it. I will be until the man who killed my friends is dead.”

  “And then what?”

  She sucked at her teeth and broke eye contact, eyes scanning the floor, and shrugged. “I don't know.” Her gaze found his again, whilst she let out another sigh. “Go through with the cure, I guess.”

  “For Luke too?”

  “Of course!” she huffed, rolling her eyes. “He deserves a normal life.”

  “Would you really take away the one thing that makes him special? More than special, it makes him incredible, unique.”

  She couldn't believe what she was hearing, and Ben could tell that in her body language before she even had a chance to reply.

  “I didn't mean it like that,” he said, pre-empting an angry tirade. “I just mean that he should have the choice. The blood has been with him all his life, he's more connected to it than anyone, it might be like cutting off a limb... And that's if he even can be cured... He's not like the others, and neither are you. Both of you were born with it. It might be in your marrow... We could replace your blood and the new stuff could get infected all over again.”

  “It's worth it, just to try it. Just to have the chance at...” She glanced over to the window, looking out on the river, the last glimmers of purple and blue dissipating as dusk drew forth. “A chance to have a real life again. Rather than being on the run, all the bloody time.”