The Blood Line (3 page)

She could think of no better plan than heading for one of the other ways out of the city. She couldn’t stay here that was sure so, as quickly as her bruises allowed, she hurried away from the crowd of people that had nearly killed her. She looked up towards where London burned in the great fire.
A rock and a hard place and no mistake,
she thought to herself. Still, she was alive thanks to that nice young man. She wouldn't be going back that way again.

Even though she wasn't close to the fire she could feel the terrible heat of it now. Flames seemed to have engulfed much of the city. They would be reading about this in the history books and no mistake. She hurried up a narrow cobbled street, dodging the piles of rubbish strewn in the gutters. There was no-one around. Everyone seemed to have abandoned this part of London. She looked up at the incredible column of smoke in the narrow patch of sky framed by the houses that leant over towards each other. It was, she thought, the biggest thing she had ever seen.

So intent was she on the black pillar above her that she did not notice the man in the black cloak step into the street in front of her. She collided with him and fell back, landing on her backside in the filth of the street. The man in the black cloak did not flinch.

She looked up at him crossly, feeling her bruises and scrapes complaining anew. She was about to complain about how bad this day was when she saw something that caused her to shut her mouth firmly and look down at the ground. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen. Fire had flickered across this man’s fingertips. Actual fire on his hands yet he showed no sign of pain. She noticed from a corner of her eye that there was a fresh outbreak of fire in one of the buildings nearby. She hazarded another look at the black-cloaked man and a new wave of fear washed over her. She didn’t dare move and she looked back at the floor hoping she was beneath the notice of this man, whoever he was. It seemed that the gates of hell must have been opened. She couldn't imagine any reason why a man should be able to hold fire like that and not be burned. Had the reaper decided it was her time after all, that she shouldn’t have made it out of that baying crowd?

A shadow fell across her and she risked another glance up at him. Framed as he was by the smoke and devastation of the fire behind him he did indeed look like some demon escaped from the bowels of the earth. However, he held out a hand as if to pull her to her feet. Fire no longer licked along his fingers as it had before. Perhaps she had been mistaken.

Anxious not to offend she reached up and the man easily pulled her up. She could feel the strength of him. He was a brute and no mistake. One of his meaty hands easily encircled both of hers. As she gained her balance the man did not relinquish her hand but turned her hand painfully, hurting her fingers and wrist.

'What do we have here?'

He stared intently at her hand where she wore the ring that MacGuffin had given her.

'Where did you get this?' he said puzzled, almost as if to himself.

'Please, sir. My husband gave it to me. It is all I have.'

'Well, well. What are the chances?' said the man.

He wrenched it from her finger and held it up before him. And then he laughed. That laugh was, she thought, the most horrible thing she had ever heard. The man lifted the ring to the light. Its silver glint and dull red gemstone catching what little light filtered into the dim street. Then he put it on his finger.

Immediately the red stone, dun before, blazed into life, its light a mini Sun in the shadows. The man laughed again. She shrank back in fear. A wizard. He must be a terrible wizard. As she cowered another strange thing happened. Two enormous mangy black crows flew down and settled on the man's shoulders. They were the largest crows she had ever seen. The man looked at them in delight.

One of the birds stared at her whilst the other bent its head and croaked softly in the man's ear. A look of surprise crossed his face.

She found her voice then. In her terror she found that it suddenly seemed important to know who this man was.

'Who are you?' she whimpered. 'What are you?'

The man turned back to look down at her as she crouched against the wall. He pointed a hand at her and she began to feel a terrible pressure in her arms and legs as if suddenly cart horses were trying to pull her apart. She could not believe that she had escaped the fire and then the crowd only to run into this demon. The agony was everything but she had enough presence of mind to frame the impression that the man spoke to the birds, not her, when he said the last words she would ever hear.

'Ferus. My name is Ferus.'

CHAPTER ONE

Virginia, America

October 28, 1943

B
ub leant against the starboard railing near the fore of the SS Andrew Furuseth. She was a new ship, not much more than a year old, one of the new-style cargo ships built to move the machinery of war. Cargo ship she might be but she still looked like a warship, grey and laden with anti-aircraft guns, not that she’d seen much action.

Bub stood alone as he usually did. His dark skin marked him out and the other sailors were cold around him. He had joined the Navy hoping to emulate his heroes, black sailors like Dorie Miller. Dorie, a cook on the USS West Virginia, had been at the attack on Pearl Harbour two years ago, shooting the Japanese from the air having taken over an anti-aircraft gun when the crew were killed. He’d had no training but he’d loaded those guns and had raked bullets across the sky. Dorie had got the Navy Cross for that, unheard of for a Negro. Bub had read the articles in the papers. He still remembered pieces, “for distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety” they had said. Bub looked at the anti-aircraft guns longingly. That was real action. That medal that Dorie had won had been for killing men. Just think, fame and reward for killing, it was madness.

But despite such famous heroics Bub had found that the reality of the Navy was very different. He had thought life might be different after Pearl Harbour. No longer the preserve of those with only white skin. His hands clenched on the side of the ship as he stared into the slate grey water. He wasn’t any different. So what if his skin was a different colour? But here he was stuck on a cargo ship off the coast of Virginia. The SS Andrew Furuseth. Even the name of the ship was stupid. Who was Furuseth anyway? Bub was still segregated from the white sailors and he certainly hadn’t heard of any black officers anywhere. And they all looked down on him like he was nothing. He hated them all. And he hadn’t seen any proper war yet. He just wanted to kill people to defend America. But the whites wouldn’t even let him do that. Now he wanted out.

The day was cool, but not cold for October in Virginia. Two other sailors passed behind Bub as he stood looking out to the water. He took a drag on his cigarette as he heard them mutter something under their breath as they passed and one of them faked a belly laugh. He didn’t hear what they said. He didn’t care. He wasn't liked, he knew that but then he knew he hadn’t helped himself. The crew had avoided him from the start and had distanced themselves even further the day he had lashed out and smashed a tray into Frazer Bowdery's face for jostling him in the mess room. Unfortunately he hadn’t managed to do much damage to that pretty face. But even before that he knew that they felt unsure of him. He had cultivated a look which kept them away. They had suspected him of the other stuff which had gone on aboard ship, but they had never been able to pin anything on him. He was too clever for that. He was cleverer than them all, and they knew it, even the commanding officers. ‘Unpredictable’ the officers had called him. Unpredictable and dangerous. Well, that reputation was just fine.

He liked to keep to himself. Even the officers steered clear of him now and were wary of him. He took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked the butt into the water. 'Bub' they called him. It was a stupid nickname, supposed to sound childish and demeaning. But Bub knew that it was actually shortened from Beelzebub, the name of the devil himself, because the officers found him so troubling. One officer had said to his own superior that it was the devil's own job keeping ‘Bub in line. The name had stuck. And actually, Bub kinda liked it, being the devil. Better the bad guy than the boring good guy.

Just then he became aware of a commotion behind him on the other side of the ship. As he straightened and turned there was a bright blue flash as if there had been a lightning strike, but the day was not stormy and there was no crack of thunder. Intrigued he wandered over, across the deck of the SS Andrew Furuseth, towards where he could see a number of his fellow sailors pointing and calling at something ahead. As he crossed the deck it rocked underneath him as a series of waves caused the ship to move.

Looking on past the other men he saw that another ship had drawn up alongside them, a little way off. That was strange. He hadn't seen it approach. It was a proper warship, a destroyer escort. Like the Furuseth it looked pretty new without the typical rust marks which often marked such ships. Bub came to the side, the other men made way for him, eyeing him warily. 'What's going on?' he said to the man next to him.

The other man looked briefly torn between not wanting to speak to him and wanting to impart some exciting news. After a seconds hesitation the latter impulse won through.

'That ship. It just appeared. It wasn't there two minutes ago. There was a bright blue flash and then it just … it just appeared.'

Lieutenant Commander Beeson appeared out of the crowd of men then. He had a loud-hailer in his hand and he used it to call across to the other ship.

'Hey! USS Eldridge. Is there anyone aboard?'

They all stood silent for half a minute, listening, but no answering cry came back. No-one was visible on the deck. A ghost ship.

Beeson turned around to look at the other men, apparently at a loss as to what to do. However, he recovered himself and seemed to come to a decision when his eyes came to rest on Bub. The other sailors quickly made a space around him.

'We need to head over and see what's going on.' He brought a finger up to point at the most unpopular man on board. 'Bub, you can go.'

It was only a matter of minutes before Bub found himself bobbing alongside the ghost ship, the USS Eldridge, in an inflatable boat with one of the other men. He was able to get a rope and grapple over the side of the ship and then he began to haul himself up. As soon his feet were out of the inflatable the other man sped off, back to the Furuseth, leaving only water below Bub as he climbed. Bub cursed him but eventually he reached the top and pulled himself over the edge to land on the deck.

This was not going to go well.
He rubbed his shoulders, tired from the slow climb up the rope. He stepped over the body of a man which looked as though some nightmare demon had shoved an arm up inside it and pulled the poor sod completely inside out. He was more a pile of gore in human shape than a body. Bub crouched down for a closer look. Fascinating, the body was indeed turned completely inside out but with no sign of any cuts or other damage. Blood ran away to the edge of the deck and down a gulley there. There was a lot of blood. Loads of it. Bub stood, watching it trickle away.

'What do you see?' came the voice of Beeson on the loud-hailer.

Bub just raised an arm and waved dismissively as he headed towards the door which would take him inside and to the lower decks. Let them wait. Dorie Miller, the hero of Pearl Harbour, would have just walked straight in without fear. Well, so would Bub. Distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety. He’d show them.

He opened the door and descended steep metal steps into a dimly lit corridor, using legs hooked over the handrails to slide quickly to the bottom.

The next body he found was missing everything above the waist. It was simply a pair of hips and legs, still clad in crisp white uniform, although heavily stained with blood. It was as though some giant pair of scissors had snipped the body in half, so neat and straight was the cut. But if the top half of the corpse was still around Bub couldn’t see it. In fact, he couldn’t see much of anything with so little light. What on earth had happened here? He heard a sound ahead and he crept along the metal corridor.

The next man he found was still alive.

His arm was trapped in the very wall of the ship. Otherwise he seemed to be unhurt although he stank of fear and vomit.

'What happened?' said Bub.

The trapped man shook, his eyes unfocused and febrile. He gibbered.

'Wh...w…w...w...how…d…d…did…did we?'

Bub ignored his ravings and inspected where the arm was stuck inside the wall. Interesting. It was as though the metal had melted and the man's arm had been pushed inside before the wall cooled. But there was no sign of any melted wall and the man's arm was not burnt. It was as though the ship had just formed itself around him. Ship and man had fused and become one when the ship had mysteriously appeared. What was this? Some kind of secret military experiment gone wrong? This was almost like magic. An entire ship suddenly appearing out of nowhere with a maimed, deformed and dead crew.

The trapped man had a name badge. Bub ripped it off the man’s chest and was about to carry on investigating the ship when he felt something begin to change and shift. The air pressure began to build around him until it quickly became unbearable. It was as though the entire ship vibrated too fast to see. His head felt like it would crack like an egg. Bub fell to his knees, clutching his skull. Suddenly there was a bright blue flash making Bub flinch and close his eyes. When he opened them a split second later the man who had been trapped had disappeared as if he had never been there. Bub felt himself become weightless, disembodied but at the same time thrown about as if riding a cart over loose cobbles.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the sensation stopped and Bub felt the floor forming beneath his feet. Nausea washed over him and he doubled over, sure for a moment that he was going to be sick. But he held it in. A dull headache began to form and then intensify.  Fresh air. He needed some air. He staggered back the way he had come, noting as he moved away that there was no hole in the wall of the ship to suggest that the man he had found had ever been trapped. The gibbering fool had disappeared completely. Bub staggered down the corridor, sliding one shoulder along the wall for support. The severed legs and waist were still there. The corridor span as he slid along it. He hauled himself up the stairs to burst out into the fresh air. The world span and he slumped to one knee.

The world seemed too bright and his head hurt too much. His head. There was something wrong with his head, it felt as though something had been stuck in his brain and left lodged there. An invisible fork in his head which he couldn’t dislodge. It was maddening. He bent over again and retched. He felt a steadying hand under his armpit and tried to look up. Had that idiot Beeson followed him? He looked over to where the SS Andrew Furuseth had been but it wasn’t there. Where had it gone? He looked up into the face above him, but it was too bright to see.

'It's okay,' came an unfamiliar voice. 'It's okay, you're back.'

'Back?' he managed to cough out as the world swayed again.

'Sure. Back in Philadelphia. The experiment, it went wrong.'

Philadelphia? How was that possible? A moment ago he had been in Virginia. That must be two hundred miles away.

'Who are you?' came the voice.

Bub put his hand up, trying to stand and felt the man take his wrist. As his fist was squeezed Bub realised he was gripping something. He loosened his fingers and the other man took the thing from his hand. It was the name badge from the man who had been fused to the bulkhead in the corridor downstairs.

'Allende,’ the man read. ‘Well, good to have you back Allende. Come sit in the chair. You’ll soon feel better. Don’t worry. We’ll look after you.’

The pain in Bub’s head built and built again until he was sure that he would go mad.