Blood Hunter (The Grandor Descendant Series) by Bell Stoires Read Free Book Online Page A

late at night, the street lamps provided adequate lighting to highlight the old buildings on either side of them. Immediately to their left was what looked like an old church; the orange brickwork was timeworn and stained, with many small gargoyles jutting out from the sides. The gargoyle’s faces were macabre and distorted looking, many years of wear eating at the once smooth stone and leaving bizarre expressions on their crumpling faces. 
     
    When finally they reached the roof, Ari avoided looking down and walked a little shakily away from the edge, her knees trembling uncontrollably.
     
    “Lucky you had a couple of vamps handy,” Clyde said; he had reached the top several minutes before Ragon and Ari, and had already jimmied the lock to the fire escape door open. “You would probably still be humping that water pipe.”
     
    Ari glared at him as he held the door open and then the three entered the building, climbing down a narrow flight of stairs before they reached the next door.
     
    The building smelt of turpentine, as if it had been painted recently, and Ari found it difficult to navigate around the dark rooms with only the emergency lights for guidance. Fortunately Ragon and Clyde, whose eyes were adapted for such conditions, were easily able to locate the room they sought. After a few more minutes, in which Clyde showed off his lock picking skills yet again, they entered the files department.
     
    The room was large, with many leather bound volumes placed neatly into labelled bookshelves, and a large desk at the edge of the room, where an ancient computer sat expectantly. Ari watched as Clyde turned the computer on. At the same time she reached for one of the books lining the walls and flipped it open. She knew immediately from the lists of names, preceded by initials such as Sgt. , Prvt. and Lt. , followed by next of kin details, that this particular edition must have detailed the participants of a war.
     
    “Ok,” said Clyde, turning expectantly to face Ragon just as the dusty computer engine rebooted, “so what’s the plan?”
     
    “All the names on Ari’s family tree that I could find in Australia are deceased. The last relative was Lady Geraldine Grant,” Ragon explained, and Clyde sat down at the desk and began typing the name into the search bar. “I am hoping that if we can find more of Ari’s relatives, we might be able to find one that’s still alive. Maybe she isn’t the only one who can do what she can do.”
     
    “Remind me why we couldn’t do this from Australia?” Clyde asked, tapping his foot impatiently as the computer rebooted.
     
    “They Lancaster receptionists weren’t exactly helpful over the phone; besides, I figured any living relatives in these records would probably be over here.”
     
    At Ragon’s explanation, Ari felt a great wave of sadness rush over her; her mother and father had been killed by Kiara while her brother had died when he was just 2 years old. Though she had been raised in an orphanage, she’d always dreamed that somewhere there was a large family looking for her. The more she found out about her family tree, the less she thought this was possible.     
     
    “Alright,” Clyde read, placing his finger against the computer monitor, “we want Estate keepings, Edition 423, page 72.”
     
    Instantly Ragon scanned the books before him. Though there were easily a thousand books all lined up neatly in several towering bookshelves, they had been well organised; it didn’t take him long to find the right book and flip it open to page 72. With one finger scrolling down the page, he finally found the entry and read aloud.
     
    “Lord James Grand. It says here that he was married to Lady Geraldine Grand, and that they had one daughter, Georgina, and a son that died during child birth. James was lord of Sussex and his father was Lord Commander Philip Grand,” Ragon finished, looking up at Clyde, who had already begun typing the new names into the