Blood Red City by Justin Richards Read Free Book Online Page A

grass.
    *   *   *
    The girl turned, staring directly at Hoffman. Her mouth opened wide in a sudden hiss of anger – teeth bared, saliva spotting his face.
    He stepped back, surprised, wiping the back of his hand across his cheek.
    â€˜I think it’s a cat,’ he said.
    *   *   *
    The cat made its way back to the side of the road. Once it finally reached the city, then the search would begin in earnest. It knew roughly where to start, but it would still take days, perhaps weeks or even months, to find what it was looking for.
    There was an image constant and clear in its mind. The artefact it needed to locate. It could feel it, the slight trembling in the air that drew the cat onwards, growing almost imperceptibly stronger as the cat headed in the right direction, as it drew closer to its goal.
    *   *   *
    Jed glanced down at the map unfolded on the passenger seat of his car. It looked like it would take him about another hour. Keeping his left hand on the wheel, he traced his finger along the paper road towards his destination.
    It had seemed simple enough back in the city. Just set off towards where he had seen the strange aircraft heading and see if anyone had seen anything. But now he was on his way, driving through miles of deserted countryside and wasteland, he realised what a mammoth task it really was. The empty space on the map translated into hundreds – maybe thousands – of miles on the ground.
    Even if someone had seen it, the chances of Jed finding them were probably minuscule. Even if they remembered – it was weeks ago now, but this was the first chance he’d had to get out of the city. Looking up from the map, Jed ran his hand through his curly, dark hair and continued down the road.
    *   *   *
    He hated touching them. Hoffman was quite sure it wouldn’t work, but it was still the obvious thing to do – and if he had not suggested it, Kruger probably would have done.
    The Vault was deep beneath the castle, secured behind a huge metal door, like the airtight hatch of a submarine. The guard snapped out a ‘Heil Hitler’ as Hoffman approached, then spun the locking wheel in the centre of the heavy door and swung it open.
    Hoffman entered what looked at first like an operations room. Maps hung on the walls, plans and documents were spread out over wooden tables under a high, vaulted ceiling. Alcoves stretched into the distance, shadowed in darkness though Hoffman knew exactly what each contained.
    He walked briskly down the long chamber, past the tables and into an area that was more like a laboratory. At the end of it was another identical hatchway door. Few people knew what lay beyond that, and Hoffman shuddered at the memory of what he had seen there.
    But his interest was in a workbench to one side, against the wall. Laid out on it was a variety of artefacts – pottery, glass, metal, ceramic, all neatly labelled. All ancient. At one end of the workbench lay several bracelets, rings of chunky metal inlaid with a gleaming silver tracery.
    He reached out a tentative finger towards the nearest bracelet. Nothing. Carefully, warily, he picked it up, holding it only by the edges. Immediately the silver tracery glowed a brilliant white and the inside of the bracelet erupted. Thin orange filaments sprang out, probing, searching for flesh. If he put the bracelet on, Hoffman knew, the filaments would find his wrist. Metal spikes would spring out to hold him immobile as the filaments burrowed through his skin.
    Hoffman had a wooden box in his other hand, already open. He dropped the bracelet into it, and at once the filaments drew back inside the metal.
    Number Seventeen was still drawing – a hazy view of a street with hollow doorways and scattered dustbins. Nothing to distinguish where the city or town might be. And over the top, the same symbol sketched again as on all the other