The Blood Line by Ben Yallop Read Free Book Online Page A

with presence who wasn’t part of the Riven either kept their powers hidden or became a rogue. Eventually, Sam decided to try to get closer and, plucking up his courage, he began to crawl carefully through the long grass over the top of the hill and down the other side. He did not make a sound and kept an eye on the distant rogue.  He had made very little progress when he suddenly realised that the far-off shouting had stopped. Sam stopped too, holding his breath, hidden in the long grass. Very carefully, he raised his head above the tops of the whispering stalks. The rogue was standing motionless in the same place as before staring directly at Sam. Sam thought he saw an eye flash briefly in the dark night. Sam quickly dropped his head back down, heart hammering in his chest. The distant figure had looked directly at him. Hardly daring to breathe Sam again raised his head, trying to peer through the grass as much as possible. The rogue had vanished.
    Now terrified, Sam couldn’t decide what to do. Did he remain hidden or did he back away? Not for the first time he asked himself why he had come here. Was the rogue moving towards him now, coming for him in long strides to deal with the foolish youth who had spied on him? Sam decided the best thing to do was to get up and move away, he had been seen after all, he was sure of it.
    Cautiously, he stood up. The grassy plains were deserted and he could see no sign of the mysterious figure. Frightened, Sam backed away to the top of the hill and moved backwards over the other side. When he couldn’t see over the crest any longer he turned and ran, sure that he would feel a blast of magic at his back at any moment.
    Eventually he made it back to the village. Every door and window was barred. The residents must have seen the strange lights out in the hills and had shut themselves in. Sam spent yet another night out in the open, under cold stars, regretting giving up the warm hay he could have slept in and sure that at any moment a cloaked figure holding lightning in his hands would come upon him bringing magic and death.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    Pennsylvania, USA
    Sometime around the end of the 20 th Century
     
    A llende had learnt so much down here in the darkness. His power had turned him into the perfect thief and his greatest prize, of all the things which he had stolen, was knowledge. How many years was it since he had first managed to gain access to the classified files contained at Site R? He had lost track but he had read them all. How no-one had noticed that he was accessing secret files he couldn’t say. But it clearly wasn’t like the movies when someone always got some sort of alert that a secret document had been opened. He had read them all without trouble down in the depths of the Raven Rock Complex.
    Knowledge was power and Allende had found that his brain, powered by presence, could hold it all. His memory had improved exponentially and he was sure that, by now, he had absorbed more information than anyone had ever done before. But there was one set of FBI files which he kept coming back to again and again. The documents held by the X File Unit. A set of files detailing cases which had been determined unsolvable by the FBI and given minimal priority. The files mainly dealt with suspected paranormal activity and unexplained phenomena. Unexplained phenomena like enhanced telekinetic abilities.
    Called X-Files for no other reason than that some clerk had wanted to file them away in an alphabetically ordered drawer where she had space and where they would not get in her way, the first file had been set up by J Edgar Hoover himself in 1945, not long after Allende had first used the throne. The case was about a series of murders in and around Montana. Each victim had been almost literally torn to pieces and partially eaten, as if by some wild animal. The wounds had been consistent with that of a large wolf. But many of the victims had been found in