The Kin

  Chapter Twenty One

  They were calling for help and crying in panic. Junius opened his eyes and stared into the blackness of the cave. The cries were coming from Apulium. In moments he’d learnt that the Romans were swarming through the settlement outside the fort, hunting for the Kin as they slept. Without doubt, Marius was behind it, he’d asked his friend for two days’ grace, but he obviously hadn’t waited. He’d been a fool, he should have known that Marius wouldn’t have delayed killing what he saw as monsters, and it was also partly his fault: he ought to have told the Kin to leave the settlement, but he’d been too caught up with his own situation.

  As their cries filled his mind, Junius realised, that he was the only one awake. With no one else coming to their aid, he felt obliged to help and reached out to the panicked Kin and told them to hide. They were hiding, they replied, then pain swept through their bond and momentarily the contact broke.

  Junius felt his body shiver and then the connection was back and his mouth automatically opened to join the screams of the others, but no sound came. He collected himself and tried to think; he knew that the Romans would be thorough, they’d be led by Marius and he certainly would seek them out in every hiding place. There was only one chance he could think of and that was to dig down in the earth and hide there. He reached out for the nine remaining minds and instructed them to do that. They were dubious, but having no other alternative, they began to dig if they could and tried to move if they weren’t on the ground already.

  For a moment he connected totally with a girl and he saw Sulpicius Rufus and Marius come into a dark bedroom. He was one with her and shared her feelings as she fought for her life, then felt the pain and darkness as she died for the second time. The others stopped from their labours and threw back their heads.

  “Stop!” he commanded. “They’ll find you, control your cries.” But only three managed to stifle the reflex reaction and the other five yelled their outrage, which would inevitably cause their demise.

  Frustrated at his inability to help, Junius sat up and stared into the blackness of the mine. There was no chance of him sleeping now; the panicked and fearful thoughts of his Kin consumed his awareness. He glanced around and realised that Isher–Dan was lying a few feet away from him, but the leader was out cold and oblivious to the fate of his people.

  Junius reached over, calling to him, knowing that it would probably be in vain, but to his surprise the leader opened his eyes and smiled.

  “You should be asleep,” he admonished. “Let my blood do its work.”

  “I can’t, Isher, the Romans are killing the Kin in Apulium. They’ve killed two already. It’s Marius. We have to leave tonight otherwise they’ll come for us.”

  The leader took a deep breath. “There’s nothing we can do, you can’t help them. Sleep now and we’ll discuss things when the sun’s down.”

  Junius shook his head. “I can’t sleep.”

  Isher–Dan was drifting away again, and smiled sleepily. “Then we repeat last night and we keep doing so until you become one with us.”

  Junius was about to answer, but the leader was unconscious again. The idea of lying here in the darkness was torment. Deciding that, Junius stood and moved silently through the caves until he saw daylight ahead. Something was very wrong with the process of Becoming. Isher-Dan had assured him that tonight he would enter phase two of the process, but the way he felt today was giving no indication of that. Last night they had exchanged a lot of blood and he’d felt things beginning to take hold inside his body. But today, he felt nothing. Well that wasn’t true, he was aware of some changes and he could hear them, but it seemed that as he’d slept his humanity had fought back. It would take more than one night of even the Isher-Dan’s blood to beat his body’s resistance.

  Tentatively, he approached the daylight. His eyes were hurting, but that would be the same for anyone coming out of the darkness of the mine into the sunlight. Around him, the Kin slumbered, lost in their dreams, oblivious to what was happening to others of their kind in nearby Apulium. But amongst them a pair of bright eyes stared fearfully from the gloom. He peered back and saw with surprise that it was a child who was watching him. She was sitting next to her sleeping mother and eyeing him fearfully. In her hand she had a dry crust of bread which she clutched to her body, as if fearful that he would take it from her.

  Junius felt the anger boil up inside him. The Kin didn’t take mothers with young children, it had never been their way, he knew with certainty that this wasn’t something that Isher- Dan and the older Kin approved of. They had taken people, but only stray travellers and the occasional victim from the villages, but they had never torn families apart and recruited on whim. If they had they’d have been destroyed many years ago. Subtlety and restraint had been their ally. They’d never pushed the local people enough to make them sufficiently desperate to rise up and destroy them. Only the threat of a Roman alliance and the opportunity to be free from them with a minimum of bloodshed had persuaded Nasir and his people to drive them out of Parthia.

  This type of thoughtless behaviour was madness and would draw attention to what they were and lead to their demise. Junius shook his head in annoyance; there was no way he would lead an army this stupid and short-sighted.

  Ignoring the child, he concentrated on the sunlight and stopped just short of the entrance; there he tentatively stretched his finger out to test the pain. The sun was warm on his cool skin, but not painful. Gradually he exposed his whole hand, and then biting his lip, he stepped out into the sunlight of the new day. He couldn’t help smiling, despite everything, as the sun warmed him and lifted his spirits. Today might be his last chance to bask in its rays, so he found a rock and settled down to drink in the sunshine.

  As the sunlight dipped below the line of the hills, Junius made his way back inside the mine. He’d possibly spent his last day in the sun and during that time he witnessed the demise of five other Kin at Apulium. Now only three remained. They’d been fortunate to bury themselves in the soil of darkened houses so they’d been missed by Marius’s men. He’d instructed them to come up here as soon as night fell to re-join their people.

  He suspected that Marius would order anyone who could walk to go to the fort and stay there, but what Marius didn’t know was that there were two people at stage two of Becoming. His friend might recognise the signs, but the other men wouldn’t and all it would take was a little blood and then these two could become Kin tonight and either run amok or hide inside Apulium and continue to recruit the others already well on the way to Becoming. Although it might actually be better for these two to re-join the main group and head east to start a new life.

  Isher-Dan hadn’t moved, so finally feeling drowsy, Junius lay down a few feet away and instantly fell asleep.