Blood Rebel [COMPLETED]

Chapter Thirty Six - The Candidates

"Come on, up you get."

The voice was familiar and Selene looked round to see Xander stumbling towards her. He held a hand to his neck, and she could see blood trickling through his fingers, but even so he tried to smile at her.

The vagrant had ceased to exist only seconds before, its entire body crumbling away to ash. The silence left by the cessation of its screaming fell upon them like a snowfall.

Selene picked herself up off the stony ground and stepped towards Xander.

"Let me see," she said, prising his fingers gently from his neck.

"It's not deep," he said, allowing his fingers to be peeled away. Blood bubbled up and trickled out of the wound. The collar of Hector's shirt was turning red, and Xander tugged at it and rubbed his fingers together. "Hector won't be pleased."

"He won't want that shirt back, that's for sure," said Virgil. "I can't say I'm not glad you did it, but we can't have you sacrificing yourself like that every time. What if that monster had hit an artery?"

"Well he didn't. It's barely a scratch. And what were you going to do instead?" Xander glared at Virgil, who dropped his gaze and dug the toe of his boot into the dust.

"Let's keep going," said Selene, feeling uncomfortable watching the tension slide between the two men like a taught rope.

Xander continued to lead the way, his hand occasionally flitting to his neck and gingerly touching the wound. Selene didn't like to watch when he did it: seeing his fingers trace the entry-point made her feel queasy.

When they reached Green Park Station Xander insisted that they come up for fresh air before they went back down into the sewers.

"And I don't know whether we can move from Underground to sewer down here. It's better if we go up, take a break, and then go back down."

"But we're in central London now," said Selene.

"We'll be quick, and we're covered in sewage. And it's the middle of the day. The Vampires won't be out."

*

The fresh air was like a blast of something heaven-sent, but it wasn't long before Xander was ordering them all back into the earth, to crawl through the sewers. They weren't far from Central Control and they hadn't been in the tunnels for long when Xander spoke:

"Central Control is directly above us. This drain opens up into the inmates' communal shower rooms. It's empty most of the time because the Vampires don't let them wash very often."

They stood quietly and listened; there was no one in the showers above, and the room was dark. Only the echo of the dripping shower heads could be heard as Xander gave Selene a leg up and she pushed open the drain cover, and crawled out. She couldn't believe she was back inside Central Control again, but this time she wasn't only going to see the state rooms. This time she was in the prison itself, deep in its belly, where she might never get out.

"You seem to know your way round," said Selene, as Xander lifted her up. She was disconcertingly aware of the way her thighs beneath her dress yielded to his hands as he hoisted her up through the hole. Virgil went next, pulling himself up once Xander had given him a foot up, and Xander, who seemed able to get through any hole and jump any distance unaided, came up last. Selene assumed that the ability to climb and jump was something he had learnt, because he had had to be self-sufficient for so many years.

"I came here often, for a while. I thought I might find my father in one of the cells. It was a stupid idea," he said, brushing his hair off his face with the back of his wrist.