The Blood Line Read Online Free PDF

thrown about as if riding a cart over loose cobbles.
    Then, as suddenly as it had started, the sensation stopped and Bub felt the floor forming beneath his feet. Nausea washed over him and he doubled over, sure for a moment that he was going to be sick. But he held it in. A dull headache began to form and then intensify.  Fresh air. He needed some air. He staggered back the way he had come, noting as he moved away that there was no hole in the wall of the ship to suggest that the man he had found had ever been trapped. The gibbering fool had disappeared completely. Bub staggered down the corridor, sliding one shoulder along the wall for support. The severed legs and waist were still there. The corridor span as he slid along it. He hauled himself up the stairs to burst out into the fresh air. The world span and he slumped to one knee.
    The world seemed too bright and his head hurt too much. His head. There was something wrong with his head, it felt as though something had been stuck in his brain and left lodged there. An invisible fork in his head which he couldn’t dislodge. It was maddening. He bent over again and retched. He felt a steadying hand under his armpit and tried to look up. Had that idiot Beeson followed him? He looked over to where the SS Andrew Furuseth had been but it wasn’t there. Where had it gone? He looked up into the face above him, but it was too bright to see.
    'It's okay,' came an unfamiliar voice. 'It's okay, you're back.'
    'Back?' he managed to cough out as the world swayed again.
    'Sure. Back in Philadelphia. The experiment, it went wrong.'
    Philadelphia? How was that possible? A moment ago he had been in Virginia. That must be two hundred miles away.
    'Who are you?' came the voice.
    Bub put his hand up, trying to stand and felt the man take his wrist. As his fist was squeezed Bub realised he was gripping something. He loosened his fingers and the other man took the thing from his hand. It was the name badge from the man who had been fused to the bulkhead in the corridor downstairs.
    'Allende,’ the man read. ‘Well, good to have you back Allende. Come sit in the chair. You’ll soon feel better. Don’t worry. We’ll look after you.’
    The pain in Bub’s head built and built again until he was sure that he would go mad.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER two
     
     
    Somewhere in Mu
    The future: date unknown
     
    T he sight before him was just one more thing to add to the long list which had convinced Sam Hain that the Riven needed to be stopped. Sam stared miserably at the ruins of a small village. The place was deserted. Not even a single bird perched atop the wreckage. The aura of the twisted presence which had caused this was too fresh. It leeched from the remains of the village like a bad smell. The timbers still smoked and the odd flame flickered here and there. This was not the first time that Sam had seen such destruction caused by the Riven. The smouldering ruins reminded him of his own home where he had lived his whole life with his grandfather, Adam Hain, before the Riven had come to kill Sam, attracted by his own potential for presence, setting into motion a chain of events which now found him lost and alone in the distant future in a land known as Mu.
    Here, far from the normality of Sam’s old life Allende, the Riven King, ruled with an iron fist. He was capable of incredible telekinetic power and possessed a cruelty which was surely born out of madness. As well as sending out his black-cloaked Riven followers to track down and either recruit or kill those with presence he also sent them to collect taxes from the down-trodden and impoverished people of Mu. Sometimes, if the taxes were not sufficient to please the Riven, the village was made an example of. Sometimes they just killed anyway.
    Sam studied the sky for a moment. It would be getting dark soon. He would have to shelter here. The lingering evil presence made him shudder but he would not find anywhere else before