Read Online Floods 3 by Colin Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

up.
    â€˜What is it, my queen?’ said Vessel. ‘Are you cold?’
    â€˜Go on, blame it on me,’ George whinged. ‘Can’t even eat a bit of breakfast without someone complaining.’
    â€˜No, it’s not the cold,’ said the Queen. ‘I felt the icy hand of death on my shoulder. The Hearse Whisperer comes behind us and she is one who will never rest until she has found us.’
    â€˜The Hearse Whisperer?’ said Nerlin. ‘My grandfather used to speak of her, but none of us believed she was real.’
    â€˜We must leave,’ said the Queen. ‘The furtheraway we get, the better. I knew the King would send people after us, but I never thought he would use someone as evil as the Hearse Whisperer.’
    â€˜We need to find some food for our new baby,’ said Mordonna. ‘I know puncturing your own veins is a great way to keep a deadly pale complexion, but I’d rather not.’
    â€˜Blood, blood, blood,’ gurgled Valla.
    â€˜Oh bless him,’ said the Queen. ‘Look at that blood round his little mouth. What an angel.’

    â€˜Who’s mummy’s little vampire?’ said Mordonna fondly as baby Valla sunk his fangs into her thumb. ‘But, oww, oww, we really need to find him some food, like, oww, oww, as soon as possible.’
    â€˜We can get supplies from a blood bank,’ said the Queen.
    â€˜Hello?’ said Nerlin. ‘Himalayas? I don’t see any branches of Bloods R Us.’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know,’ said Vessel, knowingly. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if there was one up here somewhere. I mean, mountain climbers are always having accidents. I would have thought there’d be quite a demand.’
    Nerlin put his son in his backpack, helped Mordonna up onto George’s back and the party went out into the blinding whiteness. It almost felt like spring rather than the depths of winter, provided you were a penguin or a yeti.
    â€˜I might have known,’ George moaned, ‘every blade of grass is buried under tonnes of snow.’
    Mountain after mountain, joined by a line ofdeep valleys, lay ahead of the travellers, but just as Vessel had predicted, a mile or so past the stable there was a small wooden hut half buried in a snow drift. Above its door hung a sign:

    â€˜Morning, ladies and gents,’ said the man behind the counter. ‘What can I do for you on this bright, almost spring-like morning?’
    â€˜Sixty litres of your finest red,’ said Vessel, ‘to go.’
    â€˜What group?’
    â€˜All of them,’ said Vessel.
    â€˜I’ve only got fifty-eight litres in stock,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Hold on. I’ll nip out the back and get some more.’
    The man vanished into a room at the back of the shop and, after a few loud screams followed bysilence, he returned with two more bottles and a big bandage on his arm.
    â€˜There you go, squire,’ he said. ‘That’ll be fifteen sovereigns.’
    â€˜Here’s twenty-five,’ said the Queen. ‘An extra two as a tip and eight to forget you ever saw us if anyone comes asking.’
    â€˜Is someone likely to?’ the man asked.
    â€˜I’m afraid so,’ said Vessel, handing the man a small pill box. ‘I’d advise you to take these three times a day for the next week or so.’
    â€˜What are they?’
    â€˜Heavy duty painkillers. Some of the people following us are not very nice,’ said Vessel. This was an extremely huge understatement, but he knew that if told the blood bank man just how not nice they were, he would probably run away with them. ‘I think we should probably hypnotise you too and do a bit of memory reformatting in your brain, just to be on the safe side,’ Vessel added.
    Mordonna uncapped a one-litre bag of blood and popped the nozzle into Valla’s mouth. Hekicked his little legs with such excitement he nearly fell out of