At Death's Door (Wraith's Rebellion Book 1)

by Aya DeAniege

  “It never came up.”

  “In fifteen hundred years, it just never came up?”

  “Why are you upset about that?”

  “Good sex is difficult to find, Quin, if you had an in, you should have told me. I’d like to jump that man’s bones again.”

  Quin went red. He looked away awkwardly. I watched as he fiddled with his phone for a moment, not sending a text or anything of that sort. It almost appeared that he was rubbing at a smudge on the face of the phone.

  He didn’t have any protective surface on the phone. Either because he liked to live dangerously, or because extending the life of the phone didn’t matter in the long run. Somehow the phone hadn’t broken when he had thrown it against the wall.

  With the life of phones being months to a couple of years, it wouldn’t be overly surprising to see vampires treating them like disposable items.

  “Well?” Sasha asked. “Did he say something about me, is that why you’re all awkward and stuff?”

  “No, he said nothing about you,” Quin said.

  “Quintillus.”

  “Nothing at all,” he protested. “Sasha, he and I aren’t friends just because I can get in contact with him if I need to do so. It’s an emergency contact, not a gossip hotline. Even then, it could take months for him to get the message and get back to me.”

  “For all we know, Wraith went the way of Death,” I said. “Vanished into some war-torn country where he could retire and live comfortably.”

  “Exactly, thank you,” Quin said.

  “I find it hard to believe he’d go wandering away from the Archives,” Sasha said. “If I were him, I’d stick close by, keep an eye on Death’s belongings in case my Maker decided to come and reclaim them. I bet you anything, he’s in the city somewhere and is probably searching high and low for Death. Vampires are going to start turning up battered and bruised, maybe missing limbs and whining about him bullying them about a random vampire.”

  “He knows who his Maker is, though,” I said. “And his Maker had another alias, right? They both did. Wraith could just be asking a few polite questions about where Death is. Is there a long list of Progeny who isn’t speaking to their Makers anymore?”

  “Their spat could have been for show,” Sasha said. “Death often did things which we thought would identify him. Quin is the only one who’s had a problem with his Maker, at least the only one whose Maker is still alive. That problem happened long before Death and Wraith retired.”

  “If they’re still working together, he’s screwed, you realize?”

  Sasha looked at Quin. The man had remained stoically silent throughout our little debate. Again, he appeared a million miles away as he stared at the center of the table. A million miles and centuries stood between him and that table.

  I couldn’t help but feel that Quin’s expression was a mirror image of those I had seen on the faces of soldiers who had been through hell and back. The thousand-yard stare, I think it’s called.

  Look up thousand-yard stare, make sure it’s the right term.

  In many ways, he had been through battles. He may have won the last one, but it seemed like Lu might win the war.

  I still didn’t understand why the war was happening.

  Isn’t that always the case, though?

  It should have ended centuries before. What was between the two, that it had to continue? That Quin had ended up on Death’s hit list?

  He wasn’t Progeny of Death. There’d be no reason to kill him, just hand him the damned tool and see what happened.

  Unless Lu could also use the tool. Or if I had been right before, that Lu created the illness that Death spread. If the two worked in tandem, and Wraith was found able to wield the tool, there would be a very real cause of Death’s fear of Quin.

  “Quin. Quin. Quintillus, so help me,” Sasha said, her voice taking on a sharp edge when Quin didn’t respond right away.

  He turned stiffly towards her. A tremble ran through him. Then he gave himself a shake.

  “Sorry?” He asked.

  “When was the last time you fed?” Sasha asked.

  “You watched me,” Quin said.

  “You know I meant before that. Your stock in the area was given the last gift, did you ask them to send another?”

  “I did, yes, the boy never arrived. I put in for another. This one is being brought by others. We suspect foul play. I asked the Council to investigate, but they came up with nothing.”

  “Why not go to the police?” I asked. “They’re going to know about stock soon enough. If he came through an airport, especially the international one in Toronto, there’d surely be cameras that picked him up.”

  “I have an IT guy who could get into the cameras,” Sasha said.

  “I should trust the Council did their work,” Quin said.

  “I’ll give him a call.”

  “You have an IT guy who can get into the cameras of an international airport? I thought you guys came out because hacking was beyond you and you couldn’t shed identities any longer.”

  “While true, our main concern was one or two of us being hunted down because of the surveillance state. We can shed and transfer money all we want, but this way we were in control of how we came out. Right, Quin?”

  “Hm?” Quin seemed startled. “What did you say?”

  “I’m going to call my IT guy and see if I can find your boy,” Sasha said with a sigh, and a head shake. “He’s in the western time zone, so he’s probably still up. I’ll contact your genealogist and get the boy’s image.”

  “Oh, thank you,” he said.

  “You don’t have an IT guy?” I asked Quin.

  “Hers is much better,” Quin said.

  “Did you eat your IT guy?” I demanded.

  “He had terminal cancer and asked for the last gift,” Quin said defensively. “I wasn’t just going to let him suffer. I didn’t do it because he botched a transaction, as the rumours say.”

  “I didn’t know the rumours. I also thought the last gift was for elders.”

  “And the terminally ill,” Sasha said. “My stock has a problem with mental stability. Fantastic artists, but you need to walk that fine line to be great. Anyhow, they have one or two a generation that is suicidal. Before the creation of antidepressants, I would give them the last gift. It gave them a great deal of comfort knowing that their deaths, no matter how pointless they felt during life, would have meaning.”

  “Some kill stock as an example to others, but we can discuss that tomorrow. It has been a very eventful night, and you should get some rest. I don’t want you burning out on me.”

  “Sure, I can find my way home from here pretty easily.”

  “I can take you. In fact, I insist,” Quin said. “On the way there, if you’re feeling up to it, we could begin to discuss stock.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  I didn’t live nearby, but I also wasn’t going to put up much of a fight when there was a murderer on the loose.

  Stock is a revered position in our world. We respect and love our stock, though some are not as capable of loving as others. It may even be a twisted love, bit it’s there.

  The term itself was first claimed by one of our kind who was once a farmer who maintained animals of some sort. He was right, at the end of the day our stock is walking, talking food. Just like farmers, we choose which lines to cross and what traits to breed in or out.

  We employ our stock but do allow them to choose work outside of us. So, our tech people, investors, bankers, lawyers, all those people who you mortals are questioning—why they didn’t know?

  It’s because they knew.

  Why do you need a lawyer?

  Everyone should have a lawyer, I think. Litigation issues, dealing with real estate. Though now I need a team of lawyers and they have their firm, which is maintained by outside partners who bring in money. It’s quite fabulous.

  Some vampires keep stock as servants as well.

  I hire out.<
br />
  They never see me, so there are no problems. I hire out a car sometimes when I don’t want to drive, but the accounts for those are closed every few years and new aliases used. The companies don’t look too far past the money, I think.

  In the modern age, there are thousands of jobs for stock to do. In earlier times, they would fill a village or a city depending on the vampire. One had to be careful not to eat too many, as you put it.

  Taking blood was difficult, however. So, we tried to maintain enough that infection wouldn’t kill them off. We’re vampires, not scientists.

  Well, except Margaret.

  Biting seems to prevent infection, but my teeth are just as blunt as yours are, and there is venom in my canines. That’s not a good thing for feeding.

  At the invention of antibiotics, the Council brought up the idea of turning the creator as a reward. Eternal life is what many strive for, it seems, but we chose not to because the name and face would resound throughout history.

  I don’t know who invented antibiotics.

  You also only speak one language. I’m surprised you can tie your shoes.

  I’m teasing, ow, ow! Stop that!

  My goodness, I’ve never seen a generation with so little humour.

  Let’s go back to stock.

  Right.

  Many Makers will help their Progeny make a new stock, give them the starter for it if you will. Like Lucrecia did for Sasha.

  For myself, it was not that easy, obviously. I started with two, a pair of brothers who looked remarkably like two of my brothers. While I had been warned about seeing the faces of my past as the centuries turned, that was the first time it had happened.

  I couldn’t help but feel drawn to them as if God had opened the clouds above and shone a light upon them.

  Really? God talk?

  What, you can’t be a homicidal maniac and believe in God?

  As I said before, I didn’t know until recently that they were my descendants. I had never met the extended families that my cousins became. I did suspect the brothers shared some blood relation to me. So, I suppose you could say that I was feeling nostalgic.

  To begin stock without starter, the easiest way was to wait until children were born and snatch them away.

  By that point in my life, I had had more than my share of baby snatching and was done with it. The very idea of keeping a child alive and separated from its mother made me feel ill.

  I befriended the brothers and then their family. While the brothers looked alike, I did not necessarily look like them.

  I met the boys when they were not quite young men. They didn’t ask about my inability to age, and I gave no explanation. It wasn’t until they had children of their own that their wives started asking questions about the uncle who only visited after dark.

  Oh, no.

  Oh, yes.

  After being burned at the stake for witchcraft, I couldn’t exactly return to how things had been before.

  The brothers denied knowing, but they did, they would often ask me where I would go after they died. So, I knew that they knew I wasn’t right with the world. I didn’t turn that on them, however. That simply wouldn’t have been fair.

  Unable to return, not wanting to simply walk away, I did the only thing an irrationally pissed off vampire would do.

  I stole that bitch’s toddler.

  She had a babe then too. I could have taken it as well. The toddler was potty trained and weaned, though, so there was that.

  A few years later, I went back and took the babe, now a toddler. Damn, did that feel good.

  You have to realize, death by fire is about suffocation, usually. Inhalation of smoke ends your life. Except we can breathe through fire and water.

  Again, don’t ask me, Margaret is the scientist. Every time I see her, she asks if she can stab me somewhere and take a sample.

  I burned to death, do you know how much of me needs to burn before I reach that point?

  What’s it like for you to die, so to speak?

  Suppose it’s like anyone’s death. We are beyond pain and unaware in the thick of it. Even a little to either side and we’re aware at our periphery, like ghosts whispering in the darkness.

  Except fire doesn’t whisper sweetly like a bottle full of arsenic does. It screams through you, running along the nerves, which don’t always shut down, I should add. I’ve experienced an autopsy, that was fun in a disturbing sort of way.

  With the second child, I found myself wondering what to do.

  Wait, what happened to the first child?

  It was a girl. This story isn’t about her. It’s about her brother.

  I returned to Lucrecia rather guiltily.

  Stealing a baby wasn’t exactly something she encouraged. I was due for my next dose of Maker’s Blood. She had turned me away a time or two before, for doing something foolish.

  She had just settled into a new estate along the Mediterranean. I went to visit her cliff top home.

  It’s a shame that she dropped it to the bottom of the sea when she was done with it. She’s the sort who didn’t like leaving evidence behind.

  I walked into her room with this toddler on my hip, and her look said it all. Absolute fury played over her features. She was up and almost on me before she took a full breath.

  And then she just stopped, she looked at the toddler, then to me.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “A baby,” I said weakly, aware that very little had saved me, and yet unaware of why her hand had been stopped.

  “I see it’s a baby, why do you have it here?” she asked. “If you need to dispose of it, you know how. There’s a cliff just outside, throw the bastard from that.

  “You do know that it’s not yours, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I stole it.”

  “To eat?” she asked.

  “I—I don’t know yet.”

  She knew the look, must have seen it before. Perhaps on the face of her family, or on Sasha’s face. She knew what was going on even though I didn’t.

  Lucrecia called a wet nurse and provided for the child.

  To keep stock, a vampire must have the permission of his Maker, the Council, and the stock. Questions are asked, the uncomfortable sort, and the Council considers all the details of your life.

  We knew we wouldn’t get permission from Lu.

  The Council agreed to reprieve. They knew my full past by then, as well as my reputation. I had spent many of my fledgling years playing, as it were, with them and their Progenies.

  However, because they agreed not to require Lu’s permission, they were harder on me for it. Everyone screws up sometimes, it happens. The Council will step in to protect stock and have released a few lines to save the mortals from their lord or lady falling to madness.

  They’ve cut into me more than once. Claiming that they must balance the one with the other. Which is absolute insanity. Once or twice, sure, but every time? Come on, that’s just mean.

  The boy, upon growing more, turned out to not be so bright.

  Normally stories go the other way.

  Oh, I know.

  This one was stupid. And not because—what’s the damned term nowadays?

  He was just a moron, no reason to it. He was whole of body and mind, but he was incapable of doing the most mundane things. I don’t understand how it can even happen. He had a brain, the brain worked, but he just put in absolutely no effort.

  Pleasant reading voice, though.

  You know, once he learned to read, which was about his fiftieth birthday. Not because people of that time had difficulty reading either. You just need to start education early.

  Their world may have been a great deal smaller, but they were every bit as capable as you when it came to living in the real world. If not more so than you and those of your generation living in the fist world countries.

  Don’t get me wrong. I like the first world countries. They make new and shiny things and have stopped trying to kill everyt
hing else... well, mostly... sort of.

  So, I had this idiot. Who was a dependant but also my founder for stock. I could have started over, and the Council would have granted it. Many vampires have false starts when creating stock because taking a baby does not guarantee what you are looking for in genetics.

  I chose not to. As I said before, I was attached to the boy and his family.

  By that point, both of the brothers had passed away. I let their families know that I too grieved their loss. The look on the widow’s face was so worth the wait.

  Then I went about my life.

  A few years after that, a young woman showed up. Asking all sorts of questions about the alias I had used for the brothers. She was the youngest daughter of the oldest brother, and she was looking for the man whom her father had told her about.

  The uncle without age, she called me. It was an apt title, one that the stock still refers to me by sometimes, when I’m in a good mood.

  Her cousin had several children by that point, on a woman who had died giving birth. They were all too young to tell how they would turn out. There was no telling when the next sickness would sweep through, so I found the woman a breeding partner immediately.

  She did not like him. She ignored my commands, was haughty and teased.

  Ruffled my feathers, was how Lucrecia put it.

  This woman was so aggravating. We would get into shouting matches about how the stock should breed. She went so far as getting herself pregnant and then daring me to throw the bastard from the cliff top.

  I call him a bastard because he was a bastard. His father was a politician in a nearby small city. His father was also married to another woman at the time. Though, a lot of people seem to have done that.

  Only Lucrecia talked me down from doing just that, which did not help the haughtiness of the mother.

  She died a week after giving birth to him.

  And so, the next generation of my stock was conceived.

  I could go over several more generations, but I don’t believe we have the time tonight.

  For the first four generations, you should not feed, to keep the numbers up. Of course, you also had no idea what flavour you were cultivating for a hundred years. How ridiculous is that?

  Over that time, I bred the smarter ones and kept the dumber ones down to a few children each. You want a lot of children in those times because so many were lost to disease. By giving them a few, they felt they had a place, and I didn’t have to worry about the stupid ones outnumbering the smart ones.