Death Mask (Wraith's Rebellion Book 3)

by Aya DeAniege

  “You’re an idiot,” he snapped, jabbing the mace in my direction.

  “Yeah, yeah, threaten me later. How do you move a dog with unknown injuries?”

  “Not unknown, her side was ripped into. We’ll have to find an emergency vet.”

  “They put down dogs with extensive injuries and charge a butt load and don’t offer the same care they would give a sentient being.”

  “Pack must have a healer.”

  “You have a heart, right?”

  “Only because it’s in Quin’s chest,” Wraith said, pulling out his phone. “The other option is Lucrecia. Healing powers for mortals. Humans, but between you and her, you should be able to figure it out. Hello? Yes, bring the car around. Some moron hit a dog. I need to take it to a trusted vet of mine to get it patched up. No questions asked and there’s a thousand in it for you.”

  The phone slipped away as a black car came around the corner.

  “Basic first aid, we need something to stop the bleeding,” I said, looking up at him.

  He sighed and set the mace down, then slipped off his jacket and then his shirt. The shirt was handed to me before he slipped the jacket back on.

  “Where?” I whispered as the driver stepped out of the car.

  He bent and took the shirt from me, balling it up and pressing it against what just looked like fur to me. There was hardly any light and Daisy had a dark coat of fur, but her whimper was an indication that he had found the right spot.

  “That will at least slow the bleeding, though it’s not very fast,” Wraith bent close to me. “Stab them, and they die, but their hearts beat a great deal slower than a human heart. Work on your hearing, and you’ll be able to pick one out of the crowd. She won’t bleed out before we get to Lucrecia, so calm yourself before your fear sets off your abilities. Understand?”

  I nodded and clamped my mouth shut, trying to both get control of my fear and to not cry at the same time. I was worried, and I had a right to be worried. A mortal had been hurt doing immortal work. It didn’t bode well for her.

  “Would you like that in the trunk, sir?” the driver asked.

  “The moron used that, and I’ve already touched it, so why don’t you open the trunk and I’ll put it in?” he asked in response. “Lower contamination.”

  “Absolutely,” the driver held up his keys with the little button attached to it, and the trunk popped open. Then he went to the car and opened the back door. “Do you need help with the dog?”

  Wraith returned seconds later and saved me from having to answer by picking Daisy up. I kept a firm grip on the shirt against her side as we moved towards the car. Getting her in was a little awkward, but we managed by having me back in, then setting her in as well.

  Once the door was closed, I slipped between the driver’s seat and the backseat and used my body as a brace for her. The leather seats could be slippery for someone with fur, I was certain.

  There was blood on my hands. I gulped and looked away, pressing my mouth against my shoulder. Wolf blood didn’t smell like human blood. There was something quite a bit darker about it, as if the sway of the moon over their powers had somehow flavoured the blood.

  The more time I spent with Daisy, the more I was seeing the differences between the wolf and everything else in the world. Slower heartbeat, blood that smelled differently, was different. There was magic in their blood, just as there must have been in the blood of all the races.

  I didn’t want to lick it off my fingers, but there was some odd part of me that thought about the wolf whose life had bled out into my mouth, earlier in the night.

  Right, that’s why I was unaffected.

  And what had Wraith said? That Bau had been avoiding bodily harm. If she bled any, she’d have to replace the blood and that would dilute the power that she had absorbed. That must tell the vampires something, that she had eaten something specific to take on that power, but I didn’t know what she might have eaten.

  “Now we can gain abilities by drinking different kinds of blood,” I grumbled into my arm.

  “What was that?” Wraith asked from the front seat as the car began to move.

  “A cliché, I’m sure,” I said. “I won’t be able to feed him tonight.”

  “I figured as much. I’ll arrange for someone else to feed the dog,” Wraith said, then looked at the driver. “I bought her a puppy. She’s terrible at remembering to feed it.”

  “It’s obviously not a yapper, then,” the driver said in response.

  “No, he doesn’t fuss much,” Wraith said as he turned to the passenger side window.

  I swear I could hear a smile in his voice, laughter at the edges of it, dancing as his voice shook in that last word. While I could have pointed out that I had heard that mirth, I chose instead to redirect his attention to the task at hand.

  “She is still in town, right?”

  I was asking after Lucrecia, not Bau. Considering we were still alive, of course I assumed Bau was still in town.

  “Of course, she will be until tomorrow morning when she leaves for a conference at the International vet thing.”

  Meaning the United Nations. Lucrecia was headed there to let them know that the Council had moved.

  Her initial speech involved inviting them all to remove their heads from one another’s asses. I strongly suspected that many of Lucrecia’s speeches began in just such a way, and through careful handling were moulded into something more public friendly.

  The United Nations would be informed of the move and would not be told exactly where the Council would move to. If any one representative asked directly if their country was a possible option, they would be told yes or no.

  Then, and I kid you not, be given a blistering lecture on how their policies did not suit Lucrecia’s mood. She had been told to keep her terms towards equality, and any wording that implied the vampires wanted women to become dominant would result in discipline.

  Those thoughts kept me from focusing too much on Daisy. In the end, what could I do? It seemed that my power was only in relation to things done around me. Lucrecia hadn’t healed anyone or done anything except talk. I couldn’t have learned her power inadvertently, which meant that I couldn’t have done anything in that car except keep a firm grip on the shirt, pressed against her.

  The blood was soaking through the cloth. I could see it creeping closer to my fingers. I had taken first aid once in high school, and I remembered that was bad, but not why it was bad. Of course, because of blood loss, but the blood against my fingers, would that mean she could be infected by any microbe on my hands? Was that it?

  “Do we have another shirt or something?” I asked.

  “We grabbed the kit from the trunk,” Wraith said. “It’s got bandages, triangular bandages, ah. Non-adherent pads. Keep one hand there and reach with the other.”

  I heard the paper rip, so I reached back and slapped the pad over my other hand before removing my hand. After it was in place, I frowned.

  “That almost looks like a pad.”

  “Because it is,” Wraith said.

  “No, like a sanitary pad,” I said.

  “It’s not, but I’m sure that’d work too. Except you haven’t got a purse,” the driver said.

  “Right,” I muttered.

  The vehicle slowed. Wraith moved in the front seat, bending to look out the window.

  “This is the place,” he said.

  “A house?” I squeaked out.

  “We wouldn’t get into an apartment building with her,” Wraith responded, opening the door.

  I sighed out a breath and looked at Daisy. Her head was down, eyes closed and body limp. But her ribs raised stubbornly in a breath as I watched. The breath shuddered out of her, one of her paws twitching in pain, but there was no sound or protest from her muzzle.

  The door beside me was pulled open, and Wraith reached in as I slid to the side a bit. Getting out of the vehicle was more awkward than getting in. As we walked towards the house, the front do
or opened, and Lucrecia rushed out to meet us halfway. The two vampires began talking in another language in a hurried fashion.

  Anxiety laced Lucrecia’s voice. Wraith seemed firm and in control, which helped me stay calm. The sound of Lucrecia’s voice grated at my calm center though.

  What if it’s worse than he said?

  Daisy might have been dying the whole way. I wouldn’t have put it past Wraith to lie to get me into the vehicle and away from the scene of the explosion.

  He took us into the kitchen and set Daisy down gently. Then he ran out of the house.

  I looked over Daisy, to Lucrecia.

  “Give it to me, then,” I said, my voice breaking as I spoke. “Is she going to make it?”

  “I can’t heal canines,” Lucrecia said. “He says she can’t change back to human, or she would have.”

  “Why can’t you?” I asked.

  Her head shook. She apparently didn’t know why her power was limited like that.

  “You can light nearly anything on fire and make acid, but your powers are limited when in use on canines, great,” I snapped.

  “It’s not the power. It’s me.”

  “Then show me,” I snapped.

  “Show you?” she asked, her voice an octave higher than normal.

  “Yes, you have stock here?” I paused as she nodded. “Get one, slice them, heal them. Show me how it’s done.”

  “That’s not how—”

  “Just do it Lucrecia!” I shouted.

  She turned woodenly and walked away. I huffed out a breath as Daisy seemed to growl at me.

  “You focus on staying alive,” I snapped at her. “You’re the one who said what was said. Now it just happens that your life depends on you being right.”

  Lucrecia re-entered with a young boy. She told him to sit at the kitchen table and then retrieved a knife from the drawer. In a quick motion, she sliced his wrist. As the blood flowed freely, she just stood there.

  A drop fell from his arm to the floor. My eye followed it. By the time I looked back up, the slice was gone.

  Was that all I needed? One little example?

  At the drop of a little blood, Lucrecia had healed a slice in the boy’s arm, but how did I do that with Daisy? Lucrecia had a great deal of experience doing that.

  “Stop thinking,” Wraith said as he knelt beside me. “Shut off the thought and just be at one with everything.”

  “That makes complete sense,” I muttered.

  “Your power is like an ocean. You are in the ocean, about to drown, all you need to do to control it, is to swim.”

  “That makes less sense,” I growled, lowering my head.

  I drew in a breath and tried to recall how I had used my power a week before. It had been offhand and with no prior thought. Instinct had taken over. In those cases, I had spoken the words, and they had happened, manipulation of other people.

  “Heal,” I muttered.

  Daisy made an unhappy sound as if to say she would if she could. It was good that she still had the energy to bite even as she bled out on Lucrecia’s kitchen floor.

  “It’s not an evolution of the command power,” Lucrecia said. “It is the manipulation of the physical, something neither of you has ever done.”

  “Telekinesis is the manipulation of the physical, something you’ve been doing all night with the tablet and your notes,” Wraith said pointedly.

  “Right, and I do that without thought because it just happens,” I snarled out. “Like I can just wave my hand and—ow.”

  I grabbed my side and bent over as a pain overwhelmed me. Breathing is optional, that was supposed to be my mantra in those moments, but it felt as if something had just ripped my ribcage and part of my stomach open. Whining and bent over, I tried to suck in a breath but was unable to.

  A hand settled on my back gently. The hand rubbed up and down, a voice speaking in the distance.

  Between that feeling and the shotgun, I preferred the shotgun.

  “Blood,” I managed to get out.

  “No,” Wraith said. “You can’t feed him. We can’t feed you. Same effect. Lay down.”

  He sort of shoved me onto my side. It’s not like I resisted at all, I just toppled right over at a light push. My shirt lifted and he made a sound at the back of his throat.

  “You aren’t quite healing the way a human pictures magical healing,” he said. “It’s more like inheriting the disability and then having your body fix the damage. That’s an interesting one.”

  My shirt settled back down, and Wraith patted my hip affectionately.

  “Scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?”

  “Screw you,” I huffed out.

  “No, really,” he said. “Screaming, blinding pain? Numb tingling? What are you feeling right now?”

  His words made me stiffen. As I tried to breathe, I glared at him. He was just sitting there, watching me like I was knitting a scarf or something.

  “You can’t breathe because your diaphragm was ripped open. There was only pain expressed for the first few seconds, then nothing. No flaring powers, no screaming or begging for mercy. Trust me, when you’re in real pain the term breathing is optional will make a lot more sense. Being in pain isn’t going to stop you from screaming at the top of your lungs or fighting back. There, your chest just moved. Instinct.”

  I drew in a breath to test my lungs out. They seemed to work, in a crackling sort of way. Like a bad cold mixed with standing around smokers for too long. There was probably more damage in my chest, but breathing would speed recovery, so that was probably prioritized when it came to healing.

  “Can I prioritize things to fix?” I wheezed out.

  “With practice,” Wraith said as he turned away from me. “See, she didn’t even scream. It wasn’t that bad.”

  A half-hearted growl was the response to his statement.

  “She’d bite you if she had more energy,” I said.

  Because I wanted to bite Wraith for that comment, but didn’t have the energy to do it.

  “Without a doubt, but we need me whole still.”

  “What happened to Quin?” Lucrecia asked. “Because you are clearly not him.”

  “Not Death either, please don’t chop my head off.”

  “Wraith,” I said. “In full control. They went boom, she vanished, he fell asleep or something, and this one popped up and wanted a pat on the head for not talking to me.”

  I struggled to sit up, feeling my insides move in a way that was not natural. The very fact that I knew they were moving was the first indication. The way they seemed to move outside of my belly didn’t help matters.

  I reached with a grimace and pushed my guts back to where they belonged, at least as close as I could get them with a shove, holding them there as Wraith laughed. Not a long cackle, just a little laugh, which he ended when he saw the look I gave him.

  It didn’t feel nice to have your guts slowly roll back into you and where they belong.

  “How long is this going to take?” I asked.

  “That depends on many factors, but it could be the rest of the night,” Lucrecia said. “Elastic bandage and some first aid items, you’ll be ready to move again. Just don’t let on that you’ve been damaged and it will be fine. Less likely to be attacked on that side.”

  “Would you be a lamb?” I asked.

  “Why would I let you eat me?” she asked.

  “A dear?” I asked.

  “Wolf food?”

  “Help, Lucrecia, I’d like you to help me,” I said in exasperation.

  “Oh? Oh! Yes, right, you meant that kind of lamb and the other deer. Silly language.”

  “Lucrecia,” I said.

  “I’m going,” she said.

  Wraith settled between Daisy and me. He set a hand on her paw and his other hand on my leg. With a look between the two of us, he smiled.

  “You two remind me of Sasha.”

  “Split personalities are not appreciated,” I said.

  H
e shrugged. “Somehow I don’t think Sasha would appreciate my brother’s style of lovemaking. He’s all apologetic and wringing his hands. I take what I want.”

  “Maybe one day when my guts aren’t being held in with my own hand,” I said sarcastically back.

  “Come on, a little sex would sell better. That’s the point, right?”

  “I don’t do sex before possible death, and no,” I said. “Guts, hanging out. You wake him up, damn it. Then the three of us need to have a serious conversation about your behaviour.”

  “If I’m a part of him, why wouldn’t you have sex with me?”

  “I’m more of a monogamous person, and the two of you are still split far enough that I can tell the difference, so not going to happen.”

  “I could be a bad boy.”

  “And since you aren’t him, my powers work on you,” I snapped. “Jesus. No means no, Wraith! And you’re not having sex with his body and someone else either. It’s his body.”

  “Hence the conversation,” Lucrecia said as she re-entered. “At least Wraith woke up and not Quintillus.”

  “There’s only two,” I protested.

  “No, there is the split and then Quin, the whole slowly coming back together,” Lucrecia said as she knelt by me and set a kit on the floor. “Yes, the body is technically Quin’s, but it also belongs to Wraith and men can’t help it. We can find him a prostitute or something.”

  “Prostitutes are dirty, you will do no such thing,” I said, then jabbed a finger at Wraith. “We will discuss it with Quin. But nothing is happening while my guts are hanging out my side.”

  “At least you’re warming to the idea,” Wraith muttered. He looked to Lucrecia’s boy, still sitting at the table. “Get some meat for the wolf.”

  “It’s all frozen,” the boy said. “And the stores are closed.”

  “No, it’s not, in the sink,” Lucrecia said. “I was going to make steak and eggs for everyone for breakfast. I’ll have to defrost something else.”

  “Is it that close to dawn?” I asked.

  “About six hours away,” she said. “My stock rise early when they are with me.”

  The boy went to the sink. I noticed that as he moved, Daisy’s head slid across the floor, watching him go with keen interest.