Death Mask (Wraith's Rebellion Book 3)

by Aya DeAniege

  “Are you going to be all right?” I asked Daisy.

  “She won’t be fighting again tonight,” Lucrecia said. “We can’t risk another injury. Give her a little bit, and we’ll use her to find Bau again. We need to worry about you, right now. Lift your shirt.”

  I lifted my shirt and looked. I think it’s instinct to look at the wound, to try and sum up the injury, see how bad it was. When I was a child, I’d look to see if I needed to tell my parents, needed a doctor, or if I could just go with it.

  The wound on my side had ragged edges. Skin and muscle were missing, revealing guts. Besides intestine, I didn’t know what any of it was or how important it was. The entire thing appeared bloodless, though there was a clear fluid that had wetted my shirt.

  As I watched, the guts adjusted, as if reeling back into place.

  Suddenly I had two very important questions burning through my mind.

  “Muscle is voluntary,” I said.

  “It can be,” Lucrecia said. “Our bodies were once mortal and remember that. Rip out a muscle, and the body fails on a subconscious level. It’s a difficult thing to get over.”

  “Quin keeps saying breathing is optional.”

  “Again, it is,” Lucrecia said as she opened the kit and began to pull items out. “That is typically the easiest to learn, though it would be easier to teach a fledgling to fly. You can control most of your physical responses, but it all requires training.”

  “Cool,” I said. “That means we can blush on purpose, change the blood flow, guess no male vampire has had erectile dysfunction.”

  Wraith got a funny look on his face like someone had jabbed him in the backside with a pin. He turned away suddenly and began to stroke Daisy’s leg with the tips of his fingers. I assumed it was the topic of conversation, one which he didn’t want to get into right then.

  Or ever, given his behaviour.

  Instead, I looked back to Lucrecia. “Can you donate organs?”

  “Ask Margaret,” Lucrecia said.

  “I can’t unless you think her corpse is going to reanimate,” I said.

  Lucrecia seemed to mutter a curse, her hands hesitating above the non-adherent pad she had placed on my side.

  Then she sighed. “Our blood to mortals is blood, that is all. We have made donations to our own blood banks and had that go to hospitals. There was no ill effect. But still no miracle. The genetics are our genetics, the little bits that cause illness between blood types is still there.”

  “Quin donated a kidney,” Wraith said, keeping focused on Daisy. “Margaret asked for it, we were curious. Man’s still alive and hasn’t needed a new one. Ten years ago, I think.”

  A cold flooded through me.

  Imagine the reaction from governments all over the world if they discovered immortal organ donors who could regrow parts. Not to mention blood bags. Some company somewhere just had to kidnap a couple of vampires with different blood types and markers and then claim they had grown the organs in a lab.

  Wraith and I met one another’s eyes. Something passed over his features, and he frowned, his face suddenly animated once more as he turned towards the boy. Every bit of him screamed confusion for the barest second before he went deathly still and turned to Lucrecia.

  “Welcome back,” Lucrecia said without looking at him. “Seems we have a problem.”

  “Seems we do,” Quin purred out. “Can she fight?”

  “She can. I meant your flare of power as you woke,” Lucrecia said. “If any of my stock is dead, I will be very unhappy.”

  “Flare of power?” I asked.

  “I was dreaming of organs,” he muttered.

  “Probably hungry,” Lucrecia grumbled.

  Perhaps Quin’s reaction to my possibly being a scavenger was from his fledgling cravings. He may have been tormented by Lucrecia and Lu for what he had thought should have been a natural reaction.

  “I only chew on liver and heart, and only when angry and trying to scare people,” he growled.

  “You had precognitive abilities before being turned,” I squeaked out.

  “That’s what I’m told, yes,” he said.

  “You also said after this we’re done.”

  “We are,” he said, looking puzzled.

  “Okay, so we aren’t going to be the ones who have to stop the biomedical corporation that’s kidnapping vampires and harvesting their organs for transplant and other general medical procedures?” I asked.

  “No,” Quin said as Lucrecia stiffened, her hands on my side. “Not unless one of us gets kidnapped. In which case, we would be pulled into it. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll have that problem.”

  “Good, so notify the Council that it’s happening,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “You dreamed of organs just as I was talking about them? I’ve inherited mind reading from one of you. Just do it.”

  “It’d be a really stupid thing for someone to do, but I’ll tell the others.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “I remember bits like it was fragmented. Did you have sex with me while I was unconscious?”

  “No,” Lucrecia and I said at the same time.

  The two of us shared a look. I swear I heard her say that he hadn’t been unconscious, but when she opened her mouth to say it verbally, I kicked her instead. She slapped my leg away and glared at me, so I glared back at her.

  Lucrecia looked away and kept her mouth shut.

  “Why are my hands burnt?” he asked.

  “You handled Bau’s stick thingy,” I said.

  “I brought the mace with us?” he asked, sounding startled.

  “Yeah, you grabbed it from her as the explosion happened and ran off with it,” I said.

  “Where is it?”

  I shrugged. “I stayed with Daisy. Kind of good news, I can heal animals, but it seems it involves taking the wound onto myself.”

  “You want some of my blood?” he asked, then looked around us. “You aren’t bleeding out. This is all wolf blood. Damn it, Daisy!”

  Daisy whined and sat up, pawing once at the air, then flopping over again and continuing to whine.

  “It makes me immune to witch magic,” I said.

  Quin straightened suddenly. “The tool is witch magic.”

  “Yeah, so?” I asked.

  “Sit up and hold this,” Lucrecia said.

  I sat up, grimacing at the feel of things shifting about. Hands on the bandage, I watched as Lucrecia stood and went to a drawer, pulling out a pair of scissors.

  “I’ll get you another shirt. This one will probably start smelling, I don’t know what it is but fluids smell,” she said before she started cutting off my shirt.

  I looked at Quin expectantly.

  “Wolf blood dulls pain and stops bleeding in vampires. I don’t understand how you haven’t gone mad.”

  “The wolves know more tricks than you do,” I quipped back.

  “Fair enough. It also, as you said, apparently makes you immune to witch magic. Does explain how they won against the witches.”

  “And that’s important because of the tool?” I asked.

  “We need to find Rosalyn,” Quin said, pulling out his phone. “If I’m right, you can use the tool to kill Bau.”

  “Uh, and create Banshee in the process, breaking my soul in two,” I said.

  “Again, if I’m right, that’s a part of the magic,” Quin said, typing something into his phone.

  Death had said he was the only one who could kill Bau. He had said that the tool would be necessary to anyone else, that he could work through any instrument I picked up, once he was riding me. He wanted the tool back, though, to prevent it from spawning another of him.

  All I had to do was let him in.

  But if we could do this without him? If I could pick up the tool and use it to kill Bau?

  That’d solve a lot of problems.

  Upon waking, I had two distinct thoughts.

  The first was more of a feeling, but it c
an only be described as a different sense, the taste of fresh human liver in my mouth. Want to make a point no one forgets? Eat the liver of a person as they choke on their own blood and die. I find rebellious stock suddenly shuts up when that happens.

  The second was the distinct impression that I had sex. Like waking after a drunken one night stand.

  It turns out Wraith had tried and failed at getting Helen’s attention. But she hadn’t said no, as in never. She had said no, as in it would be cheating. It was adorable how she was loyal to me and only me.

  But I probably needed to have a conversation with her about him. If I wanted to be whole again, it probably wasn’t a good thing to treat the two of us differently. Which meant that I would have to share all that was mine with him, in order to bridge that gap which made us, us. I didn’t want to do that because it was dangerous. Helen wasn’t used to the sort of attention that Wraith would give her, few women were.

  I had to have a conversation with him first, though, about what he could and could not do to my—damn it, our—Progeny.

  So… no snuff films?

  Definitely no snuff films. Unless she begged for it of her own free will and without being ‘convinced’ into it. We were both very good at convincing others to do things, talking or manipulating them into it. It would take very little to convince Helen into some twisted bed games.

  The sexuality of baby vampires swung very quickly. Almost as fast as their mood swings. That fact would aid anyone in talking her into bed.

  I watched as Lucrecia bound Helen’s torso with a long tensor bandage. If we had known what kind of damage it would have caused Helen, we probably wouldn’t have done it, but then, Daisy would also be dead.

  I looked down at the wolf, who was miserable. She huffed out a little breath and dragged herself up, trotting out of the room as if nothing was wrong.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I followed Daisy. She had made it to the bathroom and closed the door. When I opened it, she tried to kick it shut on my nose. I slapped it and then pushed it open just wide enough for me to slip inside.

  Daisy was back in human form, curled on her side in absolute misery. A nasty bruise was already forming where Helen’s side had been ripped open.

  “She can’t take on what her body can’t do,” I muttered.

  No bringing back the dead for Helen, which was both good to know and a relief.

  Daisy had bruising because Helen couldn’t bleed right then, which meant that Helen couldn’t take on the damaged blood vessels, I suppose. It seemed odd to me, but healing mortals was still a little out of the reality of my world.

  Sure, immortals, magic, werewolves, even God and powers, but healing… I had never seen it done before. Not on a mortal.

  “Can you breathe?” I asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” Daisy said.

  She was trying to sound strong but came off as desperate instead. The sharp edge of her voice wasn’t going to cut me and sounded more like a plea to believe her.

  Daisy was used to fighting everyone and everything. She would expect me to use this against her, and I didn’t blame her for that expectation. That didn’t mean that I was just going to leave her to her own. She couldn’t help herself right then.

  “No pack here,” I said, crouching beside her. “We need to get you clean and in bed. It can be me, or I can get the mother that Lucrecia keeps on hand.”

  I knew what she’d pick, given the option. A werewolf in her position expected a certain behaviour from a male who helped. Any other night, I’d risk the nips and bites she’d give me and just wash her myself, to keep her weakness as limited as possible.

  “The mother, then,” Daisy said.

  “Okay, but you’re also going to drink a little water and sleep,” I said. “And if you cause any problems in here, I’ll come back and drown you myself.”

  She looked up at me, a smouldering hatred in her eyes.

  But at least if she was angry, she wasn’t going to get weepy.

  I jabbed a finger at her, then left the bathroom. Just outside the door, the woman of Lucrecia’s house stood with her eyes downcast. It wasn’t that anyone had told her anything, just that Lucrecia had stock which were so very well behaved.

  “If she tries to bite you or anything of that sort, let me know,” I said.

  The woman curtsied as I walked away.

  I loved Lucrecia’s stock. I loved how obedient they were. I loved how they seemed to enjoy serving, I loved how skilled they were and how gentle they could be.

  Unlike my stock, which were lippy as hell and sarcastic even as they obeyed. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my stock too, but in a very different way.

  Back in the kitchen, Helen was standing over the sink, scrubbing Daisy’s blood off her hands and arms.

  “Wolf blood, thankfully, doesn’t absorb through your skin,” Lucrecia said. “But if you get it into a cut, it will enter your bloodstream, and you will have a bad time, so just keep that in mind. Ah, Quin.”

  “She’s not going to be able to help us again, not for a couple of weeks,” I said.

  “There’s one other option, but it’s risky,” Helen said as she shut off the water and shook her hands over the sink.

  It was strange to see her without pain, yet damaged. As if I were looking at the vampire she might become.

  And I desperately wanted to throw her down and have my way with her.

  “What did Rosalyn say?” Helen asked.

  She dried her hands as she turned to me and leaned back, placing her buttocks against the kitchen counter for support but making certain not to lean back. Lucrecia had done up the bandage, so I knew it was tight enough that it would act almost like skin. Helen didn’t know that from first-hand experience, however, and was making certain not to take any risks.

  “She hasn’t responded yet,” I said as my phone chimed.

  Yes, we texted her about sixteen times.

  I just hadn’t told Helen that. Just like I hadn’t told her that I had kept calling Anna and had put out emails to nearly everyone I knew. I was trying quite hard to contact anyone at all, and they were all hiding under rocks and in the deepest, darkest caves they could find.

  “My eyes are up here,” Helen said with a motion from her hip, where I had been staring, upward.

  I looked up slowly, making certain to linger on her breasts. No bra there, but I preferred her uncontained by the fabric and lace of a bra.

  When our eyes locked, I made certain to cock an eyebrow upward. She responded by crinkling her nose, which made me smile.

  “We don’t have the time for that,” Lucrecia said sternly.

  “Thanks, cock block,” Helen snapped.

  “You’re welcome, whore. Quin, answer your phone. Both of you try to remember that with the wrong movement her insides could be on the outside and spilling over my floor. Which I had just cleaned tonight.”

  I pulled out my phone and read the text. “Where be yee, boy?”

  Glancing up at Lucrecia, I saw the way she seemed to waver. Which meant that Rosalyn wasn’t teasing me, she was using the name that the witches had given me. The rest of the wording must have given that fact away, though it was something I had never experienced before.

  I texted back all in caps, “I WANT A NEW NAME.”

  “And I want a million bucks, but it’s not going to happen,” Rosalyn said from beside me.

  Helen jumped in spot a moment too late. I remained still for a moment, wondering what kind of a meeting the Oracle wanted with me.

  “I need you to respond to your name so that I can teleport in, it was a spell,” Rosalyn said.

  “Am I a symbol?” I asked her.

  It was a question that had bothered me for some time. One that I desperately wanted to be answered.

  “Says the boy to the Oracle as Banshee and she who asked for a new name stand in the room with him,” Rosalyn said quietly, her lips twitching upward just slightly.

  “I thought I was the
Siren,” Helen protested.

  “Edna says Banshee. New vampires, we kind of juggle until something settles.”

  Edna was the Older Oracle. She had more experience in all things, but it had been eight hundred years since the last time the Oracle had had to name a vampire. I wasn’t certain the traditions had remained in one piece.

  “Witches aren’t supposed to use vampires for magic,” I snapped.

  “No, we aren’t. Unless we have the permission of the Great Maker and turn one of you into a catalyst to deal with a larger problem. You will remain, boy, until we say otherwise.”

  “Why?” I demanded. “I’m supposed to be the hero symbol.”

  “The hero symbol is never the hero,” she said slowly as if I were stupid.

  As if I had ever studied witch magic and would know better.

  “The hero symbol must be humbled to work, he must be a he because screw you all on being gender neutral. If we had a female hero, she’d be a heroine.”

  “I never said anything,” I said.

  Rosalyn jabbed a finger at Lucrecia. “She was about to. We needed a hero for this to work, so yes, we created a hero symbol. That doesn’t mean that you can’t kill her, just that we strongly encourage someone else to get off their ass and do it.”

  “What put you in such a mood?” Helen asked. “A week ago, you were pleasant enough.”

  “A week ago, the Stone wasn’t in the city. She hadn’t visited me and threatened the entire race over you two. She doesn’t know we’re involved, not yet. She asked me to look back.”

  “For what?” Lucrecia asked.

  “For her heart,” Rosalyn said. “Seems little miss crazy ripped it out of her chest and replaced it with one from one of her daughters. Necromancer magic, banned by witches, we won’t practice the stuff, but she’s started.”

  “The wolf,” Helen said faintly. “Surely it’s too late for that.”

  “Except you brought a wolf to a vampire fight,” Daisy squawked from the door. “That’s why I’m still alive.”

  “I’d take that as a compliment,” Rosalyn said.

  “For the slow and stupid among us,” Helen snapped out in an annoyed tone.

  “You may have gotten some of my blood into a scratch, reel it in, child,” Daisy huffed out because she was trying to sound like she was in control.