Mortality Bites Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Vance, Ramy

  “Save it. The truth.”

  She kept her hand on her heart, her face frozen in mock indignation. Then, perhaps realizing she’d lost, she sighed and nodded. “Very well. I work for an organization whose sole purpose is to keep the peace between Others and humans. When we learned the amulet was here, at your University, they tasked me with retrieving the amulet because, well, of our history.”

  “If they had any brains, they would have sent someone I didn’t know.”

  Now my mom gave a real hurt look and I knew I had gotten to her. It felt amazing.

  “Yes, perhaps. But as soon as I knew you were a part of this, I asked to come. I wanted an excuse to see you and figured that if I just showed up, you’d push me away.”

  “You did just show up.”

  She charged on. “But if I came on an important mission … like I said—I see so much of your father in you. And before you say anything else—yes, I’m being paid. Like I said, it’s my job.”

  I scanned my mother’s face, looking for any hint of a lie, and saw none. She was telling the truth. Or at least, she thought she was telling the truth. What’s the expression? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If that were true, my mother had an expressway named after her.

  ↔

  “OK—what’s the plan?” I asked.

  “Retrieve the amulet. Have dinner. Leave,” she said in a matter-of-fact way.

  I shook my head. “Have dinner. Prove to me that you really are working for the good guys. Retrieve amulet. Leave.”

  “Proof? Would a phone call suffice?”

  “From who?”

  “Whom, darling, from whom.”

  I gritted my teeth. “From … whom?”

  She smiled. “Why, the President.”

  “Make it a FaceTime, and maybe …”

  Dorm Rooms, Changelings and Calculus

  I never got FaceTime with the President—probably for the best. I did, however, get routed through several very official-sounding guys all assuring me that my mother worked for them. They used acronyms and lofty terms like “assets,” “divulge” and “clearance” practically every third word and I just couldn’t imagine my mother going through all that trouble just to trick me.

  Then again … this was the same woman who once turned the captain of an Aircraft Carrier just so she could—as she put it—travel the oceans in style. After talking to several more people with even more inventive jargon, I decided to—maybe, cautiously, grain-of-salty—believe my mother.

  I dropped my mom off at her hotel—which was the closest possible hotel to the University Dorms, I noted—and went home to regroup. If I was going to survive dinner tonight, I needed some me time.

  Sadly, me time is virtually impossible when your roommate is a changeling.

  The first time I met Deirdre, she was standing butt-naked in our room, trying to staple AstroTurf onto our dorm walls. Being a child of nature (and not in the hippie, let’s-all-get-along way, but in the literal Mother Nature sense), she needed to have the natural world around her.

  I kind of thought of her like a penguin. They can live on land, but need to be by the ocean to live. Deirdre was my penguin, and today I came home to find her sitting on the floor, wearing the crawler vines we attached to our wall for a dress, nursing baby—

  What are those?

  “Rats?” I cried out.

  Deirdre looked up at me and frowned. Her eyes welled up. “I found them in a dumpster. Their mamma was dead. Poison. Luckily I got there before any of these little fellows drank from her teat; otherwise they would have died too.” She held them up to me. “Katrina, meet Captain Excellent, Hannibal King and Van Wilder.”

  “Captain Excellent, Hannibal King and … let me guess, those are all characters Ryan Reynolds has played?”

  Deirdre was obsessed with Ryan Reynolds. More than obsessed. Absolutely in love with him. I’d already had more than a few nightmares about bailing her out of jail on stalking charges. But then again, given how absolutely beautiful Deirdre was, it might not ever make it to trial.

  Deirdre confirmed my guess with a nod. “Yes … Ryan is the best,” she said in a dreamy voice as she held three toy baby bottles between her fingers and fed them what I hoped was milk … as in, from a cow. You never know what lengths a changeling would go through to accommodate an animal in need, and I wouldn’t put it past her to find some mamma rat and “borrow” its milk. Or try to make her own.

  “You can’t keep them,” I said, knowing full well that I was inviting a conversation about rules and regulations, and how some humans were adverse to rats, mice and just about any other type of rodent, especially when said rodent’s previous home was a literal dumpster.

  But instead of the usual conversation where I explained the way things worked in the GoneGod world, she simply nodded and said, “I know. As soon as I can, I shall release them into the forest and let them find their way.”

  The tears were suddenly back.

  “There is so much that will eat them … I just want to give them a fighting chance to survive.”

  I ignored this, opting to plop myself down on my bed.

  I got into bed and pulled out Egya’s notes. Even though his handwriting was very neat—too neat, if you asked me. His handwriting made the paper look like some sacred text you’d find on a Dead Sea Scroll or ancient tomb’s wall. I felt shame just touching it.

  I don’t know why Psychology 101 was giving me so much trouble. I suspect it was because I had spent so long not being a human, I was having trouble relating.

  Egya liked to tell me my mental block on the subject stemmed from a fear that I’d get outed as not being human. I had spent the last four years hiding my vampiric past, and now I had to write about the human condition—and I was being graded for it. If I did it wrong enough, surely I’d get caught.

  I could just imagine my prof holding my test, pointing at me and yelling, “Not human! Not human!” I’d had that nightmare plenty of times, too, which I’m sure could have been explained somewhere in Egya’s notes on the human condition. Oh, the irony. I’m also sure these thoughts were just driven by my anxiety over failing. And I’m extra sure my thoughts about my thoughts were inspired by this class.

  A vicious cycle, really.

  I shook my head, driving out these distracting thoughts. All I needed was a C and I’d pass Psychology 101. Just a C. Then I’d never have to pretend to know what it’s like to be human ever again.

  I started to go through his notes and got about halfway down page one when the incessant sucking noise from the baby rats grated my brain.

  “Can you stop that?”

  Aggression as a response to anxiety—maybe I was human after all.

  Deirdre looked up at me, confused, the movement causing the vines that had been draped over her various lady parts like an old Eve painting to move, and suddenly I was exposed to her … well, let me phrase it using a term from my era: whispering eye.

  I shook my head, took a calming breath, averted my gaze and said, “Can you feed them anywhere else? I need to study.”

  “They’re done anyway,” she said, standing up, exposing all her glory—and let me tell you, Mother Nature gave her tons of glory—and put the mischief of pups in an aquarium filled with grass and other stuff she’d dug up from the forest behind our dorm. Then, gently tapping the glass wall, she said, “Poor guys, growing up without a mother.”

  I snorted. “They don’t know how lucky they are.”

  Deirdre turned and gave me a curious look. “Why would you say that?”

  I didn’t answer. I had enough of talking about my mother for this century, let alone one day. Clearly Egya’s Psych notes were making me vulnerable.

  The changeling gave me an admonishing look—no small feat to accomplish when you were fully naked, but GoneGodDammit if Deirdre didn’t pull it off—and said, “Don’t speak so ill of mothers—they are the vines from which all life grows. They are the fountain which nourishes—”


  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mother Nature’s the tits—I get it, Deirdre, but can you spare me the lecture in which every other word has something to do with nature? I’ve really got to study.”

  And with that, I stuck my nose into my books—and failed to study.

  Instead, my mind wandered to another time altogether.

  The Past and All That Jazz

  Old Scotland—The Day Before Katrina Darling’s Death

  No fulfilled birthday wishes for me. Instead, I was turned one fateful evening just after my fifteenth birthday. That evening there was a cèilidh in town—one of our old Scottish traditions, a gay old time with song and dance and stories—and I was determined to go.

  My mother, of course, was determined I did not.

  Her reasoning was this—young Gareth Classes, handsome and from a good upbringing, had his sights on me. And I, being fifteen and falsely convinced that I was a woman now, welcomed said sights with my flirtatious glances and coy smiles. My mother, being my mother, wasn’t convinced: He was a bit too handsome, in her opinion, and he’d spoil me! His upbringing wasn’t that good—she’d heard there was a half-cousin twice removed somewhere in the family tree who had a unibrow. “And that, as we all know,” she’d say every chance she got, “is a sign of inbreeding.”

  I was not to go. My father was not to escort me, as would have been proper at the time. So, denied, my father’s hands tied, I went sulking to my bedroom.

  Or so I pretended. But I had already known that my mother wouldn’t let me go, and had prepared. I was fifteen—I wasn’t born yesterday! And so, pulling out my dress from beneath my bed, I climbed out my window and ran to the old birch behind the barn where I had tied up my horse (saddled and all—wasn’t born yesterday, remember?).

  Before riding off, I tipped the new farm hand my father had hired not to tattle on me. The young man nodded, grateful for the extra coin.

  I knew my mother would leave me to my mourning till morning, letting me cool off before engaging me again. That was her pattern, and she never broke her patterns, so I was fairly sure that I would get away with it.

  And if not? Well, I was willing to suffer the consequences of being caught. Gareth was waiting.

  Once at the dance, I quickly dressed and joined the festivities. My dance card filled up upon arrival—not that I was all that popular with the lads, but Gareth’s name managed to find its way to almost every slot.

  We danced the Gypsy Thread, Strip the Willow and Duke of Perth, Knot on a Ferry, Fairy Ring and White Sergeant (not as racist as you might think—at the time, pretty much every sergeant in Scotland was as white as curdled milk).

  And when the cèilidh ended, Gareth—handsome and of good upbringing—offered to escort me home. Gentleman that he was. And lady that I was, I accepted graciously. We both had the same gleam in our eyes, but, hey, we kept that from the others. My first engagement in foreplay, in a weird way.

  We rode up halfway, before stopping near the loch and beginning to commence in the very activity my mother had tried to protect me from.

  It was a brisk night, but desire and teenage foolery kept me warm. It was also a full moon, which meant there was just enough light to illuminate his face (did I mention it was handsome?), but not enough to warn us as a dark figure approached, moving far too silent for what the landscape suggested possible.

  Gareth was gently kissing my neck when he was ripped off, his body tossed ten meters away from me as if one were discarding a sack of potatoes. I did not know it at the time, but Gareth died before he hit the ground.

  And then the monster—the monster that had, ironically, saved my maidenhood—climbed on top of me, replacing Gareth’s gentle kissing with fangs and pain.

  I don’t know how long the monster drained me. I was lost in the moment of dying—it was painful, yes, but it was also sensual in a way I couldn’t explain, which, I suppose, was something my mother had been trying to protect me from too.

  But I was not so lost in that moment that I didn’t feel something heavy strike the monster above me.

  The vampire—I’m sure you guessed it was a vampire—released me and turned to face whoever had hit him, and that is when I saw my father standing there, an axe in one hand, his dirk in the other.

  I guess Mother didn’t wait till morning, after all.

  I did not see what happened after that, only learning later that my father attacked the vampire with all he had, and although he did not manage to kill the creature, he did manage to chase him off.

  My father had saved me. Or so he thought.

  ↔

  The next morning I woke up in my own bed. My body felt heavy, sluggish, difficult to move. It was as if I was buried under a thousand blankets—which I wasn’t. I was far too feverish for my cotton nightdress, let alone a blanket. Unencumbered, it felt as though my blood had been replaced with liquid lead.

  Later—after I sired my first acolytes—I learned how right I was. When your body begins to take on the vampire virus, your blood becomes turgid—think molasses. And very heavy—think molasses trying to flow uphill. Movement is difficult because you are literally being weighed down by your insides—think molasses trying to … well, you get the idea.

  But I wouldn’t learn what it was like for molasses to try to flow uphill for some time. At that moment all I knew was that I couldn’t move, I felt immense pain unlike anything I had ever known and my mother was by my side, dabbing my forehead with cool water she must have gathered from the nearby brook.

  I could hear her cloth dip into the bucket and then the gentle drip as she wrung out the excess water back into the bucket. A gentle dab, dab, dab until my fever eventually turned the cold cloth into something hot and unpleasant to touch. Every time she placed the hot cloth back into the water, I could hear her suck air through the slight gap between her two front teeth.

  She did that every time she was nervous.

  Dab, dab, dab. Slosh. Suck.

  Dab, dab, dab. Slosh. Suck.

  I don’t know how long that went on for—hours, days, weeks.

  It wasn’t as if time had stopped. I could still sense the seconds marching painfully on. But where those seconds would lead—at the time I had no idea. Had I known, I might have done whatever was left in my diminishing power to stop their progression altogether.

  ↔

  The morning I regained consciousness and some semblance of movement, I awoke to Mother sleeping on the chair next to me, and Father standing by the open window.

  “Fa—” I started, but my voice caught in my throat.

  My father turned around, his eyes widening, and I knew from the glistening tears jerking from his eyes that my waking was a great surprise to him. He had been preparing to say goodbye—to bury his daughter. And now that I was awake, he could hope that a headstone would no longer be necessary.

  He was half-right.

  “Don’t speak,” he said, darting to my side. He poured some water in a cup and helped me sip it. “Here, drink this.”

  I felt the rim of the cold cup on my lips and longed for the relief that the cool water dripping down my throat would bring. But it did not sooth me or quench my thirst. Rather, it felt like someone was pouring gritty, caustic sand into my throat.

  I coughed and pushed the water away from me.

  “How long?” I managed, but my father didn’t need to answer for me to know. I estimated at least ten days based on the light bruise marks on my father’s face. The prizes of his fight with my predator. He must have put up one hell of fight to chase away a vampire, and taken many blows in the process—regardless of the fact that he was lucky to still be alive. But he was basically healed now, his face baring light yellow marks as evidence of what he did.

  For me.

  “Ten days, my little angel, my beautiful cherub,” he said.

  Cherub—that’s what he called me whenever he was proud or happy, worried or angry. Come to think of it, that’s what he always called me.

  I swallowed and cough
ed again. “And Gareth?”

  In answer, he held up his hands and showed me the dirt beneath his nails.

  That was when I first noticed my heart had stilled. “When?”

  “Yesterday,” he said. “It was a beautiful ceremony. I wish you could have been there to say goodbye.”

  “I as well, Father.”

  “Are you in pain?” he asked.

  I started to say yes, but examining myself, I found that the heaviness had left me, as had the pain. I still ached, but that stemmed more from thirst and hunger. My actual body felt whole. Strong, even.

  I shook my head.

  My father gave me a strange, worried look—the first of many. He had expected me to say that I still hurt, that I was still suffering, but no pain? That was cause for concern.

  “I’ll go get the doctor,” he said.

  “No, Father. Please,” I said, reaching for his hand. “Stay. Just a little longer.”

  He gave me a pleasant smile and nodded. He placed a gentle hand on my mother’s arm, said, “Look who is awake.”

  My mother—for that was who she was when she was human—stood up and, nearly falling on me, gave me the most uncomfortable, painful and wonderful hug of my life.

  “Darling—you had us so worried. So terribly, terribly worried.”

  My father, crying now in earnest, nodded and hugged me too.

  Had I known that would be the last time the three of us would embrace as a family, I would have held on longer.

  Hell—I would have never let go.

  Din, Din Time

  Present Day—

  Of course, that was all then and this was now. And now demanded that I get ready for dinner. Harsh, sure, but I’d had a long time to bury my emotions surrounding that fateful day. And I was still a teenager, which meant when I was hungry, I was hungry. I guess in that way, not much had changed from my vampire days to now.