Death Mask (Wraith's Rebellion Book 3)

by Aya DeAniege

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I grumbled before I turned the phone around and showed Quin.

  His eyebrows raised. “The art is fine, but that title?” My phone went off, and the eyebrows drew down in response. “They’re putting it under fiction. The Council has granted them another interview and promised not to turn the person.”

  “Well, that makes sense. The world did know there would be forty of us,” I said. “So, you and Balor going on TV tomorrow and doing that interview, plus the story?”

  “It will help obscure your part in things,” he said. “Some mortals may believe that it is a story based on true facts. Your family, they’ve already signed the non-disclosure agreements, correct?”

  “I’m more concerned with them following the agreement,” I grumbled.

  “They’ll follow it,” he said pointedly.

  That tone means something.

  Which I was starting to suspect meant that something else was at play, under all the rest. Like, Quin would eat anyone caught talking. Or he was just trying to believe in other people.

  Perhaps I should have told him ahead of time not to start trusting people again until after he met my family.

  “Have you chosen a name yet?” he asked suddenly.

  “For what?” I asked, then it dawned on me. “Oh, yes, Helen.”

  “Helen?”

  “They suggested it. Helen of Troy, I think was their way of it. That whole bit of trouble that started over little me.”

  “You do have a face that could launch a ship or two,” he murmured.

  “Very funny,” I said.

  “And Troy?”

  “Changed, of course. Every mortal has had their name altered. Erin signed the non-disclosure agreement along with the landlord. Not that he’d want to share anything about the break-in and his mistake costing a woman her cats.”

  “Cats?”

  “Cats. The four cats that Lu killed,” I said, then frowned at him. “Quin, they were actual cats!”

  “Oh,” he said. “I should probably read this book they’re bringing together.”

  “They think my chapter with Sasha in the car is too much. That as a character inside my own story, I wouldn’t address the fact that I was inside my story.”

  “I think it’s adorable how you think you’re a Mary Sue.”

  “Not being able to give a blowjob does not discount me from being a Mary Sue. And just because Sasha was jealousy, doesn’t mean that counts either.”

  “Androgen and Amma dislike you as well. Margaret certainly hated you. Lucrecia is on the fence. I’m betting your parents are probably on that list as well.”

  “Especially when my father finds out I won’t be turning him,” I said. “And my mother the instant you say vampire. I’d have better luck coming out as gay, I think.”

  “Funny how sexuality doesn’t mean as much when immortals make themselves known.”

  “Yeah, funny like that,” I said. “Anyhow, they want me to alter the chapter and such. Like… I’m sorry I had magical powers shooting off like gunpowder hidden in a log tossed on the fire. There was no control there and doing things impulsively really made it worse.”

  “Are they also complaining about the fever?” he asked. “How it changed your behaviour?”

  “They wonder how you didn’t notice I was bleary at the beginning of the night.”

  “I thought it was adorable, was all. You hadn’t had coffee yet. And no chance to watch a hipster neckbeard nurse his coffee.”

  “Mr. Fedora, we’ve been over that. I never called you a neckbeard. And how can I watch a hipster drink his coffee when you got rid of the beard and look more like a young man about to be introduced to a set of parents?”

  “I’ll grow it back eventually,” he said. “It does make keeping that mask on difficult.”

  “People will remark on you being beardless for a century.”

  “I’ll be leaving the lower half of the mask on, and it may or may not be a hundred years. Why, do you prefer the beard?”

  “I like playing with it,” I said.

  “Wow,” he said, looking a little startled. “That may very well be the first time that you’ve sounded like a woman. That was infatuation in your voice.”

  “Though without the beard, it’s a great deal easier to tell what you’re thinking, so I’m caught. Do I want the beard, do I not want the beard. Who knows what we should actually want? I don’t, that’s for sure.”

  “We need to head out early,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. “Two in the morning at the latest.”

  It was my turn to raise my eyebrows.

  “We’re meeting up with my parents, Mr. Fedora. They’ve been up since seven or eight and have day jobs. If we’re here until two in the morning, we’ll have bigger problems.”

  “The city is only an undetermined amount of time away, I suppose,” he said, lips curling up in a smile.

  “I see what you did there,” I said. “Now I don’t have to edit the time out, thank you.”

  “Though it would be the biggest gap in the story.”

  “Technically no more than when I was unconscious during the change,” I said. “That was almost three hours all together. You can reach a lot of cities in three hours.”

  “I don’t think the reader grasps the time change there.”

  “Neither did I, until they asked about the missing bit of recording you removed. Sort of surprised you didn’t monologue through the entire time.”

  “I couldn’t, I wanted to make certain you were all right, and Margaret wasn’t taking samples. Plus, all that vampire posturing takes a great deal of time. You can’t pout like the world is about to end and talk at the same time, it just doesn’t work.”

  “I still woke up wet,” I said.

  “Yeah, but not sopping wet, that’s the point, isn’t it?”

  “Did none of you dry me off?”

  “Lucrecia tried to, I almost bit her, so… no.”

  “Uh huh. Finish your burger, would you?”

  “You still haven’t told me anything about your family.”

  “And they know nothing about you, so doesn’t that just put you all on even ground? They aren’t supernatural at all, and I don’t know which of them is the descendant, or if they both are.”

  “How would you like to tell them?”

  “Mum, dad? I’m a vampire. Then get out of there before one of them pulls out a shotgun.”

  “Just like that?”

  I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “You never had to tell your family. None of you did. What I have to do is pretty unique and kept to just myself, and Troy. His parents were only concerned about your reaction to his being turned. Then they accepted him as one of their own again because they trust that you will look after him no matter what Balor says or does. Balor will never have the chance to cross a line because before all this happened—before Troy was Troy—he was your boy, and he was your stock. You have a history with not only him, but his mother and father too.

  “So at the end of the day, that just leaves me to come out to my parents, and yeah, it’s going to suck, and there will be no hugging and kissing, or happiness on my part. That is not the kind of people that make up my family. They will not look at this as a blessing.

  “It is an opportunity, plain and simple, one that they have had almost a week to consider, of how they can manipulate this entire thing to their benefit and what they can get out of this so-called reality narration. They want the money and whatever else they can get out of you.

  “Who, if you recall, has been painted as an eccentric millionaire to keep their reaction genuine.”

  “That’s the most you’ve said about them in all the time I’ve known you,” he said. “And I’ve asked multiple times.”

  “Well, you all allow one another to keep your secrets, so why not me as well?”

  Quin took in a long, slow breath. “I respected your wish because forcing it out of you would not be the way to bui
ld trust. Lucrecia told me that like is drawn to like, that you could very well be more like me than I might like. So I have a question for you.”

  “No, you don’t have to dig a grave for that. I’m empathetic to your plight because I can put myself in your position, not because it’s happened to me.”

  “I like how you didn’t try to tell me that I wouldn’t be digging a grave for another reason,” he said with a small smile.

  I hesitated before answering because I didn’t know what I could say.

  “I wasn’t living apart because I needed to go to the university,” I said. “And I don’t want to dredge this up. I haven’t spoken to my father in years. I don’t want to tonight either.”

  “Without this, would you have been content if he died and you two never again spoke?”

  “I think so, yes,” I said, then I shrugged. “I hear people say it all the time, they tell me I only have one father and that he’s going to be gone one day, but the truth of the matter is: I don’t feel like I even had one. I don’t have memories of fun times. He didn’t help me with projects or do things for me because it was for me. Unlike your father, I wasn’t grateful when he gave me something because it always came at a price. Always.”

  “Even this,” he said.

  “Even this.”

  He nodded once, then picked up his water. “You know they’re expecting a proposal announcement.”

  “They wouldn’t believe it without a ring,” I said with a shake of my head.

  Quin slipped a ring box onto the table, and I swear my heart stopped. There was a stillness that came over me that could not be explained simply as stiffening. It wasn’t fear that made me go still, but this sudden realization that this sort of thing didn’t happen to me, couldn’t happen to me.

  “Now, don’t get like that,” he said.

  “I know it’s not a proposal,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” he said simply. “Our kind doesn’t marry. There is only one instance of marriage. Even our one and only, so to speak, is more of an open relationship. I would never promise what I don’t know that I can deliver to you.”

  “I don’t even get jewellery from boyfriends,” I said.

  “Not even cheap plastic?”

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “No gifts at all. Flowers once, but he had been drunk the night before.”

  “You did have a bad spot of luck with men.”

  “Chocolates another time, but he had grabbed me and hurt my wrist the night before,” I said before I realized what I had just said.

  Quin and I made eye contact, and I saw that something in his eyes. It was the same thing I had seen in his eyes when he had confronted Lu in his home. Except without the beard, it wasn’t just a stern look. The way his jaw clenched, the way his lips moved into a snarl.

  That was the look of a predator who just spotted prey.

  “I’m fine. It was fine.”

  “I find with such instances, it is never fine, and it was never allowed, and certainly is not something to be defended. This is the same man who left you after getting sober. Don’t defend him. You should be angry, not a whimpering victim about it. He left you. He hurt you, and now he’s out there living like it never happened because it doesn’t matter to him. Be angry.”

  “No. I choose to be nothing. He’s not in my life anymore. I don’t see him. I’m allowed to mourn my relationship, just like you’re allowed to mourn Lu. No one said anything about you acting differently. None of them made a comment on you shaving your beard or cutting you hair. Do you know why? Because you have a right to feel what you feel about what was done to you and no one has the right to tell you that you’re wrong for crying over an abuser or that you have to be insulted because things didn’t go your way.”

  “I didn’t shave for him,” Quin protested.

  I gave him a look and was rewarded with him blushing and looking away.

  “No one cares that you’re in mourning,” I said. “It’s a process, and you’ll feel what you feel when you feel it. So be it. But I do miss the beard.”

  “I’m not a damned poodle,” he muttered.

  I pushed my phone towards him. “Your turn.”

  “My turn?” he asked.

  “The first one had a clear format. In the present with me, then a chapter of you monologuing, then another of me. In the second, you broke the theme and frankly, I think it’s more interesting going back and forth.”

  “You don’t just want to track Wraith?” he asked.

  “No, everyone has a voice like that at the back of their minds. Mine typically swears and tells me how pathetic I am. Welcome to being human.”

  “Fine, but you’re the one who broke it by getting two chapters on Sasha.”

  “Uh, I got the only ever interview with the Great Maker, thank you very much. I’m a rock star.”

  “Dinner part two, I suppose,” he muttered.

  “No,” I said, taking off the tablet and handing it over to him. “You meeting my parents. It should be as if it’s from the reader’s perspective.”

  “I think they’d learn more from inside your head, not mine.”

  “No, I think the opposite is true. I’d ignore the usual stuff. You’d be looking at it with fresh eyes.”

  “I suppose,” he grumbled. “We’re removing this portion, correct?”

  “Yes? Maybe, probably. I don’t know. But we shouldn’t bring it up again. We should live and record in the moment, not as if there’s this big omnipotent reader looking over our shoulders.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they think, not to me,” he said. “What I care about is doing this properly for you. So, whatever you’d like.”

  “Good, I’d like to go and get this over with,” I said. “We need as much recorded as possible because it’s only going to fill an hour or two and it’s going to be short no matter how it’s done.”

  “So it’s more of a novella to wrap up, that’s fine. How about we treat it like the interview that first night? I can ask you a bunch of questions.”

  “And I can pretend I didn’t hear them and avoid others, great idea,” I said with a grin.

  “Great,” he muttered. “You want me to wear this during the interview?”

  “If we do that, Balor needs to wear one too,” I said.

  “Or keep it in my lap. It does look like a cellphone.”

  “Oh, that’d be a grand way to end the night,” I said. “But this will be done long before that.”

  “Only if we get going now,” he said.

  I sighed. “I suppose we should do that instead of stalling more.”

  Quin smiled as he put the tablet around his neck. “Just think positive thoughts. Maybe one of your brothers will want to talk. Or try to kill me and then we’ll have to deal with the mess.”

  “The other two nights were so full because Death showed up. Recall that he is dead. Unless you upset some other supernatural being, nothing is going to happen tonight. It’s going to be boring as could be.”

  Quin rapped his knuckles on the table.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “Just in case,” he said with a wink.

  Taking the tablet from Helen, I was feeling a little silly, I’ll admit. We paid our bill and headed to my car in the parking lot before I handed her the ring box again.

  “Put it on,” I said. “It should fit your middle finger on your right hand.”

  She opened the ring box and slipped the titanium ring onto her finger. The ring had been expensive to acquire, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. It just looked like a metal ring.

  I had been told that titanium would last better over time than a more precious metal like silver or gold. I could believe it. My ring from my mute lover had been scratched up over time. I wore it when I needed some comfort, but otherwise kept it tucked carefully away.

  While I had wanted to wear it that night, I had placed it back in the safe where it sat when it was not on my hand.

  “Thank
you,” she said.

  “If it had a stone or inlay, the ring would fall apart over time. In a few years, I may ask for the ring back to have it inscribed with something, but even that would wear over the years as you pulled it on and off. A solid band is more likely to last through the centuries.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Choose items based on longevity,” I said.

  “I remember,” she said.

  There was something about her voice that seemed hollow, sad almost. Sometimes we all went through depressing moods. New vampires typically went through a type of guilt, but never such a weakness. I could only guess that whatever was going on, had to do with Helen’s family.

  With a small sound, I slipped the key into the ignition, and started the car. The one I had chosen for that night was a newer model of an electric car. Its motor was almost silent, and the car portrayed the eccentric rich image that had been painted for Helen’s parents.

  The car was borrowed from the Council, I never drove something so obviously rich. I liked comfort and a little style, I didn’t appreciate being robbed because the car attracted unwanted attention.

  Almost immediately the phone rang and connected at the same time.

  I liked having control over my own phone calls, but because it was a Council borrowed vehicle, they had altered the programing. I’m not certain how they did it, but by borrowing the car, Kevin, my new IT guy was granted access in order to get a hold of me easily.

  Which meant that in about six months, that technology would be owned by me and mine. We’d figure out a way around it, then hack the Council.

  There was no way that I was falling into the same habits of the past fifteen hundred years. If they were going to screw me over again, they’d attempt to do so with my knowing full well what the plan was and when it would be started.

  Then we kill them all.

  “Kevin,” I said with an edge to my voice, because everyone else knew not to call me right then.

  “The police were by about twenty minutes ago,” Kevin said.

  Kevin was my third IT guy in the past several years. He had been escorted to me by the Council stock to make certain no one stole him. He and Troy would work together to erase Helen from everything, but some things took time.