Death Mask (Wraith's Rebellion Book 3)

by Aya DeAniege

  I swear that still hurts.

  Even in that, there was a freeing, almost elated mood. I had lost an eye, and by morning it was growing back again.

  Balor and Quin did not suffer scavenging, but Troy did. Had his nose chewed on by a predator of some sort. It had bolted as we stirred awake.

  Yes, that meant that Quin and Balor had watched it happen and allowed it. They hadn’t tried to save Troy or me.

  But then, they also didn’t feed us.

  We went three days without food before we started bickering. By dawn of that third night, I was vomiting black sludge into the sand. Troy didn’t throw up when starved, Quin and Balor hadn’t seen it before. We could only assume, with no way to do research, that my being sick had something to do with Bau’s death. A vampire wasn’t meant to eat another vampire, especially not when they were so young.

  Basically, my body had no other way to get rid of the waste that was created. Stomach down, I wasn’t exactly working properly. I think, I don’t know. I’m not an expert on vampire anatomy and we sort of killed the only person who had been.

  Quin made me bury the sludge, then forced me to sleep on an empty stomach.

  We were learning to be vampires. And one of the first things a baby vampire had to learn was that their Maker was their one and only god. Makers did not suffer lip service. They broke their Progeny of any idea of living without the Maker.

  I needed him. I understood that. Just as I understood that the pain he gifted me with was just that: a gift.

  It’s messed up, I know, to look at a man beating on me, cutting into my flesh, even throwing me down and having his way with me as a gift.

  Until we were ambushed, and you realized that it truly was a gift. Every time Quin attacked me, he was showing me what a bigger body could do to me, and what I could work through.

  I may have been clumsy.

  But I was also hungry, so hungry.

  Where Quin would defend his neck, the humans thought nothing of it. I fed heartily, not caring that I killed several before Quin’s voice stopped me. Not the words or what he said, just the tone of his voice forbidding me from continuing. I didn’t even register that he had spoken until my teeth paused a bare finger’s breadth above the flesh of a man’s throat.

  “You are not the only one who is hungry,” he said in that quiet, yet frightening tone.

  A human might think him trying to placate me. I was a fast learner, thank goodness, and knew that he would rarely raise his voice to me. I knew that he shouldn’t have to raise his voice, I should be the one to shut up and listen.

  Troy was not so quick to learn, but it wasn’t in his power. He was struggling without technology, which I’m almost certain concerned both Quin and Balor.

  “Fetch that one,” he said, motioning to the only smart human among the lot.

  He had been the only one to see me attack and to bolt. The one in my hands, I tossed to Balor, who would eat and then feed Troy. Or just feed Troy. Technically speaking, it was none of my business. Quin had said stop, I stopped.

  “But we don’t eat smart humans,” I said.

  “We do when we start a slaughter,” Balor said. “Council still says you can’t kill.”

  I swore and took off jogging after the man. He had a longer leg than I did and a head start. I still didn’t have much muscle to me, that took time and proper exercise along with nutrition. So I jogged instead, knowing that I would catch up after he was winded.

  As he slowed, he tripped over something. Not far ahead of me at all. I came down on him as he struggled to get back up, then flung him back towards Quin and Balor. I was on him again before he got his feet under him and thrust him forward.

  He turned and hit me.

  “Ow,” I said with a frown.

  He stared back at me.

  “Vampire, why did you think that would work?” I demanded as I grabbed him by the ear and yanked.

  It had worked on my brothers, so why not him?

  We struggled for some time, and no one offered to help me. Seriously, they just stood there watching me as I fought with a man bigger than me, who kept getting the upper hand because—oh yeah—I’m not magically a hunting machine!

  While hungry, I couldn’t focus, if I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t use my powers. It took time to get over the kind of hunger that Quin had driven me to. I still ached right to my very core.

  The only reason I won, in the end, was because I was determined and he needed to breathe. He fatigued faster than I did. When I finally dropped him at Quin’s feet, I gave a triumphant little huff.

  “Them I understand, but why couldn’t you help?” I asked Troy.

  He hid behind Balor, which was his thing. Anytime he didn’t want to answer a question from Quin or me. He ducked behind Balor. Troy would bury his face between Balor’s shoulder blades and wouldn’t look back up until he was certain the trouble had passed.

  In fact, before the ambush happened, he had ducked behind Balor. I had watched it happen but hadn’t put much effort into thinking of the why because sometimes he did that too.

  I shook a finger at Troy.

  “He knew they were here.”

  “Troy?” Balor asked, turning slightly.

  Troy nodded and tried to make himself look small. I couldn’t decide if his meekness was a phase, or if Balor had broken something. I was really hoping it was a phase. Every time he made himself look small, I just wanted to pick him up and give him a hard shake.

  I knew that wouldn’t help matters, which I have to say, really did not help my urge to do so.

  “What kind of tech?” Quin asked.

  “They have some kind of phone,” Troy said, then pressed himself tight against Balor, burying his face in his Maker’s back.

  Quin made a sound. “Troy, eat.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he said.

  As if on cue, his stomach growled in protest. Troy’s head lowered more because somehow that was possible.

  Quin looked at Balor, who raised his eyebrows and said something in another language. The two proceeded to have some kind of question and answer banter back and forth. Given the length of their comments, I had to wonder if Quin was asking Balor if he was certain in all the languages they knew.

  “Fine,” Quin said finally.

  He reached down and grabbed the man by the back of his neck and dragged him out of sight. When he returned, he thrust his canteen at Troy.

  “Drink.”

  Troy’s hand shook as he took the canteen from Quin. He sipped, seemed to consider the taste for a moment, then began chugging from the canteen. He was drinking like a man who had been dying of thirst.

  “Please tell me normal,” I said.

  “Not all are bloodthirsty savages.”

  “I am not a savage, okay? I am a working woman who has been walking for like a week straight with only a tablet to keep me company. These six were the most entertaining part of this week. It’s just sand and sand and… oh look, more sand.”

  “And rock and shrubbery,” Balor snarled.

  “She can’t give a full description,” Quin said. “Might give us away.”

  “And since the subdermal GPS the interviewers planted on me fell out before we left, and you got Troy to deactivate the one in the tablet, the only way to give away our location is by description alone. vaguery is our friend.”

  “I don’t think vaguery is a word in the English language,” Balor said, then seemed to consider. “It should be, I think it could be a useful word.”

  “Used in place of bullshit, I could see that being very useful,” Quin added.

  “The vaguery of both of you is beyond annoying,” I said. “How long are you going to starve us?”

  “How long until you’re weaned?” Quin asked.

  “I don’t know. Wait, seriously?” I asked.

  The pair of us stared at one another for a long moment. His look was placid as could be, maybe even a little bored. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, that he’d
be that kind of cruel. Lu had been like that, but I didn’t understand the advantage to keeping me on that edge. It didn’t make me more sexual or anything else of that sort.

  He made a sound. “You’re going to be wanting a mouthful of my blood soon, aren’t you? You were greedy though, so now you have to earn it.”

  “I didn’t earn it getting a man with a great deal more experience than me back here and at your feet? How is that possible?”

  “You were greedy,” Quin said. “There was no one left to feed me.”

  “You are a full grown, entirely weaned, very old vampire. You do not get to passive aggressively whine at me and try to guilt me because you were lazy.”

  “Work on the volume and pitch, she could work very well,” Balor said.

  “Lucrecia has it down, do you know anyone else?” Quin asked.

  “Sixteen women who would come at my calling, including a daughter,” Balor said, then sighed and turned to me. “When it’s your Maker, he’s allowed to say that. Normally this is where you get beaten for insubordination.”

  “What about you? Are you also going to claim I should be feeding you?”

  “Goodness, no, my baby boy is still in his guilt phase, I caught someone to feed myself, and thus feed him, while you were struggling with the one who was intent on raping you.”

  “That was the first man. Why not just tell me the rules ahead of time. I would have broken someone’s knees for you.”

  “Unnecessary violence,” Quin murmured, then glanced at Troy out the corner of his eye.

  I think he meant to say that I was pushing Troy deeper into his little mood by being in my mood. My emotion was a completely valid one for a baby vampire. We’re meant to be little murderous hellions, damn it.

  But that was why Quin hadn’t brought it up before. Except it also got me in trouble at the same time.

  “Don’t do that to me!” I shouted.

  And then I burst into tears because I was frustrated. I was in a lose-lose situation and being punished because there was no outcome in which I was not punished.

  “That’s not the response we were expecting.”

  I wiped my eyes, trying to stop, only to break into a fresh burst of tears, sobbing away because I was even more frustrated at the lack of control I had. It was one of those angry because I was frustrated because I was crying because I was angry conundrums that I hope wasn’t unique to me.

  Quin pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head.

  “I want my cats,” I cried.

  “There it is,” he murmured, arms tightening around me. “There’s my Helen.”

  “You didn’t bring us out here for that,” I protested.

  “No, we brought you out for a quick and dirty survival lesson,” he murmured. “Also, to get us lost as could be. I’m not certain which way is home now.”

  I smacked his shoulder and then sniffed and looked around. He had told us where home would be, so I pointed.

  “That way.”

  “And why do you think that?” he asked.

  “The moon is travelling there,” I motioned from where I thought was east, up to where the moon was, then down to the west. “When you told us where home would be, you were facing that way, and then you pointed that way. I’ve been keeping track with moonrise.”

  “That’s good, except,” Quin turned me. “That’s east. You got turned around during the tussle and the excitement. The way you pointed is back into the uninhabited portion of the land, and you risk starvation.”

  “Vampires can’t die, we should be clear about that,” Balor said.

  “No, we can’t, but you put us out in a desert like this, sun and sand and all. We can get buried. It’s basically the same thing as dying. You need to know, at all times, how to get your next meal. Most vampires avoid uninhabited regions unless they have blood brought into it.”

  “So the ones at the bottom of the ocean?”

  “You never sleep, you never really shut down during starvation. It just kind of makes time seem really, really slow. We walked through the area where about six vampires disappeared into over the years.”

  “Were you hoping for a miracle?” I asked.

  “One of them is Gaia,” Quin murmured, looking back over the land we had come from. “Lost to the sand because Lu forced her out here and then harried her until she fell. Or so the story goes.”

  “Gaia is the only child of the Great Maker who didn’t turn on her,” I said. “What exactly is your plan there?”

  “Just to wake the beloved baby girl,” Quin said. “I’ve never met her. She was put under the sand before my time. But I’m told that the religion surrounding her was for a good reason. Gaia was always an Earth goddess. She might be able to do miraculous things.”

  “Vampires can’t just manipulate the world,” I said.

  “That’s not true,” Balor said. “Among vampires, those who can say, make it rain, are very rare. One in ten who have power, maybe? Of all them, only two remain alive. Gaia and my Maker’s Maker.”

  I turned to Balor and considered him for a moment. Then I looked at Quin.

  “Which one of us were you hoping would set her off?”

  “Not set her off, find her,” Quin said. “I made certain we walked through the area that Lu claimed he buried her. Either she’s too far gone, or he buried her deeper than that.”

  “Or she already escaped,” I said. “The Gaia myth seems to thread through history, and I don’t have internet access, but I’m pretty certain there’s been mention after you were turned, she seems especially popular now. I mean, I knew the name Gaia, and I think it was the Romans? Greeks?”

  “Those myths were there and simply persisted,” Balor said.

  “I think you were hoping I’d have like a flash thingy like I had with you in the bathroom that one time. But it was only a one-time thing. It’s never happened since. Sorry.”

  Quin shrugged. “It was worth a shot, and just so happened to be rugged land that we could romp over to give you a lesson. Just because we didn’t find her, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. We still achieved some training.”

  “Does this mean we can go home?” Troy asked.

  “You two are strictly off bags,” Quin said. He raised his voice when Troy tried to protest. “We will not hear it. One day the bags might not be available to you, then what? Best to deal with this now rather than later.”

  I looked around us. “So… if you don’t eat long enough, you just like, can’t move? What happens to the ones at the bottom of the ocean once they’re free?”

  “Only one has ever come back,” Quin said. “He tried to kill himself by crushing. If that actually killed us, I’m sure we would have been told about it. What happened once he washed ashore, I don’t know.”

  “Bob probably knows,” Balor said. “He was Younger Council when said vampire was Elder Council. We could ask.”

  “Seems a little weird. I mean, wouldn’t a human have to bleed into their mouths to bring them back?”

  “No,” both Makers said as one.

  They then considered one another and Balor turned away to offer Troy his wrist.

  “Like a fish who buries itself in mud for the dry season,” Quin said. “I’ve never been that far gone, but Lucrecia was a few times. We reserve just enough energy, or whatever it is that keeps us alive, to keep our heart beating. Once a human comes around, we chomp on them. Where there’s one human, there’s usually more.”

  “I’ve heard of vampires eating humans in the ghoulish sense when that starved,” Balor said. “It’s disgusting, but it’ll get you more blood.”

  “The stars are important because they’ll show you the way home, once you get your feet under you,” Quin said.

  “Home moves,” I said. “Unless you all have a vampire city somewhere.”

  Quin smiled in response.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  The smile grew wider.

  “Each faction, you see, has a city. Coun
cil’s been around for, oh, five thousand years now?”

  “That’s how you moved the Chambers so fast because you already knew where to go and how to get there. That’s the safe location.”

  “Been safe five thousand years,” Quin said with a little shrug. “All Council vampires keep a house there. So you always know the way home. Even if your stock dies off, even if your allies turn on you, you will always have a home.”

  “And the Council makes this city a no man's land?” I asked.

  “In a way,” Quin said.

  “The last vampire to cause trouble in the city disappeared.”

  “Dead,” Quin said. He arched an eyebrow and continued to look at me as Balor gaped at him. “Robbed Margaret of some biological warfare device she made before humans had labs. Family looks out for family. Before that, they’d crucify and do other things. Getting pegged under the sun was the Council’s old body condom.”

  “You said the sun doesn’t burn.”

  “Not us, you on the other hand…” Quin grimaced. “We didn’t think of it before, I mean, I haven’t been around a fledgling since Margaret. That was well over a thousand years ago. Bob’s the one that remembered.”

  I jabbed a finger at Balor. Who seemed to bob his head as if I were being annoying and he was mocking me silently.

  “His youngest is too young,” I said.

  Then I frowned, finger still pointing at Balor as I turned towards him. He began turning red.

  “The Council banned turning,” Quin said. “Balor ruled his own faction. They were brought to heel after it was discovered he had turned a young woman. What was that, three hundred years ago?”

  “Hey, how was I supposed to know?”

  “She did something worse than unleashing a plague on the world?” I asked.

  “She tried to start a religion in which she was god. In a Catholic country. Bloody unrest she caused, she’s currently in a box. And should be executed. She’s a fanatic. You never turn a fanatic.”

  “The eye,” Troy said.

  “Says the Council, that’s no bloody reason to end my empire. I would have been able to handle her.”

  “Oh yes, you so could have done that without your Warlord to back you. Face it, you were a dying faction. We just put you out of your misery.”