Mortality Bites - The COMPLETE Boxed Set (Books 1 - 10): An Urban Fantasy Epic Adventure

by Ramy Vance

I’d seen it before. The Mark of the Huntress granted the cursed the ability to hunt their prey. When that happened, the focus of the cursed person’s hatred could easily shroud them from the sight of others. As a result, the cursed often appeared as a shadow to everyone else—except the one marked. You know, just to freak them out.

  And I was the one marked.

  “I got coffee all over me,” I said. “I have to nip to the bathroom.”

  Justin stood and said something, but I was already halfway through the cafe, weaving my way past tables and all the eyes staring at my arm, which was starting to sting a little.

  Not just sting—burn.

  I stepped into a bathroom covered in a patchwork of faux-sophisticate art, a wallpaper of sketches and pithy quotes crafted over the years by an assortment of McGill’s students.

  In the half-light, I lifted my hand from my arm, and a small puff of white smoke rose from the cut.

  Yes, that’s right: I emitted smoke.

  I swallowed, glanced up at my reflection in the circular mirror. If I hadn’t been ready for something wild, I might have shrieked at my own appearance.

  I looked like Katrina Darling if her mom had mated with a pink fish. That is to say, I had scales instead of smooth cheeks, and my entire body was quickly changing into another form.

  My form. The one I never wanted to see again.

  Smoke was still rising from the cut on my arm, evaporating into the air around me. As I watched it go, I realized it wasn’t your typical smoke. It had an almost airy, luminous quality about it, and a particular scent.

  Understanding hit me all at once, and I had to sit on the porcelain toilet with my face in my hands.

  My magic was being nullified, dispersing off my body and into the air. I was quickly losing the illusion I had burnt two months of my life to take on, and I didn’t know if that was temporary or forever.

  I grabbed some toilet paper off the roll, dabbed at the cut. It wasn’t bleeding, precisely—more like my magical essence was seeping out of it in a clear line. That wasn’t the color of encantado blood—ours was more a hot pink—but the color of my magic.

  I pressed the toilet paper to the cut. That Brazilian woman had done this with the claw she’d been carrying. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to render it in my mind. It had been about a foot in length, which meant the creature it once belonged to was big. Enormous.

  And it was curved and razor-sharp, which meant it wasn’t just for clawing and gripping—it was for ripping, tearing. Killing.

  My eyes opened, and I stared at one of the pithy sayings written on the wall across from me: When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

  A knock sounded on the door. “Kat? It’s Justin.”

  I shot up from the toilet, and would have spun back to the mirror if I didn’t flop over onto the floor. I gasped, which came out squeakier than I’d hoped. When I glanced down, a pink fish tail stared back at me.

  I’d lost my legs.

  CHAPTER 5

  I n Brazil, some consider the encantado an enchantress. Some consider her mesmerizing, and they desire to see one as much as they fear it, for she is considered irresistible.

  Here’s the thing about those dreams: they’re an illusion. An illusion of a young, beautiful woman.

  The true encantado, without pretense or facade, will flop around on the bathroom floor of a coffee shop in Montreal like Darryl Hannah in Splash, but she will not be so graceful, nor so charming.

  Because the true encantado form is something between a mermaid and a dolphin, with a mermaid’s general shape—fishlike lower body, human upper body—and a dolphin’s voice. A pink dolphin’s voice. Except we’re much more intelligent—no insult to dolphins, who tend to be kinder.

  “One second!” I tried to call, but a series of squeaks came out between my rows of serrated teeth.

  Oh yeah—I forgot about the serrated teeth.

  All in all, we’re the bizarro mermaids. The ones from your nightmares.

  “Kat?” Justin called through the door. “What was that noise?”

  That claw had completely nullified my magic; every bit of my illusion had left me, and while I was still Isabella Ramirez on the inside, if Justin were to walk into this bathroom right now, he wouldn’t see anyone he recognized.

  He would only see a creature. A fish.

  Ugly. Abhorrent. A fearful, strange thing.

  He kept knocking, saying Kat’s name. And I knew, with a leap of the heart, that he wouldn’t just leave. He wouldn’t go until he felt everything was set right, until he heard Kat’s voice saying, “It’s OK, Justin. I’m OK.”

  What a thing, to have someone care about you like that.

  I stilled on the floor. If only I could regain her voice, I could tell him everything was OK, that I needed more time. I closed my eyes, willing my magic to work. After I had assumed an illusion once, I could shift between forms almost seamlessly, only burning a second or two of my life to bring back a previous illusion.

  I tried to bring back Katrina. Normally I’d feel the magic working, flitting over me like a static breeze, but I felt a whole lot of nothing.

  And now there was someone else in the hallway—a young woman’s voice. One of the baristas, asking Justin if everything was all right with me. She offered to get a key and open the door.

  I wanted to cry, “No!” but it would have only produced another squeak.

  So I squeezed my eyes shut harder, tensing my entire body. This time the magic came leaking out, drop by drop, like water from a faucet.

  Goddess Yemoja! My magic was slowly returning.

  I heard the barista’s keyring jangling outside the door, and I tested my voice. “Hey!”

  The keys paused. “Kat?” came Justin’s voice. “You sound … strange.”

  Well, I might have been higher-pitched, but at least I was forming words. “I’m fine. I just need a few more minutes,” I said. “This coffee is really hard to get out of white cotton.”

  “I’ll just wait at the table for you, then.”

  The magic was leaking out a little faster now, but not fast enough for me to finish the illusion while we were talking. Not nearly fast enough.

  “No—I don’t want to keep you waiting. Let’s just meet up later, OK?”

  “It’s fine. I don’t mind waiting, Kat. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

  “Just go,” I pleaded. “I’ll find you in an hour or two.”

  “I’ll be in class in an hour—“

  “Then I’ll find you later tonight at the house!” I snapped.

  He didn’t answer right away, and I wanted to let him know that this wasn’t me—I wasn’t the angry type. These were just extenuating, fishlike circumstances, and I really couldn’t have him seeing me in this state.

  But I didn’t say any of those things. I could sense Justin debating what to do while I lay on the floor in a writhing ball of anxiety and shame. In the end, he only said, “OK, Kat. See you later.” And I heard the door close behind him. I guess their fight had left Justin wary of outright disobeying her. Whatever happened had happened because he ignored her boundaries or demands.

  As much as I wanted to yell out for him to come back, what was done was done. He was gone, and I had successfully managed to alienate the one person I wanted to be near.

  ↔

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, after a great deal of flopping and cursing, Katrina Darling finally emerged from the bathroom. Except this Katrina Darling looked like hell. Her shirt had a tear, her hair was out of place, and she had a hollow-eyed look like she’d seen some things.

  At least I’d been able to get the illusion back.

  When I emerged from the hallway, I peered around the cafe. The place looked exactly as it had when Justin and I arrived, which was to say, no old Brazilian women with claws.

  And then the thought struck me: Brazilian. That woman had spoken Portuguese and she’d had the Mark of the Huntress. That particular curse was unique to just a few v
illages of the Amazon rainforest, and provided exceptional power. But more importantly, she was of my culture, and perhaps of my past.

  I hurried out of the cafe and headed straight for my dorm. Aimee would be in right now, taking her midday nap—or at least, she would be if she had recovered from the whole giant wolf attack.

  On that note, I thought as I came into the stairwell and started climbing, I hadn’t checked on her after everything had happened in the dining hall. Instead, I had gone straight to Justin’s place and forgotten about my roommate entirely.

  I made a face; I was being a terrible best friend.

  “Please be OK, please be OK,” I whispered as I emerged into our hallway and yanked out my room key from my bag. I didn’t hear anything on the other side of the door.

  When I opened the dorm room door, I let a sigh. Aimee was there in bed, sleeping. She rolled over when I came in, bleary eyes opening. “Hey...” Then she sat up with a suddenness that made me stop hard. “Katrina?”

  Right—I hadn’t told her about my new illusion.

  “Aimee,” I said, putting my hands out, “let me explain.”

  Her eyebrows came together. “How did you get in here? Why do you have a key?”

  “It’s Isa,” I said. “It’s your roommate.”

  She looked at me like she’d seen a very rare and very extinct creature, and then anger clouded her blue eyes. “Seriously? You burned time to look like Katrina Darling?”

  I slumped onto my desk chair. “Please don’t judge me right now. I can’t handle it. Not after the past twenty-four hours.”

  She angled herself toward me, the comforter pulling around her. “What happened to your arm?”

  I glanced down to where the ribbon of my sleeve revealed the angry cut from the claw. “An old Brazilian woman slashed me with a foot-long claw in the coffee shop.”

  One of the things I liked best about Aimee: she had a strong nurturing instinct. As soon as I’d said it, instead of questioning me further, she leapt from the bed and went straight for the first-aid kit. “Take your shirt off.”

  “Don’t you want to know why an old Brazilian woman attacked me at the coffee shop?” I said from behind the veil of my shirt as I pulled it over my head.

  “She’s the same woman who came into our English class.” Aimee ripped the wrapping off a sanitizing wipe and pressed it to the cut on my arm.

  I hissed through my teeth, keeping my eyes on her face instead of what she was doing to my cut; I was a geneticist who hated the sight of blood or the body’s insides. Go me. “How’d you know?”

  Aimee kept dabbing, intent on the cut. “How many old South American women are wandering around McGill’s campus in the middle of winter?”

  “Point taken.” I watched her with heart-swelling fondness. “I’m glad you’re OK after, you know …”

  Her blue eyes met mine. “After a giant wolf crashed through the dining hall window?”

  I made a face, nodded. “Yeah, that.”

  She pulled out some sticky white sutures from the kit, pressed them one at a time over my cut. “I don’t know what’s going on, Isa, but I assume it’s an encantado thing. And to be honest, it terrifies me.”

  My eyebrows went up. She seemed so together at this moment, but now that she’d said it, I saw the slight tremor in her hands. I knew she dealt with strong anxiety all the time; Aimee was just trying to hold it together.

  I set my hand on her shoulder. “I think it’s best if you sleep elsewhere for the next few nights.”

  She finished treating my wound, leaned back. “You’re kicking me out of our dorm?”

  “With the best of intentions.”

  “That creature was here for you,” she said. “I saw it chase you out of the dining hall.”

  I swallowed. “I think you’re right.”

  “And it’ll come back.”

  “I think it will.”

  She scrutinized me, her eyes traveling over my face and body. “And why the hell do you look like Katrina Darling?”

  “It’s a long story.” I stood to grab a sweater from my closet—and to put some distance between me and Aimee.

  Aimee stood. “You’re pretending to be her because she’s been gone for the last three weeks.” It wasn’t a question.

  I stood in front of my open closet, staring at the selection of subpar clothing. Nothing in here was anything like what I’d seen Katrina wearing, which was what always seemed to happen when I admired people. I could recreate every detail—the appearance, the wardrobe, the same perfume—but it all felt off-brand on me, like knockoffs. All the magic would go, and it would just be a purse, a sweater, a pair of boots.

  “I just wanted to see what it would be like. Just for one night,” I said into the void of my closet.

  “What did you say?” Aimee said.

  I grabbed a sweater, turned back toward her. “I just wanted to see.”

  She nodded slowly, non-judgmentally. But I could tell that wasn’t true, just because I knew Aimee—she didn’t approve of what I’d done. “You need to shift back.”

  “I can’t right now.” A million reasons flitted through my mind as to why: I had just burned more of my life in that stupid coffee shop to resume my illusion and I wasn’t about to give it up this fast; I needed to talk to Justin about what had happened and I had promised to meet him after class. On and on they went, but what they really boiled down to was one thing.

  I just didn’t want to.

  “Why not?” Aimee asked.

  I yanked the sweater on, my head popping through the neckhole like a creature being birthed. “Aimee, a woman slashed me with a claw the size of a stalagmite. There’s a massive wolf roaming around campus, probably looking for me. Can we focus on those things right now?”

  “Do you think they’re related?”

  I stopped, the sweater half-adorned. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think the old Brazilian woman with the claw has something to do with the wolf?”

  I slow-blinked. Then, “Four claws.”

  “Four claws?” she repeated.

  “I think the wolf was missing a claw on its left forepaw.”

  “Between the growling and the big teeth, I don’t recall.”

  I waved my hands through the air. “Hold on! Let me think.” I screwed my eyes shut, recreating the scene in my mind. The creature bursting through the glass, stalking through the dining hall. Chasing us into the street, running above us on the buildings.

  There. It was in that moment when I’d glanced up, seen the lobisomem above Justin and me, that I caught a proper view of the left forepaw. It was missing the second claw—the equivalent of its pointer finger being shorn off at the first knuckle.

  I opened my eyes, and Aimee and I stared at each other. “Holy shit,” I said.

  “You’re cursing in English. That’s never good.”

  I pulled the sweater fully on. “Well, it isn’t good.”

  This old woman, whoever she was, had received incredible power from her curse. She had somehow ripped the claw from that wolf and attacked me with it.

  I was her target. Consequently, I was this creature’s target. This creature, whose claws—and probably teeth—could interfere with my illusions. My magic.

  I grabbed my coat and bag. “Aimee, promise me you’ll find somewhere else to sleep for the next few nights. I don’t want it coming here for me and finding you.”

  She stood from the bed, enfolded me in a hug. “Where are you going?”

  I sighed into her arms. “Elsewhere. It’s best for you right now if I just stay away.”

  She leaned back, stared at me. “What do you mean, ‘elsewhere?’ ”

  Frankly, I didn’t know. I only knew I needed to talk to Justin, to warn him. And a small part of my brain returned: “Do you really need to warn him? Can’t you just stay away from him?”

  But, like any creature of obsession, the chemically-influenced part of my mind insisted on it. I needed to see him before night
came.

  I refocused on Aimee. “I’m going to take care of all this.”

  “Isa, you’re not Katrina Darling.” Her hands slid to enfold my own. “You’re different, and that’s OK. You don’t have to try to be tough like her.”

  I squeezed her hands. “Don’t worry,” I said, which seemed to reassure her. “Just start packing a bag and be out before tonight, OK?”

  She nodded. “I’ll go to Elisa’s.”

  Our pixie friend Elisa, a sophomore who lived in another dorm. Perfect.

  As I stepped out of the dorm, I knew Aimee was right: I wasn’t Katrina Darling, and I wouldn’t try to be. I would find Justin, deliver my cryptic warning, and get the hell away from the people I cared about.

  But first, I had to confirm my suspicions.

  CHAPTER 6

  By the time I arrived at the biology building and found Professor Allman's class, it was in full swing. Through the small window, I saw him lifting the furry replica of a hawk.

  After a year in his classes, if I knew one thing about that man, it was that he really loved birds—real and imagined.

  I stood outside the door, glanced at the wall clock. When had it gotten to be after three? That gave me about two, maybe three hours until dusk. I needed to be well away from Montreal before dusk. At this rate, I wouldn’t even make it to the outskirts of the city.

  After twenty minutes someone pushed the door open, and out bustled thirty students. I waited until they'd all filed past, and then I stepped into the almost empty biology classroom.

  Inside, I found Professor Allman staring back at me, paused in the middle of erasing a whiteboard. He was an older man, two tufts of white hair floating around his head, but his green eyes were sharp, and he had the voice of a much younger man.

  “Hello,” he said. He should have recognized me, but with a start, I realized I wasn’t the Isabella Ramirez he knew. He didn’t know me at all. “How can I help you?”

  The anxiety of being a stranger to him gripped me in its vise. “I ... was thinking of signing up for your Other studies biology class, and I had a few questions.”

  “By all means.” He waved me over. "What's your name?"