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

by Ramy Vance

  He was hurt and confused. Quite a crowd had gathered, staring at him with a mixture of rage and fear. My fear and their contempt was enough for Justin to piece together the clues.

  “I would never … I couldn’t …” he started.

  “But you did,” I said. “Bloody nose to prove it.”

  “Kat … I’m so sorry. I …”

  “I need to know what’s going on,” I said. “This isn’t you. This was never you.”

  “I don’t know,” he stammered. “One moment I was standing on the steps. Then I saw you trying to sneak by, and something in me just snapped. I got very angry.” That last word came out confused, and he furrowed his brow. “No, not angry. I was indignant. Like I couldn’t suffer the disrespect you showed me by trying to sulk away unnoticed. Then everything went blank.”

  Suffer the disrespect? Justin never thought like that. Hell, most humans never think like that.

  “OK,” I said, “we’ll figure this out. Let’s get out of here before the police or worse show up.”

  “Police?”

  His two friends whom he had thrown to the ground were standing at the base of the steps. One of them whispered something to the other, who nodded and took off running. From the way he moved, I very much doubted he was calling the cops.

  “Yeah … police,” I repeated. “You just assaulted me. I’m sure one of these good Samaritans called the police.” I looked around at the shocked faces, and even though the last thing I wanted was the police, my faith in humanity would have taken a terrible blow if no one called them. I mean, come on guys. Petite girl getting beat up by huge guy? That screamed 911.

  “OK,” he said. He reached out another hand.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I think I’m going to give you a wide berth and—”

  I realized my mistake too late. Justin’s eyes immediately turned blue again, this time with a snarl that reverberated.

  He charged at me again with the same berserker abandonment, but I was ready. I’d pivot and use his momentum against him. Then I’d—

  But I didn’t get to use any of my moves on him, because Isabella ran out of the Arts Building and jumped on his back, stabbing him with a syringe. As soon as she plunged the serum into his neck, Justin fell unconscious at my feet.

  “Oh, hello again,” Isabella said, still straddling him on the stairs.

  HOSPITALS, EVIL DOCTORS AND DEVIOUS PLANS

  Within minutes an ambulance showed up. Good to know the paramedics were fast. There was still no sign of the cops, which was odd. I just knew someone had called them. Too many cell phones were out, too many fingers were dialing.

  My only thought was that the World Army was suppressing the calls. GoneGodDamn their reach was far and deep.

  At first the paramedics weren’t going to let Isabella and me ride with them, asking who we were. We both answered, “Girlfriend,” in unison, and the old paramedic looked us both up and down before saying, “Both of you? Man, I was young in the wrong era,” he lamented before gesturing for us both to get in.

  We rode in silence as they carted Justin up the hill to the Royal Vic, a short ride from McGill’s Arts Building, where several doctors greeted us, taking him away on a gurney. We tried to follow, but a stern-looking nurse simply gestured at the waiting room and we knew we were sunk.

  So, yay—I was going to spend the next few hours in a sterile hospital waiting room with my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Another nurse approached me, asking if I needed help.

  “Help?” I said.

  “Your nose.” In all the hubbub, I had forgotten that Justin had bloodied my nose. “We can get that looked at.”

  “No thank you,” I said. “It’s stopped bleeding and it’s not broken. I’m OK.”

  The nurse nodded before handing me a flyer. “There is help out there,” she said and walked away.

  I looked at the flyer—it was for an abusive relationship helpline. How can I be in an abusive relationship when I’m not even in a relationship?

  Isabella giggled, evidently listening in on my thoughts.

  “What’s so funny?” I snarled.

  Her smile immediately disappeared as she lifted her hand. “Desculpa— Ahhh, sorry.”

  “It’s OK,” I said. “I get the joke. It’s just that … holy guacamole it hurts.”

  Isabella sat in the chair next to me. “Let me take a look.” She pulled out a pin-flashlight from her purse. “It’s broken.”

  “I know. I’ve broken it a few times as a vampire.”

  She nodded. “It won’t heal straight.”

  “What?”

  “It won’t heal straight,” she repeated.

  As a vampire, my nose always healed within a few hours so that you’d never know anything had happened. I guess getting your nose broken as a human was different. I couldn’t imagine my cute, perfectly formed nose crooked. “I heard you the first time. How do you know?”

  She gave me a look that said that she just knew before pulling out some tissues and licking them. She started mopping up some of the blood. “I can fix it, but it will hurt. A lot. And given our past, you’ll accuse me of hurting you extra on purpose.”

  I thought about my nose and how it was instrumental to keeping my cuteness quota up. “No, I won’t.”

  “You will,” she said, taking my hand and guiding me to the bathroom.

  ↔

  “OOOWWWW!” I screamed. “You did that on purpose.”

  “See? I told you.” She grabbed some toilet paper and wetted it. “Here, you’re bleeding again.”

  I took the tissue and looked in the mirror. I couldn’t tell what was up with it; all I saw was blood. “Is it straight?”

  “You are a vain one,” she smirked.

  “Hey, not all of us can assume any form we want. I only got one face. Is it straight?”

  “It is.”

  “Thank you.” Tossing the blood-stained tissue away, I continued to look at my nose from every angle, trying to assess how bad it was.

  Isabella started for the door, but before she could leave, I said, “What did you inject him with?”

  “A tranquilizer,” she answered without hesitation. “A powerful one.”

  “Something you just had on you? We were at the Arts Building, and somehow I don’t think Milton 101 has tranqs as part of the curriculum.”

  “I carry these with me everywhere I go these days.” She opened her purse, revealing two more syringes.

  “Why?”

  She sucked in air, debating what to say next.

  “Why?” I repeated with more force in my voice.

  “Because …” She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “An oath.”

  “Oath? The World Army made you sign an oath?”

  “No,” she said earnestly. “Justin did.”

  “What? Why would Justin make you take an oath?” Whatever the reason, I knew that Others take oaths very seriously.

  Deadly so.

  Breaking one would be the last thing they’d ever do, and if they were forced to, they’d live the rest of their lives with a heavy shame.

  She looked at me with pain in her eyes. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

  But oaths had loopholes. They always did.

  “OK,” I said, “let me take a gander at this.”

  “Gander?”

  “Archaic word for ‘guess,’ and not the point. Let me tell you what’s going on. If I’m right, then you broke no oath. If I’m wrong, then you broke no oath. All I ask is that you let me know one way or another.”

  She looked at me dubiously.

  “Justin probably said that you couldn’t tell anyone anything about what’s going on with him. But did he say you couldn’t confirm suspicions?”

  “Well, no.”

  Bingo. Justin was human, and humans were wholly unequipped for this kind of thing. I just needed to dig deeper.

  “So here’s what I suspect: Justin’s being manipula
ted by that World Army cadet program he’s in. Nod your head to confirm, shake to deny.”

  She hesitated. Then, slowly, gave a single nod.

  “I knew it. Now, my next suspicion is that he made you agree not to tell anyone because there’s some dark sh—”

  “—sugar,” Isabella jumped in. “Sorry, I used to work in a nursery. If one of the staff was about to swear, we were trained to jump in with an alternative word. You know, SH-ugar for shit, BAS-ket for bastard, FU-ire truck for, well, you know. It was important to do right by the children, which meant that not swearing in front of them was part of that.” She batted her eyes as she spoke, and I realized that Isabella was being serious. She really was that sweet.

  Sweet and kind and caring … and pretty. Arrgh, I liked her.

  I hated liking her.

  Also, she had interrupted me on purpose.

  “You don’t want to tell me anything more, do you?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just … I can’t …”

  “I know. We’re not friends, and you don’t trust me enough to reveal the truth.” I turned away in frustration. “We should go. See if there’s any news on Justin.”

  We left the bathroom and walked into the hospital hallway. We had left Justin in his bed, writhing and growling like some rabid dog, and when we returned to where they had him restrained, we were greeted by a nearly coherent Justin.

  His eyes carried with them that sky-blue tinge, but there was no murderous rage in them anymore. Standing by his bed was a woman whom I’d never seen before, stroking his hair like a loving mother.

  I say that because she wasn’t his loving mother. I’d met Justin’s mom before. Well, met was a bit of stretch. I virtually met her on Skype video chat, where being miles apart with a screen separating us, I could still feel her “You’re not good enough for my son” ire.

  Not that anyone was. Justin’s mom was super critical, not loving and such a terrible mom that she made my murderous, selfish mother seem like the Golden Girl of homemakers.

  So, who is this woman doting on Justin the way his mom never did? I thought.

  The woman looked at me and gave me a huge, inviting smile.

  Huge and inviting like a wolf in Grandma’s nightgown.

  “I’m Serena Russo,” she said, still stroking his head. Then she looked at Isabella and nodded with recognition. “Isabella. How are you doing?”

  I turned to see Isabella looking away like she’d just been caught doing something wrong. Which was odd to see, because she showed absolutely no guilt toward me, given what she did with Justin …

  “Hi, Dr. Russo,” she whispered. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “And what, not check up on one of my top recruits?”

  So she was the bitch who was messing with Justin and the others, making them into super warriors. And I’d bet money she had something to do with those birds Justin had shot down a few days back.

  Russo must have seen the contempt in my eyes as I put two and two together, because she said, unprompted, “I’m not the mad, evil scientist you think I am.”

  Somehow I doubted that, not that I said—or thought—anything out loud.

  “Then who are you?” I asked.

  Justin stirred and sighed like he was having some pleasant dream. I walked over to him and took his hand into mine. “And let me guess, this newly calm Justin is your work?”

  “A mild sedative,” she admitted. “Nothing more.”

  “A mild sedative to counter the murderous rage you’re fueling him with?”

  Serena shook her head. “You misunderstand—”

  I put up a dismissive hand, turning to Isabella. “And you know this person how?”

  “I … I work for her,” Isabella said.

  ↔

  WE WALKED out into the hallway to hash out whatever this was. Neither Isabella or I wanted to talk in front of Justin, in case things got heated and we worried him, or worse—turned him all kill, kill! again.

  Not that he showed any sign of that happening. He was so docile that I doubted whatever Russo gave him was a simple sedative.

  No way. I’d seen people come down from murderous, berserker rage … They didn’t do it like they were waking up from a pleasant dream, sedative-induced or not.

  “So?” I said, letting the word linger as I held Serena’s gaze in mind.

  She didn’t turn away—unlike Isabella, who seemed incredibly uncomfortable with Serena and me facing off.

  “So?” she repeated.

  “So what’s going on, and how the hell are you involved?”

  Serena chuckled. “Straight to the jugular.”

  I winced at this reference. As a vamp, I was a straight-to-the-jugular kind of gal, and part of me wondered if the reference was her subtly letting me know that she knew all about my secret past.

  She laughed again. “OK, I see the concerned girlfriend needs an explanation. Justin was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?” Isabella and I repeated.

  Serena nodded. “Yes, we have an aqrabuamelu on the team.”

  “Aqrabuamelu … those things are dange—”

  “Dangerous. Yes, they are,” Serena said, then narrowed her eyes as she examined me like a vet might look at a show dog or prized horse. “You’re familiar with them?”

  I nodded. “Half-man, half-scorpion. Babylonian creatures who were used to guard the gates of Shamash, the land of darkness. They’re super poisonous, and their spit is acid.”

  Serena pursed her lips and nodded appreciatively. “You know a lot about Others.”

  “I … ahhh … am in Other Studies.”

  “Still,” she said, “Other Studies doesn’t cover everything, and to recall it from memory like that…”

  Sometimes when you want to deflect a lie, tell the truth. Or at least part of it. “I have a good memory and I read a lot.” I do have a good memory. As for reading … I love audiobooks. That counts, right?

  “Evidently,” Serena said. “But did you know that aqrabuamelu have several different kinds of poisons? Some kill, some paralyze. Some give you one hell of a high. The trouble with the high, though … the down often sends people into”—she looked behind her into Justin’s room—“murderous rages. I’m afraid that Justin and some of the other cadets got Scorp to—”

  “Scorp?”

  Serena chuckled again. I was really beginning to hate that woman’s laugh. “Scorp—the aqrabuamelu’s nickname. Anyway, they convinced Scorp to give them a hit, and well, you were unfortunate enough to catch him as he was coming down.”

  “And now?” I said, nudging her aside so I could take a look at Justin.

  “And now”—she emphasized the ‘now’ in such a way that warned me her patience was wearing thin—“I gave him a slight bump from Scorp, just enough to take the edge off and not send him back into a rage.”

  Several cadets came marching in, many of whom I recognized from the frat house. “Dr. Russo,” the lead guy said. I didn’t know him, but recognized him from the bar fight with the centaur.

  “Take him to recovery,” she said.

  They started in, and I grabbed the lead guy’s arm. “Like hell you’re taking him away,” I growled.

  The lead guy made the classic mistake of trying to elbow me. Given that I was a foot and half shorter than him, I easily ducked under him and used his momentum against him to give him one hell of gut punch. Right in the solar plexus.

  He went down in a huff, and his two buddies had just started at me when Russo lifted a hand. “Enough.”

  The two stopped instantly.

  “So, a student of Others and someone who can fight. You should join us.”

  “So, what—you can experiment on me, too? I saw what Justin can do. How fast he suddenly is. How strong he is. Don’t give me the VR training bullshit that I’ve been hearing about.”

  Serena nodded. “You want the truth?”

  I tilted my head and gave her an expression that clearly said tha
t yes, I wanted the truth and, no, I doubted she’d give it to me.

  “Fine, here it is. The cadets … all of them”—she looked at the three boys in the hall—“are being given mild poisons from Scorp. The poisons are a nerve enhancer making them faster, stronger and more perceptive.”

  “Nerve enhancer? You mean steroids?”

  “No, the venom makes the synapses fire faster, that’s all. Much like nicotine, but more.”

  I turned to Isabella, who hadn’t moved during this whole exchange. But she was looking at Serena now, so that was something. “Is that possible?” I said to her.

  Isabella considered this before saying, “Yes, it is. But you’d have to isolate the active ingredient and DNA receptor in humans that would allow for such things. Very complex stuff.”

  Serena clapped her hands. “You really are one of the smartest people—Other or human—I know. To understand that so quickly. Amazing.”

  Isabella blushed at the compliment, and I gave her a light punch on her arm. “Evil scientist, drugged boyfriend. Now’s not the time to go all gooey on me.”

  The encantado cleared her throat and added, “Not only complex, but also dangerous.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. At first the cadets took the venom in stride. Their development was exponential. They had off-the-charts results and almost no side effects. But in time, well…”

  “They got mean.”

  “Aggressive,” she corrected. “But they only attack people who anger them. It is clear that you are the ex”—she nodded at me—“and Isabella is the new girl. And it is clear that Justin still has feelings for you, otherwise he wouldn’t have attacked you.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer flowers.”

  This time Serena didn’t laugh. She just shook her head. “Our experiments didn’t work, and we need to get him back to our labs to try and reverse this—”

  “Otherwise he might have a system overload,” Isabella muttered.

  “We won’t let it get to that. We’ve already had much success with some of the other cadets who rejected the venom. And Justin … well, he was the last to show symptoms, which tells me that he’s the strongest of the bunch. He’ll be fine. I promise.”

  As Serena spoke, she literally crossed her heart, and when Isabella saw that, she narrowed her eyes. It was clear Isabella didn’t trust Russo as far as she could throw her—and given the height disparity, I doubted she could even lift her off the ground.