Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

MY LIFE AS A DEAD GIRL

By now, you would think I should be used to waking up in strange places, with strange creatures standing over me. You would think wrong.

I spring up from my bed, defensively scrunching my body against the headboard. The room is dark, save for the misty morning glow from the tiny window. At the foot of my bed is a beast, much larger than any human I’ve ever met—even bigger than Mert. The beast stands upright, on two feet, and it’s covered from head-to-toe in hair. Its arms are longer than its torso; its mouth protrudes out from its face.

There’s a goddamn Bigfoot staring at me.

With a grunt, the creature leans forward and drops a large cardboard box down on the creaky floors. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” the creature says with an unnervingly casually slowness.

My instincts speak for me, saying, “Please don’t kill me.”

“Kill you? I’m just dropping some things off. Figured, by the looks of you, you haven’t eaten in some time. There’s some food here—isn’t much, unfortunately, just what the kitchen had leftover from breakfast. I also brought some water bottles and some fresh towels. I realized after I dropped you off yesterday, there weren’t any towels in the room. We don’t usually keep towels in this room, seeing as we stopped renting it out after all the complaints.” I don’t hear most of what he says. All I hear is ‘I’m a talking monster and I’m going to eat you alive.’

My body remains rigid, unmoved. My eyes are dry, but still insist of remaining open, refusing to blink. “What are you?” I manage to ask.

“Excuse me, miss?” the Bigfoot says.

“You—you aren’t human. What the hell are you?”

“Human? Of course I’m not human. I’m therian. Wait—do you mean, why am I shifted? Oh, well, I’m sorry. My back isn’t so good these days. Going up and down stairs and carrying heavy boxes isn’t so easy for me these days. I know it’s not technically polite and all to shift in public, but almost everything’s ventice these days. But I’m sorry if I offended you.” Those words again: ventice, therian, shifted…

Keeping my body still, I carefully, slowly reach out for the lamp on the bed stand. Without looking away from the creature, I flick on the light. Standing at the foot of my bed is an eight foot tall ape, with long, orange fur all over its body, except for its face and the palm of its hands. It’s an orangutan.

“I can shift back, if it’d make you more comfortable,” the ape says. It sounds confused. It doesn’t know the meaning of the word confused.

It reaches out and plants one of its giant hands on the bedframe. Leaning forward, it shrinks down and its fur recedes into its body—into a collared shirt and a pair of slacks. The orangutan is now the old man. He stands upright, eliciting a series of loud cricks and cracks and an uncomfortable grunt. “Is that better?” he asks.

“How did you do that?” I ask.

“What’s that?”

“Change into a monkey?”

He scowls, as if I said something offensive. He pushes up his spectacles, squints, and stares at me. “Where’d you say you were from?”

“I didn’t. I’m from Ilium.”

“Ilium? The human city?”

“I’m starting to think so,” I say, my eyes finally blinking, my lungs finally filling with air.

“You’re human?”

It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. “Yes.”

“How curious. I heard they were starting to let humans in, these days.” The old man looks around the room and then sits down on the box he just delivered.

“And you… You’re not human?”

He laughs. “No. I’m therian. Mother was a primean. Father was a primean. I’m full-blooded primean.”

“Primean?”

“You really are new here, aren’t you?” He pushes up his glasses again and tilts his head. He’s studying me, suddenly very interested in every little movement I make. “Primeans are from Primea. Used to be its own nation, now it’s just another Therian province.”

When I ask what Theria is, his interest turns to fascination. He starts to explain everything. Theria is a country. Territs are therian money. The golden territs that Freddie is so obsessed about are worth the most—one thousand “marks.” Ten marks makes a bit. Ten bits make a crown. Ten crowns make a big crown. Ventice, another word that has come up more than once in the past week, is a material that vanishes and becomes dormant while its wearer is ‘shifted’ in their animal form.

According to the old man, therians control the human world. Every human city is somewhere inside of Theria. The roads that connect human cities are carefully built to keep humans as far from therian cities as possible. The old man claims his brother used to work for a department called ‘Regulation.’ His job was to design fake maps to make humans think they’ve explored and conquered the whole world. Supposedly, he also helped build the set for the moon landing, so humans would stop blowing themselves up trying to launch themselves at the moon inside of giant missiles.

Until recently, humans weren’t allowed to know about Theria. The new therian leader recently announced something called “The Gradual Disclosure Program,” but the old man was under the impression they hadn’t started yet.

“It’s amazing how quickly that’s happening,” the old man says, nodding his head slowly.

I need to be careful or my curiosity is going to get me killed.

Surely, the Pesconi mansion isn’t just the biggest house in town. Judging by the size of it, and its central location, it’s safe to assume Carmine Pesconi has some weight in this town, which the old man tells me is called Vianna.

It’s also safe to assume, given his overwhelming interest, if this old man has any friends, he’s going to tell them about the fascinating human girl staying at his inn. How long before that gets back to Pesconi? How long before I’m no longer a rat carcass in Pesconi’s vents?

“Who lives in that house?” I point out the little window at the Pesconi mansion.

“Oh,” the old man says. He’s slow to respond, considering his words carefully. “That’s a big topic for another day.” Planting his hand on the bedframe, he pulls himself to his feet. “I should get back to the desk. Don’t forget to eat some breakfast.”

“Wait. Who is he?”

“He’s a very rich man.”

“Is he the mayor, or something?” I ask.

The old man stops and looks at me. He pushes his glasses up his nose before straightening out his back. “Sure. I guess he’s like a mayor.” He smiles and then turns again to leave.

“Wait,” I say. The old man stops with one foot out the door. “Please don’t tell anyone about me.”

He peeks into the hallway and then closes the door. “How did you know he was a he?” he asks, keeping his voice low.

The question catches me off-guard. “I just assumed,” I say.

He steps into the room, away from the door. “Look—I don’t know where you came from, how you got here, or why you’re here. I’ve owned this inn for sixty years, and I’ve never met a human. I’ve heard some things, sure. I heard about that human girl in Old Theria—she got herself in a lot of trouble. Don’t know what happened to her, not sure I want to know. What I do know is, there were lots people asking around about her—came and asked me here, too. They didn’t seem to happy with whatever she did.”

He pushes up his spectacles and squints. “I won’t tell anyone about you. You seem like a nice-enough girl. But if people come asking me about you, I’m going to tell them what I know. It’s nothing personal, now. I’ve owned this inn for sixty years; live here, too. I don’t want to see it burning down to the ground anytime soon.” He looks out the window at Pesconi’s mansion. “I don’t want them coming around here. Got it?”

He stands still, waiting for my response. “Got it,” I say.

“I’ve got a friend that might be able to take you back to Ilium. He runs a carriage company here in town.”

“I can’t go back to Ilium.”

“Where can you go?”

I shrug. There’s probably a warrant out for my arrest in every human city, and I don’t know where in Theria I can hide from Pesconi and the gypsies. I’ve become an unwanted drifter, on the lam from two different species.

“I suggest you figure that out sooner rather than later. If you like the sunshine, I might recommend Cidessa.” He walks back to the door. “You’re welcome to stay here until you figure it out.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

THE GHOST OF VIANNA

The cardboard box contains a hefty bag of granola, a bottle of juice, three bottles of water, three clean towels, an umbrella, and a familiar velvet bag. In the bag is a handful of territs, a few bits, a few marks, and a small, rolled-up note. It reads, “For some clothes.” The warm, fuzzy sense of gratitude is short-lived, replaced by the cold reminder that I’ve been reduced to a pathetic charity case as I pocket the money.

I can’t say no to new clothes. The only clothes I have are torn, tattered, and foul-smelling, and I don’t think the smell of rat feces is coming out anytime soon. It’s bad enough I need to wear the vile clothing out of the inn, even if it is just across the street to the little clothing shop, Siren’s.

It’s no Gucci, but it does the trick—and it’s cheap enough that I still have a couple of bits and marks leftover. I’m just happy to have clean clothes on my body, clothes that aren’t stained with blood and poop and grease and god-knows what else. In the same purchase, I pick up a big pair of sunglasses that cover far more of my face than any pair of sunglasses should, and a thick scarf, which I wrap around my head like a shawl.

Vianna is a beautiful city, built in sections over a lake, connected by a series of cobblestone bridges. From what I gather, it’s usually raining in Vianna, but the rain is nothing like Ilium’s heavy, polluted, clothes-piercing rain. Vianna’s rain is light, misty, and it makes everything sparkle and glow and no one seems to mind.

In my perusing of the town, I come across a familiar logo: BV. The Beaunelle Vianna store. A series of porosus leather handbags are displayed through the shop’s picture window. Within moments of stepping inside, I wish I’d kept Freddie’ territ stash. With the few bits and marks that I have, I can’t even afford to look at the gorgeous selection of shoes, purses, and jackets—never mind buy anything.

Shops like Beaunelle Vianna are in abundance throughout Vianna. Every block deserves an entire day of window-shopping and exploration. This town could turn a careless billionaire to dust in minutes. For the price of one pair of Max Vettore shoes, I could have bought my whole wardrobe three-hundred times over—and still had some territs leftover for a nice steak dinner.

I don’t spend nearly as much time as I’d like on the expensive side of town, knowing that, if I’m going to find Porsha Pesconi anywhere, it’s there.

Navigating Vianna is easy. The town’s many islands form an inner-circle and an outer-circle around the Pesconi mansion, and the mansion is tall enough to be seen from any of the artificial islands. Remembering which side of the mansion I could see from my room, and how far into the distance it was, I easily relocate the inn.

The lobby is empty, but I can hear music coming from an open door. With my shawl and sunglasses still on, I investigate the noise, grabbing a handful of travel pamphlets from a rack on the wall. The door connects the inn with a pub—the pub the old man warned me gets loud at night.

With my sunglasses still on, the small pub is a black void. With them off, it isn’t much better. It’s tightly packed and the ceiling is low, held up by thick wooden beams that grace the top of my head as I pass under them. Each table is contained in its own cozy three-walled nook. Each little nook opens in a different direction, with seemingly no specific arrangement, some with lights hanging overhead, some tucked away in shadows. All the drinkers in the bar are the same: older men, sitting alone, no different from their Ilium counterparts.

The bartender is the cleaned-up version of his patrons; his grey beard trimmed at his neckline, his dry, peppery hair slicked back, his beer-belly supported by his tucked-in shirt. He smiles and nods and tells me to sit wherever I’d like. I like the dark end of the bar. I’m not interested in being recognized.

I order a beer but don’t recognize any of my options, so I tell him to surprise me. I lay the pamphlets out in front of me. These are my options. One of these destinations is my future home. My future, decided by a handful of cheesy travel brochures.

“From out of town?” the bartender asks, startling me as he returns with my beer.

“Yeah. Just visiting.” I smile.

“Where you visiting from?”

“Cidessa,” I say, hoping I said the name right.

He smiles and nods. “Beautiful town. I used to go with my family every year, when I was a kid. Man, I miss that place. Hey—is that clam bar still there? You know, the one on the waterfront?”

I smile. “Yeah, but some new owners took it over a couple years ago, and it hasn’t been the same.”

“Aw, that’s a shame. I’m always telling my kids about that place. I’m always saying, one day, we need to go to Cidessa and you need to try these clams.”

“They’re still good.”

“What was that place called again? Gosh, I can’t remember for the life of me.” He buries his face in his hand while he tries to remember.

“The Deep Blue Sea,” I say.

His eyes light up. “Right—that’s right. The Deep Blue Sea Clam Bar.” Another patrons waves the bartender over. He says, “Well, enjoy Vianna,” before leaving me alone to assess my options.

#

In the center of my pile is the pamphlet for Cidessa. It’s a lovely pamphlet, with a picture of a long, sandy beach, a vast, cerulean ocean, and an adorable boardwalk with adorable little shops, and restaurants—one of which is labelled: The Deep Blue Sea Clam Bar. I slip the pamphlet into my pocket; I’ll look at it later.

Of my other options, the only one I recognize is Old Theria. It’s a beautiful cliffside town, but from the sounds of it, they aren’t the biggest fans of human girls. I put the pamphlet aside. The other options are interesting, but it’s a pamphlet that reads, “Fishing Vacations in Asgard” that catches my attention. Unlike the other choices, unlike Vianna, and unlike Ilium, Asgard looks slow. No one in the pictures looks like they’re in a hurry to be anywhere and no one is competing to be better than anyone else.

I’m tired of trying to stay ahead. I’m tired of clawing my way to the top, buying the most expensive clothes to impress people I don’t even care about. Asgard may not be the most picturesque of the options, but there is something appealing about it, something exciting.

I fold up the pamphlets and stick them into my pocket. So consumed with the brochures and my wandering fantasies, I didn’t notice the time passing and the volume in the pub rising as it filled up with eager drinkers.

Too crowded for my liking.

I drop a few marks on the bar, stand up, and scan the place for the bartender. He waves and nods his head. “Be sure to stop by the Deep Blue Sea for me sometime!” he calls out. A few of the patrons turn their heads to me. Then, I notice him—

Mel.