Other Than

Inc.

He materialized in the inky shadow.

Or rather his apparition did. His ghostly frame hovered before her, sinuous and lithe. Against his shadowed form, the string glimmered like liquid silver. Slowly he unwrapped her, tossing the spectral bands to the floor until a coil lay between him and her.

Something inside her chest fluttered. You followed me.

An accusation.

He nodded. With a slight shrug, he spread his hands. You shouldn’t be alone.

She wanted to turn, giving him her back, but her betraying gaze remained fixated upon him. When he paced around her, she waved him away. Don’t.

He caught her hand and placed an insubstantial kiss in her palm. Let me help you…please.

A gallant gesture, perhaps, but her skin-slider sensitivity noted the rigidity of his stance, the twitch along his jaw, and the slight narrowing of his eyes. How could he think of helping her when he was in so much pain?

Ordinarily, she might be grateful. Might…if loss hadn’t hollowed her.

She ripped her cooling flesh from his spectral arms. I don’t deserve kindness.

Good. He gave her a rakish smirk. Because I’m not kind.

She shook her head, biting back the emerging smile that had no place on her countenance. She couldn’t be civil, couldn’t risk the involvement. I can’t go on like this—stuck betwixt life and death.

You must. Don’t you see, sweet dove? You’re beyond both. You’re immortal. Like me.

Praise for Mia Jo Celeste

OTHER THAN has won a number of awards, but these are the ones Ms. Celeste is proudest of:

First place in the From the Heart Romance Writer’s 2009 Wallflower’s Opening Hook Category and the 2011 Dixie Kane Memorial Contest;

Second place in the Wisconsin Romance Writers’ 2010 Fabulous Five Contest—Paranormal Category.

~*~

Judges have commented—

Absolutely beautiful writing. I love the voice, the language, and the story you’ve put in my mind…

You had me from start to finish.

Your premise is wonderfully fresh! Well done.

Your way with words instantly pulled me in.

~*~

While readers have said—

Though I’ve watched countless zombie movies, I really don’t like them, yet I’m more than willing to keep on reading this—anxious to read more, actually.

Evie comes alive on the page…

Other Than

by

Mia Jo Celeste

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Other Than

COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Brenda Nelson-Davis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Black Rose Edition, 2017

Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1176-0

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1177-7

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To my supportive family, encouraging friends, first readers, writing teachers, and critique partners.

Thanks for having faith in me.

And to those who will read Other Than,

I pray that you’ll come to believe.

~

For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.

(The New Living Bible, Romans 8:38-39)

Chapter One

The Americas along the New England Coast, the Fifteenth of August in the year of Our Lord, 1774

Sometimes illness wheedles life away like a wave pilfers sand, and sometimes, greedy as a forest fire, illness devours life. So it was with Evangeline’s fever. Healthy during the day, Evie felt weary in the evening and died with the dawn.

Much later, her body cold, she came to herself. Flat on her back, arms heavy across her waist, she blinked in the thick-starless black. A coffin?

She rasped, tried to draw breath and got none of the moist air inside the box with her.

The sob she couldn’t quite contain broke free.

She was dead, but this was no afterlife she’d ever fathomed. Let alone wanted.

She’d died, yet her soul hadn’t departed. She tarried, stuck in flesh, as if her fervent desire to stay with her father held her.

Like all other moments in her life, he’d been beside her just after dawn when her fever-blistered skin chilled and her heart sputtered to a halt.

Eyes sharp with urgency he’d leaned over her, his fingers smoothing her sweat-slicked hair. Listen, darling daughter, this illness isn’t natural. Those the disease takes awaken after death.

Don’t want to, she’d gasped. Don’t. Let me.

Whatever happens, I’ll see you through. He pressed his tepid lips to her cold forehead.

She couldn’t leave him. Not when they only had each other. As skin-sliders hiding among humans, they were a tribe of two. He needed her. Yet, against her ardent longing, she stopped drawing in air. Her chest stilled.

Her stare fixed on her father’s craggy, sorrow-filled brow until…he closed her eyelids. The world went black. Life and consciousness should have gutted out like a spent candle. Her spirit should have ascended.

Instead, she lingered, her consciousness sodden wreckage in the still pond of her corpse. She’d been aware when her father shut her in the coffin, when he argued with men and a scuffle ensued and when the victors had carried off her coffin.

Who knew what fate befell her father. Another sob gurgled free.

Presently she and her coffin rested in a place that dipped and rocked and creaked and groaned. Water seeped through the silk of her petticoats and into her bone stays. She itched with the salty damp. Where was she?

Squinting, she called on her shape-altering skin to shift her eyes to make use of the dim light. Only pine surrounded her.

Outside her coffin, a mouse pattered across a slick floor. Even after the little rodent scurried out of hearing distance, she tracked it, sensing the creature by some heretofore-unknown ability. The mouse tugged on her awareness as though it was a magnet and she a lump of iron. Her stomach burbled, indicating what? Hunger? Sickness? More of the new nature she didn’t want?

She had to get out, free herself of her confines and discover where she was. Then she needed to find her father. She concentrated, commanding her sluggish limbs. At last, her arms jerked to the coffin’s cover. She pushed hard. The lid didn’t give.

Pounding would summon someone to let her out; however, the noise would also alert the people who’d stolen her and their administrations might be worse than death. They could be superstitious zealots; those who tortured or killed the fey and the odd among them. Her father was a physician, healing others and doing good. Still the inquisition had hunted him, forcing their flight from Spain and their journey to the New World. She hadn’t been a cadaverous unknown then, just different—a person, who could change her appearance at will. Now who knew what she was. Her throat tightened, but crying had to wait. She needed to free herself from the box.

She ran her fingers across the pine. Grooves ran along the coffin’s sides—no, a single long groove held the lid, which might slide. She pressed her hands against the wood and shoved. The lid opened.

She sat up.

A lantern overhead swayed, but so did the entire space. She grabbed the edge of the coffin to steady herself. A drop of water splashed her finger. Water trickled across the bowed room’s wooden sides and dripped from above. Probably the reason a mop stood jammed in a bucket ready for duty. Ladders led up to closed hatches in the ceiling and poked up from open ones in the floor. Heavy oaken beams contrasted with the cheap pine boxes. She was on a ship, under the deck, among trunks, crates, barrels, and coffins.

Four neat rows of presumably full coffins stacked on one side, except for hers and one other. Why had hers been set apart? More importantly, why were corpses stored like supplies?

Everyone dismembered, burned, or at the very least, buried bodies in danger of reanimating. Why would anyone risk transporting them?

After several tries, she clambered out of the coffin and fell to a smooth plank floor. Sprawled on the planking, Evie caught sight of her gray skin. She’d reverted to her true, skin-slider form—a fey, hairless creature whose sleek symmetry, large eyes, and silver hue provoked those who feared the different to think of her as something other than human.

Unlike the mouse, she had no glowing aura around her. Another sign that she was one of the cursed dead?

People strode across the deck overhead, their life energy pooled under them in luminescent man-shaped stains. She licked her lips, and her stomach growled. Craving them? Their energy? She shivered.

The nearest hatchway thudded open. A bare foot stepped onto the top rung.

Her chest tightened. What would he do if he saw her? She heaved herself back into the coffin and slid the lid shut.

The person crept over the wooden floor with pauses and trepidation, a thief but not a skilled one.

He crept over to her box and then just stood there, breathing in short snorts. Why did he have to pick hers?

She peeked through the crack she’d made by not closing the lid completely. The short man’s thickly lined countenance and bent back told of many years at sea. He smelled of fried dough and salted meats. Zounds. Fried Dough grouped his breeches.

The rung at the top of the ladder creaked. Someone else descended. Quickly. Quietly. Moving with a skin-slider’s grace, he glowed as brightly as the shiny buckles on his leather boots and the flintlock in his belt, no common sailor. He might be the captain. Or he might be her father.

Her heart fisted. No. It couldn’t be her sire. The possibility he’d survived and somehow found her was too great to hope for. Still she had to know. If only Fried Dough got out of her line of sight.

No luck. Fried Dough fumbled with the lid.

Brass Buckles stepped to the floor. Black jacket, breeches, and waistcoat, the man was elegantly dressed from the ebony feather in his three-cornered hat to his glossy shoes. He was as well-turned out as her father usually sought to be. If he was her father, his countenance would be craggy. Little help now though, since she couldn’t see his face.

Would he aid her or join in Fried Dough’s folly?

Whatever either man’s purpose, she had to be ready. She concentrated, willing her skin to change. A tickle like thousands of spiders creeping along her flesh assured her although slowly, maybe too slowly, her skin obeyed. Her skin-slider senses registered the shifts in her appearance. Sight wasn’t required. She felt changes in coloring in the way a person knew where she placed her hand or foot. Her silver flesh turned to beige. She transformed into a bony, flat-chested, straight-hipped girl, more child than woman—curve-less and plain.

Hair was the hardest. She strained. Her body quivered, but she managed only the wispy fuzz of baby hair. Fine. It fit her touch-me-not aim. As the lid slid back, she appeared human and ordinary.

The compartment air swept over her along with Fried Dough’s whiskey breath. Pretty, young thing, reckon you’re ole Clive’s treat.

Sweet Lord, she’d picked the wrong form. Still she hoped the corpse-cold of her skin might dissuade him. She kept motionless. Dead. I’m dead.

His hand, greasy with sweat, stroked her hair. Where was Brass Buckles? Was he padding across the planking?

Fried Dough touched her cheek.

Even with her eyes closed, she sensed the glow of his energy. Hunger curdled in her stomach. Her dry throat itched. She wanted to grab and pull him to her to feed. Inside she cringed. What kind of abomination was she becoming? Hidden in her skirts, her hands twitched. Stay still. Stay still. Stay still.

Then ole Clive ran his slick finger over her lips.

Too much. She bit down hard, nipping him, drawing blood.

Clive recoiled.

She savored the salty tang across her tongue. More, she wanted more. The temptation to swallow the liquid that would sate her hunger bashed against her aversion to drinking blood like jagged rocks scoring a beached hull. She wouldn’t sup on another. Her chest heaved. She opened her eyes.

Brass Buckles seized Clive’s shirt and spun the man around. To shield her?

He shook Fried Dough so that the smaller man’s backside thwacked the wood. I don’t even want to imagine what you’re doing. If the captain knew, he’d toss you overboard.

I…I was looking after the herbs for the Lowell apothecary. Clive threw his hands out more defensively than apologetic. He don’t care for his herbs getting wet. I got to check his trunks.

Blood from his finger spattered the other pine box.

You lie. A trunk isn’t anything like a coffin and your breeches are undone. Brass Buckles let go of the shorter man and shoved Evie’s lid closed.

As though he realized she was awake and wanted to hide her sentience from ole Clive? Wishful thinking yes, but a person could hope. She peeked through a crack.

Don’t tell, please. Clive fumbled with his clothing. Then he put his bitten finger into his mouth.

The glowing life his body held called to her. So did the lingering coppery taste of his warm blood. She needed its warmth to fill her cold flesh. Her stomach groaned. She cringed. Her sleeve snagged on the rough wood, making a scuffling sound. She froze. Did they hear it?

Overhead, footfalls rushed toward the hatch.

What are you doing? In the hold? Another sailor called down. Light came with him.

We examine medicinal herbs, remedies, and cures, my good man. Brass Buckles shifted, raising his face to the opening. One needs to discern what resources are available. We’ll return to deck presently.

’Tis your first voyage, so you don’t know your danger. The light flickered as if the sailor trembled. Come out afore you rouse them.

Brass Buckles coughed politely. Rouse who? We’re in a cargo bay, among the dead.

Our cargo, that’s who. The sailor’s voice quivered. What’s in those coffins don’t stay dead. You stay out of the hold and away from the coffins. Once you’re bitten, you’re done for, Doc.

Doc? Could Brass Buckles be her father?

Although she didn’t know what her father had chosen for his physical features, coloring or voice, she’d recognize him. It was a tribe thing, a secret they shared. No matter what shape or face he donned, he always appeared travel-worn and rugged. Likewise, he told her, the confident gaze, stubborn chin, and secret-keeper’s grin she usually wore identified her, whether she took the form of a fair Norse woman or a sun-kissed Moor. Evie peered out of the crack but saw only his black coat.

Right, we’re coming up. Clive, first. Brass Buckles shoved Fried Dough toward the ladder.

The rungs let out faint squeaks of protest as the small man climbed.

Brass Buckles took a step as if to follow, but she couldn’t let him leave. Not before she found out whether he was a villain or her father. Regardless of whether Fried Dough blocked the view of the sailor up top, she slid the lid open and yanked the back of Buckles’ coat.

Chapter Two

Evie blinked. Fingers pinching the stranger’s coat she froze. What had she done?

Brass Buckles stiffened. As tight as spun thread, she waited.

His head jerked to the hatch. He eased into a turn, the movement plucking his coat from her grip.

He sported a finely tapered, black beard and a swarthy complexion, but the cragginess of his features gave him away.

Father, she whispered.

His brows flashed upward. He met her gaze. A smile flickered over his lips.

Inside her, something lightened, almost like she’d taken a deep, cleansing breath.

Coming, Doc? the sailor asked from above.

Presently. A moment. His delight in seeing her gave way to warning, he shifted to put his frame between her and the hatch. He patted the pine lid and mouthed, Down. Don’t draw attention.

She let out a soft whimper. You’ll return?

He gave her the smallest of nods. Meaning he’d come back?

He had to. Her heart fisted tight.

Hurriedly, he pivoted, ascended the ladder, and disappeared from her sight, but not from her awareness.

She tracked him, sensing his life energies as readily as she might the warm sun on her face or the placement of her feet. For a time, she knew exactly where he was. Then he got too near others striding across the deck. His energies mingled with theirs, and she lost him.

Her unbeating heart, too heavy for its current position, sank to lodge in her stomach. She needed his presence.

She died when she’d disobeyed him last and went into the plague-ravaged village. Never mind that she’d wanted to help, she’d become an abomination, a creature that shouldn’t exist, and a daughter, who had much to do penance for. She dutifully shut the lid and lay down.

Closed in, she drifted. Time pooled, flowing neither forward nor back. Maybe she slept or more likely—shudder—she lay thought-empty, her brain as still as her blood.

Then the predator within her roused. Eyes snapped open. Lightning jigged through her. Her muscles went cat-stalking taut and her stomach clenched with anticipatory hunger.

Why? What was her body reacting to? Hampered by her groggy brain, could she stop it? What was happening?

Prey sloshed through the water in the bilge below her, creeping toward her.

Prey? She cringed. Did she really consider the human now stealthily climbing the ladder prey?

A sibilant yes hissed in the seemingly hollow cavity where her heart once beat.

What kind of abomination was she becoming? She gulped down a knot that throbbed from her throat to her bladder.

The hatch in the floor creaked open, and a human glowing with a life filled aura that promised food approached.

A moan burbled through her pressed lips. If the person drawing near knew her urges, he’d flee. He should. Run far and fast.

Yet the boots scuffed to her coffin. The pine lid slid back before she thought to hold it closed.

Her father gazed down. He beamed, his face almost as bright as the second shadow of life energy surrounding him. I feared I’d never find you.

Her chest swelled. He was family, tribe, everything to her. Nightmares had always vanished with his appearance. Yet she couldn’t relax. Not when the corona of life fizzled around him and provoked the predator within. Be careful. Her voice came out in a croak. Don’t—

Don’t worry. The crew’s asleep except for the helmsman. He reached for her.

She flinched. Don’t get too close. I’m too hungry to trust.

I’ll risk it. Sit up. He put a hand around her back and lifted.

To resist would lengthen their contact. She complied even as his vitality incited the predator within. The taste of Clive’s tangy copper blood stuck to her dry tongue. Her stomach gurgled. Against her will, the warm regard she had for her father sharpened to a predator’s scrutiny. She appraised him like an owl watching a mouse. The bruised circles under his eyes, the slump of his shoulders spoke of fatigue. So close. Guard down. She could take him. His blood would taste even better than Clive’s.

No, she wouldn’t look. She fought to tug her gaze away. How did you find me?

After the Resurrectionists, who posed as villagers, thrashed me and made off with the dead, I traced them to this ship and endeavored to sign on as a common sailor. When the captain hesitated in hiring me, I confessed to medical training.

Skin-sliders regenerated with food and rest; however, he probably hadn’t gotten much of either. Was he still injured? And therefore easier to overpower? Her face jerked toward him before she managed to stop herself. She shoved her palms into her eyes, pretending to rub them. Think of something else.

Tired? Let’s get you out of this box. See if we can find you some food. You must be weak.

Weak? She shuddered. She couldn’t afford to be. Not with a beast inside her craving his life, his energy.

He reached for her.

She threw a hand out to ward him away. I can manage by myself.

He ignored her, pulling her to him. Warm flesh pressed close. The brine of his skin tingled in her nostrils while the life glow around him bated the predator within. Ravenous, she shook. Her body, empty of life, needed sustenance. She could take it.

Strike, the predator commanded.

Her fingers closed on her father’s arms. Nails clawed. She yanked him toward her, mouth open, teeth bared.

His eyes widened. Trepidation, a natural concern for his safety, warred with father-love. Yet he offered no resistance.

What was she doing? He was her father, the one person she loved. Abruptly, she snapped her mouth shut and shoved him from her. She retreated, thumping against the coffin where she wrapped her arms around her chest and hugged herself as hard as she could. If she let go, she’d attack.

Even now the smell of fresh blood from the scratches she’d inflicted beckoned. Unable to stop herself, she snuffled. Sorry.

Craving food might be a good sign. Perhaps your body’s repairing itself.

What about craving life? Keep. Your. Distance, she rasped.

Your nostrils are flaring, and your chest is rising and falling. He stepped toward her.

Stay back.

Eyes moist, he halted.

She squeezed herself as she shuffled back. I don’t know what’s happening to me.

Whatever it is, you’re my daughter. He came to her, tears slipped from the corners of his eyes. We’ll sort it out together.

Didn’t he realize what danger he was in? She shuddered. I can’t let go.

Continue to embrace yourself then. For the briefest of moments, he held a hand under her nose. Then he firmly took her wrist to search for her pulse.

She gripped her chest. Breath gushed out in rasping wheezes. I might be a monster.

You’re not a monster. He stepped back, giving her some space. You’re breathing although it’s shallow and much too slow and your heart beats, much too slowly…but still. Magic is at work here.

What are you saying?

You’re not completely dead, nor are you alive. His tone held the cheerful note he typically used to raise her spirits. This illness holds you somewhere between. That’s hopeful.

How? she asked through clenched teeth. How can it possibly be?

Illness can be cured. On Lowell Island, where we’re going, there’s an apothecary, who has just such a cure in the works. We’ll help him.

So the cargo… Evie raised her gaze to the other coffins. All of us dead are to be his test subjects?

He hesitated. His craggy face darkened. From what I gather, few survive on Lowell Island because of the savage cannibals, roaming its shores. They say a life-stealing Lord rules them, the island, and the apothecary. We’ll have to align with him to get the healing you need, but we skin-sliders are known for our ability to negotiate.

Evie rubbed her brow.

Close by, a woman whimpered.

Someone’s crying. Evie cocked her head toward the faint sound.

Brows furrowing, her father listened. I don’t hear anything.

The faint mewls came again.

Hear that? Someone needs help. Hadn’t she whimpered when she’d awakened? If she helped someone else, maybe she’d be less of an abomination.

Someone scratched at the lid of the nearest box.

Evie scrambled over. Shhh, shhh, all is well. You’ll be fine.

The person inside rattled the lid.

We’re here, Evie soothed as she eased the coffin open. You’re not alone.

Wait. Her father rushed to her side and placed his palm down, using his weight to slow the lid’s opening.

Fists bashed the wood. Evie and her father leaped back. The lid flew off.

Eyes bulging, face contorted, the creature bolted upward. A young woman around Evie’s age, once she had been beautiful with a delicate figure and a perfect oval face. Now, that face was bloated in death and twisted with hunger. And the woman was an animated corpse, something that should be dead but wasn’t—a nightmare.

Evie stumbled into the ship’s bowed wall and fell.

The nightmare tumbled from the casket to thrash on the floor.

Ever the healer, Father hurried toward the thing to help.

No! Evie lurched to her feet.

The once-woman rocked to all fours, lifted its head and bayed, a horrible, inhuman keen.

Evie froze. What had she been about to do? Grab him? Wrestle the creature back into the box?

Half his size, the nightmare charged her father and pounced, knocking him off his feet. Mouth open, it scrambled over him, and thrust its head, trying to bite. Raw hunger blazed in its eyes.

Muscles straining, arms straight, he held the creature back by its shoulders while its mouth snapped and its torso writhed. Whatever had been a woman was gone, replaced by this attacking fiend.

Evie sprang forward. She seized the once-woman’s collar and pulled for all she was worth.

The creature shook itself like a hound shucking water, and the collar tore free in Evie’s clenched fingers. Evie toppled backward, regained her footing and charged, fists bunched.

Stay away! her father yelled.

But she couldn’t desert him, any more than she could have deserted him in Waverly. Frantically, she smacked the creature. Dull thuds—flesh against flesh echoed.

Her knuckles stung. Her fingers ached, but the inhuman thing ignored her blows.

It flailed and tore at Father with its nails. Fabric ripped. Skin parted. Blood rose and oozed.

Evie leaped onto the thing’s back. She tipped the combatants. They rolled. Her shoulder and head banged the wooden planking. Her