Mortality Bites Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Vance, Ramy

  Holy guacamole, I thought. That’s no copy. If this kid has the original manual and can use its magic, he could become the most powerful being on this planet.

  “Why, thank you,” the kid said as he flipped through the pages.

  I knew I should be running, but I couldn’t help myself. That manual wasn’t just dangerous … it was like giving the kid access to the nuclear codes and putting an I dare you sign over the button.

  “Kid, where did you get that?”

  Kid Wizard—I couldn’t think of what else to call him—smiled. “I’ve always been into this kind of stuff. You know, myths and magic, and I’ve always wanted to be a sorcerer, but when the gods left and took their magic with them, I figured that dream was gone. Then poof,”—he smiled, still scanning his pages—“I woke up yesterday morning and this grimoire was on my bedside. And I could read it.”

  He flipped through four more pages before saying, “Ahh yes, here we go.”

  He started moving his hands around, chanting in Latin mixed with Draugr and Gnomish …

  “Kid,” I said, “you don’t want to do that.”

  Kid Wizard ignored me, his incantation growing louder before he threw an open palm in my direction and screamed, “Fuego!”

  Nothing happened.

  He looked at me, puzzled. “Hold on, I should have shot a fireball at you.”

  “I know, kid,” I said taking three steps forward. “You should have, but the thing about the Hunter’s Mark is, it was about leveling the battleground between the Earl King and the thing—or person—he was hunting. That means no other hunters, no hounds to help him and no magic.”

  I pulled back my fist and punched Kid Wizard square in the nose. He fell like a poorly stacked Jenga tower. Grabbing the grimoire and throwing it in my tote bag, I ran for the exit.

  “Hold on!” Spider Guy cried out as the stoner kids started laughing.

  Evidently if you break a wizard’s nose, you break their spell, too.

  Superheroes to My Left, Superheroes to My Right

  Running back down the maintenance hallway, I tried to formulate a plan. They’d be on me in a few seconds and I honestly had no idea what I could do. What’s more, I didn’t know what they’d do to me when they caught me. Beat me up? Take me to the authorities? Kill me?

  When I spoke to them they seemed pretty rational, but that kid wizard literally tried to throw a fireball at me. Either he didn’t know how deadly such magic was or didn’t care. Or maybe he just wanted to throw a fireball and see what it did.

  Whatever his thoughts on the matter, he could have killed me. There was something strange going on, too: they were too rational to be homicidal when they spoke, and too homicidal to be rational when they acted.

  I ran to the end of the hall and had almost gotten to the exit when I felt something strike my ankle and pull at me. I was yanked back to the middle of the hall, where Spider Guy and three other heroes jumped over me to block the exit to my right. I considered running to my left and back to the cinema when four more superheroes poured out of the doorway.

  “Ahh guys, are you sure you want to do this?”

  Several of them shrugged before charging me. I didn’t have time to think, so I just reacted by pulling out my dirk. I was ready to fight for keeps this time.

  I was just about to stick the pointy end of my blade into Spider Guy’s throat when a large, heavy blanket was thrown over me.

  A guy dressed in all black was under there with me. Well, more like on top of me. I could feel the kicks and punches of the superheroes wailing on the blanket before the boy on top of me said, “Hold onto me.”

  “Wha—?” I started, but before I could say or do anything, he grabbed me with his right arm and held me to one side. Throwing his left arm up and away from us, I felt a wave of energy burst out of him in all directions.

  The heavy blanket tore into a million little fragments as the wall in front of and behind us crumbled, holes bursting open to expose the wiring and piping behind them.

  And as for the superheroes to our right and left, they went flying in both directions down the hall.

  “Phew,” the boy said, “I wasn’t sure that would work.”

  I got a look at the guy for the first time and my jaw nearly crashed down to my Dubarry Galway knee-high boots. “Justin,” I finally managed.

  “In the flesh,” my boyfriend said with a not entirely ungraceful curtsy.

  ↔

  “Kinetic blast?”

  “Just like Black Panther,” he said.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, “just like what we were discussing last night. Your superhero powers, the ones you said you wanted—they’ve manifested themselves.”

  Justin nodded.

  “And you’re not worried that you suddenly have powers when just yesterday you didn’t?”

  He shook his head. “No, not really.”

  “And you don’t find that odd?”

  He shrugged. And that reaction was enough for me to know something was truly off. Justin was many things—calm, collected, the ideal guy to have around in a fire—but never unquestioning. No, that wasn’t him.

  I didn’t have time to consider any of that, though. We had to get away. Looking up and down the hall, I saw that not everyone had been knocked out. Some of them were coming around. “Justin, did the other power you wanted also manifest?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, grabbing my hand, “it did in all kinds of ways.”

  ↔

  He grabbed my hand and in an instant, we were both invisible. It’s an odd sensation, not being able to see yourself. It made me realize how much we take our bodies for granted.

  At any given moment, our peripheral vision clocks our hands or arms, sometimes even our feet. We see our eyelids with every blink, we get a sense of where our limbs go when we move about. We even see our own noses, although most of us have tuned that jutting piece of flesh completely out.

  But when you’re invisible, all that goes away. No arms or legs or fingers or anything else waving about.

  No eyelids to block our vision, if only for a fraction of a second. And no nose to get our bearings with.

  Walking would be a challenge, so Justin and I, hand in hand, took it real slow as we made our way past the knocked-over heroes. As we closed in on three of them, I realized I recognized Spider Guy after all. He was the kid who had yelled “Hear, hear” when I was chewing out Harold Cheer.

  What the hell was going on?

  But that wasn’t the only thing that was interesting. Looking over the three fallen heroes, I saw that none of them had aged. Not at all, which meant that somehow they were tapping into all this magic and not sacrificing a second of time.

  This was impossible. Ever since the gods left, there had been a steep penalty for using magic: time. Every fireball, every moment spent hanging from a ceiling or shooting out webbing from your wrists—all of it cost time. And not just a bit of it. Lots.

  They all should have aged, but Spider Guy was as youthful as he had been this morning, before he went on his magical rampage.

  It just didn’t make any sense.

  We stepped over them and out the door. Once we were back in the bookstore, we made our way outside and back onto campus.

  By the time we got there, the campus had been closed. Given how much snow we’d had over the last couple weeks, you’d think we were having a snow day instead of a superhero day (I know, I know, not very funny—but I’m hilarious in Elvish. Really, I am.)

  The police had run yellow tape across the entrance while two guards stood nervously at the threshold. I could see from their eyes that if a superhero showed up, they’d bolt. As we passed by, I heard one of the policemen mutter, “Damn Others.”

  “Amen,” said the other.

  Jerks! They had no idea what was going on and they were already blaming Others. I was about to let go of Justin’s hand and fly into a rage in front of their ignorant asses. That sure would’ve scared the bejesus out of them.
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  But I didn’t. As it turns out, three hundred years of life gives you a lot of opportunities to practice keeping your cool. Sometimes I even succeeded. Instead of blowing up, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that humans saw magic as something only Others could do. As far as those two cops were concerned, superpowers were akin to magic—hence, Others.

  Those cops had been scared. And given their limited knowledge, of course they’d blame Others. Who else was around to point a judging finger at? My only fear now was that the super brats would do something monumentally stupid and Others would get rounded up as a result. Not that I could worry about that now.

  Invisible, we passed them and headed to the arts building so I could retrieve my jacket and snow pants.

  Justin un-invisiblatized us and as soon as he was in sight, he winked at me. “See, told you I could be useful.”

  “Stand still,” I said, grabbing his head.

  Expecting a kiss, he puckered up. But I didn’t kiss him. Instead, I carefully examined every millimeter of his face. I looked for signs of crows’ feet around his eyes, blotches on his cheeks, skin tags on his neck. Anything that indicated aging.

  But like Spider Boy, he was fine. Being a superhero didn’t seem to age him one bit.

  “You’re fine,” I said with a bit of disappointment.

  “Excuse me?” He narrowed his eyes.

  “Sorry. You’re fine!” I repeated with more enthusiasm this time. “It’s just that you shouldn’t be. You should be older. You know, given the whole time-for-magic thing.”

  “Yeah, sure, but whatever is happening to me … maybe it’s an exception to the rule.”

  I looked up at my perfect, impossibly handsome but very human boyfriend. In my experience, human beings just didn’t get how magic works. I sighed. “This isn’t a case of A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y. There are rules to magic that can never, ever be broken. That’s just the way it works, and it’s part of the reason why Others struggle to live in the GoneGod World.”

  Justin gave me a go on gesture.

  “Humans grow up learning that there are always exceptions to the rule. In grammar, in spelling, even in mathematics. Of course, they extrapolate that to day-to-day life, too. The rules say the term paper’s deadline is Friday, but given the right circumstances, you can get an extension. No one is allowed to cut in line, but if you’re disabled or have a young child, then by all means cut to the front. Exceptions.

  “But Others have grown up in a world where there are no exceptions. There might be new rules set, like when the gods left and added restrictions to how magic works. But those are new rules, not exceptions. You guys shouldn’t be able to do all you did without aging. It simply isn’t possible.”

  “Oh come on,” Justin said, and I knew what was coming: “But magic is in the human world now, so …” or “There are always exceptions, and just because you don’t know of any doesn’t mean they’re not there …”

  But before Justin could give the typical human objections to the no-exceptions rule of magic, I remembered something from my early days as a vampire.

  Or rather, someone.

  “Justin, can we do that invisibility trick again?” I said. “There’s somewhere I’d like to go and its best I’m not seen going there.”

  Daydreams and Fine Art

  Hidden by Justin’s invisibility powers, we made a quick stop at the Other Studies Library so I could gather a couple of supplies I needed to test my theory. That done, we made our way west on Sherbrooke Street, hand in hand.

  It was nice. Normally if I wasn’t in class or studying, I was vigilante-ing. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was usually researching some myth or Other culture or powers to solve some misunderstanding between the once divine creatures and always mundane humans.

  I have a lot on my plate and rarely have time for him, I thought. I’m a terrible girlfriend and thank the GoneGods he understands. At least, I think he does. But then again, he’s invisible with superpowers, and part of me can’t help but think the only reason he has these superpowers is because he wants to spend more time with me.

  “For the record,” he said, “you’re not a terrible girlfriend. You just have weird priorities. And secondly—”

  “You heard that?”

  “Kat, you think out loud more than you actually speak. I hear a lot.”

  “Well,” I said, feeling my invisible cheeks blush, “you should stop me.”

  “Why? It’s one of your most endearing qualities.” I heard his goose-down jacket crinkle as he bent down to kiss me. Given he’s six-three and I’m all of five foot nothing, he had a long way to go … which was why he missed my mouth and kissed my ear.

  “Yowzer.” I stuck a finger in my ear to dry it. “You missed.”

  “Yeah, ahh, still getting used to where everything is. Being invisible is harder than you’d think.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, giggling as I held his hand just that little bit tighter. Justin was a good guy. A great guy, and him having powers proved that I wasn’t the great gal he deserved.

  I wasn’t sure how the superhero thing worked, but I was beginning to get an idea. Part of it—the part I was sure of, at least—was desire. Whatever magic was at play here, it fed off certain people’s desire to have superpowers. That was the reason why there were only twenty or so superheroes and not hundreds … because these guys were the ones that thought about having powers all the time. Obsessed about it. That’s how the magic found them.

  And I hated the idea that Justin manifested superpowers just to be with me. The sane, rational part of me knew I shouldn’t press this any further, but the insecure, very human part of me needed to ask.

  “Justin,” I said, trying to soften my tone and be as inviting as I could, “can I ask you a question? About your superpowers? I have a theory as to how this works, and I need to ask you something that might be a wee bit embarrassing. But your answer may clear up a lot about what’s going on.”

  “OK,” he said with some trepidation.

  “If you don’t want to answer me, fine. But if you are going to answer, answer truthfully.” I quickly added, “And no matter what you say, no judgment. Promise.”

  “OK,” he repeated. “Shoot.” I couldn’t see his face, but I knew him well enough to know he was bracing himself for whatever I had in mind.

  “Great. Now the truth, OK? How often do you daydream about joining Egya, Deirdre and me on our little missions?”

  “Ahh … daydream?”

  “Yeah, daydream.”

  “Well, I think about it a lot.”

  “No, not think. Daydream.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “You can think rationally about something, reason out the pros and cons, but I’m looking for the visualizations. The scenarios that you play out in your mind where you’re fighting some Other or perhaps saving me, or—”

  “You mean like I did today,” he said. “I was pretty rad.”

  “Rad? That’s a throwback.”

  “Yeah, sorry. I was going through your VHS collection.”

  I shook my head. He was deflecting—something he did whenever he didn’t want to have a certain conversation with me. “Come on Justin,” I said. “Focus. How often?”

  There was a long pause before he finally said, “Not that much.”

  “How much?”

  There was an audible groan. “I don’t know. Every night.”

  “Every night!” I knew he wanted to join us on our little jaunts, but every night …

  “When?”

  “Just before bed.”

  “You do it every night just before bed.”

  Another long pause before his voice cracked with, “Yeah. Is that bad?”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Usually in the bathroom or while hanging out in your room or mine …”

  “Every night,” I repeated.

  “Does it help that I’m always thinking of you?”

  I nearly pulled
my hand away, but remembered that I’d suddenly become visible if I did. Given we were on Sherbrooke in the middle of the day, that was sure to scare the villagers.

  We walked on for a bit before he broke the silence. “Is that bad?”

  No judgement, I thought (in my head, thankfully). I shook my head before I remembered he couldn’t see me. “No. It’s just surprising, that’s all.”

  “How so?”

  “I didn’t think my nighttime extracurricular activities bothered you so much.”

  “Who said anything about bothering me?” Justin said in a tone that he often used when we were arguing and he’d just realized we were fighting about two different things.

  “Clearly it does. If you think about it every night—”

  “And sometimes during the day when I’m walking to class. I daydream about joining you guys and fighting the good fight.”

  We were passing a (visible) couple on the street, and I lowered my voice to a whisper. “This isn’t a cartoon. We get hurt. We hurt others, too. And sometimes people die.”

  Justin started whispering, too. “Yeah, I know. But you’re doing it to keep the peace, right? To stop all the tension between Others and humans from bubbling over. I mean, not in the world, but on campus at least.”

  “That’s the goal, but we’re really just reacting to shit that happens. Like the ghouls. Deirdre noticed a lot of freshly dug graves on one of her nature walks. We investigated, realized that they were eating the recently dead and we chose to engage them quietly before it escalated to pitchforks and tiki torches.”

  “So you’re doing good.”

  “Well, in that case Underdawg saved the day. But yes, we’re trying.”

  “So what’s so wrong with me wanting to help do good, too? And who knows—if my powers stick around, maybe I can help more often.”

  We had come to an empty stretch of the sidewalk, and I slowed us a little. “Justin, you know I’m going to do everything I can to get rid of these superheroes. It’s no good and will lead to more harm than anything. The way they went after each other—and me—proves that this will only lead to harm.”