The avatar was sitting on the ground, looking weaker and more emaciated than ever. His skin was also whiter. No, that wasn’t it exactly—it was more … transparent. Like he was literally fading away into nothing.
“I don’t know much about you yet, except to say that you represent Truth and Wisdom—that, and you’re Turkish. Which is why I got you this.” I handed him the Döner kebab, which he took with a hand so absent of flesh that bone poked from his fingertips.
Picking the cleanest plot of ground near him, I sat down and unwrapped the falafel I’d bought for myself. Glancing over at the avatar dude, I noticed his expression had changed drastically. Whereas initially he looked grateful and slightly better, now he sat staring down at the sandwich, his head hung low in despair once more.
“Oh, come on!” I said. “This is from your homeland. Are you really telling me a Turkish deity doesn’t eat Döner kebabs?”
He shook his head and uttered, “The truth?” It sounded like a question.
“Yes, the truth,” I said. “What do you eat? A friend of mine debated this very topic with me before … well, he’s gone now.”
He pursed his lips, not answering, his impossibly white skin shining in the sunlight.
“Are you a vegetarian?” I asked, taking the kebab and handing him my falafel. “I am, too. At least I am now.”
He took the sandwich, which was essentially deep-fried, mashed chickpeas, and sniffed it. Then he groaned.
“Look, no judgment here. If you tell me you eat kittens, I’ll help you find a kitten. I won’t watch you eat, but I won’t judge you either,” I lied. Well, maybe not lied. I exaggerated. I would judge him. But my judgment would fall short of condemnation. After all, I’d eaten a lot worse than kittens.
A lot worse.
But he just shook his head.
“OK,” I said, sliding next to him. “If you can’t eat that, can I?”
He handed me back the falafel.
I ripped the foil and took a bite. I felt guilty eating in front of him, but it was a necessary part of my plan. I wanted to get this guy so hungry and frustrated, eventually he’d break and tell me what he ate that was so disgusting he just didn’t want to share with me.
“You know,” I said, taking another bite and speaking to him around it, trying to show him just how delicious it was. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this place.”
He nodded. I couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with me or simply acknowledging my feelings.
“When I first came here, I thought: here’s a place where I can have a second chance. A place where no one knows me, knows what I’ve done, where I’ve been. A fresh start. A chance to become brand new.”
I heard Mergen smack his lips—presumably the Turkish godly equivalent of, I hear you, girl!
“But then I got here … and you know what I discovered? That you may be done with the past, but the past isn’t necessarily done with you. So much for a fresh, brand new start, right?”
Mergen groaned again. And not in the I’m-in-pain kind of way. More like This feels so good, it’s bordering on creepy. A little nervous that Mergen was perving out on me, I turned to see what was making him so happy. He was looking right at me, the corners of his lips turned slightly upward in an expression that simultaneously had a grateful and don’t-stop quality to it. But it wasn’t his expression that most astonished me—it was the transformation he just went through. The avatar was still pale as ever, but he wasn’t as transparent as before. And what’s more, his hands had some meat to them. They almost looked normal.
“What’s … going on?” I asked, amazed that anyone or anything could change so much in so little time with no nourishment in-between.
“The truth,” he muttered.
“The truth? What are you talking about?”
Then it hit me—when I had asked him what he ate, he’d said, “The truth.” Because of the way he inflected the end of the word, I had interpreted it as a question—as in, “Do you want the truth about what I eat?” And when he didn’t answer that question, I thought it was because he didn’t want to tell me. But seeing how his skin fleshed out and how he perked up a bit when I told him about my own inner struggles, I realized that when I asked him what he ate and he said, “The truth,” he was telling me the truth.
This guy doesn’t eat chicken or beef, lamb kebabs or broccoli. He eats Truth, with a capital T, the honest-to-the-GoneGods Truth. And me admitting what I did, me telling him how I truly felt, that fed him. “Holy crow … you eat the Truth?”
He nodded.
“And I guess with everything going on around here, the Truth isn’t in high supply, huh? People are mulling about, denying how they’re fed up with the world, not really confronting what is really going on, right?”
Again he nodded, but I also noted that his skin, although still impossibly white, was gaining a little bit of meat on it.
“OK,” I said. “If I tell you some of my own Truth, will you keep it secret?”
“To my grave,” he said softly.
I believed him. After all, a creature who ate truth probably couldn’t lie. That would be akin to poisoning himself.
I took a deep breath.
“I used to be a vampire. And I haven’t told anyone because I’m ashamed of who I was and what I did.”
His eyes turned down and he grabbed his stomach, as if he had a belly ache.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “I didn’t lie to you—it’s the truth.”
“It is … half the truth,” he said.
“Half the truth? What more do you want from me?”
“All of it.”
I started feeling a bit defensive. “I gave you all of it.”
“No … no, you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” I could feel my frustration rising up in me. What did this guy want? For me to bare my soul just because he was hungry? He would have to take the truth I gave him.
He gave me a knowing look. “Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For trying.”
That really boiled my blood. “Trying”? Trying! I just told him my biggest, darkest secret—and it wasn’t enough? I grabbed my purse and stood up in a huff. “You know, I understand that you eat the truth and all, but you’re still a beggar. And beggars—they can’t be choosers. You should be grateful for what you can get!”
At this, his eyes widened and a satisfied smile painted his face. “Mmmm,” he moaned. “That is true. And tasty.”
I stared at him. “You’re weird.”
“Yes,” he agreed, rubbing your belly.
“And you creep me out.”
“I do, don’t I?” he said, smacking his lips.
“And I am leaving,” I said, turning on my heel.
“Yes … that is the Truth, and it is delicious!”
Oh, brother … I’d met a lot of Others in my life, but this Mergen guy took the prize.
Chapter 15
Jessica Fletcher, You Are Not Darling
I walked up the hill in a huff, stomping my feet down with an unnecessary intensity as I made my way back to Gardener Hall. The truth? The TRUTH?! I thought (probably out loud, if we’re being truthful). He wants the Truth?! Well, maybe the Truth is that a creature like him is too weak to live in the GoneGod world. Maybe he needs to get off his high horse and eat some humble pie like the rest of us. Maybe he should burn all the magic time he has left to blow smoke up his own a—
A couple students who were meandering down the hill looked at me as I passed by them. Not that I cared. I was too busy dealing with the “Truth”! Frustrated and dejected, I entered through the building’s front door and made my way to the basement stairs. All I wanted was my bed, my iPad and a movie. Preferably a slasher.
And I was so close to getting just that.
I was only a few yards away when I heard the unmistakable voice of my changeling roommate in the laundry room. “Never, you foul, disrespectful urchin!” I heard Deirdre cry out.
“What did you call me?” I heard a voice say, more in confusion than actual anger. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but that’s mine. I’m the one that picked it up. I get to keep it.”
“For what purpose? To display on your mantle? You did not dispatch the creature—you have no claims to keep a part of him as a trophy. This being—this piece of ‘stone,’ as you call it—deserves a proper burial. An appropriate farewell.”
“Leave him alone,” I heard another, higher-pitched voice say.
“It’s just a piece of stone.”
“Stone? Stone!” Deirdre’s rage was intensifying. I didn’t know the changeling well enough to know if she could control her temper or not, and my fear was that if she did lose it and attack this guy, she’d rip him to shreds. Literally. Changelings don’t mess around. Given all the resurrection magic that used to exist among the UnSeelie Court, they tended to destroy their victims’ bodies to the point of no return.
I stepped inside the laundry room—a bleak room painted orange and holding six machines. Two of them were running, their tumblers reverberating white noise as the smell of detergent and fabric softener wafted through the room. Inside, there was some kid with an Iron Man hoodie, holding his hands up as if in surrender. A classically pretty, tall blonde stood next to him in what looked like her pajamas, holding an empty white basket.
Uh-oh. She looked like she was getting ready to scream.
The kid in the hoodie took a step back and diverted his gaze. Big mistake. He just showed Deirdre that he was scared. As a fae warrior, her instincts would be to press her advantage—any true warrior would feel the same way. Destroy your enemy however you can. And if they’re weak? Just means an easier victory for you.
Deirdre pulled back her fist and took a step into him. I could see immediately that she was going to knock him to the ground and, once he was on his back, use her leverage to beat his body into the linoleum floor. Before she could do it, I darted forward and clamped her arm in mine, pulling her away from the boy.
“Unhand me!” she said, lashing out at me—but as soon as she saw who I was, her eyes widened in distress and she dropped to one knee, ashamed that she almost attacked the very person she’d recently pledged her sword arm to.
Fae protocols—sometimes they could be useful.
“I am sorry, milady,” she muttered in a rushed whisper.
I rolled my eyes. “Get up, Deirdre.” I tried to help her up, but she wouldn’t budge.
“What’s going on?” the boy said, nervously laughing at the plateau before him. “What are we—in an episode of Game of Thrones?” He looked around him as if expecting Jon Snow to saunter by, and laughed again, this time derisively.
Deirdre ignored him, simply offering me the stone which had apparently caused all this ruckus. Up close, I saw what she was defending. My face flushed with rage as I stared at the fine carvings of the slab, making out the details of a cat-like eye with several medieval runes surrounding it.
The gargoyle from earlier … and the one good deed I’d done today. Seeing it, I guessed that either the Mousey Girl did this—something I highly doubted, given her demeanor—or she’d abandoned the poor guy and he was attacked by whatever misguided human thought he was doing the world a service by killing it.
And now some idiot student wants to have a piece of the gargoyle's body as … what? … a freaking paper weight?
“Where did you get this?” I asked the boy.
“What’s the big deal? It’s just a piece of sto—”
“Where did you get this?” Now it was my turn to get in the kid’s face.
His laughter had all but dried up in his throat. “I found it. In the stadium’s parking lot.”
“Stadium?” I pushed into him, demanding more.
“Yeah, you know, the football stadium just down the hill. The parking lot is a shortcut up to the dorms.”
I hadn’t been here long, but I did know about the stadium shortcut. If you entered through the parking lot and up the stairs into the stadium itself, you cut out the steepest part of the hill. A popular route for the lazy, drunk or overweight—or all three. Still, it didn’t make sense that he’d found the remains of the gargoyle there. In the Student Ghetto, maybe, but the football stadium’s parking lot? What was the gargoyle doing there?
I pushed him hard against the back wall of the laundry room.
“Liar,” I growled.
“No, I swear!” he said, his lips quivering with fear. “I was walking home, up Pine Street and through the lot, and that’s where I found it. There were a bunch of stones piled there, like someone had smashed a statue or something. I sifted through it and found that piece and … and I thought it would look cool in my room.”
“This isn’t a piece of stone.”
“What … what is it?”
I could feel Deirdre standing behind me now.
“You really don’t understand,” I said, “do you? This is part of a gargoyle. You know—stone guardians? They tend to live on castle turrets. What you picked up and so carelessly carried around with you is the equivalent of a severed head. This is part of something that was living, breathing … thinking. A creature who came to this place to make a better life for itself.” I gripped the stone tighter as I clenched my teeth. “You should be reporting this to the police. Should you be helping them find his killer? What you absolutely shouldn’t be doing is bragging to that blonde ditz about bringing home a trophy that used to be part of a person.”
“Hey,” she started, but I shot her a look that said it was not beneath me to beat her perfect little nose into her skull. She shut up.
I turned back to the guy. “This is a tragedy—not memorabilia. Do you understand that? Do you?”
He looked at me for a long, hard moment, his face so drained of expression that I couldn’t tell if he was going to fly into a rage, cry or run away. The part of me that still yearned for the unbridled violence of my past wanted him to fly into a rage. I wanted him to attack me so I could smash his smug face into the wall and then beat him senseless. But I was calm enough to know that wouldn’t help. If anything, it would get me expelled, possibly arrested (again). Sure, that would solve my dropping-out-of-college conundrum, but it would also sow more discontent between humans and Others. So I just stared him down, not saying anything more, waiting for him to make his decision.
What he finally settled on was a macho “Screw you,” followed by him grabbing the blonde’s hand as he pulled her out of the room. She dropped her basket as they left and I watched it teeter for a long moment, then finally settle on its base.
I looked down at my hand, at the face of a creature who only a couple hours ago was sitting in Student Admin seeking to quit this place. GoneGodDammit … I got involved and convinced him to go with the mousey girl because I thought they could get along. Idiot!
“No, milady,” said my roommate, whom I’d forgotten was standing right behind me. “It is I who is the fool. I should have never engaged the ill-informed human. I should have—”
“Deirdre,” I interrupted. The last thing I needed was a rehash of what just happened. “Do you know how to give this gargoyle a proper burial?”
Deirdre hesitated, then nodded. “If I can learn his name, then yes.”
His name—I had no idea what his name was. Trying to help, and I hadn’t even bothered to ask his name. I didn’t bother to ask any of their names. Yet another piece of proof that I wasn’t here to connect … I was just here.
Rubbing my fingers along the curves of this once living stature, I thought about how I could find his name. Maybe when he went into Student Admin … he must have signed in, right? That was a possibility. I sighed and handed Deirdre his cracked face. “I’ll try to find that out for you. In the meantime … take care of him?”
“As you command,” she said.
I started out of the laundry room and toward my dorm. “One more thing,” I said as I walked away. “Stop with all this ‘as you command,�
�� ‘milady’ and ‘my sword arm is yours’ stuff. People don’t talk like that. Not on Earth, at least, and considering you’re an Earthly being now, you’ve got to get with the program.”
“ ‘Program’?” She tilted her head in confusion.
“Just act like everyone else. It’s better that way.”
I stepped into the hall and Deirdre followed me.
Walking into our room, I saw that much of the soil and grass still littered the floor, but at least it was mostly clean. Grumbling to myself, I took off my shoes and jacket, put down my purse and, without getting into my pajamas, crawled into bed.
I closed my eyes, but could feel something—or rather, someone—staring at me. Without opening my eyes, I said, “What is it, Deirdre?”
“You saw his body?”
“Whose?”
“The librarian’s?”
I groaned. “How do you know about that?”
“It is now common knowledge.”
“Which part?”
“That an Other killed the librarian—and that you bore witness to his death.”
“Not exactly. The only thing I bore was his dead body. I showed up after he had been killed. And there’s no evidence it was an Other who killed him. That’s just an assumption based on fear-driven stereotypes. Bigotry.”
“I see, mila— … my friend.”
I thought that was it, but when I didn’t hear her move, I opened my eyes to see Deirdre slightly bent over, staring down at me.
“Is there something else, Deirdre?”
“Yes. There will be a candlelight vigil held in his honor. I wish to attend.”
“So attend,” I said.
“Will you attend with me?”
I thought about it. The Old Librarian was my friend—I think. I had only met him once, but I did like him. Attending would be appropriate. But after all that had happened, I figured it was best to never leave my dorm room again. I seemed to get in trouble when I did. I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’m tired and—”
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