“And what did I do? I watched from the shadows as the morning light turned his body to ash.”
As I sobbed in full earnest now, I realized that I wasn’t crying because of the story I told. No, these tears were because I was mourning the death of my father in a way I couldn’t do when I lied to myself about who I was and why I did the things I did.
A heavy hand squeezed my shoulder. Wiping away heavy tears, I saw that Mergen was trying to comfort me. But it wasn’t the skinny, emaciated ghost-white man I had come to know.
He was fat. As in … Santa fat.
He drew me in close and hugged me. At first, I resisted him, but as soon as I let him hold me and my face touched his shoulder, I wailed and lamented and howled and wept the tears of someone who had finally faced her past.
Chapter 19
Check Out What’s Been Checked Out
After a good, long cry, I looked up at Deirdre and Egya, who were kind enough to have walked to another side of the grove to give me my space. I stood up and, wiping away tears and runny mascara, said, “OK—it’s all out of me now.” I hiccupped. “Promise.”
“Do you feel …” Egya paused as he searched for the word, finally settling on, “lighter?”
I didn’t answer right away, taking the time to look inside myself. I felt encumbered by my tears, the heavy head that comes after a big cry. But I also felt somehow freer—like I had been wading through water and had finally gotten out of the swamp. Lighter … yes, I did feel lighter.
I nodded.
“See, milady?” He bowed. “I am Egya, here to help!”
Deirdre walked up to me and hugged me. No, it was more like she swaddled me in her big, powerful arms. “I am so glad the black man upset you and that this white man was here to comfort you,” she said.
“Me, too,” I chuckled. “But Deirdre, in the future it’s not appropriate to—” I thought about explaining that describing humans by the color of their skin was a faux pas, but decided that was a lesson in being human that could wait for later. For now, I would try to enjoy her embrace, as tight as it was. “Oh, never mind.” I hugged the changeling back.
“So,” Deirdre said after she eventually let me go, “you will no longer leave?”
“Might not have a choice on the matter. We did just get run off campus. But right now I’m more concerned about avoiding roving gangs of Other-haters.” I smiled grimly at the absurdity of it all. “And to think, yesterday my greatest ambition was to go to the O3 party.”
“Most certainly,” Egya said. “I was going to dress as a ghost. I even bought the white sheets, complete with a pointed hood.”
“Uh, Egya … you know that costume is—”
“A joke, Darling. A joke. I may be from deepest, darkest Africa, but we still have history books.”
“I don’t understand,” said Deirdre. “What is wrong with the black man dressing as a ghost?”
At this Egya and I laughed. Deirdre, unsure what was funny, eventually joined in, happy to see us happy. And Mergen, he seemed to be feasting from the honesty of the moment.
As our laughter died down, Deirdre said, “All I wanted to do was find my place. I am starting to think that I will not find it here.”
I didn’t know what to say. If I was struggling to find my place here, what hope did this changeling have? “Deirdre, I thought you didn’t want me to leave …”
Deirdre nodded, but it seemed she wanted to talk about something else. She pointed at the canopy of leaves around us and asked, “Will we be able to go home soon?”
“The hex should evaporate in the morning. We can go back to the dorm then and …” I started, before I realized that she wasn’t talking about Gardner Hall. “Home, like … Fae? Only if the gods come back, Deirdre.”
“They will never come back.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Gods do not change their minds.”
Mergen hummed in delightful agreement.
“And even if the hex dissipates, the humans will remember what happened this night. This will cause …” Deirdre's voice trailed as she tried to think of the right words.
“Further complications,” Egya offered.
“Yes … further complications. I see little hope for us to stay.”
I sighed in agreement. “Maybe. I guess we can hold out on the hope that the O3s’ party will heal the divide. Justin seems to think so. But …” I shook my head. “None of this will matter if we don’t find out who the killer is.”
“And bring him to justice?” Deirdre asked.
“Or her,” Egya pointed out.
“Justice has little to do with it. I actually think that bringing the killer in will cause more harm than good. All we do know is that an Other is doing this with magic. Bringing them to be tried under a human court’s system will only focus a spotlight on the powers Others have. It will just cause more fear. I’m thinking … we should just stop him. Or her. As in, permanently.”
Deirdre began stretching, as if preparing to enter a sporting competition. “Exactly, Lady Darling. Justice.”
Fae logic … of course she wasn’t thinking human police and court systems. Fae justice was swift and permanent—and usually justified after the fact.
“Justice,” Egya echoed. “Justice may be blind, but I will not be so anymore. I will say what I know we have all thought. It is the Incan apu who is behind this.”
I sat up so fast that my head spun. “Incan apu?”
Egya nodded. “The Other friend of the O3 Bros.”
I thought of the tall, stone-skinned, sky-eyed Other. “Sal? I’d never thought that.”
“Then you are a fool. Or willfully blind, like Justice.”
“OK … Egya. Enlighten us. How can you be so sure?”
“Think about it. Dr. Dewey was part of a ritual sacrifice. Incans, Mayans, Aztec—their traditions demanded that human sacrifices be made to their gods. This is common knowledge, yes?”
Mergen smacked his lips.
“Common knowledge?” I asked. “Maybe to you. How do you know all this?
Egya shrugged. “I am a student of the dead religions—which is to say, all of them.”
“Lots of religions had ritualistic sacrifices,” I pointed out, having lived through many of them. “The Etruscans, the Old Chinese Dynasty, the Celts. Not just the Incans.”
“True, but only one of them is enrolled in this school.”
“Fine, but—”
“Just because the cave apu with baby blue eyes smiled at you doesn’t make him innocent.”
“It’s not that,” I started, but when Mergen groaned I added, “OK—it’s not just that. Mergen, you are really starting to annoy me.”
Mergen grinned like he was just handed an ice cream cone.
I ignored the pale rider. “We can’t just accuse Sal because he’s different.”
“Why not?”
“Seriously?” I said. “Ever heard of racial profiling?”
“This is different than judging someone by the color of their skin.”
“How so?” I took a step toward Egya.
Deirdre, sensing my fury, stepped between us.
But Egya didn’t give up. “Because a black man, Arab or Jew can’t cast magic simply because they are black, brown or gentile. An Incan apu can.”
I shook my head. “I refuse to blindly accuse him—”
“The jinni guard dog and the hex required magic, Kat. Any Other is a suspect. But the sacrifice—that is part of the Incan mythos. Put two and two together and you get …” He made a fist.
“Yes, but …”
“But nothing. You know I’m right. You must.” He looked at Mergen for confirmation, but, much to his (and my) surprise, Mergen neither smacked his lips nor groaned in disgust.
“See?” I said, as if this proved anything.
“See what? His complete lack of reaction makes my words neither true nor false. It just means that you’re still being willfully blind.”
“O
h, you self-righteous—”
“What?” he said.
“Stupid little …”
“What else?”
“Know-it-all!” I yelled. Not my best insult. And in utter fury, I turned around and kicked the mesh fence that surrounded the base of the cross. I guess no one really ever cleaned the thing, because a cloud of dust flew up into the air, creating neon rays of light in their clouds.
Now here I was literally basking in the cross’s rays. That’s when I realized how stupid I was being.
“Deirdre,” I said, pointing up at the neon icon, “what did you call that thing earlier?”
“The cross? A symbol that offers protection for those who wish it to.”
“Exactly … a symbol that offers protection for those who wish it to. Or maybe, for those it wishes to. It all makes sense now!”
“What makes sense now?” Egya asked, cocking his head to one side like a confused dog.
“Sneak me back onto campus.”
“Why?”
“To confirm something.”
“Confirm what?”
“Who the killer is.”
“Confirm what, girl?” Egya said. “We know who the killer is.”
“Maybe,” I conceded. “But I have a theory that might prove otherwise. You may be right about the apu, but I think there may be more to it than that. Come down with me, help me break into the library and keep an open mind. If I’m wrong, I will hunt the apu down with you. But if I’m right, we will have saved an innocent Other from … well … us. Agreed?” I stuck out my hand.
Egya looked at it for a long moment. “If your theory proves false, we go after the apu without hesitation?”
“Without hesitation.”
Egya took my hand and let out an unnatural cackle.
I guess he still had a bit of hyena in him after all.
We waited until the dead of night to sneak back onto campus. By that time, the campus was deserted, but the remnants of the vigil remained. Flowers, unlit candles, homemade signs … the relics of a human farewell.
As we made our way up the steps and into the Other Studies library, we passed the Old Librarian’s picture, and I felt as though his eyes were watching me as we passed.
Police tape still hung over the entrance, creating a barrier that was more psychological than physical. I hesitated at the yellow ribbons, but Deirdre, who did not share my cultural apprehension for the invisible barrier of authority (and who also had a great disdain toward plastic), just ripped through it and into the library.
I followed the changeling inside, praying to the GoneGods that Egya had been successful in disabling the alarm. It wouldn’t stop the cameras from recording our entrance, but given that we were all wearing wide hats Deirdre had fashioned from leaves and foliage, I doubted we’d be recognized. Once inside, I made my way to the display where he’d been strung up. We skirted the smashed shelves and torn books still littering the expanse of the library floor. I guess with Dr. Dewey gone, there was no one to clean this mess up. At least his body was still gone … and the CSI’s clean-up crew had mopped up the blood and any other body parts that might be considered a biohazard.
At the display case, the main part of the crime scene, little plastic tents with numbers on them littered the floor. Most of them stood next to various items used in the ritual: a scalpel, three buckets holding read-stained towels (I guess the killer wanted to control the blood flow), a few vases and other decorative items that prettied up the murder. Rituals are nothing without their shrouds, vases and incense, right?
Several placeholders stood where the jars or containers with bits of body in them had been. They had been taken away as either evidence or as part of the bio clean-up. I tried to remember what was next to the lone placeholders before going over to the display and looking for the one clue I needed to confirm my theory. Walking among the ransacked display cases, I didn’t have to look into more than a couple of them before I found what I was looking for. Well, several whats I was looking for.
“I knew it,” I said.
“Knew what?” Egya said, emerging from the shadows. He held up several wires in his hands. “Disabled alarm. Elegant solution.”
“The obsidian knife,” I said. “It isn’t here.”
“So?”
“Obsidian knives are central to Mayan and Aztec ritual sacrifices—not Incan, like you’d said. The obsidian knife is missing, but not the Feast Bowl. Why would an Incan apu go through all the trouble to steal the blade, but not the other ritualistic items? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Again, so?” Egya said.
“So—look at what is missing.”
I walked over to a smashed display case and pulled out the little card description, handing it to the former werehyena. He read it. “GoneGodsDamn it! I’m going to kill them all,” he growled.
“I’m sure you will,” I said. “And I’ll be right there with you.”
Mergen, hearing his unbridled rage, belched. He made a gesture that he couldn’t possibly eat another bite.
Chapter 20
Let’s Party Like It's Your Last Day on Earth
(Except It’s Not and the World Already Ended)
The party started, not with a bang, but rather, a parade.
I had heard the university parties were a big deal, but this was something else.
The O3 Bros had arranged that some of the more enthusiastic participants would parade up the hill together. Hundreds of kids—all dressed up as minotaurs, valkyrie, angels, wendigos, kappas, cyclopes, elves and a whole host of Others I didn’t recognize—made a slow ascent up the hill toward the area that stood between the four dorms. McConnel, Molsen and Gardner Hall served as a net, with each building standing at three sides of an uneven field all the dorms shared. In the center of the field stood an old, circular building that housed the mess hall, a large open courtyard at its center. In the center of this courtyard was an old stone fountain that hadn’t worked in years.
Slowly, deliberately, the partiers poured into this courtyard, Others dressed as humans and humans dressed as Others. Some of the humans were so well-disguised that I mistook them for Others, and only after a double-, sometimes triple-take did I recognize them as human. And not from a flaw in their costume. It was their mannerisms that gave them away: an oversized dwarf running his hands through his hair in a very nervous, human way; a tiny minotaur chugging a beer; an over-accessorized valkyrie vaping.
And then there were the misinformed humans. The ones with fake vampire fangs or the ones prancing around in werewolf costumes. They clearly hadn’t gotten the memo that those once-upon-a-time kinds of monsters didn't exist anymore.
Not that it mattered. In a way, I was comforted that vampires and werewolves were still something humans thought about (huh, “humans,” look at me refer to them like I wasn’t one of them myself).
I walked through the crowd of humans pretending to be Others when some shirtless boy shoved a plastic cup filled with beer at me and said, “Nice sword. What are you supposed to be? A Scottish baby?” He chuckled at his oh-so-funny joke. He trousers were furry and his feet looked hooved. A satyr. He even had a pan flute in his hands—nice touch. With that beer in his hand and that wicked grin, he could have been Pan himself.
I was wearing my father’s mask and my old Stewart tartan that was older than this guy’s grandfather. Still, he was acting in good humor, and this was a party after all. I curtsied—not an easy feat when you have a dirk wrapped around your waist—and in my poshest British accent, I said, “A Cherub warrior, actually. And before you ask, yes, all angels are from Scotland.”
At this, he guffawed and handed me five tickets that reminded me of the coupons you won at a carnival. “You’re a funny gal. Here—beer tickets. Enjoy.” And with that, he pranced off with such grace that for a moment I thought that he might actually be Pan.
I looked at the tickets in my hand and shrugged. “When in Rome,” I muttered to myself, and made my way to the makeshift bar the O
3 Bros had set up beside the fountain.
As I made my way over to the beer stand, I scanned the crowd. After what I saw—or rather, didn’t see—in the library, I was pretty sure the killer would use the chaos of this party to enact the next phase of his plan.
Or her plan. I still wasn’t certain about that.
There were so many people, though, all dressed up in so many disguises, that I wasn’t sure how I’d ever find him. Luckily I wasn’t alone. Deirdre was somewhere in this crowd, dressed like a purple ninja—the only costume that covered her face we could come up with, given our limited wardrobe. Egya wore an uninspired white sheet with eyes cut out—his version of a ghost. I guess he wasn’t kidding about the costume, after all. And without the hood, he thankfully just looked like a kid under a sheet. As for Mergen—well, that guy had eaten so much Truth on the mountain that he’d literally swelled up to be the size of a plump fat man.
So we dressed him like Santa Clause.
All we had to do was find the killer. Trouble was, based on our investigations, the killer was human, not an Other like the hex had led us to believe. You see—and this was where I was particularly proud of my Nancy Drew skills—I noticed that the only items used in the killing ritual and the only items stolen from the library were human relics used in human sacrifice. Ancient rope, a ceremonial bowl, and the obsidian dagger.
Others—particularly the human-sacrificing kind—didn’t use items like that at all. By their logic, there was too much distance between the human and victim when using a crucifix; better to bind them with magic. Granted, magic was in limited supply these days, but still, they wouldn’t crucify their victims. Why use a Christian symbol to taint their own traditions, when simply tying them to a chair was enough?
And as for the ceremonial bowl—why use something as silly as a bowl, when it was much better to drink the blood straight from the source? I should know—ex-vampire here, remember?
An obsidian blade looks cool, sure, but claws are much easier to use.
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