by Ramy Vance
She gave me a confused look.
“You’re going to have to clean all this up?” I clarified.
“Really?” she said, her voice full of despair.
“I don’t mind, but humans have rules and—”
“I broke them. First day here and I’m already screwing this up.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Being mortal is hard,” she said, plopping herself onto her bed and sending up a fresh shower of loose soil.
I felt for her. Really, I did, despite the ruined jacket still in my hand. I was finding mortality hard, too, and I was human … well, I was born human, at least. That gave me a lot more experience at it than her. I sat next to her and put a hand on her shoulder, still acutely aware of her nudity. Damn, even her skin felt like it was manufactured in a lab. “Mortality does bite, Deirdre—but I’m here to help. If you have any mortality questions, just ask me. I’ll steer you right.”
“You will?”
“Cross my heart.” I dropped my jacket back to the floor and made an X on my heart. She looked at me curiously. Before she could ask, I said, “It’s a human expression. Means ‘I promise.’ A slightly old expression. Probably had its heyday thirty years ago, but—”
The changeling wrapped her arms around me and hugged me so tight I struggled to breathe. Damn, she was strong, too. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
I’d never been hugged by a naked fae before. It was nicer than I’d expected.
After a long second, she pulled away and put her hand over her heart—a common fae salute. “Thank you, human girl. In return for your generous offer, I give you my sword arm. This is my pledge to you. This is my …” She loosened her fist and made an X over her left boob—erm, I mean her heart. “This is my heart-cross to you.”
Oh, yay … day one and I’d already got a warrior fae as a protector.
Maybe college wouldn’t be so bad after all.
DayStalker, NightWalker
I helped my changeling roommate clean up and take everything outside, which involved convincing her first to put on some clothes and then not to sniff, pick at or eat the grass as we carried it out. She really struggled with this last part; twice I caught her stuffing a handful of soil and grass into her pockets. It was slow work, but eventually we managed to get it all out the door.
Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to accomplish this before some of the other girls on the floor started to make fun of us. They mocked us from a safe distance (they, too, were acutely aware of Deirdre’s powerful build) with comments like “Look at her ears” or “Eat dirt much?” Not particularly witty, but these humans were wary of picking a fight with Deirdre and, if they were totally honest with themselves, were probably all jealous of how beautiful she was. The perfectly lithe body, high cheekbones, rosy cheeks, lush blond hair and inviting smile … the perfect recipe for beauty. And they knew it.
So the girls stood in little clusters and watched us. Safety in numbers, I guess—Schoolgirl Bullying 101.
Only one of the girls broke away from a cluster of her peers to help out by giving Deirdre a plot of soil that had fallen out of the wheelbarrow. She was a mousey little thing with amber hair and thick black glasses. She scurried away the second Deirdre said, “Thank you.” Deirdre looked hurt.
“They’ll get used to you,” I said. “And as soon as some more Others show up, you won’t be the only freak show on display here.”
“Freak?” she asked. “What is this ‘freak’ you speak of?”
“You know—stranger, non-human, different. Freak.”
“I see,” she said, and lifted the handles of her wheelbarrow again. “We are freaks.”
“ ‘We’?” I said, slightly offended.
“Me because I’m an Other. You because you help Others.”
I sighed. “That’s me, human freak at your service.”
After helping Deirdre get the Astroturf out of our room, I left her to sweep up and went for a walk. She was pretty upset, having lost all her earth and grass, but she seemed to accept that this new GoneGod World had different rules. That said, I was pretty sure I’d come home to her having stuffed her mattress with the leftover dirt—but at least I got most of it out of the room. Small victories.
Tomorrow, I’d figure out a way to get her to give up her broadsword. After that, we’d move on to the smaller stuff, like wearing clothes and how most of nature belonged outside.
Baby steps, Kat. Baby steps.
It was late—almost midnight—and most of the campus was closed. The only place still open was Gerts, the campus bar, and given that it was a Tuesday night, even Gerts wouldn’t be open much longer. Besides, I didn’t feel like a drink. I was of the legal age—according to the mortal law, in the province of Quebec, you only needed to be eighteen.
I was nineteen.
By now, I’m sure you would correct me on that one: I was actually over three hundred years old. But the way I figured it, I was—biologically speaking—still only nineteen. I was turned at fifteen, so I figured that when I returned to being human again, I would start aging from that point. I’d been human for four years since the GrandExodus—so four plus fifteen. Nineteen.
My math skills were impeccable. I was sure to make the dean’s list.
Anyway, that’s how I saw it, but I wasn’t sure how the rest of the world saw it. You see, ever since the Others came, mortal law had been challenged on multiple levels. Legal definitions had to be broadened and bastardized and reevaluated to include Earth’s newest residents.
But society was still too busy dealing with angels, minotaurs, wendigos, avatars and all sorts of OnceImmortals. We half-breeds were largely ignored—partly because we were technically human, but mostly because we never went into the limelight. After centuries of hiding from humans, we were pretty good at confining ourselves to the darkness.
I walked down the hill toward the university’s main campus and took a deep breath. Autumn was on its way, which, in Montreal, meant that real cold was coming. Montreal was a university town with four major universities within its city limits. I went to McGill—the best of the bunch (or at least that’s what other McGill students say).
Montreal itself wasn’t a bad place to live. European feel with North American sensibility; friendly people, not too smug; lots of bars, clubs and other places for frustrated locals to let off some steam. When I was a vampire, this would have been ideal hunting grounds. As a student, Montreal was ideal party grounds. Funny how the two go hand in hand.
But partying and hunting aside, what made Montreal special was that it was built on (and around) an inactive volcano. I wished it were a dead volcano, but it wasn’t. Not that anyone was worried, though. Montreal’s volcano hadn’t shown any sign of activity since I was born—yeah, three centuries ago. That was a good indicator that it was safe enough, right?
Then again …
Four years ago, mythical creatures barely showed any activity on Earth either.
And look where we were now.
But still, a volcano was a volcano, and the locals, several decades ago, had decided to hedge their it-won’t-erupt bets by putting a cross at its very top. A Christian, neon-lit, bigger-than-an-upright-bus, vampire-burning cross.
And this was the city I chose to move to?
What’s more—I actually lived on the volcano. If you walked up the hill, past the Royal Vic Hospital, past the McGill football stadium, you entered McGill University dorm territory. If this volcano erupted soon, we freshmen would be the first victims. Seems fitting, if you think about it.
McConnell, Molson, Gardner and Douglas Halls all sat about halfway up the hill, along with a large circular cafeteria that was cutting-edge architectural design … in the 1950s. I lived in Gardner—the dorm that was the absolute closest you could find to that beacon of a cross.
Every time I trekked up the hill, staring at the cross, I would just think to myself that moving here had been some inner penitence or something. You don’t spend three centuries as a murderous immortal demon without deve
loping your inner masochist.
I walked onto the main campus field, which never seemed to close—too many late-night studies—and passed by James McGill’s statue. The Scotsman explorer was a short, stout man, holding his pioneer hat against the wind, cane planted firmly on the ground in one hand, the other pointing straight ahead. It wasn’t a grand statue or anything. The guy was my height, and I was born in eighteenth-century Scotland—we were a lot shorter than today’s average human.
I gave my fellow Highlander a pat on the head. Immediately, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. In the past, that was what happened when danger or potential prey was nearby, like a vampire’s sixth sense. Maybe late-night studiers were finally going home, or perhaps two lovebirds were making out in the moonlight.
But I saw no moonlight lovers, no late-night studiers walking home, nobody. In fact, I noticed for the first time that everything around me was eerily dark—no lights, no noise, all the buildings long abandoned.
I take that back. There was one light on the main floor of the Other Studies Library. I guess my senses were on the fritz.
Oh, well.
I peered closer at the Other Studies building. Seems the Old Librarian was still working, and I wondered if he’d be up for a visit. Maybe he would finally be able to tell me how he got my father’s tartan.
Besides, I thought (out loud, probably), I’m his newest employee … and technically it is tomorrow.
The library had one of those old wooden church doors. From the front, I couldn’t see inside—all the large windows were on the sides of the building, with only two slender, stained-glass displays flanking the entrance.
I tried the door. Locked.
I jogged back to where I’d been to look up at the window again, but there wasn’t enough light to make out what was happening inside. At this point, I usually would have just given up and called it a night, but I wasn’t especially looking forward to finding Deirdre naked in our dorm again (I swear! I wasn’t!), and something about this whole thing was starting to make me feel uneasy. That vampire sixth sense again, maybe? I jogged to the front door once more and, pulling back on the iron knocker just within reach, I knocked and waited.
Nothing.
I was about to give up, when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. When I was a predator, those hairs had saved me more than once. Up until now, I had assumed they were a part of my vampiric nature. Either I had carried over some of that nature with me or that tingly feeling had been my human part all along.
Either way, I had learned to trust that instinct. The door was locked, nobody was answering the knocker … I scrutinized every inch of the door and the surrounding facade, until I spotted a mail flap near the bottom of the door. I pushed it open and peered inside. Two desk lamps were lit in the study area, but from this angle, their light only revealed a couple of cushy armchairs and an empty fireplace. Nothing of interest.
But I could smell something.
A smell I knew very well.
Human blood.
Vampires Aren’t Only Humans
Human blood. Unmistakable … I should know. I’d only spent the last few centuries guzzling it down like a camel in a desert. A … vampire camel? Whatever. Poor simile, but you get the point.
Smelling it as a human was completely different than drinking it as a vampire. As a vampire, the smell excited me, intoxicated me—drove me mad with insatiable desire. But as a human, the smell of blood made me retch, and the thought of tasting the crimson liquid made my stomach twist with nausea.
Get over it, girl, I thought as I tried to find a way into the library. It’s probably nothing too serious. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that the Old Librarian had merely fallen and hit his head. That the smell of blood came from a head wound, not a gaping throat or severed carotid artery. A few stitches and a concussion would be the worst that he’d suffer.
But the smell was way too strong for that … and as much as I tried to lie to myself that he’d be fine, I’d been involved in enough death to know better.
The Old Librarian was dead. The part of me that was still vampire knew that.
The human part of me, on the other hand, still clung on to hope.
I pulled at the door handle again—no good. I’d need a battering ram to get through this heavy wooden door. If only I still had my vampiric strength. But what I lacked in strength, I made up for in smallness. The windows that ran along the side of the door were narrow, barely the size of a dinner plate. But I could work with that. Now all I needed was something to smash the window with. I ran to the path leading up to the library and picked up a heavy stone lining the flower bed. Rushing back to the door, I hefted the stone and smashed it through the window.
Then, taking off my Hermes jacket—still muddy from Deirdre’s home decor—I wrapped it around my arm and cleared the rest of the glass, silently lamenting the lacerations the leather suffered from the process. I’d definitely have to buy a new one now. Good thing I had money—and lots of it. Three hundred years of antique collecting and compound interest tends to do that.
Glass cleared, I sucked in my breath and shimmied through. I made it in—barely—with only my butt and my chest getting squished as I did. Evidently, those parts of me were a bit wider than a dinner plate.
Inside I wasted no more time. I let my nose guide me to the back of the library’s main floor, near to where the artifacts were kept—but even without that sickly smell as my guide, a part of me knew this was where I’d find the old man.
As I got closer, the smell of blood became stronger and stronger. Turning the corner, I braced myself for what I thought I’d see.
But what I saw was much, much worse.
The Old Librarian was strung up on the heavy, oak bookshelves closest to the display cases. His hands were literally nailed to the thick shelves. His feet, positioned one in front of the other, were held together by a thick metal spike, which had been driven through them.
He hung in a crucified position on that shelf. I might have thought his killer was imitating the classic Christ crucifixion … if it weren’t for the stuff on the floor.
Like some Egyptian mummification process interrupted, four canopic jars had been arranged in front of him, each holding a different organ. His small intestines sat on a silver tray, his large intestines on a gold one. And as for his blood—that had meticulously been drained from his body, into large clay pots. Very little of it had been spilled on the floor. His murderer had been precise.
My eyes were drawn back up to his body. His chest cavity had been torn open and I only saw an empty hole where his heart should have been.
I groaned … but this was not the worst part by far.
From the expression on his face, I knew that he had been awake while he was being ripped apart.
“Oh, Old Librarian,” I whispered. “Why didn’t you scream for help? Why didn’t I hear you?”
The answer came when I looked down and saw that his tongue lay on a cloth right in front of us both. The cloth was wet, not only with blood but also mucus and saliva, which meant that the monster responsible took the time to stuff his mouth with that cloth to muffle his screams. The monster most likely cut out the Old Librarian’s tongue after he died.
This didn’t make sense. Too much was going on here. The crucifixion, the ceremonial draining of blood, the way the organs were distributed in the four jars … the tongue on a cloth. It was like he was killed by a bunch of monsters from a dozen different horror movies.
I tried desperately to keep my composure. I’d played my part in quite a lot of killing. Some for fun—most of it to survive. But I had never been a part of something such as this. Say what you will about vampires—we never did this to our victims.
I turned away, having taken in as much of the scene as I dared. With my back to him, I now faced the cases housing an array of Other artifacts. Several of the display cases, I now noticed, were broken and empty. I didn’t need to turn around to know they ha
d been used in the sick killing behind me. I couldn’t recall exactly which ones had been in those now-empty cases, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw one that wasn’t missing—my father’s old Scottish dirk.
His display case stood untouched.
As I stared at my father’s weapons, I considered my next move. What happened here was recent, maybe even minutes from completion, which meant the killer or killers couldn’t have gotten far. I could hunt them down—after all, I was pretty good at that. But I was also human now. What would a human do? A human would call the police. It would take ages for them to get down here, and the trail would probably be cold by then. But they had modern forensics and—
Crunch.
Coming from the front of the library, the unmistakable sound of a foot crunching down on glass.
The monster was still in here … and had accidently stepped on some of the glass I’d smashed when breaking into the library—which meant it (I can only assume something capable of committing such a horrible crime was an it) was trying to escape.
Looking at the old Scottish dirk, I knew what I had to do.
I may no longer be a vampire.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still a killer.
Dirks and Lipstick
The monster stopped moving, evidently waiting to see if I had heard the glass beneath its boots … or claws, or … whatever passed as its feet. This monster was playing it cautious, which meant that it wanted to escape without incident.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Even though the old rush of the hunt came surging through me, I fought the urge and stood perfectly still, pretending not to have heard my prey. Then I listened.
Faint breath came from the front of the library.
I slowly counted in my head, waiting, listening. In a minute, I’d make my move and either it would attack me or run. Either way, whatever I did would have to put me in the best position to take it down. I thought about the Old Librarian. He had been frail, weak—certainly not trained like I was. He wouldn’t have put up much of a fight. That meant I couldn’t gauge my opponent’s strength on what I knew.