by Ramy Vance
And now some idiot student wants to have a piece of the gargoyle's body as … what? … a freaking paperweight?
“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. You should be helping them find his killer. What you absolutely shouldn’t be doing is bragging to that blond 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 get angry. 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 of hours ago was sitting in Student Admin seeking to quit this place. “GoneGodDamn it … I got involved and convinced him to go with Mousy 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 had 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 statue, 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 witness to 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. Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t think so. I’m tired and—”
“In the UnSeelie Court, vigils lasted forty days and forty nights, with the warrior class standing guard over the body, our swords always at the ready.”
“What’s your point?”
“Here on Earth, I do not believe that they observe the same customs.”
“What gave you that clue?”
“This.” She pulled out a flyer from her pocket. The same one that Justin had handed me earlier. “The invitation.”
“It’s not an in—” I started, then thought better of it. “Sorry, you were saying?”
“The invitation speaks of candles and invites people to speak. It also has several religious symbols decorating its borders. The rituals of this vigil will be different than the ones I know.”
“Again, so …?”
“I require a human escort.”
“I’m hardly human,” I said.
“Then a being that understands human rituals,” she said, evidently not getting that I was joking. “I fear that if I go alone, I will only make a fool of myself.”
“So don’t go.”
She looked at me, as if hurt. “Vigils are a requirement for one such as I. It was our duty to attend all for whom an invitation had been issued.”
She thought she was specia
lly invited. And because of that, she was obligated to attend. Oh, brother … she’d have been a Latter-day Saint’s dream come true before the GrandExodus.
I thought about explaining that flyers were just a thing humans did to disseminate information, but seeing the steel in her eyes, I knew she not only saw it as her duty to go—it was something she wanted to do.
“Attend,” I said. “But don’t take your sword.”
She gave me a longing look.
“No swords, Deirdre. And you don’t need an escort. Just do what everyone else does.”
She began to blink rapidly, and if I hadn’t seen this behavior before, I would have thought she was having a seizure. But rapid blinking was the fae’s equivalent of pleading. She was—in her way—on her knees, begging me to come.
“No,” I said.
More rapid blinks.
“I’m not going.”
Now the blinks were not only faster but out of sync, too. How the hell was she doing that?
“You’re not going to stop unless I agree, are you?”
She shook her head, maintaining her manic blinks.
“Fine, fine,” I said. “We’ll go. Satisfied?”
Deirdre stopped blinking and smiled.
“Good. Now if you don’t mind …” I said, and pulled my duvet over my head.
“If I do not mind what?”
“Please be quiet and let me nap, Deirdre!”
The room went silent. Thank the GoneGods.
STICKS AND STONES HURT WAAAAY LESS THAN WORDS
I woke up to Deirdre wearing my grass-green blouse, her hair tied back in a ponytail, with tiny lilacs in her hair and a laurel wreath on her head. She was watching the news on my iPad. I guess among her fae ethics, using my stuff without permission was nowhere in sight. I thought about reprimanding her, taking it away, but then I heard the Global News Montreal news anchor start his report with, “More mythical creatures being targeted in hate crimes.”
I got out of bed and asked Deirdre to turn it up. Together, we watched in horror as two satyrs being carted away on a stretcher, a flash of an angel bleeding light on the sidewalk as police interviewed her, and three pixies crying as they were taken away in the back of a police car. What wasn’t shown was the dead gargoyle—which kind of made sense. The police, like the kid in the Iron Man hoodie, would have mistaken him for a pile of rubble and not a body at a crime scene.
The anchor ended his report with, “Police theorize that these attacks are in response to the death of Dr. Dewey, who was brutally murdered by an unknown Other late last night,” signing off after that.
“Dr. Dewey?”
“The librarian,” Deirdre said. “Dewey was his surname.”
Hearing his name felt like a slap in the face. All this time, I knew him as the “Old Librarian,” and that put some distance between us. Now that I knew his name, much of that distance was lost.
I lifted my face to the ceiling, desperately trying to stop a tear from escaping. “What else is the news saying?”
Deirdre told me. It seemed that in the six hours or so that I had slept, there had been a half-dozen attacks on campus. All against Others. I guess the murder of the Old Librarian—uhh, Dr. Dewey—opened the floodgates of tension. Given how dangerous Others were supposed to be, there were a hell of a lot more Others being hurt at the hands of humans than humans being hurt by Others.
But isn’t that how fear works? It turns aggressors into the righteous and victims into demons.
“This is just one report,” Deirdre said. “There are other stories on other channels.” A tiny tear ran down her cheek and fell on the iPad’s screen.
“I know,” I said, my own tear escaping.
“What can we do about it?”
“Nothing.”
Deirdre sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry, Deirdre, but there’s nothing to do. We just have to wait until the anger subsides and pray that the world comes to its senses.”
“Pray? To whom?”
I didn’t answer. There was no one to pray to. Everyone knew that.
Deirdre handed me the iPad and stood up. “Perhaps tonight’s vigil will help heal some wounds. Perhaps—”
“You can’t go to the vigil, Deirdre! You’ll be in real danger there.”
She gave me a look like I was the crazy one to consider not going.
“Look,” I explained, “there will be a lot of angry people there. Angry humans. Humans who will want to take out their frustration on an Other just like you. There’s no way. I’m not going and neither are you.”
“But I was invited. As a fae warrior, I cannot—”
“You’re no longer a fae warrior. You are a mortal creature living in a world without gods.”
“But … but …” She bunched her hands together, holding them so tight that her fingers turned white with the effort. “I am fae.” Two more tears escaped and rolled down her cheeks. “Oberon and Titania may have abandoned us … the UnSeelie Court and Planes of Forever Green may no longer be … but that does not make me any less fae than I was. I am fae. I will always be fae.”
With those words, she dried her eyes and looked at the clock. “The hour is near,” she said. “I will attend the vigil—with or without my human guide.”
I’d been around the fae enough to know that once they made up their minds, nothing short of divine intervention could discourage them. And since we were all out of that, I sighed and pulled an old poncho out of my drawer. “OK—we’ll go. But you can’t dress like that.”
AS WE MADE our way down the hill to campus, I expected to see the streets filled with people shouting anti-Other chants, some fights, the air thick with tension. Anger.
Hate.
But that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, Deirdre and I found dozens of students carrying cardboard signs that read various flowery stuff like:
OTHERS DESERVE THEIR PLACE.
LOVE STILL MATTERS.
WE MUST WELCOME THE MYTHICAL REFUGEES INTO OUR HOMES.
AND ONCE WE got into the vigil itself, I saw students crying, more signs, a picture of the Old Librarian surrounded by flowers and candles. The hate simply wasn’t here. Well, at least it felt like that …
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the calm before the storm.
WE STARTED to make our way through the crowds because, as Deirdre put it, it was our duty to light a candle in his honor. I thought it was enough we showed up, but who was I to argue with fae logic?
Whatever, I thought as we wove through the sea of bodies. As long as we make it there and back without drawing too much attention to our—
“Ms. Darling,” I heard a voice say. “It’s good to see you here.”
I turned to see Detective Sarah Wilcox standing behind me. And right next to her was a boy in a hoodie who looked like he’d much rather be in a million other places than on this field at this time.
“Detective Wilcox. Good to see you here, too,” I said. “And hi, Nate. How’s it going?”
Nate shrugged.
“OK,” I said, wondering what his problem was. “Is Justin here, too?”
Nate didn’t look up, simply pointing at the founder statue. “He’s setting up for his big speech.”
“I see that you’re already acquainted with my cousin,” Wilcox said.
“I am. Sort of. He mostly made fun of me. Something about Weird Girl and his friend Justin.”
“Is that true, dear cousin?” Wilcox said, pinching his cheeks in that exaggerated way you did to kids.
Nate withdrew in anger, slapping her hand away. “Bitch,” he said.
“Excuse me?” Detective Wilcox said, seriousness flooding her face.
“Not you—her,” Nate said.
Now it was my turn. “Excuse me?” Deirdre took a step forward, but I held out a hand. “I can handle this. Now, again, excuse me?”
Nate looked up, finally pulling his hoodie off his head. “You heard me. Bitch.” He took a step forward.
> “What is your problem?”
He pointed at the Other Studies Library and whispered, “My cousin here says you’re not the killer, but I saw you with those hockey players.”
“I was defending that poor Other beggar. And besides, all I did was give them a bloody nose. I didn’t string them up or—”
That’s when Nate pushed me. And I don’t mean a gentle, get-out-of-my-way nudge. It was a full-on shove, and since I wasn’t expecting it, I landed hard on my ass.
Deirdre immediately got between us, and if I had waited a second longer, she might have shoved him back. Being shoved by a human might get you on the floor, but being shoved by a pissed-off changeling—that was likely to send you to the next block.
“Don’t, Deirdre. It’s not worth it.” Deirdre gave me a confused look as I clambered back to my feet, so I added—just for good measure, “Against human protocol to fight at a vigil. Nate here dishonors the Old Librarian—”
“Dr. Dewey,” Deirdre said.
“Yes, Dr. Dewey.” I gave Nate a cold, hard stare, then flashed the fakest smile I could muster. Turning to Detective Wilcox, I noticed she hadn’t moved. She must have been just as shocked as I was. “I don’t know what your problem is, Nate,” I said, “but I liked Dr. Dewey. And even if I didn’t, I would have never—”
That’s when Nate spit in my face.
I lunged at him, and if it hadn’t been for Deirdre taking my No fighting at vigils comment seriously, it would have been Nate knocked on his ass. That, and Wilcox stepping between us. From her expression, I could tell she didn’t know if she should hit me or reprimand Nate.
Pointing a threatening finger in Nate’s face, I said, “This isn’t over.”
I pulled Deirdre close and we made our way to the memorial. I glanced over my shoulder to see Nate and Wilcox watching me walk away. Wilcox still had a puzzled look on her face, but Nate …
Nate was smiling.
WE PASSED by students strumming guitars, singing hymns, reciting poetry, lighting candles—all paying homage to a man who virtually none of them knew. And yet I could sense that their misery was genuine. They truly felt the loss. Why? How could they lament the loss of someone they never knew? Was it fear that something happened so close to them? Fear that if it happened to him, it could happen to them?