Mortality Bites - The COMPLETE Boxed Set (Books 1 - 10): An Urban Fantasy Epic Adventure

by Ramy Vance

  “It will get easier,” Egya said. “You are only beginning your journey.”

  That really annoyed me. “Look here, Yoda,” I said. “You can pretend to be the wise little sage that knows more about me than I know about myself, and you might have once upon a time been a were-dog—”

  “Hyena.”

  “Were-pain-in-my-ass! Whatever you were, you’re not that anymore. Now you’re a human. A human like me. A stupid, worthless, broken human!” I cried out.

  I don’t know what happened exactly, but saying those words unleashed something in me. I started sobbing, still speaking between gasps. “It’s just so hard. I mean—one minute you’re—a supernatural predator that eats people—and the next—you’re just—people.”

  I walked over to the mesh fence and looked up at the cross, basking in its neon halo. I calmed down, taking deep breaths and wiping the tears from my face. “Not too long ago, the sight of a cross would have sent me running. Its power protected those who believed in it from monsters like me.”

  Deirdre walked up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. “A symbol that offers protection for those who wish it to.”

  I nodded. “But now, here, under this monstrous thing, I feel … nothing. Neither fear nor comfort. To me, this cross is just a piece of decoration on top of a hill.”

  “But, Lady Kat, is that not a good thing?” Deirdre drew in close. “This symbol can no longer cast its oppressive shadow over you. You are free.”

  “But that’s just the thing. I don’t feel happy, I don’t feel free. I don’t feel anything. About this cross, about being human again, about—” I stopped myself.

  There was a long silence before Deirdre, the fae pain-in-my-ass, asked a question I did not have the courage to ask myself.

  “Lady Kat, are you without … pain?”

  I nodded.

  Deirdre straightened her back and lowered her hands to her side so she resembled a tree trunk without branches—the fae’s body language for concern or worry. “That is not good, Lady Kat. We fae believe that true life resides in the throes of emotion, be it comforting or adversarial.”

  Tears spilled down my face once more. “When we vampires became human, there was a lot of confusion. We lost our fangs, our powers and superhuman strength and senses. And we also lost our need to drink human blood. This caused us more confusion than you might think. For one thing, all the horrible things we did when we were demons came flooding back to us. Being human meant having a human conscience. And a conscience is a heavy burden.

  “Most of us—at least among the ex-vampires I spoke to—decided on two things. One, we’d do our best to atone for what we had done. And two, we’d try to forgive ourselves. After all, it was the demon within us that killed all those people. And that demon’s gone now. That has to count for something.”

  I had been staring up at the cross once more, but now I turned and looked back at everyone. “Well, it doesn’t, and I will say one thing about forgiveness. It doesn’t come easy. Because I wasn’t sure I could ever let go of the guilt, I decided to focus on atonement. That’s why,” I said, turning to Mergen, “I saved you from those hockey players, why I thought to feed you. Saving you was part of my atonement.” I looked away. “But that’s a lie.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Mergen said, dabbing at his lips.

  “Fine, but it is an incomplete truth. The whole truth, the Truth, is this: we ex-vampires lie to ourselves, saying that it was the demon inside that killed … but when you’re turned, it’s not like the movies, where you lose your soul or become a mindless killer. The truth is, nothing about who you are actually changes.

  “You are who you are, but with an insatiable, painful hunger that, if not satisfied, will kill you. Human blood is the only way to survive as a vampire. And your thirst for it is all-consuming. When I drank from my victims, I did so because I didn’t want to die. Not because a demon was telling me to do it.

  “And before you ask—pigs, cows, rats … animal blood doesn’t sustain a vampire.

  “And yes, I tried to only drink the blood of those who were evil—at first. But after years of killing, even that line gets crossed. You start to find evil in all humans, no matter how small, and you lie to yourself, saying you’re making the world better by ridding it of its scum. After a while, you don’t even bother saying that. It just becomes a part of you. You tell yourself, you are no more evil than the man who slaughters a cow for sustenance. Being a vampire, you say, means humans have become your cattle. That is why I’m ashamed of who I was—”

  “Was?” asked Mergen, clutching his stomach.

  “Am …” I said. “Am … I am a killer who—at first—killed because I didn’t want to die. And later because it just became a … a normal thing to do.”

  “Mmmm,” Mergen said. “The Truth may be bitter … but it is always nourishing.”

  I didn’t look at the avatar. I couldn’t. I was so ashamed, and my eyes were so overflowing with tears that I couldn’t see anything. In the clarity of my Truth, the world was a blur to see.

  “Maybe,” I said, “there is one more Truth to share.”

  Mergen’s eyes glinted. “Please.”

  I took a deep breath. “When I turned my mother, it wasn’t because I wanted to hurt or punish my father. It was because I believed that he—seeing both his daughter and wife a vampire—would agree to be turned. I wanted to have my family back. Me, mother and father, traveling the world, happy and whole. But he still refused and all I managed to do was create an immortal mother who was more trouble than a hundred angry, pitch-fork carrying, monster hunting mobs.” I thought about my mother and shuttered. Just more evil I had to atone for … the stuff I did, and the insanity and chaos she brought into the world because of me.

  I doubted I could make up for all of that even if I had a thousand lifetimes to try.

  “I might have lost that round,” I said, “but there was one more move I had, and on the night he …” My voice cracked, catching my next words before they could escape my lips.

  “Pain is often truth newly set free,” Mergen said giving me a look of divine sympathy.

  I nodded, wiping away my newly set free tears. “So … so the night he died, was the night I took him by force and made him a vampire against his will. But my father was so stubborn. And strong. Stronger than I will ever be. As soon as he realized he could not conquer the hunger that now burned within him, he took his own life by waiting for the sun to rise. I tried to stop him, but now that he was a vampire, he was too strong for me to pull him away from the light.

  “ ‘The sun will kill you!’ I cried out.

  “He just shook his head and said, ‘Dying is the right thing for me to do.’

  “ ‘But it will hurt,’ I said, like a petulant child scared to take her medicine.

  “He just smiled in that kind way he used to do when I was little and frightened. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘doing the right thing hurts.’ And then he turned to face the dawn.

  “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.

  CHECK OUT WHAT’S BEEN CHECKED OUT

  A fter 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 tea
rs 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 in 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 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 in the hope that the O3’s 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. 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.”

  “Oh, 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.

  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 in confusion.

  “Sneak me back onto campus.”

  “Why?”

  “To confirm something.”

  “Confirm what?”

  “Wh
o 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 place 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.

  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 the Old Librarian had 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 cleanup crew had mopped up the blood and any other body parts that might be considered a biohazard.