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

by Ramy Vance

  A thought occurred to me. Every single jinn was occupied stopping his typhoon of arrows.

  A diversion. Hell yeah, Mergen!

  I jumped up onto the fountain, skirting all the decorations and the jinn toward the side with the tabernacle. Slicing off the tail of the ferret-scorpion jinni, I jumped on the poor sacrificial legioneer and struck at Wilcox. The ferret-scorpion tried to grab me with its paws, but it was too late. I was already up in the air again. But before I could make contact with Wilcox, two jinn zipped up between us, protecting her from mortal danger.

  Mortal danger—but not pain. I brought down my dirk on the only exposed part of her—the hand that held the obsidian blade.

  I missed. Sort of. I had been aiming to cut her hand clear off, but because of the angle, all I managed to do was cut through her thumb, the hilt of her dagger stopping my sword from making a clean cut.

  Still, I severed her thumb. Anyone who has ever operated an sacrifical alter will tell you that you need a thumb to sacrifice a human.

  Wilcox cried out in pain just as three jinn came on me. I was sure it was only a matter of seconds before they disemboweled me for my little maneuver, but instead, they softened my fall, gently putting me on the floor.

  “What the—?” I started.

  “You are willing to die to protect them,” I heard a voice echo.

  I looked up to see the apu crying tears of confusion. He knelt down over me, sending a shifting dust of stone around us.

  “Yes …?” I said.

  “Then you are the real protector of this realm. Not I,” he said, and his impossible sky-blue eyes became gray and sullen, matching his stony skin. “I surrender this place to you.”

  “No more spell?” I said.

  “No more spell,” said the apu, lowering his head.

  “No more spell? You idiots!” Wilcox said, grabbing her bleeding hand. “You served your purpose. The jinn are free from their bounds of protection, and still under my control.”

  “Not all of them,” Egya said.

  In all the confusion, I didn’t see him sneaking up behind her. Egya wasn’t only silent, he was practically invisible—I had no idea how he had got past all those jinn defenses. Until it hit me: he’d approached without the intention of hurting Wilcox, the jinn’s new sole master. He was just some silent kid moving in this direction—that raised no alarms, didn’t set off any defenses. His willpower to control his thoughts was incredible. How could he be so disciplined?

  I could learn a lot from that kid.

  He no longer wore his ridiculous ghost costume, but instead was shirtless, a Ngbaka throwing knife at his waist. He held a Ngombe sword in one hand, its looping tips looking like the scythe’s evil twin, and his other hand was aloft, holding something that glinted in the light.

  Then I realized what he was up to. He held Wilcox’s thumb in his hand, the crystal ring still on the flesh. Pulling it off and letting the thumb drop to the courtyard floor, he gracefully slid the ring onto his own finger and said in a tone far too casual for such an awesome move, “Jinn—bring me her belt.”

  In a whirl, a giant hawk circled Wilcox and, faster than you could say, Holy sh—, the belt was in Egya’s hand.

  Wilcox knew she was done. There was only one move left for her to do, and the bitch did it. Raising her nine fingers with seventeen rings, she cried out, “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  THAT SET THEM OFF. Oh, GoneGods, did it ever.

  Jinn went every which way at once—lunging on humans as they did. I watched in horror as teeth and claws and talons (and scales, in the case of the giant salmon) lashed out at the totally shocked humans, and that’s when I realized there was no way to get out of this without casualties. Wilcox may only have had control of half the jinn, but that was still enough to cause mayhem and confusion.

  The monkey jinni lunged at two kids who were dressed like dark elves (but then again, they might have just been dressed goth). I leapt up and stabbed the creature in the back. It writhed in pain and turned to face me, twisting its long, skeletal talon to strike my face. But I was ready for that. Ducking under its swing, I took advantage of its momentum to thrust my dirk into its neck.

  It squirmed and tried to screech, but its cries of agony only forced fire-yellow blood out of its neck wound faster.

  I managed to pull my dirk from its corpse and stay relatively unscathed.

  One down—sixteen to go.

  In the carnage, I saw Deirdre swinging her broadsword in defense as she ushered students across the courtyard. She wasn’t trying to kill any of the jinn, but rather place herself between them and the students. I suppose you could say she had pledged her sword arm to the entire student body. A student body that had been less than kind to her and all Others. In that moment, I felt a surge of pride for my fae roommate.

  I also caught a glimpse of Egya. He was commanding the jinn under his control to protect the innocent. He, too, wasn’t going for the kill, using his long arms and powerful swing to protect those who were trying to run.

  Mergen continued his barrage of arrows at Wilcox, filling the three jinn protecting her like pincushions.

  But the three of them could only cover so much. This wasn’t going to go well, unless—

  As I watched Mergen shoot another arrow, which lodged itself in the tiny forearm of the Tyrannosaurus rex, I saw Wilcox pull Nate away, through the crazed crowd, flanked all the while by a swimming salmon. As she reached a far exit, the mesh door slid open just long enough for her to yank Nate through before slamming shut again.

  She was taking him to McConnell Hall.

  Evidently, she thought she’d watch the chaos unfold from the relative safety inside.

  REMEMBER how I’d said that, while certain ex-Others had lost their magical abilities, they still retained a certain amount of latent skill? Sure, I didn’t have a taste for blood anymore, but I’d always be a master at kung fu. Witches lost their powers to cast spells, but they could still use talismans they’d already imbued with magic. Were-hyenas … well, I wasn’t quite sure what Egya could do.

  Point is, I was determined to follow Wilcox and Nate, and a simple caged door wasn’t going to stop me. A couple hundred years ago, I’d developed a pretty kickass ability to scale the wall of just about any building. Castles were my specialty. So this courtyard’s perimeter walls weren’t going to pose any challenge.

  I left the battle to rage on without me, quickly scaling the mesh cage and using it to launch myself to the overhanging awning above. Pulling myself onto that, I leapt to the other side of the roof and, without thinking of my own safety, propelled myself into the air.

  Yeah. It was pretty awesome.

  When I met the ground, I let my body roll with the gravity and sprang back up, never breaking stride as I ran across the springy grass. I followed Wilcox into the building. Given how grievously wounded she was, Wilcox was surprisingly spry. She made it to the door before me and slammed it behind her, gaining a precious head start as I wasted valuable seconds breaking the heavy glass with the hilt of my sword. I reached into the hole I’d made and unlocked the door from the inside to let myself in.

  Running up the Z-shaped stairs, I spared only a second to glance out the window at the mess hall. I couldn’t see into the courtyard from this angle, but I was high enough to see the occasional jinni soar up into the open air above the courtyard. Deirdre, Mergen and Egya—as well as thirteen loyal jinn—were making short work of Wilcox’s minions. The battle would be won—victory without casualties.

  Well, victory with very few casualties, I thought as I made it to the seventh-floor landing.

  I could hear the door to the communal bathroom fly open. Wilcox was taking refuge in a defensible room. She still had one good hand and a gun, which made her very dangerous, indeed. I had no idea what her plan was. I doubt she did, either.

  She’d lost, and now she was cornered.

  Cornered rats don’t make plans.

  But they also don’t hesitate to do
anything batshit crazy to get out of said corner.

  I pushed open the bathroom door. Three gunshots rang out. Looking up, I saw light stream through three bullet holes about a foot above my head.

  “Thank the GoneGods I’m short.”

  “Not ‘gone’ gods if you’d let me finish my ritual, you bitch!” Wilcox screamed back.

  “Wilcox,” I said. “It’s over.”

  “NO, IT’S NOT OVER! They’ll come back! They have to!”

  “Your ritual failed. And even if it had succeeded, I doubt it would have made a difference.”

  Wilcox didn’t respond. Instead, I could hear her mumbling to herself. I had to really concentrate to make out what she was saying … and as soon as I was able to lock on to a couple of words, I knew her plan.

  Crap.

  I burst through the door and saw exactly what I’d expected. Nate on his knees, Wilcox’s gun at his head. She was chanting the Incan incantation.

  If she couldn’t sacrifice several hundred kids to the gods, then she could still give them one.

  And now that Nate was no longer under Sal’s protective spell, nothing would come to possibly save him.

  Nothing—except for me.

  Without hesitation or second thought, I hurled my dirk at Wilcox. It whirled through the air in dazzling slow motion. She tried to veer to the right, but she wasn’t fast enough. Instead of the sword splitting her down the center of her skull, it hit her just above her left eye.

  Wilcox went down with a sickening thud.

  NATE BURST INTO TEARS—BUT not tears for his dead cousin. They were tears of relief, joy—tears of emancipation, of one who had finally found freedom. Sure, Nate had called me a bitch at Dr. Dewey’s vigil, but in all of this, he was just as much a victim as anyone else. He muttered one word over and over again, and this time it wasn’t “bitch.”

  “Sorry, sorry … SORRY.”

  I thought he was looking at me, but he wasn’t. He was staring behind me. I looked over my shoulder.

  It was Sal. I guess, in all the chaos, the apu had found a way out of the mess-hall courtyard and came up here to see if he could help, too. That’s the thing about protectors. It’s not easy for them to stop loving those they protect.

  Sal walked past me, drew close to Nate and gave him a powerful hug. As he held Nate, he turned to me and said, “What now?”

  I shook my head. I honestly didn’t know, and at the moment I was staring at Wilcox’s body. I killed, I thought as I pulled my sword out of her skull. “And not a Class C Other this time. A human. Even if I argued self-defense—"

  “No one will ever know what you did here,” Sal said.

  This was one instant where I was glad for my little quirk of speaking my thoughts aloud.

  What the apu did next was nothing short of astonishing.

  He spread his hands out across the marble tiles of the bathroom floor, and right before our eyes, everything turned to rock, slowly absorbing Wilcox’s body into it. Within moments she was gone, along with any trace of what I had done to her.

  I MADE my way down the stairs and back across to the mess hall to find that the battle was, indeed, over. Wilcox’s jinn had all been dispatched, and Egya’s jinn were standing, frozen statues on the stone fountain. And the humans? Many were hovering near Mergen, happy to have his protective presence close by. But even more rushed to the doors as Sal and I pried their gates up high enough for a safe exit.

  By the time everyone had exited the mess hall and felt the refreshing air of the fields outside, the humans spontaneously decided to hoist Egya and Deirdre into the air and crowd-surf them like rock stars. Egya was quick to get down—evidently, he did not like the attention, or the heights. But Deirdre—the changeling warrior—had finally found some acceptance here. They loved her for being a warrior. For being different. And for using that difference to save their lives.

  None of them seemed to notice me, which was good. I’d lost my cherub mask somewhere in the climb over the mess hall, and the last thing I wanted was to be recognized. I was sure I’d be rewarded for saving them by being attacked. And I wasn’t sure I had it in me to kill another, even in self-defense.

  I might have helped save hundreds of lives—but I did so by tarnishing my own, newly human soul.

  As I wandered around the field, I happened upon an item hidden in the grass. I knelt down and, to my surprise, found the mask. Touching its ceramic cheek, I imagined that I caught a glimpse of my father’s own struggles in that angelic face.

  Sometimes doing the right thing hurts, I thought, and then spoke aloud:

  “But that doesn’t make it wrong.”

  AN ENDING OF SORTS

  Sirens climbed the hill as the students sat outside waiting for help to arrive. As best as I could tell, no one was hurt. Sure there were some scrapes and bruises, a few bloody noses and whatnot, and a hell of a lot of terrified, most likely emotionally scarred kids—but no deaths. Well, no deaths except Wilcox … but given how Sal’s magic worked, I was pretty sure her body was absorbed into the bathroom floor of the seventh landing of McConnell Hall forever.

  She was gone for good. But considering what she’d tried to do, I could live with that.

  Really, I could.

  I didn’t wait for the police to show up. I just walked behind the mess hall and into Gardner Hall’s basement, where my room and bed awaited me. I figured that if the police needed to speak to me, they could come find me where I belonged. Under my covers and away from anyone or anything.

  Crawling into bed, I sighed and closed my eyes. Barely a second went by before there was a knock on the door.

  I ignored it.

  Then another knock.

  I ignored that, too.

  But when a heavy fist knocked a third time, I sighed heavily, got up and opened the door.

  I was expecting a cop or ten, but when I saw Justin’s bloodied smile, my heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds (and believe me, I know what it feels like to not have your heart beat).

  “You left,” he said. There was no scorn or anger in his voice. Just matter-of-fact, like he was trying to process what had happened.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “The cops will want to talk to you. Well, not you, but the girl with the cherub mask.”

  “They’ll find me eventually.”

  Justin smirked. “I’m not so sure. I told them I was pretty sure the girl with the angel face was actually an angel who took to the sky after she saved us.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “What?”

  “I mean—not many know who you are … I mean, really, truly are. And those of us who do—Sal, Nate and, well, me—we all said the same thing. And that’s not all. Word is getting out. Dozens of students all saying you’re gone. Like Superman or something.”

  “Supergirl, you mean?”

  “Superwhatever,” he said, drawing me in close. With gentle hands, he wiped away a few loose strands of hair from my face. “Thank you. And not just from me. From everyone. You saved us.”

  I blushed. “I had help.”

  “You did … and we’re thankful to them, too. But the kid who emerged from the almost politically incorrect white sheet said you were the one who figured it all out. You were the one who saved us.”

  “I guess,” I said, looking down.

  A firm and kind finger gently lifted my chin so that I was staring directly into Justin’s impossibly beautiful eyes. “Thank you,” he said again as he leaned down and kissed me.

  I resisted at first, but feeling his warm lips on my own, I leaned into it. It was the first time I’d kissed anyone. Alive, that is. I died when I was fifteen, before I’d had any serious suitors, and now that I was alive again … well, kissing was good.

  Eventually, we pulled away from each other, and I thought, “Does this mean we’re an item?”

  “An item?” Justin asked, laughing. “What are you—from the sixties?”

  “Ahhh, actually, that expression is from the fif
ties,” I said. Hey, if I was going to think out loud, I might as well embrace it.

  “OK, then,” he said, kissing me again. “We’re an item.”

  I shook my head. “No—not yet. I need to tell you something. And I’m not quite ready. But I don’t want to start this with a lie … so … no. Not yet.”

  He withdrew, narrowing his eyes. “Not yet, but … there’s hope?”

  Right thing to say, I thought (and this time in my head). “Oh, there’s more than hope,” I said. “But I need time to … to figure out how to be a college student first. How about while I’m figuring it out, we have a couple of dates? Real dates. Court me like I’m a Scottish gal from the eighteenth century.”

  He smiled, stepped back and curtsied. “As you wish.”

  “Actually,” I said, “Scottish suitors didn’t curtsy.”

  “Oh … I figured that with the skirt—”

  “Kilt.”

  “—they curtsied. No?”

  “No,” I said, grabbing his hand and guiding him to my door. “They bowed.”

  Standing outside my door, Justin bowed. “Like I said, as you wish.” And with that, the boy with impossibly beautiful eyes and perfect black hair took his leave to give me time to figure out how to be … well, how to be human.

  Again.

  THE NEXT DAYS saw a flurry of activity. Over one hundred human students dropped out, more Others moved in and the university finally found a return to normalcy that—given the circumstances—wasn’t very normal.

  Deirdre, Mousey Girl (whose name, I discovered, was Aimee), Egya and I buried the gargoyle, whose real name was George Paul-Henri Gardien III. We found a quiet spot not too far from the neon cross and laid his stones to rest. Since Georgie was a guardian Other, Deirdre gave him a warrior’s funeral as the rest of us said our farewells.

  Aimee cried.

  And so did I.

  But Georgie got his farewell. And in this new and terrible GoneGod World that had to count for something.

  DAYS PASSED, and the routine of college life started to become … well … routine. Classes, dates with Justin that ended with PG-13 kissing, hanging out on campus … the university routine I figured must have taken place in between the wild party scenes from the old college comedies. I was just finding my rhythm when one day—about a month after the O3 party—I opened my mailbox and pulled out a letter from the Other Studies Library—apparently it was open again and I was to report to work starting Monday. I guess Dr. Dewey, the Old Librarian, had put in my application before he died.