Mortality Bites Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Vance, Ramy

  “Yes, yes,” King Aelfric said, “I missed you, too. But Earro’on, as joyous as it is to see you, we come to ask you to perform a solemn task once more.” Aelfric stood aside and gestured at the bus, its rear door open to reveal the fallen fae inside.

  Earro’on snorted once more before nodding.

  What happened next was something that can only occur when the bizarre meets the beautiful. They performed final rites and presented the bodies to the kelpie, who dragged them deep into the lake.

  First was Archimago. I watched as the fae paid their respects to someone they considered an enemy of the state. Regardless of how they felt about him, they spoke his deeds, evil and good. It seemed Archimago had gone a long way to atonement when he became Oighrig End, the revisionist historian who spoke the Others’ truth.

  But here he was … dead for a crime he did not commit. And what’s more, his body would never be found, his killers would never be brought to justice. Part of me wanted to scream in anger and fury at the injustice. But part of me accepted this fate. As the Archimago, he had done great evil and, because of who he was and not what he was trying to become, he paid the ultimate price.

  As the two parts of my sense of right and wrong wrestled, I thought about myself. My own past … everything vile and horrible that I’d done as a vampire, and the little good I’d done as a human. I suspect the day I die will be in the service of me trying to undo some of that wrong. And as fair or unfair as my death may be, I will accept it, for it will be retribution for all the evil I’ve committed. My only hope is that day comes far enough in the future that I will have gone a long way in unburdering my soul.

  Next was Jack. King Aelfric used his incredible strength to carry the giant to the shoreline. He carefully laid the giant down and started to tell stories about this incredible creature. And in every word, King Aelfric showed nothing but admiration for the giant, never blaming him for the death of his wife. There was no doubt that as far as the Elf King was concerned, Jack-in-Chains was a good and honorable man.

  Finally it was time to lay Remi to rest. Sonia stepped forward and set her hand on his, lifting it to her mouth. She kissed his knuckles while tears ran from her brilliant eyes. Despite all he did, she still loved him, just as she had always truly loved him.

  As for King Aelfric, this was when I expected him to finally condemn the fallen ly erg. But he didn’t; he only spoke the truth.

  The story Aelfric told wasn’t one of condemnation or anger. It was simply filled with sadness. In the end, it was Aelfric who gave Remi’s body to the kelpie. And as the king delivered the ly erg to his final resting place, I saw that Remi’s hands were no longer tainted with blood as they should have been.

  His hands were clean.

  Earro’on accepted the three dead and took them with him as the kelpie submerged into the water.

  I watched the fae as this happened and what I saw in the halfling, trow and goblin, reaper and abatwas were seven creatures who, once upon a time, had been hurt so badly their lives were all but forfeit. And because the fates, universe or whatever still guides the events of our lives that cannot be dismissed as random—gods or no gods—they were made whole again.

  They had a chance to be a family again.

  A chance to be happy again.

  ↔

  After the fae funeral, I bid the old, newly reunited family farewell. I wouldn’t call the police. After all, who would believe me? There were no bodies to speak of, and I doubted they’d fish the lake for an elephant-sized lake monster with the head of a horse.

  As for my guilt about Archimago, he had done evil—lots of it. A part of me thought that while the gods might be gone, karma wasn’t. He paid for his crimes with his life. And it was his death that had helped to bring a family together and heal many wounds of the past. Whether that was right or not, I wasn’t sure. All I did know was the scales were a little more balanced because of what had happened.

  Everyone started to go on their way. Everyone but Ankou. The fae reaper approached me, and in his usual creepy way, stared at me until Justin and Deirdre, who were standing next to me, got the hint and left my side.

  Then he did something that Deirdre would not believe when I told her about it later, no matter how many times I said “I swear” or crossed my heart, or how many oaths I made.

  Ankou spoke.

  ↔

  “Thank you for your aid back there,” the reaper said, his voice surprisingly normal sounding. I don’t know what I expected—Vincent Price, maybe? “And for your words. You are right: the old world is gone. So too are the old ways. My old ways. My impassive ways.” The reaper sighed as if taking a breath for the first time. “And to that end, I wish to repay you with a warning. Of all the substances in this world or any other, the human soul is of the highest value.”

  I shook my head. “Here we go with the soul business again. My soul isn’t missing, because you can’t lose your soul. It’s a part of you, not something that can be ripped away.”

  In response, the reaper stood perfectly still, his expression impassive. So much for taking a more active role in things, I thought.

  Ankou’s lips curled as he nodded. “Again, you are correct. It seems I have fallen into old habits, so let me explain further. The human soul is something that cannot be mined, cannot be forged or counterfeited. Only Life births a soul, and only Death frees it.” The reaper paused. “Do you know why the gods demanded worship from their human creations?”

  “I don’t know. Ego?”

  Ankou shook his head.

  There had been a theory floating around that the gods actually got their power from human worship. The more they were worshipped, the more powerful they became. “Power,” I said.

  Much to my surprise, Ankou shook his head again.

  “Then tell me.” I was getting frustrated.

  “Souls were what allowed the celestial worlds to ...” he paused, searching for the word, “… be. When the gods left, they closed their heavens and hells not by will or power or magic, but by emptying their domains of human souls. The heavens and hells are not just closed. They are also empty. But should one single human soul find its way into one of the domains, well, that can change everything.”

  I thought about that for a moment as the gravity of what he’d just said dawned on me. “You mean a single human soul can reopen Heaven? Or Hell, or Elysium or Tartarus?”

  The reaper nodded.

  “Then why not stand over a dying person’s bed and capture the soul as it leaves the body?”

  “Ahh, if only it were so simple,” he said. “Make no mistake, there are Others of great power trying to accomplish that very deed, but to capture a human soul is akin to trapping the wind. Not so easy.” He lifted a bony, gray finger and touched my forehead. “As a way of thanking you for your aid on this day, I offer you a warning. You live without your soul. There will be those who will seek to exploit this anomaly, and therefore, you.”

  And as if those cryptic words were payment enough for helping to protect his king and righting an ancient wrong, he folded his arms and walked past me without so much as a second glance.

  ↔

  “So,” Justin said, “that was crazy.”

  Speaking of karma, I thought.

  “Huh?” Justin said.

  “Never mind,” I said, waving away my out loud thoughts. This conversation was going to be hard enough without the wrong thoughts being aired. “Justin, we need to talk.”

  “We do,” Justin said, reaching for my hand as we walked. I pulled mine away. He didn’t reach for me again. “I just wanted to say thank you. For saving me.”

  “Is that what I did? Aren’t I the one who endangered you in the first place?”

  “The only danger I’m in is explaining to my parents why I didn’t come home for Christmas … or call them. That’s going to be a doozy …” he trailed off, probably thinking about what he was going to tell them.

  But that was his problem. My problem was him. �
�Justin, if it wasn’t for me you would never have been anywhere near that dybbuk. You would never have been possessed.”

  “True, but I don’t see it that way,” Justin said. “I … I was the stupid one. I said something when you told me a dozen times to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t, so it’s on me.”

  I stopped walking. “No, Justin, it’s on me. I’m the three-hundred-year-old in this relationship. I’m the one who should have known better.”

  “What? Am I a kid who needs his—”

  “Yes, you are. You’re nineteen. Nineteen. You should be going to bars and studying and getting stoned with your buddies. You should be doing things kids do. And what you shouldn’t be doing is following around an ex-vampire as she tries to make up for all the killing she’s done.”

  “You were a vampire back then, Kat. It’s not—”

  “No, Justin, you don’t understand. I remember every single life I took. I remember how they looked, how scared they were, how they tasted … every detail. I know that the demon in me demanded human blood, but I wasn’t completely not me. I was still there. I could have fought harder, like my father did.”

  “He killed himself the day he was turned.”

  I widened my eyes and nodded. “I should have, too. How many family tree branches were severed by me? How many?”

  Justin didn’t answer, looking away.

  “You don’t know. Well, neither do I. All I know is that I’m going to keep getting myself in dangerous situations as I try to make up for some of that. Again and again, until the day I die. I will do that with the hope that when I go, my soul is just that little bit lighter.”

  Soul, I thought, as if I have one.

  “And I’ll help you every step of the way.”

  “Good,” I said. “You can help me by leaving me alone. I can’t keep doing what I’m doing if every step I take puts you in danger.”

  “Kat, I don’t mind the danger. I just want to be with—”

  “Then you’re an idiot. Just like anyone else who willingly puts themselves in danger. In the four months you’ve known me, you’ve been beat up, kidnapped and possessed by a demon. Do you really think you’re strong enough or smart enough to survive me much longer?”

  He started to answer, and I put a hand up to stop him. “Let me answer for you. You’re not.”

  He winced, his eyes closing as he tried to shut away the pain.

  Good, I thought. Time to go in for the kill just like I’ve done so many times before.

  “Maybe if you were strong enough we could be together, but you’re not. You’ve proven that over and over. This is it. We’re done, Justin. We’re done.”

  I walked away from him, leaving behind the nineteen-year-old kid who was too stunned to follow. As soon as I was sure I was far enough away that he couldn’t hear me or catch up, I broke down in tears.

  And Before You Know It … You’re In Japan

  “Happy New Year, Kat,” Dr. Tellier said, wearing that same stupid smile he always does. “Well, it’s not the new year quite yet, but given we’re a few days away and I’ll probably not see you again between now and then, I thought I’d get a jump start on the whole thing.”

  I ignored him and sat down in a huff. He was far too cheerful given the mood I was in.

  “From your demeanor, I’m guessing it’s the ‘happy’ part that’s in question.”

  “It’s not in question, Dr. Tellier. ‘Happy,’ ‘joy,’ ‘merry,’ and just about any other synonym you can think of didn’t find its way to me. Now, if you want to talk antonyms …”

  “Hah. At least you’ve kept your sense of humor.”

  “Barely,” I said.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “OK, let me rephrase my question: should we talk about it?”

  “I broke up with my boyfriend.” My eyes widened as I tried to recall those words. The last thing I wanted to talk about was Justin.

  “You did? Why?”

  Too late. I sighed. “I still love him, but I’m no good for him.”

  “As in not good enough for him?”

  I mean, come on, I thought, I’m cute as a button, smart, strong … rich. Not that I said any of that (thankfully). Instead I let my you’re smarter than that look answer the question for me.

  “So then what do you mean by ‘no good for him’?”

  “I mean bad things happen to people I love. So I figured I’d try not loving for a bit.”

  “I see. And these bad things … what do you mean by that?”

  I thought about telling him who I was, and what had happened to me during my one semester at McGill. The fights, the funerals, the hate. And most recently I had walked away from Oighrig End’s death. I had claimed I would hold the fae to task, but in the end I hadn’t sought any justice for a murdered professor. That one weighed pretty heavily, too.

  Instead of telling him all that, I chickened out and did what I always seem to do when the conversation gets hard: I changed the subject and made a joke. “The last time we spoke you said there are no cookie-cutter solutions, right? I can’t go to the Walmart for the Insane and pick something off the shelf?”

  “If you could, I’d be out of a job,” he chuckled.

  “And that would be a bad thing?”

  The counselor didn’t do the typical joke, or dismiss what I thought was a throwaway comment. Instead, he paused and thought about it. I mean, he actually thought about it. After a long moment of consideration, he said, “Yes, that would be a bad thing. Not the part about mental struggles disappearing—that is harsh, and causes a lot of pain for many people. If I could wave a magic wand and make that go away, I would. No, the bad thing is the other part of my job.”

  “Which is?” I said, curious.

  “The part where I get you to think about the most important thing in your life: yourself.”

  “Oh brother,” I said, “you’re starting to sound like one of those cheesy self-help books. ‘You need to take a swim in Lake You.’ ‘You’ve built yourself an emotional prison and it’s time to fire the warden.’ Yuck!”

  “I’m not so sure,” he said. “Cheesiness aside, there is validity to those comments. We do need to be introspective, swim in our own lakes to better understand what makes us tick. And as for emotional prisons and wardens … so often I have patients come in here, troubled by some event in their past that they are convinced still defines their present. But that’s not true—the only thing that defines your present is what your present self thinks. The past is dead. Gone. And sometimes you just have to move on.”

  “What if you can’t?” I thought about my three hundred years of vampireyness and how much pain and death I had caused during those years. The thought of just letting it go and moving on felt like I would be taking the easy, selfish path.

  I didn’t think any of that out loud, but this astute man must have gathered a general understanding of my resistance because he said, “I’m not telling you to forget your past, especially if you have something to make up for. I’m just saying that guilt and purpose are two different things. Guilt is the unconstructive punishment we self-inflict in some vain attempt to fix what was done. That’s useless. Purposeful action as an answer to the sins of our past … that’s something else. But purposeful action is only effective if we are our whole selves—clear-thinking, determined, strong. That’s the only way you can truly make up for the bad you’ve done.”

  He put down his notebook and pen before leaning in close. “But so many of us don’t let go of the guilt because we don’t feel that we deserve to be whole. And there’s the rub: do you feel you deserve to be whole as you try to make up for what you’ve done, or do you feel that the emptiness you described to me is part of the punishment you believe you deserve?”

  There are moments when my own emotions have surprised me. Moments when I have reacted to something said or done before I even knew what I was doing.

  Hearing those words invoked one of those moments for me
, and I did something I hadn’t done since I was made human again all those weeks ago.

  I smiled.

  ↔

  No cookie-cutter solutions. He was right about that.

  But he was also wrong about a lot of things when it came to me. Truth was, there was no way for him to get it right, as I hadn’t told him nearly enough. But I knew. And what he said rang true: if I had a chance to make up for a fraction of the pain I’d caused, I needed a clear head, and I needed a strong will.

  There’s the rub, indeed. I knew what I needed to do to be myself again, but refused to believe it because I thought I deserved to feel this way.

  But if I was going to make up for all the terrible things I’d done, I needed to be myself.

  Sure, there were no cookie-cutter solutions, but there was a difference between myself and others who were struggling with these kinds of feelings: I could finally admit what was causing mine.

  At least, I could now.

  Which meant that I had an advantage. I knew how to fix myself. And after speaking to Ankou, there was no more ambiguity or doubt as to what had happened to me.

  My soul was missing.

  Leaving the counselor’s office for what I hoped would be the last time, I thought about Sonia and her family. Nine lives ruined by something they had lost and could never get back. Nine lives destroyed because they couldn’t move on. Nine lives broken because their despair was greater than their will to live.

  I couldn’t blame them. Fae love is so complete that it is practically physically impossible for them to heal when that love is lost.

  But I’m not fae, and the part of me that was missing wasn’t lost. I could find it.

  I turned on my heels, no longer going uphill toward my bed and comfort. Instead I went to the Other Studies Library.

  Down in the archives, I retrieved the amulet and held it in my hands. I pulled out the radio to contact the raspy man, which crackled with his grating voice. “Katri—”