Superhero Me!: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (Mortality Bites Book 3)

by Ramy Vance

  Andrew screamed in pain, turning his gun on me. I grabbed the nozzle, pushing it away so the bullets couldn’t strike my body. Hot lead flew harmlessly into the ground, sparing my body from further holes.

  The only part that hurt was the heat of the muzzle. I could smell burning flesh as he continued pulling the trigger until … click, click, click … the sound of an empty gun.

  I yanked the machine gun out of his hands and tossed it away, the skin from my palm ripping away from my own hand as I did so. Then I hit his knee—hard. It popped back and he tumbled over.

  Face to face, I thought about ripping out his throat and draining him. I would have, too, had it not been for Justin’s groans.

  Justin, my human boyfriend, also served as an anchor to my own humanity at that moment. So instead of eating him, I punched him in the nose. Hard.

  His head snapped back as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he lost consciousness.

  How Many Lives Is Your Own Worth?

  Even the little bit of blood taken from Andrew’s ankle was enough to send my body into rapid healing mode, and by the time I made it to the balcony, I had healed enough that I could go another round with any villain stupid enough to get in my way.

  Not that I wanted to … I’d much prefer a hot bath and a week of sleep.

  I made my way to Justin’s side, where Cassy was tending to his wound. I could feel his life force leaving him. It was a flesh wound, but his body was too old to survive the trauma. If he was young, maybe. But as he was, I figured he had minutes left.

  Wiping away tears, I said, “You shouldn’t have come back. You shouldn’t have—”

  “And what?” he said in that tone of his. “Let you have all the fun? No way, no how.” And despite being in so much obvious pain, he smiled. The smug bastard, I chuckled to myself as I looked him over. His body was shutting down and even though it was only a shoulder wound, he only had minutes left.

  I thought about biting him again. I could give him the strength to survive this wound. I could give him eternal life.

  I would have, too, except when I tried to extend my fangs, nothing happened. They were gone. The superhero curse had been lifted and I was just a normal girl again.

  I was normal, which meant there was nothing I could do to save Justin.

  Despair had fallen over me when a gentle hand touched mine. I looked up to see Cassy smiling. “You heard me,” she said.

  “I did,” I said. “Not that it did any good.”

  She shook her head and loosened the braid that had held it back. With silver hair cascading over her, she said, “You heard me and I am free. Finally, I am free.”

  As she spoke, I felt Justin squeeze my hand. Looking down at him, I saw his liver spots disappear and his wrinkles smooth out. His cataracts cleared up and his arthritic joints regained their virility. He was becoming … young.

  “How?” I muttered as I watched the hand of time turn back for him. Justin was aging backward.

  Soon Justin would be his nineteen-year-old self again.

  Which meant—

  “Cassy, stop,” I said, turning to Cassandra. But it was too late for this woman. This sister of Helen, daughter of Priam, this creature who was touched by the siren Ligeia and blessed by the muse Calliope, this former Prophetess of Doom.

  She was already old.

  Cassandra was burning away her life to give life back to Justin. And from the way she aged, I knew she wasn’t just restoring Justin. She was restoring them all.

  “Stop,” I begged, but Cassandra simply shook her head as she continued burning her life away, using her magic to undo all that she had done.

  “You know,” she said, “I have lived for over three thousand years never able to save anyone. But you heard me, you broke my curse and for the first time in my long, long life, I am the one who gets to play the hero.”

  ↔

  Cassandra burnt enough time to return all the aged superheroes back to their rightful ages. She burnt enough time to reverse the damage on the cinema and wipe Harold and Andrew’s memory clean of who Cherub really was.

  She burnt enough time to heal Justin’s wounds.

  And when she was done, she stood up, no longer the impossibly gorgeous girl, but rather an elegant, elderly woman with an ever-present, infectious smile.

  ↔↔↔

  During Cassandra’s remaining days, Boggie tended to her needs, loving her as any grateful human being loves someone who is more than a grandparent and friend.

  Andrew was arrested for possessing firearms and attempted murder. He was given a ridiculously light sentence after what he tried to do. I guess you needed bodies for them to lock you up and throw away the keys.

  And for me. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. I was human again, the people I loved were safe … I should have been happy. But all I felt was an emptiness I couldn’t shake.

  Maybe I was tired. Or still shaken up from everything that had happened. But then a thought rushed into me that I prayed to whoever would listen wasn’t true: Maybe becoming human for a second time somehow tainted me. Cursed me.

  I pushed away the thought, insisting to myself that I was exhausted. That, and my faith in humanity had been challenged by everything that had happened.

  Those were the lies I said to myself. The lies I so desperately wished were true.

  All’s Well That Ends Well … Well, Maybe Not

  The following days were a blur of police interviews and depositions. After a couple weeks, it all died down and life returned to normal. Well, as normal as my life could ever be.

  I lost the Gardner Hall presidency race … but Aimee won. Good for her, she might have been the shyest candidate to ever win the seat, but she was a good soul, and with her at the helm, I suspected this year would be less about beer and more about things that mattered.

  Speaking of things that mattered—to me, at least: I still had to deal with Justin and his proposal, but I avoided him, unable to bring myself to speak to him. Even though everything had happened over two weeks ago, I was still feeling empty. Lost.

  There was a sadness in me I couldn’t shake. A depression that had latched onto my very being, digging its claws deeper and deeper into my heart.

  I knew I was in real trouble when Legally Blonde did nothing to lift my spirits.

  There was something wrong with me. And so I did what I always do when faced with a problem I don’t understand.

  I researched.

  In the archives of the Other Studies Library, I looked up every piece of lore about the vampiric virus and its effects on a person. I researched all I could find—which wasn’t much—and might have continued to do so had I not heard a crackle coming from my desk.

  It sounded like a radio. I opened my top drawer and looked inside, my hand hesitating to reach in as my mind conjured images of some crackling mini-demon waiting to bite my fingers off.

  But there was no mini-demon in there. Rather it was something much, much worse. It was Harold’s earpiece.

  It crackled again.

  I put it to my ear. “Hello.”

  A raspy sigh seeped out of the earpiece’s speakers, “Ahh, finally we speak, Katrina Darling.”

  The voice sounded old. Ancient, even … but it wasn’t one I recognized. “I guess we do,” I said. “But you have me a disadvantage. You are?”

  “The one that counseled that horrid excuse for a crusader about dealing with you. I had meant to use the boy to break you. With all that power, he should have done so easily. But instead, you broke him.”

  “Oh, you’re talking about Harold?”

  “Aye.”

  “OK, so you tried to kill me—”

  “Break you,” a rasp interrupted.

  “Whatever. Still, you called Harold ‘a horrid excuse for a crusader’ and I happen to agree with that assessment, so you can’t be all that bad.”

  The raspy voice chuckled, which sounded more like someone with bronchitis trying to dislodge phlegm. Lots
of it. “I have been warned that you like to say silly things when frightened, and honest words when you think no one is listening.”

  “And I have been warned not to talk to strangers. So unless you tell me your name, I guess this is goodbye—”

  “How do you feel, Katrina Darling? If I were to hazard a guess, the word ‘empty’ comes to mind.”

  Empty. That was exactly how I felt … but how did he know?

  “Yes,” I finally said, wanting to see what he knew about this cloud that seemed to follow me wherever I went.

  “Do you know what happens to a human’s soul when they become a vampire?”

  My eyes widened. A few months back I had had an unpleasant encounter with my mother that led to me speaking with an ex-vampire and powerful alchemist named Lizile. During our brief and very weird encounter, she read my future, but not before telling me about a powerful magical item called the Rooh Ina’ah—the Soul Jar.

  She said I would play a pivotal role in the war that was to come … and that it had something to do with that Soul Jar.

  “I see you do,” the raspy voice said, taking my long silence as an affirmation. “Several of our kind have been looking for it—”

  “Why? So you can become vampires again?” I threw in as much venom as those words would allow.

  “So we can live forever,” he said without hesitation. “But alas, the jar is lost to us. What is not lost to us is the path that soul follows when seeking the jar. And your soul, when it left your body the night before you awoke as what you once were—”

  “A vampire. Jesus, can’t you guys just talk straight? What’s with the ‘night before you awoke as you once were’ crap?”

  “Still frightened, I see,” he said. “Good, your fear will be an asset when making the most important decision you have before you.”

  “Which is?” I said, faking a yawn.

  “Which is,” he said, his voice momentarily losing its rasp, “to find your soul or not. That emptiness within … it exists because your soul remains trapped.”

  It took me a second to register what he was saying. My soul trapped, and not within me? How could that be? He’s lying, I thought. He must be. But given the hollow emptiness consuming me, a part of me believed him.

  I’d never felt such nothingness before. A nothingness that sprung from my heart and infested every corner of my being. When I was a vampire, the demon filled those parts of me … but now I was free of the demon, a human again, and all I felt was a hole left by the demon’s absence.

  A hole that should have been filled by my soul.

  “How? How do you know?” I said, not trying to hide my quavering voice.

  “You are not the only one whose soul has yet to return.”

  I closed my eyes and felt a warm tear roll down my cheek. But instead of sadness or despair, I just felt this awful void. I knew I was sad, but at the same time I wasn’t. The emptiness was refusing to let my emotions fill it and as this strange, confused conflict raged within me, I said, “You said ‘to find my soul or not.’ I’m assuming you believe it’s in the Soul Jar.”

  “Aye.”

  “And yet you haven’t found it. Why?”

  “Because I already asked my question, Katrina.”

  I truly wished this was one of those moments when the cryptic villain made no sense and I could go stomping off, ignoring their ridiculous way of speaking. But the sad truth was, I knew exactly what he was talking about: “the Amulet of Souol.”

  “Indeed. The amulet grants its owner the answer to one question and only one. It must be the question that consumes you, that fills the very hole left by your soul. Do not ask it now. This emptiness, this pain—it is new. You need to wait until the void consumes you to the point of breaking. Then ask.”

  “And what? You’re going to join me on a friendly excursion to wherever this friggin’ Soul Jar is?”

  “Still afraid. Good. Use that.” And before I could say anything else, the earpiece crackled and the man with the raspy voice disappeared.

  Shit, I thought, thinking back to my dream with the Old Librarian. So it really was him warning me somehow.

  How? I had no idea.

  I considered hitting the books, doing research and figuring this out, but I was bone-tired. And what’s more, I was fighting to care.

  Another time, I thought, walking out of the Other Studies Library.

  “Another time,” I muttered out loud this time as I turned off the lights.

  ↔

  I walked up the hill, barely thinking, barely conscious of where I was and moving only on autopilot. I made it to my room where a sock was hanging. I briefly considered that Deirdre had a suitor over—lucky guy or gal, or both, I thought—and not going in. But then I remembered it was Deirdre … she was so uninhibited that she’d probably have a full conversation in mid … ahhh … stride.

  I walked in, but instead of seeing a naked changeling, I saw a fully clothed, newly made young man.

  “Justin,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “I thought—”

  “I had to see you,” he said. “And thank you for, you know … saving me again.”

  I pointed at his shoulder. “You were still hurt and well, I didn’t save you. You know who did.”

  “I do. And I’ve thanked her, too. That lady has a gift basket from the Body Shop with enough anti-aging moisturizer to turn her back into an infant.”

  He giggled at his joke. I did not.

  “Look, I know I, you know, proposed and all … and I’m guessing you avoiding me is your answer, but—”

  “Justin, do we have to do this now?”

  “Just hear me out. I only proposed because I thought I literally had days to live. And I very selfishly wanted to spend them with you. Now that I’m young again, I’d like to take back my proposal. For now, at least. I might ask again way, way, way down the line.”

  He got on one knee. “Katrina Darling … will you not marry me, but instead, can we go back to the way things were?”

  He gave me his big, goofy smile that normally made me weak in the knees, but now did little for me.

  “You would make me the happiest man on the planet if you would just say, ‘Yes.’ ”

  I shrugged and said, “Yes,” less ceremonially than the situation required. I was tired. And apparently soulless, too.

  He leapt to his feet. “Woohoo! She’s not going to marry me. She’s not going to marry me!” He tried to grab me to join in his dance, but I pulled away.

  His face went somber. “You OK?”

  “No,” I said, too tired to lie. “I’m exhausted and just can’t shake this horrible feeling. Ever since I … you know.” I pointed at where my fangs would be and gestured them going up into my gums.

  “You’re human again after briefly being a vampire. That’s tough. A part of you that you thought would be gone forever came back … and now that it’s gone again, you’re kind of sad.” He took my hands in his and kissed them both. “And that’s OK. You’re allowed to feel this way.”

  “I am?”

  “You are. And it might take a wee bit of time to feel better … and that’s OK, too.”

  “It is?”

  “It is.”

  I shook my head and did something I hadn’t done since that night in the theater. I smiled.

  I walked over to my bed, only taking the time to take off my jacket before falling in. “Thank you,” I said. “And I’m really sorry … truly I am, but I am so tired.”

  “Of course, of course,” he said, standing by the bed and waiting expectantly.

  “I’m tired.”

  “No hanky panky. I won’t even try—I swear.” He made a cross sign over his heart.

  “Fine,” I said, drawing back the covers. Hanky panky … that was a good one. I would normally have laughed at that one, or at least smiled. But this time I don’t think I even reacted.

  He jumped into bed with me. “So I guess this is one of those all’s-well-that-ends-well scenarios?” Justin
said.

  “ ‘All’s well that ends well?’ ” I raised a curious eyebrow.

  “Shakespeare,” he said. “I know how much you like his work and, well, I’ve been reading. And I’m trying to score a couple points with you.”

  “The scoreboard is closed. Too tired to remember. Save it for some time when I wouldn’t trade my soul—” I stopped myself from finishing.

  “For a good’s night sleep,” he said, finishing my sentence. “I understand.”

  He drew in close, seeking to cuddle me, but I was asleep before I could feel the weight of his arms around me.

  Epilogue

  That night Justin falls asleep with Kat in his arms. He does not dream of being a superhero, nor does his mind wander toward thoughts of heroism or gallantry. He doesn’t even dream of Katrina.

  His mind is an empty box filled only with the intangible touch of happiness. But that’s the thing about empty boxes: they are made to be filled. And as Justin drifts deeper and deeper into sleep, a growing darkness fills the empty space.

  It is a mist … a specter of black that ebbs and flows as it contaminates more and more of this box.

  Once this darkness covers the walls with black, it starts to summon other parts within Justin. It begins with his memories: of Katrina Darling and her friends. But it doesn’t stop there … the University, Montreal, being a student. The darkness wishes to learn it all.

  When the darkness feels it has learned all it needs to know, it leaves the box that is Justin’s mind, seeping into another place within Justin to be contained. It does not take long for the darkness to find what it is looking for.

  Infecting Justin’s beating heart, the darkness enters its chambers, relishing the pulsing rush and push of blood.

  “Here,” it crackles. “Here is a box worthy of Dybbuk.”

  (Not) The End

  Continue the Mortality Bites series with Book Four, Orphaned Follies