Orphaned Follies: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (Mortality Bites Book 4)

by Ramy Vance

  My answer was to flip his orange wig off his head. The bald skull beneath was a crimson, blood red. He quickly picked up his mangled wig and put it on his head. “If—if you weren’t a girl and a human, I’d kick you out of the building and into the snow, you … you …”

  “That’s enough,” Sarah said, and guided by Tiny, she walked over to Orange and helped put his wig on, which given the professional relationship they had, she did with surprising dexterity. “Ms. Darling, I think you owe Orange an apology.”

  “OK,” I said, watching the orange rag wiggle back and forth on his head while he adjusted it, “I apologize.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said, taking Orange’s hand to guide him away from me.

  “Sorry, one last question …”

  “Your interview is over,” Orange said, spittle spewing out his lips.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Hate me as much as you like. We’re still looking for a murderer, and your answers could provide vital clues.”

  “I will never—”

  “Please, Orange,” Sarah said, “cooperate.” Orange’s face twisted in defiant rage, but before he could say another word, Sarah added, “For all of us. Please.”

  Orange looked around the room and sighed. “For group cohesion, fine. One last question.”

  “Your skull … it’s red. Why?”

  That sent Orange into a rage. “Are you mocking me? Me?” he screamed, breaking away from Sarah’s grasp and running toward me.

  He didn’t get two steps in before Deirdre stood between us. I thought she was going to attack him again, but this time the changeling took a more diplomatic stance. “Please answer milady.”

  “It is not relevant to the investigation,” he cried out.

  “Is it not?” Deirdre said. “Surely you have heard of the goblin Redcap?” As the name escaped Deirdre’s lips, I cried out a quiet—almost entirely in my head—“Hurray!”

  Everyone looked at me.

  OK, not as quiet as I wanted, but still, good for Deirdre. She was thinking exactly what I was: Redcap, the grand, murderous goblin who resided on the borders between the UnSeelie Court and the mortal plane. It’s legend that the goblin’s bald scalp would magically turn into the color of his latest victim’s blood.

  “You wouldn’t dare imply that I am one as horrid as Redcap the Horrible?”

  “I am not implying that you could be as horrid as Redcap. He was a vile and corrupt being,” she said.

  Orange nodded in satisfaction.

  “But what I am saying,” Deirdre said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “is that you may be a sniveling little Seelie Court—what is the mortal term for it?—ahh yes, fanboy to Redcap. A cheap imitation who, like his hero, also paints his bald head with the blood of his victims.”

  I expected Deirdre’s insult to send Orange over the edge, perhaps far enough that the outclassed elf might even try to strike the changeling. But instead, he pursed his lips almost as if he expected Deirdre to insult him in such a way.

  With a venomous tone, he pulled out a vial from his pocket and said, “Raspberry and elderflower essence mixed with brown sugar. It makes for a far more effective wig glue than anything mortals can concoct.” He opened the vial, dipped in his finger and licked it. Then he poured a little out for Deirdre to taste.

  The changeling sniffed it. “Your words smell true.”

  “Indeed,” the ugly elf said. He stuck a finger between his wig line and scalp and vigorously rubbed his head. Pulling out a finger covered in red, he said, “Seems elf sweat causes mortal glues to lose their stickiness. But my recipe is only strengthened by my body’s fluids. Care to taste?”

  He held his finger out to Deirdre, who took a step back.

  “Didn’t think so.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his hands clean.

  Satisfied that he had put Deirdre and me in our places, the ugly elf looked at his watch. “It is nearly five o’clock. We can compare our notes after our stomachs are filled. Might I suggest we have an early dinner and, if the mood strikes us, another round of accusations, finger-pointing and passive-aggressive comments? Or perhaps an early night? Who knows, maybe the GoneGods will smile upon us this evening and clear the snow enough for the authorities to arrive so we can leave this infernal place. Agreed?”

  “Shouldn’t we share our notes first?” I asked in that passive-aggressive way I am oh so good at.

  Orange looked at me, then my stomach. GoneGod damn it, the ugly elf was right: I was hungry. We all were. I shrugged, then nodded.

  “Then it’s settled?” Orange said.

  His question was met with silence—which, given the somber mood we were all in, was taken as consent. Had I known what kind of dessert was in store for us, I would have protested with every fiber of my now soulless human body.

  Polite Dinner Discussions and Impolite Dessert Disasters

  Because of the inconvenient murder, there was no dinner planned for us. No cooked goose, no cranberry sauce, mashed peas, potatoes, parsnips or carrots. There were just a bunch of raw ingredients. So much for Christmas Eve dinner.

  The goose would remain in the fridge, but the rest of the stuff could be cooked. Turning on ovens and stovetops, we boiled the carrots and peas, baked the potatoes and grilled the parsnips.

  Not bad. And given that I was a vegetarian, things could have been worse.

  We didn’t even bother to go to the dining hall. All of us ate our garden-variety vegetarian treats standing silent in the kitchen. Deirdre and I leaned against an oven door, Sarah offered pieces of her meal to Tiny the dog, and the abatwas’ plates floated a few inches off the ground.

  The only noises came from our forks against our plates—except for Jack the giant, who’d set aside the tiny utensil—and the smacking of our lips. It was the most depressing Christmas Eve ever, and given I was already feeling like crap, this just sank me further into my black hole of despair.

  I hate this. I looked up to see if anyone had reacted and realized I had said that in my head when I had meant to say it out loud. “I hate this.”

  My voice echoed in the kitchen and all eyes were on me. “I hate this,” I repeated. “It’s Christmas Eve, and we didn’t even bother to pull out cloth napkins. Look, I know someone died and all, but if I don’t get at least a hint of Christmas cheer, I’m going to …” I realized I had talked myself into a corner. I couldn’t say “kill someone” or “off myself.” It would have been a joke, but this crowd was a wee bit sensitive to stuff like that.

  “Spontaneously combust,” Sarah offered.

  Some polite giggles.

  “Yes,” I said, snapping my fingers. “And spontaneous combustion is messy. Trust me, I’ve done it before.”

  “What do you suggest?” Remi said.

  “I don’t know. A song, maybe? Don’t elves and fairies love to sing?”

  “Very well, young lady. Allow me.” Remi moved to the center of the kitchen and cleared his throat before singing a very off-tune, nearly offensive “Jingle Bells.”

  He belted out two lines before people started playfully booing him into silence. “Not to your liking?” he said with a grin. “Then perhaps someone else would like to take the mike? Orange?”

  “There isn’t a wig in the world that could beautify my singing,” the ugly elf said with a chuckle.

  “Deirdre? Katrina?”

  We both shook our heads.

  “Well, the giant doesn’t speak, and I doubt Freol will surprise us by suddenly speaking. As for Jarvis, as strong as the poor trow is, he cannot carry a tune. The abatwas’ screeching is sure to drive us mad, so that leaves only you, dear Sarah. Legend says halflings are gifted with the power of song. Is this true?”

  “Perhaps,” Sarah said, a coy smile tiptoeing onto her face.

  “Then please,” Remi said, “save us from ourselves with your song.”

  “Because you ask this of me, then I shall,” she said in that matter-of-fact tone she had used on me earlier. “But
I fear I don’t know many songs of cheer.”

  “Then regale us with something that will stir our souls. Anything is better than what we are feeling now.”

  “Very well,” Sarah said, stepping forward. And she started singing a song in Elvish that was unlike anything I have ever heard before.

  ↔

  Of all the Others that landed on Earth, perhaps the most complicated ones are fae. Broadly speaking—and I am generalizing, stereotyping and type-casting—fae fall into two camps: The Seelie and UnSeelie Courts, Light and Dark, except to simplify them as such is a mistake. In the world of fae, the Light isn’t always good, and the Dark isn’t always evil. Their mortality spectrum has a thousand shades of gray (I’m sure there’s a Fifty Shades of Grey joke here somewhere, but can we say overdone, people?), and the divide between the two courts tends to be along the lines of beauty. Seelie Court members are pretty: elves, pixies, fairies. UnSeelie Court not so much: trolls, goblins, trows.

  Not that UnSeelie don’t have their share of beauty. Take Deirdre as case and point: she’s gorgeous. But she’s also a trained killer whose methods tend to be kidnapping and torture. Pretty ugly stuff.

  But the divide between pretty and ugly isn’t the only thing that makes fae strange. They all seem to have some sort of condition to their being. Kelpie can grant wishes and they don’t have to burn time to do it, either. Leprechauns do have pots of gold. Dwellings do magically appear under any bridge if a troll is nearby.

  It seems that their nature is magic, and that magic varies from fae to fae. Think of it like this: every fae has a thing, and a halfling’s thing is song.

  They can sing.

  And the thing about a halfling’s song is that it’s not about the music, or even the words. Halfling music is about emotion. It touches our very being, forcing out emotions that are powerful, real and undeniable.

  To hear a halfling sing is to unlock feelings you didn’t know you had. Sarah sang like one possessed by the divine.

  Her song started out lovely enough, evoking pleasant feelings that soon turned into emotions I associate with love. But it was more than love, for as much as I think I’ve known what it feels like to be in love, what I felt listening to her was so much more.

  It wasn’t just the feeling of love. It was love itself, and soon that love turned into love coupled with joy.

  Given how horrible I’d been feeling these last few weeks, it was incredible to have those emotions—emotions I couldn’t seem to find in myself anymore—brought back to me with such intensity.

  I didn’t want this to ever stop, and when both love and joy became sadness, I found myself wiping away violent and sudden tears. Looking around me, I saw everyone was affected the same way I was. Even Sarah, whose eyes were like exploding universes, released tears down her freckled cheeks.

  Soon the sadness was replaced with acceptance and joy again, only for great anger to follow it.

  The anger I felt at that moment in her song was greater than any rage I had ever felt before, total and complete. I knew if the undefined source of that anger were presented to me, I would kill it without a moment’s hesitation.

  Mercifully, the anger stopped. Not subsided, or dissolved or became less intense, but stopped as if the bearer of that anger had been destroyed. A void filled my heart—a void that slowly filled with obsession and determination.

  It felt as if renewed purpose had entered her song, before both anger and relief mingled inside me. Then the anger subsided, slowly this time, and all that was left was relief that slowly became joy again.

  And with that, Sarah’s song had ended.

  Wiping away tears, I saw that everyone was crying. And when Remi had dabbed away his own tears, he walked over to Sarah and offered her his handkerchief.

  The halfling bard took it, wiping away her own tears as Remi said with love and admiration, “I’m glad to know your eyes are good for something.”

  Sarah laughed and wiped away more tears still. “If only to show my human half.”

  ↔

  Sarah’s song, as emotionally devastating as it was, did serve to get us out of our funk. So much so that, when Jarvis suggested ice cream, we cheered. Well, most of us did. Freol and Jack kept their ever-silent vigil.

  Strawberry, vanilla and chocolate were distributed in bowls, and we all started munching away, our moods lifted.

  Jack was standing alone by the freezer, and I walked over. There was something I wanted to ask him without anyone overhearing. I climbed onto the metal counter next to him so that I was just very short beside him as opposed to nearly invisible. “Gleipnir chain?”

  His eyes widened in surprise, questioning how I knew.

  “I dated an elf. But that’s a …”—I put a finger over my lips—“shush.”

  “Shuush.” Jack imitated my gesture with a smile and a wink.

  “My ex-boyfriend—the elf—he told me all about Gleipnir chains. Forged by dwarves because the Norse gods needed a leash strong enough to hold Fenrir the Great Wolf. They made it from six impossible materials: the spittle of a bird, the sinew of a bear, the beard of a woman, the sound of a cat’s footfall, the roots of a mountain and … and …” I couldn’t remember the last one.

  Jack made the gesture of a fish swimming, and then cupping his mouth, let out a heavy breath.

  “Yeah, of course—the breath of a fish. My elf boyfriend also told me that the fae only wear one of these in atonement for a great failure.” I reached out to touch the silver rings, looking at the giant to see if it was all right to touch them.

  Jack nodded, and placing my hand against the rings, I could feel their heavy nature. “These rings symbolize the burden the wearer feels, and are imbued with the force of gravity itself,” I said. “They are of the exact weight their wearer can manage. And as the wearer’s strength increases, so too does the weight of the rings.”

  Jack nodded.

  “There’s one more thing about these rings,” I said. “The wearer chooses to bear them. In other words, no one forced you to put these on. Whatever you did—”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Then failed to do?”

  The giant nodded.

  “OK then—whatever you failed to do must weigh heavily on your heart?”

  The giant with the Gleipnir chain winced as if the memory of what had happened slapped him.

  “I see. Is that why you do not speak? Is that part of your penance?”

  Again the giant nodded.

  “I understand burdens well,” I said, pulling back my sleeve and revealing a tattoo of two rings that looked like his. “I got these after the gods left. A reminder of the penance I must pay for something I did.”

  Jack gave me a knowing look.

  “I know the interviews are over, but I wanted to ask you something off the record, something I’m not obligated to write down in our shared notes. Which brings me to my question: Oighrig End’s death. Does that have anything to do with these?” I touched the links again.

  The giant shook his head, but I swear I saw his eyes flicker almost imperceptibly at my question.

  I was considering pushing it further when Snap scampered up the giant’s clothing with the kind of speed that would have made the Flash green with envy.

  He whispered something in Jack’s ear and, as he spoke, the giant became visibly angry. Jack cracked his knuckles, and the sound that came from his hands was thunder.

  Chases and Mirages

  Jack stomped out of the kitchen and toward the walk-in pantry down the hall. Rather than walking, I jumped on the giant’s back and went for the ride.

  The giant was too large to enter, but I wasn’t. Jumping off him, I walked into what looked like a perfectly normal pantry. There was nothing unusual about it.

  Crackle was on the third shelf where mostly beans and canned corn were stored. He frantically pointed at a stack of tuna cans, his high-pitched screeching at a near frenzy. I looked at the side of the can and saw green blood.

  T
here was a ring of green from where the abatwas had moved the cans. Next to it was Pop, holding his leg. Crackle had used some thread that might have once served as his belt to make a tourniquet for Pop’s severed leg.

  Someone had dropped a can of tuna on his leg, severing it from his body. Pop had mercifully passed out.

  The others were gathering, but Jack wouldn’t let any of them into the pantry.

  “Who did this?” I asked. That’s when Snap jumped onto a safety map hanging on the pantry wall. He slammed his hand onto the back storage room behind the kitchen.

  Without a word, Jack and I ran to the back.

  “Where are you going, milady?”

  “Out, Deirdre. You stay here and make sure no one leaves the room.”

  ↔

  The area wasn’t very big, and given how snowed in we were, there wasn’t really anywhere for—who? The killer? The abatwa maimer? Whoever—to go. We hustled down into Douglas Hall’s basement, which was really just a long hallway running along the sections of the large mansion. Several doors sat on either side of the hall, but unlike Gardner Hall, they weren’t accommodations but a variety of rooms, from the boiler to storage rooms.

  Since there was no easy way out, we had the luxury of going down the hall, investigating each room one by one as we tightened the net.

  But there was a problem: Jack was so big he hardly fit into the hallway. He hunched over so his massive shoulders scraped against the ceiling. And with every step he took, he clogged the hallway so no one could run past us. It also meant that no one could come in from behind us, either. If someone from the group wanted to head us off, they’d have to enter the basement from the upper levels.

  Since Jack was too big for the hallway, he was way too big for the rooms. That meant I’d have to go in alone, and if there was trouble, I’d face it on my own. Sure, I could always tell the killer that he (or she) would be up against a giant when they eventually had to leave the room, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop the killer from taking me out while one of the strongest beings in existence stood outside, powerless to help me.