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

by Ramy Vance

  But it was no good—I could see Aelfric processing everything that had happened before and after his wife’s death. He already knew the truth, though his heart had yet to accept it. Telling him the truth would be the fastest way for that to happen. And once he accepted it, maybe, just maybe he’d get back into the fight.

  “Part of the reason Ester’s so good is because she only speaks the truth. A truth that distorts and manipulates, but always the truth.”

  “No. The human vampire lies, too.” But Remi’s paniced voice betrayed him.

  “Ester always tells the truth, but that’s not the only way to see it. Your hands—I saw them become more deeply tainted with green blood after Jack died. That can only happen if you’re responsible for his death, and since you are the reason Heurodis died, you are the reason for his guilt and ultimately for him charging through a horde of zombies. His blood is on your hands.”

  Remi shook his head violently. “No, it’s not true. It’s not—”

  “The truth!” Aelfric cried out, his voice so powerful I felt like I should confess everything I’d ever done in my life—like, ever. And I wasn’t the one on trial.

  Remi stopped his head shaking, stopped his prattling. Stopped moving altogether. He stared ahead, acceptance painted not only on his face, but on his whole being.

  He fell to his knees and said in a distant, sorrowful voice, “A soldier without war is nothing. When I let Orfeo into our realm, I thought one of our guards would capture him before he reached our walls. I believed that seeing a human in our lands would be enough to warrant war. I didn’t know he would slip past the guards, that he would make it to Heurodis’s chamber and kill her. I didn’t know then that my brother, Jack, would take it so hard. He wore that chain for over a thousand years, didn’t speak a word to anyone for over a thousand years. All because of what I’d done. So yes, his blood is on my hands.” He held out his left palm, the one stained with new green blood.

  “And the barguests that blinded Sonia? Was that part of you not wanting to hurt her?” I said.

  Remi closed his eyes, the weight of his words forcing out tears he could no longer hold back. “I was trying to force war. If the death of your wife wouldn’t spur you to action, then perhaps the death of your daughter would.”

  His calm, detached voice suddenly became imbued with feeling as he thought of Sonia. He opened his eyes and looked at me with eyes that begged me to hear him—were desperate that I hear him. “At that moment, I only saw her as a half-breed child who distracted our king from what must be done. But that was then, before I knew her. Before I saw who she really was and fell in love with her. That is why I did all this. I hunted down Archimago, created this scenario, all to offer my beloved Sonia a chance for closure.

  “And look. In doing so, I have given her something much more: our king, her father. You have returned.”

  “It’s not me you have to convince,” I said.

  Turning to King Aelfric, Remi got on his knees. “I never wanted to hurt you or Sonia. I just wanted you to open your eyes. Force you to see what a life hidden in the UnSeelie Court was costing us.”

  “And so you chose for us to pay another price altogether?” the Elf King asked.

  “Aye,” Remi said, lowering his head. He looked into the room; the T.V. had returned to a view of the storage room. Several zombies were inside now, but so was Deirdre. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.

  “King Aelfric,” Remi said, his voice calm as he stared at the scene, “I know I am undeserving, but will you allow me one last chance to serve you?”

  The dark elf said nothing.

  “One last chance to undo some of the wrong I’ve done.” Remi bent deeper, exposing the back of his neck. Amongst the UnSeelie, this was a request for a dagger to be thrust into the neck.

  “What will you have me do?” the Elf King asked, pulling the kitchen knife from his belt.

  “What you must. End me now, or free me from my promise to you.”

  King Aelfric looked up, pain dancing across his lips. The choice Remi offered him was simple: kill him, or allow him to be killed. It is not easy for a fae to release someone from an oath. To do so means to forgive them everything they have done.

  That meant forgiving Remi of the death of his wife, the blinding of his child, and an act so heinous that it led to his suicide. That was a lot for the Elf King to forgive. I mean, could you forgive someone who took away everything you ever loved?

  The dark elf’s hand trembled as he wrestled with the choice before him. “My most trusted soldier, my friend. If Death comes to you this day, then let him embrace you as who you were to me—who I would like to remember you as.” King Aelfric dropped the knife and placed his empty palm on Remi’s head. “Rise.”

  Remi stared up at his once-upon-a-time king, his hands before him. I noticed the new green stain—Jack’s blood—wash off his hands. So too did the red stain, Heurodis’s blood. Both were gone.

  I guess when an Elf King forgives you, he really forgives you.

  “Thank you,” Remi whispered, and with the resolve of a true soldier who knows everything is lost, he stood. The ly erg spoke, but not to his king this time. He spoke to me. “You say that this evil spirit is trapped within that plain wooden box.”

  I nodded. And just in case he got any bright ideas, I added, “She’s contained there. Breaking the box will release the evil spirit, and I don’t know any way to kill it.”

  “You may not, but I do,” Remi said. “For you, for my friends, for Sonia and for my king.”

  He lifted two fingers to the center of his forehead as he concentrated. He started to hum, and with that hum I felt a surge of emotions that created a cloud within me. Anger and despair, but also hope and the courage to finally do the right thing.

  Remi placed the two fingers on Ester’s shield and pushed. As he did so, his hum grew into a rage-filled scream that burst the shield into a million fractals of crackling energy.

  With no shield to stop him, the ly erg leapt forward with impossible speed. Impossible for any being not burning time, and as he moved forward, I saw his hair greying.

  He wasn’t just burning some of his time—he was burning all of it.

  Grabbing the box from Justin, he cracked it open like an egg. As Ester’s spirit flew out of the cursed item, he sucked in her essence, trapping her within himself.

  Finally free, Justin fell to his knees as consciousness left him. I rushed over, pulling his limp body away from Remi and Ester as they continued their macabre dance.

  The struggle between the two determined souls only took a handful of seconds. Hardly enough time to pay proper respect to the magnanimous event taking place. Ester struggled to break free, and Remi continued to suffocate her with his very being.

  With a crackle that would have sent Zeus himself running in fear, it was over.

  Remi’s body stood hunched over as though in prayer, aged beyond recognition. But there was no movement, no rise and fall of breath. No sign of life.

  “What … what did he do?”

  King Aelfric answered. “A ly erg is granted a single wish that may be asked at the moment of death. Remi’s must have been for the power to contain the hag.” The king walked over to Remi’s unmoving body and placed a gentle hand on his back. “The price of that wish was a soldier’s sacrifice. Death.”

  Remember how every fae has a unique “thing”? Seems that a ly erg’s thing is the ability to go out with a bang.

  I guess some wishes are still granted in this GoneGod World, I thought as I stared at the fallen ly erg’s unmoving body.

  Goodbyes and Goodbyes

  As soon as Remi consumed Ester, the zombie horde melted away like a scene out of The Wizard of Oz. And the mindless dead weren’t the only thing that stopped: the snow stopped falling, too. Ester’s curse was lifted.

  Not that anyone felt joy about being freed. Ester might have been gone, but what she had done wasn’t about to melt away. Jack-in-Chains and Remi were gone, an
d there was no magic in this world to bring them back.

  Justin came out of his possession as though waking from a coma. I got down on the floor and held him tight as he slowly started to comprehend what had happened. He might have had a demon pulling his strings like some shadow puppet, but it was his body that did everything, his eyes that saw everything, and his being that would, in time, remember everything.

  “I ... I’m so sorry,” he eventually said.

  “Shush,” I whispered in his ear. “I’m just happy you’re safe.” But that happiness quickly became pain as I thought about what I’d have to do to make sure Justin stayed safe.

  Aelfric was already gone, and I knew exactly where he’d gone: to Sonia, to make sure she was all right. So Justin and I stayed where we were and waited for the others to come.

  They did. First Deirdre rushed in with the look a mother wears when she’s found her lost child and sees she’s not hurt. Sonia was next. The blind halfling, led by her barguest Tiny, rushed to Remi’s side, where she held his dead body and cried.

  King Aelfric, Redcap, Krelis and Snap, Crackle and Pop (I know those weren’t their names, but I couldn’t remember what Aelfric called them, and besides … come on, if the cereal tastes good, eat it!) and finally Ankou.

  The fae reaper looked worse for wear, like he’d ridden Space Mountain when he was expecting the Epcot Center. His eyes were wide, his expression shell-shocked. And I think I knew why: he’d finally understood he was mortal. After an eternity of being immortal and a reaper, I’m guessing you never really think about your own death. Now that the gods are gone and everyone is mortal, well, it takes some Others longer than others for the mortality to sink in.

  I knew exactly what he was going through.

  But as traumatic as that realization was, Ankou was a professional. He made his way to Remi and put his hand on the ly erg’s head before chanting the warrior’s funeral rites.

  I looked at Aelfric, expecting the dark elf to stop the reaper, tell them all of Remi’s betrayal and how the ly erg didn’t deserve an honorable send-off. But Aelfric did none of that. He just held his head low and respectfully waited for Ankou to finish.

  I saw then why they loved him so much.

  Next we made our way to Jack, whose body had been shorn to ribbons of flesh hanging loose over his massive frame. Again Ankou preformed the warrior’s rite, while Redcap and Krelis, burning some time, repaired his body for send-off.

  With that done, it was time for me to assume my role of Negative Nancy. “We’ve got three dead bodies. This place is torn up. The police aren’t going to accept justified murder, and the school isn’t going to give you back your deposit.”

  Everyone heard me, but no one spoke for a long moment until Snap, Crackle and Pop started their shrieking speech. I didn’t understand what they said, but—and I wish this was a joke, but I can’t make this up—they pulled out a shovel, pickaxe and hard helmets from only the GoneGods know where and rushed off.

  “Taken care of,” King Aelfric said.

  “And the bodies?” I asked.

  Redcap stepped forward, holding his orange wig in hand. “We have that taken care of, too.”

  ↔

  We waited until night before placing the bodies in an old-school bus that Redcap owned. I don’t know what was more surprising: that Redcap had a bus, or that someone gave him a friggin’ license to drive it. Either way, we got the bodies inside, careful to respect them as best we could given our suboptimal funeral car.

  Redcap drove up onto Pine, then up a winding road that cut through Mont-Royal and toward Beaver Lake, where he backed the bus as close to the water as he could.

  Justin and I held back as the fae approached the water, their hands outstretched as they hummed. A kelpie sprang from the lake, its massive, horselike head dripping as it rose. I guessed the rumors about the Loch Ness Monster living in Beaver Lake weren’t an exaggeration after all.

  It looked at the fae before fixating on King Aelfric and snorting so loudly they were all showered with lake water. Then it lurched forward, rubbing its snout on the dark elf’s chest.

  “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.