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

  Orphaned Follies

  Ramy Vance

  Keep Evolving Studios

  Contents

  Join The Clan!

  I. Prologue

  1. A Beginning of Sorts

  2. Passive Aggressive, Overtly Aggressive, Nuclear Aggressive

  3. Healthy Stalker Relationships Are Hard

  4. It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot like Christmas

  5. The Dark Side of Student Organizers

  6. Shrinking from Shrinks

  7. Walks, Friends and Party Prep

  8. Let the Festivities Begin!

  9. Snowed-In Speeches and Confined Tensions

  10. Meeting Your Heroes Sucks

  11. Festivities? I’d Rather Sleep

  12. Nightmares and Murders

  II. Prologue

  13. Accusations, Much?

  14. You Did It! No, You Did!

  15. Spotless Rooms and Dirty Kitchens

  16. Egg-Timers and Alibis

  17. Wind-Downs and What’s Next

  18. Polite Dinner Discussions and Impolite Dessert Disasters

  19. Chases and Mirages

  III. Prologue

  20. Waking the Death

  21. Bedtime Musings

  22. Dark Elves and Kidnapping Papas

  23. Death Does Not Become Him

  24. Connecting the Firefly Dots

  25. Tying Up Loose Ends

  26. I’m Not Good at Being Good

  IV. Prologue:

  27. Kings, Day-Dreams and Nightmares All Rolled into One

  28. Once More … With Feeling!

  29. Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?

  30. Here’s What Happens When a Volcano Meets a Tornado

  31. Back Doors and Magnet’s Helmet

  32. We’re off to See the Wizard … Ahh, I Mean Witch

  33. Ester and the Looking Mirror

  34. I’m an Idiot … Seriously, I Am

  35. Goodbyes and Goodbyes

  Epilogue

  Join The Clan!

  About the Author

  Mortality Bites Series © Copyright <<2018>> R. E. Vance

  Example Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  For more information, email: [email protected]

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  A Beginning of Sorts

  A long, long time ago …

  My dearest Sonia,

  When I told you I loved you more than life, never were truer words spoken. You are my breath, my being, the best part of me. I have relished every moment I was allowed to be your father, and I have considered that role my greatest privilege, my heaviest burden and my purest joy.

  Now that our time together has so abruptly ended, I can no longer go on.

  Your death has ripped a hole into the very fabric of who I am, one so great not even Oberon himself could mend it. What’s more, the abyss created by that hole has driven me mad.

  While possessed by this madness, I have done something so horrible it is a blight on life itself.

  That is why I must end my life—what little is left without you—and disappear forever.

  Yes, what I have done is an atrocity.

  Yes, what I have done has made me the monster I am today.

  But know that what I have done was out of my love for you, my dearest daughter.

  I am sorry I was not wise enough to protect you. I am sorry I was not strong enough to save you. But most of all, I am sorry for the time that was stolen from us.

  My only hope is that Ankou the Reaper, who has guided so many of our fallen, will not lay upon you the sins of your father, and that your essence will travel somewhere more pleasant than the place my own soul must now spend eternity.

  I love you my darling, my everything.

  Your Father

  Aelfric’s hands tremble as he finishes writing the letter he so desperately wishes he could deliver personally. But how does one deliver a letter to the dead?

  One cannot. Not unless they are a being that ushers souls between this world and the next. So from where he stands on the haar-covered shore, Aelfric the Elf King walks over to Ankou the Fae Reaper and hands him his letter.

  “Please Ankou, will you deliver this letter to her?” he asks, passing into a mist so thick that Ankou’s feet are hidden from the king.

  Ankou, as is his way, says nothing. Nor does he offer any gesture, sign or indication that he will do as requested. Instead, he stands perfectly still, watching, once more playing witness to the theatre of life and death.

  Aelfric nods in understanding. This is Ankou’s way, and through the centuries that Ankou has come to witness death, he has never spoken. Aelfric knows this all too well; the Elf King has stood witness himself while his brethren have fallen under Ankou’s impassive gaze. Why should the Elf King expect any different tonight?

  Because tonight is my death, he muses.

  And every being that passes from one world to another believes their death to be special, when in truth it is not.

  With a heavy heart, Aelfric folds his letter and places it in Ankou’s cloak. The Elf King can only hope that Ankou will deliver his final words to his daughter in whatever realm of the dead her soul now rests.

  With that task done, Aelfric walks to the lake’s edge. As soon as his bare feet touch the water a great kelpie emerges, her massive, horselike head rising before her king.

  Aelfric pats her snout and gives her a gentle kiss on the nose. “Earro’on, my friend, we have seen and done much together.”

  Earro’on lets out a snort of agreement.

  “Do you know why I am here?”

  In answer, the kelpie’s eyes glisten with great sadness.

  “I am sorry to ask this of you, my dear friend, but there is no other way.”

  The great kelpie draws in a steeling breath. She knows her king’s words to be true: There is no other way. Her king must die. But it is more than death. His body must disappear to where no fae guard may watch over him, where no shrine can be erected to worship him, where no reaper may collect his soul so he may rest.

  “Thank you, my friend,” Aelfric says, removing his blood-stained armor and dropping his weapons to the ground.

  Naked, he stands before the kelpie, arms outstretched. “I am ready,” the Elf
King says.

  Earro’on does not hesitate in her duty; she bites down swift and hard on her king’s flesh so the pain he feels is minimal. She swallows the two halves that once belonged to her king and friend before giving Ankou a last, mournful glance.

  The reaper, as is his way, says and does nothing. His impassive nature is his goodbye.

  Earro’on, wishing the reaper could offer her comfort and knowing that he cannot, returns to the depths of her lake.

  ↔

  But Ankou is not as impassive as Earro’on believes. For beneath his cloak, clenched fists betray an anger his kind should not feel.

  Passive Aggressive, Overtly Aggressive, Nuclear Aggressive

  “Because I love you.” Justin froze as those words came tumbling out of his mouth. He’d never said them before, at least not to me. And the fact that the first time he chose to utter those words happened to be in the middle of a fight was just another thing I was going to put into my Hold It Against Him column.

  At least those words stopped the yelling, which was better. At first.

  Then it got worse. Much worse.

  Justin just stared at me as if he was waiting for me to—what? Say it back? I’m not going to say it back, I thought. If I did now, it would be disingenuous. I’d only be saying it because he said it. I’m not going to give in to this peer pressure—I mean boyfriend pressure.

  “I don’t want you to say it back. And there’s no boyfriend pressure going on here,” he said, yelling again.

  Shit, I was thinking out loud again. It was a nasty habit I had, airing out loud thoughts meant to be private. I really had to quit that.

  At least he was yelling again.

  “There is boyfriend pressure going on here,” I yelled back. “You’re pressuring me to spend Christmas with you.”

  “Well excuse me for wanting to spend the holidays with my girlfriend. It’s not like you have anything better to do.”

  “I do,” I said with a little bit too much petulant childishness.

  “Really?” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. His manly, magnificent, well-defined chest. Damn, it was hard arguing with someone so cute. “Like what?”

  “Like … like …” I stuttered.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said with a smirk so self-righteous that his cuteness advantage went out the window.

  “Like doing my hair,” I said. “Besides, you know it has nothing to do with what I have and don’t have to do. I’m not ready.”

  “For what?”

  “To meet your parents, for one thing.”

  “So you’re going to spend Christmas in the dorms, alone, because you don’t want to meet my parents? How does that make sense?”

  “First of all,” I said, raising a very stern and point-making finger, “I won’t be alone. Deirdre and Egya will be here too. Secondly,”—I raised another finger on my other hand—“meeting your parents is a big, big step, and I don’t know if I’m ready.”

  Justin winced. I mean, he actually shrank back with his eyes closed, grimacing. All because I didn’t want to meet his parents. If he never wanted to meet my parents—well, my mom again, given he’s met her already—I’d dance for joy. If he wanted to meet my dad that would be really creepy, because my father has been dead for almost three hundred years.

  I will never understand humans and their attachment to parents.

  He shrugged and took in a deep breath before moving closer. Grabbing each point-making finger in his hands, he put them together and said, “You’ve been distant since—”

  “I already told you: I get why you proposed, and it’s no big deal,” I said. And it was true. A few weeks ago, Justin had been cursed and transformed into a very, very, very old man. I mean, I-have-minutes-to-live kind of old. Not wanting to die alone, he proposed to me … and promptly took it back when he reverted to his nineteen-year-old self.

  I get it. Really, I do. Besides, I didn’t want to get married anyway.

  “You know damn well I’m not talking about that,” he said, his voice rising. At least he was still holding my hands. “But since we’re there, I am referring to that whole incident. Ever since all the stuff that happened, happened, you haven’t been the same.”

  “What ‘stuff,’ exactly?”

  He let go of my hands. “Come on, Kat. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “No, I don’t. Are you referring to the ‘mission’ we went on?” I air-quoted the word mission. “Where you had one task—to be quiet—and you couldn’t even do that right?”

  He threw up his arms in disbelief, and given that he was over six feet tall, they hit my ceiling. “I have apologized over and over and over again for that. And besides, nothing happened. That dybbuk demon didn’t try anything on me.”

  “That dybbuk demon—”

  “Ester?” he added in an annoying, smug fashion.

  “Yes, Ester—because even demons need names—is one evil, evil bitch.”

  “She’s trapped in a box,” Justin said.

  “I know, but there’s a loophole to her containment. She can possess those who know her true name.”

  “Ester?” he gave me a coy smile.

  “Yes, Ester, smart-ass. I should have never told you her name. She could possess you, and—”

  “Again, trapped in a box. Besides, it’s been weeks.”

  “She could be waiting for the right moment to—”

  “What, suddenly decide to possess me? Or you? You know her name too, after all. Kat, let it go. It’s been weeks, and besides, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Then what are you talking about?” I yelled, and my hands pulled at my Dubarry Lily white shirt so hard I actually ripped a button free. I love this blouse … he’s going to pay for making me hurt it, I thought in a very healthy, non-passive aggressive way. (OK, maybe in a way so downright aggressive it turned the corner on passive and drove right to the edge of full-on nuclear.)

  “I’m talking about how depressed you’ve been these last weeks. How you spend hours alone in the Others Library archives, always muttering to yourself.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  Justin ignored me. “And when you are around, you just mope and refuse to talk.”

  “I talk.”

  “You make noises with your mouth, but that’s not talking. You’re not sharing your feelings. Refusing to admit that …” he stopped, his eyes darting away like he was about to say something he shouldn’t.

  “Admit what?” I asked. Now it was my turn to fold my arms over my gorgeous chest.

  “Nothing,” he said, waving his hand like he was chasing away a bee. “Forget about it.”

  “No, say it. Like what?”

  “I said forget about it.”

  “What am I, a goldfish? I’m not going to forget about it.” I had him in my death stare—a look that has literally stopped an angry mob in its tracks.

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “OK.” He sighed, sitting down. “What I’m about to say is going to make you very angry, so please keep in mind that I did it out of love.”

  “What?” I upgraded my death stare to apocalyptic.

  “I know you’ve been seeing a counselor,” he said in a quiet, apologetic tone.

  Of all the things I thought he might say, those were the last words I’d expected to hear. I had been seeing a counselor. Went four times, and I hadn’t told a soul. Not one single person—especially not him. So the only way he could know was if he followed me.

  Until that moment, I had never really understood what a catch-22 was. I mean, I got the concept, but I had never been in one myself. And yet, standing before my mournful, very afraid boyfriend, I found myself caught up in the middle of a doozy.

  On the one hand, I wanted to deny I was seeing a shrink. On the other, I wanted to call him on it. Scream at him for following me, for betraying my trust, for not giving me my space.
>
  It didn’t matter that he was right about me feeling depressed. That I walked around feeling as if a part of me was missing, and that no amount of time or sleep or distractions had made those feelings go away for even a few minutes. I felt like I was dragging around a dark cloud, like a ball and chain, while drowning in despair.

  OK, I’m mixing my metaphors, so let’s just leave it at: I felt like shit. All. The. Time.

  And here was a guy who genuinely loved me, and showed it by … what? Stalking me?

  I was angry, if anger was the word to describe a volcano of fury trapped in a hurricane of rage.

  But given my catch-22, I went another route altogether. “I’m not going to spend Christmas with you,” I said in a calm, emotionless voice. I stood up, flattened my silk skirt I bought from a seamstress in China before there were clothing labels, and walked to my dorm door and opened it. “In fact, I’m not going to see you again for the rest of this year.”

  “Kat, I … I love you,” he said, walking toward the door. “I was worried. I am worried. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, and—”

  “If there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me, then do this: Go home. Have a nice Christmas with your family. And when you get back, we’ll pick up where we left off.”