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

  I shook my head. Before the gods left I had been a vampire, just as Egya had been a were-hyena. But when the deity bastards packed up and left four years ago, they’d transformed how magic works. Part of that transformation was that Egya and I (and those like us) lost our Other halves. In other words: we were turned human—again.

  It took a while, but I eventually got used to being human again. And being transformed into a vampire again, like I was a few weeks ago—even for one day—was enough to throw me off.

  But not this off. This was something else.

  “I think,” I said to Egya with a trembling voice, “I think when the curse was lifted my soul didn’t find its way back to me.” And barely holding back tears like a dam to an overflowing river, I told Egya everything.

  ↔

  “Damn, girl,” he said when I finally stopped talking. “When you have a problem, you don’t mess around.”

  “That’s me,” I said giving him a ta-da gesture.

  “So what do we do about it?”

  We. Always ready to help, no matter the danger. That’s why I love Egya.

  “First of all, we don’t know that’s what’s happening to me. We only have a maniac’s word. A maniac who, by the way, tried to have me killed. So right now we celebrate Christmas as best we can. Then we hit the books, research as much as we can to see if there’s any validity to this weirdo’s claims, and if there is, we go looking for my soul. As cheesy as that sounds.”

  “There is something missing in your plan.”

  “What?”

  “Justin.”

  I sighed. “I know. I’m just working up the courage to call him—after Christmas. I don’t want to get into another fight and ruin his holidays more than I already have.”

  “Promise, girl?”

  “The 26th. Cross my heart.”

  “Good. Now onto Operation Soul Woman.”

  “We’re giving it a name?”

  “Girl, I give everything a name,” he said. “I like the plan, but I don’t like the timeline.”

  “It’s a few days. Besides, I promised Deirdre,” I said, walking away from him. I must have walked ten steps before I turned around and said, “You know, I have an extra ticket if you like.”

  “Girl,” Egya said, pointing at the swollen, gray sky, “do you see what’s coming? I’d call you a fool for going to your event in a storm like this, but I know it would change nothing.” Egya cackled at this, his dark face almost hidden by the continuous snowfall. “Besides, I got a job.”

  “Really? What?”

  “Snow removal,” he said, giggling in that way he did when he was relishing the absurdity of the situation.

  ↔

  Despite the constant snowfall, I made it up the hill without any more stops, forgotten appointments or friends stalking me. I walked down to my room in the basement where Deirdre stood in the hall with two suitcases.

  “I packed for you,” she said.

  “You did what?”

  “Packed. Pajamas, underwear with matching bras because you like that, three pairs of pants, four blouses, two sweaters, five pairs of shoes, seven pairs of socks and—”

  “A partridge in a pear tree?”

  She shook her head. “Your toiletry bag.”

  “Thorough.”

  “I had to be, milady. I didn’t wish to waste any time. We must go, as the festivities start soon.”

  “They don’t start until tonight. We have hours.”

  “But given how busy it is bound to be, I want to make sure to claim a good room and front row seats for Oighrig End’s lectures. Please, let us hurry.” She picked up the two suitcases filled with my stuff and blinked. Rapidly. The fae way of insisting.

  “OK, OK,” I said, pushing past her and into our room. “Let me just check that you didn’t forget anything.”

  Entering the room, I saw that she had really gone to town on my stuff. My clothes were everywhere. Normally I’d be furious at her disregard for my things, but right now I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I picked up my iPad—the one thing she did forget to pack—and put it in my purse.

  It clicked against the earpiece, and I briefly thought about putting that thing in my desk. A vacation isn’t a vacation when your stalker can still reach you, after all.

  Given that, I left the damn thing behind.

  Let the Festivities Begin!

  Douglas Hall was the first dorm you saw when walking up the hill to rez. Unlike the other halls, it wasn’t a seven-story modern build (well, modern for the ’60s), but had more of a Victorian mansion feel to it. Three stories, with a main building in the center and two wings at either side with a snow-filled garden in the middle.

  We walked up the central path (which was hard to find, given how much snow had fallen) and through the front doors. There was a small, empty reception, which I guessed meant they weren’t ready to receive guests. There was, however, a flyer reading: Oighrig End: Myth retold from the perspective of mythical creatures.

  We walked into the lecture room, only to find it empty as well. Because Deirdre was so keen on not being late, we arrived early. As in, they weren’t even starting to think about setting up early. The room had chairs and tables stacked against the wall. The A/V equipment sat in closed boxes, and there was no podium from which Oighrig End was going to deliver his speech. Presumably that was still in storage, too.

  The worst thing about being this early was that registration wasn’t even open. Which meant there were no bedrooms for us to retreat to, no seating area where I could unsocially stare at my phone. It was just us in an empty room, waiting for someone to show up.

  “Come on, Deirdre,” I said, “let’s go back home and return in a few hours when they’re actually ready to receive us.”

  “No,” Deirdre said, defiantly shaking her head like some young actress who had just gotten off the bus in New York, determined to make it here no matter what.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” I was going to lose this fight with gusto.

  “They will be setting up soon,” she said. “We can help when they start.”

  “Deirdre, I don’t think they want our help, and even if they did, I didn’t pay close to ten thousand dollars to line up chairs and—”

  I was just getting into the groove of my tirade when a chair started moving across the room seemingly by itself. From the way it floated, it didn’t look like it was hovering, or like an Other was moving it telepathically. Rather, it stood at an angle, as if some very small creature was carrying it by one leg.

  “Very small creature indeed,” I muttered as I walked over to the moving chair and got down on my hands and knees. Close to the ground, I saw what was carrying the chair: an abatwa. It was a fae creature about twice the size of a large black ant, but as strong as a full-grown human.

  The abatwa gave me a scowl and said something in a voice so high-pitched I couldn’t make out a word of it. The thing about abatwas is, their vocal cords are so small and they speak so quickly that they sound like Alvin the Chipmunk on high speed. But I gathered her meaning from the context. She—no, upon closer examination, I was pretty sure this abatwa was a he—he was annoyed that I was in his way.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  The abatwa gave me a nod and continued carrying an item easily a thousand times bigger and heavier than himself into the room. He placed it very carefully down and lined it up before jogging to the wall to do it all over again.

  “Ahh, Deirdre,” I said, admiring how powerful this little guy was, “I think you’re right. We should help.”

  ↔

  Deirdre and I helped the abatwa move the chairs, and by the time we finished the first two rows, a pair of large speakers came floating in on the backs of two more abatwas.

  With the help of the two other tiny Others, we managed to set up the room in a matter of minutes, and before you could say “snap, crackle and pop,” we were done.

  The five of us sat down on some of the front row chairs. I tried to ask t
he abatwas what their names were, but I couldn’t understand their high-pitched, enthusiastic responses, so doing a wee bit of racial profiling, I dubbed them Snap, Crackle and Pop after the elvish cereal mascots. They didn’t seem to mind.

  Snap, Crackle and Pop sat on the velvet-covered chair between us as Deirdre pulled out a lemon drop from her purse and, crushing it between her powerful fingers, distributed the crumbs to the gang.

  I watched as the three abatwas greedily sucked up the sugar candy, my mind going through my Rolodex of fae facts as they did. Once upon a time I dated a dark elf, so I knew more than most. Still, despite my time in the UnSeelie Court, there were vast holes in my fae general knowledge category.

  After a long period of consideration, I turned to Deirdre and asked, “Aren’t abatwas from the UnSeelie Court? I mean, the Seelie Court has their tiny folks too, but they’re pixies who are usually the size of Barbie dolls, not six-sided dice.”

  Deirdre nodded, staring down at her kin.

  “So,” I said, feeling my indignation rising anew, “let me get this straight: the Seelie Court event is run by elves and halflings, but put together by the UnSeelie. As if this world doesn’t have enough discrimination—”

  “ ‘Discrimination’ is a harsh word, don’t you think?”

  I turned to see an immaculately dressed man in a three-piece tweed suit. Behind him stood what I can only assume was a valet, given he carried two suitcases matching the man’s suit.

  “I’m not so sure,” I said, standing. Deirdre started to stand with me, but I gave her a gesture that said this one’s mine, and she plopped herself back into her chair. “I’ve seen some Seelie Court snobbery going on here.”

  “The abatwa custodians, for one?” He removed his hat and tweed overcoat and handed them to his valet. He also removed his blazer and unbuttoned his vest. “But consider this: those abatwas need work, and the FSA was kind enough to provide. They could have employed Seelie Court Others, but they did not.”

  He was down-dressing, giving his valet parts of his outfit as he removed them. The valet, a fae trow whose oversized cap sat in place only by the grace of his oversized ears, took each piece of clothing in turn, folding them neatly over the standing suitcases. The trow’s gray skin and sullen look were a sharp contrast to his immaculately kempt suit.

  The man finally removed his vest before ceasing his down-dressing, which was a good thing, since all he had left to take off were his shirt, pants and gloves. Then again, he was quite attractive, so maybe it wasn’t a good thing after all.

  I had expected him to take off his gloves, but he kept those on, an odd contrast with his white, pearl button dress shirt and crisp black trousers.

  “So I suppose it’s because of some kind of equal opportunity scheme that you have a trow valet?”

  “You mean Jarvis here?” He patted the trow on the shoulder. “This UnSeelie Court creature is not just my valet—he is my friend. A friend, mind you, with whom I have shared many a wild adventure. Isn’t that true, my ol’ buddy, you?” The man giggled as he spoke.

  The trow did not.

  “Evidently.” I decided not to continue down this path, which would only lead to a fight. I’d be stuck with this guy for three days—plenty of time to fight him over Christmas dinner. So I changed tact. “You’re not fae, are you?”

  He snapped his feet together and gave me a playful salute. “ ’Fraid not, ma’am. A fae enthusiast, yes, but my fruit blooms on the homo sapien branch of the tree of life.”

  “Humph,” I said, not returning his salute. “You dress like an elf.” I forced an I’m kidding, but really I’m not smile.

  “I like to think I dress like an aged professor the university can’t remove because I have tenure.”

  “But you’re not a professor.”

  “No.”

  “Soldier?”

  “Very good,” he said. “What gave me away?”

  “Your cute salute was a bit too proper and practiced for someone who’s never served.”

  “Really?” He drew in close to me. “Tell me more.”

  He extended his hand, and up close (and with me less blinded by rage) I noticed that this guy was really cute. More than cute: handsome in a boyish way. And I would have mistaken him for a person of privilege and pampering if it wasn’t for his eyes. They carried a sadness in them only born of truly losing something you love.

  “OK,” I said, “for one thing, your forearm was at a 45-degree angle while your upper arm was parallel to the ground. For another, your posture was too straight, and … well, all of it, really. The only thing that didn’t scream military was the goofy smile you gave me. That, and the fact that you obviously have money. Lots of it.”

  “Born into the money, chose the military life partly because—”

  “You want to go into politics.”

  “I want to go into politics. That is why I joined. But I chose the military life because once I got a taste of duty and honor … well, principles can be addictive.”

  “Humph,” I said.

  “So a goofy smile, eh? I was going for cute and approachable.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Mission failed.”

  “Seems so.” He extended his hand. “I’m Remi LeChance. Canadian Armed Forces and, as I mentioned earlier, fae enthusiast.”

  I took his hand. “Don’t forget rich.” I nodded at his valet.

  “Like you aren’t. With a three-thousand-dollar ticket price, I think we’re all people of privilege, are we not?” He spoke to the room, which consisted of Deirdre, three abatwas, his valet and me.

  “Read the room, buddy,” I said.

  He looked around and his cheeks turned a rosy red. “Ahh, yes. My apologies.”

  Snowed-In Speeches and Confined Tensions

  Over the next hour, two more guests showed up. The first was an eleven-foot giant who wore jeans that must have been XXXXXXL (where you could buy one of those, I had no idea) and a moo-moo stretched across his ample chest. The huge fae creature had long blond hair and wore something around his neck that, given his height, I couldn’t quite make out. The second guest was an elf dressed in a black suit so conservative it was only really appropriate for a funeral. Neither spoke as they entered the room, and from the casual way they greeted Remi, I doubted they knew each other.

  Great, I thought, five guests, four non-attendees, no host and no speaker. And just as I was getting ready to vocalize the rare thought I didn’t say out loud, in walked Orange wearing his uneven smile and carrying a box full of keys.

  “Hello everyone,” he said, trying to clap while carrying the box. Instead of his palms making attention-grabbing noise, the keys in the box jiggled and clacked against one another, gathering our attention all the same. “I have keys, keys, keys.”

  Everyone in the room stood up and Orange pulled out a key. “Freol Garfum,” Orange said, and the elf who looked like he was attending a funeral stood up. “You’re on the third floor. OK, next. Jack … ahh, just Jack,” he said. The giant stepped forward and took the key. “You’re on the ground floor. Taller ceiling here.” Orange pointed up.

  Jack grunted his approval, and as the giant hunched away from Orange, I wondered if anyone had ever told Jack that his name was usually reserved for the guy who kills the giant—not the giant himself.

  “Remi LaChance,” Orange practically sang as he pulled out two keys. Jarvis the valet stepped forward, and as Orange passed the keys to him, I swore that Jarvis’s hand lingered a little too long for such a simple task.

  “And saving the best for last,” he said in a lackluster voice, “Katrina and Deirdre Darling.” He tossed us a key each. “You’re both on the second floor.”

  “First of all, it’s Katrina Darling and Deirdre Goodforest. We’re not together. Well, we are together, it’s just we’re not together, together. Not that being together is a problem …” I stumbled over myself. “I mean, we need two separate rooms.”

  “Two rooms?” He looked at the printout he’d bro
ught. “I have you down for one.”

  “And I paid for three.”

  Orange paused for a second as he decided whether it was worth his time to get into another argument with me before huffing and pulling out the last set of keys from his box. “Fine, here you go.” He tossed them to me.

  Free of the box of keys, he successfully clapped his hands this time. “So, good news and bad, I’m afraid. The good is Oighrig End is here. I have seen him to his room and he is settling in. You will all get to meet him at 5pm, when he will deliver a short introductory lecture, after which we will retire to the dining hall for dinner and drinks.”

  Everyone nodded in approval, and Deirdre, bless her, actually clapped with glee. Orange stood there surveying us for a long, awkward second before I said, “And the bad news?”

  “Ahh yes,” he said. “I fear we are the only ones who will be in attendance. Many have cancelled because of the snowstorm. Seems our three friends from the north couldn’t manage the treacherous roads to be with us today.” As he spoke, his focus seemed to be solely on Remi. “Regardless, we shall have a great festivity. So go, prepare. Oighrig End will be with us soon!”

  With that said, he pointed at the door—the universal gesture for get out.

  Meeting Your Heroes Sucks

  Deirdre and I dressed for the lecture. I chose to wear a cute little number I’d bought from Goddiva, while Deirdre wore a simple tank top, miniskirt and fishnet stockings. I would have made a comment about corners and looking for a good time, except she accessorized her outfit with camellias, magnolias and freesias.

  By the time she was done, she looked less street-walkerish and more child-of-the-Earthish. Her outfit was gorgeous, her smile was radiant and she was perfect.

  Compared to her, I was a sow. A sow in a very expensive, very stylish outfit.