The Exorcism of Faeries (Morbid Realities, #1)

by J.L. Vampa

The last six years without hallowed academic halls and papers to write and books to study, she’d felt adrift. That didn’t mean she hadn’t still written papers, and conducted her own research, and read countless books, but it was different to be surrounded by a place, by a people group dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge,

Outside, the campus was bustling with students, a hint of the approaching autumn on the wind, stirring the leaves that would soon lose their chlorophyll and show the world how beautiful it is to die.

Ever since he made the mistake of opening that first notebook, all he’d wanted to do was crack open her mind and swim in it.

Fine. He hadn’t lost all of his charm. She wished he’d take those damned glasses off though. No one had the right to look that alluring with nerdy glasses and a sullen attitude.

“I won’t apologise for the debate. I rather enjoyed it, to be frank. But I insulted you and it was cruel. I’m sorry.” As far as apologies went, it wasn’t half bad. “I’m sorry I challenged you in front of your class.” Murdoch shook his head, a dark curl falling across his forehead. “If we were never challenged, Atta, we would never grow.”

“I’m vintage, darling.”

Atta climbed out and followed a masked man onto a secluded walkway into a dark, wooded area. One of these days, she was going to pay for being so trusting. Or was it reckless?

“You can be surrounded by people and still be alone, Atta.”

“I think we’ve had you pegged all wrong, Dr Frankenstein.” Sonder laughed, full and real. It was so sonorous and infectious that every female in the café looked in their direction, and Atta couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. “Let’s not let that get out.” His gaze met hers, a smirk playing at one side of his mouth. “I like being spooky.”

Atta laughed. “You are so strange.” “Says the woman who got in the car with a masked man in the middle of the night and went to a graveyard. On more than one occasion.” He set his face in a comical frown and shrugged, pointing between them. “Pot, kettle.”

“I’m sorry,” she hiccuped. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“You’re not going to ask me what happened?” she questioned, stirring a bit of cream into her tea. “No.” “I showed up at your house in the middle of the night crying, with boxes, and you’re not the slightest bit curious?” He rotated his glass, the amber liquid swirling. “Of course I’m curious, but you’ll tell me when you’re ready. I’m not one to pry.” Atta squinted at him. “Every bone in your body is made up of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. I don’t buy that for a second.” He stretched across her to reach his cigar and she held her breath, every nerve within her coming alive with him so close. After a puff of the cigar, he said, “I’ll wait all night if it means you’ll stay.”

“Are you drunk?” “Only on you.” The words were out before he could stop them. She pouted, her brows furrowed with skepticism. “Go to bed, Murdoch.”

and from her mouth crawled a being. Small, no larger than Atta’s palm. Devoid of flesh, made up of bone and gossamer wings, it clawed its way over the woman’s lips, its bones clacking against her teeth.

“I’ll go with you,” she said instead of I don’t want to be alone.

“Am I a ‘one time’?” He looked wounded, his face dropping. “Atta. . .” “I’m sorry.” She waved a hand. “This is juvenile. I’m just tired.” Sonder took her wine glass and set it down on the table, kneeling in front of her for the second time that night. “Should I tell you then that I can’t stop thinking about you? That I haven’t thought of another woman since the first moment I saw you outside Achilles House with a corpse you’d cut open yourself?” He took her chin in his fingers. “Or how I have never thought of a woman the way I think of you?” He kissed her gently on the lips. “How I thought I was destined to be alone, but it turns out I was starving all these years, waiting for you?” Atta swallowed. “Or”—he brushed her hair away from her neck and kissed her collarbone—“how many nights I’ve thought of you while alone in my room?” Breathing was becoming quite difficult. “Are you still jealous, a stór?” “Only of the walls of your room,” she breathed out.

Atta didn’t understand what it meant, but it wasn’t right to carry it all alone.

“I’m terrified of this world, Sonder. But I don’t fear facing it with you.”

“You, a stór, are everything that is right with the world. My world. With all the worlds. And don’t you dare apologise for it.”

If he were to die, she’d envy the soil that cradled him in its arms, the flora that sprouted from his bones.