The Mora: Liminality, #2

Also by M.R. Graham

The Liminality Series

The Medium

The Mora

The Mage

The Martyr (coming soon)

In the Shadow of the Mountains

The Wailing

The Van Helsing Legacy

We Shall Not Sleep

Dark & Hungry Graves (coming soon)

The Adventures of Morrigan Holmes

No Cage for a Crow

The Death of a Swan (coming soon)

Stand-Alones

The Siren

Poetry

Versos, or The Things a Woman Learns on the Banks of the Great River

Papalotes: Songs of Texas

Strange Matters

Table of Contents

Liminality

The End

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

The End

liminality:

Liminality: (From the Latin līmen, a threshold) The intermediate point of transition between two states or classes. An object or individual in the liminal state may be considered to belong to both classes simultaneously, or to neither. A prolonged liminal state may result in disorientation, alienation, and later inability to integrate into another state or class.

Betweenness.

the end

Sometimes, she still pretends she can dream.

She closes her eyes and imagines and pretends the images fool her, that she doesn’t know they aren’t real. She focuses on the faces with their smiling eyes, on laughter, on planning for a future that had not yet disappeared. She imagines pear blossoms floating like champagne bubbles on the effervescent air.

And in some ways, the pretending really is like dreaming should be, as she always returns to the knowledge that she is not in control. Even in the middle of her deepest imaginings, her scars ache, and the Face is there, somewhere inside her mind, pulling strings like an invisible puppetmaster. Shadows coalesce around her like a cocoon, tightening like ropes, and her eyes snap open, because she cannot bear to remember any longer.

The world around her is almost like a dream. The shadows on the walls speak to her, their voices soft and distant. There was a time she would have been able to make out all they said, but they have been fading away as surely as she has.

The Face is a blacker shape in the deep darkness, watching, compelling. It has the form of a woman, impossibly tall and unfathomably beautiful, but a woman it is not.

<<Bring him,>> it says in a voice that is not a voice, reverberating in her bones. <<Bind him.>>

Her soul flutters inside her like moth wings, fragile and powdery, and she knows, someday, she will obey. She has no choice, though a slave can conceive of no greater sin than to bind another to the same fate.

She watches the shape until it fades again into the night, leaving her as alone as she is able to be. The memories that come now are darker:

The man’s face. The man’s fists and boots. Loose ribs bending and swaying like tree branches, the feel of liquid in her lungs. The fury and madness rising up like bile, and that word circling around and around, chaining her and filling her…

Rusalka.

Fire under her skin, burning the madness away, raising the scars she would never be rid of.

Her freedom the price for her soul.

The dreams and dreams and dreams, never ending, how worthy it had seemed, the least of evils, best possible captivity. To keep the world turning, ensure the sun would rise and set. To be imprisoned but useful, surely that was better than to be damned, a mindless tool of eternal vengeance.

Who is a girl who dreams forever? Who is a girl to whom time is without meaning? Forever a child, eternally young, lost in shadows, suspended between life and death. How worthy it had seemed to never die, to sustain the earth with her sacrifice.

But the years were dark, and the scars still burn at times.

And freedom is so far away.

one

Does it really matter if he killed his wife?

Benedykta!

Don’t look at me like that. You know what I meant. Isn’t the rest of it enough? It should be enough.

No, you’re right. I wouldn’t send her off with an abuser any more than with a murderer, and there can’t be any doubt his reputation is well-founded.

Even if it can’t be proven…

It’s proven well enough. I saw the marks on the footman.

Then we are agreed. It must be broken off at once. No financial security is worth that kind of risk.

No. I’ll send a letter. I don’t know that I have the courage to confront him in person. Unless your father would be willing to accompany me…

"Father would kill him if he threatened you. I don’t want this to become an open conflict, Jan. I just don’t want our daughter married to that. She is intelligent and talented. She’ll find something better. Just send the letter."

*

The sun glared off the pages of Jadwiga’s open book, making the words fade and bleed together. It hurt her eyes, so for the third time, she picked up her blanket and followed the shade of the pear tree. Her dress stuck to her back and legs. It would be darker inside, but even with all the windows flung wide, there was never a breeze. The house would be an oven.

And her parents were inside, and she was tired of listening to their conversations.

She had received the news with neither surprise nor disappointment. It had never been a real betrothal, after all, only a series of sort-of promises. She had never met the man in question. She knew he was very wealthy, a titled landowner, a widower, and friendly enough with the tsar that the very thought of the marriage made her grandfather curse and clutch at his war-wounded side. She knew he was one of those people her Babcia called niewidomi, blind, someone who had seen only part of what the world had to offer and may not react well to a strange bride and her even stranger family. Nothing had ever been set in stone, and she did not much care when it abruptly ended.

Jadziu.

She shut her book and turned as someone joined her on the blanket. Dziadku.

Jerzy Lojek seemed too young to be a grandfather, only thirty-six when the musket ball ripped through his gut and stole his heartbeat, and he had not aged a day since. He wore his shirt loose and untucked, the neck untied in a nod to the heat, but Jadwiga knew he was loving the weather. It had been days since he had last complained of being cold. He flopped onto his back and tucked his hands behind his head.

What are you reading, zabka?

I’m trying to improve my English.

Don’t want to tell me? He grinned. Is it that bad a book?

She blushed. "Well, it isn’t good. It’s about a vampire. Named Varney."

Jerzy laughed aloud and rolled to face her. And what is your educated opinion of this vampire named Varney?

She took a moment to think about that. He doesn’t seem to be very good at it.

That pulled another laugh out of him, and she smiled.

"Written by a niewidomy?"

Oh, definitely.

It’s almost insulting, in a way, the notions these people come up with. You should be glad they aren’t writing lurid romances about mora.

Jadwiga pressed a lock of hair between her lips and averted her eyes. It wouldn’t catch on, she said. Her throat suddenly felt tight, and she tried not to let him hear. The hero can’t gallantly battle a mora.

Jerzy’s grin disappeared at the tone of her voice. That’s new, he commented mildly. He tilted his head, eyes wide and curious. "Is there any reason the mora shouldn’t be the hero?"

The same reason the vampire is never the hero, I suppose.

Are you saying I’m not heroic? he teased gently, but she did not laugh, and he sobered again. I didn’t know you felt that way. Being strange is always difficult, but it certainly doesn’t make you the villain. You know that.

"I do, but the niewidomi don’t, do they? They always write the strange one as the villain, which means they would see me as the villain, if they ever learned the truth of me." She managed to get that out with a remarkably level voice, considering how guilty she felt just thinking it. She dug a hand into the grass, then jerked it back with a smothered oath and picked the ants out from between her fingers, scowling.

Jerzy scratched thoughtfully at the corner of his eye. Some probably would, yes. What started you thinking about this?

Jadwiga shrugged, picking at the edge of the blanket. When I marry—

Which won’t be any time soon.

—how do I tell a man about our family? About what Papa and I do?

Cautiously, truthfully, and with me nearby to erase his memories if he doesn’t take it well.

Jadwiga could not help but smile at that, and she felt her grandfather relax beside her.

Remember, he went on, I knew nothing about any of this before I was changed. Neither did your grandmother Nataszia, but she did not turn me away when I came back to her different. All of your aunts have had to explain their odd family to their husbands. Your mother was the only one lucky enough to find a man with his own strangeness. You might ask him what he planned to say to her before he knew about her background. Or talk to your Babcia. She has been explaining herself to the normal folk since before the fall of Rome. But I think you should find the man you want to tell before you start rehearsing how to say it. Different people will need different words.

Jadwiga glanced toward the house as a shouted argument sprang up and died again. The thing was done, the letter sent; she could not imagine what they were still arguing about, days later.

Jerzy frowned. Not that man, though. The only thing worse than a Russian is a Pole who wishes he were Russian. He curled his lip and spat.

*

Jadwiga barely noticed evening closing in until she could hardly see her book anymore. Without even realizing, she had brought the page within inches of her face and angled her body to take advantage of the faint light from the house.

That was not what had distracted her, though; she knew from experience that she would have read until she could see nothing at all, if not for…

She marked her place with a finger and listened hard. There, on the very lower edge of her hearing.

Hoofbeats.

It increased in volume rather than continuing on past, and she rose to her feet as the horse cantered up the lane.

For a moment, in the low light, she thought it had lost its rider, but the man hauled himself up briefly from the animal’s side before tumbling to the ground. He hit with a grunt and did not move.

The horse slowed and stopped, quivering. Jadwiga could see the foam speckling its muzzle and hear its harsh breath. It had been hard used, but she knew little enough about horses and had no idea whether it, too, was on the verge of collapse, so she rushed instead to the man, kneeling to examine him for injury.

He was winded from his fall, muscles slack, eyes only half open, but he did not seem seriously hurt. He was also no one she could remember ever having seen before, young and attractive, but unkempt. He had not shaven in days, and dust caked his tasseled boots. He carried a pistol openly at his belt. A soldier?

For a moment, she stood paralyzed as a thought coiled sickeningly around her windpipe: This is how it happened before. She knew the story her grandfather had told her, how a rider broke through the evening, bearing news of insurrection and a young lieutenant named Wysocki. How they fought for their country under cover of night, using the land as their armor. How Jerzy Lojek lost his brothers one by one to Russian musket balls or to Siberian exile and finally lost his own life. Even his beloved university did not escape.

Shots had been fired. What other news could make a man ride himself to exhaustion?

Don’t move, Jadwiga instructed. I’ll bring the men to take you inside.

He groaned miserably and rolled to his side, trying to stand. You… you…

Oh! No, stay still. I’ll be right back.

But he kept struggling clumsily, working his way with painful awkwardness from his hands to his knees. You…

I said don’t move! Jadwiga protested, but his lack of coordination suggested a head injury, and comprehension might not have been among his strengths, at the moment. She moved to help him to his feet, bracing him with his arm across her shoulders.

"You."

The stench of used liquor and vomit hit Jadwiga like a physical force. The words that followed were garbled, but their tone was profane, and she had a moment to be annoyed, then a moment to be afraid before the arm around her tightened. She struggled, and it tightened further, moving up from around her shoulders to around her neck, pulling her closer.

On instinct, she turned inward, further into the unwelcome embrace, and drove her knee up into the man’s stomach. But the strike was slowed by her skirts; though the fabric ripped loudly, there was barely any force left by the time the blow reached its target. Her assailant grunted, and his grip loosened, but he did not let go. So she bit him instead, turned her head and sank her teeth deep into his fleshy cheek. Blood gushed over her chin and down the front of her dress as his arm fell away. She stumbled backward into the horse’s flank, and the animal trumpeted in alarm and twisted away from her. She fell, adding her own voice to the horse’s.

There. Someone would hear that, surely. In a moment, someone would come.

Her attacker raised a hand to his face and brought it away dark and wet as he swayed where he stood. For a moment, she thought the drink might lay him out, but his hand moved downward to the gun at his hip, and Jadwiga scrambled to her feet to run.

The report cramped in Jadwiga’s legs as her body braced itself to be perforated, but no pain came. The man could barely stand, much less shoot, and the shot flew wide into the gathering darkness. There was a short moment for relief before the horse’s wild scream and the thunder of hooves behind her as the injured animal, blinded by pain and fear, ran her down.

She felt its shoulder in her back, then its hoof in her side as it drove her to the ground, and then it was gone, vanished into the night. She rolled to a stop against the wall of the old well and clenched her jaw against the urge to scream, knowing instinctively that drawing a deep breath would be more than her damaged body could take. Her ribs had to be broken—all of them, it felt like. She gasped, and even that tiny movement choked her.

Surely, someone would be coming. In a moment, someone would come.

A cry went up from the house. Jadzia! Jadzia, where are you? Papa. Benedykta, find me light! And summon your father back; we need someone with night-eyes!

The stranger staggered toward her, silhouetted against the deep violet sky. The day’s heat was fading, and the air was growing cold. He bent and retched into the grass, and Jadwiga held very still, hoping a shape on the ground would be too indistinct for him to make out. But he shambled on until he stood in front of her. Words spilled out of him, incoherent and enraged, but too quiet to carry to the house and give him away. He planted his foot in her ribs, and she whimpered.

A candle emerged from the house, followed by the long, slender gleam of metal. Papa and his rifle. He bellowed her name across the garden. She tried to answer, but only a faint, wet sound emerged. It didn’t even hurt so much anymore, and that was when she realized with a start just how badly she must actually be hurt.

The man kicked her again, then once more. Then, seeming to realize that he was too drunk to kick her to death, he heaved her up to standing and tipped her over into the well.

She bounced back and forth between the walls before the brackish, tepid water rose up to surround her. It filled her eyes and her mouth and soaked through her dress, tugging her downward. She fought it, but every twitch of a limb was agony, and when her head broke the surface, her ears were assaulted by the weird, keening voice of a freshening wind whistling over the lip of the well. It reverberated hollowly, broken by the ragged sound of her breath, then men shouting, then the bark of a gun.

She dipped beneath the surface again, and her lungs filled. Her fingernails tore uselessly at the green-slick stone. Her heart thundered in her ears and pounded at her broken ribs.

Don’t let me die, she prayed. Lord, don’t let me die.

The water rose around her flailing arms and closed over her grasping fingertips. Even the water could not erase the sour smell of liquor from her nostrils. The water shivered: another gunshot, though without being able to hear, she could not tell whether it was pistol or rifle. Something hard and cold seeped out of the water into Jadwiga, settled in her throat and began to spread. Cold chest, cold limbs, cold heart. The fury gave her focus, and for a moment, it was only too easy to think around the burning in her lungs.

Lord, don’t let me die. I have to kill that bastard if he hurt Papa. I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him I’ll kill him I’ll kill him…

Darkness.

two

By the time Kim Reed realized she was getting used to losing people, it was too late for her to do much about it, except perhaps find herself a therapist.

Nobody dead, of course—no one could possibly become truly accustomed to death. But they were all leaving, one by one, drifting out of her life as she drifted out of theirs. A father she hadn’t seen in over a decade, an aunt dying of Alzheimer’s in a nursing home, a mother and grandfather who were abroad more often than not, best friends who had lives of their own and couldn’t wait around for her family to decide what to do with her. And one almost-friend, one she only knew for a matter of days, but whom she would always carry with her—kidnapped by a psychotic vampire. Lenny. She had spent six years psychically bound to him and was still recovering from the day something shattered him, something she couldn’t save him from. Six years looking for a way to rescue him, waiting for some opportunity to come along, only to lose him. Thinking about it still made her furious. But in a way, it was also freeing. Six years was only a flash in the life of a wizard, but it was still a damn long time to spend without closure. It was easier to know at last that she had failed than it had been to look forward to striving forever. At least he was no longer in pain.

Losing people had become habit. It hurt, but she knew how to take it. She knew how to keep going until it dulled and receded. It would get better—had to, because wizards live a long time, and you lose a lot of friends in half a millennium.

Getting someone back was a surprise.

Out the rear-facing window, she watched a dark shape creep across the park and disappear into the shadows of the building. Probably just a hobo, but there were things that did not like the Reed family, and so Kim double-checked the wards she’d set around the apartment and made sure that her pistol was in easy reach, right at the very top of her desk drawer. On impulse, she reached down to tug uselessly at the bronze band encircling her right ankle. It didn’t budge. It never did. C’est la vie.

The shadow did not appear again, and after a while, Kim moved from the desk to the couch, keeping her pistol nearby, and flicked the television on. It was late, and she was tired, and no one can be cautious every moment of every day. She was almost drifting off when there came three soft taps at the window.

Four stories up.

Kim shot to her feet, pistol finding its way into her hand. She had experience with things that could scale walls, almost none of it good. The cluster of tiny religious medals felt heavy at her throat; her charm bracelet with its string of jingling milagros lay on her desk, weighing down a sheaf of papers, useless to her for the moment.

But the eyes glowing outside the window were less menacing than amused. They were also familiar, though for a moment, Kim could not place them. The face, that of an extremely old man, gaunt and creased, was not one she thought she knew. Much of it was concealed by a dense, meticulously trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and large, wire-rimmed glasses that made it hard to see any more of the eyes than their inhuman shine.

She did not know the face, but she knew the glasses; for all the strange beings she had met, only one creature of the night had vision problems.

Holy beans! Doctor Leland?

The man clinging forty feet above the ground lifted an eyebrow. May I come in? he mouthed.

It took a moment of deliberation. Um… Well… Provided you’re not looking to murder me or anything… She doubted he was; Leland had always been strangely laidback for an undead bloodsucker, but it was best not to take chances. On that condition, yeah, sure. Hang on a sec. She laid her gun on the coffee table and clambered back up on the couch to fumble with the window latch. Getting the screen out and back in would be a hassle, but she could hardly leave him hanging there.

But Leland did not wait patiently. As Kim watched, his body began to fade and dissolve into thin, luminous white mist, like floating dust motes catching the light. In a matter of moments, he was entirely gone. The cloud swirled around the window, seeking a weak point, and finally began to trickle in between the panes, where the seal apparently was not airtight. It pooled in the middle of the room and condensed again, gaining solidity until it was a man once more.

He inhaled once, curiously, polished his spectacles on a cloth whipped from his pocket, and moved at once to press his ear to the front door.

Kim blinked. I never knew you could do that. She took in his manner, the way his eyes sought every possible point of entry, and frowned. Is someone after you?

It never came up, did it? No, not right at this moment. I think I’ve lost him, but he’s always managed to catch up with me before. At least I probably have some time.

Kim opened her mouth to voice some of the innumerable questions that statement suggested, but he held out one long, thin hand to silence her.

I am glad it is you here, he continued, and not one of your relatives. That makes this much easier. I don’t think I could have borne saying such a thing to your grandfather. He looked searchingly at the door, as though seeking an alternative. None presented itself.

Miss Reed, under chapter six, section six, paragraph eighteen of the Philadelphia Accords of nineteen twenty-eight, this is my formal request for asylum.

Kim gaped as he drew a folded stack of papers from his coat pocket and laid them on her table.

I’ve taken the liberty of drafting the necessary contract—open to revision, of course—to which I voluntarily submit myself to be bound.

He watched her expectantly, but she could think of nothing to say.

Did something happen? she managed, then immediately kicked herself for asking a stupid question. The man’s lips thinned. Daniel Leland did not tolerate stupid questions; she should have remembered that. I mean, what happened? I can’t accept until I know why you’re in trouble. If it was indiscretion…

You know me, Miss Reed. Do you believe me capable of indiscretion?

I knew you twelve years ago. Vampires may not change much, but that’s still a long time for anything to happen.

He flinched at the v-word and glanced at the door as though afraid someone might have heard. She should have remembered that, too.

Sorry, she muttered. Sorry. Look, sit down. Do you want coffee? I can make coffee.

He sat cautiously, arthritis crackling in his joints. That sound filled Kim with more questions, but she kept them bottled; he was a friend—acquaintance—in need, not a research subject. She set up the coffee maker and left it to percolate, then took her place on the other end of the couch.

Leland had leaned forward, cradling his forehead in his hands, glasses pushed up into his snowy hair. He looked terrible, she realized, and not only because she was used to him appearing a good thirty years younger than he did at the moment. He looked exhausted, face sunken, papery white skin sliding loosely across his bones. As a teenager, she had entertained a weird, contrary crush on the man next door. Undead or not, he was brilliant and dignified, qualities Kimberly Reed found infinitely more attractive than the latest floppy-haired,