Storykiller by Kelly Thompson Read Free Book Online

composure. “Storykiller,” she said again, barely louder than the first time. “That’s what they call you,” she said, looking back at the Bluebeard head and blinking again, as if she hoped to erase what she had seen with her eyelids. “To your face they’ll call you Scion, but behind your back, it’s Storykiller. It’s always been Storykiller,” Snow looked at Tessa, “I’ve just…I’ve just never seen it.” Snow continued holding Tessa’s gaze for a moment and then looked away, as if wishing herself somewhere else.
    Tessa closed her eyes and tilted her head back, letting out an exhausted sigh. She was bone-tired, not to mention more than a little terrified by both what she’d seen and what she’d done. She had just killed a man. And gotten another one killed. And yet both somehow seemed natural and normal and like something that sometimes just happened on Tuesdays. Tessa looked at her hands. Elaborate patterns of blood, both beautiful and deadly, laced across her skin almost as if she was wearing intricately woven, elbow-length, bright red gloves. She shook her head. What was wrong with her? How could she think for even a moment that it was beautiful? Despite the blood, she reached her hand out to help Snow up, but Snow recoiled back, rejecting her .
    “How is that possible?” Tessa asked.
    “What?” Snow asked, still disoriented and shaken.
    “I’m guessing you’ve been around a long time, how can this be the first death you’ve ever seen?
    Snow continued staring at Bluebeard’s head. “I’ve never lived in the Mortal world before, so I’ve never seen a Mortal die. And Stories don’t die.”
    Tessa pointed the axe at the dead body. “Clearly they do.”
    “No, I…” Snow stood up and smoothed her clothing, averting her eyes from both the body and the detached head. “They can’t. Not by anyone but you. You’re the only person in all of this world, or mine, that can actually kill a Story,” she said. It was the most serious and non-snarky she’d been since Tessa had met her. Snow didn’t strike Tessa as someone sincere, but she seemed genuine in this moment.
    “That, that can’t be true,” Tessa stumbled over the words.
    “I assure you it is. No mere Mortal has the power to kill a Story, and no Story can truly kill another Story.”
    “What do you mean ‘truly’?”
    “Just that we give it a try—with alarming regularity, in fact—but it never holds, not permanently. Everyone eventually comes back. It’s like—think of your Mortal video games—even if we manage to kill each other, we eventually— reset , for lack of a better word. We don’t have the power to erase one another the way a true death would.”
    “I…” Tessa started but she had no idea where to go. She tried again, “Wait, what do you mean by erase ?”
    “When a Story truly dies, it means their Mortal story dies too. You’ve not only killed Bluebeard, you’ve erased him. His Fiction no longer exists.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Killing him obliterates all record of him. He’s a memory only you and Stories carry now. No Mortal will know, before, now, or ever again, of his Story. And perhaps worse than that, everyone else from his tale is now essentially a ghost. Trapped in a Story that no longer exists, they’re like the walking dead , wandering without a sense of self or purpose. You have destroyed their home, what breathed them into existence. You’ve made them orphans. It’s why we fear The Storykiller above all else—that we will become doomed shells attached to a Story you have destroyed.”
    Tessa sat down on a nearby chair, afraid if she didn’t sit that she might faint. She laid the axe across her lap, and touched one bloody hand to her swimming head. She looked up at Snow with hawkish eyes. “You’re lying.”
    Snow shook her head solemnly, “I’m really not, Scion.”
    “I, I didn’t mean to do that.”
    Snow softened a bit, seeing how hard she was taking it, “You didn’t