Myths and Gargoyles

by Jamie Hawke

  We reached the spot and I opened the way, so that we were soon through the strange passage and pulling into the house’s garage. From there I hopped out, hands to the wall, and cringed. Since I could sense the house, it was almost like I could feel the pain of the flames. This was so much more than a house, and I felt like I’d betrayed its walls by staying elsewhere.

  I’ve got you, my thoughts went out to the building, and I went about fixing the situation. First things first—fire needs oxygen. Quickly shifting the walls to close in on themselves, I created a situation where the areas on fire had no oxygen, where the flames could no longer exist. Next, I reinforced those areas with stone from where I could find it, ensuring any flames that happened to escape my attention at least couldn’t go far.

  From what I could tell, it worked. To be safe, I noted a water pipe nearby and caused it to separate long enough to provide some extra attention, then reconnected it.

  I stumbled away from the wall, exhausted. Ebrill caught me, one arm around me, her other hand on my forehead as she chanted a healing spell.

  “Thank you,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure her spell did much. Healing spells were great when it came to physical exhaustion and injuries, but not necessarily an overuse of magic.

  “They’re still going to be out there wondering,” Steph said. “Now, probably more than ever.”

  “As far as they know, the flames suddenly went out,” ‘

  The driver and the other guards stayed with the cars, or were going to, when I had an idea.

  “Lead them away,” I told one of the drivers. “Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied. “Any more details?”

  I indicated one of two remaining cars that had belonged to Gertrude. “Take the blue Mustang, along with two guards in case there’s trouble. We still have a magic battle to deal with above, but I want to see if we can get the media and bystanders’ eyes off us for a few minutes.”

  “Roger that.”

  Without waiting, he and two others were in the car, taking off through the normal garage.

  “Get to the rooftop,” I said, indicating the stairs.

  “Shortcut?” Ebrill asked.

  I shook my head. “I have… other plans for my magic. I don’t think I’ll have enough energy for both.”

  She nodded. They took off for the stairs, leaving the other driver and two remaining guards down below. Meanwhile, as the garage door closed, I put my hands to the house walls again, waiting. When I heard the roar of the engine outside, I counted to three and then went to work.

  Basically, all I had to do was change the structure of the house—to make it appear that there was no house, that the other nearby houses simply extended toward each other, not much room between.

  It was a major undertaking, but hey, I had transmutation magic. In that moment, I believed I could do it, and therefore it was possible. Odd, how that worked. As much as I tried to ‘believe’ that I had bigger muscles, it simply didn’t happen. This, however, made sense to me—hell, there was cinematic precedence for houses that could exist but be invisible like this.

  My bet was that anyone who claimed to have seen a house here would be deemed insane. Just to be sure, I tapped into the runes below the house and added a confusion spell. Anyone who got too close would either forget why they came, think they were trying to get to the next house, or maybe simply turn around and walk away. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I needed us and the house to be left alone, at least for now.

  “You’ll be fine down here,” I told the guards. “Head for the kitchen, get some food and water. Be ready for anything.”

  Stepping away from the wall and feeling completely exhausted, I turned to the stairs and bolted up them to join the others.

  130

  My magic energy was starting to come back to me by the time I reached the roof, although I was physically exhausted from the climb. To my surprise, Shisa came charging up a moment later—straight out of one of those dog movies where they come find you miles away. My team had already formed a wedge, wings forming a protective screen from projectiles, although the battle hadn’t reached them, yet.

  At first, I couldn’t tell who was fighting. The explosions of light were going on around a flowing circle of blackness. A blast went off and then a figure flew out—Yenifer, unless my eyes deceived me in that split second—and then the darkness reached and pulled her back again, engulfing her in the sphere.

  “It’s her,” Megha said, hand to her head.

  “Sensing a connection?” Aerona asked.

  Megha simply nodded, then glanced toward the sky as her eyes glowed. A moment later, a being arrived in front of her, or rather, in front and beneath her. Not like the one from before. This one was long, like a shadow that moved in water, but almost like a winged eel with tendrils floating off around it. In spots where it caught the moonlight, it was translucent with rainbow glows. A beak formed at its mouth, giving it a bird-like quality.

  Her hands were, naturally, inside the creature’s mind. As soon as it was less of a shadow and a more fully-formed creature, she was up, flying to penetrate the dark sphere. Watching her fight like that reminded me of an old Tank Girl image, although in that one she had been riding a rocket, not a weird shadow monster.

  A slew of strange creatures flew out, landing on the roof around us. They were spindly little things, stark white in a way that made me think of Halloween decorations, but when they attacked it was with a mist that engulfed us, making it hard to breathe or move. I countered with flurries to catch them off guard, while Ebrill did her healing and the rest attacked in a way that left us clear of them in a matter of seconds.

  Still, my skin itched until Ebrill got me with a second healing. Yenifer flew back out again, growled our way—skin partially stone, I saw—and then she charged back in for the fight.

  “Contain the sphere!” Aerona said, and I noticed that she was already working to do so. I threw my flurries at it when I was certain Megha was out of the way, then cast “Tarian” and “Carreg” to up my defenses. I figured that if Yenifer had a stone skin thing going, I would need it, too.

  But, the darkness of the sphere shot out, engulfing us all. As more of those white mist creatures darted about, flying this time, another figure joined them, but only her silhouette was visible. Her attacks lashed out like whips from all directions, painful and drawing blood, causing me at one point to collapse to one knee—yes, even with my stone skin activated!

  “Stay with me,” Kordelia said at my side, pulling me up and running to tear down three of the white creatures, followed by a blast from Aerona that caused the blackness to recede halfway.

  Reaching out my hand, I summoned my staff and said, “Elfenol Streic,” causing the end to light up with electricity. Lightning bolts shot out and chained off those little creatures, even hitting the darkness and pushing it back further.

  “No!” Ebrill shouted, reaching toward me, eyes wide with worry. I had been about to summon the Liahona, but froze. She was right. Using it against this being could backfire if she was part of the Nine.

  Megha was riding her creature and sped over my head, suddenly leaping toward the silhouetted figure. For a moment, her hands were on its head and I saw glowing, was even able to make out stunning eyes, before Megha was thrown aside to slam into the roof, face-first. She skidded across it with a growl of pain, then was up, blood and torn skin marring half her beautiful features.

  Ebrill met her, about to heal, but was thrown back by one of those dark whips.

  It was all so chaotic. With each spell of ice claw or whatever else I called up, the enemy would shuffle in the darkness, making it very hard to land a hit. But, Aerona had said to contain the darkness. As I watched, it faded more since her attacks were targeted for it rather than the other enemies all about us.

  So, that’s what I did. I barraged the darkness with every attack spell I knew. Then, as it retreated, I tried ice wall—again and again—trapping so
me of the darkness in the blocks of ice. More lightning strikes, but geared toward the darkness, along with ice claw and others. Steph joined in with her flame spells, while Kordelia and Riland attempted to keep the other forces busy and Shisa kept us shielded as best as he possibly could.

  In a flash of light, Aerona had it under control. She pushed it back, knelt, and summoned a floating crystal of light that seemed to be battling one-on-one with the darkness. We surged, apparently winning.

  I glanced over to see Yenifer there, claws holding onto the rooftop as her eyes roamed over each of us.

  “Gertrude,” a voice said as Yenifer opened her mouth, but it didn’t feel right. Didn’t fit.

  “Who’s there?” Aerona asked, taking a step closer to the massive gargoyle, who was nearly twice her size. “Give us back our friend.”

  “Friend?” the voice was almost mocking. “Give me mine.”

  A surge of darkness shot out from above, bursting forth from our containment fields and lashing Yenifer across the back. It interrupted her speech and sent her stumbling to one knee—still at my height.

  I glanced up to see why our magic had failed, realizing it was likely due to the fact that a second being was approaching. This one had green skin and a darker shade of green cloth wrapped around her body in the right places, not much elsewhere. Green, flowing energy went from her to the sphere, and as she landed there was an explosion from our spell. The dark shape of the other figure that had been inside the black sphere landed, sphere gone.

  While the first was mostly green but with dark red hair, the other reminded me of a human version of the creature Megha had summoned. All dark, flowing, not quite there. Her black eyes took me in, the other with blue eyes that seemed to flow like water.

  “Gertrude is… gone,” the green one said.

  Yenifer spun on them, growling, and then rose. Without another word, she jumped, diving over the side of the building. Gone.

  I was confused, but less so than I had been. At least now we knew that someone was controlling her, to the extent that they were even using her voice. She was searching for Gertrude for some reason, but why?

  At the moment, though, we had a problem. These two ladies were eyeing us, magic flickering around them at all levels

  “Why do you seem… familiar?” Aerona asked.

  Steph grunted. “The Nine Ladies of Ystawingun. This is Moronoe.” She indicated the first. “The green one is Gliten.”

  A growl came from near my ankle where Shisa was moving closer to me, ready for defensive action.

  “Moronoe,” I shouted, watching as the black sphere started to form again, flickering and shooting around her, vanishing then returning over and over, so that it was like a strobe effect the way the two ladies appeared. “What do you want?”

  “The same thing she wanted,” Moronoe replied, her voice like a heavy chocolate. “Gertrude and everything she has on the gargoyles.”

  “Gertrude is gone.”

  “So I hear.”

  “And her work?” the other cut in. “The research on the locations of the others, on the Ni—Ooomph!”

  A tendril of black slime suddenly emerged from the sphere and covered Gliten’s mouth. Her eyes went wide, but the slime faded, leaving her with her mouth shut as she floated backward, giving prominence to Moronoe.

  “Let us in, so that we may find what we’ve come for.”

  “Not going to happen.” I stepped forward, staff at the ready. While summoning the Liahona might be exactly what they wanted me to do, I wasn’t sure how much of a choice I would have. The moment had the potential to go very bad, very fast.

  As that strange black strobe effect continued, the two very dangerous women glaring at me and likely debating their next moves, my mind was elsewhere. Using my connection to the house, I was searching. Looking for any hidden rooms or chambers I might have missed. Nothing yet, but if Gertrude had found something, I had to imagine her notes or something could be located, given time. If she had already done the homework in regard to finding the others—and apparently, some of the Nine—there was no use duplicating it.

  “It’s not here,” Moronoe said, tilting her head.

  I blinked, confused.

  “Shit, Jericho!” Ebrill leaped, a moment later gliding down at my side. “She has a connection to you, somehow. Get her out of there.”

  A quick refocus showed that she was right. Moronoe’s connection felt like a glare on a computer screen, only in this case it was a strange darkness in my mind. As I tried to target it, something brought me to my knees, and all of my surroundings changed to that blackness at the moment of impact.

  It was flooding into me, like water that stung and tore. Filling my nostrils, my mouth, entering my pores. And yet, the whole time I could feel her touch, her nudge for the substance—which meant I had something to push back against. And sure enough, as I shouted out a mental “FUCK YOU!” I rose out of the blackness, hovering a few feet above the roof, just me and her. All the others were gone.

  “I… see.” Moronoe floated close to me—and she was different. No black sphere, no darkness to her at all, really. Simply a woman, a young one at that. At least, by appearances. If I had to guess, I would put her at nineteen, although I knew in reality she was over a thousand years old. Her hair flowed out behind her, a light brown with sun-dried blonde streaks. Black eyes, lips that curled up in a tantalizing, playful way.

  Circling me, she started to laugh.

  “Leave,” I told her.

  That silenced her laughter, but then she moved close, stopping inches from my face so that I could taste her breath—sweet, but intensely so. Overwhelming, like one too many sugar cubes. “You’ve chosen the wrong group here, you know that?”

  “I’ve chosen.”

  “While your little witches were frozen in their curse, spread to the winds, me and mine were rising to godliness. Do you understand what I’m telling you? What we’re capable of? Join us instead, share your power with me, and together we can be unstoppable.”

  “So, you admit you’re stoppable now. Good.”

  Anger flashed in her eyes, so I took the moment to mentally attack, shoving her out and latching onto my thoughts of Ebrill and Steph.

  The darkness vanished from below and the rest of them returned as we had left them on the roof, everything the same except for Shisa, who was whimpering at my feet. The moment I returned, the lion-dog was up, hopping around and growling at Moronoe and Gliten.

  “Stay out of our way,” Moronoe said, and then the two witches stepped back as the black sphere appeared again. It pulled them in and then it was gone, taking them and all their other creatures away from our rooftop.

  131

  Retreating back into the house and checking to ensure all wards and rune-enforced magic was in place to protect us, we all agreed we needed a moment to regroup. We went for the kitchen, where the guards nodded and gave us space.

  “One of you, on the roof,” I commanded. “The other, watch windows—can’t be too safe.”

  “We sensed trouble,” the second asked, eyeing us. “Bad?”

  I nodded, and as they exited, turned to see that Ebrill was staring at me, impressed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Taking control like that, it’s hot.”

  My grin came unbidden, but I wiped it away to try and look more mature, more in command. “That’s how I do it.”

  Megha chuckled at my side but leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. “Our man, Mr. Senator all of a sudden.”

  I stood taller at that, remembering that life had changed now, and that maybe it was why I was taking control. This was a role I needed to truly fit into, possibly for the rest of my life.

  “How bothered should we be by this?” I asked the group. “Two of the Nine, here…”

  “Three, in a sense,” Megha countered. “I’m guessing that was one of them controlling Yenifer.”

  “Agreed,” Aerona chimed in.

  “But why? And she was fight
ing the other two when we arrived, so…?”

  “There’s disharmony among the Nine.” Ebrill frowned, tail moving around like a snake as she thought.

  “How’d they even get in, is what I’d like to know,” Riland said. “The house isn’t exactly without protection.”

  “Powerful magic?” Ebrill offered.

  “Except both they and Yenifer got in,” Steph pointed out. “Both might be that, but… it also might be that there’s something about this place that gives it away. Acting as a beacon.”

  “The runes,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me, silence following until Aerona cleared her throat, then nodded. “That’s likely it. Are they necessary?”

  “I honestly don’t know. They do things, like enhance the magic in other ways, and can be used to turn off magic in the area. So much more.”

  “As great as that is, don’t think you think it’s time you trusted more in your powers?” Steph shrugged, gesturing around the place. “I mean, you’ve done so much already, how can you not?”

  “But, the runes—”

  “They help, but aren’t necessary.”

  Aerona nodded. “You could turn them off until you need them, or feel they would help. As for now, you have the house invisible and all that.

  I tried it, and felt a strange change in my magical sensing as the runes’ power stopped. It was like holding a pet’s side as it breathes its last breath, only in this case I could turn the runes back on when necessary. At least, I hoped so.

  It seemed to have worked, because no more attacks came that night. At first, we were rigid, waiting to see what would happen, then realized that was pointless. We figured we might as well get some rest, and headed for the main room, the one that had once been Gertrude’s.

  As soon as the first slap on my ass came, though, I knew rest wasn’t what they had in mind.

  “I’m just going to…” Riland said, seeing it in their eyes. He and Shisa exited, and I noted a shimmer as Megha’s new pet scampered out after them as well.