by Tracy Wolff
Uncle Finn looks grim as he answers, “That’s exactly what we wanted to ask you.”
4
Turns out the Sixth
Sense Is Actually
Human Sacrifice
“Me? Why would I be able to answer that?” Except, even as I ask the question, another memory hits me. I look at Jaxon, who is full-on horror-struck by this point. “I got between you.”
“You did.” His throat works convulsively and his eyes, usually the color of a starless night, are somehow even blacker and more shadowed than I have ever seen them.
“He had a knife.”
“A sword, actually,” my uncle interjects.
“That’s right.” I close my eyes, and it all comes back to me.
Walking down the crowded hallway.
Catching sight of Hudson, sword raised, out of the corner of my eye.
Stepping between him and Jaxon because Jaxon is mine—mine to love and mine to protect.
The sword coming down.
And then…nothing. That’s it. That’s all I remember.
“Oh my God.” Horror swamps me as something new, and terrible, occurs to me. “Oh my God. ”
“It’s okay, Grace.” My uncle moves to pat my shoulder again, but I’m already moving.
“Oh my GOD!” I shove the chair back, jump to my feet. “Am I dead? Is that why I can’t remember anything else? Is that why everyone was staring at me in the hallway? That’s it, isn’t it? I’m dead.”
I start to pace as my brain wigs out in about twenty different directions. “But I’m still here with you. And people can see me. Does that mean I’m a ghost?”
I’m struggling to get my mind around that idea when something else—something worse—occurs to me.
I whirl on Jaxon. “Tell me I’m a ghost. Tell me you didn’t do what Lia did. Tell me you didn’t trap some poor person down in that awful, disgusting dungeon and use them to bring me back. Tell me you didn’t do that, Jaxon. Tell me I’m not walking around because of some human-sacrifice ritual that—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jaxon bounds around my chair and takes hold of my shoulders. “Grace—”
“I’m serious. You better not have pulled any Dr. Frankenstein stuff to bring me back.” I’m spiraling and I know it, but I can’t seem to stop as terror and horror and disgust roil around inside me, combining into a dark and noxious mess I have no control over. “There better not have been blood. Or chanting. Or—”
He shakes his head, his longish hair brushing the tops of his shoulders. “I didn’t do anything!”
“So I am a ghost, then?” I hold up my hands, stare at the fresh blood on my fingertips. “But how can I be bleeding if I’m dead? How can I—”
Jaxon grabs my shoulders gently, turns me to face him.
He takes a deep breath. “You’re not a ghost, Grace. You weren’t dead. And I definitely didn’t perform a sacrifice—human or otherwise—to bring you back.”
It takes a second, but his words, and the earnest tone he says them in, finally get through. “You didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t.” He chuckles a little. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t. These last four months have given me a shit ton more sympathy for Lia. But I didn’t have to.”
I weigh his words carefully, looking for loopholes as I hold them up against the suddenly crystal-clear memory of that sword connecting with my neck. “Didn’t have to because there’s another way to bring someone back from the dead? Or didn’t have to because…?”
“Because you weren’t dead, Grace. You didn’t die when Hudson hit you with that sword.”
“Oh.” Out of everything I’d braced myself to hear, that one didn’t even make the top ten. Maybe not even the top twenty. But now that I’m faced with that very logical although unlikely answer, I have no idea what to say next. Except: “So…coma?”
“No, Grace.” My uncle answers this time. “No coma.”
“Then what is going on? Because I may have giant holes in my memory, but the last thing I remember is your psychopathic brother trying to kill you and—”
“You stepping in to take the blow.” Jaxon growls, and not for the first time I realize how close his emotions are to the surface. I just hadn’t figured out, until right now, that one of those emotions is anger. Which I get, but…
“You would have done the same thing,” I tell him quietly. “Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not denying it. But it’s okay if I do it. I’m the—”
“Guy?” I cut him off in a voice that warns him to tread carefully here.
But he just rolls his eyes. “Vampire. I’m the vampire.”
“So, what? Are you trying to say that sword couldn’t have actually killed you? Because from where I stood, it looked to me like Hudson really wanted you dead.”
“It could’ve killed me.” It’s a begrudging admission.
“That’s what I thought. So what’s your argument, then? Oh, right. You’re the guy.” I make sure my voice is dripping with disdain when I say the last word. But it doesn’t last long as the adrenaline rush of the last several minutes finally passes. “So where have I been for four months?”
“Three months, twenty-one days, and about three hours, if you want to get specific,” Jaxon tells me, and though his voice is steady and his face blank, I can hear the torment in the words. I can hear everything he isn’t saying, and it makes me ache. For him. For me. For us.
Fists clenched, jaw hard, the scar on his cheek pulled tight—he looks like he’s spoiling for a fight, if only he could figure out who or what to blame.
I run a comforting hand back and forth across his shoulders, then turn to my uncle. Because if I’ve just lost close to four months of my life, I want to know why. And how.
And if it’s going to happen again.
5
Gargoyles Are the
New Black
“The last thing I remember is bracing for a blow from Hudson’s sword.” I glance from my uncle to Jaxon, both with their jaws clenched tight like they don’t want to be the one to tell me something. “What happened then? Did he cut me?”
“Not exactly,” my uncle tells me. “I mean, the sword connected, so yes. But it didn’t hurt you because you had already turned to stone.”
I play his words over and over in my head, but no matter how many times or ways I repeat them, they still make absolutely no sense. “I’m sorry. Did you say I turned to…”
“Stone. You turned to stone, Grace, right the fuck in front of me,” Jaxon says. “And you’ve been stone every single one of the last one hundred and twenty-one days.”
“What do you mean by ‘stone’ exactly?” I ask again, still trying to get my head around something that sounds impossible.
“I mean, your entire body was made completely of stone,” my uncle answers.
“Like I turned into a statue? That kind of stone?”
“Not a statue,” my uncle quickly reassures me, even as he eyes me warily, like he’s trying to decide how much more information I can take. Which a part of me can understand, even as it annoys the hell out of me.
“Please just tell me,” I finally say. “Believe me, it’s worse to be trapped in my head trying to figure this out than to just know. So if I wasn’t a statue, I was…what?” I cast my mind around for some ideas, any ideas, but nothing comes.
And still my uncle hesitates, which makes me think that whatever the answer is, it’s really, really bad.
“A gargoyle, Grace.” Jaxon is the one who finally tells me the truth, just like always. “You’re a gargoyle.”
“A gargoyle?” I can’t keep the incredulity from my voice.
My uncle shoots Jaxon a frustrated look but finally nods reluctantly. “A gargoyle.”
“A gargoyle?” They can’t be serious. They absolutely, positively, cannot be se
rious. “Like the things on the sides of churches?”
“Yes.” Jaxon grins now, just a little, like he realizes how ridiculous all this is. “You’re a gar—”
I hold up a hand. “Please don’t say it again. The first two times were hard enough to hear. Just shhhh for a second.”
I turn and walk toward the back wall of Uncle Finn’s office. “I need a minute,” I tell the two of them. “Just a minute to…” Absorb it? Deny it? Cry about it? Scream?
Screaming sounds really good about now, but I’m pretty sure it’ll just freak out Jaxon and Uncle Finn more, so…
I breathe. I just need to breathe. Because I don’t have a clue what to say or do next.
I mean, there’s a side of me that wants to call them on the joke—so funny, ha-ha—but another, bigger part knows they aren’t lying. Not about this. Partly because neither my uncle nor Jaxon would do that to me and partly because there’s something deep inside me, something small and scared and tightly furled that just…let go the minute they said the word. Like it had known all along and was just waiting for me to notice.
For me to understand.
For me to believe.
So. Gargoyle. Okay. That’s not too bad, right? I mean, it could be worse. I shudder. The sword could have chopped off my head.
I take a deep breath, rest my forehead against the cool gray paint of my uncle’s office wall, and turn the word “gargoyle” over and over again in my head as I try to figure out how I feel about it.
Gargoyle. As in huge stone creature with wings and snarling fangs and…horns? Surreptitiously, I run a hand over my head, just to see if I’ve somehow grown horns and don’t know about it.
Turns out I haven’t. All I feel is my usual curly brown hair. Just as long, just as unruly, just as annoying as ever, but definitely no horns. Or fangs, I realize as I run my tongue over my front teeth. In fact, everything about me feels completely the same as it always has. Thank God.
“Hey.” Jaxon comes up behind me, and it’s his turn to rest a gentle hand on my back. “You know it’s going to be okay, right?”
Sure. Of course. Totally no big deal. I mean, gargoyles are all the rage, right? Somehow, I don’t think he’ll appreciate my sarcasm, so in the end I bite it back and simply nod.
“I’m serious,” he continues. “We’ll figure this out. And on the plus side, gargoyles are totally kick-ass.”
Absolutely. Giant, hulking pieces of stone. Totally kick-ass. Not.
I whisper, “I know.”
“You sure about that?” He scoots closer, ducking a little so that his face is really close to the side of mine. “Because you don’t look like you know. And you definitely don’t sound like it.”
He’s so close, I can feel his breath against my cheek, and for a few precious seconds I close my eyes and pretend it’s four months ago, when Jaxon and I were alone in his room, making plans and making out, thinking we finally had everything under control.
What a joke that was. I’ve never felt more out of control in my life, even compared to those first days after my parents died. At least then, I was still human…or at least I thought I was. Now, I’m a gargoyle, and I don’t have a clue what that even means, let alone how it happened. Or how I managed to lose nearly four months of my life encased in rock.
Why would I do that, anyway? I mean, I get why I changed to stone—I’m assuming some latent impulse deep inside me came forward in an effort to stop me from dying. Is it really so far-fetched, considering I recently learned my dad was a warlock? But why did I stay stone for so long? Why didn’t I come back to Jaxon the first chance I got?
I rack my brain, trying to come up with the answer, but there’s still nothing there but a blank and empty chasm where my memories should be.
It’s my turn to clench my fists, and as I do, my battered fingers start to throb. I glance down at them and wonder how I made such a mess of myself. It looks like I clawed my way through stone to get here. Then again, maybe I did. Or maybe I did something even worse. I don’t know. That’s the problem: I just don’t know. Anything.
I don’t know what I did for the last four months.
I don’t know how it was possible for me to change into a gargoyle—or how it was possible for me to change back into a human.
And, I realize with a dawning horror that chills my very soul, I don’t know the answer to the most important question of all.
I swing around to stare at my uncle. “What happened to Hudson?”
6
Vampire Roulette
Isn’t the Same
Without the Blood
Uncle Finn seems to age right in front of me, eyes going dim and shoulders slumping in what looks an awful lot like defeat. “We really don’t know,” he says. “One second, Hudson was trying to kill Jaxon, and the next—”
“He was gone. And so were you.” Jaxon’s hand tightens reflexively on mine.
“She wasn’t gone,” Uncle Finn corrects. “She was just out of reach for a while.”
Once again, Jaxon looks unimpressed with his summation of events, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he just looks at me and asks, “Do you really not remember any of it?”
I shrug. “I really don’t.”
“That’s so strange.” My uncle shakes his head. “We brought in every expert we could find on gargoyles. Every single one of them had conflicting stories and advice, but none of them even hinted that when you finally made it back, you wouldn’t remember where you’d been. Or what you’d become.” My uncle’s voice is low and, I’m sure, meant to be soothing, but every word he says just makes me more nervous.
“Do you think something’s wrong with me?” I ask nervously, looking between him and Jaxon.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” Jaxon snarls, and it’s as much a warning to Uncle Finn as it is a reassurance to me.
“Of course there isn’t,” Uncle Finn agrees. “Don’t even think that way. I’m just sorry we’re not more prepared to help you. We didn’t anticipate…this.”
“It’s not your fault. I just wish—” I break off as I run into that damn wall again. I push against it, but I can’t seem to get it to break.
“Don’t force it,” Jaxon tells me, and this time he gently wraps an arm around my shoulders.
It feels good—he feels good—and I let myself sink in to him even as fear and frustration continue to circle inside me. “I have to push,” I tell him, cuddling closer. “How else do we figure out where Hudson is?”
The heat is on, but I’m still freezing—I guess spending four months as stone will do that to a girl—and I run my hands up and down my arms in an effort to warm them.
Uncle Finn watches me for a few seconds, then mutters something under his breath as he waves a hand in the air. Moments later, a warm blanket settles around Jaxon and me.
“Better?” he asks.
“So much better. Thank you.” I clutch it close.
He settles back against the corner of his desk. “To be honest, Grace, we were both terrified he was with you. And just as terrified he wasn’t.”
His last words hang in the air like a heavy weight for several minutes.
“Maybe he was with me.” Just thinking about being trapped with Hudson has a huge lump taking up residence in the middle of my throat. I pause, force myself to swallow it down, before asking, “If he was with me, do you think… Did I bring him back with me? Is he here now?”
I glance between my uncle and Jaxon, and they both stare at me with what has to be intentionally blank faces. The sight turns my veins, my heart, my very soul to ice. Because as long as Hudson is running around, Jaxon isn’t safe. And neither is anyone else.
My stomach churns sickly as I rack my brain. This isn’t happening. Please tell me this isn’t happening. I can’t be responsible for letting Hudson loose again, can’t be responsible for bringing him b
ack where he can terrorize everyone and raise an army made of born vampires and their sympathizers.
“You wouldn’t do that,” Jaxon finally tells me. “I know you, Grace. You would never have come back if you thought Hudson was still a threat.”
“I agree,” my uncle eventually says. As he continues, I try to hold on to his words and not the silence that preceded them. “So let’s operate under that assumption for now. That you only came back because it was safe to do so. That means Hudson is most likely gone, and we don’t have to be worried.”
And yet he still looks worried. Of course he does. Because no matter how much we all want to believe that Hudson is gone, there’s one major flaw with their logic—mainly that they’re both talking about me being here like I decided to come back.
But what if I didn’t? If I didn’t make a conscious choice to become a gargoyle all those months ago, maybe I didn’t make a conscious choice to become human again now. And if that’s the case, where exactly is Hudson?
Dead?
Frozen in stone in some alternate reality?
Or hiding out somewhere here at Katmere, just waiting for his chance to exact revenge on Jaxon?
I don’t like the sound of any of the alternatives, but the last one is definitely the worst. In the end, I put it aside because freaking out won’t do me any good.
But we have to start somewhere, so I decide to go along with Uncle Finn’s assumption—mostly because I like it better than all the alternatives put together. “Okay. Let’s assume that, if I had control of Hudson, I wouldn’t have just let him go. Now what?”
“Now we chill out a little bit. We stop worrying about Hudson and start worrying about you.” My uncle smiles encouragingly. “Marise should be here any minute and if, after she checks you out, she decides you’re healthy, then I think we should let things ride for a while. See what you remember in a few days, after you’ve eaten and had some rest and gotten back to a normal routine.”