by A Corrin
The right thing to do would be to leave instantly and report to Garrett. They could capture the boy, or at least begin manipulating him, right here in the depths of this forsaken swamp. And yet...
The raven examined the boy with a beady eye and flapped its wings impatiently. It wanted the bread that Jonathan was holding.
Thinking, the gargoyle bared his canines in a sneer and said, “Wait for your chance.”
He would pay the prince a visit that night. After all, he had a special place in his heart for Jonathan He’klarr...
Chapter Twenty-One:
Werewolves and Gargoyles
I stood at the window, letting the murky night cool my face. I was wearing my pajamas, glad to be free of the filthy clothes I had donned during the day.
“What a crazy day, eh?” Kayle yawned from his spot on the floor.
“Note to self,” Mariah teased, “don’t have the Bowl of Bemusement.”
“No kidding!” I smiled, enjoying her optimism. I opened my mouth to take a bite of bread and then stopped and half turned. “I saw my dad today.”
“Really?” Mariah paused on her way to the bed and Kayle rolled onto his side to look over at me.
“Yeah. We...had a talk.”
Something in the tone of my voice must have told the pair of them a lot more about my relationship with my dad than I had meant it to, because Kayle said, “Ah… Not a nice talk, then?”
“No, it was okay,” I said, rolling my shoulders as if to shrug off their attention. “It’s just…Dad and I don’t get along really well and it was...awkward to say the least, I guess.” I thought of the sound of his sobs, hearing him beg me to come home, that he was sorry, and old bitterness oozed from my heart like an infected wound.
“You’re likely to meet other people you know too the longer you’re here,” Mariah said reassuringly. I glanced up just in time to see her switch an uncomfortable look with Kayle and could tell that they were taken aback at the prickly relationship I had with my father, at the fact that their new prince had “issues.”
But Mariah’s words made me remember the vague, wispy form I’d seen across the street as we’d entered the inn before my sword-training with Peter. I perked up a bit.
“Actually, I did see somebody else today. I, uh, I think I knew him, too.”
Mariah crawled into bed and smoothed the covers over her lap. “Who was he?”
I leaned against the side of the open window. “I don’t know. He was sort of fuzzy in the face. It could have been anyone.”
“You said ‘him,’ so it looked like a guy?”
“Yeah, kind of tall and skinny…like my friend Tyson…”
Peter stepped out of the bathroom then, wearing a flannel nightdress. It was very old-fashioned, and I only held my laughter out of respect for him.
“Well then,” he said jovially, having been eavesdropping, “It probably was!”
I smiled. Seeing my friends again would be wonderful. I stared at my sword for a while where it was propped up by our traveling pack. I had a lot to tell them. Would they even believe me? Or, like my father and Mariah’s mother, would they just be stuck in the dream, oblivious to the truth of what they were seeing?
“Is Nox still wandering around out there?” Peter asked as he folded his bedsheets back.
I leaned back out the window and scrutinized the street; it was too painful to think of anything I had left behind.
“No, he’s long gone,” I said, striving to see into the shadows.
A whispery whoosh brushed past my ear, and sharp, strong little claws yanked my bread from my hands. A raven craned its head back to croak at me as it soared high into the air. It got a beak-full of my food before dropping it to the street where it was ravenously pounced upon by a few scrawny alley dogs.
“Great,” I scoffed. I withdrew abruptly into the room and latched the window shut. Mariah and Kayle went pale, and Peter frowned deeply.
“Sorry,” I apologized, though I didn’t really think that what had happened was my fault. “Do we have any more bread?”
“Nope,” Peter said. “That was the last of it.”
“Last?” I cried, waiting for an explanation while my insides fluttered nervously.
Peter sat on his bed and shrugged. “I figured we’d be leaving tomorrow night immediately after we found that bartender’s chest. The sailors had run out of bread for tonight, so I gave them the rest of ours.”
I slumped in despair. “Well, then, what am I going to do?”
Peter locked eyes with Kayle. “Stay close to him. He’s going to have a rough night.”
At first, I fought to stay awake. But the day’s trials had taken their toll on me, and my eyelids slipped shut. My breathing slowed, and I decided to rely on Kayle. Kayle could keep me safe. Everything was fine…
And then the nightmare started.
I was in a familiar alleyway, sitting against a dumpster. When I opened my eyes, I saw a slick, brick wall moist with rainwater. Groaning, I pushed to my feet, glaring at the same flickering streetlight by the road that I had seen so often before.
Using its erratic light, I moved forward inch by inch, mentally steadying myself for the viewing of my mother’s death, unable to do anything about it but wake up crying like a baby.
This time, however, even as I stood still in the darkness when the light flickered out, cold hands reached for me. Arms sprang from the walls and when the light bathed everything in a dull, yellow luminescence, I saw that they were covered in billowing black Ranker sleeves.
I fought to pull away, terror making me crazy, clouding the logical part of my brain. And just when my last dregs of resistance were snapped, and I went to my knees in despair, a gentle musical voice floated faintly by my ears. It was speaking fast, blending in and out of intelligible sound, but the Ranker hands reluctantly recoiled, slipping back into the walls.
Every time the words sounded, the streetlamp burned brightly, and I hurried onward. The words followed me, and I recognized them to be a foreign language. The strange phrases were repeating themselves on an endless loop. The voice became so clear for a few seconds that I could pick up some words: “Impím ort, a Dhia, é a chosaint le linn na tubaiste seo…”
Shaking my head slowly, I looked down the street to where the carjacker had once again cornered my mother. In slow motion, I ran forward, striving against the forces that made my body move so slowly.
The words went on, a comforting backdrop: “…bí i do loinnir dá threorú chugat féin.” They gave me strength and confidence. I pushed forward furiously, renewed with determination.
I blinked, extended one leg to run forward, and was suddenly a griffin! Finally! Fate was on my side! I spread my cavernous wings and tail fan, unsheathed my hind claws, and opened my razor beak, so ready to maul. My slitted eyes flashed red. I emitted a triumphant warning shriek.
Letting the words of the phantom speaker thunder in my ear tufts, “Cumhdaigh é ar na deamhain ghránna atá siúlach anseo,” I bunched my wild animal sinews and pounced.
In one fluid movement, the carjacker spun, a billowing night-dark Ranker cape flowing about, and smacked me back with an iron arm. I yelped and was wrenched backward by the blow, sliding on the wet street on my back. I kicked at the air with my hind paws and rolled over, splaying my talons in preparation to grab and claw.
The beast grabbed my mother’s upper arm and dragged her forward with him. Her eyes were terrified, and she stared pleadingly down at me, whimpering.
When the Ranker walked, his hidden feet made a grating sound on the asphalt, like boulders grinding together. The triangular tip of a thin tail poked from beneath the cape. My mother clawed at the monster’s arm, riding back his sleeve and breaking her nails on his slate-gray cement “skin.” With a flourish, the Ranker shrugged back his hood, and I went cold beneath my pelt, my crown feathers fluffi
ng up as if to make me look bigger.
The words “go n-éagfaidh siad i do láthair,” echoed in my ears.
The Ranker was the same one that had visited me the last time I’d had this dream. The same one that had spoken those ominous rhymes: “the Prince of Dreams must break his ties…”
“You,” I gasped out.
The shark-like gargoyle cocked his head, grinning. He had two pointed bat ears on top of his horned skull. His empty, expressionless eyes gleamed, and his sharp teeth gnashed excitedly. “You know, I thought Garrett was crazy when he sent me into your nightmare back in reality.”
My skin prickled with a sudden, creeping chill. His voice was the exact same as the man’s who had attacked Nikki and I in the park. His eyes narrowed and he went on.
“How could you be the one to inherit the throne? I never met him, but I knew of your predecessor.” The gargoyle pawed the ground once with one back foot, making a sound like chalk coughing on a blackboard. “He was a king. Yes, I humbly admit to some admiration for his skills, for the threat he posed.”
Now he leaned forward, his tail lashing to strike his legs. “But you’re...paltry by comparison. A desperate hope that you will grow horns and be the ram that protects his flock—not the sacrificial lamb to bleed out on our altar.”
He chuckled tauntingly, coming to a stop a few feet from me. “Look at you. A scrap of feathers and flesh. It’s almost insulting to think that you are the one standing in our way. You know, things are falling apart back ‘home.’ Your fellow humans haven’t seen the worst of their problems yet. But they will. When you’re gone.”
I let my gaze wander over to my mother and linger on her scared face. “Let her go,” I ordered, putting as much malice into my voice as I could.
The gargoyle seemed surprised to see that he was clutching a woman in one hand, as if he’d forgotten about her. “You’ve been sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Crafty little griffin you are, to find our clues and interpret them. But now it’s time to start over.” He lifted his free claw out and moved it in a vague circle over the road.
The background voice grew briefly louder and more intense. “Cosain é!”
The Ranker cringed and snarled, “Cursed prayers.” He straightened up and tried again, motioning with his claw. A hole appeared out of nowhere between us, growing wider and deeper. He shifted his grip on my mother to her neck and dangled her out over the pit. She screamed pitifully, feet kicking.
“No!” I stepped forward. I couldn’t reach her.
The Ranker bellowed, “You think yourself brave, little griffin? I know the truth. I have seen your fear in the face of another, when I once looked through the eyes of a murderous man.”
I stared at him, half-mad with panic for my mother’s life. “What? What do you mean? Are you talking about the one who created you?”
The Ranker sneered. “The one who gave me life, yes, and power enough that when he died, I still lived. Now…” He shook my mother so that she gave a strangled cry. “Tell me where the key is!”
Rage and hate made my eyes burn red. “And prove you right?” I snapped, hackles rising. Prove that I’m a wimp? A coward? Weak?
The gargoyle let go of Mom so that she fell a bit and then caught her. I growled helplessly. “Time’s running short,” he warned.
“If I tell you,” I calculated, “you’ll kill us both anyway.”
The Ranker shrugged. “My arm’s getting tired.”
I argued inwardly with myself. If I told him, the fate of mankind was thrust into his claws. If not, I would have to watch my mom die. She was only a figment of my imagination, though, right? She had already died long ago...hadn’t she? My mind was fogging up, and I was finding it harder to think.
The foreign words were wavering in volume, louder then softer.
“You lie!” I cried.
The Ranker growled in a bored voice, “Ten…”
I sat down, though it took all of my willpower not to spring to my mother’s aid. “She isn’t real.”
“Nine…”
“And you will never win against me.”
He scowled. “Eight…”
A piercing probe entered my mind and pushed at my logic. I fought it but could feel myself slipping into a state of peace. Would it hurt if I gave him some answers?
Even the background voice was fainter… “Impím ort…”
“Seven…” the gargoyle continued.
“No…” I murmured faintly. I fell to my elbows and knees weakly, human again. With the departure of my griffin form, a chunk of my resistance seemed to have abated too.
“…a Dhia…”
“Six…”
“…é a chosaint le…”
“Five…”
“…linn na tubaiste seo…”
“Four…”
I looked up. “Wait…”
“Three…”
“Wait! The key is—”
“COSAIN É!”
The gargoyle reeled back, dropping my mother on the road where she turned into a croaking raven, and covered his ears with a high, keening cry. The nightmare burst into a shimmering window of color and inverted images, and then I jolted to my body in the inn where I was gasping on the floor.
Peter and Mariah knelt at my side, eyes worried, and Kayle was leaning back on his heels as if recently collapsed. He stretched his arms out behind him to prop himself up, and I saw that sweat coated his hair and face.
“Was that you?” I asked feebly, still breathing hard. I started trembling. The nightmare lingered powerfully, just barely tempered by the soothing mystery words I had heard.
Kayle managed to nod. “You started talking in your sleep, saying ‘mother’ and ‘key.’ That flashed the warning lights.”
I struggled to a sitting position and accepted a flask of water from Mariah, who draped a damp cloth around my neck. I smiled at her, and she smiled tentatively back. Wiping some excess water droplets from my chin with the back of my hand, I asked Kayle, “What were you saying?” I needed time to collect myself, to settle my nerves.
He turned his maroon eyes to me, debating how much to tell me. I took note of how his posture had tensed.
Finally Kayle replied tartly, “It was a prayer. They require intense focus, but Rankers despise them. I always used to repeat it when I was…when I was younger.”
I thought back to the language he had used. “It wasn’t in English. Was it, what’s that Irish language called…Gaelic?”
Kayle inclined his chin and nodded. His face had closed up, and I doubted I was going to get any more out of him, but now wasn’t the time to prod him about his past.
Peter and Mariah both asked a question at the same time.
“Did you tell him anything?”
“What did you see?”
I wasn’t going to tell them about the alley or my mom, but I said, “I saw a gargoyle-looking Ranker.”
Peter tightened his lips grimly. “The one that’s had its eyes on you for a while?”
I nodded, feeling sick. A fierce, protective glint flickered in Peter’s pale eyes.
“Shadow type. One of the toughest. Did you give anything away?”
“No,” I spoke sheepishly. “But…”
“What?” Mariah whispered.
I looked at the stained-glass window, remembering the raven that had so conveniently been there to steal my bread. “But I think he’s here.”
“Are you sure?” Peter asked roughly.
I thought of the raven, shivered, and nodded firmly. Everything turned into a flurry of movement. Kayle and Mariah started packing up and getting dressed. Peter had washed my clothes, so I put my jeans and sweatshirt on over my pj’s, throwing on my coral necklace as well. After a moment’s hesitation, I strapped on my sword.
Peter stepped from the bath
room wearing his suspenders. He said brusquely, “We must move now!”
Kayle shouldered the pack and stepped aside as Peter led us into the hall. He gave the code-knock against Sergeant Flaherty’s room door, and the marine emerged tousle-haired and blinking like an owl.
“Sir?” He frowned in confusion. “Is something wrong?”
Peter almost didn’t wait for the question mark at the end of the sergeant’s sentence before saying, “Long story short, a gargoyle Ranker has picked up our trail. It’s a race as to who gets to the chest first. Find the Amazons watching the werewolf’s room and have them report back to me. Quickly!”
Flaherty saluted and raced downstairs in catlike silence on the tips of his be-socked feet. While we waited for his return, Mariah awoke the rest of the squadron, briefing them on what was happening and helping them pack. I’d never seen so much going on with so little sound. By the time the sergeant returned with a pair of tall, dark-haired women in tow, everyone was nearly prepared for a hasty exit.
One of the women, her eyes deep-set and predatory, whispered to Peter, “His room is on the bottom floor to the left of the bar. It’s the only room down there.”
The other woman, her hair wound into a tight braid that dangled the length of her spine, added, “He’s been silent all night. Our sisters have not reported any signs or sounds of movement.”
Peter fondly thumped the woman’s back and said, “Good work.” He turned to me with an I’m not asking, I’m telling countenance.
“Jon, bring the key and open the chest.”
“I’m going?” I almost shrilled. I was surprised—I’d assumed that they would want me somewhere safe and protected—like the king in a game of chess. But to be honest with myself, despite my sudden explosion of anxiety, I was a little eager to prove myself—to get something done, find out what I could, if anything, on my own so that I could bring it back home with me and use my knowledge to protect my loved ones, and say a fond screw you to the gargoyle Ranker in the process. I found myself thinking wryly about how I had to get more accustomed to life-and-death situations.