by Zoe Chant
"Oh yes, here," she was saying, and Reive managed to redirect his and his dragon's attention to the book.
These pages were mainly taken up with careful ink drawings of what Reive took at first glance to be pieces of stone. Then he realized, with a feeling like a punch in the gut, that they were pieces of statues. Gargoyle statues, with every chip and crack carefully delineated.
"I think whoever compiled this book might have actually ... dissected one." Jess's voice faltered strangely. "I mean, they—they thought they did. Obviously it must be only a statue, but they seem to believe in it."
It was mesmerizing, looking at page after page of broken-up gargoyles. They were stone inside as well as outside, and he tried not to think of his own arm turning to sold rock on the inside, indistinguishable from a block of granite.
"Does it say anything in there about gargoyles changing shape?" he asked. "I mean ... that they might be able to look human sometimes?"
Jess gave him a quick, startled look. A small line appeared between her brows; he wasn't sure why.
"Actually, it does. Let me find it." She turned some more pages. "Oh, here it is. The stone beasts hide among men in a fleshly guise. They can take the form of men or women, in order to creep close to their prey and devour them—and it goes on like that for some time."
She looked sad. Reive could relate to her sympathy for the victims; gargoyles, it seemed, had always been just as savage and awful as they were now.
"Does it say anything about how they transform?" he asked. He assumed gargoyles did it just like any other kind of shifter, with mental effort, but maybe there was something else to it. If he could figure that out, he might be able to turn his arm back to flesh again. "I mean in legend and myth, of course."
He was expecting a blank stare or a question about why he was interested in obscure details of gargoyle legends, but instead she answered like it was a perfectly normal thing to wonder about. "No, it's vague on the details. There might be some information elsewhere in the book, but so much of it is missing." She turned some more pages. "And whatever is in there, we'll never know. Unless ..."
"Unless what?"
"I think I might have found the rest of the book, but there's no way I can get my hands on it. It's definitely not the kind of thing you can do interlibrary loan for."
"Where is it?"
She smiled, a trifle ruefully. "A reclusive billionaire's private library in Italy."
"Okay, you're right, that's not going to be easy to get hold of."
I bet we could break in, his dragon suggested.
Stop it, that's a terrible idea. But he was already considering it. What other choice did he have?
"I've tried contacting him, because I was thinking perhaps he could send me some scans, but apparently some American rando wanting to look at his extremely rare book isn't even worth bothering responding to," Jess said.
Reive felt a surge of protective wrath from his dragon: How dare they ignore her!
Then she ducked her head and laughed. "You must think that I'm silly to be this obsessed with an old book."
"Not at all," he said seriously. "I'm just as interested as you are."
"You are, too." She met his eyes with her steady brown ones. "I've never met anyone who was as curious about it as I am. Even the other librarians think I'm a bit strange with my gargoyle obsession. And there are definitely people who are curious about gargoyles, or have it as one of their interests, but what they want to read are books about the actual history of gargoyles as an artistic motif, or specific gargoyle statues on churches and public buildings, not a collection of legends."
She trailed off, a small crinkle appearing between her brows. Oops, he thought. He hadn't really considered this problem, but then, he wasn't used to taking into account what humans thought about things. He definitely didn't want her thinking too closely about why he was so interested in an obscure old book about gargoyles, because if she asked, he couldn't think of a plausible explanation.
"Well, I definitely came to the right place, then," he said. "I'm lucky you were here. I don't know how much time it would have taken me to find all of this without you."
The thoughtful frown turned into a smile. Excellent, distraction achieved.
"You know, I could translate some of this for you, if you want me to," she said. "It's something I ought to do anyway. With a book this rare, having a translation would a huge boon to historians and researchers, especially if something happens to the original."
"That's a lot of work for you."
She shrugged. "It's fun for me. I don't mind."
"Still, I have to do something to make it up to you." He couldn't afford to pay her, at least not without dipping into the family funds, and that would mean going home, and no.
Dinner! his dragon put in. Meat! Feed her!
His dragon hadn't been this chatty in months. Their connection had been muffled and distant ever since his illness began to progress. But now he could hear his dragon clearly for the first time in a while. And so, swept away in the moment, he found himself saying, "How about I take you to dinner?"
Yes! his dragon said. Do that!
Jess smiled. Her eyes crinkled, and dimples appeared. "I wouldn't mind dinner."
All the practical issues with this plan immediately occurred to him now that it was too late. Yeah, and how am I supposed to take her out to dinner without taking off my glove? As soon as she sees the stone patches on my hand, she's going to ask questions, and she literally researches gargoyles for a hobby. How is she not going to guess?
But his dragon's pleasure filled him with tingling warmth, and Jess beamed, her happiness warming him even more.
"I'm free tonight, if you wanted to talk about the manuscript some more," she said. "We're not a big city, but we do have some good restaurants. We've got good Italian and Mexican, and a great Indian place—"
She broke off as Reive abruptly flinched in pain. It felt like a bolt of fire had gone through his arm. It was all he could do not to double over.
"Reive! What's wrong?"
"Nothing—I—" He struggled to fight it down, aware of his connection to his dragon faltering again. It was impossible to concentrate on anything other than the pain.
Then Jess's hands touched his shoulders, and abruptly he could think again. Relief went through him in a soothing wave. The pain wasn't gone, but it was pushed down, and he managed to straighten up. The connection to his dragon strengthened, and he almost started going into an involuntary shift right there. He had to push Jess back, getting control of himself again.
"What's wrong? Are you sick?"
"No, it's—"
He didn't have time to come up with a convincing lie. There was a sudden crash from outside the storeroom, like something in the library had been knocked over.
"What the heck?" Jess pulled away, and he found himself moving instinctively for a moment to try to stay in contact with her. But even after her hands dropped away, some of the soothing sensation lingered.
Jess went to the door of the storeroom and peered out. There was another crash somewhere in the library, like something had been knocked over.
"There's not supposed to be anyone here," she said. "I locked the doors. Maybe someone hid in the bathroom or something?"
Reive moved up quickly beside her. "You should stay here," he told her. "I'll go look around."
Even after the relief of her touch, his arm still burned like there were biting ants under the skin. He didn't want to be right about what might be out there. But if they had found him, he didn't want this human woman anywhere near them.
"You're ill," she protested.
"I'm feeling much better." It wasn't quite a lie. Even with his arm on fire, he still felt more clearheaded and in touch with his dragon than he had in days.
He pushed open the door of the storeroom and took a quick look out. The lights were dim, turned down when Jess locked up. After the bright lights in the storeroom, it seemed almost dark.
"I don't think it's teenagers." Everything was ominously quiet now. "Stay behind me," he said, and looked cautiously around the shelves.
Although it was dim in the library's low-ceilinged interior, outside it was only late afternoon. Warm golden sunlight slanted between the library shelves, shafting through the windows, hazed with dust.
A shadow moved among the floating dust motes. Big. Hulking.
On some level he'd already guessed; he just hadn't wanted to know he was right.
A gargoyle loomed out of the dust. All the gargoyles Reive had seen were unique, each with a slightly different mix of horns and fangs, wings and hooves and claws. This one was hunched over like a gorilla, with its big clawed forepaws touching the library carpet. There was a dull reddish glow to its eyes, visible only in the shadows when it had its back turned to the light.
Behind it, more gargoyles moved.
Did they come for me? Reive thought, horrified and furious.
Jess had to be terrified. He began to move to protect her, interposing his body between the fragile human woman and the hulking stone beasts.
He was completely unprepared for her actual reaction—a primal scream of pure and utter rage.
Jess
The monsters had come back.
When she first saw them, all Jess could do was stare, horrified down to her core. She knew these creatures because they had found her once before, years ago and far from here.
Dull red eyes glared through the dust; lumpy dark forms loomed like creatures out of nightmare.
Gargoyles like her.
Some part of her had always known they would come again, as they had come before, if she couldn't learn how to fix herself first.
But as the initial rush of frozen terror began to fade, what came next was fury. They were in her library!
"Get the hell out of here!" she screamed, and grabbed the nearest thing in reach, a book cart.
"Jess, get back!" Reive yelled, reaching for her, but she gave the cart a tremendous push, and only realized as it left her hands that her muscles had bulged up as she did it, and the claws she hadn't had a second ago had left deep scores in the metal.
The book cart hurtled toward the frontmost monster as if launched out of a cannon. It slammed into the creature's chest and knocked it backwards into the nearest shelf. (Reference: Br-Ch.)
There was a moment of frozen, baffled confusion among the gargoyles as they tried to cope with this, giving Reive a chance to grab hold of her and hustle her behind Mystery & Thriller. "Is there a back way out of here?" he whispered, his strong hands holding her shoulders.
He didn't seem to have noticed anything wrong with her; at least, he didn't react if he had. Jess curled her hands into fists, hiding the telltale claws until she could get them under control and will them back to smooth fingertips once again. She hoped desperately that nothing was wrong with her face. Her teeth felt normal when she ran her tongue over them: no fangs this time.
"There's an emergency fire exit behind the media section," she whispered. "That way."
They ran between the ranks of books, Reive a step behind her with his hand planted firmly on her back. Under other circumstances, Jess would have relished the strong, solid feel of it. Right now she was just wildly hoping she didn't suddenly sprout wings. No wings, no wings, she chanted in a silent litany in her head as they slalomed through Periodicals and raced past serried rows of audiobook cases.
Something crunched loudly behind them. Jess didn't dare look back, in part because if she really lost her temper, she didn't think she could keep the fangs under control. "That had better not be one of the new computers! We paid a lot for those!"
"You can charge them for it later! Go!"
Then the end of a bookshelf splintered, books flying everywhere. Jess had to fight her instinct to stop and start picking them up, but there was no opportunity, because a monster stepped in front of them. Its eyes glowed a vivid, taillight red, taking her straight back to that night at the foster home in Georgia, when they had come for her the first time.
She had escaped by running—and by flying. That night, she had found out for the first time that she had wings. The authorities found her two counties away, curled up in a barn in a ragged nightgown, babbling an incomprehensible story about stone monsters. Her foster parents had been killed in what the police told her was a gas explosion. But it hadn't been a gas explosion. She remembered monsters just like this one tearing through the walls, shattering the windows, crashing through the roof.
Coming for her.
Now it loomed in front of her, red eyes glaring and empty. Even up close, it looked lumpy and badly made, like someone had roughly scooped together handfuls of clay and rocks into a vaguely manlike shape. Its skin was pebbly and gray. It had massive humped shoulders like a gorilla's, and arms that nearly dragged the ground.
She didn't know what she could do. She couldn't fight. Even in her monster shape, she wasn't nearly that big.
"Jess!" Reive grabbed her from behind, spinning her around to put himself between her and the monster.
One of its massive, misshapen paws swung at them, but Reive pulled her down with impossibly fast reflexes. It pulverized the shelf above their heads. He hustled her down another aisle.
"Where's that emergency exit again?"
"T-to the left. Through the reference section."
There were more smashing sounds. They were destroying the library just like they'd destroyed her house in Georgia. Rage flushed through her.
"How dare they—ack—I need to—"
"Get out of here, is what you need to do." Reive halted her with a touch on her arm and then pulled her down behind the big stand that held the dictionary.
Jess peered around the stand along with Reive. There were two more of the monsters systematically going down the periodical shelves, stopping to look at the contents of each shelf and then swiping it to the floor and moving on.
Her mouth went dry. They were obviously looking for something, and what they were looking for could only be her.
I have to keep him safe, she thought. Reive was only a human. He was in no danger as long as he wasn't with her. And he didn't have her stone skin or wings. If she could just get away from him, she could transform and fly away, luring them away from the library.
"Reive," she began in a whisper.
"Shh." He put his hand on her arm. "Listen. I'm going to lead them away so you can—"
"Reive, no, wait, listen—"
"—get away. They're obviously looking for something—"
Me, she thought helplessly. They're looking for me.
"—which is obviously that manuscript you have."
Record scratch noise in her brain. Wait, what?
"So you just need to get somewhere safe," Reive whispered. He took hold of her shoulders and looked into her eyes. No one had ever looked at her like that before, like they wanted her to be safe, like she mattered. She desperately tried to find the words to tell him that he had it all wrong, that it was her, and not the book at all ...
And then she realized that this was exactly what she wanted. They could split up, and he'd be off somewhere else and she could get the monsters out of the library without seeing that look—that look like she mattered, like she was worth something—change to horror and disgust when he realized what she really was.
"Okay," she whispered back, and flinched at another crash as more books hit the floor. "Yes, let's do that. I'll run for the exit as soon as it's clear."
He nodded, lips parted, and there was a brief lingering moment when Jess had the odd, tingling feeling that he was about to kiss her, or at least wanted to.
And then he pulled away. "Good luck," he whispered, smiling at her.
That smile did things to her insides. "You too," she whispered back.
Leaving he
r behind the dictionary stand, Reive crabwalked behind a nearby shelf of audiobooks and then stood up. "Hey!" he yelled, and picked up an audiobook in its case. He hurled it at the monster.
Jess squeaked aloud in dismay.
The audiobook bounced off the shoulder of the nearest lumpy monstrosity. It ignored him completely.
It's like they're robots, Jess thought, watching from cover. They didn't even really have faces, just lumpy clay or stone in a sort of generally headlike shape, with those eerily glowing red eyes staring out of the middle of it. Like they were completely mindless except for whatever they were told to do.
She wasn't like that ... was she?
Still, the one back in the stacks had attacked them; it was really just a matter of getting their attention. Reive scooped up more audiobooks and hurled them. Jess had to squash down her urge to complain about damaging the books. The gargoyles were certainly doing more damage. Only getting them out of the library would make it stop.
Her claws began slowly to extend, gouging into the base of the dictionary stand before she noticed what she was doing and guiltily pulled her hand away.
Finally Reive's barrage of audiobooks got their attention. First one unfinished-looking head, then the other, swiveled in his direction.
Jess was suddenly, desperately terrified for him. She could attack now, while they weren't expecting it—
"You want the book?" Reive yelled. "Yeah, the book! That's what you're here for, right?" He grabbed a book at random and waved it at them. "Come and get it!"
And then he took off, sprinting deeper among the shelves.
The gargoyles charged after him.
The exit was now clear, but Jess didn't have the least interest in it. As the two gargoyles thundered past her in pursuit of Reive, she sprang out from behind the book stand.
Both her hands were fully shifted now to gargoyle paws. Each was twice the size of her normal hand, stony and gray, looking like a pair of mitts on the ends of her arms. She knew from experience that both hands were considerably stronger than her normal hands, with claws that could gouge into anything from wood to concrete to solid rock.