Taken for Granite

by Nancey Cummings

  This gargoyle had seen some shit.

  “Do you have a name? I’m Juniper.”

  He reared back, as if surprised. “What kind of name is Juniper? Explain yourself.” Standing quickly, he circled their picnic and growled. His head swung from side to side, but Juniper got the distinct impression he was sensing more than seeing. The hairs on her arms stood on end.

  “It’s just a name,” she said in a soothing voice. “It means evergreen. My sister is Chloe, which means green shoot. Our parents were very committed to the horticultural theme.”

  The growling transformed into an odd warbling. He paused, listening. Juniper realized the gargoyle expected a trap. Yeah, she could understand that. A strange girl comes calling with a full box of food in the middle of a deserted parking lot. He was entirely right to be wary.

  “I came alone.” Foolishly so.

  Something mollified the gargoyle. Juniper was sure it wasn’t anything she did.

  His wings fluttered, one moving more clumsily than the other, and he settled back down to the blanket. “Tas.”

  “Toss?”

  “Tas,” he said, stressing the vowel.

  “Why do you have a British accent?” Because the day wasn’t weird enough, the gargoyle had a faint British accent.

  Claws sliced through the rind of an orange. Fragrant juice trickled down his fingers before he licked them clean. “Is that what you want to know? Or do you want to discuss getting back your young one? You plan to exchange my freedom for your Chloe.”

  She perked to attention. “How do you know about that?”

  “The same way I speak your awkward tongue. I listen.” His wings behind him twitched and a tail curled over a massive thigh.

  Wow. The attitude on that guy.

  Juniper leaned back, stunned. “You’re pretty snobby for a naked, half-starved guy. Gargoyle. Person.”

  “Khargal. That is the name of my people.” His claws dissected another orange, regal as the first one.

  So many questions tumbled about in her mind. She didn’t know where to start. Why was he in the crate? He had obviously been injured. Who had done that? Why couldn’t he find a pair of pants when he ran off? Why would he help her get Chloe back?

  Most importantly, could she trust him?

  “Chloe’s not my kid. She’s my sister,” Juniper blurted. “I mean, I’m her legal guardian, so I’m like a parent. I feel more like a parent than a big sister sometimes, but I don’t know why I told you that.”

  He faced her, those gray eyes did not fix on her, yet he saw through her to the heart of what she wanted to know. “I have accepted your hospitality. It is only right that I assist you.”

  “You ran off, which is why I’m in this mess.” She flinched at her words. Why couldn’t she stop talking?

  Another blank stare. Another orange gone. “No. Your choices led you down a misfortunate path like a wayward lamb. I will still assist you despite your folly.”

  Her folly. He sounded so stiff. Formal, even. Old-fashioned.

  “When exactly did you learn English? No one talks like that.”

  “I do.” The tail gave a lazy thump. It was dark gray like the rest of his complexion and shaped like a cat’s tail, minus the fur. Since she was looking at the tail on his lap, she couldn’t avoid another eyeful of his dick.

  Still hard and leaking just a bit at the tip.

  An intimate picnic in a dark parking lot with a naked gargoyle—er, Khargal—with a raging boner. Nothing weird about this at all.

  “So you’ll come back with me?” she asked.

  “I said as much, female.”

  “You know it’s a trap.”

  He snorted as if amused. “A trap crafted by humans. It will hold me as effectively as the last one.”

  She thought about the smashed wooden crate in the back of the van. He had a point.

  “Okay,” she said. She didn’t have much choice. Mickey seemed to think she could magically convince a gargoyle to walk back into captivity, and lo and behold, she had a gargoyle willing to do just that. She wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.

  This had been the longest day ever.

  “You want some pants or are you just going to go commando?” she asked.

  tas

  Tas wrapped the scrap of fabric around his waist to appease his female. His nudity bothered her.

  He had armor once, nearly a millennium ago, but the pieces deteriorated with age and failed. Shifting his form into something approximating a human shape, he wore garments appropriate for the era. Once he had been a vain creature, delighting in dressing himself in expensive fabrics and masquerading as an average human male. It had been a game, walking among them in plain sight.

  His captor thought to humiliate him and left him nude. He barely noticed it now.

  He climbed into the female’s vehicle. A barrier separated the cargo hold from the cockpit. This would not do. If he had the energy to spare, he’d harden the skin in his hands and smash the wood. As it happened, the wood gave way to his regular fists with minimal abrasion.

  “What are you doing that for?” Juniper sounded more annoyed than alarmed. Good.

  “I need to hear you over the noise of the engine,” he said. It had nothing to do with wanting to be near her.

  “Fuck. Give me some warning next time you’re going to smash shit, okay?”

  “I find your use of language to be vulgar.”

  “Well, fuck you too. Get in. I don’t want Chloe spending a minute more than necessary in Mickey’s place.”

  The vehicle traveled a short distance before stopping. Shapes emerged in the dark of his blindness, indistinct blocks of slightly lighter darkness. His eyes were regenerating, albeit not as quickly as he’d like.

  Juniper opened the door and paused. “I need to make a quick stop. Sit tight.”

  “What happened to Chloe spending unnecessary minutes with your adversary?”

  “Yeah, well, you need pants. I know there’s the internet and god knows what kids text to each other, but I’d like to pretend that my kid sister has never seen a dick before, okay? At least not in person, because she is way too young for that nonsense, so you’re going to wear pants and keep all of that covered.”

  “I am covered now.” The fit of the blanket wrapped around him was like the traditional garments of his home region.

  “Pants are non-negotiable,” she said with certainty. “How about food? You still hungry? Or need, I don’t know, vitamins? Water? Shoes?”

  “I require additional supplements of calcium, magnesium, copper, and phosphorus. I would not decline zinc or nickel. Protein would be beneficial. I have consumed enough salt and sugar.”

  “I’ll be right back.” The door opened with a squeak and slammed shut.

  Tas listened to other vehicle arrive and their pilots converse with passengers and tried to ignore his aching cock. The female’s scent was concentrated in the vehicle. If he could get fresh air, just a breath, then he could clear his head and regain control of his rebellious body.

  The mating gland was such an aggravating organ, stealing his concentration when he needed to focus his energy on healing. He needed his sight restored more than he needed to copulate.

  No, with the way he ached, he needed to fuck. That would be the only way to purge the mating hormones from his body and restore balance. Once Juniper retrieved her sibling, they would part, and the urge would fade. Until then, he cracked open the back door and breathed in air rank with exhaust and oil.

  The door opened and Juniper’s fresh scent enveloped him.

  Grack him. He needed to get away from her.

  “I got sweatpants. It’s not stylish, but I was guessing at your size.” He heard the rustle of plastic, and then his female shoved a bundle of soft fabric into his chest. “Get ’em on and we can go. I also got a bottle of multivitamins and some nuts for protein.”

  Tas dressed, finding the trousers a far cry from the bespoke suits he once wore. Grack, he had b
een such a preening peacock back in the day. “This is adequate.”

  “Damn me with faint praise. Adequate,” she replied, as the vehicle rumbled to life.

  The pill bottle rattled until he opened it and gulped down half the contents. Mostly cellulose and lactose, he detected correct minerals. His strength returned, but only as quickly as Khargal physiology would allow with an overactive mating gland.

  He smelled death before the vehicle stopped.

  “Stay,” he ordered.

  “What? No way.” Juniper slid out of the vehicle, the artificial fabric creaking under her, and the door slammed. “I’m getting my sister.”

  Tas followed her body heat to the building’s entrance. The coppery scent of blood permeated the air. He placed a hand on the female and pulled her back. “Do you smell that?”

  “What? No.” She sniffed. “Smells like Philly.”

  He grumbled. Human senses were blind in so many ways. Their sight had developed robustly but lacked in low lighting, a deficit his kind exploited for centuries. “No. Blood and gunpowder.”

  The doorknob wobbled under his touch, loosened with force, and the door swung open. Juniper gasped before charging into the interior.

  Let her run into an ambush. Tas waited, letting the sounds and the scent explain the trauma that unfolded. Melodic vocalizations filled the space, masking other, subtler, sounds.

  “Oh my god!”

  He followed the female’s voice. The smell of death intensified in the confined space. The vocalization increased in volume. It came from an electronic device, a wireless or some such.

  “That’s so loud—”

  “Do not touch anything,” he commanded.

  “I—okay.” She pressed into him. Driven by instinct, his good wing wrapped protectively around her. Tas tried not to derive pleasure from the feel of her soft form against him or knowing she sought him out for comfort. His chest puffed with pride despite his best efforts.

  “They’re all dead,” she said.

  “They died recently.”

  She stiffened. “How can you tell that?”

  “Body heat.”

  “They were murdered,” she said with a hiss.

  Tas crouched down at the nearest body. He brushed his fingers across the body where the odor of burnt gunpowder was strongest, finding the features of a human face. They were shot in the head. “This was an execution.”

  He stood, wings fluttering with unease. The scene wasn’t correct. The door had been forced, which implied haste and sloppiness, but the cold implementation of the slayings spoke to a professional. Or a team of professionals.

  “Is there a rose?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes. Under Mickey’s, oh god, under his body. How did you know that? Smell?”

  “Your employer stole from the wrong people. They do not take lightly to having their property stolen.” The Rose Syndicate’s team acted in haste. Perhaps the local American agents were not as tidy as the ones in London. “Agent Rhododendron will have words for this. She detests sloppy work and gets quite cross.”

  Usually, a cross Agent Rhododendron resulted in some sort of deprivation for Tas: food, water, sleep, sight. Her favorite torture had been to give him a luxury, like books, and take it away.

  Boredom hurt Tas worse than any form of pain.

  “The people who put you in that crate? They did this,” Juniper said.

  Tas nodded, pleased that the female put the pieces together quickly without him explaining. “I am sorry about your young. Which one is she? I will collect her and we will go.”

  “You don’t understand. Chloe’s not here.”

  7

  Juniper

  What. The. Actual. Fuck.

  Juniper needed to think. She needed to breathe.

  Blood and brains decorated the back of the leather couch.

  She needed to not barf.

  The singing reality show Chloe liked played way too loudly, crowding her thoughts. Her sister had been here, watching The Talent, just as she would’ve done had she been at home.

  Chloe’s hot pink headphones sat in the empty space on the couch, between two very dead men.

  Perhaps not just like home.

  The middle of the couch was, thankfully, clean. Hopefully, that meant Chloe kept all her blood and brains in their original container.

  Oh god.

  She couldn’t stop the gag reflex. Acid burned at the back of her throat as her stomach revolted. For one appalling moment, she tried to swallow it back down, then keep it in with her hands.

  The contents of her stomach emptied onto the beige carpeting, mostly coffee and her half-digested dinner. Disgusting. The bitter taste clung to her tongue despite how she scraped at it.

  A warm hand rubbed her back. “Do not fight your instinct.”

  God, this was humiliating and gross. So gross.

  Another wave took her. She bent over and braced her hands on her thighs. When the last of the heaving subsided, the gargoyle withdrew his soothing touch.

  “Did you touch anything?” Tas asked.

  “Bit late for that now. Why?”

  “I am operating under the assumption that the police still collect fingerprints at the scene of a crime. I touched the door handle, which will need to be cleaned.”

  And now she was tampering with a crime scene with her gargoyle. She needed a bath and a drink. A glass of whiskey would be nice, too.

  “Mickey called me. My number’s on his phone. That’s as good as a fingerprint.” It tied them together, within an hour of the murder.

  She needed a bottle of whiskey, actually.

  “Describe the scene for me,” Tas said.

  The request caught Juniper by surprise. “What? Why? Use your own damn eyes.”

  “I can not. Now, describe the scene for me,” Tas ordered.

  “You’re blind?” Juniper stepped back and looked at Tas, really looked at him and not the wings or the horns or the hard-on.

  He was not well. Exhausted. His tail lazily swept behind him, as if making sure no one snuck up on him from behind, and he stood on the balls of his feet, as if ready to dash away.

  He turned his face toward her, but his dull purplish gray eyes didn’t look at her. He just stared at her without really seeing her. Because he couldn’t see her. How had she failed to notice that?

  Juniper took a deep breath and forced herself to look past the four dead bodies and actually look at the room. “Um, well, the door was forced. Kicked in. But I know Mickey is paranoid as fuck and his door is reinforced. That didn’t open on the first kick—it took work. So why is Mickey sitting here in his lounger?”

  Mickey wasn’t her friend, no matter what he thought. She had no feelings for him beyond what a rabbit might feel like when it’s waiting for the fox to finally stop playing with it and go for the kill, but she didn’t like seeing him sprawled in the black leather recliner with his mouth hanging open. No matter how horrible a person he had been, he deserved a bit of dignity in death. Oddly, his flat, dull eyes were exactly the same in death as in life.

  “They’re all sitting. Single shot, right in the middle of the forehead. Someone got the drop on them, which means the door is for show. Oh, and the bullet spray in the wall. Forgot to mention that.” The walls were a pristine white, excluding the blood spray directly behind the couch from the two victims resting there, marred only by a line of bullet holes. “But the bullets are way above the actual, um, bodies.”

  She knew them. She knew their names but she couldn’t bring herself to say it because that would add a whole new layer of realness to a horribly real situation.

  “So the bullets in the wall are for show, too.” Juniper rubbed her index finger in the spot just below her bottom lip. Chloe called it her thinking stance. “Whoever did this wants it to look like an everyday hit on Mickey.”

  “This phone you speak of, does your sister carry a similar device?”

  “Of course.” A teenager without a cellph
one? Not that Chloe ever went out, but she should have it for emergencies. “Oh.”

  Juniper fumbled in her pocket for her cellphone, finding it slippery with her barf-covered fingers. Gross—but she couldn’t worry about that now. She had to wipe her fingers on her jeans several times before the phone would accept her thumbprint and unlock.

  She waited as the phone called Chloe’s, listening for the familiar ringtone just in case the phone had been left in the building. Not expecting an answer, she nearly dropped the phone. “Um, hello?”

  “Miss Bouvet, I presume,” a feminine voice said in a cool British accent.

  Tas stood straighter, as if he could hear the other end of the conversation.

  Screw it. Juniper reached her maximum level of weirdness for the day and her filter broke. Any instinct to be humble and beg for her sister burned away. All that remained was a slap-happy state of derangement. “So this is the Illuminati?”

  “Be quiet, Miss Bouvet, or I will put a bullet in dear Chloe’s head,” the woman snapped.

  Juniper might as well have plunged into a pool of ice water. “Okay.”

  “I am Agent Rhododendron. You have something that belongs to my organization. Your employer had foolish notions about conspiracies and property law. I’ve educated him on this matter. Do you require the same education?”

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “I have no interest in babysitting your sibling. I also do not wish to hurt her. Do you want me to hurt her?”

  “No. Please don’t.”

  “Excellent. I will text you a location. Bring the creature. Retrieve your sister.”

  “I don’t have him.”

  “Miss Bouvet, I do not appreciate being lied to. We know you have the creature with you now. It followed you willingly, didn’t it?”

  Juniper didn’t fight the urge to swing around, searching for signs they were being observed. “He must have. I can’t exactly overpower him.”

  The woman chuckled, cold and bitter. A shiver went down Juniper’s spine.