by Karen Duvall
He’d tackled me to the ground and grabbed my chest in his talons, ripping through my rib cage to get at my heart. If it hadn’t been for Gavin’s interference with a spell to paralyze him, my heart would have become Shui’s evening snack. But Gavin wouldn’t let him kill me yet. I hadn’t outlived my usefulness as the Vyantara’s thief.
Now I could grudgingly admit to having new respect for the gargoyle, though the old hate for him remained. Walking through Gavin’s basement, I locked eyes with Shui while running my fingers across my chest and over the scar created by eighty-five stitches. He scared me, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Why don’t you fly your wrinkled gray butt back to Oz where you belong, freak.”
Shui growled, the rumble so deep I felt it through the soles of my boots.
“That’s the last thing you want him to do,” Gavin said without turning his attention from the wall of a dozen silent but animated television screens. He liked to stay current on world events. “You need him too much.”
Damn him for being right. More anxious than ever now, I tried without success to shrug off my mounting panic. I faked indifference by collapsing onto the leather couch in the center of the room, and then tugging my Balisong from its ankle sheath. Flicking open the blade, I pretended to clean my nails. The instinctive need to protect myself made the muscles in my neck bunch into knots.
I heaved what I hoped sounded like a bored sigh, though I was anything but bored. Wound up so tight it felt like my muscles would spring from my skin, I stretched my arms above my head and yawned. “Do you want to talk, or did you bring me down here just to watch television?”
He turned his back on the TVs and stared at me. “You screwed up.”
I shrugged, but my nerves vibrated with warning. The itching between my shoulders was getting worse. “I already explained that it was an accident. Not my fault.”
“I need the saint’s hand.”
Swallowing hard, I sat up straight and glanced over my shoulder at Shui. Gavin knew what I needed, the bastard. “I’m no longer that scared little girl you kidnapped and brought to America. I’m twenty-five years old, well educated and with money of my own—”
“Money I gave you.”
“Money I earned from the jobs I pulled for the Vyantara.”
He squinted as if thinking that over, then lowered himself to sit on the arm of the leather chair opposite me. “Yet you still live like a pauper.”
As if that mattered to him. “It’s my choice. I can live any way I want.”
“Aside from your obsession with designer clothes and the work of unknown, mediocre artists, you leave yourself almost nothing to live on. What money you have you foolishly give away to charity.”
He probably knew what brand of toothpaste I used if not the name of my favorite breakfast cereal. “So what if I do? It’s my money. And it’s not like I have any kind of lifestyle to support.” Giving money away never totally assuaged my guilt for thieving, but it helped. A little.
An annoying smirk tightened Gavin’s lips.
This conversation was going nowhere. I was sweating so much now that my designer T-shirt had stuck to my back. I tried to sound calm when I said, “It’s time, Gavin.”
He frowned and the deep creases in his forehead added character to the typically bland expression on his face. “I think you can last awhile longer, eh? I’m curious to see how this whole transformation thing works. I’ve only seen it once.”
I clenched my fists. “Damn it, Gavin!”
He smiled, showing his teeth. “Fifty years ago Shui was a striking young man. A real lady-killer, and I mean that literally.” He chuckled. “Unfortunately, Shui killed the chancellor’s daughter, and that’s one faux pas the Vyantara won’t tolerate. We take care of our own.”
I bet they did, not that I gave a crap. Shui was the only gargoyle the society had that I knew of, though I assumed there must be others. Gargoyles made excellent assassins, never leaving behind any trace of their victims.
“He’d been an ordinary human before, though more coldhearted than most. He was a psychopath, and that aspect of his character didn’t change with his shape. Just as well. He’s a heartless killer, and the best we have.” Gavin cast an adoring gaze at the monster sitting quietly in the shadows. Shui’s eyes glowed bright as twin moonbeams.
Gavin was torturing me for his own entertainment. The heat of anger rose to my cheeks, adding to the burning pain already there. Panic made my nerves jump. I concentrated on taking deep breaths to maintain a calm facade because my slow-to-boil temper was about to explode. Jaw rigid, I barely ground out, “You know what I need.”
He reached out to pat my hand. “Yes, dear, I know. Perhaps if you had retrieved the item I sent you for, I wouldn’t need to go to these extremes.”
Unbidden tears burned my eyes and I blinked them back. I recalled hearing my mother’s voice tell me I had people waiting for me… The very idea of remaining as this man’s slave was unthinkable. Unimaginable. Undoable.
“You’ve always done a good job for us, Chalice. But if you can no longer perform as you were trained, perhaps it’s time you worked for us in a different form.”
My calm demeanor shattered. The consequences of killing this bastard where he stood would be death, but at this point, I no longer cared. My sense of self would be gone once I changed into the creature I despised. What was the point of living if I couldn’t be free? Why continue on only to live in constant fear for the rest of my life? Not to mention the overwhelming loneliness. I couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t worth it.
Gavin had to die.
He must have noticed the change in me because his expression became puzzled, then suspicious as he jumped to his feet. I was on top of him like a fly on dung, toppling him backward onto the chair. My Balisong sang through the air as I swiped the blade down, aiming for the throbbing artery in his neck.
The thunder of flapping wings came just before Shui’s claws gouged my wrist, letting my blade only graze Gavin’s skin. Shui’s grip tightened, his nails piercing deep into my flesh and forcing me to cry out. If he clamped down hard enough, he’d surely sever the hand right off my arm. I dropped the knife.
“That’s enough, Shui,” Gavin said.
The gargoyle didn’t move. His hot breath crawled over the top of my head, rustling my hair, his stench sifting through the barrier of my nose filters. I fought the reflex to gag and turned my head. Yet at the same time, I craved what he could give me. Shui could stop the transformation that would force me into becoming the monster he was.
Gavin glared at the gargoyle. “Shui, let her go! Now!”
The creature growled and reluctantly released his grip. But he remained close, gripping the back of the chair with his feet as he leaned against me, possessive and threatening.
“Let him do what he has to do,” I said through clenched teeth. The pain in my wrist was excruciating and warm blood from the puncture wounds dribbled onto my jeans. I shifted forward and the gargoyle followed. “If you won’t let him touch my tat and stop the change, I’ll kill him. I’ll do it with my bare hands.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Gavin said, rising from the chair and stomping to a ceiling-tall bookcase. He yanked a red towel from a shelf and tossed it to me. “You know better than anyone that it’s impossible to kill an immortal creature, especially a gargoyle.” He tugged a white handkerchief from his robe’s breast pocket and dabbed at his neck. Waving a hand at my wound, he said, “Put pressure on that before you get blood all over my rug.”
What difference would adding my blood make to the countless bloodstains already there? I’d picked up on the old blood years ago.
I wrapped the towel around my wrist and heard Shui inhale deeply before a low moan rumbled inside his broad chest. The smell of blood was exciting him. And more blood was about to spill as the skin between my shoulder blades stretched.
I clenched my jaw and held my breath. “Shui’s stench is making me sick.” Head down, I rolled my e
yes up at Gavin and imbued my scowl with malice. “Make up your mind. Either be rid of my human self, or stop me from changing. Choose now because in one more minute, there’ll be no choice to make.”
Acting as if he hadn’t just come within an inch of losing his life, Gavin barked an order at Shui, who bent his head toward my neck. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the stink. The gargoyle’s tongue swiped across my skin, its moist heat lingering where the tattoo scorched my flesh. As disgusting as it was to have this monster’s saliva seep into my body, relief was immediate. My skin started to cool, the itching stopped. Normalcy returned. At least for the next three days.
Shui flew back to his perch and Gavin cocked his head, offering me a sardonic grin. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? I admire your fortitude, Chalice. Your humanity is far too precious to have it disappear behind a pair of leathery wings, though I don’t doubt you’d make a lovely gargoyle. I’m just not ready to give you up. Yet.”
I was still seething, my mind conjuring ways I could make his life as miserable as he’d made mine, but I didn’t discount what he just said. The word yet left its imprint on my mind. I wasn’t free of Gavin’s threat and wondered if I ever would be. “Consider me punished. Can I go now?”
“You haven’t had your cookies and cappuccino yet.”
I closed my eyes to shut him out. The man was off his nut. His spells, potions, charms, curses and the rest of his abracadabra bullshit had fried more than a few of his brain cells. When I opened my eyes, I found him kneeling in front of me, his lips curved in a smile that looked almost sincere.
“I have something for you.” He reached into the hip pocket of his robe and withdrew an envelope. He tried to touch my good hand, but I jerked it away. Just the thought of his fingers on me made me ill.
Lifting both eyebrows in a quizzical arch, he asked, “Don’t you want to see what your mother left you?”
My breathing stopped midbreath. What was he up to? I didn’t trust him. “This better not be a joke.”
“No joke.”
I let him place the envelope in my upturned hand.
“The monks gave it to me. They said your mother wanted you to have it when you grew up.”
“Why did you wait so long to give me this?”
Gavin looked at me blankly. “You weren’t ready.”
“But I am now because…?”
He gestured for me to open the letter. I glanced at the envelope, its edges brittle, a single word scrawled on the outside. Chalice. I swallowed, feeling the sting of tears, and blinking hard to make them go away. I wouldn’t cry. Not in front of Gavin. I turned the letter over and noticed the flap was loose. It was too much to hope that my privacy might be respected for once. I glared up at him to let him know it wasn’t okay.
He shrugged. “Just read what’s inside.”
I pulled the page free and smoothed out the fold before holding it up to the light. A blank piece of paper.
I gritted my teeth against the hope I’d been tricked into feeling. I’d actually believed this was a message from my mother. Her words written just for me and no one else. Longing swelled my heart as I remembered her voice warbling through the liquid cocoon of her womb. The saint’s hand had let me hear her and this note could have gifted me with more of her words.
I made as if to crumple the letter in my fist, but Gavin lunged at me and grabbed my wrist. His fingers clamped down nearly as hard as Shui’s talons.
He said one word. “Don’t.”
“You’re messing with me again.” I tried to yank my arm free, but he held on. “First you torture my body, now my heart. You’re a sick man.”
His thin smile grated on my nerves. “That may be, but I’m not messing with you now.” He narrowed his eyes. “You need to read that letter.”
“I can’t. It’s blank.”
“Is it?” He let go of my wrist and I stared hard at the clean white paper. “Take out your contact lenses.”
Before touching my eyes, I held the letter to my nose and sniffed. A chemical smell. I withdrew one nose filter. The overpowering stench of rotted meat and sulfur coming from Shui almost erased all other scents in the room, and I had to focus extra hard on the paper in my hand. The odor was unmistakable. Bleach.
“Now look at it.”
I didn’t want to take my contacts out in Gavin’s basement. Nightmares lived here. I always saw too much and I feared it would drive me insane someday.
“Block out the ghosts, Chalice. Just focus on the letter.” He sighed and returned to his chair, sitting slowly while studying me. As if he didn’t trust me. Smart man. “Use your discipline.”
Oh, yes. My self-discipline was stellar. But when emotions were involved, my concentration pretty much sucked.
I removed my contacts and made the mistake of letting my gaze wander to the shadows where Shui crouched, his wings folded close and taloned feet gripping his perch. But he didn’t sit alone. I squinted in the bright glare of Gavin’s forty-watt lamps and watched the fluorescent particles of energy swirl around the gargoyle, who was oblivious to them. The energy appeared like smoke in the form of people, fading and then coalescing again into the incorporeal twins of their dead selves.
“Ignore them.” Gavin followed my stare to where the shades of Shui’s victims hovered. He couldn’t see them with his eyes, but he knew they were there. He possessed an extra sense that I didn’t, a sixth one that perceived the rarified energies on the planes beyond this one. Hocus-pocus crap, but real enough for anyone with the faith to believe. What I saw was real, too, but on a totally different level.
I looked at the letter in my hands. How could I not have seen this? My lips stretched into a smile that hurt my face and I had to touch my mouth to prove to myself it was real. I’d had very few reasons to smile, but now I had a good one.
“It’s from her!” I said, ignoring the fact that my audience were my two worst enemies. “She says—” I stopped and frowned, watching the pale gray letters on the page form words I should keep to myself. I lifted my head to find Gavin leaning so far forward that one flap of Shui’s wings would toss him off the chair. I refolded the letter and tucked it back inside its envelope.
Color rose in Gavin’s cheeks to make him look less like a corpse and more like the furious sorcerer I’d grown to hate over the years. Much better. Angry Gavin I could deal with. Insane Gavin was too unpredictable, and therefore more dangerous. I felt most comfortable around those who acted as I expected them to.
His voice contained, but stressed to the point of breaking, he said quietly, “You little bitch.”
I smiled again. I liked when our interactions were balanced. Actually, I preferred the scale tipped more to my side, and right now it was closer to me than it had ever been. “What’s the matter, Gavin?” I asked sweetly. “Couldn’t your badass Vyantara buddies decipher my mother’s message?”
He didn’t answer, but I felt the heat of his glare. In fact, without my contacts in, I could see extreme emotions leak into people’s auras. His was bright red. Shui sensed it, too, because he growled from his perch to let me know he was paying attention.
“They couldn’t, could they?” I asked. “Because she used bleach mixed with some unknown ingredient to make the ink to write something only I could read. You need me to tell you what it says.”
Gavin crossed his arms and relaxed his face, his demeanor growing calm. “You and I can help each other.”
“The only help I want from you is to get your fucking monkey off my back.” I leaned in to him, picking up the pungent odor of charmed ointments he used to ward off aging. He smelled of camphor and pepper. “Just tell me how to do that, and I’ll tell you what’s in this letter.” A letter I hadn’t yet read but for the first word: Find.
He looked thoughtful for a few seconds before saying, “Kill him.”
Surprise raised my voice an octave. “Kill Shui?”
The gargoyle growled, topping it off with a hiss.
“When he’s dead, he’
ll turn to stone, and you’ll be free of your bond. Simple.” Gavin tilted his head slightly back to gaze down his nose at me. “A deal’s a deal. Now, what does your mother’s letter say?”
His answer was too easy. There had to be a catch. “How do I kill Shui? Gargoyles are immortal. You reminded me about that a few minutes ago.”
“They are immortal, but there’s a loophole. You just have to know what it is.” He gave me a sly look before his face brightened, his attention focused behind me.
“Samuel! Just bring it here.” He motioned for the butler to lay his tray on the heavy, oak coffee table beside the couch. “Fresh baked cookies, yes? Very nice. You can go.”
Samuel spotted Shui and blanched. “Sir, is that a monkey?”
“Yes, it is,” Gavin said. “Now run along. I’m having an important conversation with my daughter and I want no more interruptions.”
Samuel’s hand shook as he pointed. “But it has wings—”
“Leave!” Gavin shouted, using his sorcerer’s voice. The deep cadence resonated against the stone walls and shook the contents of the tray. Samuel backed up, nearly falling over his own feet before turning to disappear up the stairs. Knowing how Gavin’s pneuma spells worked, I expected the butler would forget all about Shui by the time he reached the top step.
Gavin looked at me, puzzled. “Where was I?”
“Loopholes.”
His eyes narrowed, but he grinned. “That’s right. Loopholes.”
Silence. He wasn’t telling me what I needed to know. “So how do I kill Shui?”
Gavin’s confused expression returned, though it was more theatrical now. “You said all you wanted to know was how to break free of your bond to Shui, and I told you. How you accomplish that goal is another question. Quid pro quo, my dear. Quid pro quo.”