“The fairies would not have survived without help. They got it from the beasts. As a reward for their aid to what had once been creatures of heaven, who might still be again, those animals were given the gifts of flight, of shape-shifting. They could sprout wings and turn to stone.”
“You can sprout wings?” He shook his head. “I guess no one can have everything.”
He didn’t want everything. Just one thing. Quinn shoved his wants from his head. The way Megan hovered near the door, as if she wanted to run from him made him ache. She would never want him again.
“Eventually the fairies could manage on their own,” he continued. “The powers that be,” he lifted his chin toward the ceiling, “tasked the gargoyles with protecting the weak and unwary innocents from demon attacks.”
“I’m neither weak nor unwary.”
“You are innocent.”
She snorted, then her gaze sharpened. “What did the powers that be offer in return?”
He looked away again. “Why would you think they offered anything but the joy of helping others?”
“Spill it, Quinn. You’ve gone this far.”
“Humanity,” he said, then met her gaze. “The more humans we save, the more human we become.”
“Why would you want to be human?”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t die.”
“I assure you I can. Why do you think Ben gave you that sickle?”
“To kill you?” Her voice was incredulous. “I thought he was your friend.”
“Ben Skrewd is no one’s friend. He’s a gremlin.”
Megan opened her mouth, closed it again. “A what?”
“Gremlin. He’s a cranky old fellow who can fix anything with a motor.”
“Sounds like a bad-tempered mechanic.”
“He is. Except he uses magic when things get very difficult.”
“Wait. I read about gremlins. They were invented between the World Wars to explain problems with the aircraft.”
“I assure you that gremlins have been around much longer than that. They just weren’t noticed as much until planes began to fall from the sky. And gremlins didn’t cause the problems, they tried to remedy them. I’m sure they were around the airplane motors more than usual. A creature such as Ben would be fascinated by an engine that could allow someone to fly without wings.”
“What did they work on before there were motors?” At his curious expression, she continued. “You said gremlins were around a long time. From what I know about your kind, you were here before there were engines.”
“Wheels needed to be fixed as well, love.”
She let out a short, sharp laugh and rubbed her eyes. “Is anyone just a person any more?”
“You are.” Which was why he longed to be. Foolish, really. She didn’t love him, couldn’t love him, wouldn’t love him. So why become human for her?
He had no idea, all he knew was that he craved humanity with the desperation he’d once craved blood.
“Why would Ben think you’d hurt me?” Megan’s gaze searched his and uncertainty flickered. He hated seeing it there but he couldn’t blame her.
“Liz would never allow me near you if there were any chance I might.”
Her uncertainty fled. “That’s true, but then why the sickle?”
“There was a time, long ago before I’d saved many when I did hurt people. I killed people. I can’t blame Ben for being uneasy. I’m the reason for all those red doors.”
“You’re the cat dubh.” She had to have known this, but she hadn’t yet said it out loud.
“Aye.”
She nodded, considering. “You came here as a statue, in that box.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I must spend a few hours in every twenty-four as a panther—flesh and blood or stone—doesn’t matter. There was no way I was going to get a panther out of one country and into another, and I don’t have a passport, so...”
“You became the statue and sent yourself Federal Express.”
“Close enough. Once here, I...” he paused, not wanting to admit what returning to Ireland after so many years away had done. But this was a time for truth, so he told it. “The smell of the air, the feel of the place called to what I’d been. I shifted and the box...”
She made the motion that mimed explosion. “Boom.”
He shrugged. ’Twas as good an explanation as any.
“How did the Nephilim find us?”
“I’ve no idea.” Betrayal, most likely, but by whom, how? And if it had happened once, it could happen again. He had to make certain it didn’t.
“Where’s Liz?”
“I’ve no idea about that either, though...” He paused and something in his face made hers pale.
“What happened?”
“She spoke to me in my dream last night.”
“Dream walking?” He nodded and she cursed. “That means she’s hurt or nearly dead.” Her lip trembled. “By now she might be completely dead.”
“She isn’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“When the leader of the light dies, we know.”
“How?”
“We just do. DKs and seers are secret.” Or at least they had been until recently. “Only the leader of the light knows all of their identities. If he or she dies before passing the knowledge on, we feel it, and we’re drawn to the new leader.”
Silence settled over them, but only for an instant before she blurted, “The children,” and swayed.
He stepped forward, hands out to help and she cringed. He dropped them to his sides.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just...”
“They’re safe. There are others like me watching over them.”
“Just like you?”
“Perhaps.” He had no idea who, or even what, had been sent.
“I have to get to them. Now.”
“There is no getting there now, a chroí.”
She cast him a sour glance, and he waited for her to ask the meaning of the word.
My heart, he thought, Mo bheatha.
My life.
She looked away. “Says the man who can turn to stone and grow a tail.”
“I cannot fly,” he said, wishing, and not for the first time, that he could.
“Are there any dragons on the side of light?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Something, anything, that can fly us across the ocean?” He shook his head. “Teleport?” Quinn frowned, confused, and she made an annoyed sound. “Get us from here to there in a blink.”
“Not even the leader of the light can do that.”
She swayed again, and this time he knew better than to touch her. “If anything happens to them, Quinn, I’ll never forgive you.”
He didn’t think she was ever going to forgive him anyway.
* * *
I paced while Quinn used his cell phone. Odd that his worked, then again maybe not.
The man I’d slept with was a gargoyle.
I stifled the hysterical giggle. There was a sentence I’d never thought would run through my brain.
He’d saved my life; he’d no doubt do so again. However, if anything happened to my children I’d rather he not bother.
Quinn snapped the phone shut and turned to me. “They’re on their way.”
“They’re... what?”
“I sent Ronan to—”
“Who the hell is Ronan?” I was shouting. I couldn’t help it.
“He’s a... well, he’s two things really. I don’t think there’s a word for him yet.”
“That’s just great.”
“Ye needn’t worry. Ronan is very trustworthy.”
I wasn’t going to touch that. My head was already pounding.
“Do you think I’d send anyone who was not?” he asked quietly.
He was right; I knew that. It was just... they were my babies. They always would be. The idea of them on a plane, fl
ying across the ocean, alone, or even with Ronan, whatever he was—
“I want to go to them.”
“No,” Quinn said, and opened his phone again. I grabbed it and threw it across the room.
“How are you going to get them out of the country? Please tell me you aren’t turning them into stone and shipping them in a box.”
“We can’t turn humans into us.”
“You can just turn yourself into humans.”
“Only God can do that.”
“God will make you human,” I repeated. Another sentence I’d never thought to hear. “My in-laws would never allow anyone but me to take my children.”
“As far as your in-laws know, you did.”
I gaped. “What did you do?”
“You’ve seen me turn into a man when I was a panther. You think there aren’t beings that can turn into anything, or anyone, that they want? Why do you think I sent Ronan, besides his loyalty and huge muscles?”
“He’s a shifter?”
“Among other things.”
“And he turned into me?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yeah, take me home.”
“I can protect you better here.”
“They already found us here.”
“Which means they’ll find us anywhere. There’s a traitor, a leak, something. I know this land; I have friends here.”
“You mean the villagers who are scared of you?” He lifted one shoulder. “You have an odd definition of friends.”
“We stay,” he said.
“How long?”
“Until Liz tells me it’s safe to go.”
“The kids are supposed to start school in less than two weeks.”
“Oh, well,” he said, and retrieved his phone.
“Oh, well?” I repeated. “You might not be aware that I just finished high school and became a mom and now I own a bar.”
Confusion wrinkled his brow. “I’m aware of everything about you.”
My cheeks heated. “I meant that I can’t teach them.”
“You can do anything you set your mind to, Meggie. You always have.”
For an instant I lost myself in the admiration I saw in his eyes, then I shook my head. “They’ll get behind, I—”
“We’ll enroll them here. They’ll learn Gaelic. It’ll be an adventure.” I opened my mouth, but he kept talking. “It’s have them come here to be with you or have them stay there without. A bit of lost schooling is the least of our worries.”
He was right. Again.
“Okay.”
His brows lifted. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so agreeable.”
“Nearly being incinerated by a dragon can have that effect.”
The rest of the day passed quickly enough, considering there was no television or radio. I’d at least had the presence of mind to grab a book, but I couldn’t concentrate.
Quinn had Ben bring us food. When the old gremlin arrived I could do nothing but stare at him, trying to discover something that would have marked him as different if I’d thought to look. Like Quinn, there was nothing.
Darkness fell. I began to get twitchy.
One bed in the house and last night we’d shared it. I’d enjoyed the interlude as much the second time as the first, but now that I knew the truth...
Quinn stood and I tensed so violently the book in my lap tumbled toward the floor. He snatched it before it could hit the ground.
“Good catch.”
“I do my best.”
“You aren’t lame.”
“No?”
“Why did you pretend to be?”
“I was trying to appear human.”
Oddly, it had worked. Although, would I have marked him as inhuman if he moved with the same speed and grace he did now?
Maybe.
“Why did you sleep with me?”
“Why did you sleep with me?” he returned.
“I—” My fingers tightened on the book. “Wanted to.”
His lips curved into a sad smile. “I needed to.”
Need. Want. Two things I hadn’t given in to for a very long time and only with one other man. But what about him?
“Do you have sex with a lot of human women?”
“None.”
“Why?” Unease flickered. “Am I going to have kittens?” How in hell would I explain that?
“Of course not.”
“Because something like you and someone like me can’t?”
“No, because you take birth control.”
“Oh.” I rubbed my forehead. Obviously something like him and someone like me could, hence all the beings that both fought against Liz Phoenix and fought for her.
I probably shouldn’t have spoken about what had happened between us as if it were something that might have gone on in a zoo. Certainly, I was freaked that I’d had sex with a gargoyle, but that didn’t mean the sex hadn’t been fantastic. Something I wanted to remember fondly.
But the more I considered what he was, all he could do, the more I thought that a little pill wasn’t going to stop anything.
“You’re certain?” I pressed.
“I’ve never done it before, but—”
“Just because you’ve never impregnated a human before doesn’t mean—”
“I’ve never had sex before.”
I laughed. He didn’t. I stopped, and he looked away, cheeks darkening.
“Wait a second.”
He’d said that before, and I hadn’t believed him. The idea of a man like him, at his age, never sleeping with a woman was unbelievable. But now that I knew he was so much more than a man...
“Look at me.”
Slowly he turned his face toward mine, and in his eyes I saw the truth. “You’re a virgin?”
“No longer.”
“Why?”
“I never met anyone like you.”
What was so special about me?
He glanced out the darkened window. “I have to go.”
“What’s out there?”
“Nothing will hurt you.”
“I know.” Nothing had hurt me while Quinn was on the job, and I knew, without a doubt, nothing would.
“I have to shift,” he said. “It’s time.”
“What if you don’t?”
“I can’t stop it. If I wait too long I’ll just—”
His eyes suddenly shimmered, going from human light green to panther gold.
“Can I watch?”
“You watched me change from panther to man.”
I had, but I’d been a little distracted by the fire breathing dragon that had just died, so I hadn’t observed as well as I should have.
“Now I’d like to see the reverse. Is that a problem?”
He glanced toward the glass again. I followed his gaze and saw his reflection flicker. “I waited too long. It’s happening. Put me outside when it’s done. I need to guard y—”
He crumpled, there was no other word for it. One instant he was a tall, dark, handsome man, the next his very being folded inward. His skin went gray and shrunk. His eyes went panther; he sprouted a tail and ears, some fangs. I tried not to blink; I wanted to see it all. But eventually I had to, and when my lids lifted, Quinn was a statue once more.
I lifted him with shaking hands, strode to the back door then the garden. I’d just reached the tangled mass when the shriek of a big cat split the night. I whirled.
Out of the darkness stepped another black panther. I bobbled the gargoyle, and it fell toward the ground.
Right before it hit, the thing changed. Instead of stone bouncing then shattering, a second panther crouched.
“Quinn,” I murmured, and let my fingers trace his back. Beneath the ebony coat, muscles bunched.
And then he was gone, bounding toward the intruder, snarling. The two bodies collided, rolled, massive paws shot out, spiked claws scraping, shredding. Blood flowed. I had no idea which panther was mine.
Mine. Huh. I’d e
xamine that thought later. If we survived.
One of the creatures gained its feet, swung its head in my direction and snarled. The revelation of fangs gave me a sudden desire to run inside. Fantastic idea. I did so and retrieved my sickle.
When I returned, they were rolling and slashing and bleeding again. Only death would end it.
The moon peeked over the horizon, spreading silver across the grass, across them. Their ebony coats shone slick with blood, the ground was spotted with black dots of it.
One of the beasts managed to fasten its fangs on the other’s throat. Instead of waiting for surrender, it jerked its powerful head, ripping out the other’s jugular. Blood sprayed. The degree of viciousness made me think Nephilim, which meant the dead panther was Quinn.
“No,” I whispered. Hot tears threatened to blind me.
The creature stalked in my direction. I tightened my grip on the sickle. I could lop off its head and hope for the best, but what if...
I stretched out the blade, brushing its tip along the panther’s fur.
Zzzt!
The scent of burned hair and ozone rose along with a thin veil of smoke. That didn’t mean this creature was Quinn. It might just mean they were both gargoyles.
Shit. Now what?
It stood between me and the cottage. No red door test unless it moved.
Then the panther’s snout lifted. Tiny sparkles of light swirled around its head like a drunken bunch of fairies. Was it a drunken bunch of fairies?
Quinn Fitzpatrick.
The voice came from those lights, neither male or female, but something in between. I was too bowled over by talking lights to feel the level of gratitude I should that the panther was Quinn and not... whoever.
You have gained humanity. Bow and accept the gift.
The panther shimmered, shifted and became Quinn. My breath caught. He’d done it. He was going to become human and then...
Then I’d have to think twice about ditching him.
Chapter 11
The sight of Megan with the sickle, uncertainty on her face, fear in her eyes, had made Quinn want to shift so she could see it was him and not the other, but he hadn’t been in gargoyle form long enough to return to his human one.
However the lights—God, an angel, who knew?—had trickled over him, through him, and then he became himself and he was glad. Because only as a human could he voice the inevitable.
Dances With Demons - A Phoenix Chronicle Novella Page 8