I heard him on the stairs and turned to watch him come down the steps. His gait was loose and confident like some of the best athletes at school. He'd pulled a V-neck T-shirt over his vest and a small triangle of smooth, glossy leather showed in the deep plunge of the soft black cotton.
I'd expected him to wear the shirt underneath his vest then realized that would be impossible unless he cut slits in the back for his wings to fit through. The T-shirt looked good on him, though. The close-fitting gray jeans did nothing to hurt his looks, either. His muscles flexed beneath the burnished skin on his arms as he reached up with his hand to move his hair out of his eyes.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and hooked his thumbs through the belt loops on his jeans, pulling the waistband forward an inch. "My belt wouldn't fit through the loops," he told me as a frown formed between his eyebrows. "So, I have no way to carry my knife."
"I can probably find you something in my brother's room," I offered. "Will white be okay until we can go shopping?"
"I'm not particular," he assured me. "I just need a way to carry my blade."
The thought of his long knife hanging from an old emo belt made me grin as we strolled back through the garage and out into the sunshine. Hooligan followed us and made himself comfortable, sprawled in the middle of the driveway. "So, what does it mean to be a gargoyle?" I asked as if I met mythical creatures every day and I wasn't freaked out in the least. "And how did you end up in that crate?"
He told me that he and his pack had been trying to outrun a gang of harpies. According to Valor, harpies are way larger than gargoyles, despite the fact that they're female. As night approached, the gargoyles found themselves near the Roman walls at York. They decided to turn to stone so the harpies couldn't harm them. They'd hoped the harpies would eventually give up on waiting for the gargoyles to change back. But instead of giving up, the harpies built a wall around them.
Gargoyles can change to stone and return to their living form at will, as long as direct sunlight can reach them. They need the extra boost the sun's energy gives them to make the change. The wall blocked the sun's light and they waited for eight hundred years, trapped between the walls, until Greg found them and crated them up.
"So, you're immortal, then?"
"No!" he replied. His eyes registered surprise. "What gave you that idea?"
I sank my teeth into my bottom lip and lowered my gaze to the ground then returned it to his face. "Um. You're at least eight hundred years old and you don't look a day over eighteen."
He explained that gargoyles don't age when they're in their stone form. But when they make the change back to their living form, they age at the same rate as humans. "My brother, Dare, was actually born three years before me," he volunteered. "But he's spent so much time in his stone form that we're about the same age now."
"Was your brother trapped between the walls with you?"
He lifted his chin in a brief nod. "Dare was trapped with me, along with the rest of my pack—my other brother, Havoc, and six of my cousins."
"You can't…communicate with each other while you're in your stone form, can you?"
He shook his head in answer as he looked down the long length of the driveway. "I hope my brothers get here safely. They were standing closest to me between the walls so I'm hoping they're in the two crates that are supposed to arrive today."
"Why were you waiting for your family to get here before telling me you were a gargoyle?"
"I didn't want to mislead you," he answered with a guarded expression. "But I was hoping I could pass myself off as a human until the rest of the crates made it here. Then we would have all left together, before you knew anything about us."
"Oh!" I said softly. My eyes widened in realization and my heart pounded dully. He hadn't meant to hang around any longer than necessary. But I should have realized that. I could see how the gargoyles might want to keep their existence a secret, especially in their time. Maybe in my time too.
"How did I do?" he asked. "Did I make a convincing human?"
"Well, you fooled me," I pointed out soberly. "Although some of your word choices were a bit…unusual."
"I was afraid of that," he admitted. "I tried to pick my words carefully."
I nodded. That explained his reluctance to talk yesterday.
"Language has changed so much during the last eight hundred years. I was worried I'd use some old word that would give me away, like carriage house instead of garage. And I watched you pretty closely to see how things worked, like your phone and the television and even the refrigerator."
More disappointing news. I'd thought maybe he was watching me because he was interested in me. "Do you think the other gargoyles will be upset that I know about you and your pack?"
"They'll just have to deal with it," he said quietly. He returned his gaze to my face and probably saw the concern in my expression. "Don't worry. They won't harm you."
"Maybe they could just wipe out my memory," I suggested, trying for a light tone. "That would be a lot cleaner than killing me."
Valor gazed at me thoughtfully. I would have felt a lot better if he'd laughed or at least chuckled at my comment.
"So, can you fly?" I asked after clearing my throat. "Or are those wings just for show?"
"We can fly," he replied. A smile lingered on his perfect lips as he glanced up at the sky with an expression of warm longing.
"You don't have x-ray vision or any other super powers, do you?"
"No x-ray vision," he answered as his blue eyes glinted with humor. "If I understand what x-ray means and if you're worried about me being able to see through your clothing."
I rolled my eyes like that was a ridiculous suggestion. "No super powers at all? Because you seemed awfully…strong when you tossed that tool chest across the garage."
He lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug. "I might have used a little more energy than I needed to, but I was in a hurry to get the box off you."
I sent him a challenging look. None of the guys at school could have thrown the tool chest across the garage.
"In my time, I was never any stronger than the village blacksmith," he insisted modestly.
Maybe. But it sounded to me like he was at least stronger than the average human his age. And that blacksmith back in his time must have been a freakin' ox. "What was it like…back then?"
He widened his stance and considered the house with its attached garage. "The homes were smaller and not as clean. Your house would be considered a palace in my time."
"Anything else?" I pried, just to hear him talk. I loved the low, rough tone of his accent.
"I haven't been here long," he pointed out. "You might have to give me some time to get back to you on that question."
Fair enough, I thought. Though it didn't sound like he was going to be around long enough for that to happen. "Did my stepfather know about you…being alive?
Valor shook his head. "When he pulled us from behind the wall, there were no windows in the room so no sunlight touched us—just electric light—and we couldn't change. After that, we went straight into the wooden boxes."
"Wait a minute," I exclaimed, as something suddenly occurred to me. "Does that mean you could actually see, even though you were solid stone?"
"We can see when we're in our stone forms as long as we have our eyes open when we make the change."
Ugh. That meant he had seen me stroke his arm…and his hair, yesterday morning after I opened the crate. I felt a warm rush of heat crawl up my neck and curl behind my ears. "Can you feel anything when you're in your stone form?" I asked, even more mortified by this possibility and hoping he wouldn't notice the blush on my face. If he did, he'd probably guess what I was thinking.
"Not a thing," he claimed as he dipped his head and hid his smile. But his amusement shone in his eyes and it was clear that he knew exactly what was worrying me. I just hoped he didn't think I was a total loser.
"And you can hear when you're a statue," I st
ated, steering the conversation back to a safer topic. I knew he'd heard me give my name to the driver of the delivery van.
"Aye. I heard the crash when that box fell on you and I heard your struggles. I knew you were in trouble and wanted to help but I couldn't make the change."
"You had to wait until the sun shone on you before you could wake up?"
"Aye," he answered slowly. He stared off into the middle distance as if he was wrestling with a complicated puzzle. "I only needed a single ray to touch any part of my body. But I could see that the sun was never going to reach me. I was stuck in the building's shade."
I nodded. The crate was too far inside the garage for direct sunlight to reach it. "How did you make the change, then?"
A ridge formed between his ink-dark eyebrows and he searched my face for a moment before he looked out beyond the driveway and into the forest. "I don't know," he finally admitted.
Chapter Five
"Has anything like that ever happened before?" I asked the gargoyle.
"No." Valor's gaze settled on the top of my head as if he was looking for an explanation beneath my hat. His dark eyebrows pulled together like he wasn't happy with what he saw. "Is it common for girls to cover their heads nowadays?"
"No, my hair just…doesn't behave." I pulled off my hat and my hair poured over my shoulders in a tangled mass of red. "See what I mean?"
His eyes widened in a startled look of shock as he swiftly averted his gaze. I watched his mouth form a grim line while his expression turned aloof and distant, as if he'd lost all interest in talking to me.
I couldn't understand the reason for his sudden change in attitude. The way he'd shifted gears had me reeling. Earlier, he'd seemed friendly, if reserved. Now he was acting like he didn't want to know me. And it appeared to be because of my hair—as if he had something against redheads. I know a lot of people don't consider red hair attractive but surely he couldn't hate redheads that much.
An unfamiliar sense of loss settled in my chest like a dull ache. I captured my hair inside my hat again and tugged it back over my head. I tried to think of something to say that might break the uncomfortable silence. Unfortunately, I was so rattled I couldn't think of a single thing.
"The forest is angry," he eventually said without looking at me.
It seemed odd that he would express what I'd been thinking only the day before. But I knew it wasn't possible for the trees to be angry. "It's only the wind moving through the branches," I pointed out flatly.
"When the trees are content, the wind moves through the branches with a soft sound. This is a harsh sound. Listen," he insisted.
I tilted my head and listened. I had to agree the forest sounded mad. "The neighbor has been clear-cutting his lot."
"That would explain the forest's dark mood," he muttered, still without looking at me.
"If the trees are so angry," I snipped, "then why doesn't one of them fall on him?"
Finally, a slight smile edged his mouth. "They've probably been trying to, but humans move fast compared to trees. It's like you or me trying to catch a fly in our hands."
"They've probably been trying to?" I snorted. I almost laughed out loud but I checked Valor's face and decided against it; he seemed to be serious. Hmph. I doubted the trees were trying to fall on my neighbor, but I liked the idea.
Valor fell silent again.
I hated the uneasy quiet so I searched for another topic of conversation. "Stone can be broken and crushed," I pointed out. "And you said the harpies were bigger than gargoyles. If they wanted to destroy you, why didn't they just find themselves a hammer and chisel?"
"We're more than common rock," he murmured. "We're pretty nigh indestructible when we're in our stone forms."
I thought this over. "Then why didn't they pick you up and throw you into the sea?"
He sent me a dark look. "You're a bloodthirsty lass, aren't you?"
I felt my cheeks darken with heat. "That's not what I meant," I insisted awkwardly.
He stared at me a moment before he started talking again. "They could have picked us up if we hadn't been fused to the stone floor of the croft."
A frown furrowed my brow as I tried to make sense of his answer.
"When we turn to stone, our clothing makes the change as well," he explained in an impersonal monotone. "Everything in direct contact with our skin turns to stone. That means our shoes would turn to stone, if we were wearing them. But if we aren't wearing shoes, a thin layer of the soil or rock beneath our feet turns to the hard material that we're made of."
"If that's true, then how was my stepfather able to pry you away from the stone floor in the croft?"
"The hut's floor had eroded beneath the layer of stone fused to our feet and we came away easily." He stepped inside the garage and showed me the flat piece of stone in the bottom of the packing crate. It had returned to its original form, a dark, reddish slate. "The harpies would have carried us off if they could have, but they weren't trying to destroy us."
"They weren't?"
Instead of responding, Valor turned his head as if he'd heard something outside the garage. "Something's coming," he said.
Together we stepped back to the open garage doors as the shipping van appeared at the bend in the driveway. Valor stepped in front of me and put his arm out as if to shield me from the large vehicle trundling up toward the house. I was surprised by his reaction to the slow moving van and his apparent attempt to protect me.
"It's the just delivery van," I told him when I realized he hadn't seen the vehicle that had brought him to my house yesterday.
As I watched his back, the stiff line of his shoulders relaxed and he nodded in answer to my words.
The driver avoided Hooligan who was still sprawled in front of the garage. He eyed the dog carefully as he stepped from the van but Hooli just stretched and yawned then closed his eyes and went back to sleep. A few minutes later, two new packing boxes sat beside Valor's crate in the empty garage bay while the van made its way back down to the road.
Valor pulled a crate to the edge of the concrete slab and faced it into the sun. I handed him the crowbar then got out of his way to let him open the crates. Just before he got the top panel off the first wooden box, I tugged my hat from my head and shook my hair out. These two new gargoyles could see me as I was. I didn't want them thinking maybe they liked me then changing their minds after they found out I had red hair. Yeah, there was a lot of it. And yeah, it was really red. And they could just deal with it, right from the start, this time.
Valor eyed me for a long moment then tore his gaze from my hair and went back to opening the crate. Once he'd removed the upper and lower panel from one side of the box, he ripped apart the bubble wrap and revealed a winged gargoyle with long dreadlocks. He wasn't quite as good-looking as Valor but he was still way ahead of Josh Saxon.
"Havoc," Valor said in a warm tone as he looked at his brother.
The sun spilled across the lifeless gray stone and the statue took on a glow of color that spread across his skin, into his pale green eyes and up to the roots of his dark bronze hair. With a wolfish grin, Havoc kicked away the plastic wrap clinging to his legs and stepped out of the wooden box. He pulled his brother into a bone-cracking bear hug. "You look good," Havoc muttered in a voice rough with emotion.
Valor shoved him away and growled, "You wouldn't be so affectionate if you knew I've waited eight hundred years to flatten you."
"What for?" Havoc asked. His teeth flashed in a wide grin.
"For getting us stuck behind that wall." Then Valor grabbed Havoc as if he couldn't help himself and gave his brother another fierce hug.
"I can't believe you guys would risk turning yourselves to stone in a country where the sun only shines three days a year," I offered cynically.
Havoc turned his head and found me in the shadows. Like his brother, he wore a blue tattoo on his neck, though the design was different. He also wore a couple of gold rings on his fingers, inset with colorful f
lat stones. As I watched, his wings folded down into a black vest that wrapped across his chest and back. His eyes glinted with interest as his gaze dropped to my feet then moved back up to my face again. "Where'd you find the pretty little human?"
Valor flicked his gaze at me. His mouth pulled into a one-sided smile as he reached up with one hand and rubbed the back of his neck. "Underneath a big red box."
Appalled that he would share this information, I shot him a dirty look. Then I introduced myself to his brother as I stepped forward and stuck out my hand. "I'm MacKenzie."
Havoc grasped my forearm just below my elbow then took my hand and showed me how I should do the same. "Jolly awesome to meet you," he said.
I laughed at the weird combination of new and old language. I was pretty sure I was gonna like Havoc.
"Where are we?" he asked, and rubbed his hands together as if he was glad to be back among the living. "America?"
"Colorado," I confirmed.
He stepped over to the open garage doors and looked up at the clear blue skies. "It's glorious here," he proclaimed enthusiastically. "Much nicer than back home."
Having spent some time in England, I had to agree. Colorado weather is hard to beat. Even in winter, it's sunny and dry. As far as I'm concerned, Colorado winters are better than British summers.
"Let's get this other crate open," Valor suggested, getting right back to business. "I'm hoping Dare is in there."
"Okay," Havoc replied. He caught my eye and sent me a private grin. "But if it's Victor, we leave him in the dark. Agreed?"
Valor's smile was wry. "Agreed."
"What's wrong with Victor?" I questioned. I wondered if their cousin was a jerk or something.
"Nothing," Havoc grunted. He used the claw foot hammer on one side of the crate while Valor worked on the other side with the crowbar. "That's the problem."
The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4) Page 4