“My father was leader. At his death, I took his place.”
“So you are a king?”
“Not quite.” He went to the couch in front of the fireplace and sat down. There was a natural elegance about him, so at odds with the warrior exterior. His wings folded around him with enough of an opening to allow her to still see his hands and chest. “While leadership is passed down through a bloodline, the Mennak must also be the strongest. Any gargoyle may issue challenge to claim the title.”
“Mennak?”
“The title of the leader.”
“What kind of challenge?”
He didn’t answer, not in words, but the way the question made his eyes flicker from hers answered it anyway. Before the Collision, the Magic Realm was closely related to Earth’s medieval feudal societies. She knew that as a fact found in books and as lectures written in chalk, but it never impressed itself upon her as deeply as right now.
Terak rose then. He motioned around the room. “These books contain histories created by gargoyles of all the races, dating back tens of thousands of years from the Magic Realm, information that can only be found in this one room. They are observations, studies of outsiders looking in. There are very few interactions between my people and those of the outside world. Gargoyles have long kept ourselves apart from the other races. But with the Great Collision, many of my people wish to experience the New Realm not as outsiders, but as part of the fabric of this new world.”
“It’s a worthy goal,” Larissa said, not sure where he was going with this.
“It is hard to let go of millennia of suspicions – on both sides – but it must start somewhere. Perhaps the first step needed is a gargoyle helping a human woman escape from necromancers. Let us watch over you as a first step.”
So he was back to talking about guarding her. “You did that tonight. Why take it further?”
“Necromancers are an enemy of my people as well. Whatever plan you are part of can bring no good to anyone of this world. Not your people, nor mine.”
What if he was right? As terrifying as the night had been, there was comfort in the knowledge it was a case of horrific timing, an event that would never be repeated.
But if she had been targeted? If it was not some random woman on the street, but her they had been waiting for?
She plopped onto the couch, no strength left in her legs to hold her up. She looked at Terak, his sculpted face taking on a pinched expression of worry as he watched her. “You’re wrong,” she said, the tiny voice coming from her mouth sounding nothing like her.
He came to kneel before her. “I hope I am,” he said, putting one hand on the couch beside her leg. “But if I am not, I want to be there to protect you.”
Memory struck her, bringing to mind another question. “The woman and man from tonight, the ones who were also fighting the zombies – do you know who they are?”
“Yes. They are members of the Guild.”
The Guild. She had never heard of them. “Are they good guys?”
There was a considering pause before he answered. “They are protectors.”
“Of humans?”
“Of anyone the necromancers target.”
His words were very measured, and no way she was getting the whole story here. “You sound like you don’t like them.”
“Our history together is too complex to explore this late at night. Though we are not enemies, there have been clashes.”
Probably not the only moment in gargoyle history where a personality conflict occurred. “Fair enough. But you said they were protectors. What about going to them and letting them protect me? They’re supposed to protect humans, right?” And they seemed to be human themselves. Well, at least one of them did. Sorta.
Onyx eyes locked on to her, not allowing Larissa to look away. “They will protect you. They will protect you by locking you up in a room and allowing no one to come near you until they discover what use the necromancers have for you.”
His eyes were too dark, too direct. Larissa looked away, the flickering shadows over a millennia of knowledge drawing her attention.
Did this night have to keep getting worse? What were her options here?
If he was telling the truth, then trying to contact the Guild would amount to jail time. Any self-respecting cop’s kid had a healthy loathing at the thought of jail. And really, did she know anything more about them than she did the gargoyles?
Nope, she knew exactly the same about both groups – a big old zilch.
She should have… she should have learned. She could have done it without upsetting dad, and if she had bothered, and maybe she would know what decision to make. She had wanted to once, why didn’t it occur to her she was allowed to change her mind and go back to it?
Hindsight and all that. It didn’t change the now, and in the now, the only organization she could trust would be the police.
But she didn’t want her father involved in this. He could not know what was going on, not yet.
He would disagree with her, in loud and vehement tones. If he ever found out she was hiding tonight from him, he’d ream her up one side of the block and down the other, then proceed to tan her hide as he hadn’t done since she was a little girl.
He wouldn’t understand. He would be hurt that she didn’t come to him.
But… Larissa clenched her teeth hard against the image of the zombie that pushed itself to the front of her mind. She wouldn’t cry again. That was done with.
But she didn’t want him pitted against those creatures and that magic, that strength. He was a fighter through and through, but he wasn’t a young man anymore, and Dad had already gone through one war with the creatures brought here by the Great Collision, a battle that had cost him dearly. She never wanted him to go through that again.
Besides, if she was right – and I am right – this was a mistake. This was random. Bringing her father in on it would only cause problems for her. Dad would move her back to the family house in two seconds flat, the brothers carting her back kicking and screaming if that was what it took.
As much as she loved her father, she didn’t want that. She’d been gone from home not even a year. She didn’t want to lose her hard-won freedom.
Larissa focused again on Terak. His eyes were still steady on her, his jaw set as he waited to counter her next argument.
What she needed was time, time to figure out what was going on and somehow come up with a solution.
“How would you protect me?”
That jaw relaxed a fraction at her words. No doubt he considered the battle won. “You will go about your life and we will be near.”
“You expect me to go into the grocery store with my gargoyle bodyguard?”
And there it was again, that tiny curl to his lips that disappeared almost before it registered. She seemed to amuse him. “You will never know we are there. You will only see us should another attack occur.”
She didn’t see how it was possible something as big and alien as a gargoyle could hide in the city, but Terak radiated conviction. He absolutely believed she would never know they were near.
Which meant entering the city was not a one-time event or something he thought of as dangerous.
Which meant the wards – those magical barriers in which she had placed absolute trust and belief in for all these years – were worthless.
She got up, walking past the bookshelves, trying to ease the unsettled sensation in her stomach. All her life the wards had been an absolute – never worry about the outside races, the wards will keep them out. Had it always been a lie?
With a delicate touch she stroked the spine of a very old binding, breathing deep the scent of wondrous decay that always accompanied large libraries. The familiar and much-loved perfume helped release some of the tension holding fast in her shoulders, her arms, her back. One worry at a time. Right now, it was getting back home. “I won’t know you’re there?” she verified, taking up their conversation.
He
leaned forward a fraction. “No, you will not.”
Larissa gave a small laugh, rubbing the back of her neck as she returned to the couch. “It has to be the exhaustion, but I’m going to agree to this.” Before he could say anything she added, “As long as we have a few ground rules.”
While his face remained impassive, Larissa noticed the tip of his tail twitched. Interesting. She filed that away for future reference and went on. “First, we need a time limit. I don’t want to be an eighty-year-old granny wondering if a gargoyle is following me.”
“A year,” said Terak.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a month.”
Terak shook his head. “Necromancers are immortal. They can afford patience. One month is nothing to them. They will want to give you time to forget this and let down your guard.”
She sighed. He had a point. “Two months.”
“A year.”
“Three months.”
“A year.”
“You haven’t had much experience with negotiation, have you?”
His head tilted, as though even the thought was foreign and without precedent. “Most follow my orders without question.”
That’s right. He was the leader here. “Then let me be clear,” she said. “There is no way I’m agreeing to a year. Six months you can follow me around. After that, when there are no more attacks and you see how boring my life is, no more bodyguards. Agreed?”
There it was, another tail twitch, but his voice was steady when he replied, “Agreed. Six months. But when another attack does happen, we will renegotiate the time frame.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re kind of hoping I get jumped.”
“Not at all. I know this enemy and am preparing for battle instead of living in a dream world.”
Was that snark? Did he just snark at her? With that theater-actor voice and impassive face it was hard to tell, but she’d lay odds it was snark. Still, he was agreeing so far, so she didn’t comment and pressed on. “Rule two, I don’t want Valry to be one of my bodyguards.”
Forget his former impassiveness. Shock was now writ large across his face. “Valry?”
“Yes, the female gargoyle from the roof. I do not want her ever to guard me. Never ever. If it’s a choice between her and no one, you go with no one. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he said quickly. Too quickly. Her gut was right then. Joy.
“Third and final. If you’re right about all this – and that’s a big if – and you find something out about why I was targeted, you have to share with me. No handling things on your own. No plans without me knowing about them.”
“Why do you desire this?”
One thing this night taught her beyond all doubt – all males were lunkheads, all of them. She recognized that protect the poor helpless girl and don’t worry her little wee head tone. “I’m not stupid. I’m not going to run into a situation I have no business being in to show no one can boss me around. I’m not a warrior and tonight made that clear in large neon signage. But I deserve to know about events that concern me and help make the decisions on how to handle them.”
His jaw tightened as he considered her words. He really didn’t want to agree, she knew that like she knew her own name. But this was a deal-breaker.
He must have seen that determination in her face because he exhaled deeply. “Agreed. I will share all knowledge with you. However, if we find ourselves in battle, my words are absolute. You may not question my orders, you will obey.”
“That’s fair.” Larissa rose from the couch, holding her hand out to him. “I think we have a deal then.”
He rose as well, looking at her hand as if he had never seen the appendage before. “This is what humans call a handshake?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” It had been pure reflex to hold out her hand. She hadn’t considered it an unusual motion. Then again, not like she had much experience with any other race. “I wasn’t thinking…”
She started to pull her hand away, but before it moved even an inch Terak engulfed her hand with his.
His skin was warm, callouses and scars marking every inch resting against her palm. Up close his claws were more like mini-curved daggers.
“This is how humans become allies?” His voice had softened, the timbre dropping a few registers until it was a rough brush against her spine, and she fought the unexpected shiver, the first of the night that had nothing to do with fear.
“Yes.”
“Then make no mistake, little human. You are under my protection now, and I protect what is mine.”
Chapter Seven
The whoosh of students running past her in the hallways, the slamming of lockers, the girls talking about their hair and clothes and make-up and the boys talking about the girls – all welcome signs of normalcy to Larissa as she made her way to the first class of the morning.
The bell rang moments before she entered the door. “Okay everyone. Settle down and take your seats,” Larissa said as she headed toward her desk, placing her messenger bag on the chair and taking out graded papers and lesson plans.
Juvenile grumbling, paper rustling, and feet shuffling met Larissa’s words. The mood was not a shiny happy one.
Ah yes, what senior in high school didn’t love being up this early, especially on a Monday morning with only a few weeks until vacation. It was about time to petition for hazard pay.
Larissa handed out papers and accepted homework, answered some questions and shushed Jason Evans after he let out a wolf whistle when she passed. All in all, a normal Monday, making the events of this weekend seem even more surreal.
Necromancers after her? No, no.
A gargoyle protector? What an insane notion.
“Now,” said Larissa, coming to stand in front of the room. “We are going to get into a favorite topic for most. We are going to discuss the Great Collision.”
As expected, a hush fell over the room. No student could keep up the façade of indifference when the topic of the Great Collision came up, reason numero uno she always saved it for Mondays. “Twenty-six years ago, probably the most momentous moment in history outside of the actual creation of life occurred. I’ll let your science teachers explain the theories behind why it happened, parallel dimensions and quarks and neutrons and all that good stuff. That’s not for my discussion here.”
“You trying to tell us you weren’t a science genius, Miss Miller?”
Ah, Jason Evans, star quarterback and all around smart-ass. Class would not be the same if he didn’t inject his too cool for school attitude into her lectures at least once a day. “Science is wonderful, Mr. Evans. I do admit, though, I never had the head for it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask Mr. Patel to go into details for you. Anyway, the Great Collision. In layman’s terms…”
“Dummy terms!” Jason interjected.
“Layman’s terms,” Larissa continued on, not bothering to waste breath to engage him. “Our universe is composed of multiple dimensions, also sometimes called realms. How many is still a question the scientific community is grappling with, but that has no bearing here. What matters for our discussion is two of these realms collided. One realm was very similar to what you see around you every day – skyscrapers, cars, computers, cell phones – but humans were the only sentient race and no magic existed. I’m sure many of your parents have already told you stories about the good old days.”
Groans sounded then, followed by tales of parental misconduct. Larissa let it go for a few moments before bringing attention back to her. “The other realm was a realm of sword and sorcery. Elves and dwarves existed there, as well as countless other races and magical creatures. For simplicity, we have come to label these dimensions the Human Realm and the Magic Realm, though humans did exist in the Magic Realm. The difference is they weren’t the only sentient race.”
A hand rose at the back of the class. “Miss Miller, my mom told me we used to use oil and electricity for power, not magic.”
Larissa nodded. “T
hat is true. In the Great Collision, the Human Realm absorbed the Magic Realm. Earth is the same physically as it was before the collision. What changed is now Earth can sustain magic, which was not possible before. Once the chaos from the collision began to settle, wizards and mages were able to figure out how to supply our energy needs magically.”
“What’s the difference between a wizard and a mage?” a female voice interrupted. Taneasha Jackson reminded Larissa of herself at a younger age, too smart by half and surrounded by family who protected her to the point of suffocation. The young woman was more likely to be found in a library than at any of the school events.
“Good question,” said Larissa. “A wizard is someone who channels magic through spells and items. A mage is someone with an inborn gift for magic and channels magic from themselves. Mages are much rarer and more powerful, but they usually are more limited. They have a gift for a certain type of magic and can only create spells that use that classification of magic. Different classifications include transmutation, illusion, conjuration-”
“Necromancy. Are we going to talk about necromancers?” asked Jason, in a sly voice with a little too much enthusiasm backing it.
“Not as much as you probably want,” Larissa said. Not at all, if she had a choice. An eye hanging out of its socket, and she rubbed the heel of her palm against her forehead as if the motion could erase the image. “Why are you not supposed to be so excited over necromancers?”
In the tone of someone who is humoring you and wants you to know it, Jason said, “They derive their power from death.”
“Exactly,” said Larissa.
“But all the girls love vampires, and I’d look hot with red eyes,” Jason said, causing some girls to giggle and smile in his direction.
“Yes, well, while all vampires are necromancers, not every necromancer is a vampire. Only the strongest of necromancers become true vampires.”
Jason leaned back in his seat, a satisfied smirk on his face. “Gives me something to work for, then I’d have an eternity with the ladies.” The guys all started high-fiving amid themselves, and Larissa shushed them before the words got too far out of hand.
Stone Guardian (Entwined Realms) Page 5