by Joey Ruff
“Speaking of the tunnel…what in the sodding hell was with the light show?”
“You mean the troll?”
“Yes, the bloody troll. It met the gryphon, sparks flew…I guess you could say they had chemistry…”
“That’s…actually a really good way to put it.”
“Referring to it like a dating game?”
“No, chemistry.” He glanced over at me. “I’m just guessing here. Well, hypothesizing. The troll was anchored to this time by emotion. That’s the way I understand it, anyway. Its hatred for you kept it coming back.”
“Something like that.”
“We know trolls and gryphons are natural enemies. Think of them as equal, yet opposite. You have a ghost gryphon, which, we’ll think of as a negative number. With the troll – who for all intents and purposes, we’ll call a ghost, as well – is a positive. He existed, where the gryphon manifested as negative space. If they’re equal, yet opposite, adding them together would give you zero. Negative one plus positive one… When the two met, they cancelled each other out.”
“This is sounding more like arithmetic than chemistry.”
“I was going to compare it to combining an acid and a base.”
“Or, here’s my theory. Being natural enemies, the emotion brought out in one by the other was enough of a catalyst to allow both to crossover. The troll didn’t disappear in a whisper like before, so maybe Hux’s spell is broken?”
Ape shrugged. “Maybe. But that’s basically the same thing I said.”
“I didn’t understand what the hell you said. You think we’ll see it again?”
“Don’t know.”
I thought of Huxley’s words, how if the troll wasn’t gone for good, maybe it had another purpose.
“Well, fuck that. It seems to be gone for now, and that’s all I care about.” I tried to refocus, but the image of Chuck being attacked lingered in my mind. I stared out the window as we drove, watching the world pass. After a minute, I said, “We can’t leave Chuck down there.”
Ape’s voice got quiet. “I know. We’ll put this thing to bed and go back for him.”
“He deserves a hero’s funeral.”
“I don’t think his family would appreciate that. At least, not the way the Hand does it.”
“That’s a king’s funeral,” I said.
By the time we reached the gate and pulled out onto the main road, it was already dark. Ape said, “How do we keep the gargoyles hidden from the public?”
I had no fucking idea. “One problem at a time.”
Before we’d even gone a mile, the rain began to patter against the windshield. Ahead, thick blankets of fog were rolling in off the water. Lightning flashed, and a loud peal of thunder tore through the night.
“Aegir knows what’s coming for him,” I said. My arm surged with heat as if freshly branded, but I ignored it.
Another few miles and the rain was coming down in sheets and blowing sideways with the howling wind. I couldn’t see for shit.
“This is gonna slow us down,” he said.
“Just go slow. We’ll get there.”
“This is just what we need.”
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “If we can’t see anything, nobody else will be able to either.” Despite the tension, I found myself smiling a little. “One problem at a time.”
37
We stopped at the first hospital we found and dropped Stone off with a nurse at the emergency entrance. We didn’t stick around to see her settled in.
As Ape peeled out of the parking lot and headed north, he said, “Nadia and Jamie are at the mall uptown. If he’s really some kind of Halfling like you’re suggesting, they may be in trouble.”
“Are you saying this to try to make me feel better? Because it isn’t working.” My hands kept fidgeting as I looked out the window at the fog that had swept in over the city like the tide and clung to the sides of every building. White like frayed cotton shrouded any visible light and hung thick and heavy in the air.
Wind raged and howled in a near-constant state. The first traffic light that came into view hung nearly sideways on its suspension cable. Between the wind, rain and occasional hail, this was going to be a hell of a storm. A sudden boom of thunder punctuated my thought. Shit. This was going to get messy if we didn’t move…fast.
“I wonder if the weatherman saw any of this coming?”
Ape stifled a laugh. “Well, when we get to the mall, you can ask him.”
I didn’t put much faith in prayer anymore, but I found myself trying to negotiate a deal in my head: There’s a lot of innocent people in this city. If you don’t get me safely through this fog, they’re all gonna fucking die. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at the scoreboard, but I think you at least owe me this one. It wasn’t prayer so much. It was appealing to the Big Man’s rants about loving the world so fucking much.
It seemed to work. Ape kept his wits about him, and while we drove slowly, we kept moving. Not a lot was said, and the radio played low. I tried to focus on the music, but it didn’t stop my thoughts from raging more violent than the winds. I thought about what Ape had said, about losing one daughter already. I was a pretty shitty dad where Nadia was concerned, but I wasn’t about to lose her.
“Can we go any faster?”
He didn’t say anything.
When the song ended, a news broadcast came on the radio, and Ape turned it up. I was waiting to hear something about monster sightings, but it was all weather and traffic accidents caused by the weather. It didn’t surprise me. The fog was so thick in most places we couldn’t see three feet in front of the bumper. When the news was over, a Zeppelin tune came on, but he turned the volume low again.
Eventually, Ape turned into a parking lot, and while the sign that signaled our destination was lit up like the fourth of July, the ambient light was all but completely swallowed by the thick blanket of white that swallowed everything else.
The parking lot was completely full. A column of cars stood to either side of us as we crawled along. Before us, like the rising of the sun, the lights of the mall began to shine through, and then the mall stood before us as if it had just been conjured to appear.
We parked along the curb. It was quiet when I opened my door, and the fog crept in like fingers and ran along my spine with a chill.
“We need to be careful,” Ape said in a near whisper. “We don’t know what’s out here.”
“Relax,” I said. I stood from the car and shut the door.
As I stood facing the entrance to the mall, I realized how eerily silent it was. It wasn’t natural. Behind me, something hit the hood with a loud, hollow thump. It startled me, but before I could turn, there was a second and third, followed by a screeching that sounded like the slow, creaking groan of an old door. It was answered by another, more prehistoric cry.
I turned to see blurred, milky shapes take form on the vehicle. There were three. They didn’t seem to have a purpose beyond resting. The savage winds that howled overhead were fierce. Maybe these had been forced from the skies.
As two of the shapes meandered about, one adventurous little bugger happened my way, stepping from the fog as if from between sheer curtains. With a flutter of its tiny arms, it leapt at me and perched atop one of the stone columns that marked either side of the walkway. It watched me curiously.
It was small, maybe two feet, and looked like a dinosaur. Its snout was long, its eyes were small, and the back of its head came to a forked point with the straight, gazelle-like horns that came back off its brows. Dark, straw-like hair swept from between the horns to the middle of its back. Unlike the others I’d seen so far, this one didn’t have wings separate from its arms. Rather, it had hands at the tips of its wings, and it moved very apishly with its tiny legs and huge, spidery forearms.
I moved for the car, but the creature hissed angrily, and I hesitated. Its eyes narrowed. Its body tensed.
Grace came up quick as it leapt at me. I fired
, but the gargoyle clung to the side of the barrel and the charge blew the glass from the passenger door into the cab. Ape was already out of the vehicle, starting to yell at me when he saw the tiny gargoyles.
One turned to him with a shriek and leapt at his face. He wasn’t expecting it, screamed, and dropped to the ground.
The third took to the air and came at me. I snapped Grace forward and jerked her back quickly, launching the one that clung to her barrel. It toppled, end over end, through the air and collided with the other mid-flight. Together, they crashed into the panel above the front wheel well, fell, and rolled into the fog.
Ape regained his feet and spun as the thing clung to his face. He shook and bobbed up and down as his fingers fought for purchase around the creature’s tight hold. He grabbed the tail and pulled fiercely, but it didn’t move. He screamed louder as he pulled harder, and it slipped further from his face. He pulled up on the tail and ducked out of its grasp.
Blood trickled at his temples as he came up, and he grabbed the gargoyle’s head in one meaty hand. This one apparently didn’t have horns. He threw it against the ground and then stomped it hard against the pavement with a snap and crack.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of movement, but when I spun to it, there was nothing there. My eyes scanned up and around nervously.
I stepped between the stone pillars and entered the little courtyard just outside of the mall entrance. The car was behind me, and on either side, walls and windows where the stores jutted out. Above me, the fog floated thick like a canopy. I couldn’t shake the ominous feeling. “Get your sword, mate. We need to get inside.”
Movement to my right spun my attention towards the camera store as one of the small gargoyles shrieked and leapt at me. Grace swung around, and as I took a step back, I fired. A column of bright orange flame shot from the tip of the gun, seared through the fog, and blackened the little imp into a crispy briquette.
With the wind surging around me, the flame didn’t last its full duration and faded to a shower of sputtering sparks. The charcoaled gargoyle flaked to ash and black soot swirled around in the gale.
The third gargoyle took to the sky and tossed around in the up-current as it ascended. Once it was about ten feet in the air, it let out a loud, shrill cry that sounded almost like an alarm.
Ape came around from the trunk, sword in hand, and said, “Stop it!”
I pulled Grace up quickly and fired. A bolo cable burst from the barrel and caught the gargoyle around the wings, dropping it like a load.
It was still shrieking as I approached it, and I placed my boot heel against its head and applied pressure until the wailing stopped and fluid oozed beneath my sole.
All I could hear was the wind as it howled around us. Ape must’ve sensed something I didn’t.
“Dammit!” he said. “Too late.”
“What do you mean too late?”
Hulking shadow forms appeared in the air around us.
Ape was in motion, running for the mall entrance and yelling, “Jono! Come on!”
He rushed past me, and I moved backward, keeping an eye on the sky around me as the first of the gargoyles landed on the other side of Ape’s car. At nearly ten feet, if it had been any bigger, it would’ve been a fucking mountain. Its eyes were hard as it saw me, and it bent low and grabbed the Renault, hoisting it in the air.
I spun to the mall and broke into a full sprint. Ape had already reached the glass doors and was holding one open, and I was almost inside when Ape noticed his new baby in the claws of the monster.
Opening the second set of double doors, I reached back and grabbed Ape by the elbow. His face had turned ashen white and his eyes had gone wide. I tugged him once, but he didn’t budge.
“Come on!” I said and yanked his arm again. Reluctantly, he pulled away, and we dove onto the cold, hard tile.
The gargoyle hurled the car through the air.
We were both sprawled out on the ground in front of the three-sided map display. Ape kicked me in the stomach and sent me sliding across the tile. My back hit the wall outside of a camera store in a sudden, painful stop.
There was a huge crunch of glass and the groaning of steel as the car hit the first, and then second, wave of double doors. From where I lay, I watched Ape. His eyes met mine for a minute, maybe checking to make sure I was out of the way. Then he was gone, as the car crushed down on top of him. But it didn’t stop. Its momentum bounced it back up. It tore through the map, taking Ape with it, and bounced two more times before it smacked a dent into the elevator shaft in the center of the mall and came to rest on its tires. Every ounce of glass was shattered, the doors hung crooked, and the trunk slacked open in a yawn.
Ape was nowhere to be seen.
What I did see, however, was Glory, my SG 550 assault rifle, lying about the place the map had once stood. She had been thrown from the trunk – along with all the ammo I’d just bought – and I pulled myself to my feet and hobbled over to her.
Voices began to murmur in nervous, hushed tones all around me, and I looked around to see a hundred people sticking their heads out of stores along the corridor or gathering around the car that had been suddenly propelled into the middle of the mall.
With Glory in hand, I spun back to the entrance. Glass shards pebbled the ground and the steel girders that stood between each set of double doors were bent inward towards me. Beyond that, a form lumbered through the fog into view.
The mountainous gargoyle hobbled slowly forward and stopped at the cusp of the entrance. It was taller than the doorway, and the curving horns on the top of its head, thick as a man’s arm, corkscrewed up and out of sight. It was a midnight blue, and its eyes glowed with white light while the talons on the tips of its fingers clicked together, loud and rhythmic.
Behind me, people screamed and yelled while others sent up a chorus of words and phrases that all seemed to say, “What the hell is that thing?”
Three more appeared on either side of the first, each as ugly and formidable. Some stood tall while others hunched over under their own menacing weight. There were twists and spirals of fangs and horns. Lizard-like tails swept back and forth behind them. A second row of creatures appeared behind the first and a nondescript third row of fog-blurred others materialized slowly behind that.
For the span of a dozen heartbeats, there wasn’t a single sound or motion in the entire mall. Then the mountainous gargoyle in the center howled, and the others pounced forward into the corridor, running on all fours, their wings folding like umbrellas over their shoulders.
Glory fired. With every bullet that hit, fluid burst and oozed from the creatures. Glory slowed them just a fraction, but they weren’t deterred. If anything, they were just a little more pissed off. Story of my fucking life.
They blew past me into the mall’s interior and I realized I had to change tactics, but what? I was one man fending off a mall full of innocents from a legion of earth dragons whose only weakness was…
A young man screamed and broke from the camera store to my left, running towards the elevator behind me. One of the gargoyles growled and sprinted after him, pouncing, and taking him to the ground. I heard him scream, but didn’t turn to look. Out of the corners of my eyes, I could see the huddled groups of shoppers that were barricading the entrances into the stores. They were worried, confused. Terrified children sobbed and clung tightly to their mothers’ legs.
Fucking kids. The noise they made was distracting. I had to focus, but was starting to feel overwhelmed. Huxley’s first rule: always appear confident. I took a deep breath. Too much at once. Too many monsters coming too fast. I needed to hold them off.
I tossed Glory to the side and pulled Grace. Flares shot to the right and left and kept two of the gargoyles at bay for a moment while I chambered two dragon’s breath rounds. I caught the nearest in a column of orange light. It reared back and the sound that escaped from its mouth sounded like the whistle of a firecracker. The skin on its face and chest b
ubbled and popped, continuing to sizzle even after it toppled on its side, legs twitching.
The crowd behind me screamed as a collective, and I turned to see the man that had run. He was dead. Grey barbs what looked like thorns had appeared over the man’s face, which meant only one thing: he wasn’t human. The gargoyle was hunched over the man’s body, its teeth tearing into the meat where his neck had been while the machete-like claws on its fingers julienned his shirt and hollowed out his chest. Where the claws touched the man’s skin, there was smoke, and the scent of fried meat filled the air as the wounds immediately cauterized.
When it saw me looking, it began to sniff. Then it dropped the man and stood.
I thought of what happened in the cave, but before I could turn Grace on it, it turned away from me and advanced towards the downed car where it reared back on its hind legs – standing maybe seven feet – and unfolded its wings to make it appear as large as possible.
It was a scare tactic. Undoubtedly, it could smell other Halflings in the mall, possibly even in the crowd before it. Unprovoked, it wouldn’t attack humans, but it used intimidation to try to flush out the ones who weren’t from the crowd.
The only problem was that the scare tactic worked – on everyone. I mean, to the uninitiated, the thing must’ve looked like a demon as portrayed on the cover of death metal albums and late-night horror movies. Men, women and children ran screaming, some for the exits, others for cover. They scattered in such a fashion that it was impossible for the gargoyle to chase each one, but as they spread, the scents were undoubtedly easier to single out. It pounced on a tall, lanky man.
As he screamed, I ran towards the elevator, towards him.
A snarl rent the air behind me and something sharp tore into my leg, piercing my calf muscle and dropping me to the ground. Grace clattered from my hand, but not before I pulled the trigger and a column of flame hissed from her lips.