by Anton Strout
I took the stone using just the tips of my claws to grab it and examined it. There were many facets and the inside of it seemed to swirl in a pale green cloud of mist. “Is this a part of me?” I asked.
She nodded, then set her glass aside. “I think I’ve even worked out how to implant it.”
“Stanis is getting implants,” Marshall said with a snicker, which I did not understand, and now did not seem the proper time to ask.
Alexandra grabbed me by the wrist and walked me over to the workbench off to her right, away from the bottles and glasses. One of the maker’s books lay open there, and much like she had the night she introduced me to her friends, she laid her hands on the smooth stone of my chest and incanted the words written on the page. I still did not understand the language, but I felt the effects of her words as they washed over me. The stone deep in the center of my chest twisted with sharp jags of pain and unwound as it had done the time before. The sensation was strange, but my growing familiarity with it brought back memories of the way her great-great-grandfather had worked his arcane knowledge over me so many years ago. There was comfort in her efforts and I found I welcomed it despite the pain involved.
She pulled her hand away, revealing the knot work symbols carved there with its four indentations marking the slots for the stones.
“Is this like Operation?” Rory asked. “Maybe this stone restores his funny bone…”
“Each piece has its own shape,” Alexandra said, raising her hand with the gem in it, spinning it around and trying it in each of the slots. When it finally settled in the one on my left side, she stopped. “There.” She looked up into my eyes. “You ready?”
I nodded.
She pressed her right hand over her left and turned back to the book. When she spoke this time, a calming warmth spread through me, radiating quickly from her hand throughout my whole body. I welcomed it, basking in the sensation…until it kept growing, burning. Every piece of me, even the tips of my wings, felt as if it were on fire and I could only imagine this was what true and total pain felt like. I held my place while she worked her arcane words on me, the claws on my feet involuntarily digging into the wood of the floor beneath me, tearing great strips of it away. The gem gave way to the stone of the intricate knot work, bonding to me.
A flash of new memories washed through my head, driving like a spike into the center of my being. Walls of stone rose up all around me, but I did not get long to assess where I was. All of it was lost as the core of the memory took hold of me. The sensation of crushing weight filled my body, every part of me screaming out until the world went dark and silent as I stumbled forward, once more in the study with the maker’s kin’s hand still against me. At the center of my body the stone and the setting were becoming one as the pattern coiled in on itself once again, closing up, my chest restored to its smoothed-over state.
Alexandra’s hand felt warm against my chest, and strangely I did not want her to pull it away from me, but her arm dropped, exhausted, as she stared at the spot.
“How do you feel?” she asked with trepidation in her voice. Her face was flushed.
The unbearable heat ebbed away from me, dying down in my chest, leaving me with a strange connection to Alexandra as if her hand were still against me. I sensed she felt it, too.
I uncurled my claws. “I think I am fine,” I said. “Although there was a memory of great pain, weight crushing down on me.”
“Are you all right now?” Aurora asked.
I nodded.
“Other than that, do you feel any different?” Marshall asked.
I turned to him. “Not that I am aware of, no.”
I was not sure what I was prepared for, but other than the flash of pain from the past, I had not expected nothing. I pressed my hand against my own chest, half thinking the stone would be where I could feel it, but the stone there was smooth now.
Rory raised her glass to me. “Glad we almost died for nothing,” she said, then tipped the glass to her lips, emptying the half-full vessel.
I looked to her, then back at Alexandra. “Died? Where exactly did you find this piece?” I asked.
Alexandra laughed, then crossed back to her glass and a small leather notebook sitting by it. “I’ve been doing my homework while you were busy being petrified by daylight,” she said, raising her glass as well. “My great-great-grandfather wrote about where the four stones are hidden, but he does not make it easy to find them. After running through several of his resource books here, I pieced together some notes of my own. We found this first stone as part of one of the statues Alexander did for the early subway system lines.”
I pointed at the blue-haired one. “To be clear, what does she mean when she says you almost died?”
“It means we went through some serious shit,” Marshall said, bravado mixed with nervousness in his words. By his gentle sway back and forth, I believed he was what humans referred to as drunk. “Crawling down the train tracks, almost getting run over, fighting a metric ton of large stone statuary that came to life.”
“That would explain why I awoke feeling that lingering sensation of alert,” I said. “Without being able to deal with the incident during daylight, my body still somehow felt the connection, experiencing some of it.” I felt the sensation returning, then realized, no, this was different. Something unfamiliar began to fill me, and I could not help but react to it—I was angered.
“I do not appreciate when you needlessly put yourself in harm’s way,” I said, my voice rising to a low growl. “You make it very hard for me to do what I was made to do.”
“Hey!” the male one said. He stepped with a stagger between Alexandra and me. The young man looked like he might be ill, but his words came out strong nonetheless. “It sounds like pretty poor planning to make a protector who can only do his job fifty percent of the time, in darkness. Most of that Lexi spends asleep!”
“I have watched over this family for centuries,” I said, moving close to him, staring down to meet his eyes with mine. My hands closed into fists, my own claws digging into the palms of my hands. “I will not be lectured by one who is not the maker’s kin.”
“But seriously, Lexi,” he continued on, turning to her, unfazed by the threat of me. “Did he think your family would just be peachy-keen fine during the day?”
This, to my surprise, seemed only to fill me with a deeper anger, my voice coming out in low, measured tones. “Alexander was a great man. I will not stand by and hear anything less than that. Do you understand my words? It was always his intent to make my kind able to function during the daylight hours, but he passed away far too soon for that. Do not speak ill of him.”
“I’d just like some answers,” he said, an earnest and angry quality to his words. “It seems pretty ridiculous to me. I mean, how much protection do we really need while sleeping?”
“Maybe you should take a break,” the blue-haired one said, lifting his glass out of his hand.
I could not control this long-dormant but growing feeling of anger. I lashed out, grabbing the man by the front of his jacket, my claws tearing though the heavy cloth of it with ease. I stormed across the room and out onto the terrace, one of my wings catching on one of the doors, pulling it from its hinges as I passed. “Trust me,” I said, throwing him into the open air up above the balcony. He flew several stories upward, his arms and legs flailing like he might somehow gain the power of flight, his mouth locked in a silent scream. I leapt into the air, wings spreading as I rose to meet him on his descent. I let him drop past me, then grabbed him by one leg. I landed on the edge of the balcony, dangling the fragile human over the edge. “Your kind does need protecting.”
“Let me go!” he shouted, his voice coming out much higher than normal, panic in his words. He reached for the ledge, but it was not close enough. “No! Wait!”
I stood there on the ledge, unmoving, leaving him struggling and failing to catch hold of the side of the building. There was…satisfaction in that, I discovered. I rocked my arm b
ack and forth, swaying him away from the side of the building.
“Stanis!” the maker’s kin shouted. “Stop it!”
I froze in my actions, the power in her words binding me in place.
“Easy, now,” the blue-haired one said.
“Put him down,” Alexandra said, concern rolling off her with a nervous smile on her face, then added, “on the terrace.”
Part of me resisted, a part I had never felt before. The sensation was so unfamiliar that I snapped to, finding a comfortable familiarity in doing what she said. I pulled my arm back over to the terrace side. The man grabbed hold of the carved ledge and held on to it until I lowered my arm. He pulled away from me, rolling onto the open area of the terrace before scrambling to his feet and clutching the edge of the remaining door.
He pulled up his pant leg, revealing broken skin. “I’m bleeding!” he said. I recognized the look in his eyes. I had come to know fear when I saw it in these creatures.
I looked down to examine the tiny breaks in his skin, blood running from them like tiny red rivers. I raised my hand, examining my claws, the tips of them coated in the same red.
“Stanis!” Alexandra scolded, eyes wide, fear and anger in them. “What was that all about?”
My initial sensation of newfound anger faded, changing to one I was more familiar with—curiosity.
“I am not certain,” I said, unable to look away from the innocent man’s blood on my claws.
The blue-haired one went over to Marshall, who was already hobbling toward the metal stairs leading down the outside of the building.
“You are not taking the fire escape,” the blue-haired one said. She slid her arm under his and turned him to face the doors leading into the building. “We’re taking the elevator, even though we risk running into her family.”
Marshall gave me a brief look before shifting his glance quickly to Alexandra. “Learn to control that…thing,” he said, but my maker’s kin was already shaking her head.
“He won’t hurt you again,” Alexandra said, her anger dropping away. “Our bond together is growing. We’re just working out the kinks.” She turned her pleading eyes toward me. “Right, Stan? Tell them it’s safe. Tell them you are safe.”
I thought for a long moment before answering with a shake of my head. “That I cannot do,” I said. “That gem awoke something inside me, something I have not felt in…I do not know how long.”
The blue-haired one backed the man through the French doors and into the building. “Learn to control that thing, Lexi,” she said, shaking her head.
“Thing is right,” Marshall added.
“Stanis is not a thing!” Alexandra called after them, but they kept on walking. “Don’t go! This is all new to us. There’s going to be tough times with this. He’s not dangerous to us!”
The dark red of my claws contradicted that, only clouding what little understanding I had of the feelings that had awakened in me tonight. “Perhaps they have the right idea,” I said, spreading my wings wide behind me. “I must go.”
Confusion filled her face, and her eyes darted back and forth from them to me. “No,” she said, her voice on the hard edge of panic. “Don’t! I…I forbid it.”
“You can not forbid such a thing,” I said, resolve in my voice. “My primary function is to protect you and it is clear right now that I pose a greater threat than the protection I provide. This I cannot abide. Mine is to protect. Therefore, for your safety, I must go for now. I need time to consider all of this and what it truly means.”
Alexandra went to protest, but I saw little point in allowing it to continue on any further. I pressed off into the night sky above, rising higher and farther away with each flap of my wings. Despite my rapid ascent, I was shocked to feel a hint of pain growing in my chest. It was even more of a surprise when I realized it was not just my own I was feeling.
Twenty three
Alexandra
I crashed hard that night, what with Stanis gone and neither Rory nor Marshall returning my calls. Images of large stone statues chasing me through endless subway tunnels filled my dreams that night. I dared to call them dreams because they varied from the actual events of yesterday afternoon. In them, Stanis flew to my rescue underground on the old disused subway platform each and every time, although my heart still wanted to explode with panic every moment leading up to it, filled with mind-numbing peril.
I awoke to find his solid stone form perched motionless outside on the terrace of my great-great-grandfather’s studio, where I had fallen asleep with his master tome still open on my lap. Had the panic in my dreams been enough for him to sense it, calling him back to watch over me after flying off so abruptly? Surely that kind of emotional response to come and watch over me meant that Stanis was more than I had previously taken him for, far more capable of humanity than my friends right now. Was such a thing even possible? I wasn’t sure, but seeing him there instilled in me some kind of hope that he was much more than I originally gave him credit for.
There he stood watching over me nonetheless, and there he was still standing when I got back from a day of real estate pimping. Compared to the chaos of the past few says, doing normal business things was a nice break. But still, by late afternoon, I had resolved myself to get back to solving some of the mysteries surrounding my great-great-grandfather’s secret life’s work.
When Rory showed up I had already changed back into a tank top and overalls, committing myself once again to research and building mode in the family library. She came up the fire escape, stopping to check out the inert gargoyle on the terrace before coming in through the newly rehung French doors. Rory crossed the room to the far end of the art studio where I was studying the stone book of arcane knowledge, a noticeable limp to her gait. I hid my sheepishness by pointing to her leg.
“You okay?” I asked, holding my place in the book with my finger.
Rory nodded. “Between yesterday’s antics, hobbling Marshall out of here, and the five-hour contemporary dance workshop today, my body’s a bit worse for the wear and tear,” she said, flexing herself up on point. “I’m too young to be complaining like this, I know, but life’s been a bit busy lately.” She looked back over her shoulder at the gargoyle out on the terrace, then back at me. “How’re you?”
“I slept like the dead,” I said. “I don’t know when Tall, Gray, and Stony set up camp out there, but I have a feeling my night terrors over those statues attacking us down in that abandoned subway station might have something to do with that. I also had a horrible dream that I worked in real estate, but then I woke up and realized it was no dream and had to go to work.”
Rory laughed at that, shattering the discomfort from last night, and I knew we were good. Or at least we would be.
She nodded at the book. “What’s going on?” Her eyes glanced over to a cloth I had draped over my latest project, the fabric twitching a little. Rory took a step back from the art studio toward the library. “You haven’t been animating things again, have you?”
I nodded. Rory took another, warier step back.
“Forget everything that happened with the little clay man,” I said. “Promise?”
Rory eyed me with growing suspicion. “Why? What did you do?”
“Relax. I think I’ve found a way to keep any sort of trickster spirit from inhabiting my new project. I think you’ll be happy, but promise me that you won’t do anything crazy.”
She let out a long and wary breath. “Fine,” she said.
“Good.” I pulled the cloth away, revealing the surprise on my worktable.
Standing no higher than a person’s knee was a tiny figure. Its “body” consisted of a full red brick with a toothy, smiling face and wide cartoon eyes I had painted on it. Thin arms and legs of metal wiring covered in clay stuck out of it, giving it a crude Mr. Potato Head sort of look. It swayed back and forth, a little unsteady on its blocky wooden feet.
“Is this one homicidal, too?” Rory asked. She stepped back from
it, grabbing ahold of one of the heavy stone statuettes on the shelf next to her.
“Easy,” I said, my face beaming with pride. “I think this little guy is harmless.”
Rory paused, then bent forward to give it a closer look. “You sure? What did you do this time?”
“Well, Jewish mystics would probably call this version a golem, which it kind of is. When I tried this before, I was attempting to press my will into the clay, which left it open for other spirits to gain control of it. But I’ve been reading up. In this spirited little guy here, what I did was animate the stone alchemically.”
“Spirited?” Rory asked, moving farther back from it again. “Is this thing truly living?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “Not like you and me, but all things in this world are living by nature. The trick is how to invoke it, to transmute the material. I don’t think it explains how something as complex as Stanis is constructed, but it’s definitely an improvement over last time.”
Rory laughed. “He still looks potentially dangerous, Lexi.”
“He does?”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s a brick, Lexi. Clearly you’ve never been menaced by someone holding a brick before.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Bricksley’s mostly harmless.”
“Bricksley?”
I looked down at my new little friend. “Not the most original, I know, but doesn’t he just look like a Bricksley?” Rory looked at me like I was crazy, and my face went flush. “The naming of things holds a power, too. To name something—like the wind or this little figure here—binds it to you. It’s how I control him. Besides, with a name like that, he sounds like a little butler, doesn’t he?”
Rory looked down at the little figure. “Bricksley!” she shouted out like a drill sergeant. “Bring me a book.”
The tiny golem stayed where he was. I stepped closer to the little figure and did my best to sound authoritative.
“Bricksley! Fetch me that book on the table by the couch.”
The little brick figure jumped down off the table, turned like a toddler, and stumbled off to the coffee table across the room. When it got there, it hit the edge of the table, scooped up the book in both of its tiny hands, and started back across the room toward us. With the giant book in his hands, I couldn’t help but laugh.