by Anton Strout
“Sorry,” I said. “Sugar rush.”
“What did you buy for us?” Rory asked, clapping her hands together with the same kind of false excitement, which I found adorable.
“I didn’t buy anything,” he said. “I made these . . . for the two of you.”
“It’s not even Christmas yet,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you made it until the holidays, what with the way things have been going with you lately.”
I gave Marshall a grim smile and pulled the drawstring open. Inside were two small bundles of dark gray cloth. I pulled both of them out, the fabric reminding me of a cotton jersey material that at the same time also felt impossibly coated with something weather-resistant.
I laid the now-empty bag down and shook out the cloth, which upon examination was really more of an infinity scarf that ran in a circular sleeve that was wider along one side of it.
“You made us hoodies?” I asked, throwing the second one over to Rory.
Marshall shook his head. “Just hoods,” he said, practically giddy. “Try them on.”
I slid the cloth sleeve over my head and wrapped the scarf section around my neck before pulling up the hood.
“It’s comfy and all,” I said, “but I don’t get why you got us matching outfits. You do know it’s generally bad form to gift a woman clothing, right?”
Marshall pointed over at Rory and I looked at her. She had also put Marshall’s gift on, and despite the daylight streaming in through the front of the store, I couldn’t see Rory at all within the shadows of the hood.
“Your face is gone!” I said.
“Yours, too,” she said, reaching for mine.
“Is it?” I reached for her, my hand vanishing into the darkness within the hood until I ended up grabbing Rory’s nose somewhere within the unnatural shadow.
“Neat!” Rory said.
“There’s not a lot I can do when we’re out on the hunt,” Marshall said. “Other than take notes for my monster manual. I don’t possess any skill like Spellmasonry and I certainly don’t fight like Rory can, but I can do some things that can help keep you two safe. There’s already enough footage popping up online involving gargoyles and some blurry footage of you two scurrying away from dealing with them. These should at least help keep your identities better hidden.”
“You know what this means?” Rory asked, looking really creepy talking while faceless. “We’re superheroes now!”
I laughed. “A costume kind of cinches that, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Marshall nodded. “Now try to take them off,” he said.
A statement like that instilled a little ball of dread in me, but I did as he asked. I ran my fingers up over my forehead to swipe the hood back, but they met with resistance. Closing my hand over the edge of the hood, I gripped it tight and pulled. Only then did the hood come off, and only by using a good deal of strength to do so.
Running my fingers through my hair, I let out a sigh of relief. “You’re lucky this didn’t take my hair out in clumps,” I said.
“This is great,” Rory called out, whipping her head back and forth like she was head banging back in our high school days. “It’s staying in place.”
“Exactly,” Marshall said. “The wind won’t catch it, and anyone who tries to pull it off of you is going to have a hell of a time doing it. Plus, it’ll keep the elements out.”
I walked over to Marshall, hugging him. “They’re perfect,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Someone’s been working on his alchemy,” Rory said. “Caleb taught you well.”
Marshall blushed. “This wasn’t all me,” he said. “I called in a few favors from some of the people I met through Caleb.”
Rory shook her head at him. “Careful, there,” she said. “I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. Which, come to think of it, is pretty far. Never mind. You get what I mean.”
“You include Caleb in that group?” I asked.
Rory scrunched up her face as if she were giving it serious thought. “He gets a pass,” she said. “For blowing himself up to aid our escape that time.”
“I am being careful,” Marshall said, sounding like a scolded child.
Rory pulled her hood off, her head finally reappearing. “So . . . now that the band is back together, what’s the plan?” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go hurt myself in a make-up dance class in a few.” She grabbed up another bag off the counter and pulled out a sticky bun the size of my head.
“How do you keep that body?” I asked. “Seriously.”
“I’m carbo-loading,” she said, already biting into it. “Do you have any idea the amount of calories I’m burning through in my dance intensive? Almost as many as I do all night when I’m chasing down gargoyles with you.”
“You were talking about a plan before . . . ?” Marshall said. “Focus.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Like I said, we’re not stopping, just being more cautious. We get back to hitting the police scanners. I’ve got Stanis trying to get a lock on who might be trying to vine me to death. That means we take things slow until I figure out how to deal with whatever arcanists are after me.”
Marshall couldn’t help but give me a dubious look. “So you’re not going to keep us out all night?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“And if the weather sucks . . . ?” Rory asked with a glimmer of hope in her eye.
“We go home,” I said. “I promise. We track down one gargoyle a night, and we can call it a night. Starting tonight.”
“I’ll bring the rope,” Marshall said, pulling out a small pad and making a note of it.
I didn’t even bother to tease him about his obsession with rope. We would need it, and it was nice trying to get everything in order, making it feel normal with just the three of us again.
I craved a little bit of normal right then. Narrowly avoiding the cops at the Cloisters, almost bleeding out, and dodging witches and warlocks would do that to a girl.
Eight
Stanis
Flying down Lexington Avenue was a pleasure I had forgotten. With all the assistance I had been giving Alexandra as of late—despite the unfounded anger she had been showing—I had not taken the time to enjoy much of what I loved most about the island of Manhattan.
From Grand Central all the way down to the Twenties, the stone buildings along Lexington Avenue were old world with a strength and beauty that I found I missed. Much of the modern world lacked such elegance, but seeing this craftsmanship of an age gone by—an age I had lived through—filled my heart with a bittersweet twinge I had not expected.
At Twenty-sixth I slowed, spying Alexandra standing alone in front of an ornate French-design-influenced building. While I had thought perhaps Aurora might be with her tonight as usual, as I dropped down in front of the large stone arch of the building’s entrance I realized Marshall Blackmoore was with her as well.
“Hey, big fella,” Marshall said, coming down the steps with a smile on his face. “Long time, no see.” He held one of his hands high in the air as he came over. Once in front of me, he stopped with his arm still raised. “Going to keep me hanging?”
Not understanding what he was saying, I ignored his question and gave him one of my own. “I am surprised to find all three of you here,” I said. “How long has it been since that has occurred?”
Marshall lowered his arm with disappointment on his face. “At least three months since I’ve seen you,” he said.
“Strange,” I said. “That does not seem like much time.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “But for you, after centuries of existence, what’s ninety days give or take, right?”
“You speak true, Marshall Blackmoore.” My eyes went to Alexandra. “But still there are days with my kind that seem too long to spend
away from those I consider myself close to.”
Alexandra blushed with a smile and looked away.
“Aww,” Aurora said, coming over to me from where she stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to the entrance. “Bring it in. Group hug.”
She raised her arms out to her sides, but none of the other humans moved.
“No?” she asked. Her arms dropped back down. “Fine, then. Where’s the camaraderie? I thought we were getting the band back together!”
I cocked my head at her. “The band . . . ? Minstrels . . . ?”
“Never mind,” Alexandra said, composed this time. She stepped closer. “Thank you for coming so fast.”
There was a welcome calmness in the way she spoke tonight. “You seem . . . improved,” I said.
Alexandra smiled again, but looked down at her feet, unable to meet my eye. “You mean compared to the Cloisters?” she asked.
I gave her a single nod but said nothing.
“Well, I’ve gotten a little sleep and it’s not raining buckets,” she said. “So I’m thinking with a bit more clarity now.”
“Let us hope so,” I said. Was she being sincere about her attitude being gone, or was it simply the fact that I had chosen to come alone tonight, leaving Emily behind? The complexity of the issue made me think that now was not the time to sort that out. Instead, I looked up at the building in front of us. “What is this place?”
“It’s the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory,” Alexandra said.
“An armory,” I repeated with understanding in my words. “My father had many of those around the castle grounds. Is this the same sort of place?”
“Not quite,” she said. “It used to serve a more military purpose, but over the years, it’s been used for all sorts of other functions. Tonight, however, the scanner had a call come in dispatching a car to check out a report about a grotesque tearing the place apart from the inside. It was met with laughter by a few others on the line, so I figure we have a little time before anyone takes it seriously and gets over here.”
“I looked the armory up on our way over,” Marshall said, holding up his phone. “There’s some kind of art show scheduled in here this week. We can only hope there’s no late-night gala going on. The less people inside, the better.”
“I doubt there’s anything going on,” Aurora said, walking up the stairs to the entrance, taking the handle in her hand, rattling it. “Locked.”
I gazed up at the old building rising before me. “There are many other ways in for one of my kind,” I said. “Rest assured, we will find this creature.” I walked up the steps and stood next to Aurora, examining the heavy wood of the door before pulling back my arm and smashing through it. As I pulled my hand free, the door twisted off its hinges and fell into the building. “This, however, will suffice for a way in.”
“Hey!” Alexandra said, offense in her voice. “Historic landmark here!”
“My apologies,” I said, looking down the stairs at her, “but do you not wish expediency in this matter?”
“The direct approach,” Aurora said with a smile. “I like it.”
Alexandra sighed, coming up the steps to join us, Marshall following. “Can we not encourage the wanton destruction of property, please?”
“I do not understand,” I said. “The longer we talk outside, the more destruction within from the prey we seek, yes? And there is the chance officers may actually decide to check out the report from the police scanner . . .”
Alexandra opened her mouth but nothing came out. Instead, she stormed past me through the door, Marshall following. “I hate when he’s right,” she said.
I turned to Aurora and met her eyes. “She makes no sense to me,” I said. “I merely pointed out the strategic advantages of the situation and the reason for my actions.”
“Don’t mind her,” Aurora said, stepping through the door. “Stick with me. I tend to break only what I need to when it comes down to a fight.”
“Very well,” I said, drawing my wings in close to me as I stepped through the empty doorframe. “But I promise nothing. Enclosed spaces and I do not make the best of compatriots.”
Once past the doors and the cramped confines of several long, narrow halls, my anxiety passed when we entered a large open space at the center of the building. Artwork ran neatly in orderly rows of tables and hung from wire walls that all left room for me to spread my wings to their fullest without knocking any of it over.
“This is unexpected,” I said, surprised at how my voice carried and echoed out over the large expanse of the room. “I should not think such a space could exist within this building.”
“Consider it one of the old-world arenas,” Alexandra said in a low whisper. “There’s a lot of history in a place like this. Indoor track events, basketball games; the first modern art exhibit in the entire United States was held here. Quite the controversy, really. What I don’t see, however, are any signs of grotesques. Present company excluded.”
“Perhaps a better perspective will be helpful,” I said, and leapt into the air, letting my wings carry me up over the room. The moonlight pouring in through the massive windows overlooking the open space helped as I circled around the room searching among the shadows below.
At the far end, several statues stood in a corralled-off space, and although they seemed solid and still, they begged for my further examination of them. I came down in silence among them, anticipating the slightest hint of fight out of any of them. From above, a few had looked as if they could have been carved by Alexander Belarus, but up close I could see they were not cut in his inimitable style, and I relaxed.
“There is no creature here,” I called out, at once confident in my assessment.
“Not only that,” Marshall called from somewhere on the other side of the room, “but as far as I can tell there’s been zero destruction here.”
“Shit,” I heard Alexandra hiss out. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yep,” Aurora said. The scrape of what must be her pole arm sliding out of the tube on her back rang out like echoing chimes across the open space. “There’s no grotesques damage, and not a single squad car has shown up with sirens blazing. I’m thinking ambush.”
“Marshall, Stanis,” Alexandra called out. “Let’s get out of here, n—”
“Freeze,” a man’s baritone voice yelled. “NYPD.”
“Into the center aisle, all of you,” a woman’s voice called out with the same authority Alexandra had when casting a spell.
I had long known the letters NYPD from the roofs and sides of the red-and-blue-lighted vehicles—we were dealing with members of the city’s constabulary. Centuries of observation left me with little hope that the events that were about to transpire would be anything less than violent.
I needed to protect my friends. Leaping into the air, I took flight once more, going high to better assess the situation.
Two people stood at the head of one of the aisles with guns raised. The taller of the two—the male—kept his gun trained on Alexandra and Aurora, while the woman tracked Marshall as he moved to the center of the aisle to join our friends. While I had not recognized their voices, their faces were familiar from the last time I had fled these two at the entrance to the Cloisters.
I swooped down toward them. The redheaded female—Rowland, the man had called her the other night—caught my approach and her head lifted along with her gun.
“Maron!” she called out.
“Sweet Christ,” her partner said as he turned his eyes upward. He slid his gun into his jacket and his hands went to a bag he wore over his shoulder. When they emerged, an unidentifiable black mass was between them.
Pulling my wings in, I came down hard, landing in the space between my friends and the two armed officers of the law. The wood floor creaked on impact, but I stood and spread my wings out to both menace th
e officers and protect my friends from their firearms.
“You shall not harm these humans,” I said.
The woman’s gun remained on me. “Not who I’m worried about at the moment, pal,” she said.
There was fear in her words, and I found it delicious. It meant what I was doing was working.
She called back over her shoulder. “Maron . . . ?”
“On it,” he said, and with some hesitance started creeping toward me.
“Hey,” Alexandra called out from behind me. “Easy, now. No one has to get hurt here.”
“You’re the one who unleashed your monster on us,” the woman said.
“I do not answer to her,” I said. “I am my own monster.”
“Comforting,” the woman said. “You want to close those wings down, then?”
“I think not,” I said, holding my position. “Unless you wish to put your gun away . . . ?”
The woman shook her head.
“I think not,” she said. “We’ve been chasing these three around this city long enough for their involvement in this gargoyle mess, but they always eluded us. Couldn’t figure out how they were getting to the scene of the crimes so fast until I guessed they might be responding to our calls on the police scanner. So we created a fake scanner call, and they fell for it. Detective Maron and I would like some answers . . . now.”
“This doesn’t have to go down like this,” Marshall called out from behind me.
“Yeah,” the man said, still closing the distance to me. “It kinda does.” The detective looked over my shoulder. “You, back there! Down on the floor!”
The man lifted the black mass in his hands and flung it toward me. Once free of his fingers, it expanded, opening to reveal a sight I was familiar with from my father’s early military campaigns: a net. Amused to see such a flimsy rope-and-cloth item heading my way, I did not even bother to move. It caught on my wings as it draped over me, and I simply flexed my wings, expecting to easily tear free but instead finding resistance.