by K. F. Breene
“May-ch pear-soon-ahl-ty,” he replied.
Match personality, it sounded like. Mr. Tom couldn’t speak, but he still had something to say about Niamh.
The clicking carried off down the hall and stopped. I followed, assuming that meant she was leading us, still waving my arms in the empty space but not being so cautious with my feet. Ten paces along and she stopped.
Wings rustled. Claws scraped against stone. My feet scuffed and Austin puffed out a breath, clearly sniffing the air. We were anything but quiet.
“This was a bad idea,” I whispered as the clicking sound traveled upward to my right. She had to be climbing a wall. “We should go out and get a lighter. From now on, we bring phones as well as clothes. Stupid not to bring phones, really.”
Sound blasted down the corridor from somewhere way behind us. After a moment I realized it sounded like rocks falling. I jumped and spun, stepping on a giant paw and falling forward, getting a face full of Austin’s fur. It didn’t taste great.
His leg came up and bumped me back, trying to help. I staggered, the guy clearly not knowing his own strength in that form.
Silence descended, even Niamh stopping with her scrabbling and clicks. Another sound, smaller than the first, like a small rock pinging against stone.
“This cave has clearly been here for a long time,” I whispered into the silence, not a creature stirring, not even the wings of the gargoyles. “That cage was plenty rusted. There is no way this whole place would come down on us, is there?”
Wings did rustle this time.
“Someone needs to stay in human form from now on. I need someone to verbally panic with,” I murmured, barely loud enough to hear myself.
Wood bumped my hand, and Niamh clicked—how was she making those sounds, anyway? Was it with her tongue, or was she gnashing her teeth? Whatever it was, she clearly meant it as communication.
I wrapped my fingers around the wood stick, and the clicking skirted beyond me to Austin, increasing in pitch and volume. The feeling of something large moving stirred the air, followed by four bright bursts of light sparking against the stone wall. Austin had raked his claws down it.
Niamh was with me again, dragging me that way, pulling at the stick. In a flash, I saw what she was trying to do—get the tip of the stick to the sparks. She’d given me a torch.
Another couple of tries, and the torch kindled, the fire growing large enough to create a glow within the tunnel. It branched off into two paths from the circular entry point, about a ninety-degree angle between them. More torches dotted the way, bracketed in old-school metal—iron?—holders.
The gargoyles were all clustered together, barely able to move, clearly not having tried to venture very far without their sight.
“Which way first?” I asked, looking each way.
Austin huffed and nudged me forward with his snout. Might as well go the direction we’d started.
I wasted no time, jogging, and Niamh scampered in front of me on all four legs, a horrible little ghoul who was, thankfully, on our side. Small shadows danced up ahead, the light playing off the uneven surface of the rock. Niamh disappeared into a room off to the right, the door roughly hewn in the stone and the dirt a mess of footprints.
Another crash from down the tunnel, the origin distant and the sound not unlike rocks falling. The idea of that made me incredibly nervous. The basajaun had killed one of the mages, and if they were pissed enough, they could’ve rigged up something to bring this mountain crumbling down.
“Hurry up,” I said to myself, the torch shaking in my hand, making shadows jump in the small room Austin would somehow have to squeeze into, and then back out of.
A card table sat in the middle, surrounded by four metal folding chairs. Two candles had dribbled white wax onto paper plates in the center of the table, their wicks blackened and a box of matches just beyond one plate’s lip. A black plastic bag leaned in one corner of the room, lumpy and half-full of what looked like food containers. A cooking stove with little green canisters for fuel crouched in the other corner, a can of unopened chili sitting on one of the cold circular burners. Two battery-powered lanterns hugged the wall next to those.
The funky smell indicated food had been cooked, consumed, and thrown away in here, which fit with the scene, but it didn’t look like they’d slept in here. I couldn’t tell how fresh everything was with the dim light, and Austin couldn’t speak to fill me in. Regardless, they weren’t here now, and given the chill and lack of smoke, they hadn’t been here very recently.
I handed the torch down to Niamh. “Can you put that out?”
She chittered at me but didn’t take the torch. Clearly that was either a “no” or an “I don’t want to.” I held it wide as I bent to grab one of the battery-powered lanterns, awkwardly tested it out without setting myself on fire, and then clicked it back off. I’d keep the torch until I could put it back, just in case… No, there was no real reason. I’d just gotten so used to putting things away that it was habit.
Judging by the orderliness of the room, I wasn’t the only one.
Niamh quickly caught up to me as I passed Austin and then the gargoyles, probably frustrating Austin because he was now stuck at the back. I briefly stopped at the entrance area in order to put out the torch and stow it in its holder. If they weren’t here now, they might come back, and while they might overlook a missing lantern, a missing torch and a missing lantern would probably be noticed.
I glanced out the doorway, half expecting to see a mage waiting outside, hands out, magic at the ready. The dark barrier waited, though, glimmering and seemingly solid. It looked like a wall. If a mage stood on the other side, waiting to get the drop on us, we wouldn’t know until we walked right into them.
“What a stupid setup,” I said, my adrenaline spiking. “Why would they wait in here blind?”
Niamh chittered. Why? Who knew, since I didn’t understand a word of it.
Down the tunnel the other way, its size and shape uniform, I ended at the shadowy opening to the large cave with the viewing area at the top. The barrier up there was still in place, transparent and glimmering.
Maybe these mages could only create two types of variable: viewable or not.
But why make the other one viewable? So it could kill anyone who came to rescue me?
Thankfully, they’d underestimated Austin.
The cage lay where we’d left it, the door off and on its side. The chain dangled above. No one waited among the spikes. The mages weren’t here.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That was bad news, probably, drawing all this out, but the relief was real.
“Let’s head out,” I said, turning around and weaving through the gargoyles. “They’re not here. At least we know where here is, though. Maybe Austin can pick up the scent from here.” I walked back to the trick door slowly, not really wanting to leave the protection of the stone walls. There was only one way in, and we were walking toward it. Maybe they weren’t lying in wait beyond it, but they could come back while we were exiting.
At the door, I checked to make sure everyone was set, turned off the lantern, and stepped outside, ready just in case.
Dead space greeted us—even the basajaun had taken off. The flowers were still there, though, in their protective little cocoon. He hadn’t been kidding—he did not plan to take the basajaun candy from strangers. How odd. What could I have possibly done to flowers? Drugged them? Then what? The creature was too big for me to drag back to Edgar. And when he woke up, I’d probably have a dead Edgar on my hands.
Austin attempted to cross the threshold, but I was in the way, and he bumped me from behind. I moved as Niamh skittered through on all fours.
Something felt wrong. The wind in the leaves and pine needles were still present, but the birdsong had cut off. No animals skittered under the brush. It was almost like they’d sensed a predator.
But they’d all been active when we were here last. Maybe the basajaun’s presence had put them at ea
se. Now that he’d taken off…
Movement in front of me caught my eye as Austin crossed the threshold. I looked up as a woman in a dark dress stepped through the trees with her hands up, flares of light erupting from her fingertips. Two more stepped out from the sides.
They’d been waiting for us after all. The basajaun waiting outside had given me a false sense of security, like he would watch our backs. How could I have been so stupid?
31
Austin lurched forward, now knocking me to the side and trying to get in front of me. He planned to take the magical hit. From mages this good, it could be instantly fatal.
Terror bled through me. My own protection instinct, born of motherhood, flared to life—like Austin, I completely forgot my sense of self-preservation the moment someone I cared about was in danger.
But I also had more magic than Austin.
Drawing from the training Damarion had given me, I ballooned magic around us even as I kicked Austin out of the way, my magic greatly enhancing the strength of the blow.
He flew to the side, hitting the wall next to the flowers. The zip of light from the mage smashed against the balloon of magic I’d created, and then flowed along the periphery, lighting the arch of it up.
The gargoyles stepped out of the cave entrance, Damarion first, and he quickly realized what was happening. His wings snapped out, one hitting the rock wall, nearly spearing Austin, and the other pushing out through the trees, the span striking me as incredible regardless of how many times I’d seen it.
The mage on my right got a shot off. It slapped my bubble and spread along it, just as the first had done. This one, though, sputtered and fizzed, shooting sparks.
My magic dissolved under the pressure, leaving us open to their attack.
Niamh bolted toward them and leapt from the ground onto the face of the mage in front of me. That mage shrieked, magic erupting from her fingertips as she reached for Niamh, now clawing and tearing and biting at her face.
The magic zinged toward me. Before I could react, Damarion grabbed me and turned his back, his wing whipping around me for more shelter.
“No, Damarion!” I tried to struggle out, tried to toss magic between him and the attack, but my counterstrike must’ve missed, because he grunted and pushed forward from the force of the attack. Immediately he started to sink down, releasing me as he hit his knees. “No!”
I touched his shoulder, pain curling within me. He was terrible at romance, but he was a decent guy and a great warrior. He didn’t deserve to go down on my watch.
The telltale fizzing in my belly—the feeling I attributed to healing magic—came as a relief.
His wings wilted, and I stepped out from behind them as more gargoyles tried to get out of the cavern. The mage in the middle was, thankfully, sinking to her knees, screeching, as Niamh bit into her jugular.
The one on the right waved her hands, probably creating a spell, but the one on the left already had her hands jutting out—open fire.
I slapped magic at her, deadening whatever bit of nastiness she was unleashing as Austin rushed forward, a deep and vicious growl riding his movements.
Another zip of magic pulled my attention right, and I braced myself to take the hit.
A snarl interrupted my flinch, and my magic sparkled to life in front of me, forming what I hoped to be another shield. I needed a lot more practice to identify all this stuff.
Arms swinging and vicious canines bared, the basajaun materialized just inside the pine branches, his hair reminiscent of an eighties hair band and his continued growls terrifying.
The mage recoiled, understandably, and her spell blasted the rock to my right. A pink gargoyle’s arm wrapped around me, and he pumped his wings in an attempt to lift me out of there.
“Would you guys just stop?” I yelled, blasting Ulric back. “Thank you, but I can fight!”
The basajaun reached for the mage and picked her up by the head—and then I had second thoughts about being flown out of there. The splat of the body against the rocks made me retch. The way he then spiked her detached head like a football had me splashing the contents of my stomach onto the ground.
“Oh God, maybe I don’t want to fight. This is too much for me.” I struggled to stand up, trying to stay strong in the face of such unbridled brutality, only to see Austin rise up on his back legs, his height topping the basajaun’s by three feet or more. He swiped with his huge paw, battering the last mage standing. She slapped the stone wall, something cracking. He lumbered forward, pinned her with his paws, bent, and ripped her neck out.
A tortured groan escaped my mouth. I burped up bile. “All right, then, sure. Yeah, let’s fly away. Good idea.”
But Ulric was no longer trying to save me. He bent over Damarion, his hand on the other gargoyles shoulder, checking in.
Damarion was healing, though—I could feel my efforts working. That part of magic I was close to having down.
The roar of victory from my right made me flinch. Austin’s answering roar, delivered while he still stood on his hind legs, shook my bones. The gargoyles joined in, their wings flapping, their growls vicious.
The basajaun wasted no more time. He crossed through everyone, shoving gargoyles out of the way, and bent to the flowers. Straightening with them, he turned to me, and everyone fell silent to hear what he would say.
“We have reached our agreement. These will be a wonderful treat.”
“But…” I put out a finger, happy for his help but hoping for a little clarity about the rules. After witnessing his display of violence, that seemed of the utmost importance. “The mages were on your territory when they shouldn’t have been, right? Wouldn’t you have…spiked her head anyway?”
“Yes. But I would not have waited around after you had gone into the cave. I did that to make sure no one snuck up on you.”
“Riiight… But they did sneak up on us.”
“The polar bear smelled me.”
“Okay, but—”
“He knew that I could only be in that position if I was stalking prey. It was all the alert he needed.”
“Except he wasn’t—”
“Then I enacted my punishment for their trespassing. I only ever kill one for the first offense.”
I couldn’t do much more than stare. His smell alert would’ve been great if it had informed us of the problem before the mages had stepped out of the trees. His retribution would’ve been amazing if it had come before Damarion had been injured.
As if hearing my thoughts, Mr. Tom said, “Duu-mm azzz roc-ksss.”
Dumb as rocks. I had to agree with him there.
“Right. Fine.” I sagged with sudden fatigue, my stomach still churning. “They’re dead. Clearly. Horribly so, even. Good day to you.” I peeled away my meager clothing, changed to my gargoyle form, and took off flying. I needed a glass of wine. And maybe a sedative.
32
Butterflies filled my stomach. I didn’t want to do what I was about to do.
My knuckles were white as I wrung my hands, perched on the edge of my seat in one of the large sitting rooms at the front of the house.
“He is coming now, miss,” Mr. Tom said from the doorway, his tuxedo pressed, a white towel once again draped over his bent arm. His love of watching old butler movies was officially getting out of hand.
A week had gone by since the showdown with the remaining mages. Five had snuck around the area, learning my habits and those of the town. Four had successfully kidnapped me and imprisoned me within the mountain. Two had been taken down by Bigfoot’s scary uncle. That meant my team had only taken down three of them—or really two, since Austin was technically still a free agent.
That was unacceptable. I needed to make some changes. I needed to bring everyone under one umbrella and get them working together. I could only make a decision about who should sit on my council if I knew which of them were team players. Baby steps.
Step one was this meeting.
The wooden carving o
n the mantelpiece moved and changed, a woman holding a sword emerging within the pattern, along with a large gargoyle who flew down to land beside her. Without warning, she spun and sliced with her sword. The gargoyle’s head flew off, the body disappearing within the changing designs and the head bouncing along the ground. The woman stowed her sword and bent, picking up the head in a palm, and…
I looked away, my mood souring. I mention in the house, one time, how gross it was for the basajaun to spike a head like a football, and suddenly it was Ivy House’s favorite joke. I really did question her sense of humor.
At least it was obvious she supported my decision. That meant a lot, since it affected her, too.
I stood when Damarion filled the doorway, his face hard and his eyes wary. He probably knew what was coming.
My stomach clenched with unease. I hated doing stuff like this.
“Hi Damarion, please…” I motioned to the chair that had been placed opposite me. “Have a seat.”
“You’re looking well,” he said, his gaze sliding down my front. He stopped before me and bent to give me a kiss on the cheek.
Over the last week, he’d thankfully gotten the hint that any chance of romance between us had flown out the window. I was pretty sure he blamed Austin for that, even though Austin and I hadn’t seen much of each other, what with him diligently working to better secure the town. Still, Damarion seemed jealous of Austin. And while, sure, Austin could sometimes burn my blood with a simple touch, it would forever be a no-go. Damarion had nothing to be jealous of. Regardless, the two couldn’t be in the same room before, but now it seemed like Damarion was struggling with being in the same town.
I lowered into my chair and forced myself to cross my legs, as though pretending I was comfortable might make it so.
“Damarion, I know I’ve said it before, but I would just like to thank you again for helping me learn my magic, training me, and especially for saving my life. You’ve been a huge asset to this house and have been integral to my training thus far.”