by Jackie Ivie
Rori raised her head and blinked. It took a few minutes to focus on Lord Beethan and his henchmen. She’d been so directed in her efforts at communicating that it was probably right on her face to see…unless the icon-strewn netting hid some of it. Rori moved her vision to one Buddha, looking like it had been crafted in the early Byzantium period, if she wasn’t mistaken. But she probably was. There was the most distinct hum filling her veins, like an electric charging system had just gotten connected and was radiating strength. Tristan was close. That’s what mattered. She swallowed and worked at controlling her voice so none of them would have the slightest inkling of what was about to be dealt.
“Give what up?”
“We know all about your supposed powers. You’ve fancied yourself a witch since childhood. It’s a great way to amuse your roommates. We understand you’re very good at perpetuating the fraud of it. Sleight of hand is your specialty. It was probably a good way to avoid the reality of foster home after foster home. No doubt it was one of the reasons you had foster home after foster home. What mother wants to raise a child who taunts her with the dark arts?”
Anger punched through the humming sensation, the emotion significantly altering the current’s strength. Rori worked to mute it, sending more thoughts winging back to Tristan. Only Tristan. He’s the only thing that mattered anymore. Ever. I’m in a castle. Stone walls. Long tables. She just had to get out of this netting. Tristan couldn’t get through it to her. He’d be burned. Injured. Pained.
Wait a minute…
Her eyes narrowed. This net wasn’t an obstacle for her. She wasn’t a vampire yet. They’d just said so. There wasn’t anything on this netting except religious symbols. She just had to keep the old guy talking.
“Wow. You did some background checking on me?”
“The moment we were alerted to the Crusader’s interest. There’s a lot of data to sift through. You’ve got a large and varied record in social services.”
“And all of it is supposed to be court sealed.”
“We’re above every law, Miss Rori, or hadn’t you figured that out yet?”
“That’s detestable. And this is supposed to make we want to join you?”
“Keep speaking to me, Friudil. I’ll find you.” Tristan’s voice cut through to her, cooling any residual anger. It was clearer, too. More distinct.
“Detestable is what a vampire is, Miss Rori. The man you met is known as The Crusader. He’s part of a much larger organization; a cult devoted to not only draining blood for their needs but getting paid for the kills, as well. It’s our mission to destroy them.”
“By cheating the system and reading private information?”
“We’re vampire hunters, Miss Rori. We keep humanity safe. There isn’t any edge we won’t use in our mission. It’s a time-honored responsibility, and a hefty one to shoulder. Trust me. I shoulder it.”
“So you think my powers are fake, do you?”
The blond fellow leaned over and whispered something to Lord General Beethan that made him sober. The entire retinue seemed to perk up. He didn’t take his eyes off Rori.
“Well? What does your lieutenant have to say about it? Does he think I’m a fraud, too?”
“He says he has to leave now, but he wants me to thank you.”
“For what?”
“Doing exactly what we expected. Calling for your mate. Bringing him. I just told you we use every angle, and any edge. Didn’t you listen? South entrance. Now! Go! Take the Holy Water!”
And that’s exactly when she knew. Tristan had arrived. The stone beneath her turned into a whirlpool, projecting heat, radiating energy, and transmitting so much power right to her core that Rori shook with the work of holding it in. A toss of her arms outward sent the netting flying upward, ratcheting off fluorescent tube after fluorescent tube, and showering sparks with every outage. She was on her feet next, and then above the floor continually pumping blows with every flick of her hand. The netting floated down, resembling a film of gauze, while Lord Beethan’s mouth fell open. He had very good dentistry, she thought just before she sent a blow right to his chest.
The chair toppled backward, taking their leader out of her immediate range, although she sent blow after blow at the chair bottom, each one slamming it against the other chairs, rather like a ball in a pinball machine. The Garrick fellow was right with his leader. He’d immediately dropped and shielded him with his own body, and then some fool sent one of their arrows at her.
Rori hugged herself and spun, making a whorl of protection about herself that deflected and turned the missiles sent at her into projectiles back to their source. She heard thuds and breakage; cries and shouts. She’d never felt more powerful, or more in control of it. They should have done their little background check a little more thoroughly. That’s what they should’ve done.
She opened her arms, ratcheted up the speed of her spin and started sending wave after wave of crushing air. Light infused every wave, turning into an explosion of bright yellow and red when they landed on anything, or pummeled anything, or bent it into complete and total submission.
“Rori?”
“In here!”
She didn’t bother projecting it with her mind. She shouted it.
“We must leave.”
Leave? She wasn’t leaving until she pounded every last one of them into the stone walls and floors of the hideout. The light surrounding her got brighter, making some of them shield their eyes. That made them even easier to locate and hit, slamming them back against the stone with invisible blows they couldn’t countermand. Lord Beethan didn’t need to test her. She had a great aim.
“Now, Friudil!”
Tristan’s body slammed into hers, the impact sending a shower of sparks outward to encompass the entire room, turning it into a lightshow of blues and reds and yellows. Rori didn’t see it, though. She was in his arms, sealing to him with legs and arms wrapped all about him, clinging and capturing, and then she was weeping, as if a plug had been pulled from her frame, draining her. The room went black, filled only with groans and an occasional shatter of something breaking.
“Hold to me, darling.”
The man had to be joking. She was glued to him, her nose against his throat and her lips against skin; warm skin, radiating life and joy and love. She’d been such a fool, and she wasn’t repeating it.
“You should let me finish with them, Tristan.”
“Didn’t dare.”
“I had them handled. And they all deserve to die for what they tried to do.”
“They failed, love.” And then he bent his head and kissed her.
If she’d thought electrons were flying in that stone room, she’d been mistaken. They were probably lighting the sky as they moved with such speed, a blink would miss them. And then they were back at her apartment. At the front step, and he opened his arms and released her.
“What…are you doing?”
She was back against him, clinging while he didn’t move one portion of his frame. He just stood there, statue-still and implacable.
“What you want. Setting you free.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Akron believes so. He has advised me to simply take you and protect you and keep you. Exactly as I tried to do before. But I have learned.”
“You don’t want me?” Her stomach rolled. She almost clasped a hand to stop it.
“I didn’t say that.”
“So, you do want me?”
“More than I can say, and definitely more than I can show. But I don’t want a woman who is forced to be with me. Even if she is my mate, and even if I’m doomed to emptiness without her. You are my mate, Rori, and I love you. I want you. But I want you to want me. And I don’t know what to do to make that happen. So…this is good bye.”
“Good bye?”
“For now. I’ll always answer your call, Friudil. You have my word.” He turned from her and looked to be fastening and adjusting his trench coat.
�
�Tristan?”
“Yes?” He turned his head but didn’t face her.
“Did it hurt very much?”
“What?”
This time he turned a quarter of the way toward her, giving her a perfect glimpse of his profile. The man was absolutely beautiful. He should be up on a billboard somewhere, showcasing something. That’s what he should be doing. He shouldn’t be here, at her doorstep, trying to leave her.
“When you became a…vampire. Did it hurt?”
“I’d already taken a sword to my belly, Friudil. It takes a powerful long time to die with a wound like that. Anything else was secondary to that pain.”
“So…you don’t remember?”
“I recall it perfectly. I was lying on the sand, looking up at a star-filled night, surrounded by dead, and almost dead, while the creatures who feed on carrion sniffed about. We’d lost the battle hours earlier, but nobody came to check for wounded. There wasn’t a sound anywhere other than my own heart, slowing with every beat. There’s an odd sense of being out of sync with your own body. It’s akin to being a circling vulture, watching your own body die. And then Akron was there, asking me if I really wanted this, or if I wanted an eternity he could grant me. It was an easy choice.”
“So…it does hurt, but it’s worth it. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Oh, tell him to take you, Rori! Put the man out of his misery. It’s obvious he loves you. And it’s just as obvious you love him. Isn’t it obvious, Naomi?”
Tristan whirled to face her, pulling Rori against him for protection, while they both looked up to the second-story window. Both her roommates were there, leaning out over the windowsill.
“I’m just glad to see you’re back. And in perfect condition.”
“Well, I need more. We can’t, like, listen to this much longer. We’re going to march right down there and accept the man for you. What do you want? Him to get on bended knee?”
Rori flicked a hand and not only did the blind come rippling down, but the sound of doors slamming was easily heard out in the street.
“Bended knee? Would that help?”
The whiff of air from Tristan’s whisper sent a shiver racing her, and when it reached the ends of all her limbs, it just restarted again. Rori pivoted, put her arms about his neck and drew his head to hers.
“I love you, Tristan. I want you. And I need you. There isn’t any life without you. I don’t even care if it hurts. It’ll pass…right?”
“You’re saying yes?”
“What else do you need, Tristan?”
“She wants me!”
He put his head back and crowed it. Loudly. And with such volume it echoed down the street. Her roommates clapped, and she didn’t hear much after that since Tristan had her locked in his arms with such strength she could only take small whiffs of air.
“Go on, you two! Get a room. And don’t worry about us. We’ll make all your excuses when we report you missing.”
“Yeah. If anyone asks, we’ll tell them, like, our roommate turned into a witch, and then a vampire came and took her away. That should work.”
“You’re going to get us locked away, Elizabeth. I swear.”
“How so? It’s the truth. I’ll take a lie detector test. Think of it! We might even make the tabloids!”
The voices faded as they pulled back into the room, and shut the window.
“I think I’ll miss them.”
Tristan was laughing as he said it, and then he was rising, soaring, and gyrating to music that was carried on the wind. And he took her with him.
-o0o-
Keep Reading for a Sample of Lori Devoti’s When Gargoyles Fly.
Chapter 1, When Gargoyles Fly
She touched him. Her fingers were warm, soft and undeniably human. Mord Gabion blinked, slow painful movements of his eyelids. They creaked like stone scratching stone, like a gargoyle coming to life while his body was still frozen in its sleep--which he was.
He shouldn't be awake, shouldn't be aware of those supple fingers, or the scent of ginger and spice drifting toward him. Shouldn't be aware of anything--ever again, but he was.
Her fingers ran down the planes of his chest, traced the line of bone that formed the top of his wings, folded in sleep, but itching with the need to open, to take his body soaring through the night sky.
"Such detail," she murmured.
His eyes shifted in their sockets. He wanted to see her, needed to see her, but his body wasn't quite ready. It was still locked in its rocky state.
She edged closer, her feet scraping over the hard ledge on which he was perched. He could feel it too now, through the thin-soled shoes he'd worn when he'd agreed to the sorcerer's bargain, agreed to go to sleep for eternity so his enemies, the chimeras, would be put into the slumber too.
He and the others like him had given up their freedom, their lives, to save the world from the chimeras who would have enslaved humanity--but he was awake. He swallowed, or made the motion at the back of his throat; the action was uncomfortable, unnatural locked in this stony state.
He tried again, managed to move his head to the side, but only an inch. The woman pressed against him, studying him, didn't notice--but the movement was real. He was coming awake.
Were his enemies too?
o0o
Kami Machon clung to the gargoyle, kept herself from looking down by concentrating on the impossible detail of his wings, muscles, everything. How she wished she knew who had sculpted him, how the sculptor had put such strength and darkness into the white marble he'd used to carve the creature.
She'd been sculpting with clay for years, but had recently forked out the dollars for a block of alabaster. Her fingers itched to pick up that chisel, make the first chink in the stone. But she was afraid. She wanted it to be perfect, beautiful, like this gargoyle.
She ran her hand lower, toward the strange kilt-like cloth that covered the gargoyle's lower body. The stone beneath her hand quivered. She jerked, then laughed at the flight of her imagination. Real as he might appear, this gargoyle, or grotesque to use the more accurate term, was stone, cold and hard. He couldn't feel her hand moving over him, couldn't react to her touch.
She shook her head and forced her feet to inch further along the ledge. One hand gripping the gargoyle's for balance, she lowered her other to the flashlight that hung on a string from her neck. It was dark, past midnight--the only time she'd been sure no one would see her and try to stop her.
She'd tried going through regular routes, asked permission from the building's owner to view the statue up close, but her calls had been ignored. Then, miraculously, the temp agency she worked for part-time had offered a position with the building's cleaning service. The rest of the crew was gone now. Leaving her with free access to the ledge and the gargoyle that was perched there.
She flipped on the flashlight and directed its small beam onto the gargoyle's profile. His jaw was strong and firm. She laughed again--of course it was. He was carved of stone. She lowered the light so she could feel the strength there, memorize it to replicate in her own work. The beam danced along the ledge and over her feet, drawing her gaze for just a second.
From the corner of her eye she saw movement. She started to turn, but pressure hit her square in the back and knocked her off balance. She screamed and grabbed at the stone fingers she'd been holding, felt her own digits slip one by one until she fell free and tumbled through the air toward the cement circle two hundred feet below.
o0o
Mord heard the female scream and felt her fingers slip over his knuckles. His body tensed, vibrated with an uncontrollable need to save her. The stone encasing him cracked. His muscles flexed. His wings shook. He took a breath and forced air to fill his lungs.
There was another crack--louder, like a canon firing--and he was free. He shoved his body away from the wall. His feet broke away from the ledge beneath them. His wings expanded and he free-fell for a few seconds, reveling in the feel of the air rushing past of
him, of being alive--again.
The night air was dark and cold--invigorating, just as he remembered. And the city below flickered at him like he remembered, but now with more lights. Strange bright ones zigging along at impossible speeds.
The woman screamed again, pulling his mind back to her. Saving her was not his concern; it would be folly. People jumped from buildings. Before his forced sleep he'd seen plenty make that choice. He hadn't tried to talk a one out of it. He was a gargoyle, not a priest. His duty was to protect humans, but as a race, not individuals and not from their own stupid choices. If the weak died, it made the whole stronger. Part of the great formula that kept the world strong and vibrant.
Still...his gaze zoomed to the body falling beneath his. Her arms flapped as if she thought she could take wing.
He shouldn't save her. He had issues of his own, finding out why he'd been awakened--if others, allies and enemies, were awakening too.
The smell of ginger reached out to him, as she screamed again--or tried to. Her voice was hoarse now, almost lost in the wind.
He gritted his teeth and started to turn away, to point his face toward the other buildings where gargoyles and chimeras had spent their nights before the freeze. But as quick as he did, as sure as he was that he was making the right choice, his body decided otherwise. His wings flexed, his shoulders shifted and he dove--straight down, toward the now silent woman plummeting to the earth below.
o0o
Air whooshed past her and tore at her clothes. Fear clutched at Kami's chest, making it impossible to breathe. She was falling...falling. Her brain screamed to reach out, grab for something to stop her descent, but there was nothing to grab--nothing around her but angry air. It roared in her ears. She was going to die. There was no way around it.
The thought echoed through her head and settled into her stomach. She was going to die, and it was her own fault. What idiot crawled onto a ledge to see a statue?
She screwed her eyes shut and tried to pull her arms in close--but she couldn't. The wind stopped her.
Tears ran down her cheeks, cold more than wet and her world started to shift...to fade.