by Anton Strout
Alexandra turned to me. “Is this true?” she asked.
“I do not know,” I said. “I was not in on any private conversations Caleb had with my father.”
“But you actually went to the boat?” she asked. “Why, Stanis? Did I free you for nothing?”
“For the same reasons Caleb has stated. This ‘business as usual.’ My freedom means nothing if Kejetan becomes aware of it.”
She turned back to Caleb, shaking her head at him. “We could have protected you,” Alexandra said.
The man looked over at me. “No offense, but your team’s only got one stone man to their dozens. I’ll play the odds for my safety, thanks. Besides . . . I’m not used to having backup. I did what I always do—try to take care of things myself.”
At an impasse, silence fell among us for several minutes, with only the sounds of continued struggle on the roof filling my ears.
“Umm . . . what about the rest?” Marshall asked, finally breaking the silence.
“Rest?” Aurora asked.
“Of the statues,” he said. “Kejetan only had a couple of dozen stone men with him. There were far more statues that came to life on the roof than that. What happened with the rest?”
Caleb let loose a sigh.
“That was supposed to be my backup plan,” the man said, looking to Alexandra. “Although thanks to everyone’s interference, it worked a little too well.”
“Meaning what?” Alexandra asked, wary.
“Like I said, I was in between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “Kejetan and the Servants of Ruthenia got what they wanted. They all got to cast off their crude stone form and take over many of Alexander’s statues up on the roof. Kejetan can fly around the city on his own pair of wings and be a happy little gargoyle now. But bringing the remaining statues to life . . . that was my ace in the hole that hopefully would have kept them from exacting vengeance on you.”
“You do not know Kejetan, then,” I said. “He did not earn the moniker the Accursed for his charity.”
“Giving Kejetan the gargoyle body that he wanted . . . well, that should have ended my deal with him, guaranteeing my safety. My hope was that activating the rest of those statues would let whatever random spirits haunt New York City find them and fight it out, maybe reduce the number of Kejetan’s new gargoyle army.”
Aurora laughed. “That was your genius plan?”
“Okay,” he said with anger in the word. “What would you have done, then? My life was on the line, and it seemed to be my best chance for living. If a few of Kejetan’s men died in the process of dealing with the other animated statues, then all the better.”
“Back up a little bit there,” Alexandra said. “What did you mean by ‘it worked too well’?”
“My plan was actually working,” he said, pointing at her, “until you interfered. That globe I threw with the mixture in it . . . It was meant to hit the roof and spread out among the remaining statues, activating them. It would have created the same type of potion cloud like the one I used when we captured Stanis and freed him. But you smashed the globe before it could properly land. That’s when everything went a bit off the rails. The mixture wasn’t supposed to go that airborne. It had a reaction I didn’t suspect, mixing and amplified with the power of the storm.”
“The sky went awash with that pink haze,” I said.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen?” Marshall asked.
The alchemist shook his head.
“The rain must have acted like a current carrier when the object released prematurely,” he said.
“Is that bad?” Marshall asked, wrapping his arms around his body. He turned to me. “That’s bad, right?”
“I do not know,” I said, then turned to Caleb. “Is it?”
“It’s not good,” the human confessed. “It became far more powerful than I would have imagined. The way it was spreading . . . I’m not sure how big a radius it covered, but it was more than just over your building here.”
Alexandra leaned back against one of the art-studio tables that still stood. “Meaning you might have animated an entire city’s worth of statuary,” she said. “Who knows how many more of Alexander’s statues around Manhattan have come to life? And what’s occupying all of them? More than just the Servants of Ruthenia, that’s for sure.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “I’m not sure. My plan was localized until you messed it up.”
“Do not put this one me,” Alexandra shouted, shaking her head. “If you had been up front about your plan . . . If you had trusted us . . . If we can’t trust you, we don’t want your help. Not after this fiasco.”
The humans fell to arguing, and with Aurora and Marshall joining in with the shouting, the flow of their words moved too fast for me to follow. One thing, however, became very clear to me.
“Silence!” I roared after I confirmed my suspicion. All of them turned to me, their words dying on their lips.
“What is it, Stanis?” Alexandra asked, her voice calming.
“If you would stop fighting among yourselves for a moment, there is something I must point out.”
I waited to hear if anyone was going to say anything more.
“So . . . ?” Caleb started. “What is it?”
“What do you hear, now that you are not fighting with each other?”
He listened for a moment. All the humans listened.
Caleb shrugged. “I don’t hear anything,” he said.
“Exactly.”
The humans ran for the stairs leading to the roof, and I followed, stepping out onto it. Empty pedestals marked the entirety of the roof, and the broken forms of far too few gargoyles littered the area. Every other living creature was gone, the night sky filled with dark shadows and the flapping of wings.
“I believe the days of keeping secret the existence of gargoyles may be at an end,” I said.
Twenty-three
Alexandra
Sleep was good. In fact, I might have called it my best friend. A night of ignoring calls from Caleb and not having to think about the events of the previous night was blissful. Sleep even gave me the false hope that maybe I had been dreaming the events of the past few days. But when the door buzzed over and over for a good ten minutes, I finally gave in to waking and checked it out, only to find Desmond Locke at the door, his face full of curiosity.
“Is your father in?” he asked. “I would like to speak with him.”
“No,” I said. “If he wasn’t in the offices here, then I don’t know where he is.”
“Pity,” he said, extending his open palm into the building. “May I?”
Not having seen him since before Caleb and I had liberated my great-great-grandfather’s book, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be talking to a man whose church I had broken into, but compared to the events of last night, it almost felt like a welcome distraction.
I headed upstairs to the kitchen to make myself some coffee but made no effort to offer him any. I sat down at the breakfast bar, leaving him standing.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Locke?” I asked, taking my first sip, coming a bit more alive with it.
“I wonder if you’ve been watching the news,” he said.
My stomach sank. “No,” I said. “I’ve been holed up in bed all morning. Bit under the weather and all.”
“Interesting reporting this morning,” he said. “They say overnight there were many sightings and reporting of angels and demons throughout the city sky. There were hundreds of incidents reported. Even footage on the Internet.”
“Really, now,” I said, a bit of curiosity winning out over my growing fear. “And what do you make of all this?”
“What with all the reports of angel and demon sightings,” he said, “one would think we are seeing the End of Days.”
“Isn’t the Rapture something someone in your line of work is supposed to look forward to?”
“In theory, yes,” he said, “but I am not as dogmatic as most. We both know there are
strange things in the world, Miss Belarus. And I think the regular world is catching on to that now because of the meddling of certain people who do not know any better.”
Given the air of superiority coming from him, I resisted the urge to throw my coffee in his face. “And what would be better?” I asked.
“The world would be a better place if these things were kept in check,” he said. “Or at least used on the side of God.”
“Ah, there we have it,” I said. “No one wants to just take this power and put it on the shelf. Maybe that’s what your Libra Concordia thinks to do in theory, but the truth is that theory doesn’t work. There are always men and women who seek power, no matter how altruistic they claim to be.”
“There are those better suited to judge those needs than others,” he spat out.
I walked up to him, tugging on the thick ropes of medallions and talismans he wore around his neck. “No offense, but I find it hard to trust your judgment when I see you wearing and using the very objects you swear to keep out of the hands of others.”
“Sometimes it is better to be forearmed,” he said. “What is going on, Miss Belarus?”
It was true that this man had shared some of his knowledge about my great-great-grandfather with me, but it had all started only after he had a gun in his hand. I was sick of people trying to push me this way and that. I was tired of feeling used. “I don’t think I have anything I want to share with you, Mr. Locke,” I said.
“Oh no?” he said. “I think you have taken advantage for far too long of my goodwill, allowing you to do research at the Libra Concordia.”
“If what you say about the news is true, why not just head out into the streets?” I asked. “I’m sure you could have your pick of whatever’s out there.”
Desmond Locke shook his head, his voice becoming sharper now. “The thing about these creatures is that I do not care about them at the moment,” he said. “What I am interested in—what I have always been interested in—would be the angel that watches over your family.”
“Why is that one so important?” I asked.
“Because before all this other nonsense erupted, it was the singular mystery that brought me to this city, and I have spent much of my life seeking it out.” A bit of madness had entered his voice. “Other mysteries within the Concordia have come after it, but it is the singular thing that has eluded me, and I will not be denied. I will rein this angel in, or I will bend it to my will.”
“There is no angel,” I said, not even hesitating. It was the truth, after all.
Desmond Locke’s voice calmed, but his eyes danced with fire. “Miss Belarus, please. I have offered you my hospitality as a guest at the Libra Concordia in the hope that you would get the answers you seek.”
“And I thank you for that,” I said.
“But that does come with a price,” he said. “A little give-and-take, and I do mean to take. I have more than earned it.”
“You have earned nothing where my family is concerned,” I said. “You watch over us under false pretenses yet dare call my father ‘friend.’ I find it repulsive.”
“I am simply a curious man,” he said, changing tactics yet again. “I like knowing things, and for the sake of my organization, this is the sort of knowledge and creation that we would like to keep in balance.”
“You expect me to trust you? I think you should leave.”
“You talk about trust,” he said. “Perhaps I should not have trusted you.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, my anger growing.
“It seems we have had a break-in at the Libra Concordia,” he said with his eyes searching my face for a reaction.
I gave him none even though my heart leapt up into my throat. “And what does that have to do with me?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But there are signs of both breaking in and breaking out, though we cannot determine if anything was taken. But I’m sure you know nothing about that, do you?”
I shook my head. “Sorry,” I said.
“No matter,” he said. “We will get to the bottom of it, I am sure. Your lack of cooperation here will be something I consider when we question Mr. Kennedy once more.”
“So you’ve spoken to him already about it?” I asked.
Desmond nodded.
After dismissing Caleb on trust issues the night before, I could only imagine how fast he’d sell me out for his safety. “What did Caleb say?”
“He says he knows nothing about what happened the night of the break-in,” Desmond said. “But I am not sure I believe him.”
“Why not?”
“Just a hunch,” he said. “He is a freelancer, after all. Not to be trusted. They are profound liars for the right price.”
Was Desmond Locke admitting to some knowledge of Caleb’s working both sides of the good-and-evil fence? Or was he simply trying to draw me out, getting me to make an emotion-driven mistake?
I couldn’t be sure, and in doubt, I held my tongue. When I didn’t answer after a full minute of silence, Desmond Locke gave a pressed-lip smile.
“If I find he had anything to do with the break-in, it will go poorly for him,” he said, heading for the stairs leading back down to the door. “And given your lack of cooperation here with other matters, it will be doubly so.”
I wanted to rage as I watched him go, and I followed him down the stairs until I could shut and lock the door behind him. All the while I kept silent because any other reaction might betray something to him—be it Stanis, the secrets of the Spellmasons, or even something that might get Caleb killed. Yes, I had driven him off and ignored all his calls, but did I want him killed at the hands of a secret society?
I needed to do something with this energy and confusion, so I ran down the basement stairs, heading for the guild hall. I wanted nothing more than to get into my great-great-grandfather’s inner sanctum and, at the very least, get out a good scream.
The secret door was once again propped on its hidden hinges, sitting ajar, despite the warding password I had put upon it. I threw it open, focusing my will to take down whoever had dared enter my family’s sacred space.
Storming in, I quickly surveyed the room. The scattered books I had been reading on the center table of the great hall were now piled in a single tower almost three feet tall. At the top of it sat a small wooden box with ornate, arcane carving on it.
What the hell was it?
A weird prank left by Desmond?
It didn’t seem likely as he had been with me the entire time. I knew of only one person who had the guts to break in here.
I ran to the box, taking it from the top of the stack and laying it down on the table. It was no larger than a cigar box, but there was both weight to it and the sensation of fluid movement from within. Furious at yet another violation of my space, I flipped the lid open, not caring if it was a trick or not.
A large glass orb sat in the middle of a cushioned insert, its contents a swirling mass of liquid. Even as I stood there looking down at it, the liquid maintained its motion, almost hypnotic. Tucked into the lids were several sheets of notebook paper in Caleb’s clean script. One sheet spelled out in detail the use of the concoction, the same mixture he supposedly used to control Stanis while on the payroll for Kejetan Ruthenia.
The other bore a far more simple but ominous message.
Watch your back.—C
PS. Sorry.
Twenty-four
Stanis
My pained transformation to living stone upon the setting of the sun was a welcome one. Even after centuries, it struck me fresh every time, a constant reminder that it was a miracle I was a living creature. I minded the burning sensation even less that night because I awoke on the edge of the roof where I had stood for centuries. I was home, even if my home was littered with the remains of broken grotesques and the lifeless stones that had previously housed the souls of Kejetan’s closest Servants of Ruthenia.
I walked to the edge of the roof, the awaken
ing sensation already fading, and dropped down to the terrace below. It did my soul good to find Alexandra in her great-great-grandfather’s studio, even in the condition I had previously left it in. As I came through the open hole where the doors should be, the floor crunched with the sound of stone and wood, drawing Alexandra’s attention.
She turned, for a second wide-eyed with concern until she saw me standing there and relaxed. That did my soul good as well, and I crossed to her as she returned to working on a mound of clay sitting on a table in front of her. To her left stood a large, solid block of stone taller than I was, which had not been in the space when last I had been there.
“Where are your companions?” I asked. “This building is not safe, not after the events of the other night.”
“Kejetan and his people got what they wanted,” she said, painful as it was for her to admit. “They’re probably off flying the friendly skies or doing a victory lap. As for Rory and Marshall, they’ve got lives. Me? I’ve got work to do. Between cultists and religious fanatics threatening my family, I need to get creating.”
“What about him?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear her answer.
“Caleb?” she said. She wiped her hands off on a piece of cloth and reached into her bag, pulling out a decorative box I would have expected Kejetan or one of his lords to have owned in life. “He’s out of the club. After the other night, I’m not at all sure I can trust him. But he did send me this as a peace offering.” She lifted the lid to reveal a small sphere filled with a glittering gold liquid.
“Is it true as it was in my century that women love to receive that which shines?”
She smiled at that.
“That we do,” she said. “I prefer the kind I can wear, personally, but it’s a start.”
I watched the liquid dance within the sphere. “What is it?”
She lowered the lid and slid it back into her bag.
“Let’s just say if you develop any other personality disorders, I should be able to cope with it on my own. It’s what he mixed when he freed you. It even came with instructions.”