Avisha

by Vi Lily

  Oh my gawd…does that mean I'm now their enemy? Maybe that's what Bog was trying to do, to lock me in a closet until they could figure out what to do with Gwendolyn Harmon, Demi Demon. Ugh.

  But I remember that Bog wasn't rough with me, like you would think he would be if he were treating me like an enemy. I open my senses then and realize he's throwing "protect!" feelings all over the place, and most are aimed my way.

  Okay, so I'm not the enemy. Good to know.

  I can't even process all of this. My mind is about to shut down, but that's not an option right now, so I corral my thoughts back to the fight—and the fact that Smythe has turned into this huge, gray, scaly, long-tailed, seriously ugly dragon. Not the cute little winged things I was always in love with. No, he's freaking scary. Terrifying, hideous, nightmare-inducing ugly. Just like his personality.

  He's way bigger than the gargoyles, and that's saying a lot. The guys are like seven or eight feet, but this dragon thing has got to be at least twelve feet, because I know Bog's ceilings are over fourteen feet.

  I know this, because I asked him the other day if he had twenty-foot ceilings so he could fit his fat head in the house. He told me they were "only four and a half metres." I'd had to use the internet to figure out what that meant in feet, cuz my parents were metrically-challenged Americans and they passed the defect down to me.

  The dragon is nearly touching the ceiling.

  Avi is no match for the dragon, it's clear. I mean, come on, the dragon is three, maybe four, times his size. He takes up nearly the whole living room…what's left of it anyway. Their fight has destroyed most of the furniture, torn the curtains down, broken at least two windows and one of the walls now has a hole big enough for me to walk through.

  "You're gonna need to hire a remodeler after this," I mutter to Bog out of the corner of my mouth.

  I still wonder what the guys think of me now that they know that my father is…is that thing. A demon; their enemy. Probably not a good idea to joke around right now, but I seem to be full of not-good ideas.

  I'm really relieved with Bog answers me with a snort. "I'll just burn the place down and build another." I raise an eyebrow at that and look back at him. Gee, how much money does the dude have? He snorts again and I realize he probably just read my mind. I frown at him, just so he'll know I don't appreciate him being in my head. It's kinda scary in there. Embarrassing, for sure.

  Another crash draws our attention when the dragon's tail sweeps the room and knocks over a table and breaks a window. I watch in horror as the massive television hits the floor.

  It's enough to make a girl cry.

  I figure it's a good thing Bog has a lot of land out in the middle of nowhere. I'd hate to try to explain all the noise and destruction to the police when the neighbors freaked out. Although it would make a good episode of Live P.D.

  Avi jumps straight up to avoid the sweeping tail and I stare open-mouthed as he clings to the high ceiling. I think about how he and Janissa would get along really well. Well, Brea, too, with her jumping ability.

  With a start, I suddenly realize that the girls are my sisters. We're watching a dragon destroying the mansion and I'm standing here, grinning from ear to ear. I have a big family!

  That is the one bright spot in this whole ugly situation. Of course, it also means that Ven is my brother, which brings that whole trying to kiss me episode to a whole new level of grossness.

  Jonam—I'm going to quit thinking of him as Dr. Smythe now, because, well, he's a freaking dragon—is looking around for Avi when he spots Bog and me by the door. His ugly gray dragon eyes narrow and he turns to stomp toward me. Bog yanks my arm, pulling me closer and I know he's about to bolt with me when Avi roars and lets loose of the ceiling.

  He lands on the dragon's neck and then uses his claws to start ripping scales off. I figure then he's trying to get to the skin underneath. One of the scales lands at my feet and I can't help myself when I bend to pick it up. It's as hard as a piece of steel and sort of looks like metal, but it's not shiny. It's huge, too, the size of both my hands put together.

  It's shockingly cold, too, and feels…evil. Is that even possible? I don't know, but it makes me shiver, so I toss it over my shoulder. I cringe when I hear glass break.

  "Sorry," I mutter to Bog, who just shrugs. Yeah, I'm with him. The living room is trashed; what's another broken window?

  A few more scales bounce off the floor while the dragon whips around, trying to dislodge Avi. Jonam is trying to grab at him, but it's like watching a T-rex trying to scratch his back. Not happening. It's pretty funny to watch. Bog thinks so too and we both start laughing.

  Avi must hear the laughing, because he looks down and grins at us. He turns back and yanks a few more scales off, then plunges his claws into the hole he's just made.

  Jonam lets out a roar so loud that I have to cover my ears. It's like a fog horn, jet engine and screaming baby all wrapped up in one long blast of pain. Even with my ears covered, the pain from the sound is incapacitating.

  Bog grabs me suddenly and yanks me to the side. He then whips his wings over us like a big umbrella, and just before he brings them down, I see the huge chandelier that's hanging in the foyer let go of the ceiling.

  I hear glass breaking all over as the roar continues. It's so loud that my eyes are crossing, and that's with my hands over my ears and Bog's wings shielding me.

  I thought my head was pounding after my concussion, but it's nothing compared to having your brains trying to vibrate out of your ears. I think then that doesn't matter if the mansion sits in the middle of a hundred acres—neighbors are going to hear this.

  Hell, people in Ireland are going to hear the dragon roaring.

  It goes on forever—well, at least a full minute—but then it suddenly stops, like a switch was flipped. Bog is still over me, covering me with his body and wings. I can feel him shaking. I wonder if he's hurt.

  Cautiously, I pull my hands from my ears and I check them for blood. Seriously, that's how bad it is, how loud that roar was. I figure my ear drums have exploded and I'm going to find brain bits oozing out of the holes.

  Thankfully, no, cuz that would be disgusting.

  The silence is eerie after all that noise and I wonder if we're all going to be deaf now. I nudge Bog and he slowly slides off me and sits back on his haunches. I turn and look up at him. His brown-gray gargoyle skin looks pale as he runs a shaking hand over his face. He looks at me and we stare at each other in shock and then turn in unison to the living room.

  The dragon is gone. In its place is Smythe/Jonam/whatever, back in human form. Naked human form, no less. Ewww. His clothes apparently shredded when he turned into a dragon. Avi said the Moral shifters learned many millennia ago to wear loose "short trewes," as he called them, so that they'd have cover whenever they had to change back and forth. Bog wears spandex shorts, which Avi took a liking to.

  I guess even stretchy shorts have a limit when you're changing into a brontosaurus-sized dragon.

  Thankfully, Smythe is lying on his stomach and Avi is sitting on top of him, covered in blood. My heart nearly stops, but then I realize it's not his blood when I notice the gargoyle hand-sized hole in the middle of Smythe's back.

  Daddy's dead. Yes!

  I push up off the floor and pat Bog on the head. I feel him chuckle and then I stumble toward Avi. I need to get my hands on the guy to make sure he's okay.

  As I get closer, I glance down at the body he's sitting on and nearly lose my pork fried rice. I hate blood and there's sooooo much of it. I force my eyes away and plant them on my man.

  "Are you okay?" I ask. My words sound weird, hollow and echoey, like my head's in a bucket. Yep, got some hearing loss for sure. Great. Maybe it's because of the ringing, though. It sounds like someone pulled a fire alarm in my head.

  Avi stares at me for a second, then shakes his head, followed by his whole body. I watch in fascination as he transforms back into his human form. It only takes a few seconds
and it's really freaky to see—like the big gargoyle sort of just melts into a human. Cool.

  "Aye, lass," he answers when the transformation is complete. At least, I think that's what he said. I seriously can't hear anything.

  I bang on my ear with my hand, like a swimmer trying to get water out of her ear.

  "Can't hear," I say, but I must yell it, because Avi laughs. Bog makes me jump when he puts his hand on my shoulder. It sucks not being able to hear him sneak up on me and I elbow him in the ribs—human ribs, since he's shifted too.

  He's mouthing something at me, but I just shrug. "Got nothing from that," I say and point to my ear again.

  I can tell Bog yells then and even though he's like just inches away, I only faintly hear him.

  "I said, next time you feel like tacklin' a dragon, remember that roar. It's why I was tryin' to get you away. It can near melt your eardrums."

  After I mouth "oh," I shrug. "Well, I wasn't just going to go hide while Avi was left fighting that thing—" I motion in the direction of the body without looking at the bloody mess, "—by himself."

  I wonder again what the guys think of me now that they know about my…origins. My eyes flicker back to the body of my—ugh—father, and I'm shocked to see that it's gone. He's gone. He was just there like two seconds ago, and now Poof! Like the end of one of those horror movies when the bad guy who's just been stabbed twelve times and had a hole blasted in him with a shotgun suddenly disappears.

  I spin around, looking everywhere for the creep, but he's nowhere to be seen amongst the carnage that once was Bog's beautiful mansion.

  My wide eyes swing to Avi, who is now just kneeling on the floor instead of sitting on the missing body, and the look of horror on my face must say it all.

  He stands then and moves over to me, wrapping me in his big arms. I sigh in relief. He must not care who my father is, thankfully. I hug him around the waist and lay my ear against his heart. Not that I can hear it beating, but I can feel it against my temple. Of course, that might be my own heart pounding, along with my head. Ouch.

  I feel a vibration and I'm pretty sure Avi is saying something to me. I just yell out "Can't hear you." My head bounces on his chest and I know he's laughing at me, so I kidney punch him.

  He pushes me back and I tip my head back to look at him. "I said, we're immortal, so Jonam isnae dead, unfortunately. He's just…on sabbatical." I can tell he's yelling, but it sounds like a muffled soft voice.

  "Yer hearin' will return in a day or two," he yells again and I nod. That's good, because this deaf thing sucks.

  Especially when I'm pretty sure Bog says something behind my back and I don't know what it is. I hate it when people talk about me behind my back—literally, this time. But then Avi gives me this look and I can read his mind loud and clear.

  I love you too.

  Epilogue

  T RUE TO his word, Avi takes me back to the past right after the doctor releases me. We spent an extra few days in the future, waiting for my hearing to come back and cleaning up the mess at the mansion and just hanging out. I had a lot of guilty pleasure time, lazing around watching old movies and just being with my two favorite guys.

  Bog decided Avi needed to learn to drive, which was a full day of total hilarity. Again, it's a good thing Bog has a lot of property, because Avi seriously sucks at driving. He knocked down a fence, hit a couple of trees, and I'm pretty sure Bog's cow is never going to give milk again. Ever.

  Eventually he got the hang of it and then we went to see another Moral shifter in Ireland named Zebadiah, who specializes in fake i.d.s for other Morals. In just a few hours, Avi had a birth certificate, a driver's license, a passport and a visa.

  He decided on the last name of "Craig," because he said it meant rock in Gaelic, and since he'd been a "rock" for so long, he thought it would be appropriate. When I asked him why he didn't just use the name he'd had in the sixth century, I was shocked to find out they didn't even start using last names until after the Middle Ages.

  I decided to get new i.d.s for Carlie and me too. Avi asked me to use Craig and I jokingly asked him if that was a proposal. Bog, of course, laughed hilariously at the deer in the headlights look Avi got.

  My feelings were hurt for a few seconds before I realized he didn't know what I was talking about. After I explained a marriage proposal, the big guy had immediately dropped to one knee like I'd described and asked me to "be his wife."

  He's still waiting for my answer. I mean, come on, I'm eighteen. He's like ten thousand. Talk about cradle robbing. I do love the guy though, so we'll see. I told him for now he could be my boyfriend…which made Bog snort soda out of his nose.

  I found out that Bog uses the last name Mackenzie. I asked him what that means and he grinned at me.

  "It's the modern version of 'son of Kenneth'. And Kenneth means handsome." I had rolled my eyes at that and then broke out into Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," which made Avi laugh hysterically.

  That discussion of names turned to meanings of first names. I was shocked to find out that Avisha, Bogdan, Zebediah—even Jonam—all mean "gift of God." Apparently, all the Fallen's names mean that. Weird.

  Bog has come with us for the trip to the past and I'm grateful for his presence. Two gargoyles are definitely better than one, especially when it comes to fighting "kill the beast" mobs. I can hardly wait to see the look on Osgar's face when he sees two badass gargoyles knocking on his front door.

  Or cave entrance, rather. Bog shows us where they've hidden themselves, which is a fairly large cave from what we can see. Surprisingly, there are women and even kids at the cave, in addition to the mob.

  I ask why Osgar didn't just take Carlie back to his fortress, but Avi thinks this was his plan all along, to hide away somewhere so Avi couldn't find him after he stormed in and took "his girls."

  My heart is happy at that. Well, it will be when we get my girl back. It's been over three weeks that she's been with Maurice/Osgar.

  Avi also speculated that Osgar had intended to use Carlie and me as insurance to get Avi to leave his fortress…permanently. He said that Osgar had wanted the land that Avi purchased years before, but hadn't "had the coin" at the time.

  He also said he figured Osgar really didn't care if Avi was a gargoyle or not…all he cared about was the fertile land and river that ran right through it. Osgar's people had overworked their own land, apparently.

  It took a lot of arguing to get the guys to let me come with them to the cave. The only reason they relented is because they had no other place to leave me. Avi wanted to leave me at his fortress, but no one is there. The place is deserted…except for the dead guy still in my bedroom. I'm going to need some serious air freshener to get that stink out.

  Avi realized that it had to be his own people who sold him out to Osgar. Probably not anyone who actually worked in the fortress, like Kate and Domnall, but it was most likely one of the others, like the lardess, or the tanner, or the chicken plucker.

  Yeah, middle school me still laughs at that.

  Bog suggested leaving me at the mansion in the future. He told me that they would only be gone for a few minutes and would sweep the area before they left to make sure no DEE-men—or demons—were around.

  Avi thought that was a great idea, but I flipped a lid. I like banshee-yelled that if something happened to them, Carlie would be stuck with Osgar and I'd be stuck in the future, wondering what the hell happened.

  Gwen for the win.

  We move to the treetops to watch the cave and wait for our chance to nab Carlie. There's quite a bit of activity considering the morons are supposed to be hiding out.

  I've hidden in a lot of trees in my time, but this is the first time that I haven't been afraid of falling. Between Avi on one side and Bog on my other, there's no way I'm going anywhere. Plus, I don't have the worry of hanging onto my little sister, so I'm able to cling to the branch with both hands.

  Bog looks at my death grip on the branch and chuckles in m
y ear. "You don't have to fash yourself, Gwen. We're no' goin' to let you fall. Well, not far, anyway."

  I scowl at him and manage to give him a good elbow to the ribs without letting up on my hold. Avi reaches over me and punches his brother in the shoulder.

  "Doonae be scarin' the lass. She has enough on her mind as 'tis."

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love my sweet, considerate gargoyle so much.

  I open my mouth to give Bog a smart comment, but there's a sudden flurry of activity below. From the yelling and scurrying, I can tell something's wrong and my heart leaps into my throat.

  "This may be our chance," Bog says. Avi nods and tells me to stay put. I start to protest, but then I realize that it won't do any good…the guys aren't going to take the chance of little ol' mortal me getting hurt. Plus, I would probably just be a hindrance to them.

  I watch as the guys silently drop out of the tree without even flapping their wings. Stealth mode, I laugh to myself while my heart is skipping beats from the tension of watching them fall.

  I'm reminded of Ven and the first time I saw him purposely fall off the roof of the DEE lab building, which is ten stories high. The jerk hadn't bothered to tell us he'd discovered he could "fly."

  The guys split up, with Bog heading around toward the left side of the cave, and Avi to the right. Osgar's people are running around and don't even notice the gargoyles, even though it's still light out.

  The gargoyles cling to the rock walls on each side above the entrance. I wonder what they're waiting for, but then I realize they're reconning—just watching, listening, and waiting while people run in and out of the cave. I'm sure they want to make sure they can nab Carlie without incident.

  After just a few minutes, the guys look at each other and both drop simultaneously to the ground and rush inside the entrance. As can be expected, there are more than a few screams and the people inside the cave rush out. But they don't take off like I would expect them to when confronted by two giant gargoyles. Instead, they stop and stand just outside, looking toward the entrance. The women are clinging to their children and the men seem to be at a loss over what to do.