“Yes! And he’s not just any enslaved Gargoyle, he’s Kamen’s Gargoyle. Kamen’s creation. I thought if any slave would be powerful enough to unlock the power within this Amulet, it would be one of either Kamen’s or Odjit’s slaves. And since Odjit has no living Gargoyles that I know of at present, this one will have to do.”
“So what do we do next?” Baldie wanted to know, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
“We don’t do anything. I am going to try to get this Gargoyle to unlock the power in the Amulet.”
“And just how are you going to do that?” Baldie sneered, clearly not liking being cut out of the potential rewards, even if he had done nothing to deserve them. Just as his friend had done nothing to deserve them outside of being a thief. “If you get too close to it, it’ll rip your head off. It’s not as though it’s going to want to do you any favors.”
“I know,” Panahasi said with a frown as they both looked over at him. He gave them a dutifully vicious smile for their efforts.
“Well, you better think of something soon. You only have a few days before he’s no longer any good.”
“I know,” Panahasi growled sharply. “Don’t worry, I will think of something. Kamenwati isn’t the only priest with power, you know. I did manage to ambush the Gargoyle and catch him, didn’t I?” Panahasi said, puffing himself up. But it rang very hollow to both Panahasi’s friend and his captive. Probably even to Panahasi himself.
“Never mind.” Panahasi said when his companion still looked dubious. He dropped the Amulet into the box along with the book he’d read from and shoved both onto the table. The action made the lid of the box shut sharply. “I’ll deal with it later. I merely wanted to know if you were interested in being a part of it. But if all you are going to do is judge …”
“No! I won’t judge,” Baldie said eagerly. He held up a hand, palm flattened out solemnly. “I swear.”
“Good,” Panahasi said, seeming to be mollified by his friend’s newfound respect for him. Or what passed for respect. It was more likely he would try to find a way to snatch the Amulet for himself at the first opportunity. That was just how grasping and disloyal these Templars were.
There was a noise at the door and Ahnvil’s keeper came bumbling through in a cacophony of objects and clumsiness. She was not his captor. Merely his warden. She moved forward, approaching him cautiously as she always did, her fear obvious on her face. She was wise to feel trepidation. He had not made things easy on her. She had never actually harmed him, but neither had she aided him in any way except to feed him and tidy his cage. He stood up, his fists clenching, his entire attitude making his body seem bigger than his already massive stature.
“Is it daylight?” he asked, the passing of time so awkward and slow for him in here, shut away from the whims of the sun.
“No. It is turned night,” she answered amicably. She was a mousy little thing, in face and form and most certainly in attitude. She was shy and unsure, especially when she approached his cage.
She was incredibly petite. So small and so thin he could break her with a single swipe of his hand. She moved to the lever on the wall across from him and his entire body went tense, instinctively straining against the action to come. She pulled the lever and immediately, with a grinding groan of machinery, the ends of his chains began to disappear into the wall. They shortened and began to drag his powerful, straining body back toward the solid stone of the rear wall of his prison. He glared at her scathingly, and she turned and hid her face under the length of her hair.
He growled as he stepped back voluntarily, knowing that it was inevitable anyway but it was at least an act of freedom, of choice, however small or disillusioned it might be.
“What is my slop for the day, jailor?” he asked. She seemed to flinch under the reference of her being his jailor. Even though they both knew there was little truth to the matter. She was not the one who had put him here and she was not the one who held him captive still.
She moved back to the doorway to fetch the tray she had been carrying when she’d entered the room, then, with a sense of unease he could feel all the way across the room, she came toward him, her steps small and tight. She was so afraid of him things on the tray rattled softly because her hands, possibly her whole body, was trembling. As she approached the steel-barred door of his room, she hesitated. She had good cause to fear him. Even lashed down as he was he was, still a force to be reckoned with. And no doubt she could feel his hatred toward her as it rolled off him. She’d have to be dense not to be intimidated.
“Mendato dirivitus day-o septoma,” she said at last, unlocking the heavy door and its lock with the spoken spell. She was not afraid of him hearing it, because his kind could not cast magic. Magic had forged his kind into life. And magic, it was said, could not beget magic.
She turned and butted the door open using the hook of her ankle to control it. She entered more quickly now. He could only assume it was because she wanted to get the whole thing over with and the less time she spent in the cage with him the better off she’d be.
She had no idea, he thought with menace. If he could get his hands on her, he’d snap her rotten Templar neck in an instant. She and her kind had taken the one thing, the one thing that he treasured above all other things, and they would pay for it.
They had taken his freedom.
It was driving him insane, being locked away like this. Though it was a very different type of captivity than the one he’d been forged into, this was far worse. Probably because this time it had been his foolishness, once again, that had gotten him in this kind of trouble.
He’d been tracking down another piece of Templar scum, had followed him into a bar, only to make the mistake of being distracted by a pretty girl, a decoy, who had talked to him cheerfully as the Templar bastard had come up behind him and … Well, he didn’t exactly remember what had happened next, but his head sure hurt and he’d obviously lost consciousness.
She put the tray down on the floor within his reach … or rather, within his reach when the chains were slackened. She stood up and pushed back her hair, the shining length of it smooth and clean and rich. Despite his hatred for this Templar, he had to give credit where it was due. God had done right by her when it came to her hair.
Ahnvil growled low and fierce and she jumped in her own skin, quickly backpedaling toward the door. He had been captive here for two days and time was growing short. He needed to act now or risk insanity or, worse, permanent being. Of all the things his kind feared, permanent being was by far the greatest and most universal. Insanity could be healed with time and guidance, but permanent being … it meant being a prisoner in stone for all time.
“Before you go,” he said hastily, pausing to clear the rough anger in his voice. “Tell me why it is that I’m being held here. I know nothing of value, and wi’out my touchstone you have no ability to enslave me. All this does is risk permanent being. ’Tis senseless! I am just a guard for a low-level Politic Bodywalker,” he lied, “I swear I doona know anything!” His desperation was coming through in his voice, his thick Scot’s accent growing thicker, and he cursed himself for the weakness.
She put one hand in the other, twisting them together in agitation.
“I don’t know,” she said, and he knew she was speaking honestly because of the stark worry in her eyes.
Worry for me? he wondered. Hardly, he thought an instant later. She was a Templar. The worst kind of Bodywalker. The kind that robbed its host of all previous life and individuality. The kind that would enslave another being. The kind that would use evil magic to have their way. She was a snake. Perhaps a less dangerous snake in the grand scheme of things, but a snake just the same and her venom would be just as deadly … however small it might come in its doses. He shifted, testing his bonds for the thousandth time, the sting of his raw skin reflecting that. Early on he’d shifted from stone to skin, trying all manner of methods to free himself. Every attempt, no matter how small, reminded him that
time was ticking away, and along with it his sanity. For, as strong as he was, the longer he was away from his touchstone, the weaker he became. The longer he was away from his touchstone, the looser his grasp on reality and … eventually, his mind. And the longer he was left without the stone, the more sure his impetus toward permanent being would become. Permanent being. Turning to stone and never being able to turn back again. Trapped in one’s own stone prison. No way of healing from it, no way of coming back. And these Templars were counting on his fear of that. They didn’t need to torture him. They need only wait and let time do it for them.
“Imagine how frustrating this is for me,” he said, letting his true desperation come through, trying to appeal to those flickers of humanity he saw within her from time to time. Maybe her host wasn’t completely subjugated, he thought with even more desperation. Maybe there was a true human being fighting within her.
Maybe he could use that to his advantage.
“Like you I am merely a servant tae a master. I know nothing. I’m li’le more than a dog playing fetch.” He growled. “I fought for freedom only tae find myself li’le more than a slave again,” he lied. Quite convincingly, he thought. He deflated with a sigh. “But they will no’ believe that. No’ even when I turn to permanent being.” He shuddered at the words, and he did not have to act the emotion.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and he almost believed her. “There’s nothing I can do.”
She turned to hurry out of the enclosure.
“Wait. What’s your name? Just so I know what tae call the only friend I seem tae have in here.” That’s it, he coaxed in his mind as she leaned back toward him, taking his measure as she tucked a silky strand of that hair behind her ear.
“Jan Li,” she said, and he knew instantly it was her host’s name, the Asian features of her face telling of it if nothing else. That was unusual. Usually Templars did not adopt their host’s names. The less they were reminded of the host within them, the happier they seemed to be.
“Jan Li. Thank you, Jan Li, for talking tae me. My name is Ahnvil.” She probably already knew that, but he gave her his name in order to coax her into humanizing him. It would work on whatever part of her was decent … if any part of her was. It did occur to him that she might be just as deceptive as he was being, acting the innocent to wheedle the information they wanted out of him using femininity and helplessness to pave the way. But it was worth the risk to play the odds. What other choice did he have?
Jan Li locked his cage back up, testing it with a rattle of metal, as if he could move that far forward in his little pacing acre. Then she went to the chain release and let him have the slack in his chains again. Perhaps … was it his imagination or was it a little more than he’d had before? He shook his head, trying not to let the situation toy with his grasp on reality. He would lose hold of that soon enough. What he did notice was that she kept looking over at him. Even as she left the room, she cast a slow look at him over her shoulder.
Then she left him alone.
Alone to wait.
She reappeared five hours later, the only one to breach his solitude, and it was harder and harder for him to ignore the ticking clock they had purposely left within his line of sight.
She was carrying yet another tray, coming toward the cage to trade it for the empty one at his feet. It wasn’t until she went for the lock that he realized that she hadn’t taken the slack from his chains. Did this mean she was beginning to trust him? Beginning to relax her guard?
She lowered the tray to the table and lifted her dark eyes up to his.
“You have five minutes at most before they notice you are missing. I have constructed a ruse that has brought the guard from his station. There is a camera watching you.”
“I figured as much,” he said, his breathlessness a result of his disbelieving elation.
“All I ask is that you take me with you. I cannot break free of these people on my own. I beg of you to lend me your protection. I am afraid I am of little strength and use to you and all you have is surprise and my knowledge of the complex on your side.”
“Deal. And ’tis enough,” he told her.
She wasted no time then entering the cage, making him realize immediately that she had a key grasped within her shaking fingers. She unlocked his manacles with lightning speed, something he found impressive, for all her talk of being weak. It occurred to him that this could all be a ruse, an act to get his hopes up only to crush them later. A way to further stress his mind in order to bend it to their will, but what other option did he have? And whatever else, his hands were unbound and that meant his wings could be called forth.
After freeing him, she wasted no time hurrying out of the room and he had to make haste to follow her. Only … he stopped and looked back toward the worktable … toward the metal box. On impulse he grabbed for the box, opened it, and snatched the Amulet from within it. Then he hurried out of the room.
They were underground, as he had long suspected for all they had behooded his head on his way to his cage initially. But it was barely a basement, free air hitting them after only two flights of stairs. He heard a lot of shouting and saw people running away from them across what looked to be the yard of an old prison. It was full of fencing and barbed wire at its rims, but the openness allowed him to see there was a fire and a hole ripped into the fencing and the ground. A distraction, he realized as he turned to look back at her. But he was in free air and that was all he needed. He shifted form instantly, his stone skin rippling over him and his wings bursting forth from his back. He grabbed her up against himself and with a thrust of powerful legs he launched into the sky, making sure to protect her from anything that might be thrown at them from the ground. But what he worried about most was that he was burdened and that other Gargoyles they would send after him would not be.
CHAPTER THREE
“It is not an ugly monument of metal with no purpose. It’s an ugly monument of metal that’s allowing us to carry on this interference-free phone call.”
That small bit of logic released a tirade of venom about the evils of modern technology from the other end of that lovely connection and Katrina Haynes rolled her eyes heavenward, as if that were going to help deal with her mother for whom logic was a fluid thing. The ugly cell tower they’d just placed on her mother’s neighbor’s property on the mountain above was a blight and an eyesore and entirely not necessary said she-who-was-infamous-for-bitching-about-dropped-phone-calls and she-who-was-attached-at-the-hip-to-her-barely-understood-smartphone. Her mother had to have the best, whether she could use it to its potential or not.
Katrina’s own smartphone had been a gift from her mother for Christmas; otherwise she’d still be making do with her much beloved flip phone, and being quite content with it. Although, she had to admit to an Angry Birds addiction. She had several different variations of the game.
“Well, Mother, then you’ll have to be content with looking down the mountain and not up the mountain where the cell tower is. After all, isn’t that what a vista is all about? Looking down around you?”
She whistled sharply, looking down her own drive to where Karma had disappeared. She exhaled, her breath clouding on the deep sigh. The air was cold and crisp, just the way she liked it, and as she looked down at her own vista, a breathtaking view of the valley and the small town of Stone Gorge, Washington, where she lived, she guessed she’d probably be a little pissed off, too, if something marred her view in any direction.
“Momma, Karma’s disappeared again. I’m going to have to call you back.”
“That dog.” Her mother tsked. She didn’t like the thundering Newfoundland dog. Her mother said it was because the dog reminded her too much of a black bear rather than a dog, and being so close to the wilderness where bears often came down and ravaged her mother’s birdfeeders, Katrina could understand the trepidation. Although Karma was a bounding bundle of soft, sweet, slobbering devotion and wouldn’t hurt a fly, never mind a birdfeeder.
<
br /> Kat said her goodbyes and hung up the phone before moving down the steeply sloping drive and whistling again for her dog. But as she came around one of the drive’s many curves, she found the dog snuffling into the thick leaf fall left over from that autumn’s annual shedding. Karma’s big body was blocking her view of whatever it was she had found. Fearing she’d come up with a skunk, Kat hurried forward.
“Karma, come out of there!” she ordered sharply.
And that was when she saw it. Him. It. She couldn’t decide and she was frozen in place, rooted with fear and shock, her heart pounding with sudden madness in her chest. He was probably the largest man she had ever seen in her life, and living in nearly wild mountain country that was saying something. He was almost twice as big as the gigantic dog sniffing at him. But the most shocking thing about him was not that he was half naked in the slush of the last snowfall that was half melted yet, but that half his skin was gray, like the coarseness of a stone, and half was dusky, perhaps deeply tanned or maybe racially swarthy with an acre of sculpted muscle. He was lying on his stomach, seemingly dead.
Then he groaned, proving himself alive, and rolled onto his back, and all her fear melted away when she saw a copious amount of bright-red blood. She lurched forward, shoving her dog aside, as she dropped to her knees and reached out to touch him. Her hands fell onto his shoulders, one of which was chilled human skin, the other of which was as rough as stone. But that couldn’t be, she thought in some corner of her mind. Skin simply did not turn to stone. Perhaps it was a full thickness burn or some other kind of injury … But the sectioning of skin to stone fluctuated under her touch and suddenly the shoulder opposite turned to stone and the other to flesh beneath her trembling hands, robbing her completely of any further excuses.
But with that change came a sudden gush of blood down the ridges of his defined abdomen before it dripped heavily into the snow, much of which was already stained a melting red.