by Linda Mooney
Spreading his wings, he leaped into the air to seek a safer sanctuary. The woman raised her mouth to yell into his ear something, and pointed in a direction to their right. Having no other choice but to trust her, Garenth obeyed.
Chapter 12
Struggle
Because she had an aversion to heights, Brielle kept her attention focused on the creature who cradled her in its arms as it flew over the Manhattan skyline. The thing never gazed back at her as it scanned the buildings below, which gave her ample opportunity to study its features.
It was definitely a gargoyle, or as close to being one as physically possible. Initially her brain had refused to acknowledge that fact, that there could be a gargoyle statue hidden in the depths of the sand in Egypt, among ruins more ancient than previously discovered. Gargoyles were considered a French artifact.
Until her common sense kicked in to remind her of the fact that pyramid-shaped temples, once considered a purely Egyptian concept, had also been found in other unlikely places such as Mexico and the Sudan, in Greece, China, and Spain, just to name a few. The same could be said for mummies.
So why not gargoyles?
The only difference here was that gargoyles were not considered to be, or had ever been considered to be, once living creatures. They were mythic, like ancient gods, unicorns, and centaurs.
Apparently mankind had been wrong.
Or maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe there had been gargoyles, but they’d been killed off or died off like the dodo?
She studied the creature’s profile. She should have known he wouldn’t have been able to speak English. No more than she could speak whatever ancient dialect he understood. But they’d managed a small breakthrough when they had exchanged names.
Garenth. He’d called himself Garenth.
Was that his actual name? Or was that his word for what type of creature he was?
She forced herself not to gaze back where his wings were attached, or below at his belly and knees. There was no mistaking he was definitely a he. She’d gotten a good gander of his masculinity, since he wasn’t wearing any form of clothing. Not that he would need any, she figured.
She rubbed the back of his neck where she’d looped one arm. If she didn’t know any better, she would describe his skin as rock. It looked like granite but it felt like limestone, but gritty to the touch, not smooth. It was nearly as resilient as rock, having deflected four bullets from that man’s pistol.
Deflected, but not without consequence. There were four pockmarks in his chest where the projectiles had struck him. They resulted in a couple of hairline cracks in the surface of his skin. He’d been injured, but she had no idea as to what extent. But she did know one thing, and that was that rock wasn’t invulnerable.
“Brielle.” Garenth motioned with his head at the expanse before them. She figured he was wanting to know where they could land. To her surprise, they were nearing the Hudson River where numerous warehouses lined the shores. She pointed downward, uncertain where to indicate exactly, but apparently it didn’t matter.
He angled head-first toward one dark building, landing so gently she was barely aware that they’d arrived. He set her on her feet and strode toward a door leading to the stairwell. She followed him, feeling perfectly safe. Even if they came across some scummy drug traffickers or other unwanted criminals, she was confident he would protect her. Why he would defend her, she didn’t know, but she was certain of it, nonetheless.
When the door closed behind them, they were left in pitch black darkness. Brielle used her sense of touch to find the handrail and steps. She could hear Garenth moving down the steps with a confident tread. There was the sound of a door being opened on the next landing, but no light came inside. She continued to descend the concrete stairs until she joined him. He loomed above her like a nightmarish creature, and for the first time she noticed he didn’t breathe. Or, if he did, it was so subtle and quiet as to be unnoticeable.
“Garenth?” She held out a hand to reassure herself. He grasped her arm and drew her through the doorway.
The air was musky. The place smelled like oil and gasoline. It either was or had been a storage facility at one time, rather than an industrial complex.
He led her into what appeared to be an office. The room was lined with windows which allowed the people inside to view the goings-on on the floor inside the vast building. Out in the warehouse proper, more windows circled the building, allowing for light from outside to filter through.
There was enough brightness coming into the building to outline the desks and chairs within the smaller space. Brielle stood in the doorway and surveyed the area. On a hunch, she ran her hand along the wall beside her and found a light switch. She flipped it, not really expecting anything to happen. To her surprise, the fluorescent panels in the ceiling flickered on, temporarily blinding her. When she finally managed to remove her hands from her eyes, Garenth was standing on the far side of the room, staring at the ceiling with a curious look on his face.
“What? You’ve never seen light before?” she quipped, knowing he’d never seen anything other than lamps and torches. She plopped down in a nearby chair, weary beyond belief, and stared back. “Now what do we do? That guy who shot at you? The one dressed like a ninja? He got away with several priceless relics…but I guess you already know that, don’t you?” She rubbed her face. “Why are you here? How did you get here? Those crates that Uncle Chet sent were too small for you to fit in. So how did you get here? Did you fly?”
Garenth replied in that language she couldn’t understand. He appeared to be just as frustrated as she was.
She tried not to gawk at him. In this light, he appeared even more intimidating. His massive bulk looked crowded in the room. The upper portion of his wings nearly brushed the ceiling, which had to be ten feet above the floor. As she studied him, he sighed and parked himself on the floor, knees up and buttocks down. His arms dangled between his legs and he bowed his head.
“God, you look…” Depressed. The thing looked depressed, utterly despondent, and her heart went out to him.
She wanted to reach out to him and offer some kind of comfort, but she was at a total loss how to do so. What could she say that he would understand? What could she do?
A familiar ringtone rattled in her jeans pocket. She’d forgotten she’d slipped her cell phone into her pants. Pulling it out, she didn’t glance at the name on the display. She already knew who it was.
“Uncle Chet—”
“Oh, thank God! Brie, are you all right? Are you safe?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” She started to say more when he cut her off.
“My God, you don’t know how worried I was after the police called to tell me about the shooting at the museum! They told me you’d been kidnapped! That’s why I thought I’d try to reach you, to see if you had your phone with you.”
“I’m fine and unhurt, Uncle Chet,” she reassured him.
“What happened? Do you know what happened?”
She stared at Garenth, who had closed his eyes. The slump remained in his shoulders, and she’d bet anything that if gargoyles could cry, he would.
“Yeah, Uncle Chet. I hope you’re sitting down, because what I have to tell you is going to knock you on your ass if you aren’t.”
Chapter 13
Interpretation
She gave him the Reader’s Digest version, not going into full detail. Dr. Kelling listened without interrupting to the point where she had to make sure he was still there.
“Uncle Chet?”
“I…yeah. I…” He cleared his throat. When he spoke again, it was obvious he’d turned his head to talk to someone else. “Yeah, Irmine. I’m on the phone with her now. She’s okay. What’s up?”
“Dr. Kelling, that big statue? The one you said looks like a gargoyle? It’s gone,” the man intoned in what sounded like disbelief.
Brielle could only imagine what her uncle’s expression was. “It’s…gone?”
> “We finally cleared the last of the sand. The pedestal, that big rock is still there, but the statue is gone. And we know there’ve been no trucks or other equipment come through that could have hauled it away.”
“Have you notified the authorities?”
“Yes. They’re sending a couple of people over to take a report.”
There was a heavy sigh. “Brielle, let me call you back for a video chat. Irmine, stay here. You have to hear this.”
“There’s something I need to add,” she hastily told him. “That rock-like thing that attacked the intruder? He, uhh, he kidnapped me.”
“What?”
“I thought he kidnapped me, but now I’m not so sure. I mean, after that guy shot him, then took off, the thing grabbed me, and we flew away from the museum.”
“When I got a call from the museum curator about the breakin, he told me the guards saw you leaving with the suspect. They’re looking for you, Brie. They’re wanting to question you. Where are you now?”
“I don’t know. Inside some warehouse on the docks.”
“West side?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Hang up so I can call you back,” he ordered tersely.
She disconnected the call and waited for the man to reconnect them. As she silently counted off the seconds, she glanced over at the creature—at Garenth—who appeared to be asleep. Appeared to be, but she was willing to bet he was listening to everything she was saying. Aware of everything going on around them.
A heavy sense of sorrow covered her like an invisible blanket. This man, this creature, this impossible being had been literally thrown into a new time and place he was totally unfamiliar with. Forced to face circumstances and a new life he had no control over. The idea of her having to deal with the same thing was impossible to imagine.
The phone rang again, and her uncle’s face came into view. Irmine hovered over his shoulder. Gazing at her, Kelling managed to smile. “Hearing your voice is one thing, Brie, but I had to see for myself. Where is the giant creature you said helped rescue you?”
In answer, she turned the phone around to show him. Both men gasped in shock. She swiveled the call back to her. “Is that the same gargoyle that you said was in that new excavation?” she asked almost blithely.
“How did it get there?” Irmine wondered aloud.
Brielle managed a lopsided grin. “My first guess would be that it flew.”
“And it hasn’t been aggressive at all toward you?” her uncle queried.
“No. Other than trying to talk to me, and then taking me…wait. When the guy who shot at me and him shot out the back door to the warehouse and took off, it set off the alarms. I think Garenth saw some of the guards coming downstairs and thought they were dangerous, so he left, too. What I don’t understand is why he had to take me with him.”
“Garenth?”
Brielle shrugged as she shook her head. “I can’t understand a single word he says, but we did manage to exchange names. At least I think that’s his name. It could be what kind of creature he is, for all I know.”
Irmine poked Kelling on the shoulder. “If he is from that era we believe he’s from, just think of it! He speaks a language no one has ever heard before! A language we’ve only seen inscribed on walls and stone!”
Dr. Kelling got a thoughtful look on his face that Brielle recognized. He was getting an idea, and it was going to be a doozy. “Brie, turn the phone back around so I can see him. Irmine, I want you to see if you can’t communicate with the thing.”
Brielle gave him a wide-eyed look. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“We won’t know until we try.”
She sat up on the edge of her chair and shone the phone at the creature. “Garenth? Garenth!”
The thing opened its eyes and lifted its face until it caught sight of the phone. It stared at the instrument in her hand but made no other move.
Irmine began speaking to it in Arabic, enunciating his words slowly. At first Garenth continued to stare at the man, but then his expression changed. Gradually, a look of understanding and hope came over his face. He responded to Irmine’s questions in that gravelly voice that spread goosebumps over her flesh. Brielle propped her arm with her other hand as she listened to the exchange. After a few more minutes, Irmine paused and addressed them in English.
“He does speak a form of Arabic, but it’s ancient. It’s changed a lot after so many years. Some of the dialect is hard to understand, and he’s probably thinking the same thing about the way I speak, but at least I managed to get some information from him. His name is Garenth bin Al-Emin. He was a general in the army of Serqet.”
“Serqet?” Kelling chimed in. “That pharaoh is so obscure, knowledge about him is hardly known!”
She turned the phone back around. “You two can discuss that later. Tell us what else you learned.”
“It seems he was in some sort of power struggle with a man named Serasin, who was counsel or vizier to the pharaoh. Serasin managed to convince the pharaoh that Garenth was a traitor, and had him incarcerated.
“I’m not real certain about the whys and hows, but it seems a priestess of the Egyptian god Petbe came to visit Garenth when he lay dying after he’d been tortured. She gave him something to drink, and promised him he would get his revenge on Serasin. But in order to do so, he promised her he would keep the mother idol sacred.”
“Mother idol? Could he be talking about that vial with the hideous face?”
“What vial?” Kelling demanded. “I don’t recall sending you a vial.”
“Yes, you did,” she corrected him. “That little statuette you claimed to find underneath his hand? It’s a vial. I was examining it earlier this evening, and the head popped off. At first I thought I’d accidentally destroyed it, but it was evident the head was the stopper. In fact, that little gold ring around its neck is the seal. Uncle Chet, I found traces of something still inside the vial. I took a couple of swab samples to send to the lab in the morning.”
“Where is the vial now?”
“That man, that intruder took it, along with a few other items. He kept saying he was looking for something he called a kalorshai. A seal. But the swabs are still in your desk drawer.”
Garenth spoke again, this time at Brielle. She glanced at the phone. “What did he say?”
“He wants to know where the mother idol has been taken,” Irmine interpreted. “He says if he doesn’t get it back, he will die and Serasin will win.”
“But I have no idea where it could be, or even who took it,” she said, giving Garenth an apologetic look.
Irmine passed her answer to the creature, who pointed at her and responded.
“He says he can find it because the mother idol is calling to him, but he’s going to need your help.”
“How can I help? There’s nothing I can do. Hell, I can’t even talk to him!”
“He seems pretty convinced you can help him find it,” Irmine answered.
“Brie,” Kelling spoke up. “I’m catching the next flight I can back to New York. You stay safe until I get there. Better yet, turn yourself in to the police. You need to clear your name of this whole matter as soon as possible.”
“What about Garenth? I can’t leave him alone in the city. He’s already been shot at. No telling what else could happen to him,” she argued.
“I’ll tell him to lay low until you get back with him,” Irmine offered.
She emphatically shook her head. “He can’t stay here. We don’t know if this warehouse is deserted.” She bit her bottom lip. “Can you tell him to remain in hiding until I’m done with the police?”
“Where would that be?” Irmine gave a breathy laugh. “He’s sort of hard to keep concealed.”
She grinned. “Tell him to remain on the museum’s roof. If anyone spots him there, he won’t look that out of place.”
Irmine spoke with the creature, who answered.
“He wants to know if you’ll help him find th
e mother idol. I told him you would.” The associate made a face. “Brie, he keeps insisting the mother idol calls to him. That’s why he left the dig and flew to New York.”
“That’s great! Then he can look for it himself!” she exclaimed.
“Noooot exactly. He says he can’t look for the idol because you have been touched by her, and that is throwing him off.”
Touched by her? It took Brielle a moment to figure out what Garenth meant, when it came back to her. “The stopper. The head. When it popped off, it landed in my lap. I bet that’s what he means. I bet some of what was still inside the vial is on my jeans.”
“It could also explain why he took you with him,” her uncle assumed. “If you’re bearing the scent of whatever’s in the vial, it’s obviously messing with him, and keeping him from tracking down the idol on his own.”
“If that’s true, then I need to change clothes. Maybe throw this pair of jeans in the sink with some detergent.” A yawn caught her by surprise. “I also need to get some sleep. Can you tell Garenth to take me back to the museum?”
Irmine relayed the request to the creature. Garenth commented, and Brielle didn’t need it interpreted. They would be returning to the museum as soon as this call was over.
Chapter 14
Examination
Elso was in the middle of a phone call when Finestra entered his office, again without permission. This time, however, he’d been expecting the man.
“I’m sorry, but a small emergency has come up. I’ll have to call you back at a later date, all right?” Without waiting for the man on the other end to respond, he hung up and turned his attention to his associate.
Finestra strode up to his desk, opened a small black bag he carried, and carefully extracted the items from inside it, laying them one at a time across the leather desk mat. Elso stared at the five objects.
