Taken for Granite

by Nancey Cummings

  “But—”

  “And you will return with your youngling to this room. You will wait for two nights. If I have not returned by the dawn of the third morning, you will know I am unable to join you.”

  “Will you, though? What’s to stop you from flying away?”

  He pulled her to him until their foreheads touched. His breath mingled with hers. “Because you are my pebble and you have my heart. I will always return to you.”

  “Okay,” she said, after a long moment. “I believe you.”

  His sweet female.

  “How did you even find this place? It’s not on the main road.”

  “Mabel told me.”

  “Mabel?”

  “The waitress.”

  She playfully hit his arm. “Flirting with the waitress, asking about motel rooms. I bet she creamed her pants.”

  He indulged in a human kiss, taking her lips with his. “You are delightfully vulgar.”

  They emptied the van. The vehicle was serviceable, but it would not withstand a long journey. Whatever happened after the night’s events, if Juniper chose to stay on Earth or go with him to Duras, she needed reliable transportation. He planned to liberate a vehicle from the Syndicate and considered it back pay.

  With the last of the supplies in the room, he pushed her to the bed and reminded her of his claim to her body and all the parts she pledged to him.

  16

  Tas

  Juniper followed her phone’s directions, but Tas could have guided her. The pull of the sigil grew stronger. He knew he should tell her about the sigil, the message from home and the possibility of rescue, but he hesitated. Rescue was not guaranteed. Duras had been embroiled in a long war with a neighboring planet over territory. There simply may not be the resources available to retrieve the survivors. He could be stuck on Earth.

  He glanced at Juniper, her hair pulled back and a few blue strands escaped at her temples. The roots were a light brown. He liked the contrast.

  Remaining on Earth wouldn’t be such a hardship. Better not to mention anything until he knew for certain, he decided.

  The vehicle pulled off the paved road onto a gravel drive, the headlights creating a tunnel of light in the darkness. The road grew narrow and it wound through the dark forest, briefly illuminated in patches of scarlet and gold. The trees pressed right up against the road. At a sign bearing an emblem of a white rose swung from a post, the vehicle slowed.

  “Is this the place?” Juniper asked.

  “Yes.” Tas recognized the crest used by the Rose Syndicate. “Wait for a moment,” he said, removing the tasteless toucan shirt.

  He focused his energy on his outward appearance. The human guise changed back to his natural form, then he adjusted it appear as if he were still injured. His wings folded and one hung limply against his back, as if broken. He washed out his complexion to an unhealthy gray. His eyes clouded. He drew away mass at his face and ribs, to create an emaciated visage.

  “Christ, you look awful,” she said.

  “That is the idea.” His captors could not know that he had healed the damage inflicted on him. “They needed to think me blind and helpless.”

  “So helpless even a waitress could bring you in.”

  “Yes. Now bind my hands.”

  “Kinky gargoyle.” She smirked, wrapping a cord around his wrists. They had practiced the binding, fastening it so it appeared secure, but could be removed quickly.

  He tested the bindings and nodded approval. “Ready. Drive please.”

  A bend in the narrow drive hid the facility from the road. As they turned along the bend, the trees opened up to a docile farmhouse, complete with a red barn and grazing horses in a pasture.

  “Not what I was expecting,” Juniper said.

  Tas grunted. He had been in many Syndicate facilities, but he had never actually seen any of them beyond the one destroyed in London during the Blitz.

  “It’s so… shouldn’t they have a fence? Guards? Guard dogs? Something.” She followed the circle drive to the house and stopped the vehicle. The porch light switched on, but no one emerged from the house.

  “The horses have been bred to protect against intruders,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “No, not really.”

  Juniper covered her eyes and groaned. “Oh, so now you get a sense of humor?”

  “They have an electronic barrier. I felt it as we passed through. I am also sure that there are multiple cameras for surveillance. They know we are here.”

  “Is that why no one’s coming out of the house? They want us to sweat.” She sighed. “Shit. It’s working. I’m so nervous and I don’t want you to do this but—”

  “Chloe.”

  “Yeah. She’s just a kid. Five days is too long to spend with these assholes.”

  “I agree.” He wanted to gather his mate to him and comfort her, press human kisses to her face, and wrap her in his wings to shield her from the harms of the world, but he held back. “I will escape again. I will find you,” he swore.

  She nodded. “Fuck it. Let’s get my sister.” Juniper leaned on the horn until the front door opened.

  Two black vehicles arrived, blocking their van. Agents appeared from the house and the barn. They appeared unarmed, but Tas knew better. Each would have tranq darts capable of puncturing his thick skin and sedating him.

  Juniper slammed her door shut and roughly pulled open the passenger side door. “Sorry,” she whispered as she yanked Tas out of the van. He followed without resisting, adding a stumble as his feet hit the ground.

  “Which one of you is the bitch who has my sister?”

  “That would be me,” a female with an English accent said. She stepped forward, her hair so pale it verged on white. Wearing a smart black suit, her blood red lipstick appeared all the more dramatic. Tas recognized the voice in an instant: Rhododendron.

  “Bring the girl,” Rhododendron ordered.

  “A few conditions first,” Tas said.

  More agents appeared from around the red barn. They had weapons trained on him. He did not move his head and acted as if he did not see them. Instead, he tilted his head to one side, listening.

  “The Americans do not move as quietly as the British agents,” he said.

  “Shit,” one the agents muttered.

  “I told them, but they insisted on underestimating you,” his handler and nemesis said. “They didn’t believe me when I said you’d come back of your own free will.”

  “I was captured, fair and square.” He held up his bound hands as proof.

  Rhododendron gave a dry chuckle. “You just can’t resist saving a damsel in distress.”

  An agent appeared with a juvenile female. The hair color was a dark blonde, but the resemblance to Juniper was unmistakable. The way she had spoken of Chloe, he expected a child, not an adolescent.

  “Chloe! Did they hurt you?”

  “Junie!” A strong hand restrained Chloe.

  “Your… conditions?” Rhododendron asked.

  “A vehicle for the females,” he said. “With a full tank of gas and no tracking devices.”

  Rhododendron looked at the white van. “I suppose that old thing won’t make it back to wherever it is they’re from. Fine. Smith, the keys.”

  A male standing next to a black vehicle paled. “I’m not Smith.”

  “And I’m not interested in learning names. Keys. Now.”

  He tossed a set of keys toward Juniper, landing them at her feet. “Should I?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Tas answered, just a quietly. He didn’t trust the vehicle not to have a tracking device, but he’d take care of that later. In a louder voice, “They leave unharmed and you do not follow.”

  Rhododendron watched Juniper and Tas, her sharp eyes searching for something. “How positively chivalrous of you, Tas, and here I thought you hated humans.”

  “I hate you more,” he replied.

  She paled then, a sharp-edged smile settled
over her face like a mask. No doubt the agent had many ideas about the nature of his relationship with Juniper. He needed to throw off Rhododendron’s suspicions and replace them with proof he loathed Juniper for returning him to his captors.

  “I imagine it doesn’t look good on your record that you lost me, blind and broken as I am.” He flexed his one good wing to demonstrate. “How embarrassing for you.”

  “Bring the creature to Holding Room Three,” Rhododendron snapped. She shoved Chloe into Juniper’s arms, both females sobbing and babbling. Juniper ran her hands over Chloe, inspecting for any damage. Two large males took Tas by either arm to lead him away.

  He dug his heels in, willing his feet to marginally turn to stone and increase in weight. “Once the females depart,” he said.

  Rhododendron sighed dramatically. “Fine. If you’re quite finished with the melodrama, ladies, can you get on your way?”

  Once Juniper and Chloe departed, Tas allowed himself to be led inside.

  The barn appeared to be that and nothing more, but a service elevator under the hayloft gave a clue to the building’s true nature. The agents led him into the elevator and Tas complied, acting the part of a docile gargoyle.

  The taller man with sandy hair punched a code into the keypad. Tas memorized it. He had been in many Syndicate-run facilities and determined that they all used the same security measures. The layout was similar in that the front-facing, publicly acceptable aspects of the organization were on the ground floor. At least the ones in England had been. He hoped it proved true on the other side of the Atlantic.

  “This facility is for animal husbandry?” he asked.

  “Forest conservation,” the tall male answered.

  “That’s why this is a horse farm.”

  “Forest. Conservation,” he repeated.

  The elevator descended several floors and made no indication of stopping.

  “Don’t talk to it,” the other male with fox red hair said.

  “And if I do? You gonna squeal to that English bitch?”

  “She is in charge of this operation, so yeah.”

  “And it’s going so well. She already lost the creature once,” the tall man said in a snide tone.

  “But captured the new specimen.”

  Tas placidly took in that information, but his pulse picked up. The Syndicate had their filthy hands on another Khargal.

  The doors opened, revealing a stark white corridor. Sterile and cold seemed to be the guiding principle for Syndicate decor. The two agents continued to bicker, paying little attention to their prisoner.

  Under the hum of the lightning, Tas could hear the footsteps of approaching agents and voices behind doors.

  Well, no time like the present.

  Twisting his wrists, he shucked the binding. Making a fist, he swung at the man with fox red hair, connecting solidly with his chest. The man fell to the ground. Tas gave a satisfied nod. Even if he did not have the stone-summoning abilities of those in the warrior class, he could still deliver a blow.

  The other agent swung a pistol device, the ends crackling with electricity.

  Tas dodged to the side to avoid the electrified prongs, grabbing the agent’s wrist and slamming it down on his knee. The pistol clattered to the ground, where Tas stomped on it, crushing it underfoot.

  Grabbing the man by the collar of his suit, Tas held him up to the retina scanner at the nearest holding cell. The door unlocked and Tas shoved him and the unconscious male inside.

  “Wait! You can’t do this!” The door slammed shut and the man’s shouts stopped, though Tas could see he remained quite animated through the window.

  Soundproof. Nice upgrade.

  Hurried footsteps approached. With his stone-hardened fists, he smashed the overhead lights, plunging the corridor into darkness.

  He rolled his shoulders and stretched out his wings. This was his element.

  Voices shouted in confusion. An alarm blared. Bullets fired. He moved to avoid the gunfire, but he knew he could heal any damage by slipping into duramna again after this was over. The only true danger was sleeping darts. The tips could pierce stone and render him unconscious.

  Tas navigated through the crowd, disarming and incapacitating as needed. He left a trail of destruction, heading toward the pulse of his sigil, smashing access panels to the holding cells and looking for other captives.

  The majority of the rooms were empty, except for the last holding cell in the corridor. A lone male Khargal pounded on the glass window. Tas’s wings fluttered and his tail lashed violently at the occupant.

  Frelinray. The years had not changed him.

  “Un-fucking-believable,” Tas said, quote Juniper’s favorite word. The gracking fool was alive. Alive this entire time! He left Tas to rot in a cell, but Frelinray might have been laboring under the misunderstanding that Tas perished in the bombing, the same misbelief Tas had about Frelinray’s fate. He was glad to see his friend and furious all at once.

  Frelinray spoke, the message absorbed by the soundproof glass. He pointed to something just out of view.

  “Grack this.” Tas smashed the lock and the door swung open.

  Frelinray opened his arms wide, as if to embrace Tas after their long separation.

  Tas landed a punch to his face, knocking Frelinray on his ass. He was happy to have his friend back, but he wasn’t ready to hug and forgive. He said as much. “Not yet. I’m pissed at you and I’m busy. We’ll deal with this later.”

  Frelinray rubbed his jaw. “I’ll find you on the ship.”

  So there was a ship coming. Tas gave a curt nod. The sigil was near and he needed the coordinates of where to find the rescue ship.

  “Don’t you dare fucking die before then,” Tas yelled, as he stormed down the corridor. “I haven’t beaten the shit out of you yet.”

  Tas could swear he heard Frelinray laugh.

  Down another flight. He tore the door off the stairwell, throwing it down the stairs at the gent foolish enough to stand below him.

  When he reached the new corridor, he knew he’d found the correct level. He smashed the locks on doors, finding sterile white labs with broken old Khargal equipment. He might find his old armor, the suit the Syndicate took off of him in London. The advanced functions had ceased working, but since he was returning home, he should show up in his uniform. He’d be happy with any armor, even a shielding device. He could not summon stone to skin to form armor, like some warriors, and he disliked being exposed to bullets and tranquilizer darts.

  Giving the collection a quick look, he found only junk and pieces of tech long dead or broken. No armor.

  Close now. The pull of the sigil drew Tas in. Only a door remained between him and his message from home.

  It had to be a message from the retrieval team. He didn’t want to hope after a thousand years of bitter disappointment, but he knew he was going home.

  The door opened with minimal effort and swung shut behind him, plunging him into darkness. Having lived in a permanent state of darkness for decades, Tas navigated his way across the lab.

  The light flared to life, blinding him with a searing brightness.

  “You absolute fool,” Rhododendron said.

  17

  Juniper

  Juniper drove, heart pounding and hands shaking. She had to keep moving. She had to look straight ahead. If she looked at Chloe, she’d burst into tears and drive into a tree. When the road widened enough for two cars to pass comfortably, she pulled over.

  Chloe watched her, eyes wide and chewing on her bottom lip.

  Her sister looked terrible, with circles under her eyes and wearing a too-large, rumpled white linen shirt and pants combo. Her face had been scrubbed clean. While Chloe never wore a ton of makeup, she always had lip gloss on. The complete lack of anything on her face was odd.

  “You look like you joined a cult,” Juniper said.

  “Oh. They gave me this.” She plucked at the front of the shirt. “All I had was my school unifo
rm and it had brains on it.” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. That was gross.”

  “Fuck it. I don’t care.” Juniper lunged across the seat and hugged her sister. Chloe tensed and for a moment Juniper was certain the teenager would wiggle away, but then the girl melted in her arms. “Don’t you dare apologize for what those people did to you,” she muttered into her Chloe’s hair. “I was so worried. I was going out of my mind.”

  “Those people—”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t. They’re like the Illuminati on steroids,” Chloe said.

  “I know,” Juniper replied.

  “I always thought Mickey was crazy—but that shit was for real.”

  “Language.”

  “I had brains on me, Juniper. Actual human brains. I think I can say the word ‘shit’ now.”

  Chloe gave her a flat look, daring her to argue, and it was so classically Chloe that Juniper had to laugh with relief. Her sister was fundamentally the same.

  “Shit got real,” Juniper agreed. She stroked Chloe’s hair and gave her another bone-crushing hug. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  Chloe sobbed into Juniper’s shoulder, soaking her shirt but she didn’t care. She let her sister cry, rubbing her back and murmuring that she was safe now. She would never let Chloe go again.

  When Chloe pulled away and wiped her eyes, Juniper drove to the motel. Chloe blabbed, spilling all the details about her captivity.

  The story continued as they entered the room and Chloe took a seat on the edge of the bed. “But seriously, they were just like the Illuminati, complete with a secret lair. They even had a monster in the dungeon. A gargoyle. I guess now they have two, with the one you brought back. God, it looked rough. It looked like it was ready to fall off a building. Is that what happened to it?”

  “He,” Juniper said, reflexively.

  “How do you know? Did you see its ding-dong?”

  “His name is Tas and he’s a person, not a monster,” she said, side-stepping the whole question of ding-dongs. “And he’s not a gargoyle.”