Taken for Granite

by Nancey Cummings

  Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “But I saw it—”

  “Tas is an alien. He’s not a gargoyle and he’s not a monster.” Juniper dug out the bag of new, non-cult clothes for Chloe.

  “An alien?” She rolled her eyes, even digging through the new clothes.

  “You’re totally sold on this Illuminati crap, but you can’t believe in an alien?”

  “Because aliens aren’t real,” she said sarcastically, like it was obvious. For good measure, she added, “Duh.”

  Yup. She got Chloe back.

  “Since I’m not changing your mind, let me just say that Tas willingly exchanged himself for you. He didn’t have to do that and I certainly couldn’t have made him. Now, are you hungry? I got mostly junk here, but there’s a diner down the road.”

  Chloe clutched the plastic carrier bag to her chest. “Oh my god, you like the gargoyle!”

  “Actually, yes. I do.” A lot. More than she should. Juniper sat on the other bed, facing Chloe. “Is that okay?”

  “Did you Netflix and chill? I’ve read the books you have on your Kindle. Monsters are your kink.”

  “You read those?” Juniper frowned. Chloe was way too young to be reading those stories.

  Chloe’s mouth dropped open. “Oh. My. God! You did!”

  Juniper wanted to say it meant nothing; sex had been a physical release to get her out of her head or a way to pass the time. The truth was that her intimacy with Tas did mean something. She liked him. She enjoyed talking with him. She loved how he made her body feel. She hated that he willingly went back to that place, to be locked in a cage or tortured. Or both. Probably both.

  Guilt rolled in her stomach, because how crappy of a sister was she that while Chloe was held hostage, Juniper was busy falling for Tas? Super crappy and she felt every bit of it.

  She needed to get the focus off of her love life and back onto Chloe.

  “Did they hurt you?” she asked and dreaded her next question even more. “Do we need to go to the pharmacy for an emergency pill? Or the hospital?”

  Please say no. Please say no.

  “No. They put a bag over my head and put zip ties on my wrists.” Chloe displayed her bruised wrists. “They fed me and left me alone.”

  Juniper sighed with relief.

  “I got so bored I did all my homework, even that essay on Wuthering Heights.” Chloe made a face then said, “I guess I’m not going back to school again, am I?”

  “Not that school. Maybe.” Even if they ever went back to Philadelphia, the private school’s tuition was way beyond her budget now.

  “What are we going to do, Junie?”

  At that moment, Chloe was a fourteen-year-old girl needing her big sister to shield her. She was brave and smart and resilient—but also scared.

  Juniper smiled, grabbed her purse, and pulled out a stack of cash she retrieved from the van. “Mickey’s emergency bribe money.”

  Chloe’s eyes went wide. “Did you steal that? Who are you? What happened to straight-laced Junie?”

  “Ten grand and I didn’t steal it.” Gah, she couldn’t lie. “Okay, I kinda did, but it was in the catering van to bribe the cops if I ever got stopped.” Mickey wouldn’t miss the money now.

  “Blood money.”

  “Money to keep us going until things calm down at home.”

  “Will it?”

  Juniper rummaged through the carrier bags and found the bag of Halloween candy. She grabbed a Twix and popped it in her mouth. “We’re going to eat all this candy, watch some bad movies for a few days, and then we’ll figure something out. Deal?” She tossed a Snickers to Chloe.

  “Deal,” her sister said, with a mouthful of chocolate.

  tas

  Rhododendron sat in a chair, her legs crossed sharply at the knee, and regarded him with cool disdain. In one hand she held the sigil, red lights glowing in the cracks of the dark metal casing, and a red gem in the center.

  They held each other’s gaze, neither willing to be the first to break contact. Perhaps Rhododendron was not used to Tas being able to look back at her, as she glanced down toward the sigil in her hand.

  “Was this thing really worth coming back for?” she asked.

  Tas said nothing.

  “What’s this? You’ve never been shy before.” Painted red lips twitched into a smile. “Normally you can’t stop telling me all the ways you’ll gut me and defile my body.”

  He leaned forward, ready to attack.

  “I don’t think so.” She held up a baton that crackled with energy. Tas didn’t need his sight to recognize the implement. High voltage shocks would immobilize him. “Let’s just keep our distance, hmm?” She glanced back down at the sigil. “I thought this was broken.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “No. Obviously not.” She stood and stuffed it into a pocket. Absently, she used a handkerchief to wipe her hands, as if the alien device tainted her. “You’ve caused a fair amount of property damage today, Tas.”

  Footsteps echoed down the hall. He tensed, ready for the door to burst open with Syndicate agents, each armed with their own weapons to subdue him. If he met this at the door, he could create a bottleneck to control the flow and not get overwhelmed. One human was a trifle, but they became problematic in numbers.

  Static and voices carried down the corridor, growing louder and eventually passing. When the last of the footsteps vanished, Tas turned toward the agent. She did this. She diverted the henchmen elsewhere.

  “I don’t need any special consideration from you,” he said.

  “As nice as it is to see you with both wings functioning, and I’m sure you’re an impressive fighter, I can’t be bothered sitting through a dust-up. It’s dull. So dull. I’ve waited so long to speak with you, Tas, as an equal, and you want to ruin with fisticuffs?”

  “Is that what we are? Equal?” he said hastily, before he had a chance to think better of it.

  “Do you remember when I was a little girl and I read stories to you?” She moved toward the door and Tas moved back, keeping his distance.

  “Little Rhoda.” That had been a long time ago. She used to skip excitedly down the corridors, the leather of her shoes slapping against the concrete slab floors. Her parents, both Syndicate agents, encouraged her visitation. They wanted her to familiarize herself with the creature in the cage, not befriend it. He didn’t think Rhoda got the message.

  Tas snarled. “I was not your pet then, and I am not your toy now.”

  She tilted her head and frowned. “You hated any show of kindness back then. Still do. Is that why you didn’t run? Too proud to accept the least bit of help from the enemy?”

  Her question shook him. “What?”

  “Why didn’t you run, Tas? Do you know how many years it took to plan your transfer? To convince Eastwick? How clever and sly I had to be to ship you across the ocean in a wooden crate? How carefully I counted your calories to make sure the cuffs would be loose at the end of your journey? How much information I had to spoon-feed to that store-brand thug? I practically handed you to him on a silver platter and he still managed to bungle it. All that work for nothing.” She made a disappointed clicking sound with her tongue. “You failed to run and now you’re back. For this?”

  She patted the pocket holding the sigil, watching him for his reaction.

  Tas schooled his expression to remain passive and betray nothing.

  “No, I think not. Surely it’s not the girl? You understand that I had no intentions of keeping her.” She circled around him slowly, studying him. “Must be the woman.”

  Tas tensed and his tail slapped against his leg.

  “Interesting.”

  “To display compassion? Humans claim to exhibit the emotion but I have seen precious little from your lot.” Years of captivity weighed on him. He was exhausted. “Let’s just have out with it. Why did you let me go?”

  “Because I’m your friend,” Rhododendron replied with a straight face.

  A loud bark of d
isbelieving laughter tore out of his throat. His friend? His captor claimed to be his friend.

  Her icy blue eyes narrowed. “Eastwick wanted to dissect you ages ago. I convinced him that learning about Khargal psyche was more valuable than cutting open another corpse.”

  “Delaying an execution does not make you a friend,” he snapped. Juniper had shown him more kindness and true friendship in five days than Rhododendron had her entire life. He was a fool to ever suspect Juniper of being a Syndicate agent. No amount of acting talent could hide her compassionate soul.

  Grack. He had feelings for the human. The thing he swore he would not do, he did. He willingly walked into a Syndicate compound with nothing but his wits, as feeble as they were, to rescue Juniper’s sibling. The sigil was a distant second, he now realized.

  And now his handler knew he had an emotional entanglement. They would come after her as leverage against him. He needed to get back to Juniper quickly.

  Rhododendron tossed him the sigil. The faint red light brightened at his touch. It recognized him.

  “What does it do?” she asked.

  Tas closed his hand around the device, not willing to access the message in front of her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Take it, but you should know we can track them within a two-kilometer radius. If you keep moving, you should stay ahead of us.”

  “Why are you helping?” Especially when she recently had Frelinray locked in a holding cell?

  She gave him an empty smile. “I told you and you didn’t believe me.”

  Friends. Unlikely.

  Rhododendron shook her head, as if she knew what he was thinking. She probably did. “Call it my rebellious phase. My parents were fanatics. They spent all their lives hunting down more of your kind and they neglected me. Poor little daughter of monster hunters.” She moved her hands at the corner of her eyes in mock tears.

  While she jested, Tas suspected that she spoke the truth. Her captive prisoner really had been her only friend.

  “The American branch doesn’t have the same quality as the London office, but they do seem keen on acquiring specimens. I won’t be able to keep the Americans from coming after you,” she said. “Take your woman and disappear. But before you go, strike me.”

  He knew it was to make the situation appear as if she failed to capture him, rather than sabotage, but he found little pleasure in hitting a defenseless opponent.

  With an open palm and not using stone to harden his skin, he struck her across the face. Her lip split. She touched her fingers to the bleeding wound and nodded.

  He fled, encountering another squad and more bullets, keeping his wings tucked tightly to his back. If the membranes of his wings took too much damage, he would not be able to fly. Bullets pierced his shoulder and arms. While his skin was denser than a human’s, the gunfire still stung, and an armor piercing round would do serious damage. He needed to keep moving, to make himself a difficult target to hit.

  Finding the elevator disabled, he climbed up the shaft. As he exited the shaft, a canister rolled across the floor, hissing noxious fumes.

  Holding his breath, he extended his wings and beat them, pushing the gas back. The agents apparently didn’t think to wear gas masks, so they scattered. There really was a drop in quality with the American branch, it seemed.

  Taking flight, he launched over the gasping agents and flew out of the building.

  He raced to the motel, pleased to find the black vehicle parked in front of the room Juniper rented. He wanted more than anything to burst through that door and take his mate in his arms, but he had necessary work first.

  He crouched at the side of the vehicle and listened. Running his fingers under the chassis, he found nothing suspicious. However, he found a tracking device under the hood.

  He flew to the nearest river and dropped it in.

  18

  Tas

  Tas kept vigil all night, but Syndicate agents did not approach the motel. Just before dawn, he jumped down from the roof and knocked on the motel door.

  The door cracked opened. “What?”

  “I require admittance. Typically one knocks for entry,” he said.

  The youngling opened the door, standing there with a pen in her mouth and a notepad in one hand. “Tas?” she asked, removing the pen.

  “Chloe?” he asked in return.

  “Junie, your date is here,” Chloe shouted.

  The youthful slang confused him, but he said nothing. Juniper appeared at the door, hair mussed from sleep and her eyes half-shut.

  “Tas, get in here. Don’t just stand there where anyone can see you.” She pulled him in, wrapping her arms around him. Instinctively, his wings wrapped around her to form a shield. “I was so worried. I honestly thought I’d never see you again,” she whispered.

  “I am here.” He buried his nose in her loose hair. She smelled of sleep and soap, a warm bed and drowsy kisses.

  The youngling cleared her throat loudly.

  Juniper pulled back, then noticed his pock-marked skin. She ran her hands up and down his arms, over his shoulders and torso. His flesh had been gouged, the wounds red and raw but no longer bleeding.

  “What happened to you? Does it hurt?” She carefully touched the wound.

  It did hurt, but he would not admit to that. “The damage can be repaired with sleep.”

  “Duramna?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She chewed on her lower lip. That she did not remove her hand from his arms pleased him exorbitantly.

  “Is it safe enough to do that here?” she asked.

  He considered Rhododendron’s warning about the Syndicate tracking the sigil. “No. Not while I have this.” He held up the sigil. Symbols lit up along the surface. Even after a millennium, it was still fully powered and functional.

  “What is that?” Juniper asked.

  “They were talking about that,” the young female said. “The Rose people. They couldn’t figure out how to open it.”

  “That is because it is designed to only respond to a Khargal’s genetic signature. But this one, in particular, is mine.” He pressed his thumb to the base of the device and it unfolded like a blossom. Red light bathed the room and a holographic displayed popped up on top.

  Muscle memory took over and Tas navigated through the display, swiping away at the interface, dismissing a thousand years’ worth of error notices and failure to connect to the distress beacon. Finally, he arrived at a communication.

  “What is it?” Juniper repeated her question.

  “A message,” he said.

  She stood next to him, hand on his shoulder. “Well? What does it say?”

  “I am going home.”

  juniper

  “Home? Like your planet home?”

  “Yes,” he said, looking up from the device, his bright amethyst eyes practically radiating excitement.

  Juniper forced a smile, despite the twisting feeling in her gut. He said he would stay with her. When he walked through the motel room’s door, her heart felt so full she thought she might explode. He came back. He chose her.

  But now he could go home, so none of that mattered. He’d choose home and family over her. Hell, she’d choose home and family, too. Humans hadn’t exactly been kind to him or his kind.

  “This is the location.” He swiped more at the display, calling up an image of Earth. A red dot pulsed in the northern part of North America. Glyphs and symbols surrounded it, which Juniper assumed to be Durassian writing.

  “I think that’s Canada. The Yukon? Northwest Territory? One the northern provinces,” she said.

  The image zoomed in with a satellite image of a mountain range, but without a map overlay, it could be anywhere. Tas took his time, zooming in and then out, examining the terrain.

  “This is fascinating and all, but if we’re hitting the road, I need to shower and wash the smell of cult off of me,” Chloe announced, grabbing fresh clothes before heading into the bathroom.

  Juniper w
aited until the bathroom door shut. “What do you think?”

  “They selected an area with low population density,” he said with the nod. “The sigil will lead me there.”

  “Us,” Juniper said.

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “You’re still hurt. Bullets took chunks out of you, for crying out of loud! I’ll drive and you’ll sleep.”

  “And when I’m healed? I can fly there faster than you can drive.” He folded his arms over his chest.

  “I can drive sixty miles an hour on the highway, maybe eighty, and I can do that all day. How fast can you fly and for how long?”

  He huffed.

  “Besides, I’m sure there’s stuff about the modern world you don’t know. You need a guide.”

  “I do not require a guide. I am a decorated Khargal scout. I have infiltrated the enemy and passed undetected among them for several of your lifetimes.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t know how to drive a car.”

  “I can drive,” he said.

  Juniper didn’t know why she tried so hard to get Tas to let her help him. She didn’t need to chauffeur his ass to Canada, but the truth was that she wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Not yet. Maybe at the end of a nice long road trip, they’d be so sick of each other that she’d wave him off to his spaceship with a bounce in her step.

  Yeah. Spending time in close quarters was totally how she would get over her gargoyle crush. She rolled her eyes at her own wishful thinking. “How long do you have to get there?” she asked.

  “Seven days.” He pointed to a rapidly changing symbol. It must be a countdown.

  “Seven days!” She counted out the days. “You have to be at the mountain in god-knows-where moose-infested Canada on Halloween?” She pulled up the map function on her phone and searched for directions to Calgary, the only Canadian city she could name at that moment. “Calgary is thirty-three hours from here. We can leave in the morning.”

  “We cannot stay here,” he said. The holographic display vanished along with the red light. “The Rose Syndicate is able to track the sigil.”