The Gargoyle Chronicles: A Riga Hayworth Mystery (Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery Book 8)

by Kirsten Weiss

  He waved his hand. The air thickened and shimmered. There was a popping sound, and Riga vanished.

  My stone heart clenched. I cast about with my magical senses. We were connected, and I knew she was still inside the small theater. But where?

  And then I saw. The woman lying trapped in the guillotine – her hair had been blond. Now it was auburn. Riga’s hair. Now I understood why my mistress had insisted on wearing a wire rather than filming the confrontation. The authorities could never know the truth.

  “Ah,” she said, prone on the guillotine’s bench, wrists pinned near her shoulders. “You’re a real magician.”

  The theater grew strangely warm as I scanned the empty chairs. My talons unclenched. The blonde sagged limply in a seat at the back. Silently, I leapt into the air, soaring near the ceiling.

  The Amazing Franconi paced the stage. “Fools, all fools, too ignorant to understand real magic, the highest and most divine knowledge, the path to supreme power. Do no harm…a fairy tale meant to comfort the mundane. You think you know power, but you know nothing!”

  “I was right about Sarah though.”

  I circled, landing gently on the shoulders of the magician’s unconscious assistant. Gripping her sequined tuxedo jacket, I lifted her over the chair. The fabric tore loudly, and I glanced at the stage.

  “Half right,” he said, unhearing. “I cast a glamour on the girl, so she appeared to be me. Not even she knew what was happening. That was true magic, true power.”

  “But she had her suspicions. And the others? Jaelin King, the woman you cut in half?”

  The magician paused beside the guillotine’s wooden lever. “Talked to her girlfriend through my entire act.”

  I gripped Sarah’s collar in my beak. Claws scraping the carpet, I dragged the girl to a dark corner and hid her behind the velvet curtains. Their rings jangled, and I flinched.

  “Irritating,” Riga said loudly, covering the noise, “but it’s not all about you. And Gerrard Ewing?”

  “Heckled me during a card trick.”

  Riga’s hands rattled in their restraints. “Okay, maybe Gerrard did deserve punishment. But drowning in his own closet? That was just being mean. And me?”

  “Metaphysical detective,” he hissed. “Ridiculous. A career that begs for an equally ludicrous death.”

  “I dunno,” she said, “decapitation is sort of a classic.”

  A strange dizziness descended, blurring my vision. My mistress could not die! I hunched, preparing to spring.

  “Magic, my dear, is life. And death.” He smiled faintly. “Goodbye, Ms. Hayworth.” He yanked the lever.

  No! I sprang into the air, my great wings whooshing open, and… The blade remained suspended in place.

  Riga jerked her cuffed hands, and the restraints flew open.

  The magician staggered backward. “You…you…”

  She rolled off the bench and stood, massaging her wrists. “Sabotaged your guillotine earlier today.” Riga kicked him in the nether regions, and he doubled over, his top hat falling and rolling into the orchestra pit. “Magic that.”

  In Which Plans Are Waylaid by a Dragon

  The pines bent, shivering. I craned forward, my talons clenching the granite outcropping. Was it Bigfoot? A newspaper had reported a sighting in these woods. Ah, how wonderful it would be to finally speak with another magical creature who understood!

  A whisper, like water over stone, flowed down the mountain.

  I sighed. Alas, it was only the wind.

  “Most humans believe elementals to be a type of fairy.” The man beside me adjusted his high-necked cloak.

  I froze, rooted to the cliff. He had not been there moments before. Had he seen my stone limbs move?

  “Fairies consider this misconception insulting,” he said. “Elementals do not consider it at all, which tells one something important about elementals.”

  I willed myself not to react. Why was he addressing me? Was he a rival magician to my mistress, Riga? For I smelled magic – currants and sulfur.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I know you’re you, a living gargoyle.”

  When I neither moved nor responded, he continued, “I know you, for I am dragon.” And he unpeeled his skin, exposing fire and scales as fine as feathers. The power of earth and magma scalded my stone.

  Quickly I looked away. “Mon dieu.”

  His reptilian eyes gleamed amber. “Of course, elementals are much closer akin to dragons than to fairies.”

  “Yes,” I croaked. “That is true.”

  The malachite-colored cloak still fluttered about the dragon’s serpentine neck. It should have looked ridiculous. But there is nothing ridiculous about a dragon.

  He was silent a long time. I took that as permission to speak.

  “I am here looking for the Bigfoot,” I said, wishing the dragon gone. The Bigfoot must be a sensitive soul – his shyness was evidence of that – and I suspected the dragon would frighten him away. Oh, to converse with one who truly understood!

  “Bigfoot?” Smoke curled from the dragon’s nostrils, and the ridges over his eyes lifted. “That oafish creature?”

  Oafish? Dragons were so arrogant. But this confirmed my suspicions about the incompatibility of a fire monster with a creature of the forest. “You have seen him?”

  “I have seen many things. In fact, you reminded me of an elemental I knew just over a century ago and not far from here. A human magician attempted to summon the creature. The resulting earthquake and fire destroyed a fair-sized city, for its time. Alas, a building fell upon the man. Magicians can be so foolhardy.”

  As I could not entirely disagree, I said nothing. Besides, it is unwise to argue with dragons.

  “Of course,” the dragon continued, “occasionally, one will surprise you. John Dee, spy and advisor to the Queen Elizabeth, invented his own magical system. It’s based on utter tosh, of course, and yet it works. Quite remarkable how humans are able to do that. I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it myself.” He snorted. “Dee thought he was summoning angels.”

  I was well acquainted with Monsieur Dee’s work. Irritated, I drew breath to speak.

  “Oh, yes,” the dragon said, “I knew Dee. I was birthed on that fair island across the sea.”

  He rambled on, and I clamped my beak shut. I knew all the signs. He was going to go on and on, and I would miss the Bigfoot!

  “It was Merlin who awakened me from my sleep beneath what was to become Vortigern’s tower,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes at the shameless namedropping. Was there a magical creature in existence who did not claim to know Merlin? “I suppose you were there at the battle between Arthur and Mordred?” I asked, sarcastic.

  “And when Merlin sealed the dying king in the tor. Merlin’s spirit guards it ’til this day.”

  I hunched my shoulders. As my student Pen would say, my ears, they were bleeding.

  “My brother, the white dragon, lies beneath that tor. In his honor, and because Merlin requested it, I carved into the earth the labyrinth that winds along its top.”

  And so, I stayed, wishing I was elsewhere, anywhere, even teaching my student her Tarot lessons, as the wind rustled the trees and the lake darkened with the coming night.

  “Of course, it is not a perfect circle, not when Glastonberry Tor itself is dragon shaped. But one does one’s best.”

  I saw my chance to escape. “Ah, yes, I can only imagine what it must be to gift a human such as the great Merlin your wisdom. Sadly, I am but a servant, and my mistress, she calls.”

  The dragon bowed his head. “Then alas, you must go.”

  Relieved, I soared skyward. So big-headed. Dragons! He did not even ask my name!

  His green cloak coiled in the breeze as if waving farewell. The dragon’s voice floated to me on the alpine air. “Ah, how wonderful to finally speak with another magical creature and a sensitive soul! To converse with one who truly und
erstands!”

  Riga and the Gatekeeper

  I alighted on the graveyard’s high brick wall. Its metal gates canted at odd angles, as if a doomed soul had thrust them upward in a desperate attempt to escape. “Do you expect to find the Voodoo Doll Killer here?” I looked down at my mistress, standing outside the gates. From this angle, she seemed quite small.

  The church clock bonged the quarter hour.

  Fifteen minutes to midnight.

  “No, Brigitte.” Riga pulled her auburn hair from beneath the collar of her blazer and scowled up at me. “I expect to find his next victim. And don’t call him that.”

  “The Voodoo Doll Killer?” I asked, knowing it would irritate her.

  Riga’s jaw hardened. “That monster has nothing to do with magic or voodoo.”

  “So you told the police, and yet here we are.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I said it, because it’s true. I can’t lie to pad my billable hours.”

  Also, my mistress did not need the cash. Riga was the best dressed cemetery lurker in the history of cemetery lurkers. “Then why stay? Our work is done, and we are not common detectives.”

  “You’re not a detective at all.”

  I shrugged, stone feathers grinding. Riga could grow pedantic when irritated. We both knew I was integral to her magical workings.

  “I don’t like leaving things unfinished,” she finally said, “and he’s murdered twelve people.”

  “Or perhaps you do not care for being beaten by a common killer?”

  Ignoring me, Riga stared at the gates. “Gatekeeper, spirit of the cemetery, we ask permission to pass.” She waited a moment, nodded, and reached for the iron bars.

  A wind rose, whipping graveyard dust into our eyes. On the other side of the metal gate, a mist formed.

  Riga jerked her hand from the bars, her fist clenching.

  Odd. Normally, such requests for entrance were pro forma. Not that I bothered with such archaic courtesies. Gargoyles need no permission.

  The mist solidified into a colonial figure. Tricornered hat. Breeches. White stockings. Long coat. “You cannot pass,” he whispered.

  Ten minutes until midnight.

  Riga bowed her head. “Sir, we mean no harm or disrespect to the denizens of this cemetery and have urgent business within.”

  A branch creaked in the wind.

  “You cannot pass,” he said.

  Riga tugged on the ends of her silk scarf. “Our business is urgent. A murderer stalks your city.”

  I rolled my eyes. Riga’s language tended to grow flowery when dealing with magical creatures, even lowly cemetery spirits.

  The gatekeeper stared balefully and made no reply.

  “It is the Voodoo Doll Killer,” I added unhelpfully. “Perhaps you have heard of the monster?”

  “It’s not voodoo,” Riga snarled.

  “He kills his victims with a long, spike-like weapon,” I said, “like a giant pin, and then sews their eyes and mouths shut with thick black thread. Voodoo. Doll. Killer.”

  “The point is, his victims are chosen at random,” Riga said, “making him nearly impossible to catch. But tonight is St. Mark’s Eve, and at midnight, the spirits of those to die in the coming year will walk—”

  “You intend to use magic to solve a mundane murder?” I shifted on the brick wall. “That is cheating!”

  “It’s not cheating,” she snapped. “It’s using my talents. If I can discover his next victim before he strikes—”

  “Your talents for magic should not be used on mundane problems.”

  “Spirit, may we pass?” She gripped the gate.

  “You cannot passss...”

  “Faugh!” My talons gouged the brickwork. “There is another graveyard two blocks away. Let us go.”

  “It’s got to be this cemetery,” Riga said. “It’s the only one in town with a church.”

  The air thickened with magic. I glanced at the glowing clock on the church tower.

  Five minutes to midnight.

  “Then go inside.” I lifted my beak. “The spirit is a minor genius loci. He is no match for us.”

  “I can’t.” Riga clawed a hand through her auburn hair, tossing in the breeze. “The magic won’t work if we violate the graveyard. Spirit, midnight approaches—”

  “You cannot pass.” The spirit’s voice was a whisper of autumn leaves across dry pavement.

  A ripple of ancient power flowed through the gravestones. My stone feathers tingled with electricity.

  Three minutes...

  Riga ground her teeth. “Spirit, there must be a way, perhaps a favor you need granted. How can we gain entrance?”

  The wind died. Leaves and flecks of earth lifted from between the tombstones.

  “You cannot pass.” He removed his hat and rubbed a translucent hand across his balding head, spotted with age. “The gate is broken.”

  “The gate….” Riga’s lips whitened. She closed her eyes and inhaled, exhaled. Opened her eyes. “Brigitte?”

  “Yes mistress?”

  “We’ve got one minute. Give me a boost.”

  A week later, the police were waiting when the Voodoo Doll Killer broke into his next victim’s house carrying an upholstery needle and thick black thread.

  Riga got none of the credit.

  Neither did I.

  To Serve Her Master

  A breeze swept from the Sierras. It chilled my stone feathers and tossed my mistress’s auburn hair. Behind her, the lake was sullen steel.

  “Is there a problem?” Riga frowned and clutched her shawl more tightly about her shoulders.

  I shuffled sideways on the porch rail. “My first master was a good man. His grave should not be desecrated.”

  “I wouldn’t even desecrate the grave of a bad man. Besides, the text I found indicates the item – whatever it is - is near his grave, not in it.” Riga peered at me, her frown deepening. “Aren’t you curious? Whatever’s there may help us understand how you were created.”

  I hunched my neck. Was it not enough that I lived, that I could feel the sun warming my stone and the wind rushing beneath my feathers, that I had friends and purpose? But the rules of my magic meant I could not refuse her request. A gargoyle must serve her master, even if that master did not force her will upon her.

  She sighed. “Brigitte—”

  Leaping from the deck, I sailed into the sky. The discussion bored me.

  The sun set and rose again while I winged across an ocean. I paused to rest on the wing of an airplane, which I believe disturbed one of the passengers. But this will give him a good story to tell over the cocktails, yes? No one will believe him, but such is life.

  I arrived in France and found the crumbling abbey ruin. Wind whistled through the arched, empty windows and around the tombstones in its forlorn cemetery. I had only visited this place once before, not long after my first master’s death, when its brickwork was strong and bright. Tonight, an uncanny sense of something waiting, watching, rippled the tall grass. I scanned the oaks, their trunks leaning against the decaying walls, but I saw no one.

  Shrugging, I flew to the site of my master’s grave. It stood protected by two brick walls in the corner of the cemetery. His headstone had broken in half. I cannot explain why, but I replaced the broken piece atop the bottom segment. It balanced precariously, and I sighed.

  Trees groaned in the wind, as if responding to my quiet lament. The air thickened with magic, and my quills prickled at the back of my neck.

  A crack raced up the wall before me. Bricks spilled outward. I leapt aside, but not quickly enough. A brick struck my wing, leaving an unsightly red scrape upon the feathers.

  The dust settled. A pile of bricks now lay atop my master’s grave. The tombstone I’d repaired had vanished beneath the debris. The wall, which had been several layers thick, still stood, though the damage now revealed a niche covered in alchemical symbols. A strange compulsion came o
ver me to nestle inside it, and I understood the empty niche was the mysterious item I sought. But what was it?

  “Brigitte.” The name was a sough of wind. “My creation.”

  A semi-transparent figure drifted from the broken wall. His brown eyes gleamed beneath his cowl. Hands knotted with arthritis stretched toward me. I would recognize those hands anywhere. They had shaped me, and something fluttered inside my belly.

  “Master?” I whispered, stretching toward him.

  “Our time is past, Brigitte. We no longer belong in this world.” The alchemist’s spirit pointed toward the niche. “Come.”

  I knew then, the niche meant my unmaking. Death. Yet I skittered across the broken bricks toward him, my habit making me helpless.

  “Come.” He motioned.

  “My master….” Choking with fear, I struggled against the compulsion. Time slowed. So much would be left behind. The joy of this world. Books. My mistress, Riga… Abruptly, the compulsion faded.

  The spirit of my first master vanished.

  The sun set and rose again. I perched on the porch railing and stared out at the lake, sparkling like a sapphire.

  “Nothing?” Riga asked, voice thick with disappointment. “Nothing was there?”

  “No.” I shrugged. “And so, I return.”

  A gargoyle must serve her master, and Riga is now mine.

  Discipline

  Young Pen once, quite by accident, started a bar fight.

  I finished it. Such is the way of the teacher.

  Humans, they are so reckless.

  But that was years ago. Today, sunlight streamed through Pen’s bedroom window. The sheer curtains fluttered, teased by a current of Alpine air. But the teenager’s jaw jutted forward. “Tarot is based on archetypes. They’re inside everyone. Why wouldn’t I want to invoke one?”

  I sniffed, shifting my perch on her dresser. My stone claws left only the faintest of scratches on the white paint. “One does not simply invite a powerful being inside one’s brain.”

  “But an archetype would strengthen my magic.” The teenager flopped onto the unmade bed, her mop of chestnut hair spilling on the white comforter.