Locked in Stone

by Tory Michaels

  “Vasiliu,” supplied Cal softly as he joined her. “Son of your aunt Leona, so your cousin. Vasiliu was with me that day. We’d gone to Paris for Anniko. You remember him?”

  She nodded vaguely. Cousin Vassy, yes, now she remembered. The rest of Cal’s statement she filed away to reflect on later. She rested her hand on Vasiliu’s stone pecs. “I can’t believe he’s here.”

  Alive! They weren’t all gone.

  Turning, she nearly crashed into Cal, grabbing onto him and shaking him hard. “How did he get here? How…I don’t understand. They were all gone. Gwen said so. And, and did he just say these are some of the gargoyles? There are others? Others in other places not here?”

  The words tumbled out, but the off-switch in her head refused to flip from shock to shut-the-hell-up.

  Lucas, still cloaked in the darkness of the house, called out, “I’m contacting Central. Mr. Ray needs to know about Rose and I need instruction. Finding Rose isn’t something he anticipated.”

  Another familiar name, Mr. Ray. It pulled at her, brushing her mind with a touch of soft wings and gentle fingers reaching from the darkness.

  Cal let out a stifled groan. When she peered at him, she took in his bone-white face.

  “Rose, um, could you like loosen up a bit?” he asked in strangled tones.

  She blinked, startled, and then stared down at the hands still clinging to his arms. It was then, and only then, that she realized just how hard she’d grabbed him. Hard enough to shatter human bones, but apparently not quite enough to damage Sentinels.

  Oops.

  Rose let go and told herself she felt no guilt for hurting him as relief crossed his face.

  Cal shook out his arms and then patted the statue in front of them. “Vas, I know you’re awake. Brace yourself, but this is Brier Rose all grown up. She’s come home at last.”

  She watched the statue closely even though she knew the gargoyle within wouldn’t be able to do anything at this hour. Only Sacred Mothers changed forms at will.

  After a moment, Cal touched her shoulder and then pointed toward a gargoyle standing four feet away. It, or rather he, wore only a loincloth around his hips. “That’s Lucas’s gargoyle, Dennis.”

  The world wobbled around her again. Oh, wow. He really did have a gargoyle he was bonded to, didn’t he? Dennis was the biggest one there, and Lucas was the biggest man she’d run into lately. The combination made sense.

  Long-faded howls and explosions rose in her memory. She savagely shoved them back down. Nope, not doing this. Not here, not now. Even in the warmth of the day, chills stole through her body. She shivered as she sucked in air through lungs that no longer functioned right.

  Cal frowned, his arm coming around her. “Shit. You don’t look so good. Too much too quick?”

  Despite the hatred she wanted to feel toward him and all Sentinels, Rose allowed herself to slump against him as he guided her back toward the house. “I don’t know.”

  He was so warm, so very much alive and comforting to her right then. She couldn’t let go and move away as she knew she should.

  “I’ve got an idea. This has got to be overload, I’m sure.”

  He was right about that, damn it. How could a virtual stranger, albeit one she’d been friends with when she was young, know her so well after only a few minutes?

  “Why don’t we go inside while Lucas tries to reach Central—that’s the central hub for Protectorate communications; a lot’s changed since you were a kid—and get something to eat. I’m starved.”

  Food. She’d just had her entire world shoved sideways on its axis and he wanted to eat?

  Despite her current upset, her stomach embarrassingly decided to remind her the last thing she’d eaten was stale pizza in Phoenix during her layover. She’d been too nervous about seeing the Sentinels to consider eating after that.

  It was the first time in a really long time anyone had tried to take care of her. It certainly hadn’t been Gwen’s style after Rose turned eighteen.

  While going back into the mansion wasn’t first on her to-do list, they definitely had food in the fridge. There might even be some fried chicken or chocolate cake. Either or both made great comfort food. And if, as he said, the place was blessed to keep out demons, it meant she was safer here than anywhere else in the area.

  “I’m starved,” she admitted. “Whatcha got in that monstrosity you call a fridge?”

  He laughed, though with a bit of self-loathing mixed in it. “Pretty much an entire cow’s worth of beef, plus left-over chicken from a barbeque last night.” In a teasing, very familiar tone, he drawled out, “There’s even some chocolate-banana pie left. With whipped cream.”

  Her mouth watered. She’d adored choco-banana since forever. However, if she was going to sit and actually talk with Cal, hang out with even, she needed something else. “I want a Long Island Iced Tea.”

  Cal barked out a laugh and pushed open the back door. “I know where Lucas stashes the good stuff. One Long Island coming up.”

  …

  Cal studied Rose as she eased into the chair across the kitchen table from him. There’d been a big dust up over staying in the kitchen after handing the pendant over to Lucas—she’d wanted to be there when he tried to get Gwen’s death memory from it—but in the end, the Sentinel had won out. Cal knew better than most that Lucas’s gift wasn’t particularly reliable and the other man preferred to fail—or succeed—without witnesses.

  And then there was Lucas’s quickly whispered, “We have to talk. ASAP,” that dug into his brain. He’d heard a trace of real shock, far more than even Rose’s unexpected appearance would have evoked, in his roommate.

  Still, he had to get Rose calm, more comfortable around them. Since she’d stopped trying to slug him, she’d been nervous, clearly uneasy with her surroundings. He wanted more than anything to wipe away the dark smudges of exhaustion, or perhaps stress, from under her eyes.

  She wanted to watch the gargoyles, but had conceded that, in the middle of the afternoon, they wouldn’t do anything interesting for several hours. That suited him fine—he wanted that time to convince her he wasn’t the spawn of the devil, wanted to explain just why he hadn’t been at the compound the day of the massacre.

  He picked up a fork, but didn’t immediately dig into the plate of warmed-up macaroni in front of him.

  He was with a Sacred Mother. He’d lost three in his lifetime, though that number was down from four thanks to Rose’s arrival. They needed more, but she was a start.

  Rose traced her finger around the rim of the glass holding her Long Island and then dropped her attention to the pie in front of her. She hadn’t even let him put it on a plate, simply snatched the tin pan from his hands when she saw it.

  That was pure old school, hellion Brier Rose. She’d had the biggest sweet tooth he’d ever seen, and she’d only been three feet tall at the time. He’d smuggled more than one pie out of the kitchen for her in his day. She didn’t seem inclined to talk yet, but as he recalled, Anniko had been similarly reticent when he first met her, almost twenty-eight years earlier. Passionate, fiery, and utterly devoted to her children despite the warrior’s attitude she carried around.

  Ah, Anniko, I miss you. He’d lost more than his job guarding a Sacred Mother and the Protectorate’s next generation of hope to help end the war between Light and Dark that day. He’d lost his best friend too.

  “So, uh, neutral topics, right?” Rose peeked at him through startlingly long lashes.

  “Figure you’d prefer that to start.”

  He didn’t have to worry about her temper flaring again and having to deal with a pissed-off gargoyle. Pissed-off gargoyle bad. Drunk gargoyles, on the other hand, which would take quite a few beverages, given their fast metabolisms, were a hell of a lot of fun.

  “Yeah. And, um, thanks.” She met his gaze directly, her impossibly purple eyes intent as she focused on him. “You were absolutely right. This is all overwhelming, seeing Vassy and the others. Not
at all what I expected when I came here.”

  From the slump in her shoulders, that admission must have cost her. That didn’t detract from her overall intensity, and he had to look at the bowl to keep from blurting out everything on his mind. He wasn’t normally gabby to begin with, but he’d carried so much for so long; seeing the possible recovery of some of what he’d lost right in front of him made him want to open up.

  As long as Lucas wasn’t around, of course. He wasn’t going to take shit for being all emotional or any crap like that. He had a reputation to uphold after all.

  “Neutral, neutral. Uh, so, where’d you come from? Most recently I mean.”

  “Alaska,” she said and tapped the edge of the pie pan with a silver-polished nail.

  Anniko had rarely bothered with any human trappings beyond clothes. She hadn’t lived openly among humans—most Sacred Mothers remained on or around holy ground, which meant away from the bulk of humanity, for good reason—and she’d seen no reason for all the frivolities.

  “We were there, well, Gwen was anyway, for about ten years. I move around a lot, although I keep an apartment in Anchorage.”

  “Yeah? I spent time in Alaska.” Nearly froze his balls off during his stint in the Air Force. He’d put Charleston, Macon, and Tampa on his list of preferred duty stations. The Air Force, in its infinite wisdom, had decided he actually wanted ice and snow rather than sunshine, and posted him to Eielson. “Not my favorite place. Why would you go there?”

  She shrugged. “Change in life. We’d been living in northern New York for a year and then Gwen thought she recognized someone. That happened a lot and whenever it did, we packed and ran.”

  Rose picked up her drink and let out a happy little sigh after taking another big gulp. Cal made a mental note to pick up supplies for Long Islands. He wanted to make sure the house had whatever she might want, in hopes of encouraging her to stay after they dealt with this issue involving her savior. Odd, though, that someone would save a gargoyle but completely avoid the Sentinels thereafter

  “There’s never been much of a witch community in Alaska and she found her house when she was doing an Internet search one night. I wanted to move out on my own at that point anyway. She thought we’d be safer living apart since I was emotionally mature enough to deal with the world. She never stopped being afraid people would find us.”

  He noted the careful distinction between physical and emotional maturity. It was true—gargoyle children, even the Sacred Mothers, physically and intellectually matured at a rate faster than human children, though that slowed down dramatically once they hit physical maturity. Standard-issue gargoyles lived close to three hundred years, just like Sentinels. He’d seen enough moody gargoyle teenagers to know that there really wasn’t much different in the firestorms between a thirteen year-old gargoyle and a thirteen year-old human girl.

  Shadows crossed over her face and eyes, and Cal found himself wanting to pull her into his arms and offer comfort. He wasn’t always demonstrative, but he remembered even Anniko had appreciated a hug from time to time. Then again, Rose’s mother had never tried to remove his head from his body either.

  If Rose intended to stick around, and he had instructions from Lucas to make certain she did, he would be on his best behavior. He certainly didn’t want her facing the world without the Sentinels to protect her any longer.

  She looked down at the functional plastic mat under the pie plate and toyed with the worn edges. The knuckles on the hand holding her Long Island turned white.

  “In the end, she was right to be afraid. It took them twenty-four years, but they found her, I think. I found claw marks at the scene, and I don’t mean from a bear.”

  Everything Cal knew about Lucifer, the full-blooded demon who led the Twisted Ones, said that he wouldn’t bother chasing down one woman. Albeit a disturbingly powerful one, based on Rose’s reference to a death-magic explosion. Why, after twenty-four years, had the demon sent assassins after her?

  Rose blinked rapidly, a sheen of moisture flicked away with the fluttering of her lashes. Her glass hit the table with a heavy thunk before she scooped up a bite of pie. Around it, she mumbled, “Anyway, so yeah, that’s my history. I pack and run a lot. Stay moving constantly, for obvious reasons. What about you?”

  In the brief but oh-so-telling silence that followed, he wanted to squirm under her accusing expression.

  “What happened with you? Where were you?”

  So much for neutral. Maybe it was best to get it all out now. He wanted his conscience clear and as long as she stared at him with questions in her eyes, he couldn’t. “Anniko sent me with Vas to Paris to make contact with some Sentinels who were moving from the States to Europe. She thought I was the best one to send. Vas went because he was curious. He’d been tapped to watch over the three of you when you came to the States, whenever that happened.”

  Since only Sacred Mothers could give birth to the next generation, over the centuries the Sentinels and gargoyles had worked out a continental rotation between the clans. In Rose’s case, she’d been born in the European gargoyle clan, so she and her sisters were slated to handle matters in North America, be it birthing the next generation or closing a Rift between Earth and Otherworld to keep demons from invading.

  “So our lives were all planned out like that? Who our guardians were and everything?”

  She didn’t sound particularly upset with the notion, simply asking as a matter of fact. Perhaps some of Anniko’s lessons had remained with her. That surprised him, since he didn’t remember Rose ever being particularly interested in listening to Anniko’s lectures. No, the studious one had been the third triplet, Rory, the future Queen of their trio.

  “As much as anything could be planned out. Anniko liked being in control, and since she was going to have to send you into the wilds, as she called the U.S., she wanted you to have the best. Vas might have been young at the time, but he was one of the more promising warriors of the clan.”

  She nodded, several hanks of her heavy hair falling to cover her eyes. He preferred it that way. Mainly because while her violet eyes were very pretty, he knew what she was, and that meant the eye color was so obviously fake it hurt to look at it. But of course, all the Sacred Mothers had to find some way of covering that most telltale feature if they wanted to walk among humans with at least some chance of going unrecognized.

  The uncomfortable silence lasted another two heartbeats before Rose’s face cleared, a more neutral expression settling on it. Her question, however, wasn’t neutral. “So you weren’t just gadding around? You’d actually been working while you were away from the compound?”

  He nodded, forked up a quick bite. She should not be able to make him feel like a schoolboy, damn it. Every time she looked at him, he either felt adrift in a sea of guilt over not being there for her and Anniko, or, far less appropriately, was wondering what it would take to get her clothes off.

  He had a thing for gargoyle women. Always had, always would. But they needed to remain forever off his personal radar, right? Other Sentinels might be interested in the possibility of fathering a generation of gargoyles, but not him. Better to focus on protecting them and not failing again.

  “Yeah. I hadn’t wanted to go, hated leaving the compound even though I knew all the Sentinels on duty would protect you to their last breaths.”

  And they had died doing just that. So many deaths. He could picture every single one of his friends. He forced himself to take another bite, though it tasted like reprocessed paper.

  “Tell me something,” she said, toying with her glass as she concentrated on it.

  “Ask me anything and I’ll answer it if I can.”

  “Why…you’re surprised I’m still alive. How is it no one knew I survived? There was a slaughter. Bodies, right? Why didn’t someone figure out mine wasn’t there?”

  He closed his eyes at the unwilling memory of the night he came back to find Anniko and the others dead. He had to take several deep br
eaths before he could actually get the words out. Never had he wanted another beer so much as he did right then.

  “There were so many bodies.” Her complexion turned pasty. “Well, not even bodies, but body parts. So many pieces of the dead. There were dozens of young Sentinels there that day, to meet you and your sisters. Our investigators identified at least twenty-three blast sites and bodies were vaporized. We couldn’t identify everyone that went missing. It was our belief that your bodies had been damaged beyond recognition.”

  He clenched his hands into fists, trying not to sink into that black hell he’d lived in during those early, dark days after the massacre. He’d held Anniko’s body for hours before Mr. Ray finally forced him to set her down, and to start burying what they could find of the dead.

  Rose’s lips were bloodless and she said nothing for almost a full minute. Then, thankfully, she moved away from the massacre. In a tight voice, showing she was still affected by his explanation, she asked, “So, did you know what you were even when you were a kid?”

  He shook his head, grateful to leave the topic behind.

  “Mom didn’t truck with the Sentinels. No one other than her ever knew what I was, or that I wasn’t Dad’s kid. Razael, my true father, seduced her the night before she married Dad. Despite guilt for sleeping with a stranger—she tried to convince herself it was a dream for years afterward, right up until she had to tell me the truth—she married Dad and ended up remaining married for more than forty years.”

  “So, if your family didn’t know, and you didn’t know about the Sentinels, how’d you find out what you were?”

  He chuckled drily. Certain things he would never forget. His first ghost sighting was one of them. “The truth sort of came out the night I saw my first ghost. That’s my gift, seeing the dead.”

  She tossed back a good half of her Long Island, beckoning first to him to continue and then rising to mix another drink. His interest in her spiked at that. God, he liked women who didn’t count calories. You could actually take them to bars and they wouldn’t grumble about the lack of vegetables available to nibble on.