by Judith Post
“Theo will have his. I’d rather be armed too.”
Jason’s hotel was on the north side of town. Traffic was heavy. It took them a good twenty minutes to reach it. Dante and Ally waited in the car while Jason ran in, threw his stuff together, and hurried out. They were on I-69, speeding north, when they hit an empty stretch of road. A blur of light, along with a half dozen others, landed a mile or two in front of them.
“He can’t use vampires,” Dante said. “They can’t survive daylight.”
“”Weres can’t transport,” Ally added.
“So we’re back to mages,” Dante finished.
“We all have on our necklaces, right?” Ally put a finger to the chain around her neck.
Jason and Dante did the same.
“This is as fair a fight as we’re ever going to get. Stop the car.” When Jason pulled to the side of the road, Ally got out and pulled cartons of salt from her suitcase. She sprinkled it around the entire perimeter of the vehicle. “Don’t leave the car, even if we’re both dead. No magic can pass this, but Theo can. If something happens to us, put your foot on the gas and drive like hell.”
Jason let out a deep sigh. “I’m tired of sitting here, hoping someone can save me. There must be something I can do.”
“Against a demi-god and warlocks?”
His temper flared. “It’s not fair, damn it!”
“No one said it was, but you’re not stupid. So stay here.” She went to join Dante to walk toward their enemies.
It didn’t take long. Theo and six warlocks were advancing toward them.
Theo, carrying a burlap bag, stopped when they were within striking distance. A mocking smile twisted his lips. The demi-god was as stunning as Jason had told her he’d be with platinum hair and beard, vivid-blue eyes, and Nordic perfection. His gaze settled on Dante, taking in his sword and shield. “Surely, Euryale didn’t bring a mortal to combat. What are you?”
“Euryale?” Dante asked.
“Her full name.”
“I’m Ally’s friend, and I’ve battled demi-gods before. If you’d like to leave, we have no quarrel with you. If you’ve come to harm Jason, we intend to prevent that.”
Theo barked a surprised laugh. “Jason can go in peace. I have more important matters to tend to.”
Dante raised a dark brow. “Surely, you aren’t here to war with my fiancé.”
His fiancé? Ally frowned and glanced his way. Dante shrugged. “She doesn’t know it yet.”
“Too little, too late,” Theo said. “It appears your intended hasn’t lost her head over you, and I intend to claim it. If you’re wise, you’ll climb in the car with my brother and run far from here.”
“And let Ally have all the fun?” Dante seemed to bulk up. Wings sprang from his back. Pretty impressive, Ally had to admit.
Theo cocked his head to one side, studying him. “Are you a messenger?”
“Yes, and I’m telling you to leave.”
“An angel?”
“Much too flawed for that. I’m going to enjoy kicking your ass.”
Theo chuckled. “I like you, whatever you are, but I’m going to kill you anyway. And then I’m going to hack off your girlfriend’s head.”
The mages were spreading out, fanning themselves closer to Ally. Dante grinned. “You can try.”
At a nod from Theo, the mages raised their arms and blasted power at them. Ally whirled, creating a circle of energy that reflected it. The mages ducked and dodged to avoid their own spells. Theo drew his sword and advanced on Dante, the burlap bag tied to his belt. Stheno’s head, Ally knew. Temper sizzled inside her. She zapped a bolt of magic that buckled Theo’s sword like a pretzel. Dante tossed his own aside. Damn the man and his honor. He raced to fight Theo, hand to hand.
Ally didn’t have time to watch. A mage to her left stirred a tornado of power, and she had to disperse it. In the meantime, she morphed. Snakes sprouted from her head, hissing and darting. Her legs joined into a knot of power, and she slithered forward. Her eyes bulged. Fangs protruded past her lips, and claws sprang from her fingers and toes.
The mages lowered their gazes.
“Hey, ugly!” she rasped to one of them.
His head snapped up, his eyes blazing, and in an instant, his arms and legs turned solid. The rest of him followed.
Ally snickered until a bolt of energy knocked her back on her butt. She landed hard. Her abdomen hurt where the magic hit her. Her own fault. She’d gloated when she shouldn’t have, let her concentration waiver. Angry with herself, she grunted a few commands, and a whip of energy zagged from her hand, caught the closest mage’s ankle, and whipped him toward her. When he struggled to release himself, to push to his feet, he glanced up, accidentally looking at her face. One more statue.
The mage who’d zapped her before, tried again. She raised a hand to protect herself, but didn’t need to. Jason knelt in front of her, holding Dante’s shield to reflect the blow, and offered her a hand.
“Are you all right?” He started to turn toward her. “Are you hurt?”
“Don’t look at me! I’m fine. Get back in the car.”
Jason wouldn’t leave until she was standing again. Noble of him, but not good strategy. Outside of his circle of salt, he was fair game for magic. The sylph slipped from one of the warlocks and started toward him. He touched his necklace and she hurried away. A mage took aim at him. Ally slammed him with energy. He fell and didn’t get up. Smoke curled from his body.
“It’s three against one,” Ally said. “My kind of odds. Get out of here and stay in the car.”
Holding the shield in front of him, Jason backed to the open door, got in, and locked up. Two warlocks moved to stand shoulder to shoulder, to unite their powers. They chanted in unison.
Great Zeus! Ally had learned that spell when Artemis taught her the basics. She chanted, too, a counter spell. When the mages let loose their magic, it flew toward her, hit her barrier, and blasted their friend.
Ally began her own chants. The mage on the left flew skyward, stopped, and then dropped like an anvil. If he’d remained calm, he could have called on winds to soften his landing. Impossible to do when screaming. He hit and splattered.
Ally grimaced. What a mess!
The last mage blazed with fury. His aura darted like flames. The words that spewed from his lips were black magic. Strong magic. Ally didn’t wait for him to finish. She slithered at him at full speed. He hurried his curse, but couldn’t finish in time. Her snakes attacked him. Fangs sank into his cheeks and forehead, punctured his neck. The poison killed him before he turned to stone.
Ally turned in a slow circle. Dante and Theo seemed evenly matched. Fists thudded into flesh. Muscles bulged. Blood trickled from a split in Dante’s bottom lip. Theo’s right eye was swollen shut. She started toward them, but Dante waved her away. That’s when she noticed the sylph. Peeking from behind a tree near the grassy curb, the sylph saw her and scurried backward, all of her hosts dead. Ally followed.
Sylphs were spirits with no souls, but they were living. If they lived, they could die. Ally tried to remember what killed them and decided to do her best to find out. She touched a long nail to her necklace. The sylph couldn’t enter her. As far as she knew, that’s all the damage it could do; whereas, she had many talents at her disposal. She set off at top speed. The sylph ran.
Ally might have caught her, but a truck churned toward them on the highway with its windows down. The sylph looked at Ally and booked for that window. Ally didn’t follow. What if the driver looked at her? He’d be stone. The sylph flew inside, slithered into the man, and kept going.
Ally smacked her snake’s tail against the dirt. Damn it! She’d gotten away. Moving slowly, Ally returned to where Dante and Theo were battling.
Sweat beaded Theo’s face. His T-shirt was soaked. His breaths came in painful gasps. Finally, he yanked himself free from Dante, reached inside the sack tied to his belt, and pulled Stheno’s head from it, aiming her gaze at his op
ponent.
Pain slashed through Ally’s gut. Stheno’s eyes were wide with fear, her mouth contorted in a grimace.
Dante raised his brows and shrugged his shoulders. “A gorgon can’t hurt me.”
Theo stared. “What are you?”
“A gargoyle, carved from marble, brought to life by the city’s breath.”
Theo’s jaw dropped in surprise. He turned Stheno’s head toward Ally.
Her stomach churned. She heard her blood pulse in her veins. “She’s my sister, freak. I’m a gorgon too.” She whipped her tail across the ground so quickly, it knocked Theo’s feet out from under him. He fell and looked up, more surprised than afraid. Stheno’s head rolled toward Dante and he picked it up, held it toward Theo, and when Theo turned to look away from it, he looked directly at Ally.
Ally felt her lips curl in a nasty grimace. “That’s right, asshole. It’s your turn to be stone.”
Theo opened his lips to respond. Never got to. He made a beautiful statue, lying on his side, looking so real, people would talk about it. Ally stared at him, shaken, rattled by seeing her sister’s head, when she felt someone tapping her shoulder. She turned without thinking, and Jason smiled.
“No!” The word escaped before she could stop it.
“I want to hold Stheno’s head, so we can be together. Is that okay?”
His legs were already turning solid. Ally took the head from Dante and placed it in Jason’s hands. He raised it so that Stheno’s face was cradled next to his heart. A smile curved his lips, more mysterious than Mona Lisa’s. And they were frozen that way.
Ally tried to speak, to say something, but no words came. She pressed a hand to her throat. It hurt.
Dante wove an arm around her shoulders. “Jason told me once that he never wanted to be immortal, that an eternity without Stheno would bring him no joy.”
She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling.
Dante pulled her closer. “I’ll call my friends in the city, tell them what happened, and then let’s go home. Jason’s at peace now. He’s with your sister. Theo can’t hurt anyone. Our jobs are finished.”
She shifted as he led her to Jason’s car. He did too, his wings furling tight to his back. Her clothes still fit. His were in tatters, with more flesh and temptation peeking from torn rags than any girl should endure. They waited for the first squad cars to arrive. Dante gave them a brief rundown of what happened. “Those statues were people. They should be treated with respect.”
The detective on duty nodded, and Dante drove away. Ally sat close to him on the trip home. The farther they got from the battle scene, the more comfort she took from his nearness. When they reached city limits, she scooted even closer, pressed herself to his side, and he smiled. She was too shaken for passion, but validating survival seemed highly appropriate.
He must have sensed her mood. “It feels good having a body next to mine. You?”
“You’re here, and I’m needy.”
He chuckled. “Not the declaration of love I was hoping for, but it’ll do.” He turned toward the city and her apartment.
A shoulder to lean on, even if she could fend for herself, was beginning to look better all the time. Greeks loved to celebrate. She intended to enjoy her new possibilities as long as possible.
The End
Gargoyle, Missing
The Second Ally & Dante Novella
A Lunch Hour Read
by
Judith Post
Copyright 2012
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Ally heard the door to her apartment creak open, and a smile curved her lips. Dante must have decided to spend the day with her instead of returning to his fellow gargoyles on the cathedral's roofline. Mmm, a day filled with Dante—the possibilities flitted through her mind, all of them good.
She arranged herself in a seductive pose, ran a hand through her short curls, trying to tame them a bit, and yanked her nightie lower to show more cleavage. Heavy footsteps crossed the living room—in too big of a hurry. Dante usually tried to keep quiet when he came, in an effort not to wake her. He'd silently slip into the kitchen and start coffee, maybe start breakfast, and wait for the aromas to summon her.
The steps stopped at the short hall that led to the bathroom and then to her bedroom. They hesitated before turning toward her door. She raised herself onto an elbow. Her wards were set. No enemy could enter her apartment, could they?
Alarm tingled through her veins. She considered shifting, right then and there, to greet whoever it was. But that could prove disastrous—to her visitor. One look at her face, and he'd be stone. Instead, she slid to her feet, arms raised, ready to use Artemis' gifts to blast any unwanted intruder.
Dante burst through the door.
"Damn it!" What was he thinking, tromping around like a grizzly, all rush and muscle? Her heart beat a little faster. At first, from temper. But then she looked at his disheveled, dark hair, the muscles straining under his white tee, and anger was replaced by other thoughts. She glanced at the clock. They had lots and lots of time.
He blinked in surprise at her fighting stance. "Oh, sorry."
"Sorry?" She let out a sigh. "I almost shifted to my gorgon form. I could have hurt you."
"Not me. I was carved from marble, remember?" He sounded distracted. A worried scowl pulled at his brows. "Gideon didn't come home last night. We talked to him, but it was weird."
"Weird?" The gargoyles communicated with telepathy. What could go wrong with that? No storm interference. No telephone lines down. She plopped onto the bed and patted the spot next to her. "Sit. Tell me about it."
Dante's weight made the mattress sag, tilting her toward him. Usually, that would make him smile. Not today. "Samuel and I worked together last night to track two new shifters in town. They act too sly to be here for any good reason."
She nodded. Gargoyles were guardians. They took their duty to watch over their cathedral and city seriously. "That's what's worrying you? You think they trapped Gideon?"
"Not with us watching them. But when we returned to the cathedral, Gid wasn't there. We didn't think much about it until it got close to sunrise and we still hadn't heard from him. We sent messages, asking if he needed backup."
"And?" Ally had met Dante's three, fellow gargoyles. Their artists had copied the same style as Dante's. Each gargoyle was beautiful, but unique. Gideon was the youngest. Instead of Dante's dark coloring and smoldering, gray gaze, he had wavy, golden hair and sky-blue eyes.
Dante sighed. "Gideon answered, but he wasn't himself."
"What does that mean? Was he grumpy, upset?"
"Gideon? Grumpy?"
Ally couldn't picture him that way either. Maybe it was his youth—he was only a few centuries old—but he was the most carefree, lighthearted guardian she'd ever met.
Dante rubbed a hand over his forehead, trying to explain. "Gid heard our voices, but he had trouble remembering who we were. When he finally placed us and we asked if he was all right, do you know what he said?"
Ally was getting a bad feeling she wasn't going to like it. "No clue."
"He said, 'Never better.' Just that. We asked if he was returning to the church, and he laughed. 'What church?'" Dante paused. "What do you make of that?"
Ally didn't know what to think. Gargoyles might be fun, but never frivolous. "Did you ask him where he was?"
"That's the thing. We asked, but he had no idea. He said he loved it there. He'd found paradise."
"Someone drugged him." Magic pulsed through her veins. She wanted to blast whoever it was. If they'd hurt Gideon…. Ally pushed to her feet and started to her closet, in a hurry to dress to go find him.
Dante shook his head. "We can't be drugged. At least, we don't have veins to inject things in. A hypodermic wouldn't affect us. We're damned near indestructible."
He'd told her
that before, but when he'd fought the demi-god, Theo, the battle seemed like an even match, like it could go either way. Gargoyles might not be as impervious to danger as he thought.
She turned to look at him. "Well, someone's done something to Gideon. We have to find him."
"Any idea how?"
She slid a white, spandex shirt over her head and pulled on a long, flowing skirt. She slipped into her sandals. Her work uniform. If she had to shift, her clothes would stay intact. "The only thing I can think of is to take the top off my Jeep and drive until we sniff magic." They could both smell it if they got close enough.
He grimaced. "That's time consuming. Anything else?"
"Not that I know of."
"No crystal ball or magic tracking device?"
"Do you have one?"
His broad shoulders sagged. "I tried to call Gid on my way here. He didn't answer."
"Maybe he's unconscious."
"Or worse. Let's go. You drive."
They tromped down the narrow, inside stairway to the sidewalk in front of her building. Ally lived above a downtown, pawn shop, directly across from River City's city/county departments—in the center of things. She ducked in between buildings to the garage that she shared with her landlord. Soon, with the roof off her red Jeep, she and Dante bumped their way down the alley and turned into heavy traffic. She drove to the far, north border of businesses and kept going.
With the city's population of 300,000, suburbs sprawled on its outer rim. Ally didn't start weaving back and forth, crisscrossing different neighborhoods, until she hit small towns outside of city limits. Twice, she slowed as they passed large farms where magic hung in tree branches and clung to bushes. She and Dante both breathed deeply, but all they could smell were werewolves. At a landscape shop, they smelled witch magic. Closer to town, at a trucking firm, they smelled shifters of a variety of breeds—both small and large.
She had to fight the desire to stomp her foot on the gas pedal and speed from one end of town to the other. Why would anyone kidnap a gargoyle? What did he mean to do with him? She couldn't think of one good scenario.
