by Zelda Knight
But his wasn’t the only stone face peering in at me.
I held off my insults to study the man staring down at me with luminous topaz eyes that glowed against his deep sepia skin. Murch muttered something about my integrity, drawing my attention away from the man with the honey-warm voice.
“Excuse me for a moment,” I said sweetly, smiling. I turned to Murch, who dropped the smug grin and actually one claw backwards an inch, scraping the cleaned desk he perched on. I took the win. “If you ever throw ice at me again, I will push you off the edge of whatever you’re standing on, stone form of not,” I growled at the tiny, ancient beast.
Murch huffed and turned away.
It wasn’t a real threat; even if he broke, from that height, I could still mend him. A high fall in full stone form would destroy him. The chances of him not transforming back before he hit the ground in time to save himself were slim.
“Odd thing,” the man said at my side.
I shook my head, the room swimming a little. “Not really.” I studied the tidy desk; the clean, bright white walls, absent the greenish tinge of my last memory of this room. “Where are we–” I paused, looking directly at the man studying me.
Murch tiptoed theatrically across the desk to whisper in my ear. “He meant you.”
“Desk. Edge.” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “You know you hate the glue.”
The golden man’s smile saddened, and his face darkened. It grew harder, the dull surface not reflecting light the way a man’s skin should, especially one that glorious.
If I hadn’t seen a similar transformation before, it would have unnerved me. Instead, I watched with curiosity, until his stone tone was not dissimilar to Murch’s, but a few tones lighter, in a sandy, tawny brown.
I blinked. “I’ve never seen a man gargoyle. Shifter, whatever you call it.” Stumbling over the words, I clacked my teeth together, giving it up as a bad job.
He smiled, the stone tone softening to burnt bronze flesh. “Now you have. Dolion Librado. Tell me, Clarissa. What are you doing here?”
Something in his eyes swirled, reminding me of the eyes on the month’s wings, and my stomach lurched again.
“She’s gonna blow,” Murch muttered, retreating across the desk, his claws clicking on the hard surface.
A hand pressed between my shoulder blades, driving me down to the floor. I hovered with my head between my knees, gulping at a distinct lack of air that the contents of my stomach blocked in their haste to exit my body.
“The moths,” I gasped, “they were watching me.”
The floor rose at me, but the hand at my back never moved. Somehow that gave me comfort. Air finally filtered into my lungs, and I took deepening breaths, inhaling through my mouth, but the scent of ammonia dissipated.
“Moths? Mouths? Why would moths watch you?” Murch teetered on the edge of the desk, then swung over it, a great scrape announcing his presence as he hung upside down to peer at me.
I inhaled, then batted at my inverted friend.
He flapped his wings at me. The cool, moving air cleared my head. After a minute, the nausea passed, and I straightened.
“Slowly,” Dolion cautioned, but I flapped at him, too.
“I’m good,” I lied, rubbing my tongue against the roof of my mouth. The bottom, too, but it did little to help ease the nausea.
Dolion positioned me over an industrial-grade waste paper basket. “Sure,” he rubbed my back in firm, gentle strokes, “you’ll be fine in a— ah. There you go.”
For the first time in nine years, I emptied the contents of my stomach into a bin. Murch scraped his way across the table in an undignified retreat, leaving deep scars on the nice shifter’s desk, while I hurled into his bin.
“I hadn't heard of other gargoyles residing in the city,” I coughed.
Or anywhere.
I tried to shoot a glare at Murch but my stomach turned in on itself, like the bat had when he had spun upside down on the desktop. Pressing my lips together, I cramped my stomach, attempting to reduce the urge by sheer will alone.
It became a mute gesture, and I spit into the bin. A fresh water bottle appeared beneath my nose. Broad, calloused fingers snapped the lid off. I gripped the bottle too-tight, gulping the fountain that overflowed from the top.
Dolion laughed. “You have. You just don’t know it. Ever been to the Protean Table?” his voice smiled, as though something drowned the joy in it.
“So you’re used to shifters just pouring into your office, strange women hurling into your waste bin, and asking odd questions?”
He considered a moment, his eyes kind, though watchful. “Have you asked those yet?”
“No. But I will be.” No point hedging. I wasn’t a witch. Though doubtless the city ran with those, too. I had stupidly decided that since Murch was both ancient and rare, he would be the only one.
How very mundane of me.
“You’re welcome to. And you're not a shifter,” his voice closed a little, though he had collected me off the floor of his office. Twice.
“Not an ounce. I was under the impression that gargoyles — magic — was... rare.”
That magic and the possibility of more gargoyles, or actually supernatural occurrences were unheard of. Murch had given me the impression he was the last one, or the only one, of his kind, hinting that either magic had retreated or died off with the rise of the digital age.
Dolion smiled, bringing light to an otherwise thoughtful semi-stone facade. “Now you know differently.” His gaze flicked over my shoulder to Murch, where he scratched away on the desk. “Not an exotic dancer come to find an overdosed partner…police?” He guessed, his gaze sweeping me.
I repressed the shiver that passed through me, leaving a trail of tingles in its wake. “Yes. I’ve danced at the Gold Room.”
Two stone heads swivelled my way, but it was Murch who spoke. “Undercover?”
I grinned at the memory of the night. “Hell no. I was off duty.”
“Skank.”
“Grit.” I returned Murch’s glare, though there was little heat in mine. I had decided one night that I’d spent too long alone and that a night of debauchery was on hand. It hadn’t happened. I’d had a few drinks, danced my ass off, flirted like hell and returned home alone. But Murch hadn’t forgiven me for abandoning him for the night.
His words, not mine.
“You have a…unique relationship.” Dolion spoke softly, three fine lines forming on his forehead as his stone tone retreated to his natural skin.
“We need each other,” we chorused.
Murch grimaced.
I didn't.
“He’s falling apart — age and senility — while I’m already there,” I forestalled the miniature stone bat’s inevitable comeback.
He listed my life off on his claws, anyway. “Broken home, inept attempt at a career. No daily you-know, because the divorce never happened. The marriage never happened. Don’t try to live with her,” Murch curtailed my existence into a few sentences while my stomach did a gazillion sit ups over a bucket with a rather disgusting after-effect, not all of it from the room that had stopped swaying.
“At least I’ll be fit in the morning,” I groaned, trying not to inhale.
“Usually she eats coffee by the gallon. Well, maybe spoonful,” Murch conceded.
“You danced at the– doesn’t matter,” Dolion snapped his thought off abruptly, shaking his head.
“Slut to the bone,” Murch intoned.
“Thank you,” I muttered, “that’s really not very helpful.”
“But it is what you do. Did,” Murch smiled in his usual, ancient grimace.
I knew he could tell stories I really didn’t want to hear, and shook my head to forestall him, pushing myself up on the desk. “Someone show me the room I was in. The one where I passed out,” I added to the dual frowns that filled my vision.
“This one,” Dolion stared hard at me, lines deepening across his brow. The effect had lit
tle to do with reducing his sex appeal.
“You should stop that,” I waved at him, “despite your…facade, you’ll crumble.”
“Nothing is permanent. Age catches us all.”
“I thought you lived forever?” I startled, and tried hard not to look at Murch, the lying little piles of pebbles.
Dolion shook his head. “Not true. Don't listen to the critics.” A slant of golden eyes was aimed in the direction of my crumbling housemate.
Murch had lost the ability to fully transform eons ago, or so he said. I studied the man before me with new and undisguised curiosity, curling my hands to prevent myself from going on a discovery tour.
He returned the favour, dark eyes taking me in. Finally he nodded, as though taking whatever information he had gleaned from my study of him and tucking it away.
“I shouldn’t?” I raised an eyebrow, struggling to return to the conversation, and ignoring my snarky crime-solving mate. “Bu–-”
“No.” He said firmly, his hand curling around mine. “You were in this room. Did it look different?”
I reeled a little, trying to keep track of the conversation, and bit back my urge to answer him in full. My lips pressed together, I tried not to react to the tingles centred around my wrist where his hand contacted mine.
“Should it look different?”
Chapter Three
Dolion asked the question as though he expected a specific answer, and something about that irked me. Maybe because I felt like I should have Alice written on a name tag taped to my shirt.
A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Tell me.” He propped his thighs against his desk chair, far too close for comfort.
Especially with my other gargoyle in the room.
“Moths. There were moths covering half the roof. Big ones. The weedy guy called them Black-”
“Black Witches,” Dolion interrupted, his gaze focussing somewhere behind me. “Rare, but not unheard of. Go on.”
My lips pressed harder together; I hadn’t meant to tell him at all, but fear that I had hallucinated the entire scene gripped me. “The desk was cluttered, a complete mess. Not like yours,” I gestured at the neat lines and rows of stationary and files.
He nodded, his face so smooth, I wondered that he hadn’t turned back into his stone facade. “Anything else?”
I frowned, trying to think back. The gurney was in the same position as they had been in my other experience, and the door... I lifted my gaze to the doorway which wasn’t a true doorway at all. A pair of elevator doors stared back at me. Were they the same ones Mason had pushed me through? I squinted, and realised what was bothering me. It wasn’t the doors, at all.
“The light was different. Greener. Hazier.”
“Not bong smoke?” Murch cracked an eyebrow, a scattering of pebbles drifting down his blackened cheek.
Dolion snorted, brushing the dust from his desk. “Not likely.” His intense gaze became speculative as he turned it on me. “Anything else?”
“It was just…” My brain churned, the scent of ammonia and death clogging it, “different.” I finished lamely.
Murch stuck his head under his wing, his disgust at my pathetic ending palpable in the air between the three of us. Dolion gave a snort that he quickly covered with the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry. That was inappropriate of me.” His tone was some reason but his eyes sparkled at me.
I grinned back. “Be inappropriate. I’m used to it. Not that you were,” I added, tapping my toes on the floor. My bare toes. “What happened to my shoes?”
“You weren’t wearing any when we found you.” Dolion’s mouth thinned. He tapped Murch’s wings, and the little stone bat stiffened. “You, stay. You,” he nodded to me, and took off toward the elevator, “come with me.”
I stood anchored to the floor. My head spun. I had so many questions, I knew that even if I let the floodgates open, I would still miss some important aspect of my situation. Nothing about the situation was right. There were gargoyles. An entire community of creatures I knew nothing about but now suspected. My corpse had its own line of questions, and now we had a shoe thief to top it all off.
Dolion’s broad-shouldered frame took up half the room for me. I studied the outline of his physique, wondering what he looked like in his full stone form. Instead of asking all the questions jumbling at the front of my mind, I closed my mouth, and followed him to the elevator doors.
“You’re younger than him,” I blurted.
Dolion’s half turned, a smile curling his lips.
“You’re a regular Sherlock,” Murch grumped, his snark clearly audible from where he remained on the desk. A shuffling caught my attention. I turned back to find him systematically destroying the order Dolion had for his desk until it looked just like the desk from my vision with the moths. I stared, my head processing at a sluggish speed. The two events, the room — it was all so out of order.
“Ignore him,” Dolion said softly, reaching for a side door that presumably led to stairs.
Going up, I hoped.
He extended his hand. I hesitated only a moment, his luminous topaz eyes that swirled yellow beneath the stark fluorescent lights locking onto mine.
Dolion curled his fingers around my hand, enfolding my wrist. He led me into a green-tinged stairwell. My stomach automatically began to flip flop, and I stalled on the second step. Breath hissed shallowly between my lips.
“Whoa.” Dolion slid an arm behind me, “do you need to go back to the other room?”
I gripped his shoulder, lean muscle that covered his shoulder and bicep taut and hard beneath my hand. A full, cool breath finally made it all the way into my lungs, and my head cleared.
“I’m good,” I said firmly, attempting to disguise the wobble at the end of my words.
Dolion nodded again, his arm wrapping firmly around my waist. I looked up to find him way too close. The warmth of him wrapped around me, drawing me into him.
“Just make sure you hurl that way,” he waved at the railing, a flicker of actual horror passing across his eyes, no doubt at my prior performance in his workplace.
I grinned despite myself, focussing on the colour of his deep sepia skin, the contrast of his crisp white shirt eeking out a wish that I was on a beach with him somewhere.
Hell, my head is screwy.
I shook it, and the stairwell swayed only a little. “Why were you in stone form when I woke up?” I asked as the first distraction that popped through the sludge of my brain.
“Twenty questions?” A finely plucked eyebrow arched elegantly. “Do I get some of my own?” I nodded, trying not to focus on his fingers pressing into my side as if there were no barrier between his skin and mine. “I’m stronger, then. Less…damageable. There seemed to be a threat and I wanted to keep you safe.” The last word came out well rounded, almost honeyed, and I lost myself a little in his eyes.
“Do you always have trouble with the security of your lab?” I found my own voice, creaking from a dry throat. I coughed to cover the horrid sound, but only succeeded in making it worse.
“Not on a too-regular basis,” Dolion drew me up to the landing of the floor I had come in on, pausing with his hand on the door handle. His smooth brow furrowed as he looked down at me, as though trying to puzzle out an enigma. “My turn. Tell me why you came here.”
I held his gaze far longer than was socially acceptable. He looked back, and the concern faded into curiosity.
“I was looking for reasons why your corpse walked away.”
Chapter Four
“I don’t know that I can call it mine, exactly,” Dolion tugged the door to the ground floor open, and our moment of peace was broken.
Sound rushed into the vacuum of our small space. The bottom floor of the Institute was completely closed off from the world above, from everyone else. Dolion hesitated at the threshold of the foyer, then plunged into the main area, full of uniformed bodies charging about their daily duties.
How long had he been down there, and how often did he come out of his closed little cave? My unanswered questions compiled into a jam that cramped my brain, but I pushed them all aside to follow him through the doorway.
I trailed my fingers across the door frame, unsure what I was looking for, but expecting some sort of reaction. My skin encountered only cold paint and solid wood. Somewhat disappointed, I followed Dolion into the lobby. Sunlight reached a few feet into the artificially-lit foyer, providing a warmth the lower floor lacked.
“Is this where you came in?” Dolion gestured to the front doors.
I followed his hand with my eyes, tracing over the smooth skin and wishing it was still wrapped around mine.
Get your head out of the gutter. Murch was right about you.
I smiled; the tiny gargoyle’s snark followed me even when he was floors below me. Dolion grinned back, his smile enough to steal my air in an instant. Near the sunlight, he looked so much more human. His skin softer, the unearthly glow of his eyes dulled, though I missed that. The floor under the Institute had some seriously weird vibes running through it. But it also had some otherworldly lighting, bright as Dolion’s office was. Or maybe it was just him. I stared past him, pushing against his shoulder when he wouldn't budge.
“Down there,” I said softly, still pushing at his shoulder. “The elevator down there,” I waved to the end of the hall where I had followed the paramedic earlier in the day.
That was today?
I blinked when Dolion didn’t move.
“There’s no lift that way, Clarissa.” His soft voice rolled my name, and I blinked, only now realising that I hadn’t given it to him.
Though I was sure Murch had divulged my details at some point — likely while I was unconscious on the younger gargoyle’s floor.
“But that’s the way I was taken,” I frowned, jarred from memory lane by reality. A reality which blurred before me as I pushed past Dolion and headed for the piece of wall Mason had taken me through earlier. The rabbit hole swirled around me, or maybe it was the walls. I pressed a palm to the painted surface for balance. The cold contrast I needed to ground me didn’t come, and the hallway pulsed nauseatingly around me.
