The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1)

by Marie Andreas

  By tomorrow Leaf would have forgotten what she’d seen, so would the other two. I wanted to tell Harlan about the body when I was ready, not now.

  “No, they’ve had a long day too. I’d like them to stay in tonight.” Muttering about seeing him in the morning, and thanking him for walking me home, I escorted him to the door.

  Chapter 12

  Just getting Harlan out the door made my life simpler. I trusted him completely, but that body had me worried. Not to mention he’d known Perallan before I started digging for him, so he was more than likely friends with the dead giant. I know he wouldn’t accuse me but the bodies were beginning to pile up. Eventually they might start looking into my past patrons. My track record of patrons dropping dead or vanishing was a bad joke among the digger community. No one took it seriously. Or they hadn’t until now.

  I looked down at the wrinkled decree from Cirocco. I’d wanted a patron, and wanted one bad. Not this bad.

  No mention of patronage had come up when he or rather his hench people had hired me to catch Alric. I’d never really met the man, and I had foolishly thought to maintain that status for a few more years.

  Something had changed in his mind from when he hired me to bring in Alric and now.

  Aside from my life throwing itself in the crapper, I couldn’t think of anything that would have triggered such a terrifying change in behavior. Or rather there were too many things that had happened in the last few days, any of which could have triggered something.

  Did he know about the body of that giant? Had he been the one who put him there and knew I’d seen him? Crap. No matter how I put together the recent events of the last few days, none of them made me happy. They also didn’t make me feel safe.

  I looked over at the faeries’ doll castle; maybe their maniacal cheerfulness could relax me.

  Unfortunately, all three were passed out like little drunken harlots. Judging from the contorted limbs they’d fallen asleep in midair. No comfort there. Waking a sleeping faery was almost as difficult as sobering one up. With a sigh I scooped them up. I couldn’t tell if they noticed when I tucked them in to their little beds, but sleeping all twisted like that couldn’t be comfortable even for beings like them.

  Laying the decree of my new patron under some dusty books to try and smooth it, I grabbed some toast and wandered to my room. I was sure visions of a short life as Cirocco’s digger would haunt my dreams. It spoke to the recent turn of events that I passed out as soon as I hit the bed and didn’t dream of anything.

  ***

  A rare late fall sunbeam stabbed me in the eye, and I rolled over in a vain attempt to save my sleep. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept so heavily. Finding a sun-free position, I proceeded to try and fall back asleep.

  Only to have my eardrums assaulted by an army of syclarions that was trying to use my bed for a landing pad. Bolting upright under the sound deluge, I smacked right into a bundle of pissed-off faeries.

  Rubbing my head where Garbage Blossom’s pitch fork had glanced off of me, I held back my attackers.

  “Slow down! And damn it, Garbage, stop waving that thing.” I held Leaf and Crusty in one hand, but Garbage was still flying about with her stick.

  “Intruders!” She finally calmed down enough to get a word out in common. Thank the gods—the chittering faery language was hurting my head.

  Wait. “Intruders? Damn. Where? In the house?” I couldn’t believe we’d been wasting precious seconds when someone had broken into our home.

  “Not now, intruders before.” Leaf frowned and pushed only half-heartedly at my hand to be released. I always thought she and Crusty were a bit afraid of Garbage when she went full warpath.

  “Before? Before what?” Batting aside Garbage Blossom, I stumbled to the front room.

  The place had been ransacked. Everything up to and including the faeries’ castle had been opened, emptied, and/or turned upside down.

  I couldn’t tell if anything was actually missing, and probably wouldn’t be able to for a while. It was too hard to tell where one thing ended and another began.

  My foggy brain slowly caught up. Faeries were hardy sleepers, but not this hardy. They should have woken up. Hell, I should have woken up. I backtracked into my room. While not as tossed as the front room, things were obviously in disarray here too. I don’t care how tired I am, me staying asleep while a person or persons thrashed my bedroom? Not likely.

  Swearing, I ran around to my few windows, all were locked from the inside. My only real door, the front one, was locked as well. For good measure I even checked the kitchen door. The thing hadn’t worked since I started renting here, and was currently blocked by a large green totem pole from the 5th dynasty. Or rather a bad knockoff of one that I hadn’t been able to dump yet. Nope, still broken and still blocked.

  So how had someone snuck in, left everything locked, drugged the girls and me, ransacked the place, and then fled again through locked doors?

  I walked back to the sofa. I finally remembered I still held Leaf and Crusty. “Sorry, girls,” I said as I opened my hands. “Any chance you can find how they got in?”

  Garbage had been pouting in the other room but flew out to join the other two. The three slowly flew in laps around the room, trying to find out where someone had gotten in.

  After a few moments they stopped over the patron contract from Cirocco. Whoever had ransacked the place had tossed the books I’d put it under across the room. Garbage Blossom started quivering, and she stabbed the paper a few times with her pitch fork. “They came in there. Bad paperstuff, let them in.”

  I snatched the paper before she could do any real harm. Through paper? I knew I was still groggy, but I’d never heard of anyone getting into a locked apartment through a piece of paper. But looking at my other two faeries told me they sensed the same thing she did. One advantage of being magic numb, very hard for anyone to put a spell on me; disadvantage, I couldn’t sense many spells at all.

  “You’re certain? All three of you are completely certain that the person who did this, somehow got in…” I waved the paper at them, not completely ready to say it.

  “No,” Garbage Blossom said with a fierce shake of her head. “Persons, there were peoples, more than one. Came through that. Did this.” She waved her tiny hands around.

  Persons. Who could use a paper to break into a house, cast a sleep spell that was stronger than anything I’d heard of, then thrash my house? Good thing they hadn’t wanted to kill me.

  At least hearing more than one meant Alric probably wasn’t involved.

  I batted down the bit of comfort that thought gave. Since when did I care if he was a good guy or a bad guy? He was a bad guy, and I needed to keep thinking of him that way.

  “Can you tell anything at all about who it was?”

  Leaf and Garbage shook their heads, but Crusty of all people nodded slowly.

  “Yes, it was here.” She flew over to my favorite chair and stomped on it.

  Someone broke into my house to sit in my chair? While I was thinking the best way to clarify the question for my alcoholic little flying monster, the other two joined her on the edge of the cushion.

  “Yes, here.” Garbage stabbed her pitchfork into the chair.

  “So one of the people who did this sat in my chair?”

  All three sets of faery eyes rolled at my obtuseness.

  “Not this time. He sat here before.”

  “Stinky man.”

  Sat there before….crap.

  “Grimwold? It was Grimwold?” But he worked for Cirocco, why would he need to break in if I was going to be working for him too? Unless the letter wasn’t a real offer of patronage. As pissed as I was about the break in, a tiny glimmer of hope reared up.

  Why would Grimwold spell himself into my apartment? Come to think of it, how did he do it? He wasn’t high on the pecking order of major magic users. Which meant he had help. Big, scary, haunt you for years help.

  Passing around my sma
ll living room, I tried to think of the best way to approach this. I couldn’t very well march up and accuse Cirocco of breaking into my home. Nor could I ignore the summons if it was real. A few minutes more of treading circles on my worn rug left me with no more answers. I had no choice, I had to go meet with Cirocco and find out if this was for real. Best-case scenario, he had nothing to do with it and had Grimwold executed for abusing his name.

  Doubtful.

  But the glimmer of hope was enough to get me through a shower and breakfast. It started fading about half way to the meeting. Actually, the glimmer was stomped into oblivion by the abject terror that was swarming up from my gut like so many rats in a garbage dump.

  I’d never been to Cirocco’s neighborhood before, far too high-end for the likes of me. His house, if one could call it that, covered more ground than the entire block my little apartment lived on. The gardens surrounding it were immaculate, coiffed, and probably never visited. There were probably whole sections of the estate the man didn’t even know existed.

  It took a good ten minutes winding through ornate hedges and flower beds before I finally reached the front door and pulled the bell cord.

  The low bells that echoed around the cavernous insides of his mansion took another two minutes. With all the wealth and opulence, I expected a snooty upper crust butler to come kick me away from the door.

  However, I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been when a short, round thug opened the door. He looked me up and down, and hitched up his pants. No leather knotted belt for this man, he relied on some of the new city-style suspenders. I had heard of them, but never seen them.

  “Reason for being,” he grunted out before pausing, “here?” The emphasis and strategic pause wasn’t wasted on me.

  “Cirocco sent for me.” I refrained from shoving the document in his greasy face as I handed it to him. The walk over hadn’t calmed my nerves. They were now tighter than a nun’s chastity belt.

  No-neck-slow took his time sounding out the words on the decree. The problem was his lips moved faster than his brain.

  A chill that felt an awful lot like someone having drinks on my grave wound its way through my gut. A deep frown slowly imbedded itself onto his forehead, after another minute it worked its way down to his mouth.

  “Mr. Cirocco ain’t takin’ on no diggers.” His face scrunched up as it morphed from confused to annoyed. “What you playin’ at?”

  A deep breath forced the screaming inside my head to shut up and see this through. If it wasn’t legit maybe Cirocco would pick up Grimwold’s scent on the thing and smash him a little for me.

  “All I know is someone left this at the Dewdrop for me.” I tried to make the quiver in my voice sound like a growl. Minor thugs could pick up fear faster than a faery could get drunk.

  “You think I’m takin’ a chance on not showin’ when he tells me too?”

  In answer the thuggish little man grunted and wobbled back a few feet. Without looking to see if I followed, he turned down the hall behind him.

  Taking the open front door as an invitation to follow, I did so.

  The hall was ornate, yet didn’t look like anyone lived there. Like a show room simply to impress. Which it probably was. Cirocco’s dealings would more likely take place in a low-ceilinged, dimly lit room filled with smoke and surrounded by ancient elven artifacts.

  My guide pushed open a fancy door carved in old style larkian relief. “Wait here. I'll see if he can talk at ya.”

  A large part of my brain screamed that the door to the front was probably still open and that I could get out and be safe before anything else happened. However, the other side of my brain, the one that unfortunately was controlling my feet at the moment, pointed out that I needed to stay.

  Since I didn’t trust my voice to work, I just went and sat down. The thug closed the door without another word. Too late I realized that I didn’t get my original papers back.

  The room really was quite lovely. Golden tapestry covered mock stone walls, small elven artifacts filled the delicate shelves lining the room.

  But thoughts of what Cirocco could do to me if he thought I was pulling something faded all the beauty in front of me.

  The tiniest of squeaks as the door opened almost sent me into the ceiling. I held my breath as a skeleton hand opened the door. A huge skeleton hand, it swallowed the door knob completely.

  Just as I was trying to find anything I could dive under, the rest of the skeleton came into view.

  It actually wasn’t a skeleton, but the skinniest dwoller I’d even seen in my life. Dwollers were an odd race. Very secretive, and extreme loners. They only got together with others of their own kind every ten years for mating, and even then they barely tolerated each other.

  The information that Cirocco was a dwoller had never even been rumored. And looking at the dead gray eyes currently appraising me, I figured I wasn’t going to be the one to spread it around.

  Now no one had introduced the six-and-a-half-foot being in front of me as Cirocco, but there was something far too deadly in his eyes for him to be anyone else.

  Something that had died long ago and came back now to drag others down to his own personal hell.

  “Taryn St. Giles I presume?” His voice was far more cultured than I would have guessed. But it made him more deadly. And he even pronounced my family’s name correctly, something that rarely happened in this city.

  “Yes.” That was helpful. Now I just needed to finish a sentence and tell him how I’d been duped. “I received a document—”

  “I understand you received a fake decree inviting you to my employ.” He just talked right over me as if I hadn’t said anything. The tone wasn’t hostile, but it definitely let me know he was in charge. And that he hadn’t sent for me. “Alas, these things happen from time to time, someone playing a small joke. I apologize for your wasted trip.”

  I waited a few seconds, then tried again. “I believe whoever sent me that used it to break into my house.” I tried to keep the stark relief out of my voice that he actually hadn’t sent for me. I may need money, and badly, but I’d rather be poor and alive.

  The gaunt face peered even closer. “You believe I broke into your house?”

  My entire life slow motioned through my mind.

  “No, not at all.” Molasses moved faster than my brain at the moment. “I thought that perhaps you might want to know. That someone tried to use your good name. To break into my house.”

  “They used this paper to break in by claiming they were from my house?”

  “Well, no.” I hemmed on how much to tell him. “It was dropped off for me at the Shimmering Dewdrop. I think the paper was spelled. They used the paper as a portal into my apartment.” Out loud the words really did sound stupid. They did inside my head as well but I was the only one who had to hear them.

  A keening sound filled the room. Sure some vile creature had been called down to rend me to shreds, I ducked down.

  Only to see Cirocco laughing. The horrific sound was his laugh. No wonder dwollers couldn’t stand to be around each other.

  “A spell in a paper?” He wiped a green tear away. “Your home was ransacked by people the size of the paper? How did they get in?”

  There was no way I could tell him about Grimwold.

  Either he was working with his hench wizard on this, or he was so far out of the loop that I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. There were rumors that Cirocco had some magic on his own, maybe he did know what was going on.

  “I thought it was a bit odd myself, but my faeries sometimes drink too much.”

  “Your faery told you that whoever broke in your house did so through a piece of paper? Are you sure they are the only ones drinking?” He tilted his head in thought. “Oh wait, you are magic numb, aren’t you?”

  My shock, combined with a healthy dose of terror, must have shown on my face. Cirocco almost looked sympathetic. “Do not worry, my dear, I know how bad it could be if peo
ple knew you were a magic sink.”

  The snowdrifts started building up in my gut again. My being magically numb was a closely guarded secret. People who were magic numb often found themselves used as fodder during war, or even minor disagreements between countries. Very few lived long lives. I had been told years ago that no one could tell, or rather no one lower than a level twenty magic user. Since those were mostly confined to the capital, no one should know my secret.

  Yet Cirocco did.

  Either he was the best disguised magic-user I knew, or he had some people far further up the food chain than Grimwold working for him. And they’d apparently been talking about me.

  “Thank you. I must have been mistaken about the break-in.” When the major crime boss shows you one of his cards, and that card is against you, you bow, thank the nice man for your life, and flee the building.

  I rose to my feet slowly, hoping that he would back up before I finished.

  He did back up but only a step. I would still have to practically touch him to get out the door.

  “I will have Fralkin show you back out.” He gave me a polite nod, but all I could see was the killer under those flat eyes. “Thank you for letting me know someone was using my good name.”

  The door opened wider, and the front door thug waved at me.

  “This ways, miss.”

  I tried to open my mouth to say something polite as I passed Cirocco, but nothing came out. With a nod, I almost tripped on my own feet to follow the thug doorman.

  The coal-tinted air of the city had never smelled as sweet as it did the moment I walked out that door. I thought about running down the twisting walkway back to the street, but that might just make one of the more predatory employees of Cirocco chase me. Not to mention he might be watching. I did, however, walk extremely briskly off the property.

  Wonderful, the major crime boss of the city knew my secret. And made sure I knew he knew it. And most likely knew something about the spelled paper and the break-in. Running down the street screaming at the top of my lungs sounded good about now. Wouldn’t do anything except maybe get me locked up again, but it sounded like the only rational thing left.