The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1)

by Marie Andreas

  His deep eyes were so mesmerizing it took me a moment to remember the cover story I’d fed him about Alric. “I’m sure they should be done by now.” Alric better be long gone.

  Before I’d even finished speaking he waved down the imperious waiter. Without breaking away from staring into my eyes once.

  The waiter himself looked startled at his rapid appearance at our table.

  “I will take our bill now, good sir. The lady and I have another engagement.” Whereas before Marcos’ handling of the waiter had been hit or miss, he now seemed in complete control.

  “I do hope you are prepared to pay with proper—”

  “Is there a problem with my money?” Now Marcos did face the waiter. He waited as the befuddled man stared at a pile of gold coins that hadn’t been there a moment before. Clearly some of Marcos’s gypsy ancestors had passed their quick moves down to him.

  “Why no, sir. This is fine, sir. Will you be needing change, sir?” The change in the waiter was amusing even if the drool trickling down the side of his mouth was a bit gross. I couldn’t blame him though. There was enough gold on his little plate to buy the restaurant.

  “Not tonight, my good man, keep the change.” The corner of Marcos’s eye gave a twitch but his smile just grew larger. “My lady?” Standing up he walked around the stunned waiter and held his arm out for me.

  I refrained from sticking my tongue out as we walked around the still drooling waiter. I wanted to but didn’t want to ruin the moment. Besides, his eyes could see nothing but the pile of gold in front of him.

  The night air was warmer than it had been an hour ago, or maybe it was just the company.

  The small talk on the way back to my place was forgotten the moment it left my mouth. This man was something I had been waiting for and I was going to enjoy him. Never mind that he screamed and ran away at dead bodies. He was walking sex, and that was just what was needed after the last couple of weeks.

  It took twice as long to get back to my place as it had to leave. He kept pulling me aside in dark doorways for a quick kiss and cuddle. By the time my apartment was in sight, I was ready to rip off his clothes and ravish him in the street.

  “You know you are at risk, yes?” He whispered in my ear as he kissed his way down my neck. This was going to be a problem because I kept dropping my keys every time he did that.

  Fumbling around I reclaimed my keys and looked him in the eye. “And why is that?”

  “Ah, because when gypsies make love, we touch the soul in such a way that no other man can satisfy.” He gave a lascivious grin and licked the side of my neck. “I will ruin you for all other men. But it will be worth it, I promise.”

  Taking a deep breath, I kept my hands steady long enough to unlock my door. I went through first, but Marcos was still attached to the side of my neck so he followed immediately. I felt a jerk go through him as we crossed the threshold and he pulled back.

  “What has happened? Why can’t…I…” He stumbled past me and further into my living room, stopping only when he hit the sofa. With a jerk he flopped into it.

  Had someone shot him with a dart? He was acting as if poisoned. I ran to his side, but his shaking grew worse. His eyes rolled back into his head and he started to separate.

  That was the best word for what he was doing and I scrambled back a good foot or two. My head was clear, but somehow, on my sofa, Marcos had grown an extra set of arms. Then legs, then a third set. I backed up all the way to the door, and kept one foot across the threshold. Considering my recent event with my landlady, I wasn’t going into another shape changing attack unprepared. I knew running away would probably be the best idea, but some perverse side of me needed to see what was happening to him.

  Eventually three bodies separated from each other with some strands of a gooey slime pulling apart between them. All three male, all three about the same height, same coloring, and very naked. I couldn’t see their faces but their movements indicated they were in extreme pain.

  Then one of them twisted my way.

  Abhijeet.

  Chapter 30

  It was all three of the twins. My potential lover, the man I’d been fondling all night, and other nights, was actually the three jinns rolled into one.

  Luckily I was near my doorway and I was able to throw up outside my apartment.

  All three groaned as if they had literally been torn apart.

  “Get out.” I didn’t know how or why they’d played this trick, but once the nausea passed I was pissed.

  Unfortunately, I had no weapons.

  “Get the hell out now!” They just continued to roll on my sofa and moan.

  I was going to have to burn that sofa. Naked, slimy jinns rolling on it would never come out.

  They still refused to move, so I looked for anything I could use. I grinned when I spotted the box of stun cuff strips I’d ordered last week. Still had more than enough pairs.

  “Move now, or I’ll find places to stun that will leave you crying.” Exposed as they all were it wouldn’t be difficult. Not fun by any means, but not difficult.

  Alejandro rolled to his feet first. “You wouldn’t.” His voice was raspy and unfinished, but I took his ability to stand as meaning he could walk. Or run. I made my move and darted forward to slap a stun cuff on his long and dangly. Or in his current condition, short and stumpy. Unfortunately his lack of length caused me to slap a stun on his inner thigh instead.

  “After what you three just pulled? You’ll be lucky if I don’t cut them off.” Oh, I did have knives in the kitchen. I turned to run back to get them, when all three jinn stumbled to their feet and tore past me. They barely moved faster than a thousand-year-old chataling, but they left and that’s what mattered.

  I went to my favorite chair, rapidly becoming the only piece of furniture in my house, and collapsed. I’d have to find someone to come haul that sofa away just looking at it made me ill. Literally. There was slime from the transformation all over it. I debated covering it up, but decided I didn’t want to waste any more of my possessions. So I mustered my strength and grabbed the least slimy end. Looking carefully at the door, and not at what I was dragging, I made my way through the living room.

  “Do you want help, or is this something you and your sofa need to be alone for?” Alric said from behind me. As in from my bedroom behind me.

  “Why are you still here? I had told you to leave.” I dropped the sofa and turned on him. “Don’t you have a cave or something of your own to dwell in?” The horror of what would have happened had Marcos really been Marcos and we had proceeded with our intentions while Alric was in the room twisted my gut again. Then my mind reminded me what Marcos really was and I ran outside.

  “You don’t have to get ill if you want me to leave. Where’s your date anyway?”

  I let myself slump against the door frame, not sure what to say.

  He took my silence for something other than it was. “Hey, if you two are having some wild games, I’ll leave. I just heard shouting and thought maybe you needed help.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, frowning as more stress-released hairs came out. I was going to be bald in no time at this rate.

  “If you must know, Marcos isn’t a gypsy. He was the jinn brothers.”

  Alric had started to sit on the sofa, then saw the slime and stayed back. “The jinns made you think one of them was Marcos for your date?”

  “No. There was no Marcos. It was the three idiot jinn brothers in some sort of spell that pulled them into one person. Something dissolved them, or broke the spell or whatever, and they fell apart on my sofa.” I bent down to grab the sofa end again. “That’s jinn slime on there and I want it out.”

  It took him an instant to realize I wanted him to pick up the other end. “But how…those types of spells haven’t been around for centuries. How could three barely functioning jinn get a hold of one?”

  He’d finally picked up his end, showing off by only using one hand.

  �
�What I want to know is why they fell apart. He, they, had been keeping that ruse up for a while, why drop it now? Not to mention it looked like they hadn’t planned to drop it. My only satisfaction is that it looked like it hurt like hell when they split. That and they’re out on the streets somewhere running around naked.”

  “That would be my fault.”

  We’d made it outside, and I led the way to a side alley at the end of the building. Someone would want this sofa. Leaving unwanted items in alleys was a time-honored tradition.

  “The jinns pretending to be Marcos was your fault?” I almost pushed the sofa back onto his feet.

  “No,” he said as he dodged back. “Them falling apart is my fault. I put a warding spell on your door. It breaks glamour spells or anything else that changes appearance.”

  Now I did drop the sofa. Although we were at the alley, I dropped it for effect as well as destination.

  “Why would you put a warding spell on my door? We aren’t friends.” A number of thoughts went through my mind at his words. Warding spells aren’t cheap, at least one strong enough to break the Marcos spell. So Alric either had far more money or power than I thought.

  “We’re not?” The whimsical and annoying side of Alric reappeared. I don’t think I’d seen that grin since the first night we met. “Here I thought we were…something.”

  “Stop that.” I waved both hands at him and stalked back to my apartment.

  “I think it may be my fault that some of this is happening. When you saved me from the river, you may have made enemies.”

  He was walking alongside of me, but for the first time since we’d met, wouldn’t meet my eye.

  “I thought you said you weren’t really that hurt, that you were only stunned?” Some part of my mind told me that I didn’t really remember the event right. Part of me recalled dragging an almost dead Alric home, the other part kept saying he was really just stunned. The exact wording he’d repeated to me every time the event came up. That alone was suspicious.

  “I was, but still even stunned, someone could have found me and finished me off. The point is, I felt bad that Zirtha had gotten in, so I put a ward on your door to help protect you.” He held the same door open for me at that moment.

  While I thought someone putting a high spell breaker on my door was weird, I wasn’t going to argue. I couldn’t afford such a thing and as the events of today had shown, I apparently needed it.

  “Thanks, I guess. Although I don’t think it would have taken you the last two hours to put it on.” I went back to pissed as my mind caught up to him being in my bedroom again.

  “I don’t know what you—”

  “Don’t give me the big innocent green eyes, buster. That may work on Covey and Dogmaela it doesn’t work on me. Why were you hiding in my bedroom two hours after I told you to leave?”

  “I fell asleep after the spell?”

  The tone of his voice told me he didn’t even think I’d believe that one.

  “Last night you said you found the scrap in your room. I wanted to see if there was anything else.” He didn’t even have the decency to look guilty. Just a matter of fact that rummaging around someone’s room without their permission was all right if it was in search of a vital document. Maybe some of the ruse with Covey hadn’t been a ruse. His obsession with the elven artifacts, and more important scrolls, was almost an academic fervor.

  “Ha! Ransacking my room while I’m gone, just like a common thief.” I started to walk into my bedroom, then turned when he was still behind me. “It is still my room, do you mind?”

  “I found another scrap.” He said as he calmly sat down in one of my kitchen chairs. Smart man, he didn’t take my good chair.

  That turned me right around and back into the living room. “What? Why didn’t you say so? Let me see it.”

  “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.” His grin was as seductive as the jinns had tried to make Marcos. In other words, pure trouble.

  Ignoring his innuendo, I stomped over to my hidey hole for the scrap of scroll. “Technically they’re both mine since they were in my house.”

  “How do you know I didn’t drop them?”

  “If you dropped them in my house, then they are still mine. You shouldn’t have been in my house anyway.” I took my scrap and sat back in my good chair. I’d almost given it to him and he hadn’t even shown me he had his own piece.

  “Where’s yours?” I folded mine and stuffed it under the cushion of my chair. His wince gave me a little bit of satisfaction. I loved artifacts. But in my findings there were few written words, so for me the scrolls didn’t have the same impact as they did for Alric and Covey. I wanted to see what the lost race made, how they lived. Hokey prophecies weren’t really my style.

  “Can you be careful with that? There’s still a lot we couldn’t translate.” His scowl deepened as he fiddled a small wrapped item out of his pocket. He clearly took far more care of his scrap than I did.

  The scrap itself was little more than a rough three-inch square. At least that told us what Covey had feared, the remaining scroll was shredded. I think part of her had still held hope that only my long strip had been pulled off.

  “There’s only a few words. I found it stuck under your bed.” He clearly didn’t want to give it to me, but being as I seemed to be the only one with a connection to the big scary words, he had to.

  “Which raises the question, why is it in my room?” I walked to my front door, opening it quickly to make sure no one was there, then locked it. “Is it about the body?” I had been carefully avoiding the body. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t talk about it. But the fact was a few nights ago someone had left me a corpse. Even Alric’s assurances that the person had been killed elsewhere hadn’t reassured me. To be honest, I was sort of surprised I hadn’t packed up all my meager possessions and moved out of town by now.

  Alric studied my face before he answered. Having a drop-dead gorgeous man study you was something to treasure. Unless you got the idea he was watching to see if you were going to crack.

  I must have looked less fragile than I felt.

  “I have to think it is. I still have no idea who they were. The body was burnt beyond recognition and no spells of mine seem to work on it.” He leaned forward. “You haven’t noticed anyone in your daily life go missing have you?”

  That was a calming thought. Luckily my circle of friends was fairly small and easily traceable. “Not that I’ve noticed; although where did the faeries go?” Normally I had no problem not knowing where they were. I usually didn’t want to know where they were.

  “They said they needed to go hunt down the squirrel family again. Something about them hiding faery treasures from them.” His perfect face dropped a few levels as a frown crept between his brows. “That reminds me, I’ve been around your faeries a lot lately, and I don’t think they could have done what they did to Zirtha without help. Lots of help.”

  Damn. His words said he was just asking a question, but his tone said he knew darn well I was hiding something. But after seeing what Queen Mungoosey and her tribe had done, I really didn’t want to give their secret away.

  “Don’t look at me. I’m never sure what they can or can’t do.” A way out struck me. “Besides, Zirtha pretty much was pulling the life out of me. I really wasn’t up to noticing fine details on anything beyond my next breath.”

  “So they could have had help.” He rubbed his face in thought.

  Damn it. That wasn’t where I wanted him to go. Those faeries saved my life. If my faeries felt it needed to stay a secret, it was staying a secret.

  “Doubtful. Who would help faeries? Not to mention my door was locked. Zirtha did it to keep me from getting out, but no one else could have gotten in either.” I held my breath waiting to see if he bought my story.

  He studied me for a few moments then finally shook his head. “Maybe you’re right. But it still seems odd.”

  I bounced out of my seat and snatched his sc
rap of scroll before he could stop me. “Yes, very odd. Now can we worry about important things?” I was just sliding back into my chair, my eyes catching the words on the scrap for the first time, when a jolt leapt from my fingers and jumped my entire body.

  The next thing I knew, I was prone on the floor with Alric hovering over me. My whole body felt twitchy and frazzled.

  “What happened?” But my tongue was numb and it came out ‘Wha ha’en’.

  “Hold still, your hair caught fire.” Alric patted down the ends of my hair. No longer brown they were black on the ends.

  I tried to jerk myself up but only succeeded in flopping like a landed fish that’d been out of the water too long.

  “Damn it, why did you do that?” At least my tongue was mostly coming back. I understood what I was saying. But I wasn’t sure if Alric understood me or not. “I wasn’t going to hurt your scrap.” I figured that Alric had more magic than he’d let folks see. Little things like that spell he’d put on my door for one thing. But frying me because I took his paper was obsessive.

  “I didn’t do that.” He peered closer, but I think he was just trying to look at my pupils. “Trust me, if I fried you, you wouldn’t be moving. Or talking. Now hold still.” He gently picked a piece of ash off my eyelash. A piece of ash from me I could only guess.

  “Then who did?”

  He didn’t answer but instead pulled up my hand. The hand that held the scrap. The edges of the paper were singed, and while it didn’t hurt yet, the scorch marks on my hand indicated I was going to be in pain sooner than later.

  “Ah, crap.” More profound thoughts were there, but the jolt fried my brain too much to pull them out. The paper looked about as crispy as I felt.

  Alric’s green eyes held mine for a moment then he turned back to my hand. “This might hurt, I’m not sure if it’s seared onto your skin.”

  “Then leave it alo—” My yelp of pain as he ripped the paper ended my comment. Not that he’d planned on having anything to do with what I wanted at this point obviously. He was ignoring me and blowing down at something in his hand.