The Avatars Series: Books 1-3

by Blackwood, Lisa

  Together, they headed back to the stairwell, both agreeing that putting two gargoyles in an elevator—a small enclosed space with no easy out—was a very bad idea.

  Gregory was just reaching the door’s push bar when the two elevators hummed and creaked into motion. In the time it took to glance over her shoulder at them, the lights went out.

  Crouching, Lillian flared her wings out around Gregory as she pulled him to her side. He didn’t fight her, holding perfectly still against her side.

  The emergency lights cast the hallway in a dull yellowish glow until they, too, blinked out.

  Any hope it was a random innocent power outage flashed out with them.

  Every instinct screamed ‘trap’ and clamoured for her to bolt for the stairwell.

  “Gregory, we’ve been discovered.” She didn’t know how or when. Maybe security had seen him as he’d made his way through the corridors and reported his activity as suspicious.

  The elevators reached their floor within seconds of each other.

  With a smooth precision, which did nothing for Lillian’s peace of mind, teams of scarily quiet humans emerged from the elevators, guns first.

  From one of the offices, a bare ten feet from the elevators, a man carrying a flashlight emerged into the hallway.

  He took one look at them, pointed his flashlight to the ground and backed against the wall.

  Lillian counted twelve soldiers in the hallway now. Two peeled off and made for the man with the flashlight. They checked his office and then herded him back inside.

  So it wasn’t some random security thing they’d tripped. The soldiers were specifically looking for Gregory.

  Damn. So much for making their way to the surface and walking out peacefully.

  Five more soldiers were heading in her direction. If she and Gregory bolted for the stairwell, the soldiers would see the door open. Their best chance to remain undetected might be to sneak past the soldiers and hide in one of the offices until the furor died down.

  That might take until long past dawn. Or never.

  The soldiers moved closer to their position. She eyed the space between them. No way could she squeeze past without betraying her location.

  Now she heard something else distressing—the sound of heavy boots on the stair treads. Lots more boots.

  “Fight or flight?” she whispered into his mind. “It’s your call, but I hear more on the stairs, too. We may not have a choice.”

  Grunting in agreement, he jerked his chin toward the stairwell. “Go.”

  She bolted into motion, Gregory so close behind, he brushed against her tail and right wing as they ran. Flashes of light, radio chatter and shouted commands chased them into the stairwell. She couldn’t understand the words, her sensitive hearing overwhelmed by all the other echoing chaos.

  Gregory darted ahead, taking the steps three at a time. He was still mostly in human form, but dark talons tipped each finger now instead of blunt human nails. Behind, she heard the soldiers pursuing while ahead Gregory had run into the first on the stairs.

  There was another sudden flurry of sounds—the smack of flesh on flesh, grunts of pain, startled sounds, and cursing.

  Gregory slammed two soldiers together with enough force to stun them and then he leaped clear to engage four more coming down the stairwell from above. In that moment, Lillian realized Gregory was sharing. A large gargoyle grin spread across her face. She knew just where to put the two soldiers Gregory had left at her feet.

  She grabbed the nearest by his jacket as he struggled up. She helped him to his feet, and then on over her shoulder where his weight and momentum carried him down the flight of stairs and into the path of the other soldiers coming up from the level below.

  “Sorry,” she whispered to the second soldier at her feet and tossed him down to join his friends.

  Above, Gregory had cleared a path. She leaped over or around the unconscious or barely conscious bodies left in his wake.

  Ahead, the stairwell door was propped wide, a rectangle of blinding light prevented her from seeing much beyond that point.

  Tears streamed down her face, but she forged on because Gregory had disappeared into that light.

  She had enough sense to remain at the stairwell’s threshold where the shadows could still hide her. In seconds, her eyesight blinked back into focus. What she saw didn’t inspire much hope of escaping without gathering a few bullet holes.

  Gregory stood just outside the stairwell, mere feet into the community centre’s lobby. He was encircled by a good two dozen soldiers.

  Rage and fear stirred in Lillian’s heart at the number of red dots painting Gregory’s body.

  Chapter Nine

  Lillian scanned faces and spotted a familiar one—Major Resnick.

  He held a tranquilizer gun pointed at Gregory. Somehow, that wasn’t reassuring.

  “Normally,” Resnick said with a cold voice, “if someone came this far without clearance, they’d be shot on sight. However, I have a few questions for you and dead men are much harder to question.”

  Gregory tilted his head in acknowledgement, and Lillian could visualize the familiar glint of humour in his eyes. Only her irrational mate would find thirty guns pointed at his chest amusing.

  Major Resnick’s expression remained stony though he did lift one eyebrow a fraction of an inch. “Were I in your place, I wouldn’t be finding it humorous. I know Corporal Jenkins, and that fancy face job might have fooled us had the real Jenkins not just crawled out of the forest and reported how he was ambushed. Now, hands behind your head and face down on the floor.”

  Lillian tensed as Gregory reached out and touched her mind. “Beloved, grant me my defensive magic and be ready to follow close on my tail.”

  “Use your magic, but don’t get yourself shot. And if we kill a bunch of soldiers to escape, they’ll just hunt us and our allies all the harder.”

  “I know, but my defensive magic can do more than kill on a large scale.” He gave the equivalent of a mental shrug and added, “I’ve just never had a reason not to simply kill my enemies, until now. I’ll have to teach you this part of your gargoyle magic at some point.”

  “Down, now. Or we’ll shoot you down.” Resnick sounded like he was losing patience.

  Gregory rolled his shoulders and slowly placed his hands on the back of his head. He went down on one knee like he was going to do as they demanded. “It’s not a mask.”

  Resnick’s eyes narrowed at Gregory’s words. “I’m sure we’ll get to that during the interrogation.”

  “Another time, perhaps.” At Gregory’s words, his shadow magic swirled up from the ground and its chilled currents washed against Lillian’s body. It had no effect on her, but when it touched the first human, it exploded outward in an ever enlarging circle, carrying with it any hapless humans it had captured.

  Gregory bolted into motion before the soldiers landed hard, a good twenty feet away.

  Lillian followed him so close she bumped him once when he slowed to turn a corner.

  On the plus side of things, his defensive magic had also taken out most of the lights, and she was no longer blinded by all those viciously bright lights.

  Gregory’s wispy shadow magic continued to hide and protect them from the startled humans. The distraction would only last moments at best. Some of the downed soldiers were already picking themselves off the floor, as other newcomers came to their aid.

  Lillian didn’t care. They were swiftly through the last checkpoints. Shoving surprised guards out of their path, they were soon surrounded by glorious night air and freedom.

  Ahead, Gregory shifted and dropped to all four so he could run faster. She lengthened her stride to come alongside him.

  All around them, the terrain was suddenly torn up by bullets biting into the ground. Dirt and tall stalks of grass were mowed down as a continual rain of deadly projectiles pelted the ground less than ten feet from her present path.

  Gregory snarled in pain or anger,
she couldn’t tell the cause from her position two strides behind him. The roar of an engine drowned out all other sounds. A helicopter was taking off. Possibly more than one, she concluded, as a greater noise rose up from the military camp behind them.

  Two armoured vehicles with manned guns on the back were racing across the field she and Gregory were presently running through.

  “That was too damn close. Can they see us?”

  Gregory veered to the side and slowed enough she shot right past him. At which point she realized the move was intentional on his part. He was protecting her, putting himself bodily between her and the enemy closing in behind them.

  His manoeuvring also allowed her to see the bloody furrows running along his flank where more than one bullet had found its mark.

  “You’re hurt,” she uttered. The stupid remark exited her mouth before she could stop it.

  Gregory merely rolled his eyes at her. “They are flesh wounds. A lucky round which made it past my defensive magic.”

  Lillian instantly knew what he hadn’t said. The bullet had only made it through because he’d concentrated the vast majority of his magic around her. The shadow spells were still coiling around them, but they were fading. Either Gregory was weakening, which she doubted, or he had another idea.

  “My magic hides us from view. Unfortunately, this long grass still shows where we’ve been. In my haste, I didn’t weave a spell to conceal the evidence of our passage until too late. Now they know the rough area where to concentrate their attention, and fire.”

  She glanced over her shoulder as she ran. Their mad dash for freedom was creating a trail through the tall grass even a toddler could follow. Ahead a marshy bog was meandering its way around the back acreage of the community centre. There’d be no easy way to hide their path. Even with magic.

  More gun fire and a small explosion of grass and dirt erupted alongside Gregory, forcing him to leap sideways. He shouldered her in the side, steering her into a new trajectory. For once Lillian was not complaining about his overprotective tendencies.

  “I think it’s time for your first flying lesson.”

  “What?”

  “Our shadow magic will be much more effective against the dark sky. There will be no trail for them….”

  Again Gregory drove her into a sharp turn. A half second later the land where they would have been exploded in a cloud of debris.

  “Damn, I think that was an RPG. They mean business.”

  Gregory didn’t even miss a beat. “Ahead, when we reach that small rise, spread your wings and allow your stride to power you more upward than forward. Jump like you mean to clear a fallen tree trunk and spread your wings. Ride the air. It will come naturally to you.”

  “I’m not ready!”

  But the rise—not much more than an ant hill really—was upon them and when Gregory jumped into the air, she did too, squealing in terror. Yes, she learned, a gargoyle could squeal.

  Her wings, true to Gregory’s word, stretched wide, capturing the air and propelled her body up higher into the sky with each stroke. Her wings might know what to do, but her legs churned and thrashed like they were still hoping to find something with more traction than the air.

  Gregory maneuvered under her, putting himself between her and the ground as they gained more altitude.

  For another whole ten seconds of pure panic, she thought she’d entangle their wings and send them both spiraling to their deaths. Blessedly that didn’t happen. Instead, her body and wings began to mimic his motions in the air.

  He’d been firmly in her mind the entire time, but her blind panic had kept her from detecting him.

  “That’s it. Follow my lead.” His confidence washed over her senses. “You’re doing fine. We will be able to land soon, but not here. We are over solid forest at the moment. There’s a road a little distance ahead, which should be empty this time of night. We’ll land there and make our way home through the forest.”

  Home sounded good. The shelter of the forest sounded nice too.

  She’d settle for either at this point.

  “I just want to say this was an absolutely terrible time for my first flight lesson.”

  Gregory chuckled. “All in all, I thought it went rather well. We are free. We don’t have too many holes in our hides, and you did actually make it into the air under your own power.” He pulled ahead and then performed an aerial maneuver that would make a stunt pilot hold his breath.

  “Show off.”

  In a blink, he was flying next to her again.

  She concentrated on beating her wings and not falling out of the sky. They flew another two kilometres before she saw the road ahead.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” she hissed, feeling a strain in her wings and shoulders. “I’m so not in shape for flying, but this has got to have been my best cardio workout ever.”

  “You’re tiring?”

  Lillian held back a sharp retort and instead said, “I’m a little tired.”

  “We’re almost there, but landing is more dangerous. I’ll carry you to the ground this time. We’ll practice landing over shallow water the first few times. Trust me, it’s a much safer practice.”

  Lillian wasn’t at all sure about having him help her to the ground. It summoned visions of tangled wings and broken bodies.

  Gregory curled the edge of one wing a fraction and was suddenly right over top of her. He flew so close she could feel his heat.

  “Get ready to fold your wings tight to your body at my command. Don’t struggle or try to unfurrow your wings until we are safely on the ground. Understand?”

  The road was almost under them and she didn’t have time to argue. Besides, she trusted him with her life. “I understand.”

  She still squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Fold your wings now.”

  She did and his tail snaked around her waist and hips as his arms snapped forward to lock in a strong embrace around her chest.

  A squeak of surprise did escape her as his wings fanned out to slow them, and the combined forces of gravity and momentum threatened to peel her from his hold and leave her broken on the ground below.

  But Gregory didn’t fail her. With a few more violent beats of his wings, they came to the ground with only a slight jolt.

  Her eyes snapped open to find herself standing on a tree shrouded road.

  She panted harshly but dug her talons into the road’s gravel surface, mindlessly happy to be on the ground and to be in one piece.

  Slowly she came to recognize the area. They weren’t far from the old saw mill the Clan and Coven used during their lunar Wild Hunts. Well, the one they used to use before all the reporters, scientists, and military arrived. The saw mill should still be a safe place to hole up for a couple hours until she had her breath back.

  Gregory didn’t immediately release her though his grip loosened to allow his hands to skim along her arms as if he searched for wounds. He, too, still panted, his chest pressed against her back and wings, his warm breath puffing against her neck and right side of her face.

  “Are you alright?” his voice rumbled in her ear, and she detected a note of worry there.

  “I’m fine. A little shaken up, but no lasting scars.” She turned in his arms and touched her muzzle along the underside of his jaw while she simultaneously wrapped her arms around his waist. Her horns framed the sides of his face, but he seemed not to care. As for her tail, it seemed to seek out Gregory’s lower legs like it was trying to prevent him from going anywhere.

  Tonight Gregory could have been badly hurt. She didn’t know if he could have survived being riddled with as many rounds as, were aimed at him if his magic hadn’t been there. What if in the future he was unable to call upon his magic because she didn’t give an order in time?

  Gregory gave an affronted huff. “I would never have allowed them to land that many blows. Even if they caught me asleep and unaware, these weapons wouldn’t kill me. I’d heal. Sometimes I think you forget what I am. What
I am capable of doing to protect you.”

  Lillian knew his words were true, but she had seen her beloved brought low before, and he had died defending her in past lives. She might not have those memories at the moment, but he’d alluded to such.

  Gregory nuzzled her, and then dragged her as close as two bodies could be. “Silly little dryad, those times we faced off against creatures far more deadly than a few humans—some of those creatures could kill even a demi-god such as the Lady of Battles.”

  “Oh my god.”

  He held a finger up to her lips to silence her. “And other times I lost you first, not because I couldn’t protect you but because you would throw all you were into destroying the enemy before it could decimate other worlds. In so doing, you sacrificed your mortal body to call upon the full force of your Avatar magic. I don’t like to remember the times I lost you first. So, my little dryad, feel free to make me forget those unpleasant thoughts.”

  “I’m a gargoyle, at the moment, not a dryad if you couldn’t tell.”

  Gregory laughed with genuine humour. “Like I could forget it with you wrapped around me like a towel.”

  Lillian pretended insult and tried to extract herself. The slight flaring of her wings stirred the air and brought a fresh wave of blood scent to her nostrils, reminding her Gregory was still bleeding.

  “If you are so invincible, why the hell are you dripping blood on the road? Eh?”

  Gregory snorted and then waved a hand at the few drops of blood. They shimmered for a moment and then misted away.

  “You were able to do that without an order.” It was more question than statement.

  “It is part of my defensive magic. Your earlier order is still in effect.”

  Lillian sighed, and nuzzled him. Then another unhappy thought caused her stomach to tighten. “But how much blood did you leave in that field. They will scour every blade of grass for evidence.”

  Gregory stretched out his injured wing to show it had stopped bleeding and was already healing. “And they will find nothing of interest. I ordered my magic to eradicate any drops left behind, no matter how far away.”