Gargoyle Quest

by William Massa

  He wasn’t used to making friends with his enemies, and it required all his self-control not to say something that he might later regret. Only Nyssa seemed to have accepted his participation in this mission. Now that he was working with these monster hunters, he kept wondering about the mysterious Order that sponsored their missions. Who were the founders of this organization? How did they select their warriors? And what did they hunt besides gargoyles and power-hungry wizards?

  The answers could wait.

  His attention fixed on the hotel in front of him. Situated between an auto repair shop and a gentleman’s club, the crumbling eight-story structure was one of a few holdouts in a neighborhood quickly being overcome by luxury developments. Decades earlier it had been one of New York’s finest hotels, providing lavish accommodation for the privileged elite, but nowadays the decaying building attracted mostly druggies and deadbeats, according to Nyssa’s intelligence. It had stood unoccupied for years. Fading sunlight bled over a slightly sinister neon sign, dark now like a dead star.

  The steady rush of traffic filled the air as they advanced toward the hotel’s sagging awning. The padlock on the double doors barely slowed them down. Cormac whisked out a large wrench and went to work, his icy blue eyes narrowed with concentration. A few minutes later, the lock snapped and the front entrance swung open.

  The shadow-soaked Manchester Hotel awaited them. Time had gutted the structure and transformed the upper-crust hotspot into a gathering place for the lost and desperate. Old mattresses, fresh garbage, and the husks of long-dead pests suggested squatters had taken up residence in the old hotel.

  The rest of the team was having trouble keeping up with Artan’s explosive pace. He had to believe his beloved was still okay, that they still stood a chance of saving her. Almost as if Nyssa could read his worried thoughts, she said, “Rhianna will be fine. Necron needs her.”

  Hoping to take his mind off Rhianna, Artan searched Nyssa’s face and said, “So how does one get started in the gargoyle hunting business?”

  “I suppose we all have a story.”

  “What’s yours?”

  Before she could answer, one of the hunters stepped up to them. “Commander, we located the elevator.”

  Nyssa and Artan followed the hunter toward the hidden entrance. Wood-paneled doors allowed the lift to blend with the wall, making it practically invisible. Nyssa instructed her men to pry open the doors. Once done, their flashlights lit up the empty shaft that stretched into the darkness below. The lift hadn’t been in operation for decades, and with the power out, the plan was to use the emergency ladder. Sensing Artan’s momentary hesitation, Nyssa arched an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”

  Artan merely shrugged and reluctantly joined the team of hunters.

  Time stretched as they made their way down the yawning, dust-filled shaft. The steady noise of traffic started to fade, replaced with the sounds of the team’s labored breathing and muffled curses as they descended.

  Artan had no idea how many minutes had passed before they reached the bottom, but he felt relieved to feel solid ground below his feet again. Two of the hunters popped open the elevator door, and then the team was stepping onto the Manchester subway platform. The air felt thick and stuffy down here, strangling each breath. A quick scan of the area informed Artan that the private subway car he’d glimpsed on the computers back at the command center was gone.

  As they combed the platform, he was also the first to notice the fresh footprints in the dust-covered stone floor. His heightened senses had matured since being re-infected by the gargoyle bite, transforming the darkness into a gray twilight. The hunter’s flashlights couldn’t match the night-vision capabilities of a gargoyle.

  “They were here,” Artan said, pointing at the tracks.

  Nyssa traded looks with her team and said, “Search the station. See if you can find anything else.”

  The team’s lights swept the gutted, empty platform. Time, the great equalizer, had eroded all signs of privilege. After fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, Artan struggled to fight back his growing frustration. The footprints led to the edge of the platform and then…stopped. Had Necron and Rhianna boarded the private train from the pictures on Nyssa’s computers? Hard to believe it would still run after so many years of disuse. Or had they headed down the tracks on foot? The trail was growing cold before they even had a chance to follow it.

  “What now?” he said, unable to hide the frustration in his voice.

  Nyssa’s answer was to slip off her black gloves and roll up the sleeves of her coat. Artan took note of a series of glyphs inked on her forearms. They reminded him of his brother’s rune tattoos. Perhaps he had been right to be suspicious of Nyssa’s passion for sorcerery. He was getting a bad feeling about this.

  The three other hunters took a step back, clearly not surprised by the tattoos, and formed a protective half-circle around Nyssa. She continued to focus on the footprints, brows furrowed, features masklike as her lips whispered an incantation in a language unfamiliar to Artan.

  Hairs prickled on the back of his neck. Even though the blood of a mythical beast pulsed through his veins, magic had not lost its ability to awe and terrify him. The glyphs on Nyssa’s arms came alive, and a greenish light emanated from the symbols. If Artan had harbored any lingering doubts, the ensuing pyrotechnic display erased them—Nyssa was a spellcaster herself.

  “They’re close,” she said.

  Beams of energy sparked from her tattoos toward the footprints. One by one, the prints filled with the same greenish light. It jumped from the last set near the edge of the platform down to the tracks below. Tendrils of magical energy unfurled and bathed the tunnel in the same eerie glow.

  Nyssa’s magic was showing them the way their quarry had gone. All they needed to do was follow the magical trail. But as he stepped off the platform, Artan couldn’t shake the feeling that they might be walking into a trap.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NYSSSA AND HER team followed the trail of green-blue light, their weapons up and eyes wary, ready for anything. The pommel of Artan’s sword singed his fingers, hot to the touch, the enchanted Blade of Kings responding to the magical energy in the tunnel.

  Necron must be near.

  Artan’s eyes cut through the dark, searching in the rampant graffiti on the tunnel’s curved walls, the strange tags meaning as much to him as the Celtic rune tattoos on his body signified to the average New Yorkers. A carpet of panicked rats skittered across the tracks.

  They sense the gargoyle within me, Artan thought.

  He sidled up to Nyssa, who was holding her crossbow in one hand, her whip in the other.

  “I didn’t realize the Order used magic to fight magic,” he said.

  “As you know all too well, sometimes fire needs to be fought with fire.”

  “How did you learn to wield such power?”

  “If you’re asking whether I come from a long line of wizards, the answer is no. My dad was a truck driver and my mom waited tables at a diner. Neither one of them had much time for fairy tales.”

  “So how do you do it?”

  Nyssa’s face darkened. “I was always drawn to the occult. Growing up, I felt pretty powerless. I was the middle child in a family of five, with parents who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. It was easy to slip through the cracks, get lost in the shuffle. I don’t blame my folks; they had their hands full providing for all of us. Naturally I started getting into trouble. Drugs, alcohol, shoplifting—you name, I did it. When I was seventeen I hooked up with a real winner, who turned me on to black magic. The occult promised an escape from my messed up life, a way to finally get a handle on stuff beyond my control. It made me feel special.”

  Nyssa’s story made him think of Cael’s journey to the dark side. While his father had showered him with attention, he had given Cael the cold shoulder, unable to relate to the strange boy’s fascination with the druidic arts. His father had been a good man
and an inspirational leader, but a lousy father to Cael. Artan could see that now, even feel pity for his brother, but childhood neglect was no excuse for what Cael had done. As they proceeded down the winding tunnel, Nyssa continued her story. “I became obsessed with wanting to conjure a demon, thinking it might solve all my problems. Bad idea.”

  Artan’s features darkened, knowing where this tale was headed. Dabbling with the supernatural forces never had a happy ending.

  “What happened?” he asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

  “I lost control of the demon and it ran rampant in my home.” All emotion drained from her voice as she said, “It murdered my family. My brother and sisters, both my parents. More would’ve paid for my foolishness with their lives if the Order hadn’t shown up. They banished the creature. I should have died for what I did, but the Order saw potential in me. They took me in, helped me master my powers. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  Nyssa broke off as if suddenly aware she might’ve shared too much.

  Guilt drove the monster hunter, an emotion Artan was intimately familiar with. He too blamed himself for being blind to his brother’s evil. Instead of sentencing him to death, he’d banished Cael, allowing him to return to Kirkfall and wreak havoc upon his kingdom.

  “Not a day goes by that I don’t see the demon staring back at me,” Nyssa said after a long pause. “No matter how many lives I save, I wake up every morning knowing I will never be able to bring back my family.”

  “We all make mistakes. You took a terrible tragedy and channeled it into something positive. Sometimes that’s the best we can do.”

  Nyssa nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload like that.”

  “Of course. You would not want to get too close to someone you might need to execute tomorrow,” Artan said, bitterness coloring his words.

  Nyssa quickly averted her gaze. It had been a sharp reminder that this alliance between him and the Order was only meant to be temporary truce.

  Artan studied the other hunters. What demons, personal or literal, drove them to risk their lives on a daily basis? Did they all hunt monsters so they could conquer the monsters inside of them? The thought gave rise to another question.

  “Is there any magic that can reverse Balor’s curse and cure my condition?”

  Nyssa hesitated for a moment before she spoke. “The grimoire Necron is assembling will be the most powerful dark magic book the world has ever seen.”

  Artan studied her for a beat. Was she dodging his question? “You said the Order guarded the first book for the last two hundred years. Did you ever…?”

  Nyssa’s eyebrows nudged upward. “Did I ever flip through it do see if there was a way to turn gargoyles back into humans?”

  Suddenly his line of inquiry seemed stupid and selfish. Before Nyssa could say anything else, Artan felt a chill, and his breath began to cloud before him. The temperature had dropped by about twenty degrees in a manner of seconds.

  He shot Nyssa a questioning glance, but it was Cormac who provided an explanation. “Ghosts. Only the spirits of the dead can affect the environment like this.”

  Nyssa nodded in agreement. “Necron’s power over the realm of the dead is growing.”

  Artan stifled a shiver as he scoped out the tunnel. His heartbeat boomed in his chest, and the gargoyle rumbled inside of him, begging to be let out.

  Not yet.

  Artan and the team slowed as a lone subway car grew visible. Nyssa’s beam of magic extended toward the car until it stood outlined in a halo of green light. Artan caught a shift in the shadows to his right. An instant later, a bone-white figure launched out of the darkness and charged at Nyssa. The dead man’s head sat askew on his shoulder, a chunk of bone jutting out of his neck. Jolted by the terrifying vision, Artan instinctively brought up his sword and sliced at the approaching entity before it could reach Nyssa.

  There was a crackle of energy, but the sword passed straight through the specter. The blessed steel was powerless against the spirit.

  The spirit whirled away from Nyssa and lunged at Artan instead. His blood turned to ice as a mad rush of images bombarded his mind.

  There were glimpses of a man dashing down a subway track, police officers in hot pursuit. One hand clutched his chest, which was riddled with bullets wounds. The man was a drug dealer and knew the consequences if the cops caught up with him. He wasn’t going back to jail. Over his dead body. They had chased him all the way down here, had shot at him, even hit him, but he would lose them in the maze of tunnels. They’d never catch him. This was his world…

  The ghost fled Artan’s body with a bone-chilling wail and the overwhelming flow of images ceased. The former King of Kirkfall gasped, grateful to be rid of the spectral invader. The brief glimpse into the dead man’s life had been quite enough for him. Artan guessed the entity wasn’t used to encountering other supernatural creatures in the subways of New York.

  The monster hunters drew closer together, their crossbows leveled. If the Blade of Kings was any indication, magical weapons would be useless against these spectral attackers.

  “Why didn’t my sword stop it?”

  “They’re the souls of the living. Necron’s dark power is drawing them out, but unlike the shadows at the MET, these spirits aren’t black magic creations.”

  “So how do we fight them? I can’t—” He broke off, having spotted Rhiana running toward the train.

  Relief gave way to concern as he spotted a pale figure in hot pursuit. The ghost closed the gap in a blink, materializing in front of her and barring her from the subway car.

  Her training guiding her, Nyssa withdrew a pouch from her coat and threw it at the spirit reaching out for Rhianna with thin, withered arms. The ghost froze in mid-attack, momentarily turning into a statue and let out a frustrated shriek, furious at being denied its prize.

  “Blessed salt will paralyze spirits,” she explained, “at least for a few seconds….”

  This was their chance. Nyssa leading the way, they sprinted toward Rhianna. Relief and love filled her eyes the moment she saw him. Artan had to stop himself from running toward her, heedless of the attacking ghosts on all sides. Instead, he waded into the fight alongside the Order’s hunters, moving with them like a well-seasoned team.

  Nyssa kept spraying the ghosts with salt, who froze and dispersed upon contact with the substance. But for every spirit she stopped, two new ghosts took its place. At the rate they were going, they would be out of salt soon. Nyssa was merely delaying the inevitable.

  The gargoyle reared once again, a beast rattling its cage. Artan fought back the urge to change. He still hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to his gargoyle’s power to win this battle

  “Head for the train,” Nyssa shouted.

  Artan had no idea how the walls of the subway car could stop entities that could pass through steel and cement. He’d just have to trust Nyssa.

  He pressed forward, and then his hand closed around Rhianna’s arm, their eyes finding each other.

  “Are you alright? Are you injured?”

  Before she could answer, another silvery specter leapt at them, only to freeze when a handful of Nyssa’s salt sprayed its face. There was no time for further talk; action was required. Artan and Rhianna ran to the subway car. He sure hoped Nyssa knew what she was doing because he had entrusted her with not only his safety but his beloved’s as well.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw one of the ghosts leaping at a hunter like a hellish beast. The man gasped and his eyes went wide. A second later, he doubled over and his face began to fall in, the skin shriveling into a living death mask. By the time Artan, Rhianna, Cormac and the rest of the team had entered the Manchester subway car, the hunter had turned into an emaciated, wizened husk of his former self. The spirit shrieked out of his mummified corpse, barely satiated by the man’s lifeforce and visibly hungry for more.

  Unless Nyssa had a strategy here, a similar fate was undoubtedly in store for them. Artan
realized with a lurch that only his gargoyle nature had spared him earlier.

  As soon as the last hunter scrambled into the train, Nyssa slammed the door shut. She whipped out a piece of chalk and started marking a series of protective wards on the windows of the subway car. Did she truly believe glyphs could put an end to this spectral assault? Outside the train, the frozen ghosts shook off the effects of the salt, and one by one they began to advance in unholy formation.

  They flung themselves at the subway car with ferocious force, only to encounter the unexpected obstacle of Nyssa’s wards. The glyphs lit up, charged with powerful magical energy. The subway car vibrated with the spirits’ frustrated howls as they bounced off the windows, skeletal faces pressed against the invisible barrier. One of the ghosts, half of its caved-in head covered in burn marks, flashed Artan a madman’s grin.

  Despite the gruesome display, the wards successfully kept the spirits at bay, securing the subway car from the phantom attack. Artan had to admit he was impressed. The train shook under the continuous assault, but the blows were growing weaker. Outside, the shrieks and howls were building into a crescendo, a chorus of the damned demanding to be acknowledged.

  And then it all stopped.

  One moment the ghosts were slamming into windows and doors, the subway car’s metal roof buckling under the assault, and the next the ghosts had slipped back into the darkness from which they’d first emerged.

  Artan’s didn’t let down his guard. He didn’t trust the quiet.

  “Does Necron have the third book?” Nyssa asked Rhianna. The young archeologists remained silent, still in shock. “Did the warlock find the book?”

  This time Nyssa’s question registered, and Rhianna vehemently shook her head. “No, not yet.”