That's where lies will get you. I never have liked them. Somehow, someday, I'm going to have to convince the gargoyles to let Mim in on their secret. I might even have to call a pack meeting so we can discuss the subject. I wonder if I can do that without a knife. If not, I might have to find something in the kitchen drawer.
You're not gonna believe this next part but a tree fell on my neighbor.
I swear I had nothing to do with it! In fact, if Reason is right and I can cast no harmful spells, it couldn't have been me.
It was a windy day on the weekend and we weren't around to hear Blocker's shouts for help but he had his cell phone with him so he was able to get through to the emergency services. The tree that pinned his leg to the ground was the one I leaned against when I cast my spell to stop him from cutting trees.
That tree had a good old heart.
Valor is drying the wood and plans to make me a staff for my seventeenth birthday. He's going to carve a place at the top to set my phone in. Pretty clever, eh? I think the staff will come in handy. My foot is still in the cast but Dr. Anders says I'll probably always have a limp.
We never did figure out why my neighbor got up one morning and decided to level the forest around his home. Maybe he was clearing his lot to improve his view because he planned to put the place up for sale. The realtor sign went up last week. And yes, I did cast a very small, harmless spell suggesting he might be happier living somewhere else. Alaska to be specific. It was the furthest place I could think of, short of sending him to Siberia. But his decision to sell his property might have been a coincidence, just like it might have been a coincidence that he stopped cutting trees the day after I cast my spell on him.
I've tried to levitate my keys since that morning when I found Alexa blocking the driveway but I haven't been able to budge them an inch. Here's what I think about my powers. I think Defiance and the others were right when they said I had to involve my emotions in order for the magic to work. Evidently, I have to be angry or sad or emotionally invested in the outcome.
So, the only reason I was able to locate Valor—when I failed to find his three missing cousins—is because I desperately wanted to. When the tool chest fell on me, the conditions were similar. Ditto when I yanked those keys from Alexa's fingers. And finally, I was in a tough spot when I woke Valor in time to save me from that harpy in the mansion.
So here's the bottom line. If the situation is desperate, you can probably count on me to be a witch. Otherwise, forget it.
On the home front, the step-Greg was pretty upset when Mom told him about his sculptures being stolen. As I expected, he didn't want to report the theft.
The shipping company still hasn't explained what happened to the three crates they lost. They're sending insurance forms, which isn't a good sign. Greg might be satisfied with a big payout but I'm calling the shipper every day until they tell me the last known whereabouts of those crates.
He's beginning to think the statues are cursed. Out of the nine sculptures he started with, five have been "stolen", three are missing, and the one he sold has been rejected by the buyer.
Yes, that means Reason is finally on his way back from the millionaire's place in Texas. I expected Greg to be angry with me for sending the wrong crate. When he told me the customer was really unhappy, I prepared to give him my story about how I'd sent the right box. But before I could start lying, he said something strange.
I pushed the speaker on the phone so the pack could listen to our conversation.
"The customer insisted he ordered a beautiful piece of art," Greg grumbled. "Not an ugly relic."
Ugly? Relic? Reason was a lot of things but he was never ugly.
"The guy sent me a picture of the shipment he received and I had to agree it wasn't the piece he ordered and it wasn't the statue I meant to send. Hell, I didn't even recognize the damn thing."
I held my breath, trying to make sense of his words.
"So, I don't know what the hell is going on," he sighed. "Maybe my shipment got mixed up with someone else's. At any rate, the crate he received is on its way back to the house."
"Will you be heading home soon?" I asked Greg.
"Not right away. I have a few more leads to follow."
"What kind of leads?" I asked, wondering about the possibility of more gargoyles.
"Similar stuff," Greg answered evasively.
I hung up the phone and shared a troubled look with the pack. Greg had said he didn't even recognize the "thing" that was supposed to be Reason.
"Maybe Reason made himself…look bad," Dare suggested.
There was no way any of the gargoyles could make themselves look that bad. "We all saw him go into the sealed box," I pointed out. "He didn't look like a…relic."
"Maybe he got a chance to change after he was removed from the crate," Valor murmured as he pulled me into his side.
I looked up into my boyfriend's troubled eyes. Maybe he was right. But I was concerned just the same. And I knew I wouldn't stop worrying until Reason returned safely home.
###
DARE
A GREYSTONE NOVEL
Book Two
by
Taylor Longford
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Prologue
My brother, Valor, will tell you that gargoyles are extremely patient. That might be true for him. Me, not so much. For eight hundred years we were trapped between the walls of an old house in England and those years crawled by for me.
When we came to life again in the twenty-first century, we were surprised to learn that gargoyles are almost universally considered ugly. And when we found out why people think gargoyles are ugly, we were pretty disgusted. Because our name and our heritage had been hijacked by our worst enemies, the harpies.
The word gargoyle comes from the French word for throat and our kind were called gargoyles because of the runes we wear tattooed on our necks. But the stone carvings that drain rainwater from buildings were also called gargoyles because they appeared to pour water from their throats. And it wasn't uncommon for harpies to hide on the walls of old buildings, pretending to be one of the manmade carvings. So over the centuries, the horrible creatures came to be known as gargoyles, while our kind died out and the human race forgot we ever existed.
Valor will also tell you it was Havoc's fault that we ended up stuck between those walls for eight hundred years but if you want to know the truth, I was to blame.
Back in our time, harpies hunted in gangs and singled out lone gargoyles for attack. As a survival strategy, we stuck together and traveled in packs. Safety in numbers, and all that. But one afternoon, my pack cleared me to travel across town so I could help a friend. A gargoyle can easily pass for a human with his wings wrapped around his chest, underneath his clothing. In my case, I'd lost my wings a few years earlier, and only my leather-clad spines crossed my upper body beneath my linen jerkin. My barbs were destroyed at the same time that I lost my wings, so any harpies in the area would have a hard time scenting the venom locked in my veins.
Like all gargoyles, I was born with a set of eight barbs—sharp claws that are hidden beneath the thick hackles on our knuckles. When we're threatened, our hackles pull back and expose inch-long poisonous spikes. The barbs aren't all that effective against harpies or even other gargoyles but they can be a game breaker when fighting humans or large animals. A few well-placed blows can turn our enemies to stone forever.
But si
nce I had no barbs, the harpies couldn't easily track me down. They'd have to get right on top of me before they picked up my scent. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.
The sun had just reached the town's ramparts as I jogged along the main road that cut across York. The streets were relatively deserted since it was the dinner hour, but up ahead a young lad stacked wood against a smithy wall. Ewan was the blacksmith's bonded boy. His master wasn't the nicest man in town and the boy didn't have an easy time of it so we helped out whenever we could. I stopped and gave him a hand with some of the larger pieces of wood.
I could sense the smith lurking inside the house like a force of evil. Unfortunately, his malevolent presence overloaded my radar and masked the arrival of a much more dangerous threat. As I carried another armful of wood from the yard behind the forge, a gang of harpies turned off the main road and ran right into me.
The townsfolk tolerated harpies but not very happily. The creatures were routinely blamed for the loss of livestock though it was hard to catch them red-handed since they hunted at night. Young shepherds who tried to drive the monsters away from their flocks generally disappeared with their sheep. And when a lone traveler went missing on the road outside of town, harpies were blamed for that as well.
Some humans thought they were terrible angels sent from god to punish man for his sins. Others argued that they were winged demons from Satan's bailiwick. But everyone agreed that they sucked. And that they were too big to argue with. These ones were draped in monks' robes, the deep cowls shadowing their faces. I cursed my luck. If it hadn't been for the blacksmith, I'd have sensed them long before I saw them. At such close range, the harpies knew immediately what I was.
I took off running, dodging through narrow alleys and clambering over low rooftops but it wasn't long before they had me trapped against the old Roman walls that surrounded the town. I still don't know how the pack found out I was in trouble. Maybe Ewan reached them and told them I'd been attacked by a gang of insanely tall monks. Or maybe my kin decided I'd been gone too long and they'd already set out to look for me. At any rate, they raced to my side.
Even with nine of us, we were outnumbered. I told the pack to clear off but they wouldn't listen. Valor told me to save my breath; he planned to stay and fight. Defiance and his brothers agreed. Two of them could have flown me out of there but my weight would have slowed them down, making all three of us easy prey. So in the end, my entire pack ended up grounded with me, unable to take to the air because I couldn't fly and they wouldn't leave me behind.
Most of the sun had fallen behind the town's walls when Havoc suggested we take on our stone forms; that way, the harpies couldn't harm us. But gargoyles can only change to stone—and back again—with the help of direct sunlight. We need the extra boost of energy we get from the sun's rays. That meant we only had a few seconds to make a decision before the sun dropped below the horizon.
Valor sent a troubled glance in my direction then shared a look with Victor and the others. Together, they reached a silent agreement; my cousins and brothers decided to make the change for my sake. Gargoyles are protective by nature. They couldn't abandon a cripple like me.
With Havoc leading the way, we raced into a stone croft built against the town's walls just as the afternoon's last rays of sunlight angled through the windows. One by one, Havoc and most of my cousins made the change. But Victor and Valor waited and made sure that I'd changed to stone before they did the same.
Thinking they had us cornered, the harpies rushed into the hut. They were good and truly pissed when they found we'd changed to stone. I have to admit it was funny to see the looks on their faces. There's nothing as entertaining as a harpy going ballistic. Their anger management is an epic fail.
We expected the harpies to take off after an hour or so of screeching and figured we could change back to our living forms in the morning. But before they left, the ugly creatures decided to teach us a lesson. They walled us in at the back of the croft, using heavy slabs of stone to block out the sun's light forever. Or almost forever.
And for almost as long, I felt like it was pretty much my fault.
Eight hundred years dragged by before we were freed. Fortunately, gargoyles have exceptional hearing so we were able to keep up with the times by eavesdropping on the talk around town, then later on by listening to the radio and, more recently, the television. A few months ago, we were unearthed by MacKenzie's stepfather, who's an international treasure-hunter of sorts. And when he found us between the walls of that old house in York, he packed us up in wooden crates and shipped them to his home in Colorado.
If MacKenzie Campbell hadn't been a curious lass, we might have spent several more months stuck in her dark garage, waiting for her stepdad to find buyers for us before we were eventually sold off and separated forever. Lucky for us, Mac opened the first box that was delivered to her place and found Valor inside. Normally, he'd have hidden the fact that he was a gargoyle from a human he didn't know, but a toolbox fell on MacKenzie and pinned her to the garage floor. Val had no choice but to help her. He tried to cover things up and hide the truth from her but our MacKenzie's no halfwit. She figured things out pretty quick.
A day after Valor was delivered to MacKenzie's home, Havoc and Reason arrived. I came in the next shipment along with Victor and Defiance. The last consignment containing Chaos, Courage and Force went missing somewhere between England and Colorado but MacKenzie contacted the shipping company every day, demanding news about the lost crates.
Let me say right now, we love everything about the twenty-first century. Especially the girls. Not too long after we landed in America, we met some of MacKenzie's friends. One of them is especially nice. Her name's Mim. The first time I met her, I acted cool and hung out in front of the television. Afterward, MacKenzie accused me of ignoring her friend. She couldn't have been more wrong. I hadn't missed a single one of Mim's soft-spoken words. But I didn't think she'd be interested in me.
As the next few weeks passed by, I had a chance to spend more time with her. She even kissed me once. Okay, it was only after a game where the winner could claim a kiss from one of the losers—and her only other choice was Havoc—but after her kiss I began to hope she might actually like me.
Right when things were looking good between Mim and me, MacKenzie was attacked by a harpy. We thought we'd left the monsters behind us in the thirteenth century but evidently there are still a few around. It wouldn't have been all that surprising to find some lifeless old relics still attached to buildings in England, but we never thought we'd run into them in the United States. We hadn't expected them to turn up in museums or private collections.
That was a mistake.
While we were shopping in Denver one day, one of the monsters picked up our scent. She smashed through a large, plate glass window in a collector's mansion and followed us to our new home in the mountains. She captured Valor while he was in his stone form and came back to the house for MacKenzie. Val managed to kill the harpy with the help of MacKenzie's big wolfhound but Mac got a little beat up during the process and when Mim saw her injuries, she demanded an explanation.
We couldn't explain the harpy attack without telling Mim we were gargoyles. And we felt that the fewer people who knew about us, the better. To make a long story short, Mim thought we were responsible for MacKenzie's injuries.
That hurt.
I mean, I know humans don't have great instincts. I know they can't sense the good and bad in people like we can. But, really. How unperceptive can humans be? It would be impossible for one of us to harm MacKenzie. Our very nature commands that we protect the people we care about. We would have fricking died before we let anything happen to Mac or her friends.
As far as insults go, it was right up there with the worst modern curse you could think of. I can't even begin to tell you how much it hurt.
And I know something about pain.
Chapter One
I stood at the living room window and watc
hed the cold, winter skies. The clouds were banked across the horizon like dirty gray cotton, blotting out the sun. An inch of crusty snow clung to the branches of the evergreen trees that surrounded MacKenzie's home and a smattering of white flakes made their way toward the ground but they didn't seem too serious about getting where they were going. The overcast skies reminded me of Scotland and the years I spent trapped in the dark shadows of a harpy's aerie. Fortunately, cloudy days are rare in Colorado.
As I tilted a cup of hot chocolate to my lips, my reflection caught my eye. It might sound bizarre, but I couldn't get used to how old I looked. I was born a year before my cousin, Defiance, so I should have been about nineteen. But before the harpies trapped us between those walls in York, I'd already spent two years in my stone form. And since gargoyles don't age when they're stone, that made me about seventeen.
I looked about thirty.
Okay, that was probably an exaggeration but I definitely looked older than the rest of the pack. Maybe it was the two inches of white that tipped the ends of my shoulder-length black hair. Maybe it was the hard lines that carved either side of my mouth. Maybe it was just the worn color in my green eyes. Even the gold flecks that floated on my irises failed to add any spark to my features.
My life hadn't exactly been easy.
I didn't like the direction my thoughts were taking so I refocused my attention on the scene outside the window. A foot of snow had fallen on Christmas Eve and I'd volunteered to shovel the driveway along with the rest of my family, but MacKenzie called a guy with a plow on the front of his truck and he had the driveway cleared in no time. You can't beat the twenty-first century for getting things done.
I took another sip from the heavy cup. Chocolate was another great thing about the modern world. It almost made our eight-hundred-year dormancy worthwhile. Cocoa hadn't reached Europe in our time and we'd never tasted it before. Things were pretty rustic back in the thirteenth century.
The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4) Page 21
