Outside, we could hear the monster throwing herself at the door like something that had gone mad. "Bar the rear door," I told the children's young mother while I stood with my back braced against the front one. The little ones followed her to the other side of the house and gathered around her like so many chicks. Silent and wide-eyed, they held onto her skirts and stared back at me.
"Where is your man?" I asked her.
"He left for the fields at dawn," she answered, and flinched at the sound of a human scream. She sent an apprehensive look at me. "Will you stay with us?"
"I'll stay," I told her, never thinking that I might be needed somewhere else. Our gargoyle community counted upward of forty families divided into seven packs; a dozen harpies shouldn't pose too much of a problem. I figured my father and his brothers alone could hold them off if they attacked our square.
After a long period of banging and screeching, it grew quiet outside the house. Apparently, the harpy had given up her attack on the door. I relaxed a little then stiffened again when I heard a heavy clunk overhead. I lifted my eyes to the ceiling, remembering there was a shuttered window on the second floor. And since it was a nice day, it had probably been open at the time of the attack.
I lowered my gaze to the young mother and questioned her with my eyes.
Her look of dread gave me my answer.
I crept toward the ladder leading to the upper level while looking around for a weapon. As I put my foot on the bottom rung, the young mistress brought me a long piece of metal—the spit from the fire. Gripping it firmly in one hand, I climbed the ladder. When I reached the third rung from the top, I crouched below the level of the second floor then sprang upward, landing on my feet and spinning to face the window.
The harpy had one foot on the planked floor and the other one on the sill. Amazingly, she was trying to get through the opening without closing her wings. The creature was obviously drunk. That didn't make her a great deal less dangerous but it definitely gave me an advantage. With the spit braced at my side like a Roman pike, I sprinted across the room and plowed into her midsection, hitting her so hard I almost went out the window with her. She tipped over the sill, her face contorted in a snarl, her sharp talons clawing at me as she tumbled to the ground. Breathing hard, I slammed the shutters closed and pulled down the locking bar, then added the long piece of metal as a safety measure before returning to the lower level.
Inside the dark house, we held our breaths and listened for any new sign of attack. We heard nothing except for distant shouts, and I assumed the rest of the town was busy avoiding the harpies, merchants taking cover with their families, hunters and farmers grabbing their bows and planning to defend their homes. But it would take a fair marksman to bring down a harpy. Unless an arrow found a chink in the creature's armor, the shafts would simply bounce off her rocky hide.
When the screaming and shrieking had finally faded away, I cracked the door open and checked the road outside. Several knots of men stood about, talking in serious tones and pointing toward the north. It looked as if the danger had passed and I opened the door wider. The children's mother hurried over to me to thank me and I stayed long enough to tell her she was welcome, but I wasted no time getting out of the house and back home.
Across the road, the yard was disturbingly empty. As I vaulted over the wall, my brother Chaos stepped from the house and hurried to meet me. He wrapped me in a tight hug and steered me into the house where my aunts and cousins sat with a group of our closest neighbors.
"Is everyone safe?" I asked as I stepped through the doorway.
Valor's mother jumped from her stool and threw her arms around me. "Where have you been?" she cried. "We've been so worried."
"Where's my father?" I countered, looking around and noticing that Victor was missing as well as Dare, Defiance and my two uncles.
"Sit down," she insisted and put a hot posset in my hands. In her distraction, she'd forgotten that I hate the drink but I put on a good face and pretended to enjoy a few sips. "A young girl was taken by the monsters," she reported. "Your father and uncles followed them to try and bring her back. They took the three oldest lads with them."
"Three oldest," I echoed, feeling a gut wrenching stab of dismay. My brother, Victor was the oldest; Dare and I were a year younger. I should have gone with the rescue party but Defiance had gone in my place, the six gargoyles dropping over the walls and racing for cover before unfurling their wings to chase down the gang of harpies.
"Do we know the lass?" I asked, hoping the answer was nay.
My aunt shook her head and pushed a slender hand through her tumble of long, bronze hair. "The family lived over by the abbey. The girl was about ten and their youngest child. The mother is distraught."
Immediately, there was a great deal of reassuring talk from the neighboring menfolk, everyone cheerfully advising us that the great warriors of the harpy wars would be back with the girl before nightfall. But their words didn't erase the look of concern on my aunt's face and the sun set on a quiet house. A quiet house that felt dreadfully empty despite the fact that it was filled with waiting friends and family.
Nobody slept that night. We kept the fire going, with a hot drink and a meal ready for the returning heroes. Morning crept into the room and I looked at my aunt's face, her brow smooth but her eyes filled with worry for her man and her son.
I couldn't stand to be in the room where everybody held their breath, waiting. Along with Valor, Chaos and Courage, I climbed the north wall and scanned the landscape for a sign of our family's return. But we overlooked them at first when they finally came into view at the end of an interminably long day. We'd been searching for six people making their way through the high grass toward home, but there were only three. Two blond heads and one dark. "There," shouted Valor, pointing to the figures in the distance.
We jumped from the walls and pelted through the gates, plowing through the fields of grass toward our returning kin. When we caught up to them, Defiance was carrying the girl while Dare limped along beside him. Victor brought up the rear, periodically glancing back over his shoulder. But not in fear. He looked in hope. He was looking for our father and uncles.
We helped them back to the walls where the girl's parents snatched their daughter from Defiance's arms and hurried her away. Our family swept the young warriors home. In our kitchen, Dare's mother bathed and wrapped a deep wound in his leg while Defiance's mother worked on a long tear that ripped across her son's back from the top of one shoulder down to the base of his spine. Dropping onto a stool beside the fire, Victor told us what had happened, how their fathers had sent the younger gargoyles back while they held off the gang of monsters, vowing to die before they let themselves be taken.
The men never returned. My father—perhaps the greatest hero of the harpy wars—was missing. I never saw him again. Victor took over leadership of the pack, a duty that would have normally fallen to him at a much older age. Defiance, who had gone in my place, wore his terrible scar like a badge of honor and I always felt a little envious of the wound he'd earned fighting alongside our fathers. And I never stopped feeling that I should have been there.
But stories like mine aren't exactly rare. When Dare was sixteen he was captured by a harpy and spent two years trapped in her aerie. He lost his wings and barbs…although lost is a nice word for what happened to him. The harpy stripped out the leather between his spines. And he destroyed his barbs so she couldn't force him to share his venom with her. What he did was insanely brave. I've known gargoyles in similar situations who couldn't do what he did.
But after Dare's ordeal, we were all a bit protective where he was concerned. There were probably times when he felt smothered, but we did our best to give him some breathing room. We just asked him to check with us before he took off on his own. Which he'd done on the afternoon he set out to help Ewan, the blacksmith's bonded boy. We okayed the trip, considering Dare a low risk since harpies couldn't scent the venom sealed behind his ruined ba
rbs.
Dare just got unlucky that afternoon. The harpies would never have known what he was if they hadn't gotten so close to him. Looking back, I suspect they must have had some dealings with the blacksmith. He was a loathsome old codfish. Nowadays, you'd call him a jerkoff, or maybe something worse.
We were just leaving work for the day when Ewan came pelting down to our worksite beside the river, gasping for breath and pointing across town. "Dare," he wheezed.
We didn't hang around for an explanation. It was enough to know Dare was in trouble. We threw down our tools and took off for the smithy. Defiance and his brothers reached Dare first but the rest of us were close behind. There were at least a dozen harpies involved and all nine of us ended up trapped against the old Roman walls that surrounded the town.
Despite Dare's insistence that we clear out, we couldn't desert him. Instead, we chose to stay with him and take on our stone forms. We hurried into a small croft built against the town walls, opened our wings, and used the day's last rays of sunshine to make the change. It would have been a fine plan if the harpies hadn't decided to imprison us at the back of the hut. Using large blocks of stone, they sealed us behind a roughly constructed wall.
There we sat for eight hundred years while the original stone hut became a storage room for a larger home that was built up around it. The house experienced numerous additions and renovations while we were trapped. At one time, a large family with servants lived there. Later on, it was little more than a crowded slum for several families. And as the centuries passed, the gargoyle race apparently died out and humans gave our name to our worst enemies—the harpies. I suppose it was an honest mistake, but that doesn't make it any easier to accept.
Enter MacKenzie's stepfather who's a modern day treasure hunter. He pulled down the wall at the back of the old house in York and found what he thought were nine winged statues—Valor, Dare, Havoc, Defiance, Courage, Force, Chaos, Victor and me. Thinking he could make a killing by selling us to collectors in America, Mac's stepdad shipped us to his home in Colorado.
Altogether, six of us made it to MacKenzie's house. Three of the pack went missing and are still unaccounted for—my brother Chaos, and Defiance's brothers Courage and Force. But after regaining our living forms, we started looking for them right away, Mac calling the shipping company every day to demand information about their last known location.
Eventually she got word that the delivery van carrying our three missing gargoyles had crashed outside Limon, Colorado. The van caught fire and the entire shipment was destroyed. But it wasn't all bad news. The driver claimed that an angel with wide black wings had pulled him from the burning wreck and carried him to safety. So, we have reason to believe that my brother and cousins are alive.
What's more, we know that three or more harpies followed the van from St. Louis and our kin might have been forced to make a run for it after the accident. Dare killed one of the harpies while on a reconnaissance trip to Limon; her sisters had left her behind. But there are still at least two of them out there somewhere, probably tracking the missing members of our pack…if they haven't already captured them.
Anyhow, while all this was going on in Colorado, I was sitting beside a pool in Texas. That's not quite as good as it sounds. I was in my stone form and I'd traveled there in a wooden crate after Mac's stepdad sold a statue to a millionaire collector. The millionaire actually wanted Valor but I offered to take my cousin's place. As second-in-command, it was my duty and responsibility. It wasn't a huge sacrifice on my part. We figured the buyer would return me when he realized he didn't receive the statue he'd ordered.
That was another great plan that went wrong. 'Course I can't blame anyone but myself. All I can say is that it could have been worse. Someone could have died.
It involved a girl, a kiss, and a short trip to the bottom of a swimming pool.
Elaina
Chapter One
There's a reason why rich people have money. And it ain't because they give it away. Mr. Hamilton's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. My mom works for him as his domestic manager. That's like a housekeeper with more responsibility and more headaches. Anyhow, Hamilton pays her a little more than minimum wage, even though they've known each other since high school and she's the only person he trusts in his house. And she works her tail off for him, cleaning his mansion and keeping his estate in perfect running order. No small job when you're talking about thirty very large rooms, fifteen landscaped acres and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Not that she does the gardening or cleans the pool, but she has to schedule all that stuff.
My mom and I are pretty close. It's always been that way. My father died when I was five and my sister was twelve. I think Mom felt sorry for us because we had no father, and she tried to love us twice as much to make up for it. And made sure we never went without anything. She's the best. She worries about me all the time and is always trying to fatten me up.
I'd like to say that I'm slender but the fact is, I'm slim. How slim? Slim enough that I can't find a tight pair of jeans. Even the skinniest skinny jeans are loose on me. The fashion shops don't make a size triple-zero. Up top, I wear a bra but I don't need to. I'm not exactly "out there" in the chest department, so it's a sports-type bra.
My hair's black and it's long enough to pull back in a ponytail. That's how I wear it most of the time. I like to keep it out of my eyes and show of my gauges. But the ponytail, along with the freckles, probably make me appear younger than I am.
When it comes to looks, I have a wide mouth. That means when I smile it looks like all my teeth are going to fall out. Okay, I'm exaggerating but in my baby pictures, my grin takes up at least half of my face. I'm not ugly, though. My eyes save my looks. They're bright blue with dark rims. They're hard to miss and they tend to balance the rest of my features. And a big smile isn't necessarily a bad thing, at least that's what my sister says. She says it makes a girl very "approachable". I guess she's right since guys seem to like me okay despite my other deficits.
For the last two years, I've lived with my sister and her husband and their little girl, Jilly. To save money, my mom sold our house and moved into Hamilton's "servant quarters" when she got the job. It's not as bad as it sounds. She has a nice little apartment that looks like it's a part of the mansion but has its own private entrance.
My biggest problem with Hamilton is that he's completely anal about his privacy, and he won't let Mom hire anyone to give her a hand with the housekeeping. I helped out every morning before school and usually went back for a few more hours in the afternoon, but I'd have been happier if she had more help. It's not too hard when it's just Hamilton. He travels a lot and, even when he's in town, he's pretty reclusive. He doesn't throw any parties or anything like that—probably because he's so cheap.
But his two daughters are another story. When they're home, they're a disaster zone. They throw wild parties, trash the house, blow up computers and wreck cars. I'm sorry but if I owned a Porsche, I'd try real hard not to drive it into a tree. Fortunately, the Hamilton girls spend most of their time at their mom's mansion, across town. Their parents are divorced.
And just as fortunately, they didn't go to my high school so I never had to put up with them in my private life. It's bad enough to be treated like crap. It's actually worse to be completely ignored. Like you don't exist. Like you're so unimportant that you're not even worth insulting.
They graduated at the same time I did. But their dad was too cheap to bankroll their education and their grades weren't exactly scholarship material so they signed on at a local community college in the fall. I should have started school at the same time, but Hamilton's girls got kicked out of their mom's place and descended on the house like an infestation so I dragged my feet and stayed in Dallas until Christmas to help mom.
She had a fit when she found out I hadn't completed the paperwork to start school in the fall. Her lifelong dream has always been for her kids to go to college and my sister had disappointe
d her when she left after her freshman year. So, I was Mom's last hope. I couldn't let her down. I was determined to be the first Sandoval in our family to graduate from college.
Like most aspiring artists in America, I'd hoped to study at Pratt or Rhode Island. I got accepted at both places but there's no way we could afford the tuition. Not without a scholarship. So, I was going to Colorado University in Boulder, on a full ride. I promised Mom I'd start school in the spring.
In the meantime, I was her assistant housemaid.
Early in November, Mom asked me to clean the ashtrays on the patio. Hamilton won't let the girls smoke in the house so they have to go outside if they want to ruin their lungs. I got a paper bag and a damp cloth then pulled my jacket over my white apron and stepped through the French doors into the alcove. A tall vintage ashtray stands just outside the doors. I emptied the tray into the bag and wiped out the amber glass. That's usually as far as the girls go when the weather's cold but I checked the rest of the patio just to be sure.
I stepped out of the alcove's shade into the sun and glanced at the tables near the pool. Sure enough, the girls had been out there; there was a small pile of butts in one of the ashtrays. But that's not what I noticed right away. No. Because, as I turned my head, I saw a statue—standing by the pool with his wings spread—the latest addition to Hamilton's collection.
I wouldn't call Hamilton a great art connoisseur but he collects old sculptures from all over the world. It's not the kind of stuff I'd buy if I had money. I'd have a few Van Goghs in my collection. And maybe some Picassos. But Hamilton does sculpture. Some of the pieces are tasteful. Some are grotesque. A lot of them are missing a limb or two. But they're always interesting. And they're all over the house. They peer at you from the perimeter of the vast, circular foyer, they hang around in the study, the library, the living room, and even the wide corridors. It can be kinda creepy walking down the hall at night because most of the statues are life-sized or bigger. And you can't help feeling like you might get mugged on your way to the bathroom.
The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4) Page 39
