by Anton Strout
“Very well, then,” she said, “but I don’t suppose you have something I could borrow to wear? I hadn’t exactly planned on doing this and as you can see this transformation wreaks havoc on my clothing.”
“Not a problem,” I said, and added a trip up to my closet to my ever-growing list of things I needed to get done. I slipped it in right before where I planned to call the detectives but after taking the time to breathe a sigh of relief that Laurien had chosen not to go toe-to-toe with me and my friends. There was just one more thing that I needed to know.
“Tell me how it works.”
“Lexi,” Rory said with warning in her voice. “I don’t think we have months to learn how to master its use like Laurien did.”
“Actually,” I said with a dark smile, “that’s what I’m counting on.”
Twenty-eight
Alexandra
“Do you think he’ll show?” Marshall asked from the top of the tourist-filled Red Stairs that stood atop the TKTS booth in Times Square. He pulled the hood he had made for both me and Rory up over my head to hide my features. He then reached over and did the same for Rory, whose face magically disappeared into the shadows of it.
Tourists intermingled with our mix of witches, warlocks, and detectives as well as my friends, unaware there was anything unusual about our gathered crowd.
“How can he not?” I said, adjusting my hood for a better fit. “I’m dangling the one carrot he really wants.”
“Lovely,” Laurien said, once more in her human form, her hand tucking the medallion within the collar of her coat. “So I am a carrot now.”
“What about his stone cronies?” Caleb asked, checking the skies above.
“He knows better than to show up alone,” I said.
“I do not think he will expect so many of us joined together,” Laurien added. “Even though my people spread rumors far and wide that the medallion would be here, he will surely not expect gargoyles and our arcane brothers and sisters working together.” Laurien looked out into the crowd where the familiar faces of the Convocation were spread out among it.
I looked up at the surrounding buildings all around the large open space of Times Square. The shadows of our winged troops moved against the skyline, leaving me to wonder where Stanis was among them. Emily’s leaving had shaken him, but I prayed his focus was with him and his grotesques could be counted on tonight.
“Don’t forget us humans,” Detective Rowland added.
At her side, Detective Maron checked his watch. “How much time are we working with now?”
“We’ve got about forty-five minutes give or take,” I said. “I figured it would be best to be early, for coordination’s sake. I only hope your people responded to your call.”
“Well, we’re going to look like assholes if your winged baddies are a no-show,” Rowland said.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “Just make sure your people clear the area.”
Marshall dropped his notebook, scrambling down onto his knees to recover it, nervousness filling his eyes.
I knelt down next to him and handed him a few pages that had come free. “You okay?” I asked.
He nodded and we both stood.
“I’m not used to being this exposed while we work,” he said. “I’ve never coordinated anything on this scale before.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said, doing my best to hide my own nerves as I reassured him. “I have faith in you, Dungeon Master.”
Marshall smiled at that. “At least you got the terminology right,” he said. “At least it happened once before we die, right?”
“We’re not going to die,” Rory said, lifting the twin hammers she held in both of her hands. “It’s hammer time!”
“How do they feel?” Marshall asked.
“Good,” she said, dropping them back to her side. “Certainly more discreet in Times Square than my usual pole arm. Of course it would have been nice if I had had a chance to test them out on a gargoyle before, you know, all the gargoyles. The balance is nice. I just hope they do what they’re supposed to and make with the smashy smashy.”
“The enchantments I put on them will work just fine,” he said with a confident smile. “Don’t worry. I’ve got your back.”
Unexpectedly, Rory threw her arms around Marshall and hugged him hard. “I know,” she said. “Thank you.”
Marshall looked as surprised as I did by the gesture, but returned the embrace. Such intimacy only made the estranged coldness between Caleb and me all the more awkward. Luckily, I didn’t have to break it up as Laurien cleared her throat next to me.
“This is all very touching,” she said, “but perhaps we should focus on—”
Laurien didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.
One second Rory was hugging Marshall and the next she was pushing him into a crowd of tourists sitting on the Red Stairs. The glass rail and several of the stairs behind her exploded apart, barely giving her time to dive in the other direction to safety.
The stone form of the Butcher shot through the spot where she and Marshall had just stood, but they had not been his intended target. They had simply been in the way of the straightest line from a subway exit to the madman’s intended target—Laurien.
Before the rest of us could even react, the gargoyle’s claws tore into the fabric of the coat Laurien wore, and with a flap of his feathered stone wings, he flew off with her into the sky above.
“Stanis!” I shouted up into the night sky, my voice feeling so tiny against the screams and shouts of the crowd around us.
Above, the sky erupted with activity. Gargoyles shot into Times Square from every direction, but they were not all our own. Ours took off from their posts in response, and several dropped down into the streets nearby, including Stanis and Jonathan, who both came up the stairs at us as people fled out of their way.
“I wasn’t sure where you were,” I said to him.
“Forgive my lateness,” he said, looking down at me. “My organizational skills among my people leave much to be desired, but I believe them ready, even though this attack seems premature.”
“Marshall!” I shouted. “Keep this thing coordinated.”
“On it!” he said as he stood himself up and turned to the detectives. “Maron! Rowland! I need your people to get the bystanders back.”
Both detectives barked orders into their walkie-talkies, and all around Times Square the side streets lit up with a wash of alternating red and blue flashers. Apparently the detectives had gotten their fellow officers to believe that the paranormal threat to Manhattan was a real thing, as if a sky full of gargoyles wasn’t enough evidence. Officers poured out of the side streets, driving the stunned crowds of tourists away from the erupting chaos all around us.
Most people in the crowd were in a state of panic, making it easier to spot the witches and warlocks standing among them.
Marshall looked out over them. “Convocation!” he shouted. “For Laurien, fight!”
Some of the crowd took to the air to engage with the gargoyles; others simply erupted into sprays of fire, explosions, and a whole host of things my brain could barely process. This is what an acid trip must feel like, I thought.
I closed my eyes for a second, blocking it all out, and turned my focus back to Stanis and Jonathan.
“Can you get us up there?” I asked, pulling Caleb over to them.
Stanis scooped me up without hesitation while Caleb wrapped his arms around Jonathan’s neck.
“As you wish,” Stanis said, and with a mighty leap, we shot up into the sky.
My stomach dropped from the sensation, the cool night air whipping against my face, but our target was in sight still.
Laurien’s attempts to struggle out of the Butcher’s grasp had helped slow him, allowing Stanis and me to catch up, Caleb and Jonathan not far behind.
“Please tell me you have more of a plan than this,” the Butcher said, unable to resist laughing in my face, which only made me want to drop an entire building on him.
“Me?” I asked. “I don’t have a plan. We have a plan.”
“The four of you chasing me is hardly much of a threat,” he said.
“Let her go,” Caleb shouted at him from Jonathan’s back.
“From up here?” the Butcher asked, his face a twisted mask of delight. “Gladly. But first . . .”
Although Laurien had been struggling, she still looked dazed from the midair tackle down on the Red Stairs seconds ago. Some of the life came back into her face as she regained her focus. The Butcher’s hand went to her throat, the claws seeking purchase on the medallion hanging from it. Laurien twisted and turned, the continued struggle keeping it just out of his reach.
“Get us in close,” I told Stanis, and he did so to the point we were wing to wing with the two of them.
I pressed my will into the stone of the Butcher. There was no way I could gain control over so purposeful a creature, but I hoped to delay him in his efforts to relieve Laurien of the medallion. His hand sought out the object, but with every ounce of what I had, I willed him to keep him from taking it from her.
Laurien started to transform. Her skin shifted to the pale white of her marble form, her wings struggling to burst free from her coat. Seeing it only angered the Butcher further, and I felt his will struggling against mine even harder, but I refused to let his hand close on the medallion’s chain.
No doubt sensing my presence within the stone of his body, he looked to me, his focus shifting. My focus was pressed so hard into resisting his strength pressing toward Laurien that I did not expect it to reverse and I found my own power adding to his momentum as he swung his clawed hand out at me instead.
Stanis was quick to react and pulled back, but with my added weight it was simply not enough. I braced myself for the blow.
“No!” Laurien cried out, and swung herself into harm’s way, deflecting the intended strike. The Butcher’s claws tore into one of her half-formed wings, sticking there.
He let go of Laurien, leaving her to shift and dangle from her torn, trapped wing. As she swayed back and forth, he plucked the chain from around her neck with his other hand and jerked it free. His fingers closed around the medallion as he raised his clawed feet and pressed them against Laurien until the stone around her torn wing crumbled somewhere between stone and flesh, knocking her free.
Laurien fell, shouting her own words of power, which I did not understand, but nothing followed. She simply continued falling. I had to act fast.
I looked into Stanis’s face as he held me. “Please get her,” I said. “I’ll deal with the Butcher.” Trusting he would indulge my request, I shoved myself free of his arms and out into the open air. I landed on the Butcher, struggling to wrap my arms around his neck before I could slide off. I joined my hands together, holding myself in place, and swung around to his back.
Stanis hesitated, surprise on his face, which unfortunately gave the Butcher an opening. His clawed feet shot out at Stanis, catching one of his wings. The blow forced him into an uncontrollable spin, one that also sent him careening into Jonathan and Caleb nearby.
Caleb scrambled to get out from the middle of the two stone men colliding, and as Stanis knocked Jonathan from his holding pattern, there was little choice but for the alchemist to leap toward me midair.
I grabbed for him with one hand, catching his wrist and swinging him around to the front of the Butcher. Caleb fought for some kind of hold as he slid down the Butcher’s body, pressing his feet off of the Butcher’s legs and securing himself around the arm that held the medallion.
With our additional weight, the Butcher fought to stay airborne. There was little else he could do with the two of us attached to him, and I felt a small bit of triumph until the sound of Laurien hitting the street below filled our ears.
The dull thunk echoed over and over among the concrete canyons of Manhattan, mixing with the sounds of battle that rose up all around us from the massive conflict. The sound shoved me into action and I met Caleb’s eyes.
“Get the medallion,” I shouted to him.
Keeping one arm wrapped around the Butcher’s, Caleb fumbled the medallion free from the gargoyle’s claws, all of us struggling not to fall. The alchemist shoved his hands against mine, and I grabbed it, pulling it around the Butcher’s neck.
I secured its clasp in place and let the medallion fall against his chest.
The Butcher laughed in triumph.
“I wouldn’t celebrate just yet,” I said. “You don’t know how this works exactly, do you?”
“It’s thought-controlled,” he said. “By me. By my thoughts.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Let’s hope a century of being a free, roaming spirit of ill will and six months of occupying one of my great-great-grandfather’s forms has left you a little rusty.”
The Butcher’s face became a mask of confusion. “What do you mean?” he shouted.
Was that actual panic I heard creeping into his voice?
“I’ve studied you,” I said. “According to Warren, isn’t returning to flesh what your corrupt little heart desires most in this world? It took months for Laurien to master control of the medallion. Let’s see how well you fare this high up trying to do the same. Give in to your heart’s desire.”
At my suggestion, the gargoyle winced with a sudden jerk of surprise, the features on his face shifting from their dark angelic form to something that looked more akin to human.
“Not here,” he growled, trying to fight it. “Not now!”
“Too late!” Caleb said, still clutching the side of his face. “I dare you not to think about that which you most crave—your humanity. Give in to it.”
Much like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant, the Butcher could not fight against his longest and deepest desire. His body of stone began to transform against his will. The chiseled smoothness of his angelic figure fluctuated back and forth from flesh to stone midair, the three of us starting to fall as he tried to fight his ever-changing form.
I held tight around his neck, pressed between his wings as I awaited an opportunity to strike. If I didn’t act soon, however, either I was going to be shaken free or the three of us would crash to the ground far below together.
I fought the image of Laurien’s fate, focusing in as the stone of the Butcher’s body shifted partially back to the flesh.
“Time to clip your wings,” I said, grabbing fistfuls of the transforming material of the angel’s now-flesh-colored feathers.
I tore away at them, huge chunks of flesh coming out, immediately turning to gray stone and crumbling between my fingers. It felt like tearing a chicken apart with my bare hands and I fought the urge to vomit, but I kept on pulling at them over and over.
Immediately, we went from falling to plummeting. I looked up into the night sky above. Stanis had finally corrected his flight and was diving down after us.
“Catch us,” I cried out.
“Catch her,” Caleb said as he held on tight to the falling figure of the Butcher.
“What?!”
“I’ll be fine,” Caleb said, taking one of my hands and pressing me away from the broken angel so Stanis could get a better grip on me.
Once Stanis held me in his arms, Caleb let go of both me and the frantically flapping Butcher, pulling a vial from within his coat. He fell away, my stomach dropping with him. His body relaxed as he plummeted, the only movement coming from raising the vial to his lips and drinking. His body hit the pavement in the middle of Broadway not far from the broken form of Laurien, but upon impact it seemed to stretch and distort like a water-filled balloon hitting the ground but not breaking.
The Butcher crashed down onto the street with a thu
nderous crack, a monstrous crater appearing in the pavement. The sound reverberated throughout Times Square, but it was not enough to stop the fighting that raged both on the ground and in the air. Wizards, warlocks, and gargoyles fought against the Butcher’s men on both fronts, and the battle looked far from over.
“To Marshall!” I shouted.
“As you wish,” Stanis said, and brought me back to the Red Stairs where Marshall was holding his ground.
Any gargoyle that dared to mount the stairs heading for him had apparently been facing the wrath of Rory’s hammers and losing, judging by the pile of broken stone pieces that littered the area. When Stanis and I landed, she swung around, hammers bearing down on us.
Stanis wrapped his wings around me in a protective cocoon.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, holding up my hands from within. “It’s us!”
She caught herself and lowered her weapons.
“Sorry,” she said. “I saw stone and reacted. It’s a little crazy.”
“That’s the understatement of the year,” Marshall added, then barked into his phone. “Rowland! I need those tourists off of Forty-ninth Street, like, five minutes ago.”
“If I wanted people yelling at me, I’d go back to traffic duty,” she called back through the speaker. “But, yes, sir! Right away, sir!”
“Please and thank you,” Marshall said, and within seconds there was a wave of New York’s Finest flooding that area, escorting people to safety.
“Well, hopefully downing the Butcher will take some of the fight out of his people,” I said.
Another gargoyle landed on the stairs and Rory leapt at him, bringing the twin hammers down hard. A large section of its shoulder fell away with the first of her blows.
“Let’s hope so,” Rory said as she took out one of the creature’s legs. “My arms are getting tired.”
“Umm, guys,” Marshall said, drawing my attention. “I wouldn’t speak too soon about the Butcher being down.”
I spun around to find the tatter-winged figure of the Butcher pulling himself up and out of the impact crater in the middle of Broadway. Although he looked worse for the wear, he still managed to heft up a nearby police car and toss it in our direction.
