“I need just one more day,” I said, fingers crossed behind my back.
She rewrapped the vials and scowled down her upturned nose at me. “One day, Mika Stillwater. You’ll deduct twenty percent from your fee for the delay, too.” She slammed the door behind her.
I collapsed against the nearby wall, thanking the gods for small favors. Then I trudged up the stairs to get to work on my new impossible deadline. There was still a chance I could salvage my dreams. Twenty percent loss of pay would leave me with enough money for a down payment on the Pinnacle Pentagon shop and apartment—I’d just have to keep my day job a little longer to make ends meet. A temporary setback, I promised my heavy heart.
After taking a quick shower and inhaling a handful of blueberries, I settled at my desk and selected a seed crystal from my stash. On second thought, I dropped a handful of seed crystals into my pockets, just in case. In case an injured gargoyle waltzes by?
I squelched a wave of guilt. I’d done what I could to help find Anya and Herbert’s siblings. I was a midlevel earth elemental, not an FSPP air elemental. Aside from alerting the guards, I had no other way of locating stolen property of any kind, let alone kidnapped magical creatures. I could only hope that Kylie’s rumor scouts produced information that would make the guards believe me. I’d be sure to take Anya and Herbert along then, too. In the meantime, fretting wasn’t going to produce any leads, and at least this way I wasn’t neglecting my responsibilities.
I cleared my thoughts to focus on the crystal in front of me. Pulling strands of elemental earth energy and fine-tuning it to resonate with quartz, I fed it to the seed crystal. With astonishing ease, the seed grew and reshaped.
A faint hum cocooned my magic. Far from annoying, it soothed my restlessness and resonated with my magic, amplifying it. I recognized it as gargoyle influence, but I was surprised when I could follow the sensation to the source, locating Anya by only the feel of her magic. For reasons I wasn’t going to question, Anya was generously boosting my magic from where she huddled in the shadows on the balcony railing with Herbert.
The vial shattered. In my distraction, I had stretched the crystal too thin. Grimacing, I pulled my thoughts back to my work. Gargoyle enhancement was helpful only if I focused.
The next vial broke when Kylie burst into my room, startling me into dropping it. I gritted my teeth and used a quick sweep of air to pull the shards into a pile before turning to my friend. Kylie was already talking.
“It’s tonight! I’ve got the location and the time and everything. I can’t believe it. Those rumor scouts returned so complete! Normally I get a snippet or a line or two, but these were whole conversations. I bet you I’d recognize the voices of the people if I heard them again.”
“Whoa. Slow down. What’s tonight?” I asked.
“The hatchling auction. I know how to get in, too, but we’ve got to hurry.”
My stomach clenched with dread. “We? Don’t you mean the guards?”
“So they believed you?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Kylie didn’t pause, and I realized she’d never expected the guards to believe my incredulous rescue tale. “They’re doing a demonstration first. That’s what the auction guy, Walter, said. I mean, I think he’s the auctioneer. He gave the first order; the rest just repeated it to the others. He said he’d provide a demonstration first . . . to showcase the hatchlings’ usefulness.” I could see Kylie absorb the horror of her words, and her excitement deflated.
“When?”
She glanced out the windows at the evening light. “At dusk.”
“Where?”
“New Hope, in the south temple.”
Of course. On the west side of Lincoln River, the suburb of New Hope was isolated from the city of Terra Haven and preferred it that way. New Hope was what the blight wanted to be when it grew up, populated with profitable, if questionable, establishments. The dilapidated south temple was the perfect cover for a clandestine black market.
“They have all three of the hatchlings,” Kylie said. “If we don’t rescue them before they’re sold, they’re all going to die.”
“We can’t just mosey in and demand they hand over the hatchlings.”
“That’s exactly what we’ll do. Well, not exactly. We’ll buy our way in. It’s an auction, after all. The door fee is only ten thousand—”
“Only ten thousand! Where would we get that much money?”
“You’ve got some savings, right?”
A little over six thousand, and that was slated for the lease on my ideal showroom at the Pinnacle Pentagon Center. I’d been saving for three years, sacrificing and scrimping to make my dream of independence a reality. Endless nights, I had worked on painstaking projects like these vials to build a reputation in an oversaturated market, and people were starting to take notice. I was on the precipice of success, but it all depended on opening my shop and going into business for myself full-time. If I was forced to keep my day job to make ends meet, I was going to lose this hard-won momentum, and potential clients would look elsewhere for their needs.
Anya dropped to the wooden deck with a thud and prowled into my studio. “Did you find them?” she asked.
“Yes, but they’re still being held by the bad man,” Kylie said.
Woken by Anya’s movement, Herbert followed on heavy wings, his flight path as haphazard as a falling leaf.
I remembered the lump of rock I’d mistaken him for last night and his wails of pain. Someone had sold him to people who burned him, devoured his life for their magical gain, and left him to die a slow, painful death. That same monster was planning to do it again to three more hatchlings.
It shamed me to realize it was taking serious consideration to decide between delaying my dreams and saving the hatchlings’ lives. The decision should have been immediate and required no thought.
“I’ve only got a little over six thousand,” I said.
“I’ve got some, too.” Kylie darted toward the door.
“Wait. Can we both get in for ten thousand?”
Kylie slowed and turned back to me. “No. Only one of us.”
“It should be me,” I was flabbergasted to hear myself say. Kylie only nodded. “But then what? It’s not like we can buy the hatchlings and I don’t have the power to take them by force. I can’t stop . . . I’m not trained . . . I’m . . .” I’m only a midlevel earth elemental, I finished silently.
“You have to stall the auction. Get us more time.” Kylie turned to address Anya. “You and your brother can help me. If you talked with the guards—”
“Guards! No! I won’t go back.” Herbert curled into a tight ball, rose quartz–veined crystal wings wrapping around his quivering body.
6
“Back?” I echoed.
“To him,” Herbert said.
I shared a look with Kylie. “You were taken by a Terra Haven guard?”
“How do you know?” Kylie asked gently.
“Because he said so.” Herbert’s answer was muffled and garbled by the chattering of his jaw.
“Anyone could say—”
“Was he in uniform? Did his shirt have any symbols?” I asked, interrupting Kylie.
Herbert’s head jerked in a nod. “A circle with three triangles, a leaf, a drop, some squiggles, and a flame.”
Having spent the day staring at this exact logo on the shirts of the guards at the station, I recognized Herbert’s description of the icons for the constructive cycle that formed the Terra Haven guard badge. Kylie and I shared a look.
“This bad Walter guy isn’t a guard, no matter what he wore,” Kylie said. “Guards protect.”
“I swear, the guards will help us,” I said.
“You can save them,” Anya said, her pleading gaze fixed on me. “You saved Herbert. You can save the others.”
Kylie glanced at the clock on the wall. “We’ve got to try, Mika. You delay them. I’ll bring the good guys. Now that we have the auction location, they can’
t ignore us.”
If we believed that, I wouldn’t be going to the auction at all.
Kylie must have read my doubts. “You just have to get us a little time.”
“You really believe you can convince them?”
“I won’t let you down, Mika.” Kylie dashed to her room to fetch her money.
I watched Herbert shiver in his traumatized huddle. Anya stared at me with a faith I didn’t deserve.
I grabbed my life savings, hesitating with the weight of the money in my hands before stuffing it into a nondescript satchel, feeling like I was plunging my hopes and dreams into the dark enclosure with it.
I took a public air bus across town, pacing in the aisle the whole way. There were faster modes of travel—flying platforms, personal air taxis, gryphons—but none within my skill or price range. The sun had dipped behind the ragged skyline by the time I disembarked, and while my instincts insisted I approach the temple cautiously, time was running out. I forced myself to sprint through the darkening streets.
The last time I’d visited the south temple, I was five. In sixteen years, even the temple’s illusions of its former glory had deteriorated. Exterior walls were cracked, and in several places, giant gaps exposed the interior to the elements. The scrap of park remaining around the temple was musty with decay. Hardy vines strangled eroding statues and sucked the life from the withered trees looming over the entrance. Not a single lamp was lit.
Dead leaves crackled underfoot as I raced across the grounds to the entrance, praying this foolish stunt wouldn’t get me killed. This wasn’t going to be like last night. I wasn’t rushing in after the fact. I would be in the midst of black magic wielders, rubbing elbows with powerful criminals and trying to thwart a corrupt guard.
I’d wracked my brain for an alternate plan the entire bus ride and drawn a blank. All my hopes rested on Kylie being more convincing with the guards than I had been.
Copper chains rattled in the shadowy depths of the vestibule. It was a distinctive sound, one that, once heard, was never forgotten. Kludde. I froze, ice running through my veins. My heart hammered against my rib cage as it approached. Fleeing would do no good. A kludde could match me at any speed. I gathered fire in my thoughts, ready to throw pure magic at the beast if it charged. If I was lucky, setting its face on fire might slow it a little.
I saw the copper chain links first, each as thick as my wrist. Then the kludde’s eyes, over a foot higher than mine, caught a glimmer of fading light. I shrank back, careful to not move my feet, trying not to behave like prey even as my gibbering instincts insisted I was. Looking part Great Dane, part wolf, and part madness, the kludde towered over me, standing on its hind legs. Its coarse coat consisted of layers of the darkest shadows. Sinister yellow eyes pierced me, intelligent and malevolent. Enormous crow’s wings rustled against its backside. My throat constricted, cutting off air. Please don’t let it open its wings. Open wings meant it was hunting, and I was the only victim in sight.
The heavy chain snapped, and the kludde growled, tossing a glare over its shoulder. Behind the beast loomed a person, though in the darkness I couldn’t be sure he was human. He was tall enough to be a troll, with expansive shoulders to match. His face looked human. His dark eyes terrified me more than the kludde’s.
“It’s a f-fi-fine night for a p-picnic,” I stammered, repeating the code words from Kylie’s rumor scouts.
“It would be better under a full moon.” The man’s voice was a pitch above a growl. Drool dripped from the kludde’s open mouth as it tracked me.
“The darkness suits my mood,” I said. These lines had sounded more ridiculous in Kylie’s bright apartment.
The kludde snarled, hackles raised, when the man yanked it back, leaving space for me to squeeze inside the maw of the temple. I stepped forward on trembling legs, only to be stopped by a beefy arm thrown across my path.
“Money,” he growled.
The kludde’s hot breath parted my hair. I was pinned between the man and kludde, trapped. Either of them could kill me before I could so much as scream. I jammed a hand into my satchel and pulled the money out. The man snorted at the fluttering bills before snatching them from my shaking hand and counting them. I waited for his grunt of assent, then fled into the temple’s dark confines.
There was just enough light to avoid the majority of rubble, and I didn’t slow until I escaped the kludde’s sight. A few twists beyond the main entrance, I heard muffled voices and remembered my purpose. Another turn, and the floor dropped away to shadowy basement stairs. I hesitated on the landing, heartbeat thundering in my ears. I could still turn back. No one but the door guard—and the kludde—had seen me. I could leave safely.
And have lost your savings on top of abandoning three hatchlings to be tortured and killed. I clutched the seed crystals in my pocket and forced my feet down the stairs.
7
I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t the brightly lit chamber I found. At one time, the room had functioned as a place for private ceremonies, with an enormous pentagram etched into the floor, circled by a groove of colored stones to represent each element. The room could hold at least fifty comfortably. It felt cavernous with only five people in it.
Everyone turned to stare at me, and I paused on the threshold. A man and woman wore matching masks that concealed the top half of their faces, and the perpetually shifting layers of the woman’s dress disguised her body even better. For that movement, an air spell worth twice tonight’s door fee had to be woven into the fabric. A third person wore a simple cloth hood that covered all but his eyes, but his abnormal height—easily equal to that of the kludde—and wide shoulders marked him as male. Beside him stood a man in a university professor’s uniform of tweed and corduroy. However, a faint shimmer at the periphery of his face revealed a poorly connected seam in his illusion spell; the benevolent grandfather’s face was a fake. Standing apart from the main group was a dark-haired tattooed man who would have looked at home in the blight. Mercenary, I thought. Though no weapons were visible on him, I was sure that he could have given the guard upstairs a good fight. He wore no camouflage, illusion or otherwise.
I hadn’t considered a disguise, and now I cursed my lack of foresight. In jeans, a pale blue T-shirt, and my black canvas button-up jacket, with a student’s leather satchel draped diagonally across my chest, I looked as out of place as I felt. I slipped into the room and skirted to the left.
I fidgeted while we waited, staying well clear of the room’s other occupants. With no distractions, my doubts overwhelmed all other thoughts. What if I couldn’t stall the auction? What if Walter didn’t bring the hatchlings here? Even if Kylie convinced the guards to arrest everyone, we might never find them.
No, we’d find at least one. The demonstration hatchling. The thought wasn’t reassuring.
In a few minutes, a dozen new people filtered into the room, restricting my movement. Most, again, were disguised, and the few who weren’t radiated strong I’d-like-to-kill-you vibes. Still, I received the most curious stares. Everyone could see I didn’t belong there.
“Welcome.” The disembodied male voice turned everyone’s head. A seamless illusion dropped, opening the round room over three feet in every direction. I wasn’t the only one to gasp at the power display.
Walter stepped forward from where he’d been observing us behind the illusion. There was nothing about the man’s appearance that identified him as evil incarnate. He was slight, barely taller than my five-nine, with sandy brown hair and green eyes. He had a boyish smile. If I’d seen him in a café, I might have found him handsome; with a wounded gargoyle in his grip, however, he was repulsive.
The mutilated hatchling was hardly larger than my cupped hands, half the size of Anya. He trembled in a magic trap in Walter’s hand, his variegated citrine body glistening in the bright spell lights attached to the ceiling. The tips of his feet and wings had been burned away, and they twitched spasmodically. His little, expressive lion fa
ce—complete with mobile eyebrows never found on a real lion—was pinched with pain. Enormous golden eyes scanned the room, glossy and unfocused. Every so often, he lifted his head, mouth stretched open, but no sound made it past the muzzle of air woven to dampen his cries.
Rage flooded my body until I shook with it instead of fear.
“Tonight you have the unprecedented opportunity to elevate yourself to a full spectrum, with limitless power and limitless possibilities.” Walter’s voice carried through the still room. “There is untapped potential in each gargoyle, even one so small as this.” He hoisted the mutilated hatchling into the air. I looked away from his pitiful, soundless cries in time to see the double doors to the exit swing soundlessly closed and an illusion cover it. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my pants and willed a platoon of guards to burst through the illusion.
“The power is there for the taking—for the right price.” Walter’s smile turned hard. “But first, a small demonstration for the skeptics.”
Walter stepped into the center of the pentagram, hatchling in hand, and everyone crowded to the walls, several people running to clear the pentagram’s closure circle. Walter’s eyes slid closed, and he breathed deep. On a long exhale, his eyes opened to half-mast and a small, self-satisfied smile curled his lips. A wall of raw magic raced through the star’s lines, then rushed to fill the circle containing the pentagram. The magic pulled from the baby gargoyle’s wounded limbs, and a fine dust drifted toward Walter’s feet as the magic ate away the hatchling’s stone flesh.
Around the room, people gasped and murmured at the display of power most hadn’t seen outside of a full temple ceremony hosted by five linked FSPPs. The vultures surged forward, jostling one another until they ringed Walter and the pentagram. I held back, sickened by the sight of the magic leeching from the struggling hatchling.
“Some of you might have heard of my first customer and the tiny explosion they unleashed on the blight last night.” Walter winked. The Fire Eaters’ battle had been splashed across every news feed today. No one could have missed it. “What would you do with that amount of power?”
Magic of the Gargoyles Page 3
