by K. F. Breene
“I hope this next wave is better than the first,” I said through clenched teeth, still flapping my arms like an idiot, hoping for those wings to sprout. I could really use them. “And I hope they’ve been en route for a while, because I’m running out of time!”
“I have sent help.”
“I already have help! I have four helps. Why aren’t they doing anything?”
Ivy House was now hearing every swear word I’d ever learned.
Wings thrummed near me. “Oh thank God.” It felt like I had been falling forever.
I continued to rotate through the air and lost sight of the rocks rushing up for me. The jagged points that would break me into pieces.
A purplish body swooped down over me, arms reaching. I stretched to grab Cedric’s outstretched hand, but a streak of bright white light cut across my vision, slashing down his chest and blasting him away.
I screamed, looking around wildly, and the next moment my back struck something pliable, like an enormous spiderweb, only it wasn’t attached to anything I could see. The sticky material wrapped around me and jarred me to an almost complete halt, but then the bottom ripped across my back and dumped me out, feet and butt first. Gravity clutched at me greedily, pulling me down again.
Another slash of light zipped across my field of vision. This one slammed into Niamh’s side, the light swallowed by her inky black feathers. She flapped her wings furiously, fighting through the attack and continuing to head my way.
A blast shook me from my right and a shooting rainbow of color exploded into her this time, smashing her back.
“What’s happening?” I gasped out, ever falling, thankful now for the incredible height of that cliff. If we’d done this at Ivy House, I would’ve been smooshed on the grass long before now.
But if we’d done it at Ivy House, we probably wouldn’t have been attacked.
The rocks reached up for me, thirty feet and closing fast.
“Oh no. Oh God, oh no.”
Dark skin dove into sight, Mr. Tom with his hand held out. His wings beat frantically, and it was hopefully just my imagination, but it sounded like the echo hit the rocks below and bounced back up. Trees studded my peripheral vision.
“Edgar should’ve gone first. Wait, crap, I shouldn’t think that thought right now, right before it’s decided if I end up in heaven or hell…”
His hand just barely at my ankle, a searing light pierced his wing, cutting clean through. He wobbled in the air but didn’t relent, his bony fingers wrapping around my ankle.
I didn’t get a chance to say my thanks before he spun, whipping me around.
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. My hair barely slapped the very edge of a jutting rock before I was catapulted upward at an angle, end over end.
“Wings,” I said, my stomach rolling, my bladder threatening release. “Wings!”
Electricity shocked through me, and I pushed it out, shock waves filling the sky. Ivy House answered.
“Almost there. I have you.”
“I need my wings!” I fisted my hands, shoving them out to the sides, and flexed my back—which was when I hit the peak of my arc and started falling again.
“Noooo!” I went back to flapping my arms.
A heavy throp-throp-throp caught my ear, almost like a helicopter, the rhythmic noise was so powerful. I couldn’t see where it was coming from.
A brown gargoyle—Alek—rolled away on my far right, moving through the air like a tumbleweed in the sky. A stream of light soared up through the trees, aimed at me. It would be too late, though. By the time it reached me, I’d be a smear of red pulp on the rocks.
“C’mon, wings,” I pleaded, seeing none of my people. Not able to properly look around, not able to look away from the mottled gray rock ten feet beneath me. Five.
I scrunched up my eyes, willing my wings to work, knowing they probably wouldn’t, the rhythmic throp-throp-throp filling my world.
10
Strong arms wrapped around me, bands of steel trapping me to a wide, heavily muscled chest, the skin basalt gray with a light sheen, the color gorgeous, the fact that I was alive to see it even more so. Huge, heavy wings strummed the air around us, mighty and powerful. They sped up, throp-throp-throp, lifting us into the air at an incredible speed.
A jet of light shot straight at us from the trees. The gargoyle tilted and spun, dizzying me with the maneuver so that the world seemed to circle us. He straightened, beating the air with his wings, and turned to face the attacker hidden within the trees, seemingly fearless.
I was terrified. If one of those zips of light hit him, it was back to the rocks for me.
“Go, go, at least get higher,” I said, my magic pounding around us, doing absolutely no good.
Those incredible wings, mightier than any I’d seen thus far, their breadth incredible, had us a hundred feet above the ground in a blink with seemingly minimal effort. That was when I noticed the others.
Gargoyles streamed around him, some large and powerful, some smaller and incredibly quick, their skin in all colors and shades. One of them paused twenty feet away, its coloring overall a deep gray but cut through with tan in various places, and looked up at us.
One of the arms holding me peeled away.
“Oh no. No, no!” I tried to twist around and grab his neck. I assumed this was the protector sent by Ivy House, but even if I was wrong, I didn’t care—I was going to hang on for dear life until our feet were on the ground. His one arm held me firm, though, absolutely no give.
He pointed with the other hand at the trees where the zip of light had originated. The gargoyles took off, flying for that spot, fast and effective in the air.
Zips of light met them, arching through the blue sky, the enemy seeing the coming attack and defending against it. The gargoyles tilted and spun, barely missing the magical assault. The one who was holding me pushed higher still, soaring out of harm’s reach.
A neon-pink gargoyle reached the trees first, a blast streaking across his shoulder and punching through his wing. He tucked his wings in close and dove through the canopy.
Purplish skin caught my attention—Cedric, a jagged gash across his torso and his pants halfway ripped off. He stopped in front of us, his wings needing to pump faster than the gargoyle holding me to keep him afloat.
“Help,” I said before I’d thought it through.
Ivy House’s magical communication echoed in my mind. “You are with help.”
“Never mind.” I waved Cedric away as Niamh’s alicorn body rose on black wings from the canopy of trees near the enemy’s location, her crystalline horn and hooves catching the dying light. The struggle to rise was clear, one wing tattered and something dripping from her back leg. Blood, it must be.
A dual-colored gargoyle rose from the same area. A man dangled from his hand, held by the ankle, his body limp. A long cape swung down, clothing, not wings. More gargoyles rose around him, three of them also carrying a dangling person.
Niamh, the effort to stay in the air plain, reached us, her red eyes staring at the gargoyle who held me.
“It’s okay,” I yelled over the throbbing wings around us. “Ivy House sent him. Where are the others? Alek and Mr. Tom?”
She neighed and tossed her head. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
I peeled away the block I’d put up to give her privacy, and a wave of pain, frustration, and impatience blasted me through her magical connection. She wanted to go home. Right now.
Fair enough.
As my gargoyle rescuer wrapped his other arm around me to further tighten his hold, I peeled the other blocks away to check on Edgar (obviously safe but worried) and Mr. Tom (wallowing in agony). There was no way I could get a reading on Alek, who hadn’t been granted Ivy House magic, so I’d have to find him the normal, and much harder, way.
“Mr. Tom is there.” I pointed, down and to the left, feeling him through our magical connection. “Hurry, he’s hurt. Niamh, you go back to the house
. These guys clearly have the danger under control.”
She stayed where she was, annoyed now, her glowing red gaze accusatory. Thankfully, I could only pick up on her feelings, not her thoughts—I doubted I’d like the names she was calling me.
“Fine, stay. Hey—” I patted the large arm around my middle before pointing again. “Please help me. We need to get to Mr. Tom. Cedric!” I waved at him even though he was already watching me, flying in place ten feet away. “Go get Edgar.” I motioned him upward. “We’ll meet you back at Ivy House. Stay there until I get back.”
But he didn’t move, and nobody else did either. The other gargoyles had gathered, four of them holding their limp catches of the day, a host of flying creatures nearly stationary in the sky.
Ivy House’s words thundered through my skull. “You must lead, or you will be led.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t have any freaking experience leading an army of magical creatures…
Or did I?
I’d been a PTA president for two years, I’d been a parent helper in classrooms, I’d had to take over for a drunk dad in Boy Scouts, and I’d marshaled my family through some hard times. If I could handle bored, passive-aggressive moms, pompous school staff, crazy children, and a bunch of mansplaining dads who thought they could do better but didn’t want to step up to the plate, I could handle a bunch of gruff, stubborn gargoyles.
I steeled my nerves and pumped out a shocking blast of magic, rocking them in the sky.
“Cedric, go get Edgar,” I growled, low and stern and promising pain if he did not listen. It was basically the grownup equivalent of counting to three. I hoped he could hear me through all the racket. Large wings were loud. To emphasize my point, I used my magic to hurtle him upward, the same principle as shoving him away, just in a specific direction.
He took off, flapping like I’d jabbed him with a hot poker.
“Big guy. Hey.” I patted the arm around me again then pointed toward Mr. Tom. “Hurry. He’s hurt. Now.”
I focused on spurring him on, like a swat to the butt. The electricity I’d felt earlier, the surge of magic that had not, unfortunately, resulted in wings, rolled through my body again and skittered across my skin. He jerked, his arms spasming, squeezing me tightly enough to force out my breath.
Right. Probably the wrong magical trick—
But then his wings beat at the sky, moving us forward, parting his waiting people. He tilted us until our chests were pointing at the ground, our bodies aligned so his wings were like a hang glider on my back. In a moment his wings curled inward and we pitched forward, gaining speed in a fast dive.
“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap,” I said between clenched teeth, my nails digging into his rough gargoyle skin, my stomach trying to evacuate through my mouth.
Flying wasn’t just about flapping wings, clearly. Flying was maneuvering and diving and rolling through the sky with confidence. What had I been smoking, thinking I was prepared for something like this? It took everything I had not to scream.
The canopy jiggled in my vision, rushing at us like I was falling again. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to take it, pointing in Mr. Tom’s direction so we stayed on course. The snap of his wings surprised me, and I jerked against his constricting arms, a scream slipping free. I blinked my eyes opened as we hovered just above the treetops. Slowly, his control excellent, he lowered into the branches until his wings flapped just above them.
“Tu-rrn.” He loosened his arms a little and then altered his hold, coaxing me to twist within his embrace. His arms tightened again when my front was pressed against his thick chest, his gargoyle skin tough and a little scratchy.
He tucked my left arm in against him, then my right, before nudging my head under his chin, getting me to curl up into his big body. Once done, everything happened really fast. One arm kept squeezing me close and his wings snapped inward. We dropped like a stone.
“Oh sh—”
His free arm lashed out and grabbed a branch, jerking us to a stop.
Crack.
The branch broke under the weight.
Incredibly fast, he let go and grabbed another, slowing us again. The first branch continued to fall, headed straight toward us, but he bent forward, curving around me, and the branch struck his shoulder instead of my head.
He let go of the stronger branch and grabbed another, then another, one wing half curled around our sides, protecting me from the foliage, while he kept me tucked within his protective embrace.
Near the ground he let go of the last branch, his wings snapping back behind him again and his free hand hugging me tight. His feet slammed into the ground and he bent with the impact, loosening his hold and then swinging my body around so I hardly felt the jolt.
My butt bumped the ground, and all I could do was stare up into his face, his eyes bulging unnaturally, his jaw pushed forward, and his large teeth protruding over his leathery lips. In that moment, I could well understand why beauty had fallen for the beast. It wasn’t about appearances in times like these—it was about appreciating the creature that had not only saved your life, but also tried to keep you in perfect condition while he did it.
“Thanks,” I said, and wiped my arm across my forehead.
Branches cracked around us and leaves shivered down onto the ground. The other gargoyles landed, followed by Niamh, touching down in a rainstorm of leaves and branches.
I scrambled up and looked around, sensing Mr. Tom twenty or so feet away. He lay in a crowding of brambles, one wing torn along a vein and the other cinched in tightly to his body, embedded with hundreds of thorns, I was sure. A jagged cut slashed across his chest, and blood oozed from his forehead.
“Mr. Tom?” I stopped just outside the brambles and looked around, lifting my arms in that way people did when they were getting ready to wade into really cold water.
He grunted, the mouth and teeth of gargoyles not quite conducive to talking.
“Can you be moved, Mr. Tom? What do we—”
“Here, Earl…” Niamh came over in her birthday suit, wincing with each step but clearly not ready to give in and limp. Thick crimson rivulets ran down the milky skin of her leg. “Either change into stone so you can heal, or change into a man so we can see what’s wrong with ya.”
“His wing is torn, that’s what’s wrong with him,” I said, looking for a path into the middle of that patch of brambles. “He’s got a—”
“There’s some damage, yes, but we need to know if there is anything that will jeopardize his healing.”
A sound like boulders moving through a canyon caught my attention as Mr. Tom shifted into his solid form. I made sure to think about what I wanted—change into a man and be okay—so that we could get him out of there. This was another eccentricity of gargoyles. When in stone form, they awakened more quickly if they were called to do something. Hopefully Cedric hadn’t had any trouble with Edgar, but there was still Alek to find.
While Mr. Tom was doing that, I turned back to the enormous basalt-gray gargoyle, the tops of his arcing wings adding five feet of height to his already wide and brawny shoulders. A wicked claw protruded from the top of each wing, joined by a claw at the end of each vein, where the leathery material gathered when the wings were pulled in. His thick arms hung loose at his sides, ending in large, clawed hands that could rip my throat out in one swipe.
He was magnificent, huge and imposing, an obvious force to be reckoned with.
And I was somehow supposed to lead him. I nearly laughed.
You got him here, Jacinta, I reminded myself. You summoned him, and when he didn’t want to rescue Mr. Tom, you forced him to land. You got him here, which means you can lead him—you just need the confidence.
I wrapped my magic around me to ward off the cold and surveyed the gargoyles around him without really seeing them. It was a stalling tactic and something that looked really good in movies.
“Do you have all your men?” I asked the basalt gargoyle. “Did you lose any?”
“No,” he grunted, his speech a little clearer than Mr. Tom was usually capable of in gargoyle form.
“Right, okay. We have one—a little smaller than most of you—missing. Brown form. No idea where he could be. Send a few people to fly over the treetops and look.”
“That missing gargoyle is going to try to blend in. He won’t want to be seen if he’s hurt,” Niamh said, her hands on her hips, her leg bleeding freely. “He won’t know these are friendlies.”
The lead gargoyle grunted, and it felt like an affirmation.
“Crap,” I said, looking out through the trees. “Well, we can’t leave him.”
“Ah, sure, it’ll be grand,” Niamh said. “He’ll heal and come back, or he’ll not heal and he won’t come back.”
The large gargoyle grunted out another affirmation.
“That’s…” I shook my head at her. Magical people had a very different view of fallen soldiers than their non-magical counterparts.
A pulse of magic concussed the air before the idea even coalesced in my head. There was one guy who did understand the need to bring everyone home. A guy who wouldn’t blink if I asked him to hunt down a fallen man.
Austin, I need help. Please come.
I hoped he’d know the request was from me and not Ivy House. The more I thought about it, the more I knew he was the perfect person to help. Gargoyles couldn’t smell like shifters could. They couldn’t hunt or track. They weren’t good on the ground—not like Austin.
“Yes, miss, here I am. You wanted me?”
I turned back to the brambles, peering in to see Mr. Tom’s face. He lay still, making no move to crawl out.
“Mr. Tom, are you okay?”
I sent another pulse to Austin, pulling down the block on our connection to see if he was responding. Immediately his location hit me—he was headed my way and coming fast, probably halfway between where I stood and town. He’d somehow known I was in trouble and had left before receiving my summons.
Relief coursed through me. “Okay, good.” I brushed the hair away from my face. “Austin is on his way. He’ll find Alek.”
