Secret of the Gargoyles (Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles Book 3)

by Rebecca Chastain

  The familiar moist, earthy notes of the tunnel and the dry, smooth odor of quartz reassured me, as did Marcus’s warm scent. He’d stood close enough to be accused of hovering, but having his solid presence at my back helped quiet the jangle of doubts bombarding me. The tangy odor of kachina greenthread and lamb’s ear leaves wafted from us both, an unnecessary reminder of the dangers.

  Fingers crossed, I gathered the familiar blend of gargoyle-tuned elements and eased my magic into the warthog without opening my eyes. Holding the magic steady, I simultaneously sank into my own body, searching for the central core of my individuality—my spirit.

  I wouldn’t have known what to feel for if I hadn’t learned the trick of separating my spirit and body in Focal Park. Then, the act had been a blind, last-ditch effort flowing from a string of elemental maneuvers that had already tugged me a half dozen different directions. Separating my spirit and dividing it among the gargoyles had been a natural extension of the magic I’d already been doing. Here, my actions were deliberate, my mind quiet, and loosening even a small sliver of my spirit from my body made me tremble with trepidation.

  Afraid to pause and give Marcus a chance to stop me, I peeled a piece from the pulsing nebula of my spirit as easily as plucking a petal from a rose—it came free with only a mild tug. Or almost free. A slender thread spun from my body to connect with the petal, lengthening as I coaxed the petal from my body and into the warthog’s. With almost magnetic attraction, the petal merged with my magic.

  My breath released in a shaky hiss as the warthog’s pain became my own. During the magic storms, her stubby tail and the tips of her tusks had been chipped and her folded wings were abraded. The pulsing pain of the new injuries settled into the dull aches of her body, which suffered from malnutrition and erosion. The puncture in my thigh pulsed in response, but I distanced myself from my body and did my best to ignore the gargoyle’s pain, too. Once I got her into the baetyl, she’d be better.

  I dove through her, searching for the spark of her life. It was nothing I could see with my eyes, but I could feel it with my magic. The essence of the warthog lay nestled among layers of elements deep in her heart. I altered my magic to match her prasiolite-striped white quartz body, then subtly tweaked the quartz to resonate more closely with the baetyl’s energy.

  What would have been easier than inhaling when I’d been linked with the baetyl took my full concentration now. Since I couldn’t remember the bulk of the baetyl’s pattern, I had to rely on the glimpses I caught to spark my memory, then alter the delicate blend of elements to match.

  I knew the moment I got it just right. The tiny remnant of the warthog hiding in her core turned, and in my mind’s eye, her spirit took the form of pure golden light in the shape of her body. She stood cocooned in a sphere of white quartz crisscrossed with mint and forest-green prasiolite striations, and her liquid gold eyes regarded my spirit with profound sorrow. Loneliness from decades of isolation crashed through me, and the shock of feeling her emotion as if it were my own jarred me. Healing gargoyles gave me access to their physical sensations, not their emotional ones. The elements trembled in my grasp and I struggled to hold myself in place. Any change in my magic might push me out of her, or worse, injure her.

  I’m here to help. All you have to do is wake up. I pictured the baetyl and tried to give it a joyous sensation. Hoping she could feel my emotions as clearly as I could hers, I fed her my affection, my hope for her to wake, and my eagerness for her to be whole and healthy—and with it, I twined my piece of spirit around her spark of life. The crush of loneliness cracked, allowing in such a fragile emotion I didn’t recognize it at first: hope.

  That’s it. Wake up. Walk into the baetyl.

  She turned from me, and her head lifted as if she could see the baetyl now. Her thick wings unfurled and she took a step—

  Her spark blurred; then she was back in her frozen form, wings trapped against her back. Despair drowned me, and I fought to stay in place.

  You can do it, I encouraged. I siphoned more of my spirit into her, cocooning her in petals of energy. Try again. You’ve only got a few feet . . .

  She looked at me, and her eyes had no room for lies. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the strength.

  Together, then. We’ll do it together.

  Thrusting aside my fear, I abandoned my careful half-measures and yanked my spirit free of my body and into the warthog, encasing her fragile spark in the entirety of my spirit’s energy. The final nuances of her body clarified in my mind’s eye, and I tweaked my magic, melding with her. I turned my—our—head toward the baetyl and poured my will into the gargoyle.

  15

  Walk. Take a step. Move.

  My back foot shifted, little more than a twitch, but the sensation opened a forgotten door. Awareness of my body spread upward. I lifted my head on a neck gone stiff as stone. My wings—

  Fear jumbled my thoughts. The last time . . . The baetyl . . .

  I am a gargoyle guardian!

  The magic slipped and shuddered in my control, threatening to fracture. I could feel my wings, glorious green prasiolite, but . . . but . . .

  I do not have wings!

  I yanked my magic to free it, but it snagged and held. Pain slashed me, hot and sharp. I needed to get out, to escape—

  “Easy, Mika. Don’t rip it. You’re okay. Just take it slow.”

  The rumble of Marcus’s voice cut through my panic and I stilled. My body shuddered with an echo of someone else’s pain. The warthog. Not my body—hers. Except there was no distinction. I had wings because she had wings.

  I’d hoped to use my spirit to restore the gargoyle’s ability to walk; instead, I’d imprinted my spirit onto hers and it’d given me control over her body. Fear tingled through a confusion of arms and legs, heads and spines. I took a deep breath through two sets of lungs and oriented on the warthog’s spirit again. She trembled inside my control, but with hope, not fear.

  “That’s better. Now ease back out,” Marcus said.

  I tilted my head to look at him, disoriented by the low angle. He hunched over something in his arms, talking to it, not me. With a jolt, I realized that was me cradled against his chest. My body lay in a loose sprawl, eyes closed, mouth open, green ointment dotting my pale face. The fiery light of the glowballs shimmered in the fan of my strawberry-blond hair and emphasized the dark purple circles under my eyes. Had I always looked so fragile?

  The longer I looked at my body, the more foreign the gargoyle’s felt. When vertigo skewed my sight, I turned away.

  Something kissed my spirit, the feeling so sweet and pure that my heart felt like it’d sing from my chest. I stared at the glow at the end of the tunnel. Home. My cynosure baetyl reached for me, pulling me to it, and I welcomed the assistance.

  I jerked into motion, clumsily navigating on four stiff legs. My wings flexed with each step, the unfamiliar muscles twitching in my limited control.

  “Mika, no. It’s too dangerous.”

  Everything ached, and the pain grew with each step as my body woke. My skin was chapped from tusk to tail, my feet were bruised from holding the same position for decades, and my chipped tusks stung. The baetyl vowed to soothe it all away. I gathered its siren song of promises into my heart and pushed through the pain and sluggishness of my stiff body. When I rounded the corner, the baetyl filled my vision and I ran the last stumbling steps.

  A film of the baetyl’s protective ward coated the opening, and when I burst through it, magic poured into me. I drank it down, savoring the cascade of relief as the baetyl massaged my body back into harmony and soothed away the aches and pains of decades.

  I stretched my wings wide, body humming with pleasure. I was whole.

  The elements swirled through me, and I folded them, amplifying—

  That’s how a boost works!

  My shocked delight separated me from the gargoyle. For a moment, I was an amazed observer. I’d never understood how a gargoyle could create more mag
ic out of the existing elements, but from my new perspective, it seemed obvious. Then my access to the world through her eyes slipped from my control. The space between our spirits grew, and I had the impression of the warthog regarding me with the wise eyes of her spirit before she shoved me from her body.

  I tried to hang on, clinging to elemental fibers inside her until I saw the damage I created. I wasn’t supposed to hurt gargoyles. I was a healer.

  With that thought, I lost my anchor and my detached spirit shot fast as an arrow back to my body, slamming home.

  I gasped for air like I’d been underwater, back arching, eyes flying open to stare up at the shadowy ceiling of the tunnel. My heart hammered in my chest and I panted, trying to remember who I was, where I was, what I was.

  I am Mika Stillwater. I am a gargoyle healer. I am a gargoyle guardian.

  My spirit settled into my body, binding with the minute piece I’d left behind. I couldn’t see it in myself as I could in the gargoyle, but I didn’t need to. I could feel the rightness. I wriggled my fingers and toes, stifling a groan as my body’s pains awoke. The blissful sensation of the baetyl healing the warthog’s wounds faded to a wistful memory.

  I sat up, and Marcus’s hand settled at my back to support me. I braced a hand on the floor to balance against a wave of dizziness while I looked around. It hadn’t been a dream. The warthog was gone.

  “I did it.” I grinned at Marcus. “I got a gargoyle into the baetyl.” I’d walked her body in as if it were my own. The thought made me queasy and giddy at the same time. “If I can do it once, I can do it seven times. I’m saving all these gargoyles’ lives!”

  “I thought you were done with shoving your life in front of every problem.”

  “I am.”

  “Then what do you call that stunt?”

  “A calculated risk that—”

  “Risk?! This is exactly what you did at Focal Park.”

  “No, it’s not. I’ve thought this through—”

  “You shoved your spirit into a gargoyle just like last ti—”

  “I didn’t divide myself up.”

  “Oh, so that makes it better?” Marcus rose to his feet in a smooth motion and paced away from me, fists clenched.

  “Listen to me. I’m giving the gargoyles the strength they need. I can’t get them into the baetyl by physical or magical strength, but I can by—”

  “By sticking the essence that makes you, you into another living creature. That’s not right. It’s not natural or safe or a reasonable risk.”

  “It is for me.”

  I’d come here with the impossible mission of battling my way through deadly magic storms, finding a secretive baetyl hidden inside the mountain, fixing it without even knowing exactly what a baetyl was, and then getting the sick gargoyles inside. I had doubted the success of this mission a thousand times. Yet, despite all the hardships, I’d done it. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—stop this close to the finish line.

  “I’m not attempting this with just any troubled creature. I’m a—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Gargoyle guardian,” I finished.

  “Damn it.”

  “Whatever it is that made me capable of healing the baetyl is the same part of me that makes it okay for me to transplant my spirit into a gargoyle. Temporarily. My magic is somehow close to theirs. It means they’re safe with me and I’m safe with them. This isn’t a martyr mission.”

  Veins stood out on Marcus’s neck as he loomed over me, his forearms corded with tension. “You didn’t know who you were.”

  “I was disoriented for a moment.”

  “You were unresponsive for fifteen minutes.”

  “That long?” I rolled to my knees— Wait, hadn’t I been standing in front of the warthog? I recalled a shadowy memory of looking at myself through the warthog’s eyes. Marcus had been holding me in his arms. “Ah, thank you for catching me?”

  Marcus gave me an exasperated look. “Someone had to protect the tunnel from the impact of your thick skull.”

  “Good point. I’ll make sure to be sitting next time.” Fifteen minutes? I assessed the flickers of life inside the remaining gargoyles. I’d have to leave the strongest for last and work faster. None of the gargoyles looked like they would survive another hour.

  “Are you sure there’s no other way?” Marcus asked.

  I stood but relaxed my defiant posture when I saw his concern.

  “I can’t think of one. Can you?”

  He shook his head.

  Rourke’s will to live was fading fast, and I surged to his side, sat, and shoved a braid of magic and spirit into him. Marcus cursed, then his warmth settled beside me.

  “Damn it, be careful,” he growled.

  I was faster this time, dropping through the layers of Rourke’s pain and tweaking my magic to resonate with his unique signature. The baetyl’s pattern drifted in and out of my awareness, and I altered my magic to harmonize with it when I could but didn’t let myself be distracted by chasing it.

  When my magic clicked in perfect synchronization with Rourke, I saw him in my mind’s eye. He didn’t react, his inner self as frozen as his physical body. Gently, I wrapped him in love and admiration and thick layers of my spirit. We merged, and the weight of his body became my own.

  I knew what to expect this time, but it made it no less disorienting. Or easier. I gathered my will and funneled it through my spirit and out to our limbs. Forcing our body to fold so we could walk on all fours took herculean effort. Our wings hung heavy and useless at our sides, trailing on the rock ground for four torturous steps before the baetyl’s song infiltrated my body. After that, each step grew easier. I still had to shove and strain to carry my unwieldy bulk, but the song urged me on.

  Crossing into the baetyl felt like walking through a cleansing shower. I closed my eyes in bliss as magic bathed me from the inside out and the outside in. After decades of fighting, I relaxed and reveled in being alive. When I opened my eyes, I saw the warthog take flight, flapping lazily to a higher perch, folding and twisting the baetyl’s magic for the sheer joy of it.

  I rolled onto my back and spread my wings on the tiny crystals, their sharp points a delightful massage against muscles and feathers long unused. My antlers scraped the crystals, making the quartz sing.

  Something nudged me, a gentle but persistent prod, and I spiraled down into my—our—body. Blinking, I looked up into the bright eyes of Rourke’s spirit. His gratitude wrapped me like a soft blanket even as he used an antler to push me again. With a smile, I let go, and my spirit winged back to my human body.

  “Mika?”

  Who?

  I squinted, the bright light hurting my eyes. Someone crouched over me. Marcus.

  “I am Mika Stillwater,” I said, and the words felt right even if I wasn’t completely sure what they meant.

  “You are a gargoyle healer and guardian.”

  Right. My spirit and mind clicked into sync. I was in Marcus’s lap, cradled against his chest and arm. Safe, my heart whispered.

  Seeing the empty tunnel where Rourke had stood minutes before made my heart swell with elation. I couldn’t wait to deliver the good news to Celeste. We’d done it: We’d saved her mate.

  “How long?” I asked.

  Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know. A little longer, I think.”

  Longer? I’d tried to be faster, but it had been hard to remember my purpose over the call of the baetyl. If Rourke hadn’t nudged me from his body, I’d still be there.

  Marcus studied my face, worry lines etching his forehead. He held me close enough that I could count the map of navy in his lapis lazuli eyes, but I looked away, not wanting him to see how much I didn’t want to move.

  Pushing out of his arms took willpower I didn’t have to spare, and I selected the next weakest gargoyle—the rabbit-owl. Like Celeste, whose head and front legs were those of an eagle, his front legs and chest were all owl, and though his body was far more compact than the tw
o previous gargoyles I’d inhabited, once I wrapped him in my spirit, it took just as much effort if not more to hop him into the baetyl. Despite my best intentions, I forgot about everything but the baetyl’s song and the glorious sensation of being home until the gargoyle raked his talons against my spirit and forced me back to my body.

  Marcus was holding me when I opened my eyes to the bleak brown walls of the tunnel, and he assured me I was Mika Stillwater, gargoyle healer and guardian. I watched his lips move, heard the words vibrate against my eardrums, but he had to repeat himself several times before the sounds connected with my brain and made sense.

  The citrine and smoky quartz badger with a seahorse head was next, then the onyx wolf. Following my magic into the gargoyles to find their weak spirits was easier when I started with my body right next to theirs, and if Marcus hadn’t been watching, I would have crawled to the gargoyles. Instead, I forced myself to stand and walk, though Marcus had to wrap an arm around my waist to keep me from falling. He didn’t comment on my fatigue or argue for me to slow down. The gargoyles were fading too fast for me to take a break. Or a nap.

  I dearly wanted a nap—at least when I inhabited my own body. When I was in the baetyl, in those timeless moments before the gargoyles kicked me out of their bodies, I lived in their sublime bliss. There, I was rejuvenated. The baetyl, which had been a deadly, alluring source of power to me when I’d climbed into the heart and healed it, was sweet and comforting when I forgot I wasn’t a gargoyle. It made snapping back to my own body worse each time, the euphoric moments in the baetyl emphasizing my body’s growing misery. Sweat and time counteracted the greenthread’s numbing properties, and a multitude of injuries clamored with increasing fervor each time I settled back into my own skin.

  Worse was the loss of the baetyl—its beauty, its soothing song, its promise of rejuvenation.

  I lingered in the badger and longer still in the wolf, forgetting myself in their all-consuming relief to be home and healing. With each gargoyle, I gained more understanding of how they interacted with magic, and it was amazing. As a human, I could use the elements, channeling them into different shapes and patterns to create an outcome. As a gargoyle, I didn’t have to reach for the elements; they saturated me. Amplifying magic was a simple matter of folding it to make the elements denser. Focusing the effect, I could direct it where I wanted . . .