The Curse of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  “No,” Froggy said calmly.

  We all spun and stared at him.

  It was often easy to forget he was with us. Even now, after being reunited with his dad (who was also our combat instructor, Buck) and making more friends than he’d ever had at the PEE, he still rarely spoke. In fact, I sort of figured he sometimes didn’t even listen to our conversations at all since his ears were often plugged with a pair of earbuds connected to an ancient MP3 player.

  “What do you mean, no?” Eagan asked.

  “It wasn’t a Kolossal Dagslända,” Froggy said. “It was a Gargoyle.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Ari asked.

  That’s when Froggy calmly pointed up toward the roof of an old gray building across the street. Perched on the ledge was a dark gray beast with gnarled wings and glowing red eyes that peered down at us in a decidedly predatory fashion. The creature opened its mouth and let out an anguished shriek before unfurling its massive wings and leaping off the roof.

  The demonic red eyes seemed to grow bigger by the second as they soared right toward us.

  CHAPTER 2

  That One Time When I Accidentally Set My Own Pants On Fire

  If it weren’t for Glam, I’d probably be dead.

  I was so stunned at the sight of the massive Gargoyle dive-bombing at us that I just stood there with my hands in my pockets and a dumb expression on my face while it swooped in to slice me up like deli meat with its huge claws. But Glam reacted instantly, throwing down the hockey bag full of weapons and unzipping it before I even had to time to fully register what was happening.

  The next thing I knew, she was tossing me the Bloodletter. I managed to swing it up just in time to deflect the huge Gargoyle to my left, toward Ari and Froggy. They dove out of the way as sparks erupted from the Bloodletter’s black blade.

  The flying beast crash-landed just past us, skidding across the sidewalk.

  I didn’t remember much about Gargoyles from Monster class. In fact, what I particularly remembered from the day our instructor introduced them was Lake distracting me with a steady stream of notes with ancient Dwarven sayings on them. You know, stuff like: The early bird gets the worm, or Time to face the music, but just Dwarven versions. Like: Lurbumlir Largefeet’s beard isn’t getting any thicker (which means: Hurry up!), or: It smells like fifty rotting Boongrucks died in here (which means: It smells awesome in here!). Lake knew about a thousand old Dwarven idioms and they cracked me up. So he frequently passed them to me scrawled on notes to see if he could get me to burst out laughing in the middle of class. And he usually succeeded. That day, I’d actually laughed so loudly that I snorted involuntarily, choked on my own phlegm, and then got kicked out for disrupting the class.

  But before I left the classroom, I’d somehow managed to catch and retain a few details about Gargoyles. Such as: I knew they were made of stone, even when animated. Which partially explained the sparks and why the Bloodletter’s blade had glanced harmlessly off it.

  The two hockey bags were now empty and we held up our weapons as we formed a half circle around the fallen Gargoyle. It rolled onto its hind legs and spun to face us. Up close, the glowing red eyes were almost hypnotically intense, so bright it was impossible to stare directly at them, but equally impossible to look away.

  The beast crouched as we surrounded it. Standing at full height, it would have been close to six feet tall. Its cracked gray wings were huge, likely well over fifteen feet across at full expansion. It had Human-like, wiry muscular arms and legs, talons for feet, and gnarled hands that ended in curved claws that could have gutted any of us quite easily. The Gargoyle’s head appeared to be too large for its lithe body, in part due to the massive ram horns on each side of its skull, set below large pointed ears. Its face came to a point, almost like a bird’s beak, with a huge grin that revealed dozens of sharp, jagged teeth.

  And then there was the beast’s hair. Which was a sight unto itself. It graced its head like a crown, despite looking nothing like one. It was short on top between the curved horns, but flowed wildly down to its neck in the back in what can only be described as the world’s most frightening hipster mullet.

  The mulleted Gargoyle shrieked again.

  Glam quickly passed around a flagon of Galdervatn. Although more was leaking up to the earth’s surface every day, most of the time it still wasn’t enough to allow us to perform magic without directly ingesting the stuff first. That would change in time, of course, but for now it was better safe than sorry, and so we drank greedily from a bison-hide flask emblazoned with the Shadowpike family crest.

  Though “drank” doesn’t quite adequately describe the experience of consuming Galdervatn. It’s more like a vapor than a liquid, for one, and so the only way you can even tell you’re swallowing anything at all is the icy freeze that shoots down your esophagus and into your stomach—that, and your whole mouth going numb for several seconds. I also used to think Galdervatn was flavorless, but as we’ve had more and more of it over the past few months during our biweekly magic training sessions with Fenmir Mystmossman, I’ve noticed that it does have a very faint, earthily bitter aftertaste.

  Unfortunately, Glam and I were the only two who managed to drink any before the Gargoyle launched its next attack, promptly knocking the flask of Galdervatn from my hand with a burst of water that spewed from its mouth like a fire hose. It was forceful enough to send me sprawling back into the narrow trunk of a small American hop-hornbeam tree.

  The Gargoyle (who I’d decided to name Mullet) screeched in between more fire-hose bursts of water, its wings flapping madly as it hovered above us. It was like it knew we couldn’t take it down. I was reminded then, as the monster blasted Glam backward with a stream of water, of another Gargoyle fact I’d learned in class that day before getting the boot: one potential danger of reanimated Gargoyles was their ability to drown victims by vomiting insanely powerful blasts of water at them.

  Lake and Ari swung their swords at the beast, but the blades just glanced away harmlessly amid showers of sparks. Even Dwarven steel couldn’t penetrate the Gargoyle’s magical granite skin. Which meant we were pretty helpless to fight this thing.

  I climbed to my feet as Glam struggled for a desperate gasp of air under the never-ending waterfall gushing from Mullet’s mouth. I lifted the Bloodletter, but Froggy, Eagan, Lake, and Ari were already ineffectively pelting the beast with an array of swords and throwing axes. I realized that one more kid taking useless hacks at the Gargoyle’s stone skin was not going to save Glam.

  Go for the eyes, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter said.

  “Please don’t use my full first name,” I reminded him for probably the hundredth time, as I strapped the ax onto my back and instead pulled free my dagger, Blackout. “But thanks for the tip.”

  Well, you have a wonderful name, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter said. Nothing to be ashamed of, Greggdroule.

  I scowled and the Bloodletter laughed, as I ran toward Mullet the flying monster. I did my best to summon a gust of wind using Dwarven magic as I leaped toward the hovering beast’s back. After several months of lessons, using magic was getting easier—though it was still far from an exact science. For example, just three days ago during our last magic training class, I accidentally turned our instructor Fenmir Mystmossman’s wizard robes into molasses while trying to conjure a set of tree-trunk steps up to the roof of the warehouse. Nobody knew a spell to turn the pile of sticky sap under his feet back into wizard robes, and so class ended early that day, much to our disappointment. But we all agreed later it was worth it to see Fenmir standing there helplessly in his Mickey Mouse Fantasia boxer shorts (yes, really).

  This time my intended spell worked, and a rush of wind carried me up onto Mullet’s back. I grabbed at the small stone horns on the tips of his wings to steady myself. He flailed wildly, but I hung on. I summoned all my remaining strength and flung my right arm around the side
of his head.

  And plunged Blackout into Mullet’s left eye socket.

  I know, I know.

  Rule number one of MPMs: Avoid violence at all costs.

  But at the same time, I couldn’t just stand there and try to make nice with a creature while it was seconds away from successfully drowning one of my friends! Besides, maybe Gargoyles were quick to forgive and forget? Maybe after all this was over, I could apologize swiftly, and still become buddies with it later? We could all move on, and perhaps Mullet could even come with the Bloodletter and me to Uncle Julio’s for fajitas?

  It’s certainly possible, the Bloodletter said. You have no idea, over the eons, how many foes my owner and I went and had mead with at a local tavern shortly after chopping off one of their limbs. It’s quite remarkable, actually. But maybe losing a hand simply makes one thirsty? I wouldn’t know, for obvious reasons.

  I didn’t have time to remind the Bloodletter to stop reading my thoughts (something he’d been doing more and more lately), though it likely wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. But I was too preoccupied with Mullet’s anguished scream of rage and vigorous efforts to fling me off his back by wildly flapping his huge stone wings from side to side. I tried to hold on, but eventually lost my grip.

  I went flying, the world a spinning wheel of dark concrete and dim streetlights.

  Thankfully, my strong Dwarven bones didn’t break when I crashed onto the hard pavement next to Glam. She was drenched and gasping for air. Mullet loomed over us, shrieking, with Blackout’s handle sticking out from his left eye socket.

  “Um, I think—I think you’ve got a little—uh—little something in your eye there,” I said to the Gargoyle, not able to help myself. “I guess maybe this was an eye-opening experience for you, huh?”*

  Mullet responded with another cry of rage as he ripped the dagger free and tossed it aside. His glowing eye, which was nothing more than an empty socket emitting red light, looked unharmed. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t still rightly pissed off about the whole being-stabbed-in-the-eye thing.

  “Greg!” Eagan shouted from behind me somewhere. “Run! Run as fast and far as you can. Gargoyles only stay animated if they’re near their original perch. If you can get him to chase you long enough, you might be able to run him into suspended animation.”

  I nodded and quickly climbed to my feet just as Mullet reared back to launch a burst of water at my face.

  But I dove out of the way just in time, then ran directly underneath the hovering Gargoyle. And I just kept running. I didn’t need to look back to know he was chasing me—I could hear his stone wings flapping behind me like some kind of terrible death-march drumbeat.

  I ran as fast as I could. Which, although it was pretty fast for me, still wasn’t nearly fast enough to outrun a flying statue with a fifteen-foot wingspan. The Bloodletter confirmed as much seconds later.

  You’d better do something! it shouted in my head. He’s going to catch you!

  “Well, aren’t”—huff—“you”—huff—“supposed to be”—huff—“some sort of”—huff—“all-powerful”—huff—“weapon?” I gasped out my response.

  Sure, but I’m still just an object, Greggdroule! I need a handler! Someone who’s supposed to be a hero, remember?

  I continued wheezing and huffing for breath, racking my brain for anything that might get me out of this. The flapping wings were so close now I expected to feel sharp talons tearing into my back or a burst of water sending me sprawling. That’s when it came back: the very last thing I heard that day in class before our Monsterology and Creature Classification instructor, Thazzum Craghead, kicked me out.

  “Gargoyles, heh, just hope you never run into one,” he’d said. “They can be notoriously tough to take down. Nearly indestructible. Their stone exterior becomes enchanted and therefore nearly impervious when animated. In fact, two of the only known methods of stopping a Gargoyle are said to be getting it a certain distance from its lair, or putting it in direct contact with sunlight.”

  Of course I was already trying to run him away from his perch, but I apparently hadn’t gotten far enough away yet. Which left one other option: sunlight. But it was well after midnight with a 0 percent chance of sunshine for at least four more hours.

  Use magic, you Orc-brained Polywiggle.

  While I didn’t appreciate the name-calling (or the mind reading), the Bloodletter was right.

  Of course, I’d never summoned the sun (or sunshine) with magic. In fact, I wasn’t even sure there was an actual spell for that at all. Then again, Dwarven magic was about manipulating the universe and its natural elements, and so it at least seemed academically possible. Fenmir Mystmossman had said a number of times during our magic class that the potential of Dwarven magic was theoretically limitless.

  And so:

  I focused all my energy on the sun.

  I thought about its bright rays bursting through the clouds.

  I thought about its heat radiating down from millions of miles away.

  I thought about its fiery surface.

  I thought about its explosive solar flares.

  I thought about its raw energy.

  And then my pants suddenly ignited, bursting into flames.

  CHAPTER 3

  Glam Smash!

  Remember earlier when I said Dwarven magic was still far from an exact science?

  And also when I said that knowing you’re a Dwarf doesn’t help you avoid failing like one?

  Yeah, well, I think magically setting your own pants on fire while trying to save your friends from a Gargoyle with a mullet is pretty good evidence of both of those statements.

  So there I was, running down the main drag of downtown Evanston, my pants ablaze, screaming bloody murder while a huge winged beast was closing in, ready to pounce and put me out of my misery. I wish I could say that in that moment I came up with some ingenious plan to save myself. But honestly, my attempts to escape death really just boiled down to a lot of flailing and screaming.

  Thankfully, Gargoyles’ favorite method of destruction was water, which tends to put out fires. Meaning, before I could run screaming for too long, a powerful stream of water suddenly hit me from behind. It knocked me off my feet and sent me sprawling forward, rolling across the pavement like a damp log.

  It also immediately put out the fire.

  A burst of steam erupted from my pants, pluming above me like a miniature mushroom cloud. As luck would have it (I know, I’m as shocked as you are that I actually found some good luck on a Thursday*), the steam caught Mullet off guard. With a mighty screech, he swerved wildly to avoid it, briefly startled and disoriented.

  That’s when I saw my chance.

  While Mullet struggled to slow midflight so he could circle back around, I summoned one Dwarven spell that I knew I could do properly.

  I rolled to a kneel and put every ounce of my magical will into the gusty breeze blowing in off Lake Michigan, which was just a few blocks away. A torrent of wind collided with Mullet’s flapping stone wings. They caught like sails and he soared down the street, away from me and his perch at least a hundred feet in just a few seconds. He likely would have been able to break free from the gust eventually, but it was too late: the damage had already been done.

  Mullet suddenly dropped from the air like a stone statue and crashed onto a small Nissan parked on the curb. The roof of the car collapsed as the lifeless Gargoyle rolled off it and smashed onto the asphalt. A single horn and part of its wing broke on impact.

  I wasn’t sure exactly how far away a Gargoyle needed to be from its stoop to turn it back into inanimate stone, but apparently this was it.

  I climbed to my feet, marveling at my good fortune: I’d actually set myself on fire trying to stop the Gargoyle from drowning me. And yet, somehow it had worked. Maybe this should have been taken as a sign that our luck was finally c
hanging—that Dwarves wouldn’t always be doomed to failure.

  If my former best friend, Edwin, were still around, I could use this to finally prove to him that our constant failure wasn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy, after all. But the last time anyone had heard from Edwin was a few months ago, when I’d used that very same wind spell to launch him out into Lake Michigan. Sometimes I wondered if he might have drowned in the harbor by Navy Pier. I had nightmares about it actually—ones where I’d wake up with my clothes soaked in sweat as if I’d drowned in the lake right along with him. My stomach ached even just thinking about those dreams. But I knew they couldn’t be true. For one thing, he had Elven magic that surely would have saved him. Secondly, Edwin was a great swimmer—he was even on the school swim team at the PEE. But most of all, I knew he was still alive because the Bloodletter kept telling me so, kept reminding me (on an almost daily basis) that I still had a score to settle with Edwin. That as long as he was still alive, vengeance for what had happened to my dad had not been realized.

  But the Bloodletter couldn’t tell me where Edwin was or what he was doing or why nobody had heard from him in months. My leading theories were that he was either moping around in shame somewhere, or in hiding, secretly plotting his next nefarious move. It’s weird to say now, but part of me almost wanted to forgive him. To forgive and forget and move on—maybe even someday reconcile our friendship in some flawed, but real way. That was impossible, though, I knew that. My life would never be the same because of what his parents had done. And beyond that, Edwin still surely hated me.

  I remembered the look of pain and hatred I’d seen in his eyes back on the pier after our battle. People don’t just get over that level of anger. If anything, it only deepens, becomes more resolute. A permanent fixture in someone’s mind.