Gryphon and His Thief (15 page)

"Think…think, dammit!" The last thing he
remembered was Calli kissing him…
No, no after…
Yes, he
remembered. She was being forced to leave with the repairman, who
obviously was not a real repairman, but someone who worked with
Professor Leander. "The man shot me!" he exclaimed out loud and
glanced down at where his hand lay over the wound, blood stained
his cardigan and there was a ghastly hole in it. Since he wasn't
dead, he had to assume the repairman missed his heart or anything
else that might be essential to staying alive. Lucky him, he
winced.
Yeah, right.

"Calli, where are you?" he breathed with
worry. She wouldn't be so lucky if she didn't cooperate, and he had
a hunch she wouldn't. She was a stubborn woman, but her spunk may
just keep her alive too. He scooted to his knees and tried to stand
but the pain crippled him and he fell back down. Gravel jabbed into
his palms and knees, and the sudden jolt sent a shockwave of
distress straight to his injured shoulder. "Bollocks," he cursed
and squeezed his eyes shut as he rode out the pain.

He couldn't give up. Calli's life depended on
him hauling himself back inside the museum and calling the police.
Even as he thought this, he wasn't sure if the police would believe
the fantastic story of a cursed stone, thugs breaking in to steal
it, and then kidnapping the original thief because they believed
she hid the stone. "Bollocks," he said again and had a hunch the
word would soon be his favorite. No, he couldn't call the police.
They'd probably arrest him for wrong-doing then search the desert
for Calli's body, believing he'd done away with her.

There had to be something he could do, but
maybe first he should take a gander at his wound. Even if he
hatched a brilliant plan, it would be worthless if he bled to
death.

He sat back down with a
harrumph
. He
couldn't lift the injured arm so he had to rely on his good one. He
loosened his tie and pulled it over his head then he went to work
on the buttons, his fingers fumbling to undo them. Finally, he
managed to push the material to the side, which irritated the wound
further. He inhaled sharply and closed his eyes. He tried breathing
through his nose while he bit down on his lower lip. "Bloody,
bloody, bloody…" Yeah, that really smarted. Wiping the sweat from
his eyes with the back of his hand and no doubt spreading blood
across his forehead, he chanced another look at the damage.

Blood pooled at the wound site, but it wasn't
gushing. He shifted his weight and glanced over his shoulder for an
exit wound. His skin remained unmarred. No exit wound meant the
bullet was still lodged inside of him. He was pretty sure that was
a bad thing. Well, it couldn't be helped right now. Since the wound
was only oozing, perhaps he wouldn't bleed out in the next few
minutes. "Maybe when the sun sets the beastie will have a better
chance at..." An idea sparked to life. Funny, how the fine edge of
pain sharpened one's perceptions.

He scooted to his knees then braced himself
against the wall as he attempted to stand. This time he remained on
his feet, and as soon as his blurred vision cleared to at least a
nice fuzzy haze, he would stumble his way back inside the museum.
Yeah, anytime… Anytime… Yep, anytime…
"Move, dammit," he
told himself, and his pesky insistence seemed to motivate his feet
into action.

Time proved a factor. At night, he would turn
into his alter ego, stronger, more determined, and with the ability
to hunt down thieves. A particular thief, he corrected. The beastie
would be able to find Calli. Granted, he'd have to live that long
for the shift to occur, and hopefully his alter ego would be strong
enough to withstand a bullet wound. He had no way of knowing this
for sure, but it was all he had. He stared at the sky where the sun
sat low on the horizon, painting it pink and purple with tinges of
yellow. He'd been unconscious for a while. If the sun was going to
set soon, that meant Calli had been gone for hours too. She could
be already dead. "No." He adamantly shook his head. No, he wouldn't
believe it.

He hurried as fast as he could toward the
front of the museum, stumbling and weaving like a drunken fool, but
he managed to keep on his feet. The window still had not been
fixed, which left the museum vulnerable, but it couldn't be helped
right now. If a thief wanted to try his luck with a cursed item,
good luck to him. The blimey bastards could take the fast track to
hell for all he cared.

He pushed open the door and strode into the
museum. The ropes which had once hung from the ceiling lay in piles
of weaved hemp on the floor. Guess Bert cut down his buddies and
took them with him.

Sweat rolled down his face and beneath his
collar with each step he took. His desk never seemed so far away.
He might as well be in the desert, trying to reach an imaginary
oasis with it slipping away with each step. His breath came in
gasps for air and he felt light headed. "Don't you dare pass out,"
he ordered himself, as if threats would defy the odds.

Unlike the endless desert, the museum didn't
trick the eyes and conjure mirages. He finally stumbled to his
desk, leaving bloody palm prints as he went. As he plopped down in
the seat, his gaze caught sight of the massive Gryphon sitting
there staring with its lifeless stones for eyes. Calli believed the
Gryphon and he were one and the same, and her video proved the
fanciful tale was the truth.

He pushed aside his cardigan and shirt once
more to glance at the wound. It throbbed as if it had a heart of
its own. His walk from the carport must have aggravated it. The
blood poured more freely now. He opened a drawer at his desk and
grabbed a handful of tissues from the box he kept in there. He
pressed them to the wound, but the tissues turned red as the blood
raced up the material and soaked it. He let his shirt fall over the
wound once more. He would have to work fast before he passed out
from lack of blood.

Calli's presence in his life had triggered
something which had lain dormant inside of him. His capability to
decipher what was real and what was fabricated. Now it was time to
enlighten his other half.

He pursed his lips. A curse was meant to
punish, condemn, or trap. He'd been subject to all three. His gaze
shifted to the other cursed items in the museum. They all had a
story and none of them ended with happily-ever-after.

He pushed back the glasses that had slid down
his nose and grabbed for a pen and paper, praying the sun would set
before he bled out. Calli pushed his destiny in another direction
just by showing him the video. Maybe he could nudge his path a
little more. He scribbled a note of what happened and hoped it
would make sense to his other half, the Gryphon half, his more
aggressive half. Calli needed a badass right now, and who better
than a creature that could tear the bad guys apart.

His hand paused over the paper as a fleeting
thought entered his mind. What if he died before the change took
place? Would it be the end of the curse? The end of his
existence?

Heck, he didn't know. Maybe all this
summarizing could be a delusional trick from lack of blood. Maybe
Calli didn't even exist. Maybe the thieves broke in and the job
went sideways. He had been shot in the process, and his mind just
made up the fantastic story of Gryphon statues that could come to
life and save the day.

He sat back in his seat and chuckled. "I'm
the nutter, aren't I?" But then, he remembered Calli's sweet lips
and knew he couldn't have imagined the distinct warmth the memory
conjured. She'd kissed him before the repairman shot him. He sat up
straight, but the sudden movement had him seeing stars and he
grabbed the desk to steady himself. "Bloody hell!" He waited for
the wave of nausea to pass before he shoved his hand into his
sweater pocket. Calli had put something there. Once his fingers
clasped the items, he fished them out and placed them on the
desk.

He blinked. "Mobile and …" he reached for the
pouch and opened the drawstring to dump the object on the desk.
"The stone." She'd given him the stone the thugs had wanted. His
gaze shifted to the mobile and realized why she'd given it to him.
He quickly grabbed another post-it and scribbled
watch the
video
and placed it on the phone, but then took it off again.
He would leave a personal message for his other half and tell him
what happened while he slumbered. It took him a few minutes, but he
managed to videotape a somewhat coherent rundown of what had
happened. He placed the phone down and slapped the post-it on top
of the screen.

His gaze slid to Hecate's Stone which
Professor Leander wanted, and the damn thing stared back… Well, if
it had eyes it would have been staring back, but it did seem alive,
pulsing with energy. His eyes narrowed as his vision blurred. He
was going to pass out after all. Why was the stone glowing? His
gaze landed on the blood smeared across it. "Blood would activate
the stone… Bollocks, that can't be good." His head fell forward,
bouncing on the desk. He was dying and for a moment he wondered if
he'd come back to life as a zombie. "A zombie Gryphon…" he
murmured. A shiver of dread slid through his veins as that horrific
thought took root.

Chapter Sixteen

The van door slid open, and Calli squinted
against the light filtering in. It wasn't bright out, but the van
didn't have any windows and she'd been in the dark for some time.
The sound of traffic, and an occasional honking of a horn told her
they were no longer in the outskirts of town, but in the city. She
didn't realize Professor Leander had an office in Arizona, but then
she did own a corporation and told her she had numerous locations.
Since she'd been spying on her, it made sense she'd be hovering
close.

Once the van stopped moving, she scooted with
her feet away from the door to the farthest point of the van. Her
hands were tied behind her back, but they didn't bind her feet, and
she wore steel-toe boots. Bert's companion with the long hair,
pulled back in a ponytail, stepped into the van. He reached down to
grab her arm and she let him have it right between the legs.

His strangled cry echoed in the vehicle and
he fell hard...on top of her. "
Ugh!
" The air went out of her
in a
whoosh
when the full weight of the man hit her. She
wasn't sure what hurt worse, her head being slammed against the
panel or her arms being smashed behind her.
So much for that
brilliant plan.

Bert stepped in to investigate. His hand
whipped out to grab Mr. Ponytail and roll him away without a second
glance. He then turned his attention onto her. His hand snaked out
and he hauled her out of the van, none too gently. "If you try any
funny business with me, Miss Angelis, I won't hesitate in showing
you how funny I can be." A knife materialized in his hand – long,
pointed, and sharp. "The professor wants you alive, but she didn't
say in what condition I should deliver you. Do I make myself
clear?"

She swallowed back the lump in her throat and
nodded.

"Good," he said and smiled. He wasn't a bad
looking man if one was into thirty-something thugs with a mean
streak, which she was not.

"You know smugness doesn't become you," she
told him.

"And being a smartass doesn't become you,
Miss Angelis. Now let's go." He ushered her toward the high-rise
made of glass and stone, impressive among the other brick and
mortar buildings surrounding it. Her wrists were raw from trying to
escape the confines, and the way Bert pulled on her arm made them
hurt worse.

"Move it," Bert said when she tried to slow
her steps. His fingers bit into her upper arm and she winced. She'd
already decided the bastard would get it first for shooting
Darrien. Making it happen couldn't come too soon.

Inside the building, they took the elevator
and she hadn't been overly surprised when he hit the button for the
top floor. If Professor Leander was indeed a Gryphon – and Calli
was pretty sure she was – the woman would most likely want access
to the roof so she could take flight with ease.

Ding…ding…ding…
was the only sound in
the elevator. Bert and his other cohort didn't speak, but faced
forward, waiting for the doors to open. She would have taken awful
elevator music over the
chimes
of impending doom.

Finally, the elevator halted with a slight
rise and fall motion, and the doors slid open…and what do you
know…another
ding
. Bert nudged her forward and they headed
down a corridor brightly lit with overhead lights. Classical music
played in the background. Now there was music. She rolled her
eyes.

She admired the artwork on the walls and
couldn't help but notice there was a large range of talent
displayed. Renoir, Van Gogh, and Waterhouse just to name a few she
recognized. It was like walking into a museum of fine art with the
way the paintings were arranged.

They reached a door at the end of the hall
and one of the thugs opened it for them. Bert let her go ahead of
him, but he by no means let go of her arm. Once inside, he shoved
her in front of Professor Leander who sat behind a sleek, black
desk.

Calli stumbled forward, but managed not to
fall on her face. She threw Bert a dirty look over her shoulder,
letting him know how much she didn't like being pushed around. She
then leveled her gaze on the professor sitting queen-like in her
throne of black-leather. Instead of a wall behind her, a large
window appeared to open up to the heavens. Just how high up were
they?

Professor Leander wore her dark hair in a
tight bun, giving her eyes a slanted exotic appearance, and her
makeup was polished with just a tad of blush to give color to her
cheeks. The professional getup – blouse, jacket, and possibly
slacks or a skirt… She'd have to stand for Calli to know which, but
whatever the case, the outfit made the professor appear as if she
were a respected executive at a high-end paying job.