Guardian of the Abyss (5 page)

He brought her a cooked fish, then went back to what he was doing. Curious, she walked over to check it out. He was picking up sand from a small pile on the ground. Then his palms would glow as if with compressed light. His eyes squished tightly closed, he muttered for a few seconds, then began to press the sand onto something he was making.

Hours passed and she grew bored. Then exhaustion set in and she went to sleep. When she awoke, she saw what he had been making. It looked like a statue of the bottom of a fish jumping out of the water. She assumed he would finish the top half of it when he came back. It was incredible work, and she wondered how he could do it without tools.

Then she remembered that this was hell. He probably didn't need tools in his own environment. Master of all he surveyed, and all that. She looked over at the water, already knowing by the fact that she could see somewhat, that it was day. She idly wondered what caused the glow. Was it the portal to the next level of hell, where they had daily burning torture sessions?

The gloomy, terrifying thought made her turn away and curl back up. This place was depressing, and without Abaddon, doubly so.  She didn't want to think about the possibility of him off burning someone on the next level of hell, so she went back to sleep, instead.

The next time that she awoke, the statue stood silent in the room, Abaddon sitting beside it and staring at it. She sat beside him, looking at it. The room was dark, but from the slight glow from Abaddon's skin, she could make it out.

It wasn't a fish, it was a mermaid. A very, very beautiful mermaid with a familiar face. It looked almost exactly like Sarah herself. She stared at it in awe. She looked at him, "That's amazing!" she gushed.

He just stared at her. She looked back at the statue, amazed. It was quite possibly one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen. Although the angle was wrong, as it looked like it should be sideways. The mermaid's hair and the splash of the wave fell forward, rather than down.

She examined it, and soon realized that he had turned her into a mermaid water spout. Turned on its front, the mermaid could be attached to a building, and the water would run along her back and through her hair. It was phenomenal, but it was also slightly creepy.

As if he wanted to turn her into a gargoyle, too.

When the thought struck, it struck hard and deep. Alarmed, she turned to him. Regret showed on his face, but he had her before she could react to the truth she saw there. Too weak to fight him off, even at her best, she had absolutely no way to escape him now that she was weak and sick.

She cried, struggled, fought, and in the end... she lost. When it was over, he had her trapped between his legs, one massive hand holding both of hers with ease. She met his eyes, and she would swear--if he hadn't been a demon hell-bent on turning her into a demon, too--that there was sympathy, regret, and pain in his face. She would never be fooled by him again, though.

He reached out and put his hand on the chest of the water-spout statue. He closed his eyes and began to mutter.

It was then that the torture finally began.

Chapter 7

Abbadon watched the change take her. She was no longer aware, the pain of the change having sent her mind into retreat. Weary and heartsick, he cradled her in his lap. Watching her suffer the torment of the change had devastated him. Once begun, he had been unable to stop, else she would die immediately. So he had persevered to the end, hating himself, hating life, and mourning for her.

Now the worst was over. Calling on his sorcerer's powers, he let his awareness sink into her. She was altering on a cellular level, her body changing. The change had been successful, but it was different from his own, and that fact etched concern deep within him.

Worse than that, he had to go capture what remained of the day's sunlight and leave her alone inside their grotto home. The change crept along in her, and he finally laid her gently down on the floor, knowing the cold would no longer make her convulse to keep warm.

Once outside, he let the sun's dying rays wash over him. It wasn't nearly enough to replenish all that he had used to do the magic of her change. In fact, he knew deep down that, unless he made it to the shore where there was dry Earth and wind, he would not recover. With that realization came a strange admixture of peace and remorse. He would condemn her to a life alone on the bottom of the ocean. Yet he would not have to live with the loathing sure to come.

When he returned inside, he found Sarah in her stone form. His eyes, a billion times more sensitive than human eyes, took in the beauty of her stone form. Although he had formed it himself through magic and skill, he could not believe the wonder of it. He had formed her gargoyle form from interlaced pieces of granite, so that the waves were blue, her tail green, her body beige, and her hair brown. Her delicate arms covered her naked breasts, but he had embedded bright red rubies for her fingernails, as they were red now.  Every time he saw them, he wondered, but it was too beautiful not to be included in the statue.

He'd also ensured that she had a freedom that most gargoyles did not possess... she could be a regular statue, or she could choose to be a water spout. Most gargoyles were either a water spout, or what was called a 'grotesque', a statue that was more a caricature than a real statue. Forms acceptable to the magic of gargoyles were limited in scope. In a sense, a mermaid fit as a grotesque, since a mermaid was a human-fish chimera. However, he had hedged his bets with the fact that she was also a water-spout, the drain running up her back as part of the splash of water. He hadn't been able to bring himself to mar her back by running a tunnel through it.

He could only hope that at least in part, his chosen form for her would redeem the terrible thing he had done. It was doubtful, but he had pinned his faith on the possibility. Perhaps once her mind was her own again, she would see him differently. That, however, was beyond his ability to even wish for. Just as well wish to be back on dry land.

She was far lovelier than the statue he had made to copy from, though. To his vision, life danced just beneath the surface of the granite, creating an inner glow that spoke of the life within. No gargoyle could fool another in his--or now her--stone form. But nor could any gargoyle sneak up on another who was in stone form, so there were trade-offs that equalized them in the possibility that they might one day go to war against each other.

Abaddon would have once thought that impossible, but he remembered well the lessons of Lilith and Thanatos. He wondered if Sarah would find being a gargoyle as hateful as Lilith had. Lilith, of course, had blamed Abaddon. He'd had nothing at all to do with her transformation, but still she blamed him. And no matter how they had tried to force him to rape her, he had refused. Still she had hated him. He was glad she was dead.

He was far more pleased, however, that Sarah was not dead. During the transformation, he had felt how close her mortal body had been to the final precipice. It had been far closer than he had imagined, and had he lingered over the task much longer, it would have been far too late for her.

Running a finger down her smooth cheek, he was struck by a pang of concern. She was very cold, not much warmer than the stone he stood on. A gargoyle's energy level could be sensed by how warm or cold he or she was. A fully energized gargoyle could be warm to the touch even in cold weather, as if the sun had warmed it. A practiced gargoyle could hide his energy level from others, but it took effort. Far more effort and training than Sarah could possibly muster as a newly created gargoyle.

Which could only mean that her energy level was dangerously low. He shifted to stone form beside her. He could siphon off a bit of his own energy to give to her, but even if he could charge himself to full, it would never be more than a trickle.

He reached through the stone of the floor for her, where he found her mind quiescent within the statue. Would she ever return to wakefulness, or had he bungled it? Had he turned her too late, and her mind had fled? It would seem not to be so, since her mind was there, simply quiet and undisturbed. Only time would tell.

*  *  *  *

Sarah woke slowly. In the back of her mind was a strange roaring sound, like hundreds of people at a convention, all talking at the same time. It was a queer sensation, rippling there as waves upon a distant shore.

In front of her stood the statue that Abaddon had made, but it was different now. She could see it with absolute, incredible clarity, as if it were in the bright sun. It was, in a word, splendid. She wasn't sure that she'd ever seen anything so marvelous in her life.

She looked around, at first disoriented by the feeling that her vision was shifting, but her eyes weren't. It took her a moment to realize that she could see everything around her all at the same time, and the only thing shifting was her focus.

Then she noticed the other stone beside her. This one pulsed with life in time with the bright spots of the light on the walls. It was remarkable in its inherent beauty, though its surface was flawed, even ugly. It looked as if someone had scoured it, and while it had likely once been some sort of winged imp or the like, it was now barely recognizable.

She stared at it for long moments before she understood that this was Abaddon's stone form. She'd had no idea while the lights were out, just how beautiful it really was. Even if it was ugly on the surface, it held a living magnificence that even the statue in front of her couldn't hold a candle to.

"Sarah?" came Abaddon's voice in her head.

Whoa, he was telepathic? This whole time, he was telepathic? She couldn't believe it.

"What?" she demanded, irritated.

"Are you well?"

She ignored the question to ask her own, "You could speak English this whole time, you bastard?"

"No. I'm still not speaking your language. We are communicating by sending our thoughts to each other on a sub-atomic level. You are taking my thought concepts and translating them to your own language."

"You know that makes no sense, right? I can't send thoughts."

"You can, now that you are a gargoyle," came the answer. "We cannot speak this way much longer, it will take too much of your remaining strength."

"Why did you do this to me?" She was unable to keep the despair from rising up within her.

"Your mortal form was dying. You cannot survive down here."

"You can die in hell? How can I die when I'm already dead?" Didn't he realize how absurd the very notion was?

"You are not dead, and this is not hell. Though it has always certainly felt that way to me. This is the bottom of the ocean."

She scoffed. "Prove it."

"Very well," came the answer. "Though understand that once in the water, we cannot communicate this way until we return into here."

"Sure, whatever," she answered.

Then she watched him transform, and she couldn't help but stare in amazed awe. It was a stunning experience, seeing the unparalleled splendor of that change. Yet when it was over, she was just as awestruck by his humanoid form. She had thought him a beautiful specimen before, but now she was transfixed.

He was utterly magnificent. A colossus, he rose from the ground, massive body gleaming in the lights someone had turned on. She could see the perfection of his skin, the curves and valleys of his muscles. It was as if someone had turned her vision up by many magnitudes.

He picked her up easily and carried her towards the water. That was the moment that she realized what he was going to do. Panic set in. She couldn't survive in the water; he mustn't take her there! She struggled, but it was as if he didn't even notice.

Abruptly, they plunged into the water, and Sarah braced herself for the agony of her breath being driven from her lungs again.

Coolness closed in around her, and then there was falling. It was as if she'd gone from the inside of an unheated building, out into a frigid winter day. It didn't hurt, exactly. She knew the change in temperature was there, and she felt some mild discomfort, as if someone was sitting on her. Other than that, there was just a feeling of resistance as he pushed through the water.

A few steps later and she realized that he'd been telling the truth. All around her was the same ring of coral that she and James had come to photograph. She could see it all with astonishing panoramic three-hundred-sixty degree clarity. She found she could focus in and zoom in on any area she wanted to, simply by wanting to.

It was astounding, and for long moments, she could do nothing but stare in wonder. She watched fish darting or lazing about. She saw particles of sand, glittering in the sun. Within the living creatures, including the coral, she could see a brilliant glow.

She felt the warm glow of the sun on her skin and basked in it.

For a long time, she felt almost euphoric as she studied the wonders of the undersea life surrounding her. The gleam of scales, the flick of a tail... the warm glow that suffused all the living creatures. All about her, the water teemed with creatures so tiny that she shouldn't have been able to see them. But if she focused, she could look so closely at them that she could make out hairs on their infinitesimal little legs. It was far beyond a dream come true. To sit in the water and watch the daily lives of these creatures, without the necessity of breathing? No diver, free-diver or otherwise, could resist that sort of lure.