Stone Guardian (6 page)

A couple Council members gave half-nods at Nalith’s words, though none would speak aloud after Terak’s earlier rebuke.

“While I do not disagree about the chaos the gods cause, it matters little in this situation. She was attacked in the agreed upon timeframe, and we will determine if this is what the Oracle alluded to before we leave the human.” Nalith’s jaw clenched and he sat. Terak continued, “We will watch the human. We will meet tomorrow at first light and continue this discussion. Now, I must go. Until the morrow.”

Krikus nodded. “Agreed.” The other Council members nodded, though Terak could not tell those who were displaying their true feelings from those who did not wish anger him any further.

Terak left and headed back to Larissa. He needed to speak to Valry as well, but that he would leave to later. Larissa had been alone long enough.

The young warrior was holding a phone when Terak approached the door. He took the phone and entered the room.

Larissa was still by the fire, looking into the flame as though all answers could be found there. She looked up with the opening of the door, first focusing on his face, then on the small black phone held in his hand.

He held it out to her and she walked as fast as she could without running to grab the phone from his hand.

While she dialed the number and said, “Dad,” into the receiver, Terak pondered the schism within his Clan, the one even now Nalith and Valry were working to exploit – between those who wished to have contact with the outside world versus those who wished to remain as they had always been, self-sufficient and without any outside encumbrances save for favors owed them.

Encumbrances this one human woman exemplified.

And as she said, “Yes, Dad, I owe you big. Promise, next time I’m there… Yes, Dad, with a skirt and make-up,” Terak knew how to answer her question and convince her that he should be allowed to stay at her side.

It hadn’t been this hard to part with a phone since she was fourteen and had been waiting for Jared Thompson to ask her to junior prom, but as Terak held out a massive hand, Larissa placed the shiny black rectangle there without any outward sign of her struggle.

“I was able to convince Dad not to send out a search party by promising to be there for brunch tomorrow,” she said, aware even as the words were leaving her mouth that such a blatant warning would do nothing more than amuse the gargoyle in front of her.

Thankfully he didn’t laugh, though she could swear a ghost of a smile played on his lips. Instead he said, “You will be there, do not worry.”

The reassurance beat back the fear that had begun creeping through her psyche while he was gone. She nodded toward the door. “It must be hard to be in charge, people always needing you for something.”

“It is my duty and my role to fulfill.”

He said that without any boast or pridefulness. It was a statement of fact, his calling made into words. “Why are you the leader? Were you elected?”

“My father was leader. At his death, I took his place.”

“So you are a king?”

“Not quite.” He went to the couch in front of the fireplace and sat down. There was a natural elegance about him, so at odds with the warrior exterior. His wings folded around him with enough of an opening to allow her to still see his hands and chest. “While leadership is passed down through a bloodline, the
Mennak
must also be the strongest. Any gargoyle may issue challenge to claim the title.”

“
Mennak?
”

“The title of the leader.”

“What kind of challenge?”

He didn’t answer, not in words, but the way the question made his eyes flicker from hers answered it anyway. Before the Collision, the Magic Realm was closely related to Earth’s medieval feudal societies. She knew that as a fact found in books and as lectures written in chalk, but it never impressed itself upon her as deeply as right now.

Terak rose then. He motioned around the room. “These books contain histories created by gargoyles of all the races, dating back tens of thousands of years from the Magic Realm, information that can only be found in this one room. They are observations, studies of outsiders looking in. There are very few interactions between my people and those of the outside world. Gargoyles have long kept ourselves apart from the other races. But with the Great Collision, many of my people wish to experience the New Realm not as outsiders, but as part of the fabric of this new world.”

“It’s a worthy goal,” Larissa said, not sure where he was going with this.

“It is hard to let go of millennia of suspicions – on both sides – but it must start somewhere. Perhaps the first step needed is a gargoyle helping a human woman escape from necromancers. Let us watch over you as a first step.”

So he was back to talking about guarding her. “You did that tonight. Why take it further?”

“Necromancers are an enemy of my people as well. Whatever plan you are part of can bring no good to anyone of this world. Not your people, nor mine.”

What if he was right?
As terrifying as the night had been, there was comfort in the knowledge it was a case of horrific timing, an event that would never be repeated.

But if she had been targeted? If it was not some random woman on the street, but
her
they had been waiting for?

She plopped onto the couch, no strength left in her legs to hold her up. She looked at Terak, his sculpted face taking on a pinched expression of worry as he watched her. “You’re wrong,” she said, the tiny voice coming from her mouth sounding nothing like her.

He came to kneel before her. “I hope I am,” he said, putting one hand on the couch beside her leg. “But if I am not, I want to be there to protect you.”

Memory struck her, bringing to mind another question. “The woman and man from tonight, the ones who were also fighting the zombies – do you know who they are?”

“Yes. They are members of the Guild.”

The Guild. She had never heard of them. “Are they good guys?”

There was a considering pause before he answered. “They are protectors.”

“Of humans?”

“Of anyone the necromancers target.”

His words were very measured, and no way she was getting the whole story here. “You sound like you don’t like them.”

“Our history together is too complex to explore this late at night. Though we are not enemies, there have been clashes.”

Probably not the only moment in gargoyle history where a personality conflict occurred. “Fair enough. But you said they were protectors. What about going to them and letting them protect me? They’re supposed to protect humans, right?” And they seemed to be human themselves. Well, at least one of them did. Sorta.

Onyx eyes locked on to her, not allowing Larissa to look away. “They will protect you. They will protect you by locking you up in a room and allowing no one to come near you until they discover what use the necromancers have for you.”

His eyes were too dark, too direct. Larissa looked away, the flickering shadows over a millennia of knowledge drawing her attention.

Did this night have to keep getting worse? What were her options here?

If he was telling the truth, then trying to contact the Guild would amount to jail time. Any self-respecting cop’s kid had a healthy loathing at the thought of jail. And really, did she know anything more about them than she did the gargoyles?

Nope, she knew exactly the same about both groups – a big old zilch.

She should have… she should have learned. She could have done it without upsetting dad, and if she had bothered, and maybe she would know what decision to make. She had wanted to once, why didn’t it occur to her she was allowed to change her mind and go back to it?

Hindsight and all that. It didn’t change the now, and in the now, the only organization she could trust would be the police.

But she didn’t want Dad involved in this. He could not know what was going on, not yet.

He would disagree with her, in loud and vehement tones. If he ever found out she was hiding tonight from him, he’d ream her up one side of the block and down the other, then proceed to tan her hide as he hadn’t done since she was a little girl.

He wouldn’t understand. He would be hurt that she didn’t come to him.

But… Larissa clenched her teeth hard against the image of the zombie that pushed itself to the front of her mind. She wouldn’t cry again, that was done with.

But she didn’t want him against those creatures and that magic, that strength. He was a fighter through and through, but he wasn’t a young man anymore, and Dad had already gone through one war with the creatures brought here by the Great Collision, a battle which cost him dearly. She never wanted him to go through that again.

Besides, if she was right –
and I am right
– this was a mistake. This was random. Bringing Dad in on it would only cause problems for her. Dad would move her back to the family house in two seconds flat, the brothers carting her back kicking and screaming if that’s what it took.

As much as she loved her father, she didn’t want that. She’d been gone from home not even a year. She didn’t want to lose her hard won freedom.

Larissa focused again on Terak. His eyes were still steady on her, his jaw set as he waited to counter her next argument.

What she needed was time, time to figure out what was going on and somehow come up with a solution.

“How would you protect me?”

That jaw relaxed a fraction at her words. No doubt he considered the battle won. “You will go about your life and we will be near.”

“You expect me to go into the grocery store with my gargoyle bodyguard?”

And there is was again, that tiny curl to his lips that disappeared almost before it registered. She seemed to amuse him. “You will never know we are there. You will only see us should another attack occur.”

She didn’t see how it was possible something as big and alien as a gargoyle could hide in the city, but Terak radiated conviction. He absolutely believed she would never know they were near.

Which meant entering the city was not a one-time event or something he thought of as dangerous.

Which meant the wards – those magical barriers in which she had placed absolute trust and belief in for all these years – were worthless.

She got up, walking past the bookshelves, trying to ease the unsettled sensation in her stomach. All her life the wards had been an absolute – never worry about the outside races, the wards will keep them out. Had it always been a lie?

With a delicate touch she stroked the outside of a very old binding, breathing deep the scent of wondrous decay that always accompanied large libraries. The familiar and much-loved perfume helped release some of the tension holding fast in her shoulders, her arms, her back. One worry at a time. Right now it was getting back home. “I won’t know you’re there?” she verified, taking up their conversation.

He leaned forward a fraction. “No, you will not.”

Larissa gave a small laugh, rubbing the back of her neck as she returned to the couch. “It has to be the exhaustion, but I’m going to agree to this.” Before he could say anything Larissa added, “As long as we have a few ground rules.”

While his face remained impassive, Larissa noticed the tip of his tail twitched.
Interesting.
She filed that away for future reference and went on with her list. “First, we need a time limit. I don’t want to be an eighty year old granny wondering if a gargoyle is following me.”

“A year,” said Terak.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a month.”

Terak shook his head. “Necromancers are immortal. They can afford patience. One month is nothing to them. They will want to give you time to forget this and let down your guard.”

She sighed. He had a point. “Two months.”

“A year.”

“Three months.”

“A year.”

“You haven’t had much experience with negotiation, have you?”

His head tilted, as though even the thought was foreign and without precedent. “Most follow my orders without question.”

That’s right. He was the leader here. “Then let me be clear. There is no way I’m agreeing to a year. Six months you can follow me around. After that, when there are no more attacks and you see how boring my life is, no more bodyguards. Agreed?”

There it was, another tail twitch, but his voice was steady when he said, “Agreed. Six months. But when another attack does happen, we will renegotiate the timeframe.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re kind of hoping I get jumped.”

“Not at all. I know this enemy and am preparing for battle instead of living in a dream world.”

Was that snark? Did he just snark at her? With that theatre-actor voice and impassive face it was hard to tell, but she’d lay odds it was snark. Still, he was agreeing so far, so she didn’t comment and pressed on. “Rule two, I don’t want Valry to be one of my bodyguards.”

Forget his former impassiveness. Shock was now writ large across his face. “Valry?”

“Yes, the female gargoyle from the roof. I do not want her ever to guard me. Never ever. If it’s a choice between her and no one, you go with no one. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” he said quickly. Too quickly. That settled it, her gut was right about Valry. Joy.

“Third and final. If you’re right about all this – and that’s a big if – and you find something out about why I was targeted, you have to share with me. No handling things on your own. No plans without me knowing about them.”

“Why do you desire this?”

One thing this night taught her beyond all doubt - all males were lunkheads, all of them. She recognized that
protect the poor helpless girl and don’t worry her little wee head
tone. “I’m not stupid. I’m not going to run into a situation I have no business being in to show no one can boss me around. I’m not a warrior and tonight made that clear in large neon signage. But I deserve to know about events that concern me and help make the decisions on how to handle them.”

His jaw tightened as he considered her words. He really didn’t want to agree, she knew that like she knew her name. But this was a deal-breaker.