Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 5 (25 page)

Aradia hung her head. "I am
sorry Kaiser. I really am. I didn't mean to stand you up. I wanted
to meet you but my boyfriend..."

She stopped herself.
After the way he has treated me, how can I still
call him my boyfriend?

"Your boyfriend what?"
Kaiser inquired and raised an eyebrow.

Aradia sighed. She may have
been getting her energy back but one week was hardly enough to undo
months of drugs and booze. Therefore, she was still powerless but
most especially her injuries were not fully healed.

As she had done when she saw
Shayde she pulled off her hood. Kaiser's eyes widened as he saw
Aradia's injuries.

"Sweet Jesus!" He gasped,
"what happened to you?"

"You ever heard the phrase
'love is a battlefield' ?" Aradia quipped sarcastically, "well Saul
takes it way too literally."

Kaiser opened and closed his
mouth awkwardly. Until finally he clenched his fist and muttered,
"I will kill that son of a bitch!"

Aradia, with painful
difficulty, raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Kaiser stood flabbergasted.
"Why?! Jesus Aradia, have you looked in a mirror lately? Have you
seen what he did to you? I mean seriously look at your
face."

Aradia hung her head. "I
can't without crying and the salt in my tears sting my
face."

Kaiser didn't know what to
say. He just ran his fingers through his hair. "My God Aradia, is
there anything I can do?"

Aradia raised her face to
meet Kaiser's. "Actually there is you can tell me what you were
going to tell me when we were suppose to meet up."

Kaiser's jaw dropped in
surprise. "You're serious? After what your boyfriend did to you,
you still want to know about the drug trade?"

Aradia didn't break his
gaze. "Yes I do and I will tell you why. The drug was used to
poison the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack back in Salem. Only he got
the drug, not from a dealer, but from his doctor! Another thing,
Saul showing up out of the blue and saying he knows all about my
past...I don't care what he says because it still seems awful
suspicious."

"Furthermore," Aradia added
and leaned in a bit closer. Her whisper dropping to that of a
whisper, "I think that there might be a connection."

Her words had a curious
effect on Kaiser. His brow wrinkled and then his eyes
widened.

"Get inside," he hissed,
"hurry!"

Once inside his apartment,
Kaiser bolted the apartment with three different
deadbolts.

"After the last time we
talked," Kaiser said, "I did some research and it turns out I was
right that whoever is making the stuff has some serious cash.
Enough cash to buy a whole factory to manufacture the stuff, and
their own trucks to transport the things."

"I thought you said that
stuff was imported," said Aradia.

Kaiser snorted. "Apparently,
I was wrong."

Aradia smirked just as
Kaiser went on. "I did some more digging and was able to find out
where the factory is."

Aradia shot straight up from
her seat. "Take me there!"

Kaiser took Aradia along the
outskirts of the city until they came to an ominous area surrounded
by fences and eerie street lights. Trash littered the streets and
abandoned stripped cars sat near the curbs like garbage cans. What
Aradia found interesting were there no people anywhere near the
factory. No bums sitting on the street drinking out of paper bags,
and no sketchy hooded guys leaning against the lamp posts
smoking.

"It's cause they know this
place is off limits," Kaiser explained, "before the factory got
bought people hung out here but once it got occupied people started
disappearing. A more or less subtle way of showing that this area
is extremely dangerous to those who shouldn't be here."

Aradia and Kaiser were
sitting on top of the buildings that stood over ten feet from the
factory. They were far enough away as to not draw attention to
themselves and yet close enough to see what was going on. Not that
there was much going on save for the lights being seen in the
windows. The windows, however, were too fogged up for anything
besides the light to be seen.

"How do we get inside?"
Aradia asked.

Kaiser laughed. "We
don't."

"Why not?"

Kaiser threw his head back
and laughed harder. "The factory is surrounded by a thousand
voltage fence, guarded by fifty vampires, twenty attack dogs with
video cameras every square inch."

"See that gate," Keon said
as he pointed, "that's the only way in and it's almost impossible
to do so without proper authorization. At least not without getting
killed!"

"How do you know all this?"
Aradia demanded.

"About a week ago, some poor
sucker tried to sneak in. I am guessing he was one of those serious
junkies completely hooked on the shit. He tried to get in to get
more access to the stuff."

"But the stuff is dirt
cheap," Aradia argued, "why would he bother?"

Keon shrugged. "Maybe he was
broke or maybe he just tired of paying for the stuff and wanted it
for free."

Aradia nodded at the
validity of that. She then turned back to survey the building.
Pretty much what Kaiser said was true. Vampires patrolled the area
with two guard dogs, the fence was so electrified that looked like
it was glowing in the night, and Aradia could see shiny specks
moving around the tops of the fences.
I am
guessing those are the cameras.

Aradia was still feeling too
weak to use her powers and besides devising a tactic into getting
into the factory would take weeks or even months. She didn't have
that kind of time! Frustrated, she rubbed her hand over her face.
As her fingers spread over her eyes, she noticed
something.

"What about the
roof?"

Kaiser was stunned. "What
about it?"

"Do you know anything about
the roof?" Aradia asked.

Kaiser cocked his head.
"Considering that we are like ten feet away from the building and I
am werewolf not a werebird not much."

Aradia squinted her eyes.
"Roofs on factories usually have access panels right? Or at least
doors to access the roof..."

Kaiser shrugged while Aradia
just raised an eyebrow.

Kaiser could guess by the
look of seriousness what she was thinking. "So what? You're planing
on getting a broomstick and fly up there?"'

Aradia didn't even dignify
that with an answer. Instead she stared at the building and all
it's defenses.
Kaiser does have a point
though, you would have to fly in to get on top of that roof without
being noticed. Fly or at least have wings.

The last thought made Aradia
pause. A small curious smile then slowly began to curve up her
lips.

Aradia knew finding one
gargoyle in the city of New York would be hard but she had to try.
At least she had some ways of narrowing the search down. The
vampire that had attacked her had been near Kaiser's apartment, and
the building had had a pool. Although the night was still a jumble
she did the best she could to find the building. She looked in
every building within five block radius of Kaiser's apartment
building. To help keep her safe, Shayde and Whisper accompanied
her. It also made the search go a lot more quicker.

"I didn't find anything,"
Whisper declared as she left one of the buildings.

Shayde nodded but couldn't
stop herself from asking, "how did you get invited in?"

Whisper raised an eyebrow
and stared at Shayde until she finally said, "oh yeah."

"You keep forgetting that
all I have to do is take off the glasses and I can hypnotize
anybody." Whisper embellished this by taking off her glasses and
raising her eyebrows playfully.

Shayde laughed and hugged
her. Whisper also laughed and put her glasses back on. She wrapped
her arms around her bride and held her close. Slowly Shayde lifted
her head and stared into Whisper's eyes. Their expressions became
blank as they both closed their eyes and leaned in forwards. They
then kissed each other passionately at least until Aradia cleared
her throat.

"Sorry," she said, "I don't
meant to interrupt but..."

"We know," Shadye said as
she nodded. "You have a drug bust to make."

Aradia laughed under her
breath. Whisper just coughed and said, "we've checked all the
buildings, no luck so far on finding the elevator you
described."

"Then I guess it's a good
thing I just found it," Aradia said with a smile.

After inviting the couple
into the building, Aradia and the others took the elevator to the
top floor.

"Just what exactly are we
looking for?" Whisper asked as they stepped outside.

"A gargoyle," Aradia
explained which didn't explain that much to Whisper.

Noticing the confused look
on her bride's face Shayde asked, "Why?"

Aradia waved a hand at them.
"I will explain later."

She neared the edge of the
building and gazed around. She knew there was a one in a million
chance that Agrippa would even be near here but such a chance was
better than nothing. However, whether it was by pure luck or not
Aradia saw something.

"Whisper," Aradia asked,
"can you see what is over there?"

She indicted where by
pointing with her whole arm. Whisper moved closer and narrowed her
eyes.

"Holy shit!" Whisper
murmured, "You are right something is there!"

"What?" Aradia sounded
extremely anxious.

At first all Whisper could
do was shrug. "I can't see it too clearly but what I can see is
something that has pointed bat like ears and a bat
snout..."

Aradia looked like Christmas
had come early this year.

Or perhaps a more
appropriate holiday would be Halloween especially with what Aradia,
Shayde, and Whisper found. The reason Whisper hadn't been able to
see Agrippa clearly was the fact that he had been blocked by three
other gargoyles. All of them resembling bats except with a few
major differences. One of them had pearly white alabaster skin with
ram horns on their head and as snout shaped like a dog's. Another
had a horn in the middle of their forehead, and wider eyes with
small pupils. His skin was a deep gray like weathered granite. The
last one had a cat snout and it's skin was a deep brown.

"Dear God," Whisper
muttered.

Shayde merely
nodded.

Aradia looked around at them
until she finally spotted Agrippa. She walked over to him and
tapped him on the shoulder. He didn't move, he was still as cold as
stone.

Aradia sighed.
Now what do I do?

"How do we get them to wake
up?" Shayde inquired.

Aradia opened her mouth to
say, "I don't know" but then saw out of the corner of her eye that
the sun was setting.

I wonder
...Aradia thought as she turned to stare at Agrippa. Nothing
had happened so far but then again the sun hadn't set completely
yet.

Once it did, Aradia heard
something. It sounded like stone cracking. She then looked back at
Agrippa and saw large crevices appearing in his skin. Aradia,
Shayde, and Whisper backed away and pressed themselves against the
wall. Soon the crevices grew larger as large chunks of fall began
to fall off their skin. Each of the gargoyles's eyes began to glow
bright yellow as their limbs started to move and then with one huge
yell all of the gargoyles burst to life. They stretched out their
arms like a child would except their stretching was accompanied by
loud ferocious roar. Their big feet gripped the sides of the walls
and crunched them causing small stones that fell to the ground like
snowflakes.

At first the gargoyles
looked like terrifying monsters when they awoke but once the stone
skin had fallen off they behaved more like grown men waking up from
a deep sleep. Complete with scratching under their arms and
yawning.

Aradia, Shayde, and Whisper
stayed quiet as mice at least until one of the gargoyles noticed
them.

"Heads up guys," he said,
"we got company!"

All of the gargoyles spun
around and saw the three women. At first they all just stated at
each other in tense silence but then Agrippa's eyes
narrowed.

He pointed at Aradia with a
long clawed finger. "Don't I know you?"

Aradia breathed a sigh of
relief. "Yeah you do! You saved me remember?"

Agrippa raised an eyebrow
and after a few moments he said, "oh yeah."

He then hopped off the ledge
and turned to stare at them. He then folded his arms and leaned
back. "So? What do you want?"

Aradia sighed heavily.
"First, I wanted to apologize for standing you up but you got to
believe me that it wasn't really my fault."