The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) (19 page)

BOOK: The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1)
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Chapter 22

 

 

Weird dreams filled my sleep and a beautiful light beckoned to me. Of course light like that usually meant death, so even asleep I ran in the opposite direction. Tossing and turning, I flung myself off the sofa.

To find three faeries watching me with psychotic attention. If the events of the last few days hadn’t made me a bit jaded, I would have been terrified to have those three looking at me like that. I still was concerned.

They weren’t mad or drunk. They were interested.

Something far, far worse.

“Girls?” I stretched and tried to pull myself back onto the sofa without actually standing. Last night was mostly a blur. I did remember Marcos and possibly the best kiss I’d ever had. Everything else was fuzzy. “Where have you been?”

Finally succeeding in pulling myself up onto the sofa, I flopped back onto the blanket. Marcos must have covered me up.

“Him, we travel with him.” Garbage said, still watching me closely.

I had to fight the urge to look behind me and make sure I hadn’t grown wings or a tail. “Him who, sweetie? Harlan?”

All three of them burst into giggles at that. “No, silly. Uncle Harlan not like
him
.”

I wasn’t up to playing mind games with three little mad women. “Who were you with? A name. I would like a name, a real name for whoever you were with.” They started to answer, but I flung up one hand to hold them off. “And don’t say ‘him’.”

Names were often problematic for the girls, so they regularly made up new ones for people. I was hoping my command to give me a real name would make them think harder on it.

All three sets of shoulders slumped forward; they were going to say ‘him’ again.

Let’s go about this another way. Where had the girls been last I saw them? My brain was far fuzzier than a normal night of binge drinking, but I recalled they took off with Alric at some point. It felt like weeks ago.

“Alric? Have you been with him?”

Three pairs of bright eyes lit up and all three heads bobbed. Somehow he’d gone from enemy number-one—besides the squirrel family—to their hero referred to only as ‘him’.

I liked it better when they wanted to kill him.

“Then where were you?”

“Traveling. Brought you flower.” Leaf piped up as she fluttered over to my sofa and handed me a lovely, tiny, flower. It was of a shade of lavender I’d never seen before and so delicate I was certain it would be wilted within hours.

Of course I still had no idea where they had been. Maybe I could get Covey to identify this flower, but with my luck it was a common weed in the richer parts of town. Place names were even more problematic for the faeries to recall than people names. Wherever they were at that moment, was ‘here’. Anything else was ‘not here’.

And traveling could be anywhere at all.

“Right, thanks for the flower, girls. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Alric lately?” Now where did that come from? I really didn’t care where he was. Did I? No, the consensus was no. I think.

“He had more traveling,” Leaf said.

Crusty peered closer into my face. “He tell us to watch you.”

Ah crap. The faeries rarely took suggestions, but if they did they took they them literally. I was lucky I hadn’t woken up with them sitting on me.

How in the hell was I going to get rid of them? I started my new job today, and showing up being watched by tiny flying nut jobs was not a good way to impress the boss. Even if we would be digging through trash for a few weeks.

“That’s nice,” I said as I tested my feet. They felt a bit more solid than a moment ago, so I tottered up and wobbled to the doorway of my room.

A nagging voice was rambling on in my head about something.

Something I had forgotten.

I’d clearly forgotten how to dress. Looking down I found I wore two pieces of clothing I hadn’t seen in years. They usually lived in the bottom of my wardrobe.

I grinned. Maybe Marcos dressed me. The grin slid into a frown, then why would I be out in the living room? My bed looked untouched, in fact far neater than I remembered leaving it. With a sigh I sat down to sort myself out. I hadn’t gotten this blasted in a long time. Funny thing, I don’t remember being that drunk.

Three blurs of color decided they’d waited long enough for me to come back and were hunting me down. Their in-flight braking worked as well as it usually did, and all three slammed into the side of my head.

I had been perched on the edge of my bed. Trying to avoid them, and the subsequent failure of such, landed me back on the floor.

“Damn it!” I rubbed my knee where I’d hit it on the way down. “You don’t need to…what’s this?” I stopped mid-chastisement as a crinkled piece of parchment caught my eye. Not that paper on the floor of my home was a rare visitor—sadly, there were usually a few pieces drifting around—but this was parchment. As in high-quality old scroll material.

Batting off the girls, who were determined to get to whatever was there before I did, I carefully pulled the parchment out from under my bed. It was only chance I’d seen it; after all I usually didn’t spend this much time on the ground.

It wasn’t very wide, like a torn strip from a much larger piece. About two feet long, it was less than four inches wide and had faded brown writing on it. Unfortunately from the bits I could see, even if it had been intact I wouldn’t have been able to understand it. I was becoming an expert at recognizing bits and pieces of elvish writing. A language no one seemed to be able to understand, but was showing up in the damnedest places.

Like under my bed.

Maybe it had come in with the body…what the hell was I thinking? Body? The mumbling voices in the back of my head finally shouted in glee as it all came crashing down.

The bar, Marcos, the sofa, the body…and Alric.

Ignoring my bumped knee, I wrapped my arms around both knees, and lay my head down on them.

The body was now missing, which was good and bad. Two people besides myself knew about the body. Well, two plus whoever put it there. But I certainly didn’t trust neither Marcos nor Alric no matter how great at kissing either of them might be.

Shaking my head at the way mayhem and my hormones were beginning to rule my life, I flattened out the paper. The writing was pretty, I had to give those ancient elves or whatever they were credit for that, neat calligraphy.

As I stared, a few words drifted. They drifted and suddenly made sense.
Storm of death to destroy all and rip them free of time.

I shook my head blinked a few times and looked again. How in the hell could I read that?

I couldn’t.

Whether it had just been my imagination, or something left over on the paper itself, I couldn’t make the words move again. But their meaning was seared into my skull. It was as if I hadn’t just understood the words, I’d felt them emotionally. And two more that I’d glimpsed right before I lost the ability to read it. Glass gargoyle.

Somehow I really didn’t think that was a good sign.

 

Chapter 23

 

 

I did what any sane woman would do upon finding a clue that would most likely lead to more destruction and mayhem in my life. I went to burn it.

Luckily for antiquity, I couldn’t get the stove to light. Problem with glows instead of candles, very little open flame in the world now.

With a sigh, I went to pick up the paper and put it somewhere safe. Somewhere that did not involve being ingested by faeries.

“What the hell are you three doing?” I yanked it free of their tiny hands before any real damage could be done. Yes, in a fit of being overwhelmed, I had thought to destroy it. But I was over that.

The girls clearly weren’t.

“That is bad, no you have,” Garbage said as she puffed herself up to appear larger. When you’re only four inches high all the puffing in the world isn’t going to help.

“Look, I’m not sure what Alric told you, but I’m fine.” I recalled more and more of the previous night and realized that he’d been genuinely concerned for me. While kind of nice, that could spell trouble if he passed that concern to the faeries.

Three tiny sets of arms folded across overall-clad chests. He’d told them he was worried. Clearly, the man had no clue as to how faeries’ psyches worked. Actually neither did I but I had ideas of what to do and what not to do. The girls were now programmed to follow and protect me from anything and everything. I was trapped.

Unless that was his plan. Each time I thought I’d figured Alric out, he showed another side. Was this just another way to keep me from getting in his way?

Damn it.

Carefully folding the strip of parchment in such a way I could keep it from tiny hands, I ran to my bedroom and slammed the door. Three light thuds followed by shrill faery swearing told me the girls hadn’t stopped in time.

Of course if they were really focused they might be able to find a way inside.

Moving quickly I showered, dressed, and hid the parchment on my person before the door began to open.

I swung it the rest of the way, sending the faeries tumbling in the air.

“No time for games, ladies. I have a new job. And no you can’t follow me.” An idea stopped me at the front door when they started buzzing behind me. “You realize that squirrel family was talking about you, don’t you? It’s all over town.”

The faeries looked torn as I opened the door, tiny little faces scrunched up in concern as they argued in faery. Finally, they swarmed their castle, grabbed their pitchforks, and flew out the door.

Clearly Alric’s command only went so far when interspecies warfare was at hand. I was going to face another two-penny fine if they got caught again, but for an afternoon of freedom, that was two pennies well spent. Besides, hopefully by the time they came back, Alric’s command would have been forgotten like most things that went through those heads.

I had told Thaddeus that I’d pick up my papers at the Museum of Antiquities office myself. As my patron he could have retrieved them, but I actually loved going into the museum and couldn’t afford to unless it was on business. They controlled all digging in Beccia in fact they were the main hub for all digging in the entire kingdom. Our little dig here had become so big that Beccia was beginning to be a place of importance. When I’d first moved here, the museum was a small, dusty, single-room office. Now it rivaled the mansions up on The Hill in grandeur.

Two guardsmen, mostly for show, their swords were probably glued to the scabbards, nodded seriously as I walked up the steps. They had that, ‘we’re being polite but we’re watching you’ look.

I ignored them.

The front chamber always took my breath away. The best of the finds were stored here, donated by the patrons who backed the digs that found them. Of course it wasn’t a voluntary donation really. Not if a patron wanted to keep receiving site grants.

The front room wasn’t free to view unless you were there on official business. Oh, you could walk in, look around for about three minutes before one of the Antiquities’ harridans came and made you pay or flee. I must be looking particularly grim today, one was already zooming in on me, and it had been under a minute.

“See here, it is ten coppers to view the collection.” The woman was huge, reminding me of the minotaur breed that had been working for Cirocco. She didn’t have any of the minotaur features, her head was roughly non-bullish, but her build and temperament weren’t.

“I’ve got a job, I’m here to pick up my papers.” I only turned slightly from the 5
th
century sculpture before me. I wanted to soak in as much of the majesty of this room as possible. Besides, I immediately didn’t like her.

“Really?” Her voice overflowed with scorn, she tried to fold her arms in contempt, but her biceps were too big.

I finally turned to face her completely. “Yes, with Dr. Thaddeus. He would have filed the papers yesterday?”

A snort, clearly from the more bullish side of her family swamp, escaped as she turned and marched to the most severe desk I’d ever seen. “I seriously doubt that. Dr. Thaddeus is a well-respected patron of the museum, he would never—” As she spoke she had been flipping through her large collection of sheets, she froze when a snake lifted its head at her.

Actually, it was my file, but the look on her face said snake.

She looked through the document, then up at me, then flashed down to the page again.

“Hmmph,” she said. “No accounting for taste. I assume you are
the
Taryn St. Giles? The one in my folder? The one with questionable deaths on her conscience?”

Deaths? What the hell, I was only charged for one that I knew of. “I am Taryn St. Giles. I’m not sure to what you are referring to however.” I leaned forward, trying to get a peek at the sheet she held.

She folded the papers into her mattress-like bosom. “I do not know how someone like you was selected by someone like our Dr. Thaddeus, but you do appear to be her.” With a stiff outstretched arm she held out a sheaf of papers. I had to lean forward to grab them which of course had been her intention.

She pulled them back causing me to land on her desk. The flinch she gave when I put my hand down to steady myself was worth it though.

“This is odd—you said he filed the papers yesterday?” Her upper lip rose in a sneer, she’d caught me on something.

“Yes, we just—”

“Aha! This is not you,” she said while waving my precious papers around. “Dr. Thaddeus filed these papers four days ago. The stamp is right here.” An inch-wide finger stabbed into my papers.

“How could he have filed them four days ago?” With an agile grace I didn’t know I had in me, I snatched the papers out of her hand, immediately returning any that weren’t mine to her desk. I started backing toward the guards as her face took on an apple-like hue. “It’s not my fault you people messed up the dates. I have a dig to do.”

Without waiting for her to recover and decide to charge me, I walked briskly out of the museum. Running sounded better but a moving target might stir even the laziest of guards. The guards paid me no heed as I jogged down the stairs and turned at the nearest corner. There was no hue and cry behind me, so either my snatching the papers had led the harridan into a full fit and she hadn’t recovered yet, or she really wasn’t that concerned about these documents not belonging to me. She probably didn’t care at all as long as I was out of her museum.

Once I was sure no one was chasing me down—not good to start a new job with museum guards on my tail—I started walking toward the ruins. A quick glance through the paperwork showed everything in order. Except the date, the bullish woman was correct about that, the date said clearly Malish 4
th
, which was four days ago. But, to be fair the writing was atrocious and it could have been a seven instead of a four.

With a shrug, I shoved the papers into my satchel with my tools. I didn’t care about dates, I cared about digging again. Even an odd, trash-strewn dig site no longer deterred me.

The fence that had been around the ruins just days ago was gone with little to even show it had been there. I studied the ground as I walked past looking for any signs that such a heavy construct had been there. That was yet another issue, why build something that solid if it had only been intended to stand for a few days?

Which pointed more and more toward a discovery. Either they found what they had been looking for, or the discovery of a certain missing dead giant caused them to abort their plans. Either way, standing in the entrance to the dig sites with a frown on my face certainly was not going to get me digging.

Even though my new dig site was not anywhere close to where I’d dug before, I didn’t need a map to find it. I had every single known dig site embedded in my memory. Even a few unofficial ones. Digging was my soul. It was the only time I felt like I was in the right place in my life.

Thaddeus’s dig site was the furthest back on the official grid, it hovered right at the edge of wild jungle. It had been marked, examined, and discounted a few years back. Obviously Thaddeus thought there was something others had missed.

The chatter of other diggers going to their sites was a welcome sound. I looked around for Harlan, but his dig was at the opposite end so I was not surprised when I didn’t see him. I did briefly see Marcos and toyed with the idea of going over. But to be honest I just was not sure how I felt about him. He was so handsome he made my teeth ache, and I had to admit, fooling around with him had been a joy. It was just that overactive running-in-fear thing he had going. Max the jinn was probably the most cowardly being I’d ever met, but he was left in the dust with Marcos around.

With a sigh, I decided not to deal with my handsome coward just yet. Besides, I didn’t want to be late.

The path leading to Thaddeus’s dig was thin and half-covered with vines and wandering tree roots. The sounds from the compound center faded as I got further into the ruins, until I mostly just heard normal jungle sounds. The further you got from the more popular dig sites, the larger the Gapen trees got. They were huge at this point and the jungle sounds seemed to have grown right along with them.

Usually, being alone with the jungle animal life didn’t frighten me, but my recent trip here had given me new fear to being alone.

A crack of a branch almost sent me airborne. It was off to my left, and I froze waiting for anything further. An animal would keep making noise, either continuing with whatever he was doing, or running away in fear.

Nothing. No sound. Should I keep going? Go back?

Finally I shook my head at my own fears. I was getting as bad as Marcos.

I continued down the trail, not even looking toward the mysterious sound. Branches could break of their own accord, after all. Just because I heard something didn’t mean—

The fletching from a black arrow flew by my face so close I swear I could count the feathers. With a solid and terrified scream, I burst into a run.

I thought I heard at least one more thud of another arrow, but I sure as hell was not going to stop and check.

Everywhere I placed my foot seemed to have already been taken up by some killer vine. The jungle this far into the ruins was filled with old growth, but the vines were being particularly vicious today.

I went down when I misjudged a clump of roots and vines on my left. The only sound I heard was my pounding heart. My crashing through the trail would have shut up any wildlife out here. But I couldn’t hear anything else. Wouldn’t anyone chasing me have to at least make a little noise while running? I was not the most graceful runner but I certainly was not the worst.

My sides heaved as I stayed on all fours, my hands scrunching tightly in case I had to take off again.

The fact was, I was quite out of shape, and my recent adventures hadn’t really improved my condition. I stayed down, panting to get my breath under control, and hoped that whoever had shot at me had gone away.

Now there was a thought. How did I know they were shooting at me? Could have been an accident, someone out in a restricted dig area, just hunting. They most likely took off when they realized how close they came to hitting me. By accident.

It sounded so lame even to my own mind I could see right through it. Why would someone shoot at me, then stop?

Answer, they wouldn’t have stopped.

Pushing myself up, I ran as fast as I could to Thaddeus’s dig. Not that Thaddeus was a big man, but most outer digs had at least one security guard.

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