When a Gargoyle Awakens (17 page)

Kylie repeated herself and waved a hand in front of Gary’s face.

“Oh, Kylie.  Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”  He took a good, hard look at the magazine and frowned before putting it down.

“Umm hmmm.”

When Kylie first arrived in Devil’s Hang, Gary had been very persistent and constantly showed up wherever she was.  Whether she was out for a drink with Maggie or buying tampons at the drug store – there he was!  But if Kylie thought that was bad, it was nothing compared to the last couple of weeks.  Kylie could barely take a step without falling over Gary.  She just didn’t know how to broach it without coming across like she was accusing him of stalking her.  The strange thing was, he really wasn’t interested in her romantically anymore.  He didn’t ask her out, and he didn’t give the goo goo eyes anymore.  He must have been telling the truth when he said he met someone at Andrew’s party.  But then why was she practically tripping over him every day?

“Look, Gary…”

Gary looked panicked and pointed behind her.  “What’s that over there?”

“What, where?”  Kylie turned around.  Of course she did.  “What am I…”  Then she turned back, with incredulous disbelief, to watch Gary fleeing for the door.

She couldn’t believe he’d done that.  She couldn’t believe she’d fallen for it.  Seriously.

With a belabored sigh, Kylie grabbed her books and dragged them out of the library.  She wondered if Gary was suffering a nervous breakdown.  She wasn’t exactly up to date on the town’s gossip.  Bea wasn’t much of a gossip, meaning that she didn’t spread gossip but was happy to hear it.  Usually, Kylie got all her gossip from Maggie.  Her friend knew just about everything that went on in the town mere seconds after it happened.  Kylie regretted that she hadn’t made much of an effort to see her friend recently.  Her every waking moment had become devoted to Luc.

Kylie frowned as she passed someone she didn’t know.  There seemed to be more and more people she didn’t know in town.  That wasn’t altogether odd.  The town always had visitors; new faces arrived all the time, as was the nature of tourism.  But recently, she had noticed people who didn’t seem to fit the bill as tourists and didn’t seem to go away either.  They were always dressed in black and didn’t do anything that tourists did like take cream teas and walk around looking lost.  They just seemed to walk around town looking moody.  Kylie shrugged.  It was probably nothing. 

Kylie had been working with her aunt in completely cataloguing the professor’s collection.  Andrew seemed to be fascinated by each and every object.  He kept joking that he could open his own museum, but he might be right.  Bea just liked looking at antiques – she was a strange bird.  But Kylie was hoping that it would throw up some clue as to the location of the other gargoyles.  She hadn’t found anything yet, but she was ever hopeful.

Bea couldn’t tell her anything about Gustave, so Kylie tried to raise the matter with Andrew a couple of times.  He seemed as flummoxed as her.  He said they were trying to find him, but couldn’t seem to.  Kylie suggested they call the police, but Lara apparently suddenly remembered that Gustave had called the other day.  Kylie didn’t believe her, and she wasn’t sure that Andrew did either.  But other than screaming ‘liar’ at her, she wasn’t sure what to do, or sure about why Lara would want to lie.  Perhaps Lara was greedy and didn’t want Gustave to inherit any money.  She needed to think about the Gustave problem.

Work had begun on the new garden and with a little despondency, she had watched as they started cutting down the hedge maze.  Luc really couldn’t go back to there now.  Not that there was much to go back to - it was just a scrap of land, after all.

Holling had been around a lot – not in a stalkerish way like Gary, but just around.  Whenever she was at Lucifer’s Hall, he was there, watching her.  He had asked, casually, if she wanted to go out for coffee a couple of times.  He had asked her so nonchalantly that neither invitation really felt like a date, so she found it very easy to say no.  Still, he was reaching a Willy Wonka level of creepiness.  What?  Surely Kylie wasn’t the only one freaked out by both film adaptations?

Kylie slipped into her apartment just in time to see Luc awaken.  He roared, he stretched, and he grinned at her.  She smiled and almost dropped her books.  He rushed forward, frowning at her as he took her bags.

“Little one,” he admonished, lightly.  “These are far too heavy for you.”

“It’s fine,” she said, rubbing her shoulder.

He growled, and his wings fluttered.  “You should not lie to me.  I will not allow you to injure yourself.”

“Well, you can’t be with me all the time.”

She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, and even more so when she saw the way his face hardened.  He was already pretty fearsome, but when angry or annoyed, he looked downright terrifying.  She cringed right down to her shoes.

“Luc…”

“Forgive me,” he rumbled.  “I need some air.”  He turned to leave, his massive bulk trembling.

“Just…”

“I will be careful that nobody sees me leaving your home,” he hissed over his shoulder.

“You know that’s not…”

“No, I’m sorry, I just… I need some air.”

With controlled restraint, he left and closed the door behind him.  The windows barely shook at all.

Kylie rubbed her forehead.  It wasn’t that she was being mean – she was being honest – he couldn’t be with her all the time.  But she still regretted blurting it out like that.  The fact that he couldn’t watch over her during the daylight hours bothered him more than he would care to admit.  He growled and cursed over every scraped knee, every bumped elbow and every broken nail.  She was kind of a klutz.  He seemed to think that if he had been there, he could have prevented them.  But he was being unrealistic and putting too much pressure on himself.  She doubted the goddess of poise and grace could prevent herself could prevent Kylie from falling over.

She relaxed and had a bath.  She laughed as she thought of Luc trying to bathe in a river.  In spite of his questionable hygiene he always smelled good – like fresh pine, and rain.  It must be a gargoyle thing.  A human would never smell half as good.

After, Kylie fixed herself a pot of noodle soup.  She was concerned that Luc had not returned, but a little relieved that he wasn’t watching her eat.  Her eating habits were also a source of contention.  Luc was forever lecturing her on how to eat right and lambasting her on the fact that she didn’t eat enough.  She knew allowing him to read her nutritional guide was a bad idea. Kylie liked fruits and vegetables… kind of.  She liked banana milkshakes and carrot cake.  True, she was trying to diet, but mostly her diet consisted of eating smaller portions of the fatty foods she normally ate, instead of swapping them for fruit and vegetables.  Luc was trying to make her eat healthily and trying to make her live longer.  It was annoying.

She heard a slight thump on the roof and knew that Luc must have returned.  She waited five minutes but when he didn’t come inside, she ventured outside.  She clambered up the railings, precariously balancing on her tip-toes, and saw Luc perched on the edge of the roof. 

“Hey, wahhhh…”

Her foot slipped, but instead of meeting the cold, unforgiving surface of the ground, she was pulled into the warm arms of a gargoyle.

“You really must be more careful,” he barked at her.  Apparently, his flight had not done much for his mood.  “What would you have done if I had not been here to catch you?”

“If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be trying to climb onto the roof,” she retorted, tartly.

He opened his mouth and then huffed.  “You have a point, little one.”

Luc settled her into his lap; both arms clamped tightly around her, and his tail curled around her leg for good measure.

She smiled at the sight before her.  The town was always pretty, but it was beautiful from above.  Of course, she couldn’t look right down at the ground – that was far too nauseating – but looking at the sky and the twinkly stars was fine.  “I can see why you like to come up here.  It’s beautiful.”

He grunted.  “I would not call this beautiful.”

“No?  I guess it looks very different from your time.”  She felt a pang.  She couldn’t even imagine how odd everything must be to him.  “Maybe it will be easier when the other gargoyles are awake.  You could have Gargoyles Anonymous meetings to complain about the state of the world.”  She tried to laugh it off as a joke, but his mood was too somber to be amused.

“If they do ever wake.”

Kylie chewed her cheek and tried not to let any tears escape.  She was already feeling the pinch of failure; she hated the thought that he agreed with her.  “Luc, I’m trying my best…”

She gasped as he twisted her in his arms, panicking that he was about to throw her off the roof.  But no, he was merely turning her to straddle his body so he could see her face.  “Forgive me, little one.  I know how hard you work, and how unfair this burden is to you.  My anger is not at you, but at me.  I feel helpless.  I should be doing more, I should have done more to prevent it.”  He closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath.

Kylie ran her fingers down his cheek, and he pressed into her touch.  “What happened isn’t your fault.  You’re doing everything you can right now.  Things will get better.”

Luc snorted.  “Is your life better now?” he asked, mockingly.  “Have I improved your life?”

“Yes,” she replied immediately and confidently.

“You are saying that to spare my feelings,” he grumbled.

Kylie rolled her eyes.  Gargoyle men clearly weren’t that different to humans.  “No, if I were sparing your feelings I would tell you that I didn’t find you telling me what to eat totally annoying.”

Luc’s brow creased as he looked at her.  “I only say it for your own…”

“Yes, yes, yes – still annoying.  But, honestly, yes I am happier since you came into my life.  I was kind of miserable before you crash-landed here.”

“I do not believe I crash landed.  I was here before you.”

“Regardless.  My point is, I was miserable before I met you…”

Luc bared his teeth.  “I will gladly hunt this Brian male down and show him the error of his ways.”

Yes, she had confessed all about cheating Brian – she’d never seen Luc so mad.  He said he couldn’t imagine a male that would treat his female so poorly.  He still had a lot to learn about the modern world.  A few weeks ago she might have actually considered his offer, but not now.

Kylie waved a hand.  “Not necessary.  I don’t even feel anger toward him anymore.  But, my point is, you gave my life purpose.  It sounds dumb, I know…”

“Thank you,” he said, sincerely.

“You’re welcome.”  She smiled and for a few beats they stared into one another’s eyes until there was a tremendous growling noise.  And no, it didn’t come from Luc.

“Your stomach…”

Kylie cringed.  “No, that was… probably just a stray bear.”  That horrible, unladylike grunt was definitely not coming from her.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Yes!”  She’d had her allotted three hundred calories for the night.  Damn diet.

He was back to his disapproving hectoring that was still annoying but also a little endearing.  “Clearly you have not eaten enough.  We will go inside, and I will ensure that you are fully satiated before anything else.”

“You’re so bossy.”  She was only half censorial – mostly she was teasing.

Luc jutted his chin.  “Yes, I needed to be to lead my clan.  Very often I had to make gargoyles do things they did not want to do.”

“I’m not one of your gargoyles.”

“No, you are my friend, little one.”

Kylie sighed.  “You don’t make it easy to disagree with you.”

“I am glad to hear it.  But I must take you inside, you are beginning to shiver.”  He pressed her a little closer to his chest, and she snuggled against him.

“What were you doing out here?”

“Thinking.  I am still trying to understand how I was woken.  I do not mean to offend you, but I wish I could speak to someone who is familiar with magic.  If I could understand how it happened, then I would know how to wake my brothers and sisters.  But first we need to find them.  I am frustrated that we do not seem to be making progress.”

Kylie rubbed his chest, and he groaned, lightly.  She almost bounced up and down on his lap as a thought practically beamed into her mind.  “The professor owned a lot of books on magic,” she told him, excitedly.  She beamed at him expectantly, and he looked blankly back at her.

“I see, that is an interesting fact but…”

She shook her head.  “No, I mean, now the books are Andrew’s and I’m up at his house all the time,” she paused as Luc huffed – he wasn’t altogether pleased about that, “I could borrow one of his books.”

Andrew might have let her borrow one if she asked, but the books were old and valuable.  Lara had seen dollar signs in front of her eyes akin to a cartoon character when she found out what they were worth.  She had forbidden either Kylie or Bea from taking any of Andrew’s possessions anywhere – even to get them appraised.  If she asked, and he said no and then a book went missing, it would look… well, exactly like it was – like she’d stolen it.  But if she just borrowed it and took special care of it and returned it without anyone the wiser – then that would be fine.