“Locke is going to want something from you,” Caleb said. “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
I nodded, conceding the point. “I figured that out when he pulled the gun on me earlier tonight,” I said. “But there’s some bones I can throw him, some leads in our family’s private archives about actual angel statues that Alexander carved in Manhattan. That should keep him misdirected for a bit.”
It felt strange choosing to trust the guy who had broken into my great-great-grandfather’s guild hall. Still, it beat trusting the man who had brought me to this church at gunpoint.
Caleb was the first active practitioner of any kind of alchemy that I had met, and that went further in the trust department than a secret organization working clandestinely within the confines of organized religion to gather magic and keep it on a shelf.
“Let’s get to work,” I said. “Do you keep an alchemy lab here?”
Caleb rose and went to the door, checking to see if anyone was around. When he seemed confident we were alone, he turned back to me. “We can’t set up here,” he whispered. “They frown on actual magic use on the premises.”
“So you don’t you have a lab for all this?”
“I had a lab,” he said, a bit testily, I thought. “But somebody made the building it was in collapse.”
I thought about calling him a squatter in my family’s building but decided to let it slide. Chastising could wait. We needed a place to set up, and although I trusted him more than I did Desmond Locke, I did not trust him enough that I wanted him back in my home again.
“Come with me,” I said, heading over to him for the door. “I think I know a place.”
Caleb pulled the door open with a low, gentlemanly bow. “After you, m’lady,” he said.
I couldn’t help but smile at that, continuing out into the church proper.
“Will it be safe?” Caleb asked, falling in step at my side.
“Based on my personal lack of prowess?” I said. “Probably not, but we can worry about that later. We’ve got enough to worry about now.”
“Why?” he asked. “What do we have to worry about now?”
“Right now?” I said, my mind still trying to absorb the totality of the evening’s events so far. “Right now I need to convince Marshall that he won’t need to take out an extra fire-insurance policy to cover us.”
“Hope you’re convincing,” Caleb said.
“Hopefully, I can fake it.”
Eleven
Stanis
Days had passed within the darkness of the freighter. There were two voices in my head—my own suppressed true voice and what I had come to call the new dominant one. This new voice tried to discover what game my true mind was playing, but when it could not, its will to dominate me quieted to a steady truce with my true voice.
Despite the downpour of rain tonight, my true self even found a bit of pleasure in the freeing act of flight while the voice that dominated my mind saw it only as a means of accomplishing the tasks set upon me by the Servants of Ruthenia.
I flew over Manhattan in the singular pursuit of Kejetan’s task at hand. The humans down below seemed to mind the falling rain, always running from it or covering their bodies against it, but I welcomed it.
Coolness overwhelmed my senses as I flew higher and higher through the night sky, the air and rain refreshing me in a way my mind could not. I was far too busy walling up the two sides of my thoughts, keeping the dominant voice in my head away from my first contact with Alexandra after long months away.
Given the control the new voice had in my head, I dared not let it put me back in proximity to her. It had been struggle enough that first meeting to bend the new rules set upon me. Who knew what harm might come to her if we should meet again?
Instead, I flew on in search of Kejetan’s other objectives. The large park at the center of Manhattan spread out before me, and along its west side, I found what I needed on one of the buildings below. Spreading my wings as wide as they could go, I dove toward my target.
The skyline of Manhattan was not where one expected to find the depiction of an epic battle with a sea creature, but that was the stone tableau I found atop this particular building.
Swirls of tentacles rose from an enormous, carved monster that served as a base for my target. Perched on one of its thick tentacles was a grotesque similar to me, locked in battle with two of the lesser tentacles before it, its clawed hands midswing. As I closed with the statue, I could see the craftsmanship of the grotesque itself, strikingly similar to my own though its facial features were more demonic than mine.
I landed behind this familiar figure and pulled up on it from beneath the grotesque’s arms, testing the stone. Though it bore the familiar hand of my maker and was therefore strong, I needed to know I would not destroy it in the process of removing it. Finding the statue itself solid, I rocked the figure back and forth on top of the tentacle beneath it, praying it would come free with little damage.
The stone feet of the creature came free from their base with a loud crumble of stone, but even after I was done, the sound continued to grow, my feet slipping as the creature below me shifted into living stone.
The tentacles the grotesque had been combating groaned and flaked away bits of stone as they came alive—flaring up and whipping toward me. Shielding my body from their impact, I pulled my wings in close, but the tentacles were quicker and caught my legs and arms, coiling hard around them. My grip slipped from the slick wetness of the grotesque as I was pulled into the air away from it, my muscles screaming out as the tentacles stretched me to the extent of my reach.
Had I thought these tasks would be easy? No. These creatures were built by my maker’s hands, to be sure. A certain complexity filled them, as it did me. Had I been human, my body would surely have been torn into separate pieces already. Had Alexander meant to protect this grotesque against the strength of another of its kind? I did not think so, hoping that, at best, the tentacled creature was meant to restrain nothing more powerful than a human.
I did not wish to harm it, but my body was giving out. I worked my wings—already spread wide—using the extra power they generated to pull me farther up and away from the monster. As I rose, I contracted my arms toward my body, using all my power. The stone tentacles wrapped around them held at first but then gave way to my superior strength and crumbled away in large, broken chunks.
Arms free, I raised my claws, slicing down hard on the tentacles still bound around my legs. I tore through them with ease, and they fell away, writhing on the rooftop; but more were rising to take their place.
I found it impossible to take further to the air, my wings failing to keep me in the sky, and I dropped, barely able to control my fall back onto the roof. I had my wings to slow my descent, but I still came down hard, driving one of my knees and one clawed foot forcibly into the stone below.
The roof shifted beneath me, and I leapt up as it gave way, caving into the building itself. Landing, I centered myself for battle and stood ready, minding the remaining tentacles whipping back and forth all around me. I needed to reduce their number.
Working my way across the rain-covered roof in a focused pattern, I let my claws loose on the tentacles, striking swiftly before moving along in haste. The pieces fell away, and the tentacles grew shorter and shorter as I went. The monster stilled, and what remained of its tentacles transformed once more to inert stone.