True to my aim, the base hit its fragile target high in the air, shattering the glass on impact. The contents of it rained down over the crowd of statues, but that wasn’t all it did. As the pink tendrils and cloudy mist fell through the rain, the water all around it lit up with thousands and thousands of tiny sparks.
Defying gravity, the reaction lifted higher and higher into the night sky, jumping and arcing through the rain all around us and out over the city.
I closed my eyes as the wave of it rolled toward me, and I flinched. A tingle of sensation washed over me, through me, then disappeared as quickly as it had hit. Marshall and Rory were already examining themselves, none of us seeming the worse for having been caught up in it, but once I stopped focusing on myself, I saw the larger problem.
Every statue on top of the building was now twisting to life.
Some struggled with the change, others immediately taking flight, and yet others fell to fighting among themselves.
Rory pulled the art tube from her back, going for her weapon, but I waved her down.
“No!” I shouted. Did she really think she could fight this madness? “Inside. All of you! Now.”
Marshall didn’t need to be asked twice and was running for the stairs before I barely had the words out. Rory went next, and I was already in motion.
“Alexandra,” Stanis called out to me. I spun to see him still standing there, with Caleb still hanging in place from his hand.
“Bring him,” I said, turning and running for the door as a pairs of passing wings swung dangerously close. “But by all means, there’s no need to be gentle.”
Twenty-two
Stanis
The feel of Caleb’s thin, fleshy throat in my clawed hand filled me with a great and terrible satisfaction as his weak little form attempted to break free. The sound of conflict on the roof above filled my ears, and the desire simply to close my hand shut until my fingers met in the middle of his neck was strong, but since retreating to the art studio, Alexandra had been quite clear that she did not wish it done.
“Forgive me, Alexandra,” I said, pressing my fingers in with a slight pressure, causing the blond human to struggle further to free himself, a dark joy filling me, “but why should I not just crush his head for his betrayal?”
Alexandra grabbed onto the arm I held Caleb with, pulling at it, but I would not yield.
“Because we’re not those kind of people,” she said, anger and concern in her voice. “Not just yet, anyway.”
She tried again to lower my arm, but her effort proved to be in vain, her physical strength no match for my own.
She met my eyes, and her voice changed, softening. “We all saw what he just did,” she said, “and I understand you have issues of your own with him. And after all you’ve been through, I would not dare order you to do anything, but please . . . I’m asking you not to harm him. We need answers.”
Aurora also put her hand on the stone skin of my arm.
“Don’t worry, big guy,” she said, brandishing her pole arm with her other hand. “I’ll keep an eye on him, without crushing his head. I’ve got a little more finesse with taking someone down without actually killing them if they act up. No offense.”
True choice had rarely been an option when I still lived by Alexander’s rules. Until Alexandra had freed me from them, I had not even known what it meant to choose of my own free will. For that, I would always be in Alexandra’s debt, and as I held this fragile human in my hand for wronging us, I did not take his life out of respect for her wish.
“Very well,” I said, lowering Caleb to the floor, my eyes burning into the wide, white pools of his. “But make no mistake, human. I will not hesitate to act at the hint of any further treachery.”
Free of my grip, Caleb stumbled onto the art studio’s debris-covered floor before finally righting himself. He straightened the coat he wore, wiping water from both it and his hair, all the while backing himself up against one of the half-empty broken bookcases.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up a hand as his eyes darted around. “But none of you will understand. I had to do that.”
“Did you, now?” Alexandra asked, the calm she had exhibited melting away as she charged him. With nowhere to turn, he held his hands up by the sides of his head and made no move to stop her. Alexandra slammed up against him, grabbing the edge of his coat.
“Did you really?” she asked again, but before Caleb could answer, she let go of his coat with her right hand, pulled her arm back, and shot it forward into his midsection while making a fist.
The air went out of the man, and he crumpled to the floor. I could not help but let a small smile creep onto my face. Clearly, I was not the only danger here.
“Well, I guess that I just had to do that then, too,” she said, and stepped away from him.
Aurora leaned closer to me. “Looks like we can both stand down,” she said.
I looked down at her, cocking my head. “Stand down . . . ?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I’ll explain it later.”
Something about the man lying there stirred anger in me, and I grabbed him by the back of his coat and pulled him onto his feet, letting go. He fell against the bookcase and stood there, fighting for each breath. “Okay,” he managed to get out. “I deserved that.”
Marshall walked over to him, his finger pointed to the roof above us. “What the hell just happened up there?”
“That,” the man said, “was me saving my life.”
Alexandra looked at each of us before turning back to Caleb. “It’s not looking so good down here for you, pal. I’ve got to be honest.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I tried to get out of working for them. I even went back after freeing Stanis to make it seem like business as usual, to not arouse their suspicion. I can prove it. Stanis was on the boat. He can confirm it. He saw me there.”
“I thought you had a change of heart,” Alexandra snapped. “I thought after you helped me free Stanis, you were all Team Gargoyle.”
“I am,” he said. “But those creatures had hired me for a job, and you don’t get to back out of something like that. I tried to. I really did. I even recommended other freelancers, which I never do, but Kejetan left me between him and a hard place. If I didn’t at least give them the refined gargoyle statue forms they asked for, they were going to kill me. Worse, Kejetan was resolved to come after you. They wanted you and your friends dead. Kejetan told me himself when I went back to their ship trying to negotiate my way out of my contract. Just ask your gargoyle here. Stanis saw me. He can back me up!”
Alexandra turned to me. “Is this true?” she asked.
“I do not know,” I said. “I was not in on any private conversations Caleb had with my father.”
“But you actually went to the boat?” she asked. “Why, Stanis? Did I free you for nothing?”
“For the same reasons Caleb has stated. This ‘business as usual.’ My freedom means nothing if Kejetan becomes aware of it.”
She turned back to Caleb, shaking her head at him. “We could have protected you,” Alexandra said.
The man looked over at me. “No offense, but your team’s only got one stone man to their dozens. I’ll play the odds for my safety, thanks. Besides . . . I’m not used to having backup. I did what I always do—try to take care of things myself.”
At an impasse, silence fell among us for several minutes, with only the sounds of continued struggle on the roof filling my ears.