“What do I do then? What do we do?” I ask. “I already accepted it? How? I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“The second you played around with your family book is when you accepted it,” Alex tells me. “That book holds information and spells from as far back as your family goes. It is as much a part of you as your magic is. Once you read from the book, that sealed your fate.”
“Can I take it back?”
Zaphyra steps forward, her head tilting causing her dollish curls to bounce. “Wait, do you want to?”
A hush fell over the gargoyles. As weird as it was, it feels like they want me to stay, need me to. To be their zoana even if I don’t fully understand what that means. Could I do this? My great uncle did. I already have the magic; magic I need someone to teach me how to use. Magic only they have seen from its inception. I look at them. I can’t go back to a time before I knew them and knew of them, and in my heart, I know I wouldn’t want to. No matter how insane and scary it is, I think I want this. This is something I can honestly say was born to do.
I take a deep breath, “No.”
Zemira, a girl so painfully beautiful that someone like her would usually snub me, smiles back. “Well, in that case, we have got some work to do.”
“FIRST, YOU NEED TO understand the basics. Gargoyles aren’t the only demonic creatures roaming the human realm. There are thousands, living among and around humans. Some are benign enough we ignore them, some insidiously working behind scenes, and some are outright dangerous and in need of removal.”
“Removal meaning you kill them?” I ask shifting in the leather chair I chose once we moved the conversation to the living room. I’m guessing it’s the living room at least. Without Aunt Irene’s blueprints, I don’t exactly remember every room, nor which room I’m in.
Percy left to the kitchen to make food once he was certain I was going to stay. He was formally friendly at the graveyard, but I get the feeling he doesn’t like me. His eyes are dark and intimidating so that could be it. Being the biggest of the gargoyles and notably the oldest, he is the scariest as it is. Him not liking me makes it worse. I try not to look him in the eyes when he’s around. Zemira’s voice brings me back to the conversation. I have a strange sense of déjà vu with her, like I know her already and already like her. It’s the same feeling I have with Achilles who is still a three-legged cat curled up on my lap purring like any normal cat. I have yet to ask them about him.
“Not always. Some demonic beings cannot be killed, so they have to be magically contained.” She shrugs.
“Contained how? Where? Is there a jail here?” Aaiden asks. He flexes his muscles ever so slightly when either of the gargoyle girls look at him. I smirk. He’s going to wear himself out if he keeps that up.
Zaphyra goes to speak up, but her voice barely chirps out before Alex cuts her off, “That’s something that only a zoana needs to be apprised of. May we talk to you?” Alex asks me nodding his head towards the door.
I slowly stand up moving Achilles off of my lap. He wakes up, yawns, and then lays back down.
“Aw, come on!” Fiona cries.
“We will be right back, I’m sure.” I follow the gargoyles into the hallway. Aside from Phelix who I’m guessing is staying behind to babysit my friends.
No one says anything at first. Alex and the girls look like they’re having silent conversations with their eyes. It would be funny if I wasn’t already as confused as I can stand with all of this. I clear my throat to get their attention. “Are we going to talk or are you guys just going to make faces at each other?”
Alex turns to me. “We want to tell you everything you need to know, things you must know to survive. Being a zoana is a difficult calling. A lonely one. If it gets out gargoyles exist, demons exist, and all of the things that frighten humans in the dead of night are real, it makes our job harder. This isn’t smart.”
Zaphyra pops in, “It is not that we don’t want to include them, it is just really dangerous for humans.” She gives a sigh, her curls bouncing around her face, her bow lips pouting.
Good grief, she’s like a life-sized doll. How could she be a demon?
“I don’t see what the big deal is. I think we should keep them around.” Zemira shrugs, staring at her nails.
Her and her sister look exactly alike, but their styles and demeanor are very different. Where Zaphyra is all bows and curls, Zemira is black leather and razors. Yet, Zemira is the one defending my friends. I’ve spent seven years lonely, dealing with my mother’s death. I had Irene and Ezzie, but I had forgotten what it was like to have friends my own age. Of course, when I finally do get friends we get attacked by zombies, but I don’t know how I could have handled all of this if I had stumbled upon it alone. I probably would have thought I was nuts without Fiona and Aaiden’s excitement, or even Blythe’s fear reminding me that it’s normal to be afraid. But Blythe stuck with me, Fiona and Aaiden stuck with me. They were loyal when things got all life and death forms of scary. I will stick by them.
“I’m not leaving them out,” I tell them. “I get it. I know it’s dangerous. I know my uncle lived alone in seclusion. But let’s get one thing clear, I’m not him. I’m me, and I refuse to leave them out.” I lift my chin, preparing for the fight Alex’s face tells me is coming.
Zemira smiles at Alex and her sister. “Looks like you don’t have a choice now.”
Alex sighs.
Zaphyra just shrugs. “If that’s what you want, zoana.”
“Call me Violet.”
I wait for Alex to speak up, but he doesn’t.
“I don’t want to press my luck here, but why aren’t you arguing when you clearly want to?”
His jaw twitches with a smile before he answers, “Oh yeah, I want to, but when our zoana gives an order, we obey.”
I scrunch my face up. “What do you mean?”
“He means,” Zemira pipes in, “you give the orders. It’s all a part of the curse. We have to obey any direct order you give us. There are ways around it, and Alex could technically argue his point if he wanted, but we’ve done this before. We can make this work with the humans.”
“Oh,” I’m not sure what else to say.
“Look at it this way, Violet, you have a small army of monsters at your beck and call, to help you save the world from other monsters,” Zemira says.
“You’re like a princess!” Zaphyra gushes, her hands clapping as she bounces. She is just too much.
I laugh. “Alright, help me digest this more, but we are including my friends,” I tell them sliding open the living room door again.
Chapter Ten
Violet
I hold the Kai family book in my hands. It feels right resting open on my forearms waiting for the gargoyles to instruct me on what to say. It’s heavy, but I never get uncomfortable holding it. We’ve moved to a hidden garden where the gargoyles sleep in the day. This portion of the property lies untouched by Irene’s cleaning crews. Percy suggested it just in case anyone comes to the house while we are practicing. The garden is hidden on the land, far from the house, in a thicket of trees. Although I guess it wasn’t always hidden; there’s an overgrown worn path that was used a lot in the time my uncle was zoana. Surrounding the garden are ten-foot-high bushes. All differing widths and one much taller than the others. Phelix told me during Uncle Eugene’s time as zoana, he had the bushes sculpted into animals when I was small. They said I used to love playing in here as a child. I had guessed that the tallest bushes used to be a giraffe before they even told me. It’s like a lucid dream, but ever since we got here, I have been seeing glimpses of a child running through a garden. It can’t be me because I’m seeing the child from outside. But I envision it daytime and I can see the animals they speak of. A giant lion standing on hind legs, an elephant, and the giraffe. A little girl is running through the paths of roses and other flora. Now the bushes are dark amorphous shapes surrounding an iron fence. Getting the gate open was hard, too overgrown with dead vines and rusted it didn’t want to open. The gargoyles never use the gate, they fly over the fence, and during the last years of my uncle’s life, he no longer came out here. I get the feeling it hurt him when my mother and I moved away; Percy seems to still hold it against me. Once inside it was too dark to see; Percy had taken Phelix to go fix the lamps that litter the area.