“Looking at you should turn me to stone.”
“Because I am as ugly as Medusa?” I say popping the moment bubble.
“Oh, hush,” he groans. “Will you just let me compliment you with ancient and gargoyle appropriate word play?”
I smile at him. “Mmm maybe. Try some more.”
“I want to turn to stone staring into your eyes. I want you to be the last thing I see before stone sleep takes me.”
I look around. “Can you sleep out here?”
He laughs. “Yes.”
“Will it turn me to stone too?”
He sighs. “Do you actually think I would risk that? No. It won’t.”
I can tell the time is running down because of the way he looks out to the horizon after he says that. The sun is coming and with it, a day without speaking. If I’m going to do this it has to be now. My hand reaches up to his face. I stare into his eyes while I adjust myself in his arms so we are equally face to face. I lean in. He must be able to sense what I am doing and he leans in too. Our lips slowly move closer and closer until we touch. He are warm and rough and all encompassing. A spark lights inside me. I’m not sure if it is lust or something more, but I like it. My eyes close. We kiss harder, just lips, because we both know what is breaking through the horizon. Just as the thought crosses my mind, I feel a gust of air and the hard lips I’m pressing into no longer move with mine. My eyes open to a monstrous stone face locked in a kiss. I would laugh, but they have told me they can sometimes hear and see while in stone sleep. I sigh touching my finger to his lips.
“We will finish this tonight,” I tell him, “in human form.” I lean my head over to his shoulder. The sleepless night finally hits me, my body sags. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I like you too, Alex, and I want to be officially more than what we are, if that’s possible,” I say as my eyes start to close.
“Well, well, well, isn’t that a hilarious sight? A gargoyle and a zoana!” A female voice laughs breaking through my exhaustion. “Your ancestors are turning over in their graves!”
I jump up. Surrounding me is the most insane thing I could imagine. Three monstrous gargoyles who are not stone stand before me. My mouth gapes. This is impossible, I think, and wonderful. If these gargoyles can do this, maybe Alex can too! I almost ask, but something in her face stops me. I know her, but I don’t. I can tell she is not Zemira or Zaphyra, but she looks like them. She must be the third sister. The one that is supposed to be trapped in a pyxis in another tomb. “Megara,” I breathe.
“The one and only.” She bows dramatically. The two male gargoyles chuckle. The sound isn’t friendly. Suddenly it hits me. Megara never wanted to be good and not only did my ancestors curse her, but one of them banished her, ripping her away from her sisters. Now somehow, she has found a way to be out in daylight, a time of day that my gargoyles can’t help me. I’m a zoana without protection.
“How?” The word blurts out. Her eyes zero in on me when it comes out. Stop talking! I scold myself.
She smiles with no joy. “We will talk about that later. For now, I need to speak with my darling Alexandros.” She says it in full accent, as if she’s dropping all pretenses. Walking up to Alex, she leans towards his face. “Agápì± mou, it has been so long,” her talon scrapes along his jaw, “Come find us when you wake. We will be at the devil’s keep.” Her lips graze his forehead in a very intimate gesture.
Something stronger than dislike rises in me, but is quickly replaced by fear when the two male gargoyles walk up to me. I try to remember the shield I was working on. Without a word, the gargoyles strut to me, confident that I am as much of a frightened human as I look. But they are messing with a zoana.
“Paze aparare pe mine!” I shout throwing my arms out to my sides. The shields appear shoving the two gargoyles away from me. They snarl as they are thrown away from my direction. I turn running towards the estate. If I can get to my book, maybe I can find a spell to banish them. I burst through the giant French doors. A shadow flies over my head and Megara lands on the wood floor hard, denting it.
“I can’t tell if you are brave or stupid,” she says coolly. I throw my hands in front of me.
“Paze aparare—”
Something grabs my arm throwing me onto the floor and stopping my spell. The wood jolts me, but the pain causes me to focus. One of the male gargoyles lifts me back up.
“Amortizorus!” I yell. My magic hits him hard enough he is thrown off of me.
“Do you really think you can get by me?” Megara asks.
“Deviere protejare!” I yell. Megara is thrown across the room in a twisting flurry.
I run. The more I’m using my spells, the easier they are coming to me. I reach the foyer; skidding across the floor, I grab the iron railing and throw myself up the stairs. Before I can reach the top, all three gargoyles are on me.
“Amorte—”
“Enough!” Megara yells slapping me across the back of the head. She might as well have slapped me with a rock. My body is thrown up into a wall. I see black. “Grab her, we will have to gag the little witch!”
My mind is working slowly as the pain whooshes in my head, but it’s still working. I lie there acting more hurt than I am. Two rough hands lift me upright. Good, I think, I wouldn’t have been able to get up myself. They both grab an arm, neither covers my mouth. Idiots. My head does throb as Megara yanks the handle off of the door and walks into my Uncle Eugene’s study. She rips a curtain off the window and shreds a piece off.
“That was expensive, you wretched huss!” I try to rip myself out of the gargoyles’ hands, but they won’t let go. “Amortizorus!” Both gargoyles are zapped away from me.
I hold up my hands as Megara runs towards me. “Blitz Flugera!” Lightning shoots from my hands hitting her and throwing her out of a window. I turn my lightning onto the two other gargoyles. They quiver in place for a moment, electricity shooting through them before my spell runs out. Both seem unconscious so I run into the study. I yank the drawer from the desk and pull up the book. Setting it on the desk, I hastily flip through the pages. “Come on, come on. Other zoanas, ancestors, any cosmic help out there?” I say. Shaking my head, the words jumble, my vision blurring. The pages just flip in my hands, no help in sight. A slight breeze is my only forewarning when I’m hit with a giant bullet as Megara flies right into me throwing us both through the study wall. We launch onto the ground. I know I’m covered in wallpaper and debris, but for some reason I don’t feel anything. This can’t be good, my mind slurs as Megara comes into focus.
She stands up dusting herself off. “I said enough.”
Her hulking gargoyle form picking up the book is the last thing I see before everything goes black.
Chapter Seventeen
Alexandros
For a moment I am happy. I fall into stone sleep while kissing Violet. Hopefully just the beginning of much more. There’s a lot to worry about, but she is worth it. She is worth anything. I can’t believe I told her all of that. I basically confessed to being in love with her, but I don’t think she understood. It will take time. I will make the others understand with time too. Curled up against me, she tells me she likes me too. Genuine pure happiness soars through my heart for the first time in too many years; I begin to drift. Then a voice cuts through my happiness, a hot knife of the past here to take away my now.