The gargoyles carry me across the precarious floor and plop me down facing the long table and window behind it showing the sun well on its way to going down. An orange hue is cast all over the room. I was out all day. Using as much magic as I did will do that I suppose, along with the bullet train head injury that would likely have killed a human. I really am different than when I first came here. Maybe I could survive being impaled too. I couldn’t get away if I made that leap though. Even if I lived, I’d be trapped. I need a distraction so I can try zapping these binds off. And while I’m thinking of impossible things, I also need a way to fly away from here since flying is faster than running and I can’t outrun these beasts. I already tried that. Plus, I need an army to take down all of the ones around this room. I sigh. I need gargoyles.
“Bored, are you?’ You won’t be for long,” Abraxas asks me, turning his ruddy stone eyes on me. I don’t correct him. I’m not bored, just trying to think of an advantage that will get me out of here. He turns to the minions. “Set her up, it’s almost time.” The minions start ripping my binds off.
“You might not want to do that,” Megara warns. “She’s got quite the kick if she’s touched.”
“I’m not worried.” Abraxas puts his human hands on the back of my chair and leans his face down next to mine staring at Megara. “You see, I don’t care if those gargoyles get free or not - they’re all traitors to me. What I care about is seeing if my experiment will work, and I don’t need a zoana to be alive to try it. So, one false move, one false word and I will snap this tiny mortal’s neck,” he runs one of his beefy hands over my throat proving he’s not afraid to touch me, “and then I’ll just test my concoction on her dead little carcass.” He grips my throat. Hard. Too hard. I can’t breathe. I squirm. Megara makes the slightest movement towards me, real fear in her eyes. If I die, her sisters are trapped. But Megara doesn’t try to save me, she’s more afraid of Abraxas than losing her sisters again. My vision starts to blur with the lack of air. His eyes cut to me. “Understand?”
I can’t speak, I can’t breathe. I just nod. He lets go. Air barely squeaks down my burning throat and into my lungs. The minion gargoyles lift me out of the chair. A painful dizzy spell hits me. Whether from lack of oxygen, the lump on my head, or sitting in that hard chair all day, I don’t know. I am a Kai; I can take this, I tell myself. I just need one advantage.
Abraxas opens the Kai family book. “Read this.”
It’s the final page I haven’t read. The last incantation that Madame Let— Megara never taught me. They wouldn’t want me to read it if it didn’t benefit them in some way. They can’t read it because they are not Kai, so I would have to. If I do though, what will it do? If I don’t, they will kill me.
Meg must see my internal struggle because she whispers in my ear, “Just do it. You were going to read it with me anyways. Don’t be stupid, they need you alive.”
Who needs me alive? Abraxas? No - she must mean her sisters, the gargoyles. She’s right, I was going to read it anyways. Could it really do that much damage? I wouldn’t have the book if I wasn’t supposed to read it, but Madame Leticia taught me that. The gargoyles told me not to and I went behind their backs.
Abraxas snaps his teeth at me and gets right in front of my face. “You know your aunt is quite a tasty little treat, I did often imagine taking a bite out of her.” I swallow, he has me. I’ll do it, but he doesn’t let me speak. “And your little cousin, what was his name? Ezra? He’s so quiet. I wonder what it would take to hear him scream—”
“I’ll do it! I’ll read from the book,” I whisper and try to block the images from my mind of all he could do. A tear slides down my cheek against my will. I ignore it.
I blink away the wetness and stare at the book. The words shimmer and shake until they are in English.
“I call upon the p-o-o-w-ers” My voice shakes in fear. I clear my throat.
“I call upon the powers, the powers of Kailovell
Reach the binds
Enwrap your hands
Untie them now
Free what was bound
Return to the world what was locked away
I call to them
Until my time is done
I release them now unto me”
I say the final words. Just below it is a symbol, the symbol shimmers and becomes the word “beware.” Abraxas snaps the book closed and as he does, the book flickers with light then goes dark. The book feels empty now. I no longer have a pull to be near it, it’s just another book. What have I done?
Meg brings Abraxas a vial. Abraxas stares at the horizon, waiting. Soon a gleam comes into his eyes and I know I’ve run out of time. I think, one spell, any spell. But if I do, he will kill me.
“For millennia, you zoanas have plagued gargoyle existence. When you cursed your little clan, you cursed us all. And now the payback is finally nigh. We discovered a way to overcome your curse and let ourselves free during daylight, and now we will find a way to release all gargoyles from their zoanas forever.” He holds up the vial. “This drink when used upon a direct Kai descendant will release us from your hold and let us rule as we please once again.”
He stares into me and sees me for what I am. Just a girl. A descendant of a great clan but not someone powerful enough yet to take him on. If the gargoyles are released, what will they do? I think of Zaphyra and her struggles overcoming all the darkness she lived in; becoming attached to a zoana released a light in her. Zemira and her wildness just barely harnessed. Phelix and Percy. Certainly, Percy wouldn’t go back to evil, would he? And Alex, Alex who just got a taste of the impossible possibility of whatever we feel for each other. Achilles good through and through. No matter what, they will be okay, but maybe the only thing I can do, the best thing I can do for them, is die? Yet he said it will work on me dead or alive. If I die, will he go after Irene and Ezra? Maybe not, but I don’t want to chance it.
So, fight and win, I tell myself. If I don’t try, I will be letting everyone down - my ancestors, my family, my good gargoyles, and the world if all gargoyles are released into it. Then despite the consequences, I have to try, I have to I fight, and pray everyone forgives me no matter the outcome.
I breathe in. My heart beats like a ticking clock winding down on my time on earth. They are much stronger than me. My head aches with weakness. I will not win. I breathe out. But I will not give in either.
“Grab her head,” he tells the minion. My tiny human skull is put into a vice grip of gargoyle monster hands. Abraxas comes at me with the vial. I take another deep breath and whisper, for them. “Blitz,” I yell through the vice. The gargoyles holding me are zapped away. Immediately the spells come to mind with the adrenaline. “Paze aparare pe mine!” I yell. Abraxas is thrown but immediately catches himself.
“Get her!” he yells.
I spin with my arms out. “Vidda vidda vidda!” I push them away while spinning towards one of the giant holes in the floor. “Vidda!” More go flying.
Megara ends up behind me. “No!” she screams grabbing me, “I won’t let you trap them!”
“Blitz,” I say zapping her off.
But the zap wasn’t strong enough to stop her. She snarls. Before I can speak, her fist smashes into my head. My poor battered brain can’t take any more. I fall. I lost much faster than I had hoped.