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My dad was crouched in the middle of the living room, a small object in his hand, his wings outstretched, a motionless gargoyle in the center of destruction.
“Mom?” I called, my voice shockingly loud in the quiet of the wreckage. Nothing was where it should be, the couch was ripped into two pieces and flung on opposite sides of the room, and there was a lot of blood, dark blood that had been coagulating for hours, most likely.
She didn’t answer, and the only sound was the distant dripping of the bathroom sink and my sudden sob. I went over to my dad, where he crouched with a phone in his enormous clawed hand.
Blood was generously smeared all over it. When it rang, I jumped, but he didn’t move.
It showed a message from me, but I had my phone, didn’t I? I searched my pockets, but I hadn’t seen my phone since I’d texted my mom on the roof.
I touched the button, open, and then the message was playing, my mom tied up, crying, screaming, while a demon…
I turned away with my hands over my eyes and the sound of my mother’s torture went on and on and on.
“Stop it!” I screamed, grabbing at the phone and trying to find the right button to stop the terrible show, but I couldn’t, and he wouldn’t release it from his fingers, and the world was coming apart every way I looked.
I had to think. When I tried to read my dad’s face, there was nothing in his eyes but rage. No help would come from that quarter.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. “It’s from my phone. We can trace it. She has the app that can find my phone. You just have to give it to me. She’s still alive, or she wouldn’t be screaming. Dad!” I grabbed his chin and forced him to meet my gaze, but there wasn’t anything recognizable in them. “Give me the phone so I can find her.”
It took a second, but he relaxed his grip, and then I could pry the phone out with trembling fingers, opened the app, and then hit the tracker. “There. In the middle of Song, that’s only a few blocks away in the undercity.”
He took the phone away from me and then spread his wings and went out the window. I mean, he went out part of the window, part of the walls, leaving a nice gargoyle-shaped hole while he flew away.
I needed to call the police, but I also needed to follow my dad to help with my mom. I left the apartment, running down the hall and out through the courtyard to climb into the front seat next to Miss Tertrue.
“We need to go to Song. That’s where my mother is.”
“She isn’t dead?” she asked, not looking at me.
“No. Of course not.” She couldn’t be dead, particularly if she’d been screaming like that.
“Curious. Very well.” She started the car and then drove me to the nearest way into Song, which did not allow cars. I got out and ran, but aware that she’d seemed very weird about this whole thing, too calm to actually be calm, if that made sense. No, nothing made sense.
It took too long to reach street level Song, and then I had to find my parents, pushing through crowds of people running away from something. Okay, it wasn’t really that difficult to find my dad, because he was what everyone was running away from.
When I got to the large square where he crouched, I saw my phone at his feet, the remnants of my mom’s phone in pieces around it, and him, claws sunk into the street as he seemed to expand, even though he already looked two times his usual size.
“Dad? Where is she?” I asked.
He didn’t look up. He didn’t hear me, and when I went to go closer, the vampire murderess grabbed my arm and pulled me away from him.
“Wrong way, child. Didn’t you see everyone running? He’s a mountain gargoyle. He’ll turn the entire city to stone before he’s done. Is he a friend of yours? You can’t reach him now, not if his heart has already shattered.”
I stared at her, those red eyes less horrifying than so many things I’d seen recently. “What do I do? They took my mom, they killed all the guards, and now my dad’s turning the whole city to stone?”
She patted my hand, but pulled me further away from him. “Your mother may be able to put his heart back together, but you’d have to find her.”
“Do you think that she’s alive?”
She raised a brow. “Oh, I would think so. You’d better find her quickly, or you’ll lose both of your parents and the city. This is certainly a high stakes game, isn’t it?” She pulled me further from my dad, leaving him to his silent state chaos. That’s what he’d been talking about, how destructive his magic could be.
Think. How could I find my mom? Who was genius enough to track down anyone? I didn’t even cringe at the thought of dealing with Percy again. I just ran. Libby had mentioned that the Lab was right beneath the Library of Antiquities, so I headed that way, because I needed to get to Sing as fast as possible. If only I had wings.
I needed to go faster, so much, and if I had wings… It hurt, but then I was flying, so fast, so fierce, and then I ran into the corner of a building, and that sent me into a parked, empty bus, but after that, I found my rhythm and made good time. I reached the lab and shifted almost gracefully, meaning that I didn’t fall on my face on my way through the doors. The guard there stared at me, uncertainly.
“I’m just going to see the Librarian,” I said, flashing a grimace at him that I’d meant to be a smile. I ran through the lobby, past several people who stared at me curiously. Hm. Maybe I should mention that the whole city was in danger of turning to stone. Probably.
I stopped and cleared my throat. “A gargoyle’s heart shattered, and he’s turning the city to stone, so maybe you should all evacuate.”
