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The demon shrunk to a pathetic size as he writhed and flailed around, feeding Scott’s power. I ripped into him more furiously than before, because the weaker I could make him, the less strength Scott could get out of him, and I was starting to think that the guy wasn’t going down easy. Yeah, the recovering from having your heart ripped out kind of made that obvious. Seriously, who does that?
Scott glowed and spikes came out of his shoulder, red stone, similar to my own awesome streaks, but three times as large as I was. No, he wasn’t just a gargoyle anymore. He’d taken the power and the life force of the demon, becoming completely unkillable. He was now some demonized gargoyle abomination that we’d have to destroy, because otherwise, he would rip apart everything I loved.
Should we give up now, fly to the nearest helicopter and leave Singsong City and my parents to their fate? How could I possibly kill a demonized gargoyle when gargoyles were already almost impossible to kill?
I’d researched killing gargoyles not too long ago. What happened to that pretty knife? I’d been practicing summoning spells with Percy, and they were iffy at best, but if I could summon that knife and shove it into Scott’s stone heart and shatter it, that should kill him, even if he’d stolen the demon’s magic. His heart should already be damaged after my mother ripped it out of his chest. No, he should be dead, but he’d apparently been working on his skills.
“Get out of here, Red!” Percy said, standing in front of me with his small human magic form prepared with six kinds of defenses.
“I’m not going anywhere. We need to kill him.”
“I can’t kill a gargoyle. That’s against everything I believe.” His voice was level, calm, eyes steady. He wasn’t afraid of his death, just mine. What an idiot.
I shook my head. “He’s not a gargoyle anymore, he’s a demonized golem. We just need to shatter his heart. But you need to take on the gargoyle form, or you’ll get hurt.” I put a clawed hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. He was so delicate compared to Scott, who was twitching and growing more and more spines. Creepy.
Percy spoke low, brushing my cheek with his fingers. “I can’t cast and shift at the same time, but he can. You need to run.”
“He can shift because of the demon?”
“Because of the book. That’s what he was waiting for, part of why he attacked, so he could get it from your place and be capable of casting while in gargoyle form. That book is part of my family legacy that I never wanted. I shouldn’t have left it with you, but I wanted so much to unlock your magic so that you could see your potential. You’re everything to me, Gabriela. Everything.”
I trailed my fingers over his shoulder to the side of his beautiful neck. Maybe I had time to kiss the soft skin and snuggle him before this all ended as messily as my apartment. “The book is right there.” I nodded at it where Scott must have left it once he’d gotten what he could out of it. “It’s not too late, not for it, and not for us.”
His eyes filled with light as he nodded tightly, focused, intent, and probably overconfident, as he turned to face Scott.
I exhaled, closed my eyes, and then relaxed the gargoyle, shifting back to the vulnerable human who could summon things. I performed the shifting messily, but I needed my human magic to summon the dagger. Things from further away had more thrust, so a dagger from my bedroom so far away would maybe rip off my hand, but not if I was a gargoyle. I could summon and then shift, right?
Percy gave me a burning look, then summoned the book and opened it in a flash of bright white light. He shuddered, golden light flaring over his skin as he grew and quivered, a sheen of reflective magic flowing over him like a waterfall. When he shook himself, he was the most beautiful stone monster in the entire world. I loved him so much, even if he was the most annoying person in the world.
He kissed my fingers and then stepped in front of me to block Scott’s first magic attack with his expanded wings and demonic magic.
“Shift to gargoyle, Red. He’s past the point of caring whether or not you survive,” Percy rumbled.
“I’m thinking about it.”
He dodged down, pulling me with him so that I missed the black daggers of magic nastiness that Scott was flinging from his hands. “Don’t think! Your life is in danger. I won’t be able to live without you.” He touched my face, a touch so gentle, even if it was impermeable stone.
My heart panged as his words struck the deepest part in the center of me. I believed him, as stupid as that was, I couldn’t not believe him, and I felt the same way. Still, I was going to try this summon and shift thing and hope not to lose my hand. We were together in this. Until the end. Hopefully the end of Scott, not us.
Percy attacked while I crouched down, trying to not get hit by any of Scott’s magic blasts while I carefully wrote the summoning. Once the last sigil was written, I shifted, but I was barely stone around the edges when the knife handle hit my palm, snapping my wrist before the stone covered everything, encasing the wound away from the world. I’d be able to function in some capacity in my gargoyle form, but that injury would be waiting for me when I shifted back. Some gargoyles lost the ability to shift back because their human form was too badly damaged, but it was just a broken wrist. I’d had way worse. I switched the dagger to the other hand and darted to Scott’s left while Percy distracted him with another sweeping glowing array that should have cut off Scott’s head.
I wasn’t nearly in range to get my mother or Scott when his enormous tail snaked around my waist and dragged me to his demonic gargoyle form.
He smiled fiercely as he held me in front of him, blocking Percy’s attacks with my body. My arms were firmly pinned, my knife helplessly at my side. Gargoyles shouldn’t have tails like that. He truly was completely deformed. A true monster.
Scott hissed, “You’ve already lost, but you do make a pretty little gargoyle. Maybe I’ll keep you for myself after this is over.”
Percy roared and lunged forward, but pulled back when Scott put his enormous maw on either side of my throat. At least he couldn’t monologue in that position. I tried to communicate to Percy with my eyes, but he looked so panicked, betrayed that I’d put myself in Scott’s power, so he wasn’t getting the vibe.
“You know, this is all your fault,” I told Percy as a goat sized spider skittered over the demon’s still shivering body. “If you hadn’t wrapped your tail around my heart in the first place, I’d still be happily majoring in accounting…” I gurgled at the end as Scott squeezed my throat with his teeth.
Percy frowned slightly, then summoned an enormous sword and chopped off Scott’s tail.
I broke free and stabbed into that corrupted gargoyle flesh with the dagger, pouring all of my hope and determination and love into it. I would kill Scott to save my mother, to save Percy, to save my dad, and all those people in Singsong City that I loved, even if I didn’t know them. This was my city, my people, and I would defend them with every piece of me, the gargoyle, the human, the sorcerer, the really awful healer, and I wouldn’t give up no matter how dark things got. There was always hope, because where there is darkness is where the light shines the brightest.
The glass dagger slid into Scott’s body with a click and then shattered. The shock ran up my broken arm, shaking me to my core. Scott’s teeth tightened on my neck and punctured my gargoyle skin, but then Percy’s awesome sword chopped off his head, and there we were, with a sniveling demon, a beheaded demonic gargoyle with a shattered heart, an unconscious supervisor, a bloodless sorcerer, and a possessed raven.
Huh. We’d won. That was surprising. I started towards Percy, but before I could fling my arms around him and burst into hysterics, he raised his sword and chopped off Scott’s arm. I jerked to a stop while Percy frowned solemnly as he chopped Scott to bits.
