Page 26 of Fated to the Gargoyle

Mine isn’t standoffish in the least, and Lena doesn’t need to know how I came by that information. “Want to hang out sometime? The bar across the street works, and I’m off weekends. Andy says those are his slow days.”

“That’s cool with me.” She reaches past me and pulls a roll off the bottom shelf. “Start with this one. It’s good for a loose pair of pants, right? Little bit of stretch in it.”

I check the tag and beam at her. “Are you sure about this price? Three dollars a yard, plus a coupon? That’s less than wholesale.”

“Fabric is my worst seller. I need to move the inventory so I can set up for winter.”

I pull my cash out of my pocket. “I’ll take the whole roll.”

“Okay, miss lady.” She laughs and starts me toward the register. “What are you making with all this fabric?”

“A pair of pants for someone special, to start.” I heft the roll up under my arm. “Oh, and I need some good thread.”

“This way.” She turns us down the notions aisle, and I trail behind her with my roll and my big secret.

Back at my car, I load the fabric and thread into the hatch and count what’s left of my jar money, which doesn’t take long, because I’m broke again. But there’s broke, and then there’s happy broke, and a woman who spent her furniture fund on pants for a gargoyle is the happiest broke woman in Shadow Wolf Creek.

I head into the diner and nearly walk straight into Andy and Lamar, both of them planted a step inside the door. “Hey, what the heck⁠⁠—”

Then I see it.

Soren. He’s parked right up against the jukebox in all that gray stone, out in the open, with Andy and Lamar staring at him. All I can think about is what he told me last night, a whole clan resting in stone and the humans who came for them with hammers. He turned his Settling off on the strength of my promise, and now here he sits at my job, uncovered.

I make my face behave and look from the statue to the two men staring at it. “Ah, this is nice. Y’all decorating early for Halloween or something?”

Andy doesn’t take his eyes off it. Lamar looks down at me. “Well. Guess you weren’t crazy after all.”

I shift my apron higher up my arm. “What do you mean?”

He scratches his head. “It’s starting to come back to me. Like yesterday, I remember a gargoyle sitting right by the door. But I also remember nothing being there. Stuff’s coming back to me in pieces.”

“And Messy Jay said it was up on the roof the other night,” Andy says, still staring. “I never caught it. Then again, I don’t pay attention to shit these days.”

I look at the statue and give up on hiding my smile. So this is what happens with the Settling off. The town remembers him, or maybe the podcast shook everyone loose. I don’t know which, and I tuck the question away for tonight.

I wrap my apron around my waist and put my hands on my hips. “Okay. So there’s a gargoyle in the diner. What else is new in Shadow Wolf Creek?”

“That is what’s new.” Andy points at it. “What the hell does it want with my diner?” He drags a hand across his sweaty forehead and turns the scowl on me. “It better not be you.”

I hold both hands up. “Chill, Andy.”

The wild part is he called it at my interview, looked me dead in my face with mustard on his shirt, and told me I looked fated. That strange little radar of his was right on the money, and he will never hear it from me.

He narrows his eyes at me, and I give him nothing back. “I’m calling in some women for interviews, gotdamnit.” He storms off toward the back, and Lamar snickers into his fist. I roll my eyes at the both of them.

“Not gonna lie,” Lamar says, looking the statue up and down. “A gargoyle in town is cool with me. I just wanna know why it picked the inside of a diner.”

I fake a smile at him. “I’m gonna go clock in.”

The bell rings behind me with the first customers of the evening, and Shelly comes up front pulling off her apron. She aims a frown at the statue on her way past it.

“Okay, that’s a first,” she says. “Gargoyles are fine and all, but who picks a jukebox to sleep on? There’s a whole mountain range out there.”

I smile at him and shrug. “I mean, unless it’s a gothic diner.” I throw in a wink.

Shelly turns the frown on me next, and that’s fine. Being the weird one is working out real well for me lately.

My gargoyle picked a spot inside my workplace. It’s his brother on my mind now. Sable’s out there resting somewhere alone, and that’s going on tonight’s list.