Page 1

chapter

one

Gabriel

There is a squirrel sitting on my head.

Again.

I know it’s the same one because the little bastard has been tormenting me for the better part of six months. He’s missing a tuft of fur on his tail. Every morning at precisely eight seventeen, he scampers across the roofline of my house, leaps onto my left wing, and uses me as his personal observation tower.

I hate him.

Not as much as I hate the pigeons.

But it’s close.

The squirrel scratches behind his ear, his tiny claws scraping against the stone between my horns.

If I were capable of movement, I would fling him into the hydrangeas.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been capable of movement in one hundred and forty-three years.

Not that I’m counting.

But of course I am counting because when you’re conscious, but basically immortalized in granite, you have nothing to do but think. And count. And scheme.

There isn’t much else to do.

Below me, the front lawn stretches toward Winchester Lane, though no one has called it that in decades. According to the small green sign the county erected at the end of the drive sometime during the Reagan administration, I now live on Old Mill Road.

I objected at the time. No one asked me. No one ever asks the gargoyle.

The squirrel’s tail brushes my ear.

I imagine I could creatively dispose of him. If only I could move. It helps… some.

A truck rumbles somewhere in the distance, but I don’t bother giving it much thought. The road has grown busier over the years. Not busy, exactly. This is still Stream in the Woods. Nowadays, though, it’s called Screaming Woods, on account of a mishap with an overzealous scientist and an energy drink that caused a lot of the residents to turn into mythical creatures and monsters. Of course I was already one myself. There’s always been magic in these woods. I’ve always suspected it’s one of those places on Earth where the veil between this world and another is exceptionally thin.

Once upon a time there was nothing beyond those trees but land. Only my land. Hundreds of acres of it.

People used to come through those gates because I summoned them. Bankers. Businessmen. Politicians. Men who wanted money. Men who wanted favors. Men who hated me but smiled when they shook my hand because they needed something I had.

I liked that. I liked having things other people wanted. Money and power and prestige. I’d had it all. Especially this house.

Which is funny, when you think about it.

And by funny, I mean proof that the universe is a vindictive bitch.

I spent years building Winchester House. Imported stone. Hand-carved wood. Marble shipped from Italy. Every inch of it designed to remind anyone who crossed the threshold that Gabriel Winchester had more money than they did.

Now half the gutters are rusted through, there’s moss growing between the stones on the eastern chimney, and I’m fairly certain something died inside the wall of the third-floor bedroom last winter.

Justice, apparently, has a sense of humor.

The squirrel chirps.

“Fuck off,” I tell him.