AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And he turns to stone.
A gigantic stone gargoyle is now filling the entire hallway, blocking my view of everything beyond him, his wings spread wide. Two seconds later, I hear the clang of spears hitting the stone, then the soft clatter as they all fall to the ground.
My heart skips a beat. Thank fuck for Raven. There’s no way I could’ve avoided those spears. And if he hadn’t done that, we all would’ve been run through for sure.
“How could you do that while we can’t phase out?” I ask.
“My gargoyle form is using my different bloodline. It doesn’t work like fae phasing does,” Raven explains, shifting slightly back so he’s not completely made out of stone. His voice is deeper like this, like stones scraping along a riverbed.
“Gargoyles are rare,” Cain says. “I don’t think whoever created the spell that keeps us from shifting accounted for the idea that someone like him would be in here.”
“Let’s go,” North orders. “Quickly.”
I can hear the whistle of more spears flying at us, and I wince as Raven repeatedly has to turn to stone to keep us from getting hit. This hallway seems to go on forever. How many damn spears are there? Are they just vanishing and then reappearing at the end of the hallway again to start all over?
We at last reach a section of the hallway that turns to the right, and we all quickly follow Raven down it. We pause for a moment, all of us waiting with bated breath. All I can hear is my pounding heartbeat echoing in my ears.
No more spears come.
I let out a sigh of relief. Thank fuck that’s over.
“What the fuck?” Cain yells, and oh boy, I spoke too soon.
Something is swinging down from the ceiling. No, multiple somethings, all of them about the size of my damn head.
What the actual fuck?
I’ve had to deal with magical creatures, sometimes, guarding people’s goodies. Usually it’s just plain old dogs, but sometimes people get creative. Once you know a creature’s weaknesses you can exploit them, animals are predictable that way.
But these are… I don’t even know what.
Damn it. What the hell are they?
The creatures swoop down, furred and black, squeaking, and I realize that they’re bats. Large, magically modified bats. No real bats get this big, and they sure as hell don’t try to bite and claw at people. They dive for us, squeaking and attacking, aiming for our heads where we’re most vulnerable.
At least the hallway has widened, probably to give the bats room, so now we have room to fan out and defend ourselves.
North pulls out two wicked-looking knives. They’re specialized blades called kukri, I think. They’re slightly curved, with well-worn leather handles that conform perfectly to the shape of his hand. The metal of them glints in the light of Cain’s fireball, and North leaps up, using one to slice right through the next bat that comes at him, sending it to the ground in a sickening gush of blood.
Holy shit.
I didn’t really get to see North fight in the marketplace, and in the apartment when Donovan’s men came after me, we were all just out of bed and he didn’t have any weapons on him. This, though, this is—it’s insane. As someone who’s had to fight a lot of her life, I can appreciate someone who fucking knows what he’s doing.
And… well, it’s hot.
North slices through more bats, and I look around for a weapon. I don’t usually carry one on me and my burglar equipment’s not gonna be much help.
The hallway lights up, and I hear afwoom, like someone just poured gasoline on a grill, and I turn in time to see Cain expertly lobbing two more fireballs at some incoming bats, hitting them clean in the middle of their chests.
“Look out!” he yells as we all duck and the bats go careening through the air, their dying shrieks echoing in my ears.
“What the fuck, Cain,” North growls. “This whole place smells like a bad barbecue now.”
“What did you expect me to do?”
More bats come at us and Raven snatches them out of the air, throwing them onto the ground and crushing them with his fists and feet, both made out of stone. The rest of him looks normal, or near-human, but his arms and legs are stone, pure crushing power.
Stone… huh…
