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Chapter One
Mason
Finding a new job in the private security department after getting fired from Monster Security Agency was impossible. It took me two weeks to realize why. I’d been blacklisted.
It seemed fair seeing how I’d botched my last job, but it wasn’t. Because I knew, the client knew, and even my boss knew it hadn’t been my fault. I’d warned the stupidly rich idiot not to trust anyone, not even his best friend. I’d protected him with my life, and he went behind my back and almost got himself killed. Fortunately, I got wind of it in time and saved his life, but he still ended up in the hospital with a bullet in his leg, and I still ended up laid off.
I couldn’t afford to lose my job. Not now, not ever. Yet it happened, and now I was running all over the city, trying to find work when no one wanted to hire me. If I couldn’t be a bodyguard, then what could I be? Could I train others in the field? No one trusted me. When they heard the name Mason Stonewarden, their polite smiles turned into frowns, and they started making up excuses, pretending like they were needed somewhere else.
I was done. My career in private security was over. I’d dedicated years of my life to the MSA, and now they’d thrown me out like yesterday’s trash. Monster Security Agency was the best in the business, known for always getting things done, no mistakes. I’d made a mistake and now I was paying for it. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, because my boss knew me well, and he knew I was fully dedicated to the job. When I debriefed him about what had happened, he was understanding and sympathetic. But the client was always right, even when the client was dumb. From the hospital, fresh out of surgery, he’d called my boss and asked for my termination.
It wasn’t even the first time the MSA had failed me and my family. I should’ve known better. My brother was the only one who would understand what I was going through, so this morning, instead of heading out to look for a job and find only rejection, I called him and told him I wanted to pay him a visit. He was happy to hear from me.
“Come over for lunch, Mason,” he said. “The kids will be home from kindergarten. They’ve missed you. I’ll ask Kara to make your favorite.”
My heart ached at my brother’s words. He sounded upbeat, like he was having a good day, and I was going to go over there and ruin it for him. At my kitchen table, with only a cup of cold coffee and a stale sandwich to call breakfast, I hung my head and rubbed my bald head. How had it come to this? I was supposed to be the strong one, the one who never gave up, because giving up meant not being able to support my loved ones. My brother, Goliath, and his human wife, Kara, with their two hybrid children, Xavier and Nira, were the most important people in my life. They depended on me, and today, over lunch, I was going to tell them I’d failed them.
I spent the rest of the morning straightening up my apartment and rehearsing in my head how I was going to break it to them that I’d lost my job and couldn’t help them with money anymore. I lived in an old building that had been transformed to host monsters of the more humanoid kind, and the rent was high because it was near the city center. If I didn’t find work soon, I’d have to look for a new place, probably around where my brother lived. He and his family lived in a neighborhood built by our kind – golems – and they owned their house. I was sure I could find something close to them, but living so far from the city, where I got to mingle with humans and other species, meant it would be even harder to find work that paid well. As golems, weonly joined our tight communities when we were ready to settle down.
Not that I wasn’t ready to settle down, but with whom? And now that I didn’t have a job, it would be even harder to find a wife.
I put on a fresh set of clothes – a buttoned up shirt that wasn’t too wrinkled, and a pair of jeans – and got into my truck, knowing it would take me an hour to drive to my brother’s place. If I was lucky and traffic was light. I wasn’t, and I got stuck on the highway for fifteen minutes, trying to distract myself from my dark thoughts with heavy metal music. Meanwhile, above everyone’s heads, creatures with wings had no trouble getting to where they needed to be. Only monsters who couldn’t fly drove, and not that I was unhappy with my genetics, but a pair of wings would’ve served me well in life. I realized it was silly to think like this. My body was heavy, entirely made of stone. There was no way I would’ve been able to lift myself a foot off the ground.
Being made of stone, essentially indestructible, had its advantages and disadvantages. I was a warrior, born to use my physical strength in the service of others. However, when people looked at me, all they saw was a massive beast who needed to be told what or who to crush. They didn’t see what was underneath my rough exterior, couldn’t fathom that I, too, had a heart. In time, I came to accept that no one was interested in hearing me express my emotions, so I buried them deep and focused on what was in front of me.
Maybe that was why my brother, Goliath, had married Kara, a human, even if both families had been against their union. She could see him for who he was, even when he looked at himself in the mirror and only saw a block of stone. Today, she was going to see through me, too. It was her gift. She was going to look into my eyes and see what was in my soul, and I was afraid that it would cause me to break down in front of them.
The cars in front started moving. I turned my engine on, and for a second, considered turning back. I wanted to see my brother and his wife, and I missed my niece and nephew. But it was going to be a difficult conversation, made even more uncomfortable by Kara’s very much human ability to see through my tough façade.
She was good for Goliath, especially after the accident, when he’d needed so much grace and understanding. I wondered if someone like her would be good for me, too.
Relationships between golems and humans were an oddity. It was better to not get my hopes up. More likely than not, I would one day find someone like me, a female who was tough and made of stone, and together, we would pretend we were unbreakable and had no feelings.
I turned the music up and only turned it back down when I drove into my brother’s neighborhood. All the houses here were large, with expansive backyards. Golems needed a lot of space. I pulled into the driveway, parked behind my brother’s truck, and as I got out, Xavier and Nira burst out of the house and slammed right into me. I lifted both of them easily, and they screamed as they clung to my thick arms.
“Uncle Mason, we missed you!”
“I missed you too, my favorite rascals.”
Their hybrid nature meant they weren’t entirely made of stone. Unlike their father and me, they had hair on their little heads. Nira had her mother’s blonde hair, and it nearly reached her waist.
Kara appeared in the doorway. She shook her head and came over to give me a kiss on the cheek and retrieve her overenthusiastic toddlers. Behind her, my brother rolled in his wheelchair. His face lit up when he saw me, and I rushed to him so he wouldn’t have to cross the driveway.
“Long time,” he said. “I always tell you that you should visit more often. You look good!”
“You too, brother.”
I was lying. The truth was that since the accident – which hadn’t been an accident at all – he’d become smaller, narrower, thinner. His right leg was weaker than ever, and his left leg was only a stump. He’d lost it a year ago, and we hadn’t yet managed to raise the money for a good prosthetic that would actually help him be useful again, not hinder him more.
So, after all, golems weren’t completely indestructible. With the right weapon, we could get chopped off, too.
We gathered in the large dining room, and Kara enlisted the kids to help her set the table for lunch. I sat across from my brother, and for a few minutes, we just stared at each other.
“It’s good to see you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I know you’re busy.”
