The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) (14 page)

“You were yelling about a dead body.” I tried to cross my arms, but the bottles made it impossible.

“Oh, lovely lady, no,” he said while leaning forward. “I was yelling that I would be dead if I did not get treatment. Beccian is not my native tongue and sometimes the words, they don’t come out as they should.”

I wanted to argue. He didn’t get bitten; I knew he saw the mini-giant’s body as well as I did. Okay maybe not as well, but he had seen it first.

But I had a feeling whoever left that body wouldn’t be happy about people finding it and talking about it.

“Must have misunderstood.” But I held his eye long enough to let him know I knew he was lying.

Didn’t slow him down a bit.

“Of course, lovely lady!” He started to hold out his arm for me, then frowned as he looked at the bottles.

I waved them at him and started walking back to my place. I certainly wasn’t about to invite him in, but hopefully having another person keeping an eye on the bottles would keep me from walking into anyone else.

“So, where did you get those faeries?” He still seemed uncomfortable with the bottles and also clearly didn’t really care about the answer.

If he didn’t care, then I could make up whatever I wanted. The real story was far too improbable. “My aunt left them to me in her will. Long family tradition, faery guardians.”

Again he pulled back as if there was an internal argument going on. It only lasted a second, then he shrugged and continued walking. “That is interesting. I’ve never heard of anyone owning a faery, let alone three. My people believe they are exceptionally unlucky.”

I stepped off the curb to avoid a dreg sprawled in front of us. “I don’t really own them, it’s more like I’ve got to watch them.” Which was far closer to reality than I felt like going into. Especially with someone like Marcos. He was amazing to look at, but there was just something off about him. Something more than just the lying about being afraid.

“Enough about the tiny drunkards. How do you like Beccia? I didn’t catch who you said your patron was?”

Marcos swerved to my side of the path as another drunk took out most of the walkway. I found myself not minding too much when he didn’t drift back to his side.

“I do like it here, I feel as if I have been here my entire life.” His smile lit up the alley next to us. “My patroness is the lovely Lady Arenthia she is new to Beccia as well.”

I racked my brains about the name. I didn’t know all of the patrons, not by a long shot, but that one wasn’t even slightly familiar.

Since I couldn’t comment on a patron I’d never heard of, I changed tactics. “How is the digging? I heard that they found elves’ bones in the ruins.”

It took about three steps before I realized he wasn’t with me anymore.

I turned around to see why gypsies and jinn were thought to be distantly related. The look marring that stunning face could have easily come from Abhijeet when he was pissed. It flashed away with a grin. “You are joking. I thought you speaking the truth at first.”

I schooled my face to as serious as it could go considering the circumstances. The fact was, I had heard it. I didn’t believe it, but he didn’t know that. “No, I heard that. Many of the diggers in the Shimmering Dewdrop were discussing it.”

Marcos’s eyes narrowed and he slowed down a bit. “I would like to talk to them of this. You are close to your home?”

I didn’t know whether to be insulted or relieved that I wasn’t going to have to fight him off on my doorstop. I had no intention of letting him in, but it would have been nice to have to say no.

“Yes, next block actually. Thanks for—”

Marcos dashed forward, grabbed the hand with only one bottle in it, and kissed it. “Good night, m’lady!” An instant later he was moving at a near run back down the way we just came.

The distance to my house was short, but I suddenly felt like I was being watched. It was hard to turn around quickly and not risk dropping my faeries, but I tried. Each time the street was empty. Even the windows in the houses I passed were dark.

I picked up my pace as I closed in on my home.

Switching the single bottle to the crook of my arm, I got out my key quickly.

The house was dark, but I usually left it that way. Glows were expensive. I tapped the glow spell-ball near the front door, only to find it cracked. What I should have done was found my way back to Covey’s and stayed at her place for the night. Then come back with some guards in the morning. But as disturbing as the previous days had been, I wanted to be in my own home even more. Not to mention that if I didn’t sit down, the bottles I was struggling to hang on to were going to fall.

So I kept going.

Bad move.

“Stay there,” the voice was gravelly and deep. “Put the bottles on the floor.” The second line made me realize whoever it was used a voice modulator spell. There was a distinctive raspiness to it that only came from that spell.

Thinking that it seemed like every person in Beccia except for myself was spending time in my house, I gently stood the bottles near the door. The faeries had stopped singing, but there was still a lot of fluid sloshing inside each bottle. There was no way they were ready to come out.

Still, I kept my foot near one of the bottles. If it was a matter of me or whoever was lurking in the dark—on my favorite chair too, from the sounds of it—I was going to stomp on the bottle and hope it was one of the two more aggressive faeries.

“Now shut the door.”

The only light coming into the room was from the streetlights. I had front windows, but with the curtains drawn, I wouldn’t be able to see anything. Some of the fae had excellent night vision. My family line clearly wasn’t from that group.

I debated grabbing the bottles and running back out the door. Slamming it shut might slow down whoever lurked in front of me in the darkness.

Who was I kidding? He’d get me before I got five feet. I couldn’t run and keep the bottles. And as much as I would love to get rid of them sometimes, I couldn’t leave the faeries in their current state.

I shut the door, then leaned against it.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The voice echoed stiffly against the pounding in my ears. “As long as you tell me what I need to know.”

I took a chance that my visitor had far better night vision than me and nodded.

“I need you to tell me what you know of the glass gargoyle.”

That was completely not what I had been expecting. “The glass gargoyle? Aren’t gargoyles made of stone? Isn’t that sort of the point of them?” I paused. “Oh, are you talking about the Sandstone Gargoyle? The bar across town?”

A heavy sigh was my reward for trying to be helpful. What kind of idiot would make a gargoyle out of glass? The first hard storm and it would shatter. Not to mention everyone knew the demonspirits only feared gargoyles because of their stone hearts. What kind of moron had broken into my home?

“The ancient glass gargoyle you found in the ruins.”

This guy was dumber than Crusty Bucket on a bender. Glass in ruins. Not to mention, anyone who knew me knew I hadn’t been in there since Perallan died.

“I don’t know who sold you that swampland to build your house on, but there’s no glass in the ruins. It would have been destroyed, and there’s no evidence that the ruin builders had glass making skills. Besides, I haven’t been near the ruins lately.” Not completely true, but the voice of the syclarion popped into my head at the mere thought of anyone knowing I’d been in there when he was.

“When you dug for your previous patron. It would have been big, most likely you couldn’t remove it—”

I waved my hands in the general direction of the voice, noticing that the voice spell seemed to be wearing off. The deep rumble from before was weakening. If I could keep him talking long enough, I might be able to figure out who it was.

“Look, I think I would have noticed something like that, don’t you? Plus, I’ve never even heard of such a thing. A giant glass gargoyle. Have you been drinking rotgut somewhere? Moonshine out of a faery pond?”

I felt a faint tingle as a spell slammed into me. That I felt it at all told me the spell caster was good. Being magic numb meant I couldn’t be spelled. Well, not easily at any rate, and yet in twenty-four hours I’d been spelled twice.

The tingle didn’t last, and a grunt of surprise came from the shape in my chair. An instant later a heavier tingle hit, this more like a wave of needles covering my entire body. This time the needles stuck.

I panicked as the needles wormed their way into my skin. I couldn’t move, the numbness spreading into my lungs and heart. Was he going to kill me?

“You appear to be an innocent in this.” The voice spell was still strong enough that even though he had moved right in front of me, I couldn’t recognize his voice. The shape was tall, male, but that was all I could tell. “See that you stay that way.”

I couldn’t answer him as the numbness had spread to my vocal cords. True terror followed the numbness as it leached into my brain.

The man had opened the door and was just stepping out into night, when I heard him turn and whisper, “Kjickin”. An instant later the needles trying to kill me vanished and I tumbled to the ground.

Chapter 16

Lying there on my side, I had a nice view of a swimming faery. Crusty Bucket was swimming in place, taking in three sips of beer, and spitting out one. It was an odd and slow way to get sober in my opinion. I needed them sober fast in case our mysterious high-level magic-user decided he wanted something else.

Forcing my hand to creep toward the bottle, I shook it until Crusty noticed me. “Drink faster, damn it!”

She frowned, at least it looked like a frown, and sat in her beer. Finally she started drinking faster.

The other two bottles were too far away for me to do the same with them, but hopefully getting one sober would speed the others along.

Focusing my energy on my right foot, I forced it to swing back and hook the door. Fighting the fleeing pinpricks of pain as the spell effect’s dissipated, I kicked the door shut. Last thing I needed was for some vagrant to come wandering in while I couldn’t move.

Within five extremely slow minutes, I was able to get to my feet. Hunting around in the dark, I found my invader had only destroyed the glow near my door, not the rest. With a touch I lit the room.

After the condition of the past few invasions, I feared the worst as the glows lit in sequence. But the room was surprisingly untouched. Just the shattered glow near the doorway. He hadn’t even damaged the door when he got in. What does that say about the state of your life when the most positive thing that happens is that an invader didn’t break anything?

I checked all of the windows in my hovel, making sure no one had forced them open. Re-checked the doors, made sure that there were no unidentified papers that could be used as gateways, and collapsed into my favorite chair.

My life had been so calm before. Granted, I did seem to lose more than my fair share of patrons, but death and disappearances happened with a fairly frequent regularity. I hadn’t noticed it before. All I focused on was the job, as long as a patron could get me in with my ruins, I didn’t care who they were. I didn’t care if the original builders were actually elves, dragons, or tree climbing minotaurs, I had always been fascinated by the ruins and what they left behind. Now I had people framing me for murder, bounty-hunting jobs blowing up in my face, and every criminal element in Beccia breaking into my home just to point out they could. I probably shouldn’t even lock the doors anymore.

I closed my eyes, intending to try and relax enough to crawl into bed, when a rolling glass bottle jerked my senses back up.

One of the faeries was rolling her bottle toward me. Or sort of toward me. She wasn’t going to be able to get around the table. I debated just letting whichever of my tiny demonic housemates was in there bash her head against the table a few dozen times, then I decided it wasn’t worth it.

I picked up the bottle and an extremely drunk Crusty Bucket peered owlishly back out at me, her face distorted as she pressed against the glass in an attempt to see out.

Luckily there was less than an inch of beer left sloshing at her feet. The other two bottles were still, so hopefully Garbage and Leaf had passed out. I didn’t want to leave them in the bottles all night, but I wasn’t opening any of them until the girls were unconscious.

Crusty started pounding on the glass. Or trying to. She was so drunk she missed more than she hit. Quite a feat considering how tight her quarters were.

“Me need to go get bad thing! He no be here. Bad bad bad thing!” The belch that followed was almost as scary as her singing had been earlier. Nice of her to come to my defense after our intruder was gone.

“He’s gone, Crusty. Finish your beer and go to sleep.” I was setting the bottle down, when she began body slamming the sides of the bottle.

“No, no, no! I get bad thing. I get him gone!” She stumbled as she looked around her bottle too quickly. “Where fork?”

With a sigh I held the bottle back up to my face. “You put your fork in my thumb. I’m not giving it back to you until you’re sober.”

Letting loose another terrifying belch, Crusty started trying to reach up and push the lid open. I’d never seen her so determined to get out. And so determined to stay conscious. She really should be out by now.

“Le’ me out!” She slipped and landed on her ass in the remaining beer. Sullenly she started drinking some of it. “I know who is, I get him gone.”

She was muttering more than yelling now, blacking out couldn’t be too far away.

Crap, she said she knew who it was.

Giving the bottle a rough shake, I held it close. “Who was it, Crusty?”

She waved at me a few times, then curled into the bottom of the bottle.

“Not yet,” I said and thunked the side nearest her head. “Come on, stay awake just a few more minutes. Who was it?” I even went so far as to open the bottle in hopes that fresh air would give me more time. The smell of yet another belch almost made me slam it shut. How in the hell could such little beings make such an awful smell?

“It that man.” She blinked at me but made no move to stand. She wasn’t going to be conscious much longer. “That man.” The nod she gave me was to indicate that I obviously knew who that man was.

“Which man? Stay awake, sweetie. Which man?”

“Bad man, fake hair.” Then she pointed at me and dropped her head back, out for the count.

Bad man fake hair? A bad man with a toupee? They weren’t common in outer towns like Beccia, mostly in the big cities to the north. I couldn’t think of anyone with one. But Alric’s dyed hair might be considered fake to Crusty.

I racked my brain trying to recall anything in my invader’s mannerisms, tone, or stance that would indicate Alric. Granted I hadn’t studied him, but I’d seen him enough, in different situations…the person in here didn’t feel like him. The bearing was too imperious, like one of the high wizs from the hill. Except none of them would come down to this part of town to scare a low-ranking digger like myself.

But Crusty was extremely sure she knew who it was. Unfortunately, she’d probably lose that knowledge when she woke up.

I carefully poured my soggy little faery out of her bottle, cleaned and dried her off, then put her in her doll bed. Doing the same with the other two made me realize how much of an important part of my life the little nuisances had become. When they were first dumped into my care, I couldn’t imagine not wanting to get rid of them. A loner by design, I liked being able to decide when and where I interacted with others. Having these three was like living with three small, drunken, and destructive children who were never going to grow up. And tonight I realized I actually didn’t mind. The old witch who left them with me may have had the right idea after all. Of course if I ever found her again, I was still going to get payback. It had taken me over seven years to come to terms with my little houseguests. And I could never admit it to any of my friends or acquaintances. I still enjoyed time away from the girls, and having Harlan take them off my hands from time to time was damn helpful. But still, looking at the three tiny faces, completely relaxed and innocent in sleep, I realized I’d miss them if they were gone.

But more than likely they’d be around long after I was dust, so I didn’t have to worry about that. Sitting back in my chair reminded me I did have to worry about something else. A lot of something elses actually. But the crinkle in my jacket pointed out the most immediate one. Gorgeous Sammy.

Digging into the inner pocket, I pulled out his wanted sheet. A face only a drunken minotaur on a five-day bender could love stared back at me from the sketch. It was a spelled wanted poster, so the image flickered between profile and full front. It didn’t matter; Gorgeous Sammy was hideous from any angle. Round baby-like face, small upturned nose, eyes larger than proportionately necessary, and the obligatory cherub cheeks—he should have at least been cute and childlike. But the round face had jowls and a cruel scowl, the tiny nose, red and bulbous, the eyes permanently bloodshot only instead of red veins, cherubs had green, making it seem like something vile had gone into his eyes to die.

And I got to go bring him in.

Maybe I should invest some hard-earned pennies in a spell casting, find out exactly at what point I’d pissed off a deity this much. Then I could go back and pay them off.

Looking at Sammy’s papers—calling him gorgeous was just too painful even in my own head—decided on my plan of attack. Get him early tomorrow morning when he was still passed out from tonight.

His current stomping, pissing, and sleeping grounds were in the middle of the Red Light District. He mooched off legitimate hookers and freelance alike, and when that didn’t work, he had a shack in between the Demonic Cherub and Little Lamb, two of the most vile strip clubs in Beccia. Possibly in all of Lindor itself. I guess some twisted part of him felt safe between those two.

Checking the doors and windows one last time, and carefully locking up all the papers Largen’s goon gave me, just in case, I turned off the glows and went to bed.