Cronin bowed his head to Alec. “Thank
you, my love.”
“
Any time,” Alec replied.
“I happen to like taking you out for dinner.”
The man Cronin was holding pissed his
pants. Cronin sighed. “I hate when they do that.”
“
I hate humans w
ho do
unspeakable things to children,” Alec said, turning his attention
back to the struggling man. Alec saw memory after memory in the
man’s mind of the horrific things he’d done. If it were possible
for Alec to vomit, he would have. “I hope whatever meets you on the
other side does to you what you’ve done to them.” The man struggled
some more before Alec twisted his wrist just so and snapped the
man’s neck. He put his teeth to his throat and fed.
When they were done,
before Alec could drop the disgusting human to the muddy
floor, Cronin said, “Hold onto him. There’s something I want to
show you.”
* * * *
Alec was surprised when Cronin leapt
them to the savannah plains. The Tanzanian landscape was not what
he was expecting at all. He could see by the color of the horizon
that the sun would be up in about an hour.
“
I’ve never brought anyone
else here,” Cronin said softly. “Though I’ve been coming here for
many years.”
“
Why are you just bringing
me here now?” Alec asked. “It’s beautiful.”
Cronin smiled and dumped the body into
the dirt. “Don’t be alarmed.”
Alec let the body he was holding fall
to the ground as well. “Don’t be alarmed about what?”
With a smug smirk, Cronin let out a
bellowing roar. It was a sound Alec had never heard him make
before. Then in the distance, Alec heard it. First it was the sound
of feet—big feet—padding on dirt at a gallop, then he heard the
beating heart.
Then he saw it.
The male lion raced toward them, and
even though Alec’s place was now at the top of the food chain, he
still took a reflexive step back. “Jesus Christ.”
Cronin just grinned as the lion’s pace
became a swaggering walk as he came in to meet them. “It’s been a
while since I’ve paid you a visit, old friend,” Cronin said,
scratching the lion’s forehead. “I brought someone with me this
time,” Cronin said to the lion. “He is my husband. I thought it was
about time he met you.”
Alec couldn’t believe it. “Um, so when
you said that time you were off feeding the lions of Tanzania, you
weren’t joking?”
Still grinning, Cronin shook his head.
“No. I’ve fed this pride for generations, discarding evidence.”
Cronin nodded toward the lion. “Put your hand out. He will smell
you.”
Alec had
never imagined standing this close to a wild lion. But, like all
felines, lions were drawn to vampires. These were just… the biggest
felines of all.
The lion sniffed Alec’s hand and started to purr, a loud
rumbling sound. It nudged
his
hip with its forehead, and if he’d still been human, it would have
knocked him off his feet. Only after Alec had scratched the lion’s
forehead, did it seem interested in the meal they’d brought it.
Then, the rest of the pride turned up for the left overs. The rest
of the lions, the females and cubs, all swarmed around Alec,
rubbing against him and purring.
“
Well, they’ve never done
that to me,” Cronin smiled as he looked on. “I think they like
you.”
Alec couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t believe Cronin
had done this for years, and he couldn’t believe he was only
learning about it now.
This
was something he’d never shown Willem….
He looked at his husband and shook his head in wonder. “And
you thought you
didn’t
deserve heaven.”
Cronin g
ave him a
smile that put the beauty of the African savannah to
shame.
Alec was in a much better mood when they arrived back at
the New York City apartment. The first thing he did was apologize
to Jodis and Eiji. “I acted like an ass,” he said. Alec
preferred to apologize out loud, not
directly into the minds of the people he’d wronged. It wasn’t
always possible, like earlier with Jodis, but he still preferred to
speak the words aloud. It wasn’t in his nature to be arrogant about
such things. Just because he had powers—all the known powers in
vampire history, except for Jorge’s—didn’t mean he wasn’t man
enough to admit he was wrong.
And just because Alec was the most powerful vampire in the
world d
idn’t mean Eiji
wouldn’t take the piss out of him. He laughed at Alec. “I think you
can probably take Willem off your Christmas card list.”
Alec
grumbled. “Oh, hardy har.”
Jodis fought a smile. “It was a surprise
to see him,” she said, eyeing
Cronin. “To no one more so, than you.”
“
It was a surprise,”
Cronin conceded. “And to see Willem happy with Johan, even
more so. A fating well-deserved, I think.”
“
Agreed.” Jodis gave a
knowing smirk. “He waited even longer than you.”
“
And I guess I’ll need to
apologize to him too,” Alec said, rolling his eyes. He tried not to
sound petulant and failed dismally. “If I ever see him
again.”
Eiji chuckled to himself. “Oh Alec,
you and Willem have a lot in common.”
Alec
snarled, and Cronin put his hand up. “A change of subject,
perhaps?” He shot Eiji a glare. “Deliberately antagonizing the most
powerful vampire on the planet is not conducive to your longevity,
Eiji. Or to the foundations of this building. There’s now a healthy
crack in the Antarctic ice sheet down to the tectonic plate to
prove my point.”
Alec just shrugged which made
Eiji laugh some more, not fazed at all.
Jodis shook
her head at him. “Speaking of painful deaths, is it not amazing
that there is some world after this one?” Her blue eyes danced with
excitement.
“
Yes!” Cronin
cried.
“I tried to explain my excitement of this to Alec.” He and Jodis
went on to talk of heaven and what it could possibly mean, but Alec
left them to it.
“
You really put a crack in
the south pole?” Eiji asked him.
“
Chile and Argentina are probably experiencing
tsunamis
as we speak.” Alec
sighed. “I was angry. Figured it was the safest place to let off
some steam.”
“
You’re not angry now
,
though,” Eiji noted.
“
No, Cronin took me
someplace magical.”
Eiji put his
hand up like he was stopping traffic. “Stop. I don’t need to hear
about that.”
Alec laughed. “Not that kind of magical. But now
that you mention it,” he turned to
the direction Cronin had gone. “That’s a really good
idea.”
Jacques
interrupted.
He was holding a book written in Latin. “Alec, a
moment?”
So much for sex.
“Of
course.”
“
You asked us to research gargoyles,” he said. “I think I’ve
found something.”
“
What is it?” Alec asked,
looking at the pages of the open book he was holding.
“
The word gargoyle is derivative of the French
gargouille,
which means pipe or throat, or the Spanish
gargola
, for the sound of water. They are believed to be a
construction device to divert rain waters away from the
building.”
Alec nodded. “But?”
“
They were first found in Egyptian and Chinese construction,
long before the French or Spanish came to be,” Jacques said. Alec
didn’t like where this was going. At all. The mere mention of
Egyptian and Chinese histories put him on edge. “They always
resembled the shape of an animal. A lion-like wolf or dragon-like
creature.”
Everyone was now standing in the room
listening.
Jacques
continued.
“There is a French legend dating back to the seventh century where
a chancellor of the king tells how he saved the people of Rouen
from a monster called Gargouille. La Gargouille was said to have
been the typical dragon-type creature with bat-like wings, a long
neck, and the ability to breathe fire from its mouth.”
“
Willem said they breathed
fire,” Alec whispered. “Like a dragon.”
Jacques
nodded. “The
legend states that the creature cannot be killed with fire. That is
why the heads are mounted and water courses through their throats,
so they cannot breathe fire.”
“
They were turned to
stone,” Eiji said softly.
Alec nodded. “What else?”
“
The most famous are those at Notre Dame, but they are
fo
und the world over, Alec,”
he said. “There isn’t a continent that doesn’t have
them.”
Oh, fuck.
“
The Tower Bridge in London
; Milan, Italy; Wat Pho in Thailand; Angkor Wat in
Cambodia; Candi Kalasan Temple in Indonesia; Chavin gargoyles of
Chaupimarca, Peru; Valencia, Spain.”
Alec put his hand up to stop h
im. “I get the idea. They’re everywhere.”
Jacques
gave a nod.
“They are.”
Alec didn’t need to remind anyone that
humans warped actual history to protect themselves.
“
So, these l
ycan-type
creatures have been turned into gargoyles?” Kole asked. “Those
statues on church walls always gave me the creeps.”
Alec nodded. “I agree.”
“
Lycan, dragon, chimera,” Jodis said. “What exactly are
they?”
“
Zoan,” Alec reminded
them.
Alec saw a
reel of images flash through Cronin’s mind. He was picturing the
gargoyles he’d seen. They were a mix of sharp teeth, grotesque
faces, sharp claws, some with wings, and some without. Then he
pictured the Zoan Alec had shown him in his mind. They were
distinctly similar. Then he studied the memory of the Zoan,
searching for something. “Alec, do you recall seeing wings? Some
gargoyles have wings.”
“
They wore cloaks and hoods. I couldn’t see them clearly,”
he said, examining the memory again and sharing it with Cronin so
he could see with him. “I’d rather they didn’t have wings, you
know, because seriously, I don’t need them to be able to fly as
well.”
“
It would explain the myth of dragons,” Eiji said. “They are
a symbol of my Japanese culture, but I have never seen or heard of
anything
outside of
fables.”
“
Even fables have to come
from somewhere,” Eleanor said.
“
Eleanor, can you see
anything
to do with
the Zoan?” Cronin asked.
She shook her head. “No. Alec, if you
cannot—outside of what they decide to show you—then I certainly
cannot.”
Alec nodded.
He could see everything Eleanor saw, and like him and Jorge, she
saw nothing. “So, to kill them, I need to turn them to stone?” Alec
asked. “Which’d be easy enough if I had my powers when I see them,
but I don’t.”
“
Can you level the playing
field?” Jodis asked.
“
How?” Cronin
countered.
Alec saw
where her train of thought had gone. “Jodis wonders if I can
manipulate time like they do. If it’s a talent I don’t know I
have.” He shook his head. “If I can, I have no way of knowing how
to.”
“
Can you bring them here?”
Eiji asked. “When they reveal themselves to you, can you somehow
bring them to this reality?”
“
How can I when I have no powers against them?” Alec
repeated.
“
I wonder if they have an inhibitor.” Jodis pressed.
“Meaning, I wonder if one of them has the power to block
yours.”
“
I don’t know!” Alec
cried. “I have no powers against them! I can’t see or hear or feel
anything from them!”
Everyone took a step back, and Alec
realized his frustration had billowed out from him. “Okay, he’s had
enough,” Cronin said quietly. He put a protective hand on Alec’s
back.
Alec sighed
loudly and dropped his head, immediately feeling bad for not having
better control of his emotions. He reeled them in and turned in
Cronin’s arms to face him. “No, they’re right. We need to talk this
out.” He fisted the shirt at Cronin’s waist and pulled him against
him, instantly feeling calmer. He closed his eyes and rested his
forehead on Cronin’s cheek, reveling in the peace he felt from him.
“I won’t know what I can do against these Zoan until I see them
again. But maybe we should start with the portal they came through.
Willem mentioned the Göbekli Tepe.”
“
Yes, we should,” Jodis
said.
“
What’s one more country?
” Alec deadpanned and leapt them to the vast desert plains
of Turkey.
* * * *
Göbekli Tepe
was one
of the oldest known archeological finds in history, dating some six
thousand years
before
the Egyptian pyramids. It was a
series of circular pits cut into the eroded dirt hill, and even
though it was classified as a stone circle, to Alec it looked more
like a group of holes in the ground than it did a stone circle. It
was nothing like Callanais or Stonehenge. Known as a
temenos
, the main pit was a dug out circular hole in the
plateau lined with standing stones. Where the likes of Stonehenge
were huge megaliths standing above the ground, these standing
stones were in the hollowed out circle. Filled in and buried around
ten thousand years ago, but subsequently excavated by erosion and
time, and more recently, by man.