Gargoyle Knight: A Dark Urban Fantasy (6 page)

Without a trace of hesitation, Artan slipped under the cordon. Moving with feral grace, he dipped down the shadowy hallway and soon emerged in a vast room filled with the remnants of his own past. For one brief moment, Cael ceased to dominate Artan’s thoughts and he let his guard down, allowing himself to be affected by these familiar surroundings. An assortment of weapons lined the wall. Mannequins decked out in medieval fashions posed to mimic everyday life in the Celtic world.

Artan took in the dioramas. His past had been reduced to a simple museum showpiece meant to entertain a world that had passed him by.
 

Artan’s studied a display case that contained a series of wood-carved animals. Primitive Celtic toys. A wistful expression crept into his features, the image triggering a memory...

Flames flickered in a fireplace. Artan was in the castle’s private chambers, ensconced in a wooden chair. His expression was focused, a mask of concentration. Working his knife with skill and precision, he was carving a small horse from a block of wood.
 

His five-year-old son watched with unwavering concentration, the young boy’s expression alive with wonder. Artan completed the carving and held up the fruits of his labor. The boy’s face lit up with unbridled joy.
 

Artan was suddenly joined by his wife Samara. He stroked the fiery mane of red hair spilling down her beautifully arched back and his eyes filled with love and devotion.
 

Three days after that idyllic moment, his father the king would succumb to a wretched disease and Kirkfall would be plunged into civil war. But that terrible day was still in the future and Artan was happy and at peace…
 

Approaching footfalls broke Artan’s reverie and this hollow shadow of the once happy husband turned toward the new arrival. Facing Artan was Rhianna and, with her red hair and fair complexion, she could have been the ghost of his long-dead wife. Artan grew still, entranced. He barely heard Rhianna’s words.
 

“Sir, this wing is off limits to the public. You can’t be here.”

Artan remained riveted.
 

Misinterpreting his silence but growing increasingly uncomfortable in the man’s stoic presence, Rhianna added, “The exhibit doesn't open until tomorrow. You can come back then if you like.”

It seemed like an eternity before Artan reacted. He might not be able to fully understand this modern language, but the message behind the words was clear.
 

He slowly turned away from the woman. It turned out to be more difficult than he expected. Part of him wanted to keep staring at her and pretend the last fifteen centuries never happened.

Artan headed for the corridor, supposedly on his way to the museum’s exit. He could feel the beautiful woman, who had reminded him so much of Samara, peering after him. Her presence had stirred something deep within Artan, something he thought he had lost for good. But the woman wasn’t his wife. Samara was dead, gone now for more than a millennium, and the man who robbed her of her chance at a long, fruitful life was near. That’s all that mattered right now. Instead of heading for the nearest exit, Artan dipped behind a stone column. He was not planning to leave just yet.

***

The security guard kept patrolling the museum, scanning the more disturbing pieces of Celtic artwork. Dr. Sharpe wasn’t kidding. This place had creep factor written all over it.
 

The guard’s name was Kenny Cordero. Twenty-three years old, he was taking classes in his off hours at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He might be a security guard at the moment, but his dream was to pursue a career in law enforcement. The schedule was rough — he was averaging six hours of sleep during the week — but he was young, hopeful about the future, and enjoyed his day gig. The pay was shit but he reveled in the sense of authority that came with the position. Girls sure looked differently at him when he patrolled the halls of the museum in his uniform. In particular, Dr. Sharpe’s daughter.
 

He remembered the day he first caught a glimpse of her. She was buried behind a stack of books, face bathed in the glow of her laptop while she attacked the keyboard. She had looked up from her work and flashed a demure smile at Kenny.
 

There was something about that smile. He had paid special attention to her ever since. Rhianna was smart and gorgeous too, but she didn’t seem to know it or refused to flaunt it, unlike so many of the girls he dated in high school and college. Kenny went out with too many bratty, loudmouth party girls. He appreciated someone who was more reserved and what was the word... graceful.
 

Kenny was still wondering if Rhianna might be single when he took note of the deserted pedestal and a terrible realization hit him.
 

The one-eyed gargoyle was... gone.

Shit.

The guard palmed his mic. But before he could alert other members of the security team, he made out a noise behind him.
 

Kenny whirled, just in time to catch a flash of steel. A sword bit through his starched blue shirt, puncturing skin, muscle and bone, severing nerves and tendons. His stunned eyes fastened on the blade planted inside his now scarlet chest, mouth working spasmodically in shocked confusion.
 

WHOOSH.
The blade was withdrawn with a spray of blood. The stunned guard staggered back and collapsed. A naked, heavily tattooed bald man brandishing a bloody sword loomed before him. There was a raw mass of scar tissue where his right eye should be. It was both repellent and hypnotic. A split second later, the sword whipped down on Kenny, turning the hapless guard’s world black.
 

***

Artan’s older brother Cael, the warrior-druid, stepped back from the slain guard. He touched his bloody blade and rubbed the still-hot crimson liquid into one of his tattoos. The one he chose was shaped like a spiral.
 

The Celtic symbol for the wind.
 

Each tattoo represented a spell and required blood to be activated. Cael whispered a few words in the language of the old Gods. A wind kicked up within the display area and rapidly built in intensity. The ancient druid magic had been activated.

A wind arose. Pieces of clothing slid from the mannequins in the exhibit and snapped around Cael's body, magically clothing him. Within seconds, he was decked out in Celtic armor – the burnished black leather wouldn’t seem out of place in many of Manhattan’s edgier nightclubs.
 

The wind died down and Cael’s thoughts turned to the moment when he awoke from his long slumber. At first he had experienced paralyzing confusion and his thoughts spun out of control. He found himself in strange surroundings both familiar yet alien. He knew time had passed — centuries, maybe even millennia — since he was last human. Even though the years of his imprisonment were vague and seemed outside of his grasp, a fragmented nightmare, certain memories carried greater weight than others and remained vividly etched in his mind. Among those was the day of his defeat.
 

Just thinking about it filled him with bitterness. Artan had struck at the moment of Cael’s greatest triumph. He was preparing his gargoyle army for the final, devastating battle. Hundreds of winged beasts had gathered around the monolithic ring of giant stones, the same Stonehengian configuration that now surrounded the museum. These stones had stood for centuries, hidden within a dense forest. Only the oldest druids knew the secret paths that led to this ancient place of worship. For the ring of stones was in fact a temple dedicated to the ancient demon Balor, ruler of the Otherworld and a dark Celtic god who had fallen out of favor with most of the other druids.
 

When Cael addressed the gargoyles, he wasn’t human any longer – he had allowed one of the creatures to bite him and infect him with its otherworldly evil. By day, Cael was still a man but by night, he transformed into the master-gargoyle who ruled over the hundreds of winged creatures now gathered around him in anticipation of carnage.
 

The
Eye of Balor
glittered in Cael's empty eye socket. It had taken the place of his own eye, which he willingly sacrificed to Balor in exchange for his power.
 

Cael had patiently waited one long day, wanting to draw out Artan’s suffering and guilt, to let the helplessness of his situation fully sink in. But the time had come to deliver the final deathblow. Kirkfall would fall and so would Artan. From the ashes, a new kingdom would be born. The kingdom of Balor.
 

Cael was the first-born prince and it was his birthright to inherit the king’s mantle of power, a right his own father had tried to deny him. Soon he would be expanding Balor’s empire here on Earth.

Cael was in the midst of readying his gargoyle army for their final attack on Kirkfall, the first step in a greater campaign to conquer the emerald isle and surrounding kingdoms, when one of his gargoyle warriors stole away from the ranks and advanced with ferocious speed.
 

It took Cael a moment to realize that this gargoyle minion was different from the animalistic beasts under his command. This gargoyle was part man, part monster, a hybrid creature identical to himself.
 

The instant Cael spotted the rune blade in the gargoyle’s clawed hand, he realized he’d underestimated Artan. His brother had refused to wait for Cael to make the next move and instead brought the battle to him.

Artan's gargoyle features distorted into a demonic snarl and he brought the blade down on his brother’s still stunned face. Magical steel rippled through the air, fueled by the force of vengeance, and slashed across Cael’s visage. It would have hacked off part of his head had the
Eye of Balor
in Cael’s eye socket not broken the sword’s momentum. But the impact of steel striking the stone was enough to shatter it in two. The broken gem erupted from Cael’s eye socket like two bloody tears being shed.
 

The two pieces of the
Eye of Balor
flew through the air and...
 

Everything changed in an instant.

Cael saw his winged army turn to stone before him. Seconds later, his own limbs grew heavy, reverting to the element that had originally spawned the gargoyles. The process wasn’t instantaneous for Cael — after all he was part human — but his gargoyle blood had to obey the laws of the ancient order.
 

His brother’s blade spun through the air, coming in for another attack. Artan’s movements were dulled in equal measure, muscles tightening and growing stiff. But for the moment at least, his rage seemed to have overcome the spell. There would be no ruby to deflect the sword this time. However, before the steel’s sharp edge could reach Cael, the brothers froze in mid-movement. Transformed into stone statues, they were mirror images of the frozen gargoyle army that surrounded Balor’s ancient temple.
 

What followed was a nightmarish, distorted blur of half-perceived sounds and sights. Cael felt as though he was trapped at the bottom of a lake, looking up at the world above. He saw the knights invade the temple, watched them wield hammers and shatter his soldiers, demolishing the gargoyle statues so no magic could ever reconstitute them.

Cael also remembered the rough hands of his hooded druid followers touching his stone skin, a vague sensation of contact. They stole away into the night after loading his stone form onto a horse-drawn wagon. Later that day, he was whisked off to an underground cave where his enemies would be unable to locate him.
 

Cael’s followers hid their master hoping that one day in the future he would return to carry out the dark will of Balor. Little did his acolytes realize that Cael, in his current state, would welcome the blows of his enemies’ hammers. It offered a way out of his terrible prison, even if it meant facing oblivion. Anything was better than this limbo state between life and death, a prison darkened by memories tainted by the sting of defeat.

With the passing centuries, Cael’s rage grew. He would spend fifteen interminable centuries in the dark cave that his followers had chosen for his final resting place. Half aware, teetering on the brink of madness, he waited for a day he thought would never come.

It had taken an eternity of darkness and prayers to Balor, but the miracle had finally happened. He was free to walk among men once more. The spell had been broken.

Cael took in the dying security guard on the floor before him. As the young man’s life force ebbed away and the black veil of death descended over him, Cael knew his mental prayers had been answered.

After all this time, he could finally fulfill his destiny and rule Balor’s kingdom here on Earth.
 

C
HAPTER
S
IX

THE MOMENT HER father stepped out of his office, Rhianna’s let out a deep sigh.
 

Sorry, Natalie. No trick-or-treating for me this year.

Rhianna took a seat before the mountain of student essays waiting to be graded and became resigned to the fact that she would be sitting out the holiday this year. Her life was bound to change one day, but it would happen once she was done with her studies and she could come up for air from time to time. In the same way that a fire needed oxygen to keep burning, an active social life required an investment of time if it was to flourish (and if it was to include a boyfriend who didn’t end up in bed with her best friend).
 

While Rhianna debated how she would break the news to Natalie (she hated flaking out after giving her word), she decided to seek comfort from another energy drink. The museum vending machine didn’t carry Monster, but she might be able to hunt down a Rockstar.
 

With this thought in mind (and realizing she was procrastinating), Rhianna made her way to the nearest vending machine. Moments later, the machine was sucking up her dollars and she had made her selection. The act was followed by the reassuring
thunk
of the machine giving up one of its goodies. Rhianna scooped up her drink, a Full Throttle. The brand wasn’t her first choice and felt a little like a consolation prize, but it would do for tonight.