Authors: Lisa Blackwood
More strangers appeared, spat out by the maze. No one else tried to enter the perimeter of the waist–high ring of stones, even though there was plenty of room between each stone to pass without touching them. A tense silence engulfed the clearing.
Alexander entered last, unhurried. With his head tilted to one side, he looked from her to the Redwood and back again.
“I’d thought the ones with strength like yours had gone extinct centuries ago,” he said, as if his words explained everything. After another half dozen steps, he stopped outside the ring of stones. He frowned at them a moment. “Not that it matters; it’s your magic I want. You have two choices, surrender your magic, or swear allegiance to serve my lords.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that handy circle of stones seems to keep you away. Unless you plan on camping out here for the next few days, I think you better move on.” She didn’t believe for a minute they’d actually do what she advised, but if she kept them talking, maybe she’d eventually wake up.
He smiled, a charming curve of lips, then he tilted his head in the direction of the house and his merriment vanished. “That’s a grand house, and these gardens, they’re rather large for just you to take care of. If I wait, I imagine your family will come home soon. Your husband and children, perhaps?” His expression took on a faraway look as if he thought about something else. “Or am I wrong? You have the ageless look of all dryads, but perhaps you’re actually very young, newly come to your powers. Is that why I’ve never sensed you? No matter. I’m sure you have loved ones and they’ll be along shortly.”
Lillian couldn’t hide in the shadow of a tree forever. As he’d said, her family would return home and be captured by these freaks. It would be her fault. Clearly, Alexander wanted something from her. Her magic, he’d said. No way was she believing him. Even seeing the stone smoke when the other man touched it could have been a trick.
“I am patient up to a point,” Alexander said. “If you make me go through these stones to get you, my patience will run out before I reach you. Your choice.”
She shook her head. He frowned and his eyebrows scrunched together. Without another word, he focused on the stone standing nearest to him. Placing one hand upon its surface, he grimaced and began a chant low in his throat: power arced, blue light lancing out from one stone to the next in line. Unseen until now, a dome of energy encircled her and her tree.
“This can’t be happening,” she whispered.
But it was.
Whatever the small man was doing weakened the dome. Where before the dome had appeared a solid blue, its coloration was now patchy and frayed. A fissure formed along the base of the stone he touched, the finest of cracks. She didn’t want to know what would happen when it gave way.
Behind Alexander, a disturbance in the ranks distracted her and she missed the exact moment the stone shattered. Shards flew in all directions, damaging the other stones and cutting down garden shrubs and flowers like a sickle. Agony bloomed to life along her hip. More along her waist. She should have been safe hiding behind the tree’s trunk, yet some of the stone shrapnel must have hit her. Blood, hot and sticky, dampened her t–shirt and the waist of her jeans. Seconds later the burning sensation turned numb. A deep cold started to throb in her side, as if her life was being sucked away by the wound.
She stumbled over a root and slammed her shoulder on one of the Redwood’s ground–sweeping branches. Teetering against it, she gathered herself, then ducked under the branch to see what was going on. Instinct guided her eyes up the tree. Two thin blade–like fragments of stone were embedded in the side of the tree’s trunk.
Pink liquid dripped off the fragments and dropped onto the ground below. More ran down the trunk. Astonished, she touched the liquid: it was slick like sap, but smelt coppery. Tree sap mixed with blood? Another rivulet flowed down the trunk and coated her fingers.
Her legs grew rubbery. Numbness crept up from the wounds, seeping through her blood and across her thoughts. Screams and snarls interrupted the numbness. Had some of the other creatures been caught by the exploding stones?
“Your life blood is watering the dirt and leaf litter. Such a waste of magic,” Alexander mused.
What? Can’t I bleed to death in peace?
Lillian twisted toward Alexander and winced as pain stabbed through her hip. The little man stood a few feet away, admiring the tree, his head tilted to look up at its top, thirty–five feet above his head. He walked around its circumference, studying it from different angles.
Resting against the tree took some of the weight off her injured leg. She eased one hand above her head. Sliding her fingers along the bark, she sought the rivulets of liquid and used them to guide her to the first stone fragment. Her fingers closed on a cold, sharp object. She clawed at it with her nails, dragging it from the wood.
Agony burned in her hip. She embraced the pain. It was better than the cold sucking sensation of having her life leeched out her injury. Her fingers worked at the second piece of stone. Alexander finished skirting the tree and came to face her again. With a grunt, she flung the second shard. Sap–blood flew in a splattering arc.
Her aim was true and the blood–coated stone collided with Alexander. He screamed in agony, a tone of glass–shattering quality. She winced. Hopefully such an unholy sound signaled a mortal injury.
The fragment was embedded in his neck where an artery should have been. The stone fragment smoked and hissed. Other drops of her tree’s blood had eaten away at his skin, like she’d tossed acid upon him. A human would have hit the ground, dead by now. She didn’t know what he was, but he wasn’t human.
The creature collapsed to his knees, but continued to smile at her. Oh, he was in pain, she could see it in his pinched expression: the white skin, drawn tight across his face, the slight grayish hue of his complexion. But it was the sharp fangs when he hissed at her which gave him away. A vampire? Impossible. But what else could he be?
Another blonde male and a muscular female joined Alexander. While they were seeing to his wounds, Lillian took a step forward. Her sight blurred strangely and she swayed. Instead of the carnage of the glade, Lillian’s grandmother stood before her, eyes closed and face serene.
Gran’s hands moved in a precise, intricate pattern as she chanted low in her throat. There was a soft–edged quality about her grandmother; she looked faded, like an unfocused old picture. Her grandmother wasn’t really there.
“Lillian, get to the gargoyle,” her grandmother said, her voice echoing as if from a long way away. “Use your blood.”
Lillian shook her head, trying to clear her vision. She slumped against the tree. A low–hanging branch offered support. She wanted to believe she was hearing her grandmother’s voice. Obeying her commands sounded like a good idea. Lillian gauged the distance from her tree to the gargoyle’s statue: a few feet, ten maybe, fifteen at the most. Ten feet or ten miles, it didn’t really matter. She doubted she could walk more than two steps before she fell on her face. But her grandmother needed her to get to the gargoyle statue. Maybe it was another kind of protection like the stone circle had been, but a stronger one.
Could it be so simple? Could killing these creatures be as easy as getting to the statue and triggering some protection? She needed to try. She was already dead. She was losing too much blood to live, but perhaps she could still protect her family.
Gathering her will, she straightened and held the second stone fragment like a knife. Doggedly, she lurched toward the statue. The ground seemed more uneven than she remembered. She tripped over a stone, and fell to her knees. She forced herself back up. There was someone in her path: a blurry blob with a cloud of dark hair around it. The strange feral woman she’d first noticed outside the maze stood between Lillian and her goal. Anger stirred to life. How dare these monsters come into her home and threaten to kill her and her family.
A sense of something powerful and old flowed through her body, guiding her movements. She surged to her feet, the stone fragment held low against her good thigh. Lillian darted forward, the land around her a blur. Her opponent was moving far too slowly. One more step, and then snapping her arm up and forward, Lillian buried the stone shard in the woman’s stomach. Her opponent’s mouth fell open, gasping in shock.
Growling, the woman clawed at the stone fragment. Lillian sidestepped her enemy. Three steps from her destination something slammed into her. Claws ripped into her back. Kicking desperately, Lillian dragged herself out from under the crazed woman. With a last desperate strength, she crawled up the pedestal and over the gargoyle’s stone leg. Protected on three sides by his body and wings, she collapsed forward onto his lap. She wanted to close her eyes and know no more pain or suffering—to know the peace of cold stone.
Again those strange instincts stirred within her. All she could think to call it was power, old power, deep and familiar. Her body tingled. Was this what dying was like? Was this her soul preparing to leave? Such a strange sensation. It didn’t seem right, dying like this. A useless death. Never to know why her world had been turned on its head.
Sleep called, wooing her into darkness. All she wanted to do was answer that summons, but that old power within her insisted otherwise. She lifted her head and gazed at the gargoyle. There was something different. Her eyes focused on a mark upon his chest over the heart. Someone had painted a symbol on her gargoyle. A small part of her mind took affront to that. Why deface a statue? Her mind fuzzed in and out of focus. Her grandmother wanted her to … wake the gargoyle?
Her attention drifted back to the strange symbol on his chest. On closer inspection it glowed, and it wasn’t painted on his chest like she’d thought, but hovered an inch above it. She reached out with a blood–covered hand and probed the symbol. Her hand passed through the symbol and touched the cold stone behind it. A flash of light, and it was like she’d touched a high–voltage wire. Her hand fused to the stone as it turned hot all around her. She screamed. Her body and the stone now glowed with a blue light. Power danced and pulsed between them. A wave grew, about to crest. She screamed again, knowing she would be consumed if she didn’t direct it in some way.
Ancient memories sparked to life and flooded words and thoughts into her mind. With nothing else to do, she screamed the words.
“I trust to the Mother’s choice. Dark Watcher, immortal servant of the Light, with my power I summon you to wake. With my will I do claim you. Hear me and awake. Evil walks the land. I have need.” Darkness crept across her vision, stealing the sights of the world from her until all that remained was the gray–edged image of the brooding stone gargoyle.
At her cry the power surged into the stone. It softened under her hands. The shadow of his wings moved up and away as his muzzle dipped down. A warm, wet tongue brushed her cheek.
She collapsed forward against his warmth.
Chapter Three
Stone no longer, he answered his lady’s call. The dark world came alive around him as his senses awoke one by one. The thump of many hearts hummed in his ears. One fluttered rapid and weaker than the rest, on the edge of death. He inhaled a deep breath.
Air tainted with blood and death–scent filled his lungs.
A warm weight slumped across his lap.
Blood covered him is a sticky coating.
He opened his eyes for the first time in many years as his mind slowly sorted order from the chaos of his senses. A woman lay sprawled across his lap. Surprise melted away as cold dread stole across his soul. She laid still, her pale skin gray–tinted. A sheen of sweat covered her face. The only color was the bright splash of her blood.
His lady’s blood. Horror clamped his stomach and unleashed a churning void in his middle. He dragged in another great lungful of air, the lingering scent of her desperation and fear strong on the back of his tongue. With each beat of his heart, blood and burning fury rushed through his veins. Pointing his muzzle at the nearest enemy, he roared. But it didn’t expel all the hate and helpless rage trapped within. Again and again, he howled out his agony until it echoed across the width of the glade in a deafening wave.
Rage destroyed reason. Muscles tensed for battle as talons sprang from his fingertips. He gathered his lady into his arms and fed her power while he straightened from his crouch to face his enemies. At the sight of them cowering away, another low rumble built within him. His lips curled back from his teeth, the need to rend and destroy overwhelming.
The invaders fell back as they retreated to a safer distance. By the scents which permeated the meadow, his enemies were a mix of fae–bloods. A breeze picked up and blew the weakening essence of evil to his nostrils. Silent now, he curved his wings around his shoulders and cupped the escaping scent closer to him. He’d nearly missed it: the corruption of a demon–touched corpse. A vampire.
One of his lady’s attackers knew what he was, and the vampire had run to save its unlife. He lowered his lady to the ground with gentle care as he whispered spells to staunch the flow of blood. While he unfurled his wings he gathered power. Using his soul–link to the Spirit Realm, he tapped into the torrent of creative magic. The cold power from the Spirit Realm mixed with the warm air of the Mortal Realm, creating lift. Magic whirled around him like gale winds before a thunderstorm.
A fae–blood shapeshifter with a gaping hole in her stomach growled and started to back away from him while three of her comrades advanced. By her unmistakable wolf–musk scent, she was dire wolf. With the flick of his tail, he decapitated the female. Before her body toppled to the ground, he was moving. He swept out a talon–tipped hand, ripping out the throat of one of the males and gutted a third with a kick from his hind legs. He pushed the body over backwards, and lunged at the next creature within reach: a silver–skinned female with pointed ears. A snapped neck freed her soul from the anchor of her body.