The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) (4 page)

I rocked back in the chair I’d borrowed from a neighboring office. Actually, broken in and liberated by force would be more accurate. There was no way I could have told her anything in the piece of wooden evilness she offered visitors to sit in. “I was sort of hoping you might know.” I brought the front legs back to the ground with a thud, then winced when a few jars above her head shook around a bit. “About the sap at least.”

Her eyes were starting to glaze over. Once I’d told her all I could, she forgot me. I’d seen her do this before. About a week from now, or whenever the mystery was solved, she’d come apologize, send over some fine ale, and all would be good. But for now she was gone.

“Okay then, I’ll just show myself out.” I stood, waiting to see if she’d react, but a distracted wave was the best I got. “I guess I’ll just have to go look for another bounty job. Maybe just spend the day at the Shimmering Dewdrop.” When she didn’t even look up at that, I showed myself the door. Covey hated the Dewdrop even more than she hated when I had to bounty hunt. I’d agree with her on the bounty hunting, but not on my pub.

The campus was a ghost town by the time I walked down the halls, my own footsteps the only thing keeping me company. I’d had a busy day—between the night before, my lack of sleep, and the parade of assorted visitors that morning—so it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t hear someone behind me until it was too late.

Chapter 4

“I normally don’t have a problem with attractive women following me.” The voice was rich, exotic, and not totally unexpected. I kept my eyes closed, but Alric clearly knew when I’d regained consciousness. The dull throb that slammed from the back of my skull into the floor boards told me he’d been far less gentle with me than I had with my capture of him.

We’d see about settling that score.

“But you keep showing up. You’re following me again, and I can’t afford to have certain people find me at this point.”

I slowly tested my arms to see if he’d tied me up. My left hand quickly smacked into a hard metal something, but they were both free. I opened my eyes at the same time I jumped to my feet.

And fell spectacularly into the pile of extremely used clothing behind me. I looked up from all fours to see he’d trapped me in some tiny apartment, or rather the back half of it. This looked like an unused bedroom, the type only found in the tenements. He was on the other side of the door and had it cracked open a few inches. Enough to see that the look he was giving me was exceptionally wary. Uselessly so. I had no weapons, I wasn’t a magic user, and he could slam and lock that door in an instant. My brief foray into upright-position-land had given me a glimpse of the windowless walls. He shut that door and I wasn’t getting out.

And if I was right about the neighborhood I was in, no one was going to come get me if I screamed for help.

“Don’t worry. Once I’m finished, I’ll leave word with your academic friend on where you are.” He used his square chin to point toward the back of the room. “There’s a bathroom, water, and military food packets. You’ll be fine.”

It was sad he was so damn good-looking because he wasn’t going to be when I got out of here.

“Look, I wasn’t following you—my friend was attacked. I didn’t even know you were behind the attack until now.”

“Liar.” He flashed a dimpled grin. “You knew it was me, and you gave that woman a few samples to analyze.” The grin faded as fast as it had appeared. “You’ve made me speed up my timeline, and that makes me sloppy. I can’t waste any more time here.” He started to close the door.

“Wait! I’ll leave you alone. Just don’t leave me in here.”

“Why not?” All I could see was a slice of his face and one exotic leaf green eye through the small open space of the closing door.

“I’m afraid of small places?” I knew he wouldn’t buy it, but I had to try something to keep that door from shutting.

He laughed, then shut the door with a solid thud. “An archeologist afraid of small places? Good try.” His voice dropped, but I had rushed to the door and could still hear him muttering to himself. “Perallan never said she had a sense of humor.” Then the outer door shut and he was gone.

Perallan? He’d known my former patron? Whoever Alric was, he wasn’t a part of the digger community. Someone like him would have stood out. So how did he know Perallan?

Crap, what if he had been the one who killed him? The witch doctors had said it was a heart attack, but Perallan had been healthy as a team of oxen. His heart had been fine. I’d just chocked it up to the medical community being dumber than usual. But maybe it was something worse. My mouth went dry. I’d been seeing Alric as a nuisance. But what if he was far more depraved than that?

I dropped back on the pile of clothing. It was clean, just left in a huge pile. Had we found something in the ruins that got Perallan killed? I wracked my brain, but the last major find had been a small burial pit. A few trinkets covered in salt mud, nothing more.

I picked at one of the pieces of fabric from the pile of clothing in thought. Come to think of it, Perallan
had
been excited. Wouldn’t even let me properly clean or catalog the find. Covey would have killed me for that. But I made it a policy to never tell people things that would piss them off. Especially someone who could throw me across the room. Now I wished I had paid more attention. I normally studied what I found before I called in my patron, but these were so close to the surface I hadn’t given them much thought.

There was only one thing to do, break out of here, sneak into a guarded and closed dig site, and find out anything I could about my last dig for Perallan. I would have added break into Perallan’s former home and try to find the original artifacts to my list, but his widow had sold everything before his last breath had fled the building. But if I could at least find out something about what Alric was looking for…I had to get out of here fast.

***

Hours later I was still trying to figure out how to do that very thing.

Dusk must have fallen by now, but I couldn’t tell from my windowless tomb. Severe lack of nourishment had forced me to swallow one of the military rations. I tried to ignore the fact that the glorious kingdom of Lindor hadn’t been at war with anyone for over ten years. Problem was, they’d planned for a much larger and longer battle with our rather peaceful neighbors to the west, but they didn’t want to play. The entire country surrendered in less than a month. Leaving us with stockpiles of useless war spells, weapons, and rations. Although it wouldn’t be too far off to classify the rations as weapons as well.

However, I had been exploring my prison while I’d been trapped. I prowled through Alric’s back room as if it were a prize dig. I carefully sorted items, noting in my head the exact location where I found them. As I worked my way through the small room, more mysteries appeared concerning my green-eyed adversary.

The clothes weren’t his.

I pulled up clothes randomly. Wherever the clothing had come from they were in the same condition. Shabby but clean, and in random sizes ranging from children to dregs at least five times as wide as Alric.

So he had a stash of military rations and a bunch of clothing that he’d found or picked up even though he wouldn’t be able to use most of it. This man was just begging me to pry into his life.

Thoughts kept bouncing around my brain—who or what was Alric? Were these the castoffs of his victims? A brief shudder twitched through my shoulder blades. A serial killer who kept his victims’ clothing? And one who washed it? Sadly that wouldn’t make him the most perverse killer in Lindor.

But even though our meetings had been mercifully short so far, Alric just didn’t strike me as the slaughtering of innocents type. Mysterious? Yes. Dangerous? Hell yes, on numerous levels. Sociopath? Probably not.

Which left me back with the clothes. Lots of clothes. I rocked back on my heels and pushed a few more pieces of clothing out of the way to widen my search area. Aside from the odd infestation of clean clothing, the floor was immaculate.

When I’d first moved to Beccia I’d had to live in the tenements for a few months until my credentials came in and I could start digging. I knew for a fact this floor hadn’t looked this good since being built 200 years ago.

What kind of freak moved into the crappiest part of town, cleaned the sty immaculately, then filled it with useless crap? I was going to have to get Alric back for knocking me out and leaving me here, but I was going to make sure I got some answers out of that pretty mouth first.

My head began to pound. I’d like to blame it on the love tap Alric gave me earlier, but he really hadn’t hit me that hard. My head had been scrambled worse in turf fights in the ruins. So, on top of being a skilled fighter, he knew how to control how much force he used.

My head pounded more. The last thing I needed in my life was someone like Alric and his twisted lifestyle. Besides, aside from my professional interest in the artifacts I found, I didn’t like mysteries or mysterious men. All I wanted in life was a good dig, interesting finds, and good money to spend at the Shimmering Dewdrop. The laughter in my head at my unspoken affirmation sounded suspiciously like Covey.

Even though he was the last and worst thing I could think about, my thoughts continued to drift back to Alric. And not just because of his looks, although that was a face and body to dwell on.

The problem was that he reminded me of a new artifact. One with enough features to be familiar, but with enough new components to make him rare and unknown.

I felt an overwhelming urge to catalogue him.

After I pounded him, of course. He was the better fighter, so I’d have to cheat. The faeries would come in handy for that. Good-looking mystery men weren’t excused when they committed acts of battery and kidnapping.

With a sigh I went back to the clothing, but there were few clues there. Except that the only clothes even close to Alric’s size were too worn out for decency or just too ugly to be believed. When no bursts of insight jumped out at me, I forced myself to have another ration bar and get some rest. I wanted to be ready in case Alric came back.

***

I’d just settled into a disturbing dream of armies of bodiless clothing chasing me when an explosion rocked me awake. It wasn’t huge, so the town wasn’t under attack, just this building. And it was close enough to leave a fine rain of plaster drifting in the room.

I leapt to my feet to yell for rescue. I had no idea why the city guards would be trying to blow up Alric’s home, but hopefully they could get me out before they did.

I drew in another breath for a louder yell, but it wasn’t needed. Instead I had to fling myself behind a mountain of neatly stacked clothing as the door shattered with a force definitely not found in nature.

Picking a few troll-sized toothpicks out of my hair, I slowly rose to my feet with my hands up. No use getting an arrow in my belly because they thought I was Alric.

“Taryn St. Giles, drop any weapons you may have on your person and submit to the King’s guards.” Four guardsmen glared at me over drawn crossbows from the doorway. It sounded like there were more behind them. That many for Alric? Although he must have hit me harder than I originally thought, I almost heard my name.

I flashed a calming smile at the front guard, but kept my hands up. “Alric isn’t here, he kidnapped me and trapped me here—”

My comments were cut off as one of the guards stepped forward with a small dart gun. He raised it to his lips and shot me in the thigh.

I swore at the five-inch-long needle sticking out of my leg. I only got halfway through my litany of swear words when the contents of that needle overwhelmed my ability to remain conscious and I crashed to the floor.

Chapter 5

Unlike my awakening after Alric kidnapped me, I didn’t wake on a pile of fluffy clothing. The ground was tamped dirt, so hard it felt like metal. It was also old and crusty and gross. With an oath I threw myself off the ground. Unfortunately, it’s damn hard to throw yourself off the ground and even harder when your limbs won’t work.

Whatever had been in that dart hadn’t been designed for someone my size. Dogmaela the troll would find it hard to recover from this dosage. I settled for rolling over so I at least didn’t have to look at the filthy thing I was laying on.

The face above me made me want to take my chances staring at the floor. I’d been dumped right in front of a crumbling metal bunk-bed and one of my cell mates was passed out cold above me. A half-breed harpy. Wasn’t sure what the other half was, but it was even uglier than the harpy half. The lavender drool coming out of its snout didn’t help much.

“You might want to move,” a voice far above me said. “That purple stuff has been burning holes in the dirt all night long.”

My formerly numb limbs managed to rally enough to let me roll a few times to get away. Now I was lying in the middle of the cell, still on my back, but away from the harpy.

“Damn, girl, what have you been drinking?”

A voice different from the first shouted. Actually they weren’t shouting, they were just so drunk they couldn’t hear themselves. I twisted my head to see who was talking.

Two lovely female goras of the night were staring at me from atop one of the bunk beds at the far end of the cell. Neither had a stitch of clothing on, and both were covered with so much body paint it was clear they’d started out that way.

Goras were so promiscuous their prostitutes paid the clients.

Both had the thin, waif-like look of satiated gora women, long gossamer hair clung to the rude but practical paint covering their bodies. When goras weren’t sexually satiated they looked worse than the harpy half-breed and smelled twice as bad.

“I wasn’t drinking. Some jackass darted me.” I moved my left leg, then emboldened, tried to sit up. It took three tries.

Glorious laughter trickled out of the prostitute goras’ mouths, but then cut off as they both turned toward the bars.

The guard who’d first spoken to me in Alric’s place marched forward, then stood at attention as a commander came forth. Thank the goddess, now I could get this mess cleared up and get the hell out of here. This was officially going down as the worst thirty-six hours in my life.

“Now see here, I don’t know who in the hell told you I was Alric, but there’s a bit of a gender difference.”

The commander lowered his bushy white brows at me in a look of confusion, or at least as much as he would ever allow to show.

“Are you one Taryn St. Giles?”

“Yes, but—”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Then you are in the correct place. You have been brought in for murder. Your trial will be in four weeks.” He glanced around the crowded cell with an evil smirk. “Enjoy your stay.”

He was turning to leave as his words finally processed in my drug-and-beating-abused brain. “Wait? Murder? Of who?” Unless they had found a way to bring you in for thinking of killing someone, I was safe.

His turn and pause made it look like I was asking the world of him. “As if you didn’t know. You are being charged with the murder of your landlady, Nirtha, in her own apartment.”

Nirtha was dead? That wretched excuse for a sentient being was now toes up in the city morgue? I couldn’t help the smile that crept across my lips, nor did I try to fight it too much. But how in the hell could someone blame me for it? The last time I saw her she was fine. The last

time I fought with her that was.

I smacked myself in the head. At least my hands now worked. Someone had heard us fighting, bumped the vile thing off, then set me up for the fall. But who would want me out of the way?

Alric.

He had wanted me out of the way since the beginning, even said so during his evil lock-me-in-the-room routine. He hadn’t lied about it. He’d found someone to let me out.

I finished the swearing tirade I’d started back in his room. Damn it. He’d killed Nirtha just to get me out of whatever he was doing. I had almost convinced myself that I could leave him alone. But not now. Actually, I’d had no intention of leaving him alone if I was completely honest with myself. I just hadn’t planned on killing him before now.

“Who said I did it?” Might as well find out how far this went.

“She did.” The confusion in my head must have dribbled out to my face because he took a deep breath and clarified. “Nirtha did right before she died. She said ‘it’s all the bitch Taryn’…then she croaked.”

He didn’t even wait for me to recover before he turned and strode away, his flunky following him.

“Holy shit, girl, you killed a landlady? Bit tough to pay the rent?” Although with the gora’s accent it came out like ‘sheet’. But the meaning was the same.

“No, I didn’t. It’s no huge loss, but I certainly wouldn’t waste any weapons on that worthless fuzz ball.”

The gora shrugged and turned back to her companion. Obviously if I had no good tales to tell I wasn’t worth their effort.

Crap. No one would know where I was. Covey would go to my place eventually. Once she got done solving her mystery. That wasn’t a cheery thought. There had been times where she didn’t come out of her office for days.

The faeries wouldn’t notice until they ran out of food, which since I’d just stocked their castle wouldn’t be for weeks.

My only hope was Harlan. If he popped in to see me when he dropped the faeries off he might pick up on the murder and who they had charged.

The prison flunky showed up again after I’d been chasing the same thoughts around for a good hour.

“You have a visitor.” While his words were welcome, the tone wasn’t. Harlan must have found me, but Harlan was a well-respected archeologist. How the hell could some pipsqueak glorified guard dog look down his nose at Harlan? I’d deal with that later, right now I just wanted to get out of here.

I scrambled to my feet and tried to make myself respectable. “I am so glad to see—”

My voice dropped to the ground as a far too familiar and soon to be dead face came into view. He was dressed differently, wearing loose clothes to hide his lean fighter’s body, and a stodgy felt hat with his hair tucked under it. But it was Alric.

“Yes, there she is. I am her patron as you see by the documents. I will assure you that she will return in time for her trial.” His voice had dropped to a low gravely tone and an odd odor wafted my way. Onions and glock liver. No wonder the guard was standing a distance away.

“Now, if you would be so good?” Alric flittered a shaking hand in my direction carefully flashing age spots that hadn’t been there when I cuffed him.

The guard rubbed his upper lip as he studied the paper Alric had provided, finally he shrugged. “Not my here or there where she goes. Captain said to give you what you needed.” A look crept across his face that was either a thought or bad prunes at lunch. “I don’t recall him mentioning her though.”

Alric turned and toddled forward to get as close to the guard as possible and leaned into his space. I was torn between giving him up as a liar and getting the hell out of here. But even if Harlan or Covey showed up, a patron would have the best chance of getting me out before trial. And the idea of spending four weeks in here scared the crap out of me.

That bastard. One more thing I owed him for.

“Fine, fine.” The guard stepped back, waving the air in front of his face. “She’s yours. Just get her back for trial.” Without ceremony he unlocked the bars, motioning quickly for me to step out. The goras watched Alric with sharp black eyes. It appeared that they saw something in Alric far different than the guard or I did. Something extremely interesting.

I stepped out of the cell before they decided to see how interesting.

“There you are, young lady. It’s time we get you back to the school.” He patted my arm.

It took all my willpower not to choke him.

I just had to keep the charade up until we were out of sight of the prison, then I was laying him out like a faery on a binge.

“What in the hell are you doing?” I hissed under my breath as we hit the street. It was only early evening, but somehow it felt like I’d been locked up for days.

“Saving your ass in case you missed it.” Bright green eyes struck me from under the brim of his hat. They hadn’t been noticeable in the jail. “Unless you wanted to spend a month or so with the goras?”

I tried to pull my arm free of his grasp, but as I’d seen demonstrated the night before, he was far stronger than he looked. I couldn’t budge as we marched down the street. I might be able to fight free, but this close to the prison would just land me back inside.

The way my luck had been lately, the harpy half-breed would be awake this time.

“I give up. Why set me up then come and bail me out?” I figured asking point blank might startle him enough to let something loose. Me or his tongue, I was fine with either.

“What?” He pulled back to give me a closer look. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting me to call him on it. “I didn’t set you up. Trust me, one of the last groups of people I want watching me would be the guards.” He winced as he caught a smirk I hadn’t been able to keep tied up. I’d shocked something out of him, just not what I’d been expecting. Still…

“How do I know? No one else knew I was in your den of ill-used clothing.” I dropped my voice and my head as a returning guardsman appeared far too interested in us. Alric shut up as well, and the guard passed without a word.

“I’m the one being harassed here—” He cut off as he heard something. He must have better ears than me. It took me a few seconds to even hear a buzz, a full minute before I heard what made him so pale— faeries. Faeries singing. And unless I was mis-hearing, that lovely horrifically off-pitch tune was being carried by my own three bundles of mischief.

“Damn it.” He looked around frantically, clearly debating his options. Finally he stopped and pulled me up against his chest. Even with the oversized clothing, there was no denying he was a fit specimen. “Don’t forget who got you out.” He looked down the road, trying to see where the singing was coming from. It was clearly getting closer. “This isn’t over,” he hissed next to my ear. An instant later he vanished.

There was no way to tell if his parting words were a threat or promise, but I decided for the moment I didn’t care. And that a certain trio of badly singing faeries was quite possibly the best sound I’d ever heard.

It sounded like the faeries were with someone on the ground, otherwise they would have already been here. Most likely Harlan.

I was almost to the cross street where the singing was coming from, when the faeries suddenly shut up. An instant later the singing was replaced by war cries. The sound wasn’t that different to the untrained ear, but extremely noticeable to anyone who knew faeries.

I had a feeling they’d found Alric, costume or no. Most people didn’t know, but faeries had excellent olfactory systems. Better than most hunting dogs. They didn’t want to ruin the mystique of being able to find people, so they never told anyone. I’d found out about it the hard way by bringing home some pickled herring one day.

Although the faeries had taken off in a different direction, heavy footsteps were still coming my way. I paused. The louder tread would be Harlan, my guess on the faeries escort was right. But at least three other lighter footfalls were with him. Were the guards bringing him in too? He’d been there during my argument with Nirtha.

A jolt of fear shot through my stomach and I thought about jumping in the bushes. Luckily, before I could bolt, Harlan and three of his cronies came into view.

Seeing who he had with him made me re-entertain the bolting option. The three were old-school diggers. And three of the biggest busybodies in town. Aside from Harlan. The four together could not be a good thing.

“Taryn!” Harlan’s booming voice hit a second before his hug did. “I was in fear we would have to storm the prison to free you.”

I patted his back and tried to push away. Unfortunately fur was hard to get traction against. Finally, he took my gasping as a plea to be released.

“I’m fine. How did you know where I was?” I cautiously nodded to the other three. There was no way I was talking about any of my current issues within a five block radius of them. “And where did the faeries go?”