“What’s the meaning of this?” the gargoyle asked in a soft, sensual voice. It was hard not to notice her barely-covered body, even as terror filled me. Her long, black, wavy hair fell over one shoulder. Her smooth skin had a slightly purple tint to it, and her horns and wings were red. A loincloth fell into place where it was needed below. She wore armor on her chest, also on her legs to form at the feet into what looked almost like stilettos, but I imagined might have to do with a gargoyle’s foot shape.
I kept telling myself that it had been me who woke her, so there was no reason to be afraid. But, that didn’t stop the terror from seizing hold, even more so than when I saw Steph with her new magic and her retinue of death knights.
Instead of answering the gargoyle’s question, Steph attacked with her fire. The flames around her hand shot out in three bursts. Her death knights raised their swords and moved forward as the gargoyle rolled out of the way of the first two shots. The third hit the backside of one of her wings, but only singed it lightly before dying out.
A growl escaped the gargoyle as she stood and thrust out a hand but… nothing happened. She seemed confused, then glanced back at her wings, seemingly equally confused, and let out a groan as the first death knight’s sword came down on her. Suddenly, as if purely on instinct, the gargoyle became a fighting machine. She dodged the blade and came up with claws that tore into the man, tail whipping around to stab at his throat, wings flailing to catch a gust of wind and pull her back and out of the way of three more blasts.
The expression of anger and confusion on her face was priceless, and I almost felt bad for the death knights as she tucked her wings, diving back in to give them hell. Two vanished in puffs of smoke from her attacks, but the third managed to knock her back, sword raised. She spun, sweeping out his legs and snatching his sword, then plunged it into the knight’s face, causing him and his sword to puff out of existence.
“What magic is this?” the man next to me demanded, staring wide-eyed at me.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Steph cut in, angered, as she threw another burst of fire. “The boy doesn’t have this kind of power, and the searcher is dead.”
Searcher? I assumed she meant my aunt but had no idea what was meant by the title. Then again, it seemed there was a whole lot I hadn’t known about her.
“A mage in the mix?” the woman asked, pulling a wand from her cloak and turning, eyes darting about.
Meanwhile, the gargoyle managed to dodge around the death knight and pounced in our direction.
“Figure it out later,” Steph said, moving her hand in a strange pattern and creating a shield of flames that caused the gargoyle to change her trajectory, going for the man instead of Steph.
The gargoyle plowed into him, lifting him, and while dark shadows began to pool around his hands, she threw him from the roof. Next, she was on the woman, who shouted words I didn’t understand and flicked her wand, sending the gargoyle back with a black and green explosion.
A grunt, and the gargoyle was back at it, this time going for me. Both Steph and the witch watched this in confusion, neither moving as the gargoyle shouted in my face and attempted to swipe me with her claws. Only, she stopped with them an inch from my neck, sniffed me, and looked at me with curiosity.
“We’re getting out of here,” she said and rolled, grabbing me as she went, coming up on the other side and running with me held in her arms. Magic hit her and she almost stumbled. A death knight appeared a second later and nearly landed a blow on her, but then we were off, soaring through the air.
Not flying, I noticed, but gliding.
“The other one,” I blurted out, realizing what was happening. “Your sister, or friend, or—”
“What?”
“She’s back there, on the roof! They’ll destroy her!”
The gargoyle looked at me in her arms, growled, and then adjusted course, flying back to land on a balcony one level below.
“You. Stay.” She turned and leaped, claws digging into the side of the house, and started to climb back up to rejoin the fight. If we could wake the other one, I figured we had a shot at taking Steph and the others down.
Only problem was, I was apparently being left out of the fight.
“I have to come,” I blurted out. “You need me to wake her.”
She paused, glanced back, and asked, “It was you? You woke me?”
I nodded.
“Well then, great mage, hop on. I’ll need you up there.”
For some reason, I was smiling as I ran forward and jumped. Her tail hooked me under the arm and pulled me up so that I was on her back. The enemy hadn’t realized that we had come back yet, apparently, because they were still shouting at each other about letting us get away.
There we were, climbing back into the thick of it like idiots.
“It’s witch, actually,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“I just… nothing.” Thinking it over, ‘mage’ did sound cooler, even if my game screen said I was a witch. “Just, I’m only a level one mage, so…”
“Your words are gibberish.”
“I mean, I’m not very powerful.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“But you woke me, meaning you’re powerful enough. Worthy of saving Avalon, I’d wager.”
As we reached the top, my mind spun with confusion over the words she’d just said, but the fact that we were about to charge back in against an enemy who seemed likely to kill me took precedence on my worry meter.
“What spells do you have?” she whispered.
I frowned, held up my hand, and looked over my screen. Aside from stats there was a passive skill called ‘Searcher,’ just like Steph and her friends had referred to my aunt, but otherwise, there was nothing.
“Stop that, you look like a fool.” She glanced around, sticking low, wings folded against her back. “Tell me, what spells?”
“I’m checking,” I hissed, trying to find out how to access other screens, hoping I was wrong. Giving in, I said, “Right now, none.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You said you were a mage.”
“I… yes. But only level one. And I imagine I have to learn the spells, don’t I?”
With a nod, she pursed her lips. “I can’t believe you lived long enough to make it this far. How did you wake me?”
“I… touched you.”
Her left eyebrow arched, the corner of her lip going up, but then the coldness returned as she gestured toward the edge of the roof. “Stay out of the way until we’re ready. I’ll charge over, distract them in battle, while you wake the other. Think you can handle that?”
“Yes.” I projected confidence, in spite of the many deaths of me running through my mind. A fireball through the face, green magic turning me into a pile of dust, or whatever the hell that man was capable of, if the fall hadn’t taken him out of the fight. Then there were the two or three remaining death knights and their swords. How could I forget about them, when the threat of my head being chopped off loomed over me?
To my horror, she was already slinking along the roof, to the left of where I had first awoken her, leaving me with a clear shot for the other one. I did a quick scan to confirm it was the only other gargoyle statue up there, then crouched, legs ready to sprint.
A roar filled the night and she was on them—throwing a death knight from the roof and leaping to dig her claws into the witch. That was it, my chance. I sprinted all-out, making for the statue, and reached it as the gargoyle flew off the witch, taking a chunk of flesh with her. The witch was screaming, flinging hexes left and right without a target, and then I saw why—the gargoyle had not only torn flesh, but managed to scratch out her eyes. Damn.
Steph, meanwhile had her shield of fire again, shooting flames at the gargoyle while the last two of her death knights took up a defensive position. If they’d given up the offense, that meant we were looking good.
“Steph!” I shouted, reaching for the other gargoyle, smiling. “Let’s see how well you hold up against two of them!”
My fingers touched the hand of the second gargoyle as Steph cursed and waved her hand to make her last two death knights vanish, then her. The witch was still there, moving her head about as she tried to work out what was happening, while the gargoyle was back up and preparing to pounce, but looking my way as I awoke the other.
I held up a hand for the screen as before. Only, this time the ‘Awake’ option wasn’t there. In fact, it showed an image of a gargoyle in the upper right of the screen, along with what looked like a depleted mana bar.
What? I needed more magic, or more power, before I would be able to wake more gargoyles?
I grimaced and made eye contact with the first. Good thing this hadn’t happened before Steph left, or we might have been in trouble. As it was, the gargoyle growled, dodged an attack that came too close, and then ripped the witch’s arms off before bashing her head into the concrete at the side of the rooftop. Finally, she took the witch’s limp body and placed her against the side. With a swift strike from her tail, the spade was in the back of the head, severing something within, and then the gargoyle kicked. The head disconnected and fell over.
The body fell to the roof.
Turning to me, the gargoyle stomped over. “What’s the problem?”
“Apparently, I’m not powerful enough to wake two, yet.”
“Shit.”
“I know. This… isn’t good.”
“The demon lady will be back.” The gargoyle approached the other and crouched next to it to get a better look. “No, our situation isn’t good at all, but it would be better if we had Kordelia on our team. This, by the way, is Kordelia.”
“I see. And you are…?”
“Ebrill. And you?”
“Call me Jay. Short for Jericho, but I usually go by Jay.”
She analyzed me for a second, then shook her head. “I’ll call you Jericho. Has a nice ring to it. Does it mean anything?”
I frowned. “You’re… joking, right? I mean, it’s in the Bible, and…?” She was staring at me with a blank expression, so I shook my head. “Not important.”
“At any rate, we should set up wards then get inside. You do at least know how to set up wards, I hope.”
“Sorry.”
She scrunched her nose, then motioned me over. “It’s simple, really. Start like this,” she held her hand up, then waved it across and in a semi-circle at the end, “curve it like this, and say, ‘Ddiogelu.’ Try it.”
As she said the words, a blue line of light appeared in front of her, hovering there as if a flame had been dragged across and the image left behind captured on a camera. I nodded, figuring this was easy enough, and made the motion. “Dioglew.”
“Again,” she said, frowning. “Ddiogelu.”
This time I said it right, “Ddiogelu,” and the same light appeared. As it did, my screen flashed up and showed a new spell there, reading, Barrier Ward: Ddiogelu. It even showed a little motion that went along with the spell. Convenient, in case I forgot.
She saw me eyeing empty air—or so it appeared to her—and grunted. “Before, when you said you have no spells?”
“Ah, right.” I turned, preparing to cast another, but she put a hand on my arm.
“Not necessary, but we should cover all four sides of the building, to be safe.”
I nodded, walking with her to the next, as I explained, “I’ve always had this weird ability to sort of change things around me. Like once the air was all smoky at a campfire, so I sort of made it… not. Or when my buddy Devin was doing really badly in a PT test with me, wheezing and whatnot, I sort of touched his shoulder and gave him extra stamina and courage, I guess. It’s all confusing, really. Maybe in my head, or—”
“You’re a transmuter,” she said, voice betraying her awe.
“No, just… a what?”
“Transmuter. It means you’re a lot more powerful than you give yourself credit for. You need to learn to harness that, embrace it, and we’ll be golden.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded, had me perform the ward spell, and then motioned for me to get the next side while she ran and jumped, gliding over to the far side to take care of that one. Once done, we moved for the trap door, glancing back once at the carnage we had left behind—mostly in the form of the witch’s bloodied body, as the death knights were gone.
“They won’t be able to get back in without an invitation,” she said as we climbed down. I glanced up to respond, quickly realizing that wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do when descending steep stairs. She had her ass out as she lowered the hatch above, and basically, I had the full view of the way the cloth was tied underneath, hugging her body tightly.
“Good,” I said, my voice catching. “Great.”
I didn’t know if she caught on to my nervousness, because I looked away and quickly descended the stairs. When we reached the bottom, my aunt’s secret room was in a shambles—holes blown into the walls and shelves knocked over, my aunt lying dead on the floor. “And the bodies?”
“For now, leave it.” She strode past me, easily tossing aside a fallen shelf that should’ve taken the two of us to move. “Right now, I’m starving.”
“Oh, actually, there’s food already made.” I pushed ahead, opening the door for her and grinning like a horny teenage boy. She saw it right away and chuckled but nodded her appreciation for my move with the door.
“Lead the way, my lord.”
I laughed, then wondered if she was teasing me or thought I could be a lord. Considering my clothes and this house, it could be an easy mistake. Nothing that needed to be addressed at the moment, I figured, so led her down to the kitchen.