Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

“Do all suspected Soul Complements have to fight each other?” I asked. “ ’Cause that sounds like a stupid rule to me.”

“No. But whoever is being tested must face someone equal or better than them in the use of magic.” His brown eyes searched my gaze, asking me to understand things I’d barely begun to know.

“They chose me because of what I am,” he said. “Guardian. They chose me because both light and dark magic are at my command. They chose me because they feared only I could stop you if it needed to be done. They know how powerful you are.”

My feet hurt, my back hurt, and I really needed to pee. Yeah, I was feeling really powerful.

“I think they might have overestimated my abilities,” I muttered.

“No,” he said. “They didn’t.”

We stood there a second longer and I wondered if he was going to kiss me. Or maybe trying to kill me had set our relationship back a bit. Back to trying to decide if there was enough trust left between us to build something on.

I rubbed my eye with the cool fingers of my left hand. Then looked back up at him. Waiting. Patient. Zen.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said.

He exhaled and nodded. I realized he had been really worried about my answer.

We both got in the car, and Zayvion started the engine and guided the car through the parking lot.

“Would you have?” I asked.

“What?”

“Killed me?”

“They would have wanted me to,” he said.

“And would you have?”

Zayvion looked over at me, his brown eyes just brown. Warm. Human. He put his hand on my arm. “No.”

And I knew he was telling the truth. I could feel it reverberate in him, could feel it spread between us.

I leaned my head back against the headrest. “Good.”

He drew his hand away. We were silent as Zay drove onto the access road.

“I did win, you know,” I said.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. I knocked you out.”

“Stunned me. I wasn’t unconscious.”

“Oh, please, save it for the preacher. You were out cold.”

He stopped to turn onto the main road that would lead us back to the bridge across the Columbia and into Portland. He drew a breath to argue, but movement to his left caught both our attention.

A shadow. Two shadows, running in the night. Running toward us, toward Zay’s side of the car.

Holy shit.

Zayvion tensed, then very calmly whispered a spell that I knew would tear someone apart from the inside out.

The figures broke from the shadows and moonlight bathed them in silver.

Shamus sprinted and threw open the back door, holding it for the gargoyle who ran beside him.

“Go, go, go,” Shamus said as he jumped into the backseat behind the gargoyle and slammed the door shut. “Drive, drive, drive!”

Stone caught sight of me and cooed.

“Stone!” I twisted in my seat and rubbed his warm, marbled head. “Good to see you, big guy. Are you hurt?”

He crooned again and lifted his ears. He looked happy, and had not a scratch on him.

“What the hell, Shamus?” Zayvion said, not driving. “Tell me you did not just steal that gargoyle.”

“Steal? Come on. He doesn’t belong to my mum or the Authority. Can’t steal something that didn’t belong to them in the first place.”

“You know your mother will find out,” Zayvion said.

“Not if you drive fast enough, she won’t.”

I thought Zayvion, the responsible goody-good guardian of the gates, was going to turn the car around. Instead he put it in gear and started toward Portland. “You have a decent cover story?”

“Bulletproof. Couldn’t stand to see you two get the nod for your Complement status; I went out for a smoke and a whiskey. Girls closing up the bar even saw me crying in my drink. Such a sad, sad thing I was.”

I was still rubbing Stone’s head, so I saw Shamus’s wicked smile.

“Of course, I have no idea how the beastie shook off the Grounding stone and snuck out. Clever, though. Too bad we don’t know enough about animates to have kept him properly caged.”

Zayvion shook his head. “And I caught up with you?”

“You know how I am. Shadow to your light. Saw you and Allie leave, and you hauled my drunken ass along for the ride.”

Zayvion chuckled. “Pretty good.”

“Good? Gold. Plus, with Armageddon going on back there, I don’t think they’re going to worry much about a missing statue.”

“Are you comfortable being an accessory to his crime?” Zayvion asked me. “The Authority will not approve of this kind of behavior.”

“What crime?” I said.

Shamus grinned and sat back. “You know,” he said. “The three of us could take the world apart and have a hell of a lot of fun putting it back together.”

“Who knows?” Zayvion said. “We might get that chance.”

Like teenagers sneaking a keg into our parent’s basement, Zay, Shamus, and I managed to smuggle Stone into my building and up the three flights of stairs to my apartment without getting caught. Sure, we could have used Illusion to cloak him, but no one suggested it. I didn’t know about the boys, but I was exhausted and had had enough magic to last me a while.

Our luck held. Nola wasn’t back from getting Cody, which worried me until I realized it was only ten o’clock. Paperwork and processing can take a lot of time. And they might have stopped off for a late dinner, or, heck, gone out to a movie, for all I knew.

Once inside the apartment, Stone lifted up onto his hind legs and waddled off to the bathroom, clicking all the way. The hiss of water turning on and off was accompanied by his clicks.

“Now, that’s good fun,” Shamus said. “He has a thing for water?”

“Just the bathroom sink so far,” I said.

Shamus headed down the hall and looked in on him. “Hey, fella. You like the sink?”

Stone just clicked and hummed. I had no idea if it was an answer.

“Do you want me to take him somewhere else?” Zayvion asked.

“Shamus? Yes, please.”

He smiled. “Stone. Back to the restaurant?”

All I could think of was the chain that held him down there, and how he had pleaded for me to release him. “I don’t think he’d make a very good statue anymore,” I said. “His world has gotten a lot bigger now.”

Zay caught my double meaning, and nodded. He strolled over to my window and looked out. “Can’t let him loose on the street all alone. Even if the Necromorph is under lock and key, there’s a lot of dangerous things still out there.”

“I’ll see if he’ll stay here during the day. Maybe let him out at night. He’s been free for a few days already. I haven’t heard any reports of a gargoyle loose in the city. He knows how to stay hidden. Knows how to take care of himself.”

“If someone who is part of the Authority sees him, or if the police or Stotts sees him, you’ll have to give him up.”

“I know.”

Zayvion turned. “He might not last long anyway. There isn’t a lot of information on animates. A few old stories about magic users-Hands-making golems and other creatures. Those histories are more story than history, though.”

“Speaking of Hands,” I said. “When you Closed Cody, did you see his spirit?” I asked.

“No.” Zayvion drew the word out, asking me to explain.

“I saw him. His spirit. At the gate. He was there. He made me promise to make this right for everyone. Then he jumped into the gate and closed it.”

Zayvion was suddenly very quiet and very focused. “He did what?”

“Jumped into the gate.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You want to tell me how that is any weirder than everything else that happened tonight?” I asked.