Sunny - Mona Lisa Darkening

I lifted my face from where I had rested it against that slippery armor. Watching Vlad's face outlined against the black-scarlet sky was much better than watching the ground fall farther away beneath us. Focusing just on his face, it hardly seemed as if we were moving.

"I would have come for you sooner," he said, his dark eyes troubled as he glanced down at me. "But my first responsibility was to see my son safely to my people first. After doing so, I gathered my warriors and came here as soon as I could."

"I'm fine," I said, patting him on the chest. "I didn't expect you to come back for me. It never occurred to me, actually, that you would."

"Then your sacrifice was even greater than I originally thought. It was a noble but foolish thing you did, falling from such a height. You could have died."

"I thought I was already dead. What else was I to think, finding myself here in NetherHell?"

"But you are not."

"Thank God. Or maybe I should say — thank the Goddess."

"Do your people pray to the Moon Goddess?" he asked.

"I don't know. I do sometimes. I'm not sure about the other Monères. What about you? Who do you pray to?"

"A different moon deity." He smiled at my astonishment, his face crinkling up in a cute-ugly sort of way. "Our people, too, are descended from the moon. Did you think Monères to be the only species originating there?"

I shook my head, marveled silently. "I guess I did."

An animal's blood-curdling roar abruptly ended our conversation. It came from the foot of the tall mountain we were approaching. A second bellow tore through the air.

"Jesus freaking Christ!" My arms tightened around Vlad's neck in a near stranglehold. "What on earth is that?"

"An obor," Vlad said as the treetops below shuddered and shook as something very, very large disturbed them. "It is not a creature you would find anymore in your realm. Vicious beasts you want to avoid, if you can."

Our flight shifted and we started to descend… right toward where those treetops shook so ominously.

"Uh, then why are you going toward it and not away from it?"

"Because I believe it is your demons that likely stirred the obor from its slumber. The realm gate lies on the cliff above. They would have to pass this way to reach the desert plain."

We neared enough so that I was able to see the creature — as big, mean, and nasty-looking as Vlad said it was — and see what it battled.

My breath caught as my eyes fell upon the two tiny demons defending themselves against the giant obor. "Gryphon." Another whisper. "Halcyon."

"You know them?" Vlad asked.

"Oh, yes, I know them. Like my own heart. They came for me," I said, an astonishingly wonderful and terrible thing. Terrible because what they faced — a great behemoth of a creature — reared up and tried to stomp them with its huge forelegs.

Gryphon darted nimbly out of the way with his usual fluid grace, slashing at the giant beast with his sword, slicing into the thick skin. Halcyon also moved, but much more slowly, his movements sluggish and tired, not fast enough to evade that huge descending foot. Gryphon yelled, struck out with his sword again, trying to distract the beast away from the Demon Prince but the obor's attention didn't waver from Halcyon. Just before the foot slammed down on him, Halcyon threw up a hand and hurled out a pulse of power that mixed with my cry.

The power was enough to deflect that giant foot to the left, so that it smashed down on the boulder beside him, crumbling it to dust less than a foot away from Halcyon. Another gesture from that elegant hand, another sharp pulse of power from Halcyon, and a large slash opened up on the trunk of that leg, gaping like an obscene mouth spilling out blood. The creature screamed in pain. Jerking away from Halcyon, it turned and charged at Gryphon — easier prey that did not slice open its flesh with invisible power.

Halcyon lifted his face up. He'd heard my cry, or maybe just sensed our movements. He looked up and saw us. Saw me.

Instead of urging Vlad away, I urged him now down toward the monster. "We have to help them!"

"As you wish," Vlad said with a slight smile. The air whistled by as we swooped down. He touched down upon the ground, and set me down on my feet, much too far away from where the battle raged.

"Stay here," he ordered as the other gargoyles landed in loose formation around us. I opened my mouth to argue, when my eyes were drawn beyond Vlad as if pulled by an irresistible force.

I met Gryphon's eyes, so shockingly blue. Looked upon that beautiful, dear face once again. Felt love — first love — wash over me. Remembered the shocking devastation of his death. And could only say — only think — one word: "Gryphon."

Maybe it was being dead that made Gryphon feel so suddenly alive. It was certainly that — being demon dead — that twisted his priorities around enough so that he was fighting this prehistoric creature, trying to keep its stomping attention away from his Demon Prince, instead of running to Mona Lisa.

Sweet night, how beautiful she was, even surrounded by those menacing winged creatures who, thank the heavens, did not look as if they meant her harm… whereas this big sucker in front of him clearly did.

Thump! Another near squishing stomp of that big foot. Much too near a miss. Gryphon slashed his sword across that thick hide and leaped away, feeling like a tiny gnat stinging a giant human. Another bellowing scream from the bizarre-looking beast that looked part woolly mammoth and part something else he'd never seen before.

"Move it, Halcyon!" Gryphon yelled, adding further clarification in case his ruler prince didn't get it the first time. "Move your ass out of there!"

"I am hustling as you speak," Halcyon said. "You would do very well to take your own advice." But Gryphon couldn't. And Halcyon wasn't hustling as he said he was. If he was, it was an old man's hustle — a sluggish walk instead of a run. They were probably lucky to have even that. It was as if the Demon Prince suddenly felt every single one of his six hundred plus years down in this cursed stinkhole of a realm. A place that seemed to spawn these great mutant monstrosities that apparently liked to tenderize their meat before they ate it by crushing it first.

Whomp! Another near miss, close enough to keep the nasty behemoth's attention focused on him instead of the exhausted Demon Prince making his not-so-quick escape.

Hurry, Halcyon, he mentally urged. A trumpeting screech, like rusty nails scraping across a chalkboard, set his nerves even further on edge as he dodged the ugly beast and at the same time tried to keep an eye on the winged creatures that surrounded Mona Lisa. He watched some fly toward him and the beast, others wing toward Halcyon. It was too many things to try and keep an eye on. Something big smashed into Gryphon. A sideswipe from a tree trunk of a leg, and he went flying. Right into the arms of something that was too small to belong to that one-ton leg, but plenty big in its own right. Much bigger than him, at least. It caught him neatly like a baseball flying neatly into the pocket of an outfielder's glove. Grinning — an expression that flattened the creature's pug nose even more and revealed sharp teeth — the winged thing said, "We are here to aid you at your lady's request."

Batlike wings flew him safely away from the rampaging beast, as others of his kind engaged the creature. For a second, there was just that beautiful sense of flight. Sweet heaven, how Gryphon missed the falcon part of himself lost with his death, like a piece of his soul ripped away. He craned his neck and saw Halcyon scooped up in another's arm and carried as he was, like a baby. Easier to tolerate when the ruler of Hell was being transported in a similar manner.