Gargoyle: A Reawakening (Briarcliff Series, #2) (21 page)

Barnaby was still shaking his head. “I know
right. This place is whacked. I want to get the hell out of here
and the sooner the better.” He was feeling more and more
uncomfortable the longer they stayed. He just didn’t know what was
outside so he was a little reluctant to go out in the dark and find
out. To be truthful, he was more than a little reluctant. He was
scared shitless. “Wait I almost forgot, I saw something else messed
up.”

“
I’m all ears.” She lifted
her brows and tucked her hair behind her ears. She noticed he
wasn’t smiling this time. It must be serious. She angled her body
closer to his. “What did you see?”

“
Well, you are probably
going to think I am crazy, but I saw some weird things flying over
in front of the moon, with big ass wings flapping up and
down.”

“
Like a bat.”

“
I wish… more like Batman,”
he said.

The words slowly sunk in. She reached for
her Wolfie choker, and then began jerking it back and forth trying
to cover her nervousness. “Like a gargoyle?” she breathed. Then
covered her mouth with her hand, not believing she had even said
that.

Barnaby widened his eyes. “Now that you
mention it…yeah, yeah, it could totally be a gargoyle.” His brow
creased. “Not that I’ve seen one that was not in stone, but if they
weren’t…I guess that is exactly how they might look, you know,
flying and all.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. They stared at
one another, both wearing the same freaked expressions. “This is
out there crazy, like really out there crazy.”

“
Tell me about it,” Barnaby
agreed and then took a nervous breath. “Okay…okay.” He rubbed his
hands over his face and took another deep breath. “All right,” he
breathed. “Let’s use a hypothetical scenario. If in fact, there is
um, you know gargoyles, what do they want?”

Evie shook her head. “Barnaby this is
insane.”

“
Yeah I
know, but what if they
are
real. We need to know what they want. I mean,
they have to want something because their asses aren’t statues
anymore… obviously.” He rolled his eyes. “What I mean to say is if
I am wrong, which I totally hope I am, but if not, we have to make
allowances just in case we aren’t hallucinating or insane or
whatever. You know.”

Barnaby was right. He was such a practical
thinker. “Yeah...” she agreed but she wasn’t really listening to
him any longer. Instead, her mind wandered back to Adriane.

UNCERTAIN

SATURDAY * 10:57 PM

Kingston kicked the glass doors with his
foot. After the second try, they flew open, thumping loudly against
the wall.

“
Kingston, what are you
doing?” Moriah asked worriedly.

“
Getting inside,” he said,
grabbing her hand, pulling her along behind him.

“
Why are we going
inside?”

“
Because I can’t see a
damned thing out here and we need some kind of
protection.”

“
Protection?” she asked,
not sure, what they needed protection from.

“
Yeah Moriah…HELLO, what do
you think everyone was running from?”

“
I have
no clue, Kingston.” She flinched from his tone.
Dick
. Obviously, he was scared, but
he didn’t have to take it out on her. She was scared,
too.

He turned, and softened his voice. “Babe,
come on,” he urged, pulling her along. “I don’t know what’s going
on any more than you do, but something is up and I don’t want to be
out in the middle of it when it happens. At least inside we have
some kind of protection against whatever it is.”

Moriah could see his reasoning, but still
wasn’t looking forward to hanging out in the creepy house, that was
black as pitch. At least outside the moon gave off at least a
little bit of light.

“
Shit
!” Kingston yelled grabbing his
side where the sharp corner of the chair had jammed into
it.

“
You okay?”

“
Yeah, just a stupid ass
chair,” he answered and shoved it across the room; it fell over
clattering loudly on the floor.

Someone yelped from the corner.

Moriah and Kingston both jumped in unison.
“Who’s there? Kingston yelled. “You better come out or when I find
you I’ll break your fucking neck,” he warned.

“
Kingston? Is that you?” A
thready voice called out from across the room.

“
Heather?” Kingston
said.

“
Ohmigod
! Thank goodness, it’s you,”
Heather gushed wildly, jumping out from her hiding place behind the
couch. She had hid back there after the guy, Alistair, she was
hooking up with had taken off. She had seen at least fifteen people
go into the mansion but once she was inside, she hadn’t seen a
soul, which freaked her out really bad. So she had come into the
room off the right of the foyer and hidden behind a couch. She
lifted her hands in front of her feeling her way to where she heard
Kingston’s voice.

Moriah rolled her
eyes…
Un-fucking-believable
. It figures
the only person they had come across was the last person she wanted
to see. What were the odds? Apparently, they weren’t in her favor.
She gritted her teeth listening to Heather clomp loudly across the
room. She sounded like a cow. Typical, Moriah thought. Heather was
a cow, as in
mad cow-
bitch
.

Kingston dropped Moriah’s hand. “We’re over
here,” he called. “Now be careful,” he added sweetly.

Moriah rolled her eyes,
fighting the urge not to vomit all over herself, and crossed her
arms over her chest. She bit her lip to stop from saying something
pathetic…like …
What about
me
? It was really too dark to see but she
didn’t need to see to know Kingston was hugging all over
Heather.
What the hell
?

“
Kingston, are you alone
too?” Heather cooed out in a baby soft voice.

The sound sent Moriah’s nerves on edge, even
more. Where was a binky? She wanted to shove that shit in Heathers
mouth to shut up her baby talk. It was sickening. But that didn’t
stop Kingston from responding in kind. His own voice normally deep,
with just a hint of a raspy edge took on an excruciatingly whining
baby tone as well. Her eyes bugged from her head and she fisted her
hands at her sides, shivering. It was not from fear but disgust.
Gawd they were making her sick. She wanted to ask if they needed
their diapers changed. She cleared her throat loudly, hoping to put
an end to the nauseating baby banter.

Kingston’s voice turned back to normal.
“Heather, Moriah is here too.”

“
Oh, wonderful, I was
hoping she was with you,” Heather answered sweetly. “Oh hey Moriah,
you’re here—great,” she called out, her disappointment
clear.

Liar
. “Hey Heather,” she answered as Kingston grabbed her hand
and squeezed it tightly in his own. Normally she would have taken
that as a secret exchange shared only between the two of them. But
she felt rather than saw, Kingston grabbing at Heathers hand as
well. Who knew what he was doing to her hand. Irritated she pulled
her hand out of his grasp and wrapped it around her waist instead.
He didn’t seem to care or notice. Her chest tightened.

“
Where’s everyone else?”
Kingston asked Heather.

The whining baby tone of Heather’s voice cut
through the darkness. “I don’t know? When I came in I didn’t see
anyone, so I came in here to hide.”

“
Good thinking,” Kingston
added, his voice coming out baby-esque as well.

Moriah felt like tossing
her cookies up.
Gross
.

“
Well let’s see what we can
do about that,” he cooed sweetly.

Moriah listened to their feet shuffling
forward. She stood there for a few moments wondering if she should
just go back out the way they came in and leave Kingston alone with
Heather. Obviously, she was completely forgettable. He hadn’t even
asked where she was yet. Gritting her teeth, she waited. The door
opened and still she waited for Kingston to call out to her,
thinking he would want her closer, but it was not Kingston that
asked about her at all.

“
Moriah come on. You don’t
want to be left here all alone, do you?” Heather called back into
the room.

Moriah made a face, noticing Heathers baby
voice had turned back into her screechy witch voice once again. She
waited a beat, wanting to hear what Kingston would say to that.
When nothing came from him, her heart fell a little bit more. She
clenched and unclenched her hands. She was pissed and upset but she
still caved. She wasn’t stupid. Being with the baby bops duo was
better than being alone. At least that is what she told herself as
she made her way towards the open doorway.

“
Moriah, come on,” Kingston
called from the foyer.

She flinched. He sounded pissed. She had to
wonder where her coochie coo -goo-gob-gag baby voice from Kingston
was? Nooo, all she got was his irritable dick voice. She knew it
well too. “Here I come, don’t leave,” she whined, trying to sound
babyish. Maybe he liked the baby talk crap. When she finally made
it out to the foyer, she could see the outline of his and Heather’s
bodies shoved closely to one another. She walked up beside him,
trying to grab his arm. “What are we going to do?” she whined more,
clinging to his arm.

Kingston shook her hand off. “Moriah,” he
breathed sounding irritated.

“
What?” she cooed,
wondering if she should gurgle too and push bubbles out between her
lips?

“
What’s wrong with your
voice?”

She cleared her throat loudly. “Sorry, I had
something stuck in my throat.”

“
Well I hope you got it
out, you sounded different.”

“
Different how?” she asked, stepping closer, wanting him to
say she sounded really – cute or maybe he would ask her to do it
more.
Maybe he liked it.

“
I don’t know, you kind of
sounded like Mable.”

“
Mable?”

“
You know Mrs. Jenkins
bratty little daughter.” He began to laugh. “The one that farts all
the time,” he said and laughed even harder.

Heather laughed too.

Ohmigod!
Seriously
? She wanted to smack him right
in his face. Instead, she ground her teeth together and balled her
hands into fists. She was so mad she could spit and probably
should, right in his and Heathers stupid laughing faces.

BITTEN

SATURDAY * 11:07 PM

The strange blue hue
spreading out from the edges of the moon grew in size, gobbling up
all the little stars. At least that is what it looked like to Evie.
Barnaby said the room was probably a conservatory of sorts used for
stargazing—right…more like Mad-Doctor experiments if you asked
her.

The door to the library
slammed shut again. The wall shook. “Chance!” Her entire body
tensed. Between Chance’s
door slamming
and
Colton, and his
Waa’s
she was at her limit. “What
are you doing?”

“
I think something is out
there,” he whispered, from across the room, even from a distance
she could tell how freaked he was.