Gryphons Quest (13 page)

Niall scrambled back and screeched in agony. "SON-OF-A-BITCH...I’ll have your balls.” He lunged, swiped at Gryphon with his one good arm and felt flesh ripping. His claws scored a long gash down Gryph's left side.

It was Gryphon's turn to cry out as the gaping wound almost eviscerated him. He limped backward, unsure now whether he would ever be able to fly again. The bottom of his other wing had almost been ripped in two. He gasped and slowly backed away. The world began to spin, and he knew but for some miracle he'd die. Niall slowly lumbered toward him, his right arm hanging by tendons.

"So...I'm not the only one who can change, eh, Irishman?" He gasped for air and kept moving toward Gryphon's retreating form. "Guess, you thought you were pretty damn smart. You feathered freak." He glanced at his shattered limb and growled. "You're gonna pay for this. And when I get through with you, I'll bring Heather back here and take her over and over. Right on your carcass. Nobody will hear her scream. And it'll be good...yeah, real good! I'll take her from behind and rip her open the way you've ripped me!

Gryphon was unable to speak in his beast form, but could understand everything Niall said. The remains of the man's blood turned bitter in his mouth. Heather. No matter what else happened, whether he made it out of this park alive or not, this hideous creature would never get his hands on her. The Goddess above, by wisdom or miscalculation, had given him this form for a reason. And he intended to use it. Gathering every last ounce of strength he had and ignoring the searing waves of intense pain, Gryphon moved his wings and rose upward. Niall reached for him, but was inches away from holding him down. He struggled to hold a hovering position only a few feet off the ground, but all he could think of was what would happen to an innocent and beloved woman if he didn't succeed. He lifted up further and directed his movement toward the demon in front of him. Niall swung upward with his claw hand and caught the bottom of Gryphon's leg just above the ankle. Still, his forward momentum was enough that Gryph was able to sink his talons into Niall's broad shoulder and lift.

The agony was horrible, but he neither stopped nor slowed. Higher and higher he climbed, much further than he'd ever dared to fly. The oxygen became thin. That, coupled with his loss of blood, had Gryphon sickeningly dizzy. He flew on. Niall shrieked in pain and anger.

"You can't kill me, you fool. I wasn't stupid enough to bring the other stone. It's hidden where you'll never find it." Niall coughed and spat out blood as the lack of oxygen deprived him of further speech.

The words registered somewhere in Gryphon's brain, but he kept going. The stones, his promise to the Sorceress to find them, and his promise to his parents to be careful all paled in some misty past. All he could think of was keeping Heather away from danger. She must be safe...must protect...MUST.

When he was as high as he could get and still breathe, Gryphon let Niall go. The man fell for what seemed like an eternity, screaming in fury all the way to the earth. His body landed on the trunk of a huge downed tree. It made a sickeningly loud thud as vertebrae broke and skin ripped. Gryph followed him down, gliding the best he could on one wing and flapping the other to slow his descent. He landed several yards away, immediately hit the ground hard and changed back into human form. Holding his shredded side, he stumbled to where Niall's broken body lay. The other man was still in his beast form. He looked up at Gryphon and tried to reach toward him.

"Who are you?" Niall rasped as blood and drool ran from his gaping mouth.

He struggled to drag in air and speak. "I'm Gryphon O'Connor, Druid Warrior of the Order of The Ancients. I tell you so you'll know who's beaten you." He paused and gasped as the dizzy feeling came over him again. "By Herne's blood, you'll never touch her," he choked out.

"Go to hell," Niall spat as his eyes dimmed. He took one last, broken breath and exhaled it, long and slow.

Gryph knew he was dead. He felt no remorse. Niall would have killed him, Heather and anyone else to get what he wanted. The man had written his own fate. Leaning against a tree, Gryphon took deep, steadying breaths and tried not to look at Niall’s twisted, gory body. Suddenly, a green light began to glow from within the demon's gaping mouth. The light soon encompassed his entire body and pulsed.

Gryphon backed away. Within seconds, Niall's body was gone. The power he had abused had consumed his remains. There would be no trace of the man left for anyone to find.

It took Gryph an hour to make his way back to the museum. It was a slow, tortured and staggering journey. Deprived of enough blood, his brain took him to the place where he'd met Heather. The lights of the parking lot seemed a place he should be. Someone would be there to help him. A woman with sweet, silver-blue eyes and brown hair with gold highlights. She was there. He knew it. A voice within his mind called out. Gryphon couldn't be sure if he was imagining it or not, but it summoned him to a place of healing. He laughed at the irony. It was a rasping, deathly laugh. "You can't heal a dead man," he whispered.

''The wind will carry you" the voice promised. ''Rise into the wind."

It was the softest, sweetest sound. Like nothing he'd ever heard. "Goddess, if that's you, hear me," he prayed in agony and sunk to his knees. "Don't let me die here. Not on unholy ground in a city full of outsiders. I beg...b-beg you."

"Rise," came the summons again.

Gryphon gripped the trunk of an oak tree and pulled himself into a standing position. He gazed up into its branches. "Duir," he whispered the ancient word for oak, "give me strength to leave this place.

One...last...time."

He stumbled forward, went down on one knee and agonizingly made the change. Gryph staggered, turned into the wind, feebly moved his wings and began to rise. He headed toward the house where his parents waited. His flight path was very low, and he careened into the branches of trees along the way.

Still, that part of him that didn't want to die where strangers would find him kept him going.

Lights of the familiar building were ahead. Gryph aimed for the ground, not able to summon enough energy to even care whether he landed safely. He was so tired. So very, very tired. One face filtered into his last conscious thought. She was so beautiful. Why couldn't he have one last lovely thing to see? Those striking eyes and sweet, generous smile. Heather.

Heather, still in the woods awaiting his return, gasped in horror as she saw him hit the ground hard. He changed back into human form almost instantaneously. His parents rushed forward with Shayla. James wrapped his cloak around Gryph's nude body, and they helped him inside the house. Though she couldn't see well, his poor landing was evidence of the fact that he was badly hurt. She wanted with all of her heart to go to him. But, even if she were to show up, Shayla wouldn't let her near him. Better if the Sorceress never knew she had so recently been there, but Heather desperately wanted to find out about him. He must have killed Niall, or he would never have returned. If that was true, the police would find Niall's body somewhere near the museum. Had Gryph been able to complete the job he'd been sent to do? Had he found the last rune stone?

The wind blew cold as Autumn waned. Someone was burning a wood fire nearby. Heather huddled in the darkness, hoping Gwyneth would remember she was there and come to her with news.

Hours passed, and Heather was almost beside herself with anxiety over what had happened. She stood and was about to go to the house when she heard someone approaching.

"Heather," Gwyneth, whispered, "are you still there, lass?"

"I'm here," Heather walked forward. “Please, tell me what happened to Gryph. I saw how badly he was hurt. Is he going to be all right?"

Gwyneth kept her face down. She used the heavy hood of her Druid robe to conceal her expression.

"I...w-wanted to let you know that you'll be safe now. Niall Alexander is dead."

"I figured that, but how is Gryph? What's happening?"

"Gryphon didn't get the other stone."

"I don't care. What about Gryphon?" she repeated. Something about the older woman's voice and her posture alarmed Heather. Her heart began to beat wildly, and a sense of uncontrollable fear filled her.

"Go, now, lass. Before the Sorceress discovers you're here."

"He's dead, isn't he?" Heather backed away, shaking her head.

"I wanted you to know...he had feelings for you. He's never been so close to anyone," Gwyneth whispered. "Like I told you, he was the only one of his kind. In our culture, that m-made him an outcast.

Ours is an ancient culture, and we follow the old customs."

Heather's vision blurred. "Tell me, please."

Deliberately misinterpreting her words, Gwyneth pretended Heather wanted to know about Gryphon's lonely state among the Order, and not what had happened to him. "You worked for the museum so you should know your ancient Celtic history." She paused. "Do you know the story of Nuada of the Silver Hand?"

Shaking with grief, Heather could only nod. Nuada was dispossessed by his people when he lost his hand in battle. Only a whole man could rule and be accepted by the clans. Nuada only regained his place within their ranks as a ruler when a prosthesis was made for him. A silver hand. In the ancient, Celtic world, there were few places for a man or woman who couldn't find a tribe or clan into which they fit.

Times then were horribly difficult, and a person needed to be able to count himself among the many. Not stand out. However wrong or unfair that might seem, that was the mythology of the Celts and many other cultures. Gryphon had been such an oddity that he wasn't fit to be a member of this thing called the Order, such an outcast that no one would get near him. That's what Gwyneth was trying to say. In his mother's mind, Gryph was finally at peace. He wouldn't be a misfit anymore.

"A man like him could never die," Heather whispered as her tears fell. "He'll be a legend forever."

Gwyneth looked at Heather strangely and approached until she was quite close. "You wanted to see him again, didn't you? Even knowing what he was, you wanted him."

Heather paused before she spoke. She knew her eyes betrayed her feelings. "He couldn't help being what he was any more than you or I can. I remember what you've told me about Shayla, but if I could have seen him once more before...just one more time."

Gwyneth looked over her shoulder, apparently to make sure she hadn't been seen leaving the house and wasn't being watched. "When I'm able, I'll try to see you again." She put her hand on Heather's arm.

"Remember Heather, there couldn't have been anything between you and my son. And Shayla would have us all destroyed if she were to find out what I've told you."

"I understand, Gwyneth. I'll try to find the last stone, and I promise I won't tell anyone about any of this. People would think I'd gone insane if I did." Some part of Heather's emotions shut down. It was like she was an automaton. Repeating what she thought Gwyneth wanted to hear. Her heart was broken.

Nothing she loved ever survived. Not her parents, not Ned. Not Gryphon.

"Just for the record, you'd better know that I loved your son. And there's no magic or sorcery on Earth that will ever take that love away."

"More's the pity for you both, then." Gwyneth tried to hide the sorrow in her voice for both their sakes.

"Thank you, Heather. You briefly gave my son something I've never seen before. For that, I'll always be grateful."

"What did I possibly give him?" Heather asked, swallowing back the sickness she felt welling within her.

"Hope. For the first time in his life, I saw hope for the future in his eyes. Even if it was a slight pause in the loneliness he's known. And, though I know it was short-lived, it was more than I've ever imagined he would have."

Heather bowed her head. She was too overcome with grief to carry on much more. The whole thing had been a nightmare, ending with the loss of so much life. Such a noble life. Gryphon’s.

She remembered that the gryphon, in mythology, was a beast born to protect and retaliate against those who transgressed. To that end, Gryphon had more than lived up to his name. "Tell those people that you go back to...that Order...that he did his job. They should be thanking whatever Gods you pray to that he saved them. If those stones had gotten into anybody else's hands, there would be no place for your people to hide. Someone would have eventually traced them straight back to wherever you come from. The rest of the British Isles would have been dug up to find more objects like them."

"Though Gryph, his father and I spent most of our lives in Ireland, we're originally from England. We're from a forest we call the Shire. It's land held by the fifty-first Earl of Glen Rowan, Gryphon's father.

James rules the land under the council of the Sorceress of the Ancients, as his parents did before him."

There seemed no sense in withholding that information since Heather knew everything else.

Heather looked up and stared. Then, she burst into tears and turned to go. Like Nuada, Gryphon couldn't have even inherited his father's land. Not if those damned ancient legends were followed. Being the only one of his kind would keep that from ever happening.

Gwyneth stopped Heather's departure with a gentle touch to the shoulder. "Gryphon chose well. If things were different, my dear, I would very much have loved having you as a member of my family and clan. But, as it was..."

"I know. I'd never have been accepted by your Order. Just another outcast."

"Try to understand, Heather. We've much to fear. Thousands of years ago, we were almost hunted into extinction."

'"Things that go bump in the night,'" Heather sobbed and remembered she had told Gryph that she didn't believe in such things.

"Yes, I'm afraid that's what we are to you." She quickly hugged Heather then turned away. Her own voice broke, and a large lump in her throat almost stopped her. "You have to go now. I have to return to the house, or Shayla will look for me."

"Thank you, Gwyneth, for trusting me with your secrets. I won't let you down, and I'll find the last stone if I have to turn over every board and brick in the museum to do it. Gryphon's job will be finished."