Guardian of the Abyss (2 page)

“
It looks like it’s just you and me, buddy,” she said to it, rubbing it on the end that looked rather like a snarling head. “Ugly little fellow, aren’t ya?” she chuckled, her voice echoing hollowly in the chamber.

“
Well,” she told him, “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Of course, I left the French fries in my other pack.” She sighed as the lump of funny-looking stone remained silent. “Tough crowd,” she grumbled.  She curled up against it, feeling too exposed and far too cold.

If someone didn’t find her soon, she realized, she was likely to die of exposure. She pulled her clothes off, shivering more at their absence. Where was her wetsuit? It was nowhere to be found.  She sighed and curled into as small a ball as she could, lying against the stone formation that reminded her, however distantly, of not being stuck in a wet cave with only lichen to comfort her.

She dreamed of warmth seeping into her from her side, and warm golden wings wrapping around her. She sighed and snuggled closer, and the wings growled at her. She smiled at the thought of growling wings and settled deeper into sleep. Her shivering ceased and she slumbered peacefully, unaware that her dream had been a brief moment of near-wakefulness.

When she woke, she found herself surprisingly warm, curled up still against ‘her statue’. The water was now lit as if from below, pale light streaming from beyond it. She dared for a moment to hope that it meant that beyond it was a way out. She carefully dressed again, surprised to find her discarded camera off in a corner of the cavern. It was slightly damaged, as if it had been tossed into the corner negligently. The light, however, still functioned, though it was wobbly and uncertain.

She practiced her breathing for a few moments, then when she was ready, she plunged into the water. Before she was even fully immersed, however, the air was driven forcibly from her lungs with a sudden agonized 'whoosh'. Shocked by the sudden need to breathe, she floundered, realizing that she couldn't stand there, the bottom too far away. The force of the water made her ache right down to her bones and had literally pushed the air from her lungs.

Desperate, she clawed for a ledge, but there was nothing but sheer stone. As white spots began to swim in front of her eyes, she saw the demonic head from her vision before she passed out the day before. She was forcibly grasped and yanked out of the water by golden arms.

She fell on the ground, gasping desperately. Head hanging down, she gasped and sucked in air, desperate to fill her aching lungs. At last she looked up, but there was no one there. The cavern was silent and still, and she was alone once more.

It was several hours before she began to doubt her sanity. Stones didn't move, and yet the stone she liked to curl up against had unquestionably moved from its previous location. There was even a dry spot where it used to be. Sanity dictated that she question her sanity thanks to this proof that something was most definitely off... Wasn’t there a saying that said that insane people never thought they were insane?

She finally curled up in the dry spot and fought to breath, as if the air was too heavy or too thick. Sleep finally came, despite the gnawing of hunger that made her stomach clench and her eyes water.

*  *  *  *

Abaddon was deeply distressed. The woman clearly couldn't get out the same way she'd come in. For a moment, he had feared she would expire, and the terrible sounds she had made had clutched at his heart. He had feared he might be too late to pull her free from the clutching depths of the water, but she was lying still again; expelling air regularly, though quite noisily.

Something was happening inside him as he watched her. He was changing in some way that he couldn't quite define. He couldn't stop thinking about her. Was she going to be okay? He crept closer to her in his stone form, listening to the noises she made.

He had spent the dark hours warming and drying her body, and he desperately needed to replenish himself. If he didn't go out and gather what sun he could--the least efficient energy source for a gargoyle--he would be unable to warm her when the next darkness came, and he suspected she would expire if he did not. The previous darkness, until he had warmed her, she had rattled her mouth bones together loudly.

He couldn't remember what they were called or what they were for, and that bothered him. Somehow, he thought it was profoundly important, but the significance of the mouth bones was lost on him.

Presently, though he wished only to sit and look at the human female, Abaddon left the cavern to sit in the sun on the ocean's floor. The entire time, his mind kept coming back to the matter of the mouth bones. It wasn't until he watched a shark capture a flailing fish that it dawned on him.

Of course. They were called 'teeth', and humans required them to masticate other animals for sustenance. They could not absorb from the sun as he did. When the sunlight had waned to the point of near uselessness, he turned back to his humanoid form. As always, he kept his wings firmly tucked away. He had learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago. Water currents would capture them like sails and the pain would be profound.

Standing statue-still, he waited beside a hole he knew was occupied by some sort of fish. When it finally grew complacent and emerged, he grasped it. It struggled, but he ignored it entirely, walking back to the hole under his lair. With a mighty heave, he threw himself up out of the water, massive legs flexing as he jumped.

Landing inside, he found the woman still lying still. He dropped the flopping, struggling fish in the back of the cavern so it couldn't fall back into the water. Then, his emotions whirling and bringing him increasing discomfort, he turned back into his stone form to conserve the energy he had acquired. With any luck, he would have enough to get through the night warming the human, and have enough to only have to spend an hour or so outside the next time. Usually he could go for several light times in a row without needing to sit out; the human woman's needs were going to accelerate his stone form's aging.

The thought rose that he didn't need to do any of this. He could let her expire. But the idea horrified him so much he nearly burst out of stone form.

Vision eternally open whether he willed it or not in stone form, he sat and stared at her as she slowly sat up and looked around. She saw the flapping fish and jumped on it. A strange feeling surged inside Abaddon, one he hadn't felt in so long that he could no longer recognize it... amusement. He didn’t know what it was, but he did know it was pleasant, and he basked in it while he watched her antics with the fish.

Chapter 3

Sarah struggled to get the flapping fish held down. Finally, she realized she could take care of the problem with one of the many rocks around the area. Spotting a likely looking candidate despite the gathering blackness, she grabbed it and slammed it down on the poor thing's head. It bled, but didn't seem to notice the blow except to become even more agitated.

Her heart ached and she wished that it didn't have to be 'me or the fish', but she knew it was. At last, the fish ceased its struggles, and she found herself crying as she held it. She felt terrible at inflicting such suffering on it; she was also so hungry that she could barely lift the rock.

She tried to find a way--any way--to get at the flesh beyond the tough skin of the fish. Why did the only fish to flop up into her cavern have to be so tough? She even tried simply biting it and trying to tear it with her teeth. Unfortunately, nothing helped.

At length, she grew frustrated and exhausted. She couldn't eat the fish because she had no way to remove its insides, and because she couldn't get past its skin. She searched her useless camera for some sort of sharp corner, but it had been well made... for photographing. Not so much for fish cutting.

She gave up after a while, and turned her attention to the walls of the cavern. There was the lichen growing there. And one small pool of water in the back that appeared to fill at times, held a bit of seaweed.

She used a dull rock--too dull for fish cutting--to separate some of the seaweed. Chewing it, she finally managed to get some of it down. It was small comfort, but it was something. She tried again with the fish, though she knew enough to know it was probably toxic by now as its insides bled toxins into its muscle tissue. Defeated, she dropped it back down into the ocean water, black and mysterious below her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to it as the fish sank beneath the still black surface.

Then, with the unrelenting blackness broken only by a slight glow from the lichen, she laid back down. Her previous spot was now damp as all the cave was, so she curled up against the wall, somehow frightened now of the lump of stone that moved and beckoned to her almost as if it was alive and yearning.

Staring at it, laboring to breathe, she thought that somehow it seemed almost as if the thing was watching her. It was an uneasy feeling, but not frightening. What frightened her was the knowledge that something here was affecting her thinking. Rocks didn't move.

Again that night, she dreamed of golden wings and gentle warmth all around her. She slept peacefully until morning, when she woke from the cold and damp. Beside her on the floor was another fish, but this time, it was cleaned. She stared at it for a very, very long time before she picked it up and reluctantly ate what she could manage to rip off and choke down.

She chanted to herself that she wasn't crazy. She shouted for the person who had left the fish to come out. She cried, she begged, she bargained. She threatened, she cajoled, and she railed. Was she the product of an experiment? If so, it wasn't legal, and she made sure to remind her captors of that. Though she was pretty sure anyone with enough money and power to set this up wasn't too concerned about that.

Then the thought made her cry. They had killed James in order to get to her and take her prisoner. It wasn't right. Now they were trying to make her go crazy.

When she awoke to find the stone moved again, and this time an offering of kelp on the floor, she wasn't entirely sure that she could hold out against the creeping terror. In the meantime, her lungs were burning, and breathing was a constant struggle. She became certain that she was hallucinating when the stone moved yet again.

Food was delivered during the next night, and she woke curled up in a warm, dry spot on the floor. This time, the food had been cooked.

She was just feeling remarkably comforted by that when she realized something that utterly and completely destroyed her peace of mind.

The stone was gone.

She screamed. It wasn't her typical way. She didn’t scream, ever. This time, though, it seemed to be entirely out of her control. She felt high, as if she were on a bad trip--and the trip had just taken a turn for the worse. Stones didn't move around, and they certainly didn't disappear!

Heart pounding, she labored to breathe, the air thick and yet oddly thin. She stared into the water, no longer black as light showed through it from the other side. She remembered vaguely that there was a good reason she couldn't go into that water, but she couldn't manage to recall what it was right then.

Light beckoned from beyond it, and the longing to go to that light increased with every second.

As she stared, she imagined the light coming towards her. Golden, it sheered through the water until the water erupted violently towards her. Shrieking, she fell backwards as a massive golden form exploded out of the water and onto the shelf of the cavern.

Then all thought fled her mind as she stared at the golden man in front of her. He was impossible. Massive muscle covered every inch of him as he looked into the cave, his skin glowing slightly. He looked like a body builder. Not a lean body builder, either... one clearly obsessed with putting on as much bulk as humanly possible.

Then the bald head swiveled towards her, and she got it. She really, truly got it.

He had more muscle than humanly possible because he wasn't human.

Gasping, she caught her heart before it could escape, clasping her hand over her chest. "Gargoyle!" she accused.

Its--his--eyes narrowed. Then he took a step backwards, clapping a hand to his chest the same way she was doing. "Humanus!" he accused in return, his voice mimicking her tone with surprising accuracy, his eyes wide in an exaggerated look of terror.

What might have been a look of hurt crossed his face before he stomped over to the hole and dropped back out again with a splash without looking at her again.

Trembling, Sarah lay on the floor of the cave and tried to catch her breath. Dimly, she feared that there wasn't enough oxygen in the air. Or, conversely, too much. Compressed oxygen was toxic to humans. Fear and despair struck her. Was she trapped below the surface of the ocean with a gargoyle and the strong possibility of toxic air?

She was convinced that there was a strong likelihood that she was dying. The worst question, though, was what would the gargoyle do to her before she died? She strongly considered jumping into the water. Somehow, despite her befuddlement, she knew it would end her life. It no longer looked inviting, but rather looked sinister as darkness began to creep in from the other side. She didn’t want to die.