Incarnate (A Spellmason Chronicle) (25 page)

The crowd erupted into wild applause once more.

Rory scoffed. “If you think Alexandra’s going to start churning out
more
gargoyles like she’s some kind of factory, you are very sadly mistaken, pal.”

“How quaint,” he said, looking at her. “You think we need your little friend for that?”

There was so much confidence, so much
hubris
in his voice, I wanted to drop the nearest building on him.

“Don’t you?” I asked.

Nathaniel shook his head, and turned his back to us, his wings almost knocking over the detectives at the side of the open circle. The gargoyle’s people crowded in around him like remoras to a shark as he walked away from us. Several of the other gargoyles moved through the crowd to assemble behind him. At about twenty feet away, he turned back to us.

“Think of yourself as a chef,” he said. “There isn’t one be-all and end-all way to properly prepare a meal, is there? There are many variants of recipes for each dish. So it is with the taking of the stone. If you won’t serve us, rest assured, we
will
find a way of our own.”

“Good luck with
that
,” I said. With the secrets of the Spellmasons known only to me, I knew the guy was screwed. Now if only these people knew it . . .

“Of course,” he said, his words having a dark whimsicality to them, “we
could
always make you.” Nathaniel switched his focus to address the sea of humanity. “People of New York City . . . if you so desire the Life Eternal, your first act will be to secure these two women.”

Rory reached for the art tube across her back, but I stayed her hand.

“Don’t give anyone ideas,” I whispered to her. “You pull that
glaive guisarme
out here, our detective friends will probably go for their guns. We don’t want anything escalating too quickly.”

I checked the detectives, praying they didn’t do anything rash. When I caught their eyes, the crowd behind them was already getting restless as they sized us up. Thankfully, the two detectives
didn’t
go for their guns, instead choosing to run over to us while the mob was still contemplating how invested they were in doing Nathaniel’s bidding to earn the Life Eternal.

As an initial answer, a trash can crash-landed next to us with a clattering of cans, crumpled papers, and breaking glass. And not to my surprise, it had been someone in the crowd and
not
one of the gargoyles. In fact, the gargoyles had taken a position of observation farther away as if waiting to see which of their gathered humans might take us down.

Sadly, the trash can wasn’t the only thing thrown at us. As mob mentality took the crowd over, anything and everything they had in their hands or that they found came flying in our direction. Bottles, cans, books, and bits of stone from the park itself rained down over us.

A full plastic cup of soda struck Detective Maron in the chest, the lid and straw popping free as its contents spilled out, soaking him. Both detectives reached inside their coats, but I reached out and grabbed both their wrists.

“Unless you’ve got bullets enough to take down this entire crowd, I suggest you keep your guns out of sight.”

The two of them hesitated, but their hands remained inside their coats, still poised to draw.

“With a growing crowd like this?” Rowland asked. “Don’t worry. Other cops will be arriving here in no time.”

The mob was closing in on us quick, the faces of our fellow New Yorkers filled with a hatred for us then. We were to them, after all, in defiance of an angel.

“No offense but NYPD’s response time will be too damned late,” I said, dragging the two detectives by their wrists. “Follow me.”

Rory didn’t need any prompting and was already backing away from the oncoming press of people.

Pushing my power out around me like a plow, I started west crosstown, hoping to clear a path toward Eighteenth Street. Our magic hoods would keep our identities concealed, but a display of power was what we needed if we were going to escape the hundreds and hundreds of people bearing down on us. The pavement below my feet resisted my power, but I was far too in need of an escape, not to mention feeling damned well determined. As we walked, the painted labyrinths below tore apart as chunks of pavement cracked and rose up on either side of us, driving the crowd back. My intent wasn’t to hurt anyone, merely keep them from getting at us. Exacting control of my power proved impossible. Finessing it as the entire population of the park moved in on us was far too distracting to keep plowing a steady path.

Several cries arose from the mob as large chunks of the pavement slipped free from my manipulation and rolled off into the people all around us, all of it moving at a velocity meant to scare, not harm.

“Sorry,” I cried out to no one in particular.

“Sorry?!” Rory said, her back pressed to mine as she used her now-assembled pole arm to swat at anyone who dared cross into the wake of our escape path. “Lexi, they’d tear us apart if they could!”

“I know,” I said. “Doesn’t mean we need to stoop to their level, though.”

I shut up and redoubled my efforts to plow through the crowd, and as we approached Eighteenth Street just off Broadway, my continued attempts at finesse finally paid off. The stone of the broken pavement pressed out of my way and drove the crowd back, forming a short wall that proved difficult to climb for the few insistent pursuers who tried to scale it. Still, several people managed to come over it and run after us.

“We’re not going to make it,” Detective Rowland shouted from behind me, and I turned to see her pulling her gun out.

Immediately the crowd roared, a mix of fear and anger that added a new and nervous energy to an already nerve-racked situation.

“We
are
going to make it,” I shouted back to her, not even able to start arguing about her foolishly pulling her gun.

“We’re
not
,” Rory said, which surprised me. I had expected to hear something disparaging from the detectives, but not my best friend.

“I hate to say it,” she continued, “but there’s simply too many of them. They’re going to swarm us.”

“Not if I can help it,” I said and sprinted forward, the pavement of the road spilling before me like I was Moses parting the Red Sea.

We crossed over Broadway and started onto Eighteenth Street heading for Fifth Avenue, leaving the open space of the park behind, but not the mob of people. They streamed behind us into the canyon of buildings rising up on either side of us, the roar of the crowd becoming deafening.

“Keep running,” I shouted to the only three people not intent on killing me, and stopped. Rory and the detectives passed by me as I spun around to face the crowd.

“Lexi, what are you doing?” Rory asked, stopping right behind me.

“Just a little construction,” I said, raising my hands high above my head as they went through a series of somatic rituals as fast as I could switch their positions. I forced all of my will forward in me, the rush hitting me like a brain freeze after an ICEE, and whispering my family’s ancient words of power, I brought my hands down onto the pavement.

There were only two outcomes possible: either my hands would break as they slammed against the pavement of the road with all my might, or the entirety of the road would give way to my power. I had to count on my will in this. I could not hesitate in what I was about to do, although every bit of my rational mind told me to kiss my hands good-bye.

I fell to my knees as I brought my hands down, and just as I felt the scrape of pavement against the skin of my knuckles, the road buckled and my hands sank into it. I might as well have been thrusting my hands into a sink full of water given how effortless it felt, but I didn’t take the time to pat myself on the back just yet. That was the easy part.

My will ran down my arms like an electrical charge. From sidewalk to sidewalk I bent and buckled the entirety of Eighteenth Street. I imagined snapping it the way you’d shake out a rug, and the road rose up in response like a grand wave. Cars flew, rolled, and crumpled as the street bent and twisted like a Dalí painting. The front line of the mob stopped short as the pavement wave rose up, the next few rows of still-charging people slamming into their front line.

My last sight of the crowd as the pavement wall rose higher and higher was of them scrambling over one another as they tried to retreat. With every inch I raised the wall, the pressure in my head grew and grew, but I was determined.
Higher,
I thought.
Higher.
We needed something that the crowd would think twice about even attempting to scale.

As the road rose up to about the third floor of the buildings on either side of us, a cloud of dust filled the street and something in the pressure within my head gave way. Dizziness overtook me and I slumped forward, my arms pulling free from the pavement, my face hitting the solidity of the street.

“Lexi!” Rory cried out, and was down next to me on the ground in seconds.

With care she eased her hands under me and rolled me over, sitting me up. My head spun but before I could bonk myself real good again, Rory had her arm underneath both of mine and lifted me to my knees.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said. “I feel a bit disoriented and shaky, a bit scraped up, but I think I’m fine.”

Detective Maron joined Rory and the two of them lifted me up, holding on to me for a moment until I could support my own weight once more.

“I’m fine,” I said, brushing them both away. “Really. I just feel like I have the worse migraine ever.”

“Gee, good thing that didn’t escalate,” Rory said.

I went to speak but a warm sensation running down my face prevented me.

“You’ve got a nosebleed,” Rory said.

Detective Maron reached into his inner pocket and produced a handkerchief. “Here.”

I took it from him and held it to my nose. When I pulled it away, the entire cloth was bright crimson. My knees buckled at the sight of so much of my own blood. I pressed the cloth back to my nose.

“I think I’ve got some studying up to do,” I said.

The detectives both stared up at the massive wall that separated us from the mob.

“This seems more than sufficient,” Detective Rowland said, managing for once to crack a smile.

Maron whistled. “No shit.”

As the bleeding stopped and the dust all around us began to settle, I dropped the handkerchief and hurriedly pulled off my backpack. I opened it and pulled Bricksley free from it, both detectives giving me a wary look.

“What the hell is that?” Rowland asked.

“It’s my stone golem extraordinaire,” I said. “Bricksley.”

“Bricksley?” Maron repeated.

I nodded.

Rowland sighed. “I don’t even want to know.”

Maron took off his dust-covered coat and shook it out. “So that Nathaniel is one of the
good guys
 . . . ?” he asked.

Detective Rowland broke into a coughing fit over where the dust was still kicking around against the pavement wall, and I joined her, searching along the massive stretch of it.

“If he’s one of the good guys, I’d hate to see the bad ones,” she said.

“He’s
not
a good guy, apparently,” I said.

“Really?” Rory asked as she fought to catch her breath. “How could you tell? Was it the ordering those people to attack us?”

“Did you check out any of the gargoyles who were with him?” I asked.

Rory shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I was too busy thinking about our chances of dying.”

“I did,” Detective Rowland said, which didn’t surprise me.

I would have expected an officer to be taking in all the details they could, especially in a crisis situation.

“And?” I asked her.

“I recognized a few of them, actually,” she said. “They were part of the gargoyle crew that showed up the night Detective Maron and I tried to apprehend you and your friends at the armory.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And what did the serpent-headed one say . . . you know, before you blew his head to dust with a shotgun? He said that they served a new master.”

“Hold on,” Rory said. “You think this Nathaniel Crane is the guy they’re serving? I thought you and Stanis had him pegged as a petty thief when he had been human. Hardly sounds like leadership material, you know?”

“That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t think that angel
is
Nathaniel Crane. I think that’s what he told me on the night Stanis and I found him because we caught him by surprise and he was outnumbered. Maybe that gargoyle he destroyed right before we got there was Nathaniel Crane and he just used the name when we interrogated him. But that display by ‘Nathaniel’ in the park just now? That’s the kind of gargoyle angel who is leadership material. The way he carried himself, the pomposity. He’s not just a crony in servitude like the rest of them to the Butcher of the Bowery. I think the gargoyle who called himself Nathaniel Crane is really Robert Patrick Dorman. That angel
is
the Butcher.”

Rory sighed as she began dismantling her pole arm. “Looks like he’s traded up butchery for playing a minor deity to the masses.”

“We’re going to need more than just your hunch to go on,” Detective Rowland said. “Procedures and all.”

“I know,” I said, holding up Bricksley, his tiny arms and legs flailing, his permanently drawn-on smile always bringing me a bit of cheer no matter how grim the occasion might be. “That’s why I’ve got my little friend here.”

I pressed him up against the hole at the side of the pavement wall so he could see into the park beyond.

“Bricksley,” I said. “You see that large angelic creature there? The one at the front of the crowd?” His tiny left hand on the end of his metallic arm gave a thumbs-up. “I want you to follow him. See where he goes, what he’s up to. Don’t get caught . . . by him or other humans, okay?”

Another thumbs-up.

“Great,” I said. “Then I want you to come home, to our guildhall on Saint Mark’s. Be careful, Bricks.”

Stupid as the cops might think it was, I hugged the rough texture of the brick golem and slid him through the hole in the wall. The crowd beyond was already turning from it, much of the fight having gone out of them, which was fine by me. By the time the cops would actually arrive, hopefully there’d be less of a riot quality for them to deal with.