Incarnate (A Spellmason Chronicle) (3 page)

What the hell was it doing?
I wondered. The maneuver still put him on course to smash into the building . . . a panicked second of calculating its trajectory, and my heart sunk when I realized what was about to happen.

Three vertical stained glass windows were set into the side of the tower, coming up insanely fast. The creature smashed through the center panel first, the panes of glass exploding into the building, leaving plenty of jagged chunks that I was about to get dragged through as the rope pulled me after him.

I curled myself into a ball as small as I could and braced myself as I flew through the broken window, the jagged panes of glass catching my clothes. The snags and tears slowed my momentum some and I fell through the opening onto the interior of the tower’s floor, rolling until I was a tangled ball of flesh, blood, and rope, stopping only when I hit one of the transept walls of what looked like the nave of a church.

I wriggled myself out of the twist of rope and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. The warm flow of fresh blood trickled harder down my left arm through one of the slashes in the sleeve of my coat. I poked at the spot, examining how serious the wound was while also, vainly, letting a moment of silence pass for my poor coat. I had loved my Burberry . . .

Before I could fully assess the damage to my body, the rope at my feet twitched to life and began to slip away from me. The now-grounded gargoyle writhed on the floor near the altar, the tangle of rope around him coming looser and looser with each thrash of his struggle to free himself.

When I tried to stand and chase after the rope, my knees buckled. I must have taken my landing harder than I realized. If I didn’t get the line back in my hands soon, this gargoyle was going to free himself. I’d be fighting this whirlwind of wings and stone in an enclosed space where the confinement was likely to put me in harm’s way, and that was the last thing I wanted.

The tinkling of glass behind me caught my attention and I turned. Rory stood in the frame of what had once been the stained glass window. Holding her bladed pole arm overhead, she dropped down into the room, the last remaining pieces of glass from the frame raining down behind her in a sparkling rainbow waterfall.

Back in front of me, the rope was quickly snaking farther away from me and I lunged for the line, barely catching the end of it with my left hand. The rope jerked with a burn across the skin on my fingers. I wrapped my legs around one of the columns within the old monastery, hoping to brace myself, but it was no use. They came free of the column and the line dragged me across the glass-covered stone of the floor toward the gargoyle, my body screaming with pain, but I refused to let go.

Luckily, not every spell I knew required free hands. I rushed out a power word for
control
toward the stone of the altar’s pulpit, managing to topple it over onto the creature with a press of my arcane will.

I finally ground to a halt on the floor of the nave, coming to rest with a final crunch of glass sounding beneath me. Rolling over with the rope still in my hand, I carefully placed my hands on clear sections of the floor and took my time as I righted my aching body. I stood up slowly, then took a deep breath before limping toward the altar.

Rory ran past me and pulled the rope free of my hand. She slammed one of her Doc Martens on the stones of what still remained of the pulpit and steadied herself as she leaned back to tug on the rope, throwing all her dancer’s strength into her flexed arms.

The slack in the line went taut. The gargoyle stirred, awakening, and a contest of strength began between the two of them. Rory held strong and advanced on the creature, securing the rope around him with several additional loops of it.

“Thanks,” I said, brushing glass and debris off of my bloody coat.

“My pleasure,” she said, handing me the rope before going back across the room to reclaim her pole arm. “He’s all yours.”

I walked to the gargoyle that lay on the floor, still struggling against the ropes.

I had to talk fast. Even restrained, it would take only a minute or two until the gargoyle would eventually figure out it could break its bonds using its preternatural strength.

“Easy, now,” I said, following it by the whisper of an arcane Slavic word that reached out to the stone of his angelic form. Now that he was actually grounded and captive, it was easier to make that influencing connection, and I felt my will wash over him. I pressed one of my boots down on his chest. At the same time, I reached out with my power and raised one of the heavy broken blocks of the pulpit, hovering it over the creature’s head.

“If you’ve got anything more than rocks in your brain, you’ll stay down,” I continued, finally taking in the damage to my torn and bloody coat. My face filled with a grim and manic smile. “You might look like an angel, but after what you’ve done to my jacket? You’re about to bring out the devil in me.”

Stanis

A
s I flew over the wooded land along this Manhattan section of the Hudson River, my ears filled with a gentle laughter that reminded me of the chimes humans often left outside to catch the wind.

“Have you never been to the Cloisters?” my female companion in flight said.

I arced up into the air as we approached the ancient abbey, ceasing my flight as I set my batlike wings into short, rapid strokes allowing me to hover in place.

“I have been here much longer than the structure below us, Emily,” I said.

My fellow
grotesque
attempted the same maneuver I had just completed, but instead turned too sharply and collided with me. The serpentine features of her face—half human and half snake, with yellow marble skin—were a stark contrast to the gray of my chiseled stone and demonic features. I held her until her own wings—far more dragonlike than mine—fell into the same rhythm as my bat ones before holding her out away from me at arm’s length.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her face full of embarrassment.

“I do have several centuries of practice on you,” I said with a smile. “For a
grotesque
with only six months’ practice, you have excellent prowess with it.”

Keeping her hands in mine, I began our descent. This seemed to release her from her embarrassment and she looked down to the building below.

“You’re older than this monastery?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yes,” I said, “but in truth, I do not believe it actually
is
a monastery.”

“Oh, no?”

“For the first century of my existence, the lush park you see surrounding the building went untouched. However, in my subsequent centuries of watching over Manhattan, I have come to learn that change is inevitable. The area I had come to know as Fort Tryon Park was not immune to this way of the city. Nearly a century ago I watched human workers laboring late into the night as five of the greatest cloistered abbeys of Europe were reconstructed here stone by stone. But I do not believe it was ever intended to be of monastic use, but to serve as a museum dedicated to medieval Europe.”

Emily smiled, her fangs showing. “For someone who spent centuries with very little human interaction, you are remarkably well versed in such matters,” she said.

“I am a good listener,” I said, “and have long had a fascination with the place as an architectural wonder of Manhattan. For years, I did not know why, but since discovering who I am and where I come from, I can see why. I missed my home.”

“But aren’t medieval times well
before
your time?” she asked.

“Not by much,” I said. “In my time, Europe was already old and the world slower to change. This building reminds me of my father’s Belarusian kingdom in Kobryn. It belonged to Lithuania back then, but despite the iron fist my father, Kejetan, ruled with—Kejetan the Accursed, they called him—despite that, I can still recall the architecture of my human boyhood with some fondness. There was still innocence in me, long before my father accidentally struck me down when he took the crude but immortal stone form he forced from Alexander Belarus in his mad quest for power . . .”

The pain of the day he broke my human form flooded my stone body and I fell silent. Emily squeezed my hand in hers.

“But you are here today,” she said. “With me, helping others . . .”

“I have Alexander Belarus to thank for that,” I said. “Teaching me had been his one true joy when my father forced him into servitude. It would have killed Alexander to see me die in such a way. His arcane knowledge set me to this stone form, and I am forever grateful for it, if only for the sake of being able to contend with the likes of my father and his kind. May they rest, but not in peace.”

Descending, the two of us passed down along the side of the tower, the figures of Alexandra Belarus and the blue-haired Aurora Torres catching my eye over by the entrance to the building. Behind them, ropes ran back through the doors leading in, the two of them straining with the effort of pulling something out of the building.

When Emily and I landed, we walked to them and I grabbed the ropes.

“Allow me,” I said, giving one hard pull. Alexandra and Aurora stumbled out of the way as the burden they had been dragging shot out the doors, a writhing winged figure coming to rest at my feet.

“An angel,” Emily said, leaning over to look at the figure.

The rope had pinned the figure’s wings to its back, but there was no mistaking the iconic look or art style of one of Alexander Belarus’s statues come to life.

“You couldn’t have gotten here a little faster?” Alexandra said, the sharpness of her tone catching me off guard as she looked first to me and then to Emily. “Good to have the gargoyle—sorry,
grotesque
—back up, though.”

Alexandra went out of her way in my presence to use the archaic French term I preferred when referring to my kind, but to hear her first use the vulgar form threw me. I stood there, unsure of how to respond for a moment. “Despite the police scanner you had Marshall install at Sanctuary, this island of Manhattan is a larger area to cover than you think,” I reminded her. “And it would be easier on me if you would perhaps be a little less . . . diligent in your pursuits.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexandra said. “Am I wearing
you
out?”

“We cannot be worn out, save by the transformative light of day,” I reminded her. “We do not require sleep.”

This answer did not seem to satisfy Alexandra, as she shook her head and smiled, but unsure as I was how to respond, I looked to Aurora for guidance.

“Hello, Stanis,” the blue-haired woman said. “Don’t mind her. Someone’s just a little overly ambitious, sleep deprived, and a wee bit sensitive.”

Alexandra did not respond with words, but the glare in her eyes at her oldest friend was enough to silence Aurora.

“Then forgive our lateness,” I said. “I will handle this creature.”

Alexandra and Aurora stepped out of the way, and I turned my attention to the prone figure at my feet. The angel looked more like a statue right now as it lay there unmoving. I tugged at the ropes to rouse it.

I waited for the creature’s snarl, the gnash of its teeth or an attempted swipe of its claws, but I was not prepared for the look of fear and confusion in its face.

“Do not hurt me,” a male voice cried out from the angel’s lips.

“Hurt
you
?” Alexandra said, laughing. “You’ve been the hostile one!
You
threw a gravestone at
us
, remember?”

The creature looked from her to Aurora, gesturing with the little movement he had in his bound hands toward the pole arm she held. “She showed up brandishing one of those . . . those . . .
things
.”

His wings twitched, an involuntary telltale sign of nerves that I spent much of my time trying to suppress in my own.

I allowed myself to relax, turning to my human friends. “This creature was not going to rip you apart,” I said, then turned back to the angel. “Neither my friends nor I are here to hurt you.”

“I don’t think you
can
hurt me,” he said. His words came out full of fury and confusion despite the angel being prone.

Emily cocked her head at him. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Look at me,” he snarled, a sadness in his words. He pulled one of his arms free from the ropes and slammed his stone fist against his chest.

“Don’t be
too
sure about not being able to die,” Aurora said, sounding both offended and a bit prideful. She tapped the bladed end of her pole arm against the angel’s chest. “We’re pretty resourceful.”

The
grotesque
’s face seemed uncertain, but he turned his attention to me instead, some of the fight going out of him. “What
are
you? What am
I
?”

“We will get to that,” I said, kneeling down close to his face and lowering my voice, “but for now why do not you tell me who you are and what you remember.”

“I do not understand,” he said. “This . . . this isn’t
right
. I saw my own gravestone. I
should
be dead. I should be in Heaven, not here as some cruel mockery of a Heavenly creature!”

I looked up at Alexandra, raising my voice once more. “Have you not done as we agreed?” I asked her.

She shook her head.

“You scold me for the lateness of our arrival,” I said, “yet you have not taken care of your end of dealing with those you find of my kind who are in need of Sanctuary . . .”

“He threw a gravestone at us,” she growled back at me. “With that kind of behavior I didn’t think he was a likely candidate, okay? I chalked him up as one of the bad ones.”

“So it would appear,” I said, standing. “Do feel free to do your part now.”

Alexandra sighed, but knelt down next to the angelic form.

“Easy,” she said, laying her hand on his chest. “What’s your name?”

“Jonathan,” he said, calming a bit.

“Listen, Jonathan, I can appreciate your frustration here . . .”

“I doubt you can,” he said with some bitterness to his words. “You’re human still.”

“I
can
,” she insisted, trying to keep her composure. “I’m just dealing with a whole city full of your kind right now. It’s a bit much.”

“I don’t care about those others,” he said. “What I care about is how I’ve been forsaken after pledging myself to His service.”

“What were you in life?” I asked him.

“He came here to grieve,” Alexandra said. “And he threw what I think was his tombstone at us, so I’m guessing there’s a connection to the Cloisters.”

“Stanis,” Emily said. “I thought you said they moved several abbeys here. They moved the graves as well?”

“I can answer,” Alexandra said after I had been silent for a moment too long. “New York architecture is kinda my thing. Some of the spiritual ties to the abbeys used for this project were strong. It was a sign of reverence and respect for the deceased who were chosen to rest here.” She turned back to the angel. “Go ahead. Who were you?”

Off in the distance the sounds of sirens cried out into the night, growing louder with each passing moment.

“I served the Lord,” Jonathan said. “I was a man of God. A monk. I remember dying long ago. What a joke it is that I am now stuck in this form which so viciously reminds me that while I may look like an angel, I am no closer to His Kingdom than I was in life.”

Alexandra fell silent beside him, her head lowering and her eyes slowly falling shut. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m to blame for that.”

The angel looked up at her, confused. “What?”

“I’m to blame,” she repeated, with conviction and hatred in her words this time.

“How is that possible?” he asked. “Who are you?”

Alexandra took a deep breath. “I am Alexandra Belarus,” she said. “And I am your maker. I’m responsible for this. Thanks to the magic practiced by older generations of my family—Spellmasonry—I accidentally drew you and others like you into these forms. Now Manhattan’s got so much
grotesque
activity, it’s made the news every night since my spell went awry. All of this running around is me trying to clean up a situation that’s already gone way too public.”

The angel’s face filled with horror. “So you drew me out of Heaven and trapped me here?” he asked in shock.

“I do not believe so,” I answered. “After talking with many of our stone kind, I believe we are inhabited by disquieted spirits that have been unable for reasons I do not know to pass on to the afterlife.”

Red and blue lights flashed through the forest all around the Cloisters from the roads leading up to it.

Alexandra stood back up and looked to me.

“That’s the CliffsNotes version,” she said. “Satisfied? Now, Stanis, if you’ll do your part. Rory and I have to go. Like, now.”

“You’re hurt,” Emily said, pointing to the large amount of blood I had failed to notice along Alexandra’s left arm.

“I’m fine,” Alexandra said. “Not your problem.”

“We really should be going,” Aurora said, grabbing Alexandra by her good arm and starting for the forest.

I watched the two of them run for the tree line through intermittent flashes of red and blue light.

“We can discuss the alarming rate at which you are handing over these newly captured
grotesques
to me at a later date,” I called out after her. “Unlike your . . . CliffsNotes version, you called it? The way of the
grotesque
takes time when we bring an initiate to our ways.”

“Your ways?” the angel asked, looking up at me from the ground where he still lay.

“You will learn soon enough,” I said, “but trust me now when I say the time it takes is both for your protection and that of those around you.”

The bright white of headlights lit up the three of us as a male and female officer jumped free of the car, running toward us.

“Maron!” the female officer called out, her red hair pulled back and swaying wildly as she ran. “By the doors!”

“I see them, Rowland,” the man said, pulling a gun free from the jacket of his suit as he ran toward us.

“NYPD!” the woman shouted, pulling a gun of her own. “Freeze or we will open fire.”