Rocked by Love (Gargoyles Series) (2 page)

And besides, she’d been sitting still too long, bouncing foot aside. Even when she worked, she spent as much time out of her computer chair as in it. Kylie preferred to be in motion, given the choice. Tonight, she’d hoof it.

Sure it was late, and she had at least a dozen blocks to go, but in a city this size, the streets were never really empty, and Kylie had lived in the area long enough not to blink at the idea of making the short trip alone. She’d done it a hundred times before, and would do it hundreds more in the future.

She may have grown up in Connecticut, but since coming to Boston for college at the age of sixteen, Kylie had gone native in every way except for the accent. She still said “
Baw
-stun” instead of “
Bah
-stun,” but aside from that, this city was her adopted hometown.

Leftover snow crunched under her feet as she cut across a small green square, her quick steps one short hop away from a jog. While the streets had been cleared days ago, the paths around the statue at the center of this minipark still sported patches of the icy white stuff. Apparently the gargoylelike hunk of granite that anchored the space didn’t merit enough visitors for a thorough snowblower crew, and even in March, snow lingered. The piles of gray and white frost seemed determined to remind everyone in New England that the danger of the harsh winter hadn’t completely passed, no matter what the calendar said.

As often happened during a Boston springtime, the weather today had run the gamut through all four seasons, starting with the frigid bite of winter, thawing to a morning spring and jumping to a midday summer. Now, the late night felt more like autumn, with a chilly breeze and the faint whiff of decay in the air.

Maybe if that thought had lingered for another couple of seconds—decay? Really?—Kylie would have realized how out of place it really was and been ready for the blow. Her luck wasn’t that good, though, and her mind had already turned its focus on getting home and back online to see what had happened to DrkMsgr that made him bail on their meeting. When she sat in front of a keyboard, Kylie could see things most people missed, but in the real world, she occasionally overlooked the big picture.

Like the one where two ski-masked muggers converged on her from the sides and struck her hard enough to send her to the frozen ground with a grunt of surprise. They’d knocked out too much of her wind for her to manage a scream.

For a minute she honestly could not understand what was happening. It wasn’t that she was naïve or anything, but she’d lived in Boston for almost seven years, and she’d never so much as had her pocket picked. And she was still in the Back Bay, for Pete’s sake, one of the ritziest areas of the city. How on earth was she being attacked by a couple of escapees from a gangster movie?

Those thoughts flitted through her head in the space of half a second. Then a kick to her side sent the last gasp of breath choking out of her lungs, and the last functioning neuron in her brain snapped off with what she swore was a muffled squeak.
Emese meisse
—true story.

It sounded a little like the lab assistant character from
The Muppets
.

Come to think of it, she felt kind of like the victim of some weird experiment as her vision narrowed down to black. It almost appeared as if a vacuum had switched on, sucking her peripheral vision away, then pulling the central field in after it. She was left with nothing but blackness for a split second before the fireworks began, little sparks snapping and popping in the darkness.

Huh, hadn’t she read about that happening in cases of severe oxygen deprivation? Too bad. Dying was so not on her to-do list for tonight, or really any night for the next eighty years.

Her lungs burned, every muscle in her chest straining for air. Still blinded, she could only feel her surroundings. Even her hearing had been compromised by the rushing of blood in her skull. Hard hands gripped her arms and jerked her from the ground. Unprepared for the movement, her head snapped backward, and her neck muscles screamed a protest. Funny how her attackers didn’t seem to hear.

“… her out of … wants to see … someone … fast.”

Snippets of voices, male and menacing, sliced through the static in her senses. Fingers dug into her flesh and jerked, trying to propel her forward. Her legs buckled, sending her back to her knees, and curses rained down on her head.

“… go! Now!”

Shouts and chaos took over then, an impression of movement and confusion. Kylie felt an actual drop of rain ping off her shoulder. No, wait; that felt more like hail, solid and hard and stinging even through her wool jacket.

The next shriek came wordlessly but pulsed with fear and panic. Oddly enough, it didn’t come from her, even though her own chest had finally begun to ease, allowing her to gulp down a much-needed lungful of oxygen. No, girly though it had seemed, something told her the sound had come from at least one of her attackers.

What the heck?

It took a minute for her to realize that the roaring in her head had become an actual roaring, the kind that echoed through the night air and attracted attention from neighbors and passersby. Kylie had about two seconds to wonder where it came from before a different set of hands closed around her, and this time she didn’t fall.

She flew.

*   *   *

Dag burst forth from his sleeping prison, bits of stone dropping in his wake like explosive shrapnel. What woke him he could not say, but instinct drove him straight from slumber to battle. His senses screamed at him to defeat, to destroy, to defend. Nothing in his surroundings registered but for a small female figure kneeling on the cold, hard ground while two human males attempted to drag her off into the darkness.

He would not have it.

His wings pumped the air, the huge, membranous spans catching the currents and sending the last remnants of sleep scurrying into the night. Already he felt strength and power heating his muscles, stretching his features into a fanged snarl and snapping his claws together in a definite threat. Not that the warning would do his enemies any good. Dag was a warrior too long denied a purpose.

Tonight, none would escape his wrath.

A battle roar shattered the hush of darkness. He took one long moment to savor the thrill of the fight, stretching into the sky before plummeting like an eagle onto his prey.

The humans screamed in terror, and Dag relished the sound. His talons dug into one man’s shoulder, tearing through flesh and bringing hot, red blood pumping to the surface. One whiff was all it took for Dag to catch the taint. His enemy was not a simple human; his blood carried the insidious rot of the Darkness.
Nocturni
.

Knowing he faced his ancestral foe brought a fresh surge of rage and satisfaction. Perhaps this was why he had woken, perhaps he now faced the opening salvo of the war all of his kind knew to be inevitable. If that were the case, Dag intended to bring about a swift and brutal victory.

Using his rear claws, he shifted his grip on the demon’s minion and gave one sharp jerk, breaking its neck with careless ease. His hands caught the second man before he could drag the female more than an inch from his fallen cohort. One talon, long and sharp as a dagger, pierced the vulnerable human flesh, stopping its black heart. When the second
nocturni
dropped to the ground, the female let out a cry, swaying on her knees as if about to fall.

Swooping in, Dag caught her in his powerful grip, but this time he tempered his strength, careful to keep his claws from biting through cloth and into flesh. Two powerful beats of his wings lifted them high into the sky over a city glistening with light and movement. He needed to move away from here swiftly before the noise of the brief skirmish drew more humans to the site. His kind had been summoned into this world to battle the
nocturnis
and their demonic masters, but they attempted to remain unseen whenever possible.

He glanced around quickly, noting both familiar and unfamiliar landmarks below him. He knew not how long he had slept since his last waking, but he could see that many years had passed him by. The small settlement he remembered had been called a city by its inhabitants even then, but it had paled in comparison to the older and larger European capitals he had known. Now, though, it appeared to have grown into itself, stretching much farther than the boundaries in his memories.

It took a moment to orient himself, but he recognized the closest building as the home of his former Warden. He did not doubt that the man had by now passed into the next world, but at least by sighting it, Dag knew where he was. He had not been moved in more than three hundred years.

The trip to reach the rooftop of the four-story mansion of the Houghton family could barely be called a flight. He hovered a moment over his old landing spot before recoiling in disgust. The detritus and building debris he might have ignored, but the sharp, sulfurous stink of tar could not be borne. He needed another spot to land out of sight of humans, and quickly, judging by the rate at which the rigidity of shock and fear had begun to leach from his human burden. She would not remain quiescent long.

Dag glanced around, his gaze finding a familiar sight in the crowded skyline. A church spire rose into the night, the open archways of its belfry providing an easy entrance and exit as well as an excellent vantage point from which to observe those passing below. He could reach it in moments and slip himself and his human charge inside before the chances of being seen became too dangerous.

Changing direction with a twitch of his wings, he covered the distance of more than a mile in seconds. He had to draw up and hover for a moment in order to set the human female safely on the floor inside the bell tower, because his full wingspan would never fit through the arched openings. With his rear claws free, he dug them into the stone of the portal and perched long enough to furl the appendages before hopping in after her.

Half a second after her feet touched the floor, her bottom followed. Her grunt nearly echoed in the cavern of the church bell, but she made no other sound, just stared up at him with wide, dark eyes.

Dag returned her gaze, finally taking notice of how tiny the female actually was. Oh, he had known she weighed so little he had barely noticed as he lifted her from the ground and flew her to safety; but he was a warrior, strong and hardened by battle. He could have flown a military tank that short distance.

No, the human wasn’t simply light, she was little. He couldn’t remember the last time he had encountered a human so small unless it was a child. This female, though, appeared fully grown, with mature curves visible even through her heavy garments. Still, the top of her head had barely reached his collarbone before she collapsed, even though he stood among the shortest of his kind. He doubted the human could boast so much as five feet of height. He literally was twice her size, but somehow she didn’t appear to be afraid of him.

In fact, if he were forced to label the expression on her unexpectedly strong features, he would have to say she looked fascinated. She barely blinked, her gaze devouring him in long, thirsty gulps.

Those dark eyes dominated her face, wide and heavily lashed, tilted just the slightest bit at the corners. Her brows, too, were heavy, but gracefully arched and almost black against her fair skin. Her nose suited her face, strong and straight but not too large for femininity. It perched above a cupid’s bow of a mouth now half open in astonishment. Her chin dipped toward her chest, a rounded point that indicated a mischievous and determined nature.

Overall, her face gave the impression of a lively spirit and a strong will, the type of human who spoke definitely and often. Thankfully, for the moment she remained silent, but he wondered how long that would last.

He’d grown accustomed through the centuries to attracting human attention, but mostly those who saw him felt either revulsion or terror at his appearance. Of all his brethren, his natural form appeared the least like those they were summoned to protect. His short, thick legs and arched back made him as comfortable moving on four limbs as on two, and his flat nostrils, heavy brow, and forward-thrusting jaw gave him a bestial, almost apelike visage. Add in the wings, the fangs, and the razor-sharp talons, and humans either loathed him or feared him. Mostly, he cared not which way they leaned.

But this female didn’t try to scamper away the moment he gazed on her, and Dag found himself unsure of what that meant. How was he to act in a situation he had never before encountered?

He chose to glower, but then, he almost always chose to glower. Settling back on his heels, he pressed his knuckles against the floor between his feet and ruffled his wings just to remind her of what he was. What he could do to her if he decided to name her an enemy.

“Now, human, I have saved you from the Order’s attack dogs. You owe me a debt. To repay the value of your life, you will reveal to me if you are my Warden and what latest threat the Seven have brought from the Darkness. I am a Guardian, and I will do my duty to keep the Demons at bay.”

If anything, the female went even more still. She seemed almost to stop breathing, and her dark eyes opened so far the whites shone in the dim moonlight. Her jaw fell another full inch, a look of utter shock suffusing her features.

“Warden?” she repeated in that unexpected rasp. “The Order, the Seven, the Darkness, a Guardian.” She shook her head and scrambled suddenly to her knees, leaning forward to stare at him intently. “How do you know those terms? What do they mean to you?”

Dag felt his brows knit together as he stared down at the tiny human. “They mean everything. I am a Guardian of the Light, sworn to protect your world from the evil of the Seven Demons of the Darkness, and if you do not know this, then you cannot be my Warden. But if you are not, then tell me how I was summoned from my sleeping?”

“Sure, sure, absolutely. Just as soon as you tell me which rabbit hole I fell down, because all of a sudden I have the feeling that I am
very
late to the party.”