Stone Cold Lover (3 page)

Hands fumbled with the misshapen bundle until an ominous click sounded and the pale green face of a digital clock began to glow.

“Holy shit!” The woman scrambled to her feet, her gaze darting between the minion’s bomb and the Guardian warrior hovering above the floor. “I did not sign up to die tonight, damn it, and I refuse to wind up a feature on the morning news. I am
outta here
!”

Spar had had centuries to study the ways of humanity. He had, after all, been created to protect them from the Darkness; but in all his long existence, he had never witnessed a member of the race behave with quite so much foolish courage. Without an instant of hesitation, the small, fair-haired female tucked her head, rounded her shoulders, and launched herself straight at the cultist and his destructive device.

She might very well have gotten herself killed. Should have gotten herself killed, he reasoned even as he found himself diving after her. She reached the madman a moment before Spar’s arms closed around her, and the force of her tackle knocked the
nocturnis
off his feet. The man went stumbling into the nearest window ledge, and the device in his hands tumbled free to skitter across the marble floor. It landed near the base of Spar’s pedestal with a series of sharp beeps and the rapid flashing of green lights.

The female in his arms shouted an oath and attempted to free herself from his grip, but Spar was having none of it. He held tight even as her tiny hands beat frantically against his chest.

“Let me go, you giant idiot! That thing’s about to blow!”

The high-pitched squeal of the cultist emphasized the truth of that prediction. Somehow the bomb’s timer had been accelerated when the
nocturnis
had dropped it. Detonation was imminent.

“Hold on,” he growled. There was no time for anything else.

He had no way of knowing how powerful a weapon the cultist might have devised, but he gathered it was strong enough that it had been expected to shatter his immobile form into rubble. It was a cowardly, dastardly plan to destroy an enemy in such a vulnerable state, but it might actually have worked. Locked in his sleep, a Guardian had all the vulnerabilities of the stone form he resembled. Fortunately, something had awoken Spar before the plan could be carried out. A fully awoken Guardian was one hell of a lot harder to kill.

Before he had even finished his warning to the small human, he had drawn her hard and tight against his chest and dragged her down to the floor with him. Folding himself in around her, he shielded her with his body and wrapped them both tight in the shelter of his wings.

His feathers hadn’t even settled before the explosion shook the foundations of the building.

Spar had his eyes closed against the potential debris, but he heard the deafening boom and felt the initial shock wave buffet him in a blast of scalding air. Shrapnel, some from the bomb, some from the destruction of the room around them, thudded and pinged off his wings and the bits of stony hide it managed to penetrate. He smelled the sharp tang of burned feathers, chipped stone, and blood, as well as something bitter and chalky that he assumed was the explosive itself. It filled his head and coated the back of his throat, and he rumbled his displeasure.

In his arms, the female had frozen like a startled deer. He could feel her heart pounding against her breast, could smell her shock and terror. It sparked something inside him, something fierce and protective and somehow different from his basic drive to perform his duty. This feel wasn’t about protecting humans; it was about protecting
this
human, and to do that he needed to get them out of this space and away from the
nocturnis.
Quickly.

He didn’t pause to think. He simply opened his eyes to the gaping hole in the building’s ruined wall and launched himself into the night. As the cool air rushed over him, rustling the tips of his feathers, he heard the wail of sirens and the hoarse cries of humans hurrying to the scene of destruction.

Whatever they decided to make of the blast site and the cultist who had devised it, Spar didn’t care. He had the human in his grasp. Getting her to safety was his first priority. After that, he could start asking questions. For example, who in the name of the Light was she?

And how had she awoken him from 250 years of sleep?

*   *   *

They’re coming to take me away, ho ho, hee hee, ha ha, to the funny farm …

Fil hummed the words in her head and clutched hard at the thick muscles currently holding her suspended over the streets of Montreal. Since it would be her new theme song, she supposed she might as well start practicing. Insanity, after all, was the only way to explain the events of the last thirty minutes.

Raging insanity, in the case of the final five, because that was how long ago she estimated an impossible animated work of art had swept her up into its arms and launched itself into a flight path she felt certain had not been cleared with Nav Canada. Because wouldn’t that be an interesting filing?

Nav Canada, this is Gargoyle One. We are ready for takeoff from l’Abbaye Saint-Thomas l’Apôst. Please confirm.

Roger, Gargoyle One. You are third in line for departure. Begin flapping at twenty-to-twenty-five wing beats per minute.

The snort escaped without her permission, puffing against the smooth, stone-textured skin under her cheek. If she was going to lose her mind, at least she could maintain her sense of humor about it. That might help her adjust to the secure ward they’d likely place her in. She could giggle her way between her doses of medication.

Provided, of course, that this really did turn out to be a hallucination. Fil supposed she shouldn’t discount the possibility that she had in actuality just been kidnapped by the statue of a monster come to life. It wouldn’t be the only strange thing that had ever happened to her.

The strangest, sure, but after you grew up being able to see when a person’s words didn’t match the intentions in their energy, you learned to keep an open mind. So if she had landed in the clutches of the bogeyman, she might still end up as table scraps in some sort of demonic landfill. You know, after the fiend had finished sucking the marrow from her bones.

Either way, she could think of at least a dozen ways she’d rather spend the next few years of her life, and they all hinged on her being alive. As well as in full possession of all her mental faculties.

At the moment, those faculties had begun to warn her about a change in altitude. She had barely enough time to squeak and clutch harder at the one in charge of those things before she felt a gentle bump. The sensation of motion halted, and her boots touched the ground beneath her. Followed closely by her jeans-clad ass when her knees buckled, her legs refusing to hold her up in the face of systemic shock.

“Are you hurt?”

Fil looked up reflexively. Above her—way, way above her—a surprisingly human voice emerged from the face of what looked like a monster. Admittedly, the voice rumbled about an octave below bass and managed to make James Earl Jones sound like a soprano, but it spoke easily and fluently and not at all like a slavering beast. In fact, something inside her relaxed at the sound of it, releasing at least a little of the tension that had her tied in knots that should have earned some Boy Scout his merit badge.

Of course, that still left a whole boatload of tension.

Fil shook her head. “I’m not hurt. I might very well have lost my ever-loving mind, but physically I’m just peachy.”

Despite the cold damp seeping into the seat of her pants, she realized she spoke the truth. She felt fine, not as if she’d been caught in the middle of a bomb blast at all. Her legs still resembled limp rubber bands, which was why she hadn’t bothered trying to get to her feet yet, but she couldn’t detect so much as a scratch on the rest of her. Somehow, she didn’t think she could chalk all that up to the protective characteristics of worn jeans and a battered leather jacket, either. The figure that loomed above her deserved the credit.

“You protected me from the explosion,” she said, frowning up at him. “I should be asking you if you’re hurt, not the other way around.”

The creature made an impatient gesture. “I am unharmed. Such a paltry attack caused no more than a few minor abrasions to my hide. A Guardian is designed to withstand much worse.”

“A Guardian? Is that what you are? I’d have gone with figment of my imagination, personally, but I suppose you’d be the expert.”

Fil shivered, and thought vaguely that chills were one of the symptoms of shock. The fact that she might be going into it proved somehow reassuring and terrifying at the same time. On the one hand, if she could experience shock, she might not have lost her mind, which meant that everything she had just experienced was real.

On the other hand, it meant everything she had just experienced was
real
; and that in turn meant that she was currently sitting on the ground in the middle of a field having a conversation with something that should not even have existed.

Holy hell.

“I am one of the seven Guardians of the Light,” the not-figment confirmed. When he hunkered down on his beast-like legs, she could see the serious expression gracing his stern, inhuman features. “What I am curious to know, however, is why you have awoken me from my slumber, little human, and in what manner you were able to accomplish it.”

Fil snorted. “You’re asking me? Buddy, I’m not even sure I know my own name anymore, so I am not the girl to go to for answers. You’d get more out of that tree over there.”

“You are injured.” The creature scowled and reached out with a surprisingly gentle claw to lift her face to the light. “Where is your wound? How badly does it pain you?”

“I told you, I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”

“Are you? What about your hand?”

The reminder caught Fil off guard, and the throbbing sensation in her palm that she’d almost forgotten returned in a rush of hot discomfort.
Great.
She’d been happier when her subconscious had blocked out that feeling in favor of more immediate concerns.

Not that having a limb feel like it had been stung by five thousand angry bees was an easy thing to forget, but a lot had happened in the last couple of hours. Fil had been a little preoccupied with flying over the city sans airplane to worry about a flesh wound, until her erstwhile rescuer brought it up again.

She recalled seeing the maniac in the robe turn on her when the gargoyle confronted it. Throwing her hands up to shield her face had been pure instinct. She hadn’t known what the bastard had planned, but after the havoc he’d already wreaked in the chapter house the bolt of Dark energy shouldn’t have surprised her, especially when she had so many other surprises to contend with.

Looking down at her left hand, she could see no evidence of the magical blow she’d inadvertently warded off. The sensation of swelling, heat, and stabbing needles wasn’t supported by outward appearances. Her skin looked unmarred, the back of her hand smooth and pale in the dim starlight. Even her palm appeared fine—at worst a little pink in the middle where she’d felt the point of impact.

She shook her head and pushed aside the concern. “My hand is fine, and it’s not even the one I paint with. Right now I’m a little more worried about my mental state. Unless you can offer some sort of logical explanation for your existence, statue boy.”

For the first time in her life, Fil got to see what it looked like to actually ruffle someone’s feathers. The giant next to her shifted his wings in what struck her as a gesture of irritation, creating a whisper of breeze in the air.

“I am no statue,” he growled, the tip of one fang flashing as his lip curled. “I told you, I am a Guardian, defender of humanity against the evil of the Darkness. My sleeping form may resemble something carved by human hands, but I can assure you my brothers and I are entirely different.”

“Guardian. Darkness. Brothers,” Fil repeated. “I recognize those words, but I have the feeling they do not mean what I think they mean.”

She shivered hard, as if she’d been lifted by the scruff of the neck like a puppy and shaken. She was definitely suffering from shock. What she wouldn’t give for an EMT with a survival blanket. Hell, at this point she doubted she’d argue too hard against a nice white coat with buckles in the back. She was freezing.

Next to her, the monster—statue, Guardian, whatever—frowned and reached toward her. Instinct had her pulling back warily, but instead of grabbing her he simply draped a layer of heavy wool over her shoulders and tucked it carefully around her. Since he wore about as much as your average Chippendales dancer, she had no idea where he’d gotten such a thing, but she just pulled it tighter and decided not to ask. When you were wondering about how huge chunks of rock managed to come to life and start talking, somehow the origins of a little blanket seemed less important.

“Thanks, Rocky,” she murmured, eyeing him warily. “Now, unless you’re planning to whip out some graham crackers and marshmallows and build us a nice little campfire, how about you define those words that seem to be tripping me up.”

“My name is Spar. I am neither called Rocky nor made of rock. I am a Guardian, one of those warriors who were summoned to battle against the seven demons of the Darkness and to prevent their possible return to this human plane of existence. I consider the others of my kind to be my brothers.”

Above the fiery blackness of his eyes, his brows drew together, and Fil couldn’t help providing the mental sound effect of stone scraping against stone. No matter what he said, he sure looked like he’d been carved straight out of a rock. A voice in the back of her head pointed out that despite the hardness of his muscles, his tough skin had felt way too warm and intriguing to be stone. She ignored it.

“The Darkness is…” He paused and shook his head. “It is the Darkness. It is that which devours the Light. Humans have called it evil, but that word is simple. It does not encompass the whole truth. Darkness is evil, but it is evil so pure and so deep that it creates an entire absence of good. Good cannot exist in the Darkness, not even to struggle against it. It is consumed to fuel the spread of the enemy. Nothing can exist within it. Not life itself.”