When a Gargoyle Awakens (7 page)

The sound of a loud belch wound its way to her, and Kylie bit back a sigh of disgust.  “Kylie, where are you?”  His voice was now a plaintive whine.

At least he was drunker than she was.  With dubious dexterity, she managed to slip off her shoes and delved further into the maze.  Gary wasn’t a bad guy.  But good guys tended not to remember this when they were hammered.  And Gary wasn’t exactly a good guy – he was an okay guy, and he didn’t seem to be able to take no for an answer when sober.  Inebriated, she didn’t want to find out what he thought no meant.  Probably ‘take me, I’m yours’.  Best not to tempt fate. 

She felt her way through the maze, her legs seeming to know the way automatically, and still clutching the half-full champagne flute.

Gary called her name a few more times, before harrumphing.  “Fine, bitch, plenty more – hic – fish in the sea.”

Kylie snorted.  Well, he would know, being a dedicated fishmonger.   She didn’t have any problems with fishmongers in general.  But this one's first girlfriend was probably a sturgeon.  And the sturgeon got the crappy end of the deal in that relationship.  She heard his tromping footsteps retreating to the house, or perhaps to a pond to find the new object of his affections.

Her body sagged a little in relief, but her feet didn’t stop moving.  As if independent from her brain, they moved, seemingly knowing where they were going.  She was glad they did because Kylie had no clue.  The evening had been a washout.  She’d managed to spend half the evening with her skirt tucked into her panties, made an ass out of herself in front of the most handsome man to hit Devil’s Hang since probably the dawn of time and had been chased into a hedge maze by Gary the fishy pervert.  Whatever the night had in store for her next could only be a welcome relief.

Kylie gasped as she found herself in the center of the hedge maze.  There it was.  Or rather, there he was.  Naturally he hadn’t moved a stone muscle since the last time she had accidentally stumbled upon his resting place.  He sat in the middle of the clearing, focused on cold, contemplative thought.

“We meet again,” she murmured to the gargoyle and then let out a self-conscious giggle.  She wasn’t someone who was prone to talking to inanimate objects, or even pets.  Her Aunt Bea was prone to talking to everything that happened to be close at hand, from her cell phone to her knitting.  Kylie had put it down to the quirkiness of age, but here she was doing the same thing.

But, this was different, wasn’t it?  What had Professor Hardcastle called him?  Special.  Too special to be placed on the house for fear that he might be damaged. So special that he had to be kept out here where few people would see him.  Yet, why not keep him in the house if he was so important?  Something to do with needing sunlight - Kylie hadn’t really paid that much attention to the professor.

She dropped her shoes to the ground and circled around the statue.  Her eyes took in the ridged horns on his large head, much more square and solid than a human’s.  His body was much bigger too and not just because massive wings framed his body.  It was like he was designed to be at least an eighth bigger than a regular human.  His hands and feet ended in sharp looking talons and his tail curled around his feet.  She probably shouldn’t have noticed – lord knows why her mind even went there – but she saw that he was wearing a loincloth and nothing else.  She called herself a deviant and moved on.

Gingerly, she placed a hand on a stone bicep and bit her lip.  “Why are you so fascinating?” she mused, aloud.

She shook her head.  She was doing it again.  Talking to herself, or rather talking to him like he was real.  Maybe she was losing it.  Maybe all the stress of losing her fiancé, her job and her home was all finally coming crashing down on her, and she was finally cracking.  She’d been strong and stoic about everything up until that point.  Taking everything with grace and dignity, but now, finally it appeared that she was up the crazy creek without a paddle.

Kylie felt tears welling in her eyes and desperately tried to blink them back.  She didn’t want to cry and mope, and not just because her mascara wasn’t waterproof.  She just wasn’t the type to lament her poor fortune – she always tried to make the best of things. 

But damnit, why should she?  Wasn’t she deserving of some self-pity?  Her little lot in life hadn’t been all that much, but it had been hers, and it was so… so… unfair that she had lost everything.  How could her asshole fiancé and best friend have done this to her?  Didn’t they feel any love for her?  Any compassion?  Clearly not.

Hell, what had she ever seen in that dickhead?  “You’d never do that to me, would you?” murmured Kylie to the statue before gulping back the almost forgotten champagne still clutched in one fist.

She dropped the flute to the ground; it dropped harmlessly into the overgrown grass.  She felt a lightheaded giddiness that wasn’t altogether unpleasant.  In fact, it was quite soothing.  It made her wonder why she didn’t drink alcohol on a regular basis if this was the freeing effect it had.  All the crushing sadness that had reared its ugly head a second ago was being drowned by the bubbles of the champagne.

“Screw them!” she declared.  “They don’t deserve me.  No, I deserve better,” she babbled, in a convinced voice that could only come from someone who was verging on totally wasted.

Kylie stood in front of the statue and stifled a hiccup.  He wasn’t handsome in the way you would call humans handsome, but he was certainly striking.  She placed both of her hands on his cheeks; the cool stone was pleasant under her touch.  “No fiancé to kiss me,” she slurred, slightly.  “And Holling thinks I’m a lunatic.  No kisses for Kylie.  Haven’t been kissed in over six months.”

She smirked as a silly idea formed in her head.  Silly but not one she rejected immediately due to her inebriated state.  “Might as well kiss you,” she whispered into his stern face.  “At least you can’t complain about my bad breath.”  They couldn’t arrest her for fondling a gargoyle, right?

He didn’t object so, laughingly, and obviously drunkenly, she pressed her lips up against his for the briefest of moments.  Kylie chuckled at herself as she pulled back, but she gasped as the gargoyle let out a groan.

No, that wasn’t possible.  Stone statues don’t groan.

It did it again, and she jumped back, her bare foot tangled in the grass and she fell on her ass with a thump that reverberated up her spine.

Kylie watched, frozen to the spot and her mouth open in a silent scream as the gargoyle stirred.  His whole body came alive, his skin brightening as life flowed through him.  He stood up, straightening, stretching his limbs and wings.  He must have been almost seven feet tall, eight feet including those towering wings.  A growl shuddered out of his throat as his eyes turned from blank stone to piercing yellow that glowed in the dark of the night.

Slowly, he looked around until his gaze alighted on her.  Up until this point, Kylie had been gaping at him as if it was all just a product of her overactive and alcohol affected imagination.  But then he did something that downright terrified her.

The huge beast cocked his head on one side.  “Hello,” he rumbled.

Kylie paused for a beat as her heart caught up with her mouth, and she screamed before scrambling to her feet and fleeing.  Or at least trying to flee; she made it two feet before she tripped over her own shoes and hit her head on one of the stone steps.

The last thing she remembered was rolling over and the statue looming over her.

Chapter Ten

“Ungh!”

Someone slapped her cheek.  Kylie forced her eyes open just in time to witness the second slap.

Maggie’s eyes widened in surprised relief as her hand made contact with a firm thwacking noise; the multitude of silver jewelry she wore rattled.

Kylie waved her hands to get her friend to back away.  “What are you doing?” she mumbled with a tongue that felt like shag carpeting.  Memo to self - no more champagne, ever.

Maggie hovered over her, peering at her head in frank concern.  “You have a huge bump on your head,” she explained, softly.  “I was worried you might have a concussion.”

“So you decided to whale on me?” muttered Kylie as her hand roamed over the offending bump.  Boy, it was a doozy.

“You’re not bleeding,” said Maggie, ignoring her.  “But I think we should go to the hospital.”

“No, no hospitals,” cried Kylie, a little too quickly for the throbbing in her head.  “I’m fine,” she said with a grimace.

Clearly her acting wasn’t up to scratch because Maggie just creased her forehead and gave her a ‘yeah, right’ look.  Kylie wasn't averse to hospitals; she was just averse to their huge bills.  As much as she loved Bea and was ever so grateful, she didn’t exactly get paid a lot.  Last month there had been a choice between severely cutting down on luxuries – such as toilet paper that wasn’t like sandpaper – and paying for health insurance.  Her smooth tushie was a testament to the choice she made.  She didn’t tend to get sick.  She figured as long as she didn’t do anything dumb like running out in front of moving cars or order anything adventurous if she went out to a restaurant, she’d be fine.  Course, she probably should have added making gargoyles come to life to the list…

Kylie squawked and leaped up, alarming Maggie to such an extent that she fell to the floor on her butt.

“What?  What’s wrong?”

“Where is he?” demanded Kylie, her eyes roving around the room.  Her headache was completely forgotten in her terror.

“He who?”

“What happened after I fell over?”  Kylie squinted at the room; it wasn’t her little living room done in soft pink and sporting cushions in flamingo print.  No, this looked like the Munster’s living room.

Maggie peered up at her, still sprawling on the floor.  “I don’t know.  I was looking for you and Gary told me he thought you’d gone outside…”

Kylie withheld the shudder as she recalled Gary chasing after her.  “Where are we?”

“Still at the professor’s, or should I say, Andrew’s house.  We’re in the lavender drawing room.  Goddess knows how many other drawing rooms they have in the house and what colors they are.  Holling found you on a lounger on the patio and carried you in here.”

“Holling?”  Did he carry her?  Wow, those muscles certainly weren’t just for show – she wasn't exactly as light as a fluffy cloud. 

Hesitantly, she pressed her fingers against the lump, wondering how she could have ended up on the lounger in the first place.  If memory serves, she went into the maze, to escape Gary’s unwanted attention and she made her way to the center.  Her memory started to get a little fuzzy at that point.  Then, for some reason a stone statue came to life, and she fell over.  No, that couldn’t be right, could it?

The door opened, quietly, and Holling stepped into the room.  His handsome features were blank, and he walked over to her, stealthy as a cat, and handed her a glass of water.

“Thank you,” Kylie said, automatically as she reached for the glass and took a sip.  She let out a little moan as the ice-cold water gratefully trickled down her throat.

He looked at Kylie and Maggie; the latter was now sitting cross-legged on the floor.  “How’s your head?”

“Ah, fine,” she lied.

“If you need to go to the hospital…”

“I don’t,” Kylie said, quickly.  “Ummm, thank you.”

Holling took a step back from her and narrowed his eyes, watching her carefully.  It was as uncomfortable as being under a microscope.  After what seemed like an enormous amount of time but was probably only thirty seconds, he shrugged and folded his arms.  “It was nothing.  Do you remember what happened?”

Kylie hesitated.  She knew what she thought happened, but she knew that wasn’t possible, and telling someone else would surely end with a one-way trip to the nut house.  “I guess I had too much to drink and fell over.”

His eyes narrowed.  “And fell onto the lounger?”

“Lucky, I guess.”

“It would be luckier if you hadn’t hit your head at all,” piped up Maggie.

“What were you doing out in the garden?” asked Holling, sharply.

Kylie felt a flush of fear through her.  She didn’t know why.  She didn’t have anything to fear from Holling, did she?  Surely, he was just concerned about what happened to her.  But for some reason his features, which she had found so handsome the previous night, just seem pointed and intense.  His eyes, which she had thought pretty now seemed cold.  She blinked; she was probably overreacting.  She had a bump to head, she was clearly losing her mind in thinking that gargoyles were coming to life, and she was tired.  That’s all there was to it.

She rubbed her head.  “I was trying to get some fresh air.  I’d had too much to drink, and I was feeling a little woozy.”

“Have you been into the garden before on one of your previous visits?”  He took a step toward her.

“Dude, lighten up,” said Maggie.  Kylie couldn’t see her friend’s face – she was drawn to the innate stillness of Holling – but she could hear the eye roll in her voice.

“Did the professor ever take you out there?”

Kylie froze, but thankfully, Maggie didn’t.  “This is all fascinating, really I wish we could stay here and talk about horticulture all day, but I really think I should get Kylie home.  Come on, Eldon will drive us.”

She allowed herself to be led away by Maggie.  “Eldon?”