Mona Lisa Darkening m-4 Page 5

  Wow! was all I could think as we studied each other. He — and it was definitely a he — looked like a dark, ominous thundercloud ready to erupt. Wearing only simple black trousers, he stood over seven and a half feet, taller even than the bull dheus, with a stateliness to his bearing that was at odds with the casualness of his attire. He seemed a natural, if intimidating, creature of this realm. Not something twisted, distorted, changed. The horns just starting to bud on the child were fully grown on the adult male — beautiful black ivory, thicker than my wrist, impressive as hell. So was the heavily defined musculature of his tanklike build. His wings had folded up neatly on his back, so that had I not seen them, I would never have guessed at their presence. The greater density and weight I had felt when carrying the child was clearly evident in the big, looming male before me. He was formidably large and savage-looking, from the broad square head, wide flat nose, thin lips, and smooth charcoal-gray skin, to his proud, intelligent black eyes. The blood smeared on his horns, dripping down his face, added the perfect, dramatic scary touch.

  Bull dheus, no problem. I'd tackle one in the blink of an eye. But this huge, angry gargoyle standing before me was someone I never wanted to tangle with.

  Finished with his quick assessment of me and my apparent lack of threat, his claws retracted, and he turned his attention to the boy. With a happy gurgling cry, the little gargoyle tottered toward the big fearsome male. He scooped the child up with a gentleness that eased the breath I'd been unconsciously holding. My body relaxed as they communicated in rolling trills, deep consonants, and quick echoing syllables that flowed together with a sliding musical cadence.

  "My son, Ghemin, says that you risked yourself to help him."

  It was strange to hear such a savage-looking creature speaking in so civilized a manner. What had he said? Oh yeah, something about me helping his son.

  I nodded, unable to find words as I beheld these creatures of legend — gargoyle.

  His gaze darted briefly behind me, and his wings snapped open like dark sails on a ship. "Come." He held a hand out to me in imperious command, cradling his son in his other arm. I went to him and almost took his hand before remembering what touch had done to the child.

  "I can't," I said, snatching back my hand. "I'll hurt you."

  The gargoyle looked at me with a fierce, impatient scowl. "I am full-grown. You cannot hurt me if I do not wish it. Come now, quickly."

  I grabbed his hand and had a moment to marvel over the smoothness of his skin, softer than it looked. Then we were lifting into the air.

  "Hang on," said the gargoyle. "Wrap your arms around my waist."

  As my feet left the ground, I not only wrapped my arms around him but clamped my legs around him, too, clinging to him tighter than a monkey wrapped around a tree. And that's what he felt like, a tree — as big around as a hundred-year-old oak, and maybe even more solid. I had a moment to wonder at the great strength in those wings — none of us were lightweights, him least of all — a couple of seconds to feel the powerful flexing of his back muscles beneath my hands and realize that we were moving, but slowly, at half the speed with which he had flown in, when a warning trill sounded from Ghemin.

  "Hold tight!" the gargoyle said, and tilted sharply to the right. An arrow whizzed by, dangerously close. Two more followed in quick succession. I looked down and saw Gilford, Demetrius, and Rupert shooting arrows at us. The other bull warriors whose asses we'd kicked were running back toward them, no doubt to grab their own bows from their supply sacks. The one who I was really worried about, though, was Pietrus, who had brought the imp down with one single, accurate shot. I watched Pietrus pick up his bow.

  "Careful" I said. "This next arrow coming… his aim is very accurate. He'll go for your wings."

  The arrow was unleashed and came at us with frightening speed. The gargoyle dipped sharply down, and it overshot us.

  "Yup. he's aiming for your wings." And he had a target maybe three times bigger than what that scrawny imp had offered him, and at a much closer distance.

  Another torrent of arrows flew up at us and the gargoyle turned to face them. Unfortunately, it exposed us, Ghemin and I. The gargoyle snatched an arrow out of the air just before it struck his son. A deft shift of his lower body, and I felt an arrow whiz by my right leg, missing it by an inch. Another powerful twist of his body, and another arrow whistled past my ear.

  When the immediate danger passed, the gargoyle dropped the arrow he'd snatched out of the air — nothing useful to be done with it, I guess — and flapped his wings, lifting us higher with concentrated effort, not so much going forward as straight up. I understood his reasoning when we hit a strong air current that caught his wings and lifted us up fast enough, powerfully enough, to drop my stomach down to my knees, the way a fast elevator going up sometimes does. We rode the strong wind, soaring up and away in a sudden sprint of speed, increasing the distance between us and our erstwhile archers down below more and more with each passing second.

  I thought we were going to make it, I really did. Then I looked down and saw that whatever Ghemin had miraculously done for Pietrus's skin had also improved his intelligence, unfortunately. With a barked order, Pietrus lined up the other bull dheus in a loose circle, with him in the center. On his count, they released their arrows simultaneously. The arrows came flying at us as a unit, in an evenly spaced pattern, making me curse, because one of them was bound to hit us. We couldn't dodge individual arrows the way we had been doing.

  "Watch out!" I yelled, and then we were tumbling in the air. The big gargoyle snapped his wings shut and tucked himself around Ghemin and me, shielding us with his body. When he uncurled, there were excited shouts from down below. I opened my eyes and saw that two arrows had found their mark. One was buried in the bulky mass of his right arm. He yanked it unflinchingly out. It was the shaft sticking out of his back, that told me we were in big trouble. That and the fact that his right wing was opened and flapping weakly, and his left wing was not.

  "Pull the arrow out," the gargoyle said urgently. "I cannot reach it. You must do it." He hoisted me higher up his body and I shifted around until I could clearly see that the arrow had pierced his folded wing. With no other recourse — we were plummeting at a sickening speed — I grabbed ahold of the wooden shaft and gave a fierce yank. And found that the arrowhead had gone completely through the wing to anchor into the meaty part of his back. There was a stomach-churning, slurping-sucking sound and a spattering of blood as the barbed head uprooted grudgingly out of his flesh and tore back out through his wing.

  The gargoyle made no sound, though it had to have pained him terribly. With a powerful snap, his left wing unfurled. I dropped the bloody arrow and clutched him as our downward fall abruptly stopped. We were flying again but just barely. It was hard to grab air with a couple of holes through your wing, one through the outer tip, the other through the center. I watched as both jagged holes ripped wider under the shearing force of the wind and the combined burden of our weights.

  As soon as the realization of what I had to do registered in my brain, I released him. The gargoyle growled. "No!" He tried to grab me with his hand, but I twisted out of reach.

  "Get Ghemin out of here. I'll be fine," I said, meeting his eyes for a brief suspended instant. Then I was falling, plummeting, dropping like a stone.

  It felt like the ground rushed up to meet me, and punched me silly with a giant, bludgeoning blow. We had descended far enough that I fell no more than forty feet — like jumping from the fourth floor of an apartment building. Much better than the hundred feet up we'd originally been in the air before they'd tried to make him a porcupine with arrows. Still, the hard impact of my feet hitting the ground shot a hot wave of pain up my legs, hips, and back. I rolled and tried to assess the damage during that long tumble. My legs hurt the most, as if the devil was searing them with a hot poker. Broken? Dear God, I sure hoped not. We'd see soon enough.

  I finally came to a stop and uncurled. Lying flat o
n my back, I had a perfect view of the sky. The gargoyle looked like a giant bat, growing smaller as he flew farther away. It wasn't the most graceful thing, his flight. More jerky, less gliding ease. But he'd regained some of his height, and without my added weight burdening him, his injured wing seemed to be holding up well enough to keep father and son aloft. If the gargoyle healed as fast as the imp did, the hole in his wing might even be gone soon. They would make it if no more arrows struck them. And the chances of that lessened with each second that passed.

  With a mental sigh because I hated pain, I really did, I rose to my feet. Sure enough, hot jagged pain tore through me. Son of bitch! The right leg was definitely broken — the ugly sound of bone grating against bone made that kind of obvious. The left leg felt as if it was broken, too. As if that wasn't bad enough, a sound drew my eyes up to the unwelcome sight of Miles and a whip-bearing demon heading my way. On the barren rocky land behind them, Pietrus and three others let fly another organized round of arrows up into the sky.

  "Arrows!" I shouted, and watched with baited breath as the gargoyle angled abruptly upward, allowing the arrows to fly harmlessly past and start almost immediately to fall. The next synchronized volley, the three arrows arched up, peaked, and started to fall just they neared their target. At Pietrus's call, another round of arrows shot forth with barely a pause in between.

  "More incoming," I yelled, but needn't have even bothered. The three arrows started to fall several yards short of their target as he flew higher and higher up into the sky.

  They were safe. And I was not.

  I bid them a silent farewell. Even felt a sweet moment of triumph before the bull dheu's whip whistled through the air and struck me.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Gryphon roamed the halls of the Demon Prince's home. At first, the house staff was leery of him, a new demon. But when Gryphon didn't try to jump them and tear open their necks, they gradually relaxed, leaving him alone to pace through the empty rooms like a dangerous ghost.

  Blaec, the High Lord, kept an eye on Gryphon in Halcyon's absence. The High Lord had explained everything to Gryphon. Good thing Halcyon hadn't been there when he had. Gryphon would have tried to rip open his throat, and tear his head off, too, if he'd been able to. In the hours since Halcyon's abrupt departure, he'd had a chance to cool down. Now heartache more than anger ate at Gryphon like a dull, gnawing pain. Regrets… so many of them. And chief among them was his lady, Mona Lisa. Her face filled Gryphon's mind. Her dark eyes laughing, tender. Soft as they made love. So fierce when she fought, defending those she loved.

  Mona Lisa, you were supposed to be safe, he cried inside. But safe was the furthest thing she was now. She was filled with demon essence. And no matter how small the amount, what she had within her was the same wildly savage nature that resided in him now.

  From what the High Lord had told him, she was much like a new demon. It was enough to fill Gryphon with horror and heartache for her. Because what he was now frightened him — that terrible loss of control, when control had been everything to him. The strange urges, the unstable temperament.

  No matter how he still looked the same, Gryphon was different. Completely and utterly different. More unthinking beast than man. In time, Blaec had said, Gryphon would be more like himself. Never exactly the same again, but closer to what he had been in the living realm, less beset by the primitive new hunger of the dead. It would be at least two long years, and that was being optimistic, before he could be trusted unsupervised around the living.

  He knew he could not be trusted around those he had once loved. He'd come to that conclusion a week after he had awakened in this realm and still found that ravenous, beastly hunger for blood undiminished within him. Even now, it had not eased in its intensity. Even though he could control it better, that control had its limits. If blood wine was there within his reach, he could go for a time without grabbing for it. But he could not deny himself that eventual sip. He had tried several times and failed. The hunger had grown and taken him over completely until he'd become mindless and incredibly dangerous. He would have attacked a maid, who had chosen that unfortunate moment to enter his room, had not Halcyon stopped him. That episode made all the house staff wary of him, for good reason. Never trust a new demon, was the saying down in Hell. It should have been branded across his forehead for all to see.

  Despite Halcyon and Blaec's assurance about how well; his control had been since. Gryphon knew better. He knew how terribly fragile it really was.

  Hell was not this realm. It was being without Mona Lisa. It was knowing that if he really, truly loved her, he would not let her anywhere near him for the next five years.

  He had come to that resolve — to be truly dead to her — then Halcyon's revelation had come by way of his father. And what Blaec had told Gryphon nearly unraveled all of that hard-earned control.

  Blaec had thrust the chalice of blood wine at him and told him to drink when his eyes had burned red during the course of their talk. Gryphon had growled, tried to knock the drink away, disgusted with his weakness, his need, angry with the bearer of such horrific news. He had resisted until something even worse than his hunger had stirred inside of him and stretched his skin.

  "Drink, you fool!" Blaec had said. It was the harsh urgency in the High Lord's voice that finally broke through to Gryphon and made him snatch up the drink and gulp it down — no careful restrained sips. Just sating that hunger, and sating it quickly, so that whatever frightening thing had moved within him quieted once more.

  "Was that my demon beast moving in me?" Gryphon asked, setting the empty chalice down with a trembling hand.

  Blaec nodded — a short, curt gesture.

  "Is there reason why you do not wish it to emerge now?" Gryphon asked.

  "I did not wish to explain the destruction of the room to my son, and the possible damage to you. Damage that I would have had to cause in order to control you. The first time you shift into your demon beast form, it should not be while your heated emotions rule you. I'd also strongly advise allowing more time to come to terms with your new nature before attempting to wrestle with that especially dangerous aspect of yourself."

  Another near miss. He seemed to be having quite a few of those lately.

  Gryphon was calm when Halcyon finally returned. The Demon Prince had only been gone for a few short hours, but it had felt like days. It was a relief to feel Halcyon's powerful presence entering the house once again. He wouldn't have returned so soon if Mona Lisa were missing, Gryphon told himself. He would have stayed to search for her. Whatever Halcyon had sensed had to be a mistake, a flaw in the bonding ring. Then Gryphon saw Halcyon's haggard face, the grief-stricken despair in his eyes.

  Halcyon told them simply, "She is not there. She is no longer in the living realm."

  It was suddenly hard for Gryphon to speak, to ask questions. "Do you mean that she is dead?"

  A brief hesitation. Then Halcyon nodded. "I fear so."

  "Is she… is she here?"

  "No," Halcyon said. "I do not sense her in this realm."

  Gone, Gryphon thought. The loss skewered him like a knife, even worse than the loss of his own life. Too many things hit him all at once — hot anger, cold despair, that first touch of raging grief. They all collided inside him, so that for a moment he only felt blessed numbness, an artificial calm before the explosion.

  Then Halcyon was speaking again. "Father, a black light took her."

  His words froze Blaec.

  "She was Basking when a veil of darkness moved across the moon, traveled down the moon's rays into her," Halcyon said, his eyes fixed intensely on his father. "Her people said the black light seemed to wrap around her, and she simply disappeared."

  "NetherHell," Blaec said, looking grimly at his son.

  "NetherHell?" Gryphon asked, his eyes going back and forth between the two of them. "Where is that? Is that where she is?" The wild hope that suddenly flared in his heart was muted by their somber look.

&
nbsp; "NetherHell is another separate realm. A lower realm," Halcyon explained. "And today is Aequus Nox, when the planets align and the sun crosses the celestial equator, allowing a short span of time when the walls between the realms thin."

  "You believe this black light took her to this other realm? To this NetherHell?"

  Halcyon glanced at his father, and it was Blaec who answered. "The old writings make note of such an occurrence happening once before, over five centuries ago, when the time of Aequus Nox coincided with a full moon. A black light traveled down and struck two Monère warriors. When the dark light vanished, they, too, were gone. They were seen a year later in the Cursed Realm, greatly changed."

  "The Cursed Realm?" Gryphon said, feeling dread well up and spread inside him.

  "Another name for NetherHell," Blaec said. "Not all Monère who die go to Hell. Some go to NetherHell, those who are… more evil. Many humans, corrupted ones, go to that realm upon their death."

  "Mona Lisa wasn't dead, though. She was alive," Gryphon said, his hands rounding into loose fists. Too tight and he would puncture himself with his demon nails. He'd found that out the hard way.

  "A part of her was dead, though." The import of Halcyon's words sank into Gryphon, and he found himself moving. Only Blaec's hand on Gryphon's shoulder kept him from finishing the lunge he'd started toward Halcyon.

  "It's not only Halcyon's demon blood in her," Blaec said, gripping him hard. "That part of her alone would not have landed her in the Nether Realm. Mona Lisa also possesses Mona Louisa's essence, which was more evil than good, if you recall."

  Blaec's words — and reasoning — calmed Gryphon down enough to mutter, "You can let me go now, High Lord."