Gargoyle Quest (13 page)

“I’m freeeeeziiiiing
,” the ghost screeched, blood bubbling down its chapped lips, and then melded back into the shadows from which it had sprung.
 

Rhianna broke into a run. Legs pumping, heart pounding in her chest, she flew down the tunnel, running as fast as she’d ever run in her entire life.

The Manchester subway car jumped into view, suddenly seeming like a safe haven from the spectral madness all around. Rhianna’s relief turned out to be short-lived as more ghosts separated from the darkness ahead.
The circle of specters blocked the tunnel, barring her escape.

The entities mouthed words, but the voices emanating from their lifeless lips belonged to their new master, Necron. The wizard was using these spirits like his personal set of ventriloquist dummies.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The answer, Rhianna realized, was nowhere.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

IT WAS LATE afternoon by the time the Order’s mobile command center turned off the West Side Highway and pulled up to the Manchester Hotel. After careful examination of the hotel’s floor plan, Nyssa’s support team believed they’d located the secret elevator that would take them to the private subway station.
 

As soon as the driver killed the truck’s engine, Artan and Nyssa stepped out of the vehicle, the remaining team members trailing behind them. An hour earlier they’d picked up the two hunters Artan had left unconscious at his loft apartment. They’d experienced the wrath of the gargoyle knight firsthand and made sure to maintain a careful distance from him. Their mistrustful eyes bored into Artan, and he tightened his grip around the
Blade of Kings.
 

He wasn’t used to making friends with his enemies, and it required all his self-control not to say something that he might later regret. Only Nyssa seemed to have accepted his participation in this mission. Now that he was working with these monster hunters, he kept wondering about the mysterious Order that sponsored their missions. Who were the founders of this organization? How did they select their warriors? And what did they hunt besides gargoyles and power-hungry wizards?
 

The answers could wait.
 

His attention fixed on the hotel in front of him. Situated between an auto repair shop and a gentleman’s club, the crumbling eight-story structure was one of a few holdouts in a neighborhood quickly being overcome by luxury developments. Decades earlier it had been one of New York’s finest hotels, providing lavish accommodation for the privileged elite, but nowadays the decaying building attracted mostly druggies and deadbeats, according to Nyssa’s intelligence. It had stood unoccupied for years. Fading sunlight bled over a slightly sinister neon sign, dark now like a dead star.
 

The steady rush of traffic filled the air as they advanced toward the hotel’s sagging awning. The padlock on the double doors barely slowed them down. Cormac whisked out a large wrench and went to work, his icy blue eyes narrowed with concentration. A few minutes later, the lock snapped and the front entrance swung open.
 

The shadow-soaked Manchester Hotel awaited them. Time had gutted the structure and transformed the upper-crust hotspot into a gathering place for the lost and desperate. Old mattresses, fresh garbage, and the husks of long-dead pests suggested squatters had taken up residence in the old hotel.
 

The rest of the team was having trouble keeping up with Artan’s explosive pace. He had to believe his beloved was still okay, that they still stood a chance of saving her. Almost as if Nyssa could read his worried thoughts, she said, “Rhianna will be fine. Necron needs her.”

Hoping to take his mind off Rhianna, Artan searched Nyssa’s face and said, “So how does one get started in the gargoyle hunting business?”

“I suppose we all have a story.”

“What’s yours?”

Before she could answer, one of the hunters stepped up to them. “Commander, we located the elevator.”

Nyssa and Artan followed the hunter toward the hidden entrance. Wood-paneled doors allowed the lift to blend with the wall, making it practically invisible. Nyssa instructed her men to pry open the doors. Once done, their flashlights lit up the empty shaft that stretched into the darkness below. The lift hadn’t been in operation for decades, and with the power out, the plan was to use the emergency ladder. Sensing Artan’s momentary hesitation, Nyssa arched an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”
 

Artan merely shrugged and reluctantly joined the team of hunters.

Time stretched as they made their way down the yawning, dust-filled shaft. The steady noise of traffic started to fade, replaced with the sounds of the team’s labored breathing and muffled curses as they descended.
 

Artan had no idea how many minutes had passed before they reached the bottom, but he felt relieved to feel solid ground below his feet again. Two of the hunters popped open the elevator door, and then the team was stepping onto the Manchester subway platform. The air felt thick and stuffy down here, strangling each breath. A quick scan of the area informed Artan that the private subway car he’d glimpsed on the computers back at the command center was gone.

As they combed the platform, he was also the first to notice the fresh footprints in the dust-covered stone floor. His heightened senses had matured since being re-infected by the gargoyle bite, transforming the darkness into a gray twilight. The hunter’s flashlights couldn’t match the night-vision capabilities of a gargoyle.
 

“They were here,” Artan said, pointing at the tracks.
 

Nyssa traded looks with her team and said, “Search the station. See if you can find anything else.”
 

The team’s lights swept the gutted, empty platform. Time, the great equalizer, had eroded all signs of privilege. After fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, Artan struggled to fight back his growing frustration. The footprints led to the edge of the platform and then…stopped. Had Necron and Rhianna boarded the private train from the pictures on Nyssa’s computers? Hard to believe it would still run after so many years of disuse. Or had they headed down the tracks on foot? The trail was growing cold before they even had a chance to follow it.
 

“What now?” he said, unable to hide the frustration in his voice.

Nyssa’s answer was to slip off her black gloves and roll up the sleeves of her coat. Artan took note of a series of glyphs inked on her forearms. They reminded him of his brother’s rune tattoos. Perhaps he had been right to be suspicious of Nyssa’s passion for sorcerery. He was getting a bad feeling about this.

The three other hunters took a step back, clearly not surprised by the tattoos, and formed a protective half-circle around Nyssa. She continued to focus on the footprints, brows furrowed, features masklike as her lips whispered an incantation in a language unfamiliar to Artan.
 

Hairs prickled on the back of his neck. Even though the blood of a mythical beast pulsed through his veins, magic had not lost its ability to awe and terrify him. The glyphs on Nyssa’s arms came alive, and a greenish light emanated from the symbols. If Artan had harbored any lingering doubts, the ensuing pyrotechnic display erased them—Nyssa was a spellcaster herself.
 

“They’re close,” she said.

Beams of energy sparked from her tattoos toward the footprints. One by one, the prints filled with the same greenish light. It jumped from the last set near the edge of the platform down to the tracks below. Tendrils of magical energy unfurled and bathed the tunnel in the same eerie glow.

Nyssa’s magic was showing them the way their quarry had gone. All they needed to do was follow the magical trail. But as he stepped off the platform, Artan couldn’t shake the feeling that they might be walking into a trap.
 

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

NYSSSA AND HER team followed the trail of green-blue light, their weapons up and eyes wary, ready for anything. The pommel of Artan’s sword singed his fingers, hot to the touch, the enchanted
Blade of Kings
responding to the magical energy in the tunnel.
 

Necron must be near.

Artan’s eyes cut through the dark, searching in the rampant graffiti on the tunnel’s curved walls, the strange tags meaning as much to him as the Celtic rune tattoos on his body signified to the average New Yorkers. A carpet of panicked rats skittered across the tracks.
 

They sense the gargoyle within me
, Artan thought.
 

He sidled up to Nyssa, who was holding her crossbow in one hand, her whip in the other.

“I didn’t realize the Order used magic to fight magic,” he said.

“As you know all too well, sometimes fire needs to be fought with fire.”

“How did you learn to wield such power?”

“If you’re asking whether I come from a long line of wizards, the answer is no. My dad was a truck driver and my mom waited tables at a diner. Neither one of them had much time for fairy tales.”

“So how do you do it?”

Nyssa’s face darkened. “I was always drawn to the occult. Growing up, I felt pretty powerless. I was the middle child in a family of five, with parents who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. It was easy to slip through the cracks, get lost in the shuffle. I don’t blame my folks; they had their hands full providing for all of us. Naturally I started getting into trouble. Drugs, alcohol, shoplifting—you name, I did it. When I was seventeen I hooked up with a real winner, who turned me on to black magic. The occult promised an escape from my messed up life, a way to finally get a handle on stuff beyond my control. It made me feel special.”

Nyssa’s story made him think of Cael’s journey to the dark side. While his father had showered him with attention, he had given Cael the cold shoulder, unable to relate to the strange boy’s fascination with the druidic arts. His father had been a good man and an inspirational leader, but a lousy father to Cael. Artan could see that now, even feel pity for his brother, but childhood neglect was no excuse for what Cael had done. As they proceeded down the winding tunnel, Nyssa continued her story. “I became obsessed with wanting to conjure a demon, thinking it might solve all my problems. Bad idea.”

Artan’s features darkened, knowing where this tale was headed. Dabbling with the supernatural forces never had a happy ending.

“What happened?” he asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

“I lost control of the demon and it ran rampant in my home.” All emotion drained from her voice as she said, “It murdered my family. My brother and sisters, both my parents. More would’ve paid for my foolishness with their lives if the Order hadn’t shown up. They banished the creature. I should have died for what I did, but the Order saw potential in me. They took me in, helped me master my powers. The rest, as they say, is history.”
 

Nyssa broke off as if suddenly aware she might’ve shared too much.

Guilt drove the monster hunter, an emotion Artan was intimately familiar with. He too blamed himself for being blind to his brother’s evil. Instead of sentencing him to death, he’d banished Cael, allowing him to return to Kirkfall and wreak havoc upon his kingdom.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t see the demon staring back at me,” Nyssa said after a long pause. “No matter how many lives I save, I wake up every morning knowing I will never be able to bring back my family.”

“We all make mistakes. You took a terrible tragedy and channeled it into something positive. Sometimes that’s the best we can do.”
 

Nyssa nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload like that.”

“Of course. You would not want to get too close to someone you might need to execute tomorrow,” Artan said, bitterness coloring his words.

Nyssa quickly averted her gaze. It had been a sharp reminder that this alliance between him and the Order was only meant to be temporary truce.

Artan studied the other hunters. What demons, personal or literal, drove them to risk their lives on a daily basis? Did they all hunt monsters so they could conquer the monsters inside of them? The thought gave rise to another question.
 

“Is there any magic that can reverse Balor’s curse and cure my condition?”

Nyssa hesitated for a moment before she spoke. “The grimoire Necron is assembling will be the most powerful dark magic book the world has ever seen.”

Artan studied her for a beat. Was she dodging his question? “You said the Order guarded the first book for the last two hundred years. Did you ever…?”

Nyssa’s eyebrows nudged upward. “Did I ever flip through it do see if there was a way to turn gargoyles back into humans?”

Suddenly his line of inquiry seemed stupid and selfish. Before Nyssa could say anything else, Artan felt a chill, and his breath began to cloud before him. The temperature had dropped by about twenty degrees in a manner of seconds.
 

He shot Nyssa a questioning glance, but it was Cormac who provided an explanation. “Ghosts. Only the spirits of the dead can affect the environment like this.”
 

Nyssa nodded in agreement. “Necron’s power over the realm of the dead is growing.”

Artan stifled a shiver as he scoped out the tunnel. His heartbeat boomed in his chest, and the gargoyle rumbled inside of him, begging to be let out.

Not yet.

Artan and the team slowed as a lone subway car grew visible. Nyssa’s beam of magic extended toward the car until it stood outlined in a halo of green light. Artan caught a shift in the shadows to his right. An instant later, a bone-white figure launched out of the darkness and charged at Nyssa. The dead man’s head sat askew on his shoulder, a chunk of bone jutting out of his neck. Jolted by the terrifying vision,
Artan instinctively brought up his sword and sliced at the approaching entity before it could reach Nyssa.