LEVIATHAN
Two days later, I’m halfway through a cheeseburger when the gargoyle ruins lunch.
We’ve spent the morning following up on a nuisance case Gerald tossed at us because apparently Essence PI investigates everything from homicidal unicorns to a raccoon with enough stray magic in its bloodline to trip apartment wards.
The little bastard had been breaking into dumpsters, setting off every alarm in the complex, and convincing three separate residents that something supernatural was stalking them.
Rowan caught it eating cat food behind the laundry room while Amand reset the wards, which should’ve been the end of my professional humiliation for the day.
Instead, I’m wedged between them in a diner booth with Medusa across from us, trying to make peace with the fact that I now have to write enchanted raccoon on an official case report.
I reach across Rowan’s plate and steal another fry while he’s distracted by his phone.
His hand closes around my wrist before I can retreat, but instead of taking the fry back, he bends my hand toward himself and eats it straight from my fingers.
I stare at him while he goes right back to scrolling like he didn’t just commit an act of war.
“You know those were technically mine once I touched them.” I wipe my fingers on his napkin and reach toward Amand’s plate instead. “There are rules about this.”
Amand slides his fries closer without bothering to look up from the notes on his phone. “There are no rules. You’ve eaten off both our plates since we sat down.”
“That is completely different because I’m charming.” I bump my knee against his beneath the table and take two fries for the emotional damage. “Also, I had to crawl beneath a dumpster today. I’m owed compensation.”
Medusa catches one of her snakes trying to investigate the syrup bottle and redirects its head toward the untouched toast on her plate. “I’m beginning to understand why Gerald sends three of you everywhere. Two are required to supervise the third.”
I open my mouth to explain that I’m actually the responsible one when something catches beneath the grease, coffee, and bacon filling the diner. My burger stalls halfway to my mouth as the familiar blend hits me hard enough that I lower it slowly and stare toward the front windows.
Amand sees the change immediately and puts his phone down. Rowan’s attention follows a second later, while Medusa straightens across from us and pulls her coffee closer so one of the snakes doesn’t knock it over.
“Oh.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and slide out of the booth. “Well, there goes the rest of my fucking burger. Let’s go.”
Medusa is already reaching for her scarf. “You have him?”
“Unless somebody else nearby smells like wet stone and a stolen piece of your head.” I grab my jacket from the end of the booth while Rowan throws cash beside the check. “If we come back and somebody clears my plate, I’m adding emotional damages to Gerald’s expenses.”
Nobody gives me time to mourn lunch. We’re outside within seconds, and the trail is fresh enough that I don’t have to stand around sorting through half the city to find it.
I turn left, take three fast steps toward the intersection, and nearly walk straight into traffic before Amand hooks two fingers through the back of my belt and jerks me onto the curb.
A horn blares as a truck passes. I twist enough to glare at Amand over my shoulder. “You could’ve grabbed literally any other part of me.”
“I grabbed the part closest to getting flattened.” He releases my belt when the light changes and gives me a small shove between the shoulder blades. “Try surviving the chase.”
“I survive everything. It’s basically my brand.” I cross with Rowan already several steps ahead, then point toward the service alley beyond the next block. “He went that way, and this is fresh. Not he had lunch here yesterday fresh. He was here.”
That gets everyone moving faster. Rowan takes the lead without being asked, checking corners before we reach them while Amand stays close enough to grab me again if my self-preservation takes another unscheduled break.
Medusa keeps pace behind us, one hand holding her scarf in place as the snakes underneath become increasingly agitated.
The trail cuts behind a laundromat, crosses another narrow street, then hooks toward an older service district where half the buildings should’ve been condemned before I was born.
I almost lose it beside a delivery entrance, catch it again near a rusted fence, and then all four of us hear something heavy scrape against concrete ahead.
Rowan stops at the corner and looks back once. I point past him before he can ask. “Go. If it turns out to be another raccoon, I’m quitting.”
He takes off, and the rest of us follow. I round the corner just in time to catch a broad gray shape disappear behind an old warehouse at the far end of the alley, gone too fast for me to make out anything useful beyond size and the fact that it was definitely not carrying a tiny striped tail.
“There!” I break into a run, Medusa swearing behind me while Amand catches up on my left. “I saw him. I actually fucking saw him.”
By the time we reach the warehouse, Rowan is already inside the fenced freight lot behind it. One gate hangs open and a side loading door is swinging slightly, the movement fresh enough that my pulse kicks harder.
Amand catches my arm before I can charge through after Rowan. “Give him a second.”
“He has had several.” I try to pull free, but Amand holds on until Rowan reappears in the doorway and signals that the first room is clear. “See? Perfectly reasonable amount of seconds.”
“You counted none of them.”
“I counted emotionally.”
Inside, the warehouse looks like someone abandoned it halfway through ripping everything useful out.
Rusted shelving lines one wall, broken tools cover an old bench, and chunks of stone are scattered across the floor around fresh scrapes that cut through years of dust. The gargoyle is gone again, but this time he was close enough that the irritation has teeth.
I pace once around the workbench and drag both hands through my curls. “We were right fucking behind him. I’m starting to take this personally.”
Medusa comes to a stop beside a dark smear along the edge of the bench. Her whole expression changes, and one of the snakes beneath her scarf pushes hard enough against the fabric that I notice from several feet away. “That’s blood from mine.”
I stop pacing. “You’re sure?”
“I know my own snakes, Leviathan.” She crouches without touching the stain and follows it toward several shallow cuts scored into the wood. “He cut something from it here, and not long ago.”
Rowan calls from the back of the room before I can answer. “Found something.”
We reach him at almost the same time. A small green-black piece is wedged beside a broken chunk of concrete near the wall, no longer than a few inches, wet along one edge and twitching faintly enough that every instinct I possess tells me it should stay exactly where it is.
“Don’t touch that,” I say, already reaching for something to cover it with.
Rowan touches it.
He bends down and picks the fragment up between two fingers before I finish turning toward him. For a second, I can only stare at the tiny piece of magical snake in his hand and wonder how a man capable of tracking armed supernatural criminals has survived this long.
“I need you to understand that the words don’t touch that were directed specifically at the enormous man currently touching that.” I point at his hand while Amand’s mouth curves beside me. “There wasn’t a riddle involved.”
Rowan looks down at the fragment, then back at me as if he’s considering whether the lecture is worth enduring. He doesn’t get the chance to decide because the tips of his fingers turn gray.
Amand sees it and actually laughs. Rowan drops the fragment onto the floor while I snatch a dirty shop rag off the workbench and throw it over the thing before anybody else decides curiosity is contagious.
“Oh, this is beautiful.” I catch Rowan’s wrist and turn his hand toward the light as stone creeps over his first knuckles. “Do you know how difficult it is for me not to say I told you so when I told you so less than ten seconds ago?”
Amand comes closer, still visibly entertained. “You won’t manage it.”
The stone reaches his palm and my amusement thins immediately.
I straighten his wrist and watch the gray move toward the heel of his hand. “Okay. That can stop now.”
Medusa joins us and studies the spreading petrification without getting close enough to touch him. “It should weaken. That fragment is small.”
I look at her. “Should?”
“I’ve never had someone voluntarily grab a severed piece of one of my snakes.”
“He didn't volunteer. He was overcome by stupidity.” I tug Rowan toward an old bench and push at his shoulder until he sits. “How much can you feel?”
“Nothing in the fingers. Cold in the wrist.”
Amand’s laughter is gone now. He crouches beside Rowan and pushes his sleeve higher before the fabric can stiffen with the rest of him, while I keep hold of Rowan’s good hand and watch the stone crawl past his wrist.
“You know, I was having a very nice lunch before this.” My thumb presses into Rowan’s palm when his fingers close around mine. “I had fries left. An entire half of a burger. Now I’m sitting in a condemned warehouse watching you turn into landscaping because listening is apparently beneath you.”
His mouth twitches, which would be more reassuring if the gray weren’t already climbing his forearm. Amand looks from the stone to Medusa and asks how fast petrification from a fragment should spread, but she only shakes her head.