Chapter 3
Adela
I didn’t know why I had the urge, but I did.
Carefully, I climbed up the pedestal, trying to get a closer view at him. My hands pressed against his hips as I pulled myself upright. That warmth spread over me again. Turning my hand over and examining it, the air of the park cooled it off. The gargoyle was warm?
His chest was incredibly close. For some reason my heart was pounding in my chest. There, in the middle, would have been his own beneath the stone if he were real. Delicately, I placed my hand on his chest, right where it should have been.
The heat intensified under my hand, getting hotter by the moment. A bright red spark flew out from underneath. Popping and snapping out, the magic pulsed between us. I tugged my hand back, throwing my balance off. Gravity took hold as my arms flailed backward.
A firm hand grabbed my waist, keeping me from falling. My eyes widened. His cool hands were large, clawed, and stony.
The gargoyle I had marveled at only moments ago had me in his clutches. Moving eyes scanned my face. The gargoyle was moving.
He was moving
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I pushed against his chest. “You’re alive!”
Words began to fall out of my mouth. How was he there? Who was he? What was happening? He merely stared at me with those yellow eyes, his large hand still holding my waist.
His brow was very prominent, casting shadows over his yellow eyes, causing them to almost glow. He had two sets of horns upon his head, a shorter inner one and longer, large one. His hair was now very real and very dark. It hung over his shoulder.
My heart skipped a beat.
“Mr... Gargoyle?”
He grunted at me in response.
“Can you, uh, let me go?”
His hand snapped back, and I slid down the pedestal. I scrambled to right myself. The gargoyle was alive. He was alive and stretching?
He flared his wings out as if he hadn’t used them in ages. Wait… he was stone… had been stone for as long as Everlyn had been a town. It had been ages.
The town’s gargoyle was real! He was a real gargoyle.
“Oh, no,” I said as he bounced up and down on two muscular legs, only a now flimsy-looking loincloth covering his private parts, “you can’t be doing that.”
He looked down at me below him.
With a deep, gravelly voice, he said, “How have you done this?”
I gave him the most sincere shrug I could. I didn’t know how this happened or why he was alive. How was I supposed to have known he was a real gargoyle?
“I thought you were stone!”
He nodded. “I am.”
“But you’re moving!”
“Also, yes.”
My eyes widened. We couldn’t let the normal people see this. He had no glamor on him. He was a moving statue, talking, speaking, being all scantily clad. We couldn’t have him scaring tourists.
I grabbed his hand, it was cold to the touch, like the stone he was. The warmth from before wasn’t there. His claws closed around mine as I pulled him down off the pedestal.
“Come on, we have to get you out of here.”