Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
I stand in the doorway. The kitchen has clean lines and a modern design. The cabinets are crisp, white Shaker-style, and the countertops are cool, speckled grey granite, smooth and polished, reflecting the soft overhead lighting.
On one side, there’s a white refrigerator, its surface adorned with a few scattered magnets and a couple of photos. The sleek, built-in oven and matching electric hob sit prominently on the opposite wall.
It’s all so normal.
Set in the centre of the room, the kitchen island, topped with a wooden butcher block, serves as a breakfast bar with two high stools. I settle onto one of the stools, lean my chin on my fist, and watch as Soren, the gargoyle, chops vegetables.
He’s making me soup instead of getting it from a can. He cuts the vegetables like a chef would, holding the knife correctly and using his first knuckle as a guide. He’s also making enough food for an army.
“That was fast,” he says, not looking up from his task.
“I’m pretty clean.” Thanks to my mop charm, but I don’t say that. “I’d like some answers please.” My voice is still a little husky.
“Of course you would.”
He continues chopping, and I continue watching.
He’s a massive man with wings, broad shoulders, narrow hips, and that face of his—beautiful.
His wings are a deep slate grey, with veins of silver that glint when they catch the light.
My fingers twitch with the urge to touch them.
Gosh, I wonder what they’d feel like. Every movement Soren makes is deliberate, almost graceful, belying raw power coiled within such a muscular frame.
No other gargoyle looked like that in town. Not that I got anywhere near them, but I know now they can sniff me out. I’m glad I didn’t, or I would have gotten into trouble well before this.
Soren slides each pile of chopped vegetables into a pot and continues his prep. From the earthy smell, potatoes are already bubbling away on the hob. In a separate pan, he does something to the onions.
This feels weird. It’s like domestic bliss, but instead of a partner, it’s a guy who was trying to kill me a few days ago. Was it days? No, it was probably at least a week, maybe more. I’m all muddled up. It could be years at this point.
“Would I be able to talk to my family and friends? They are going to be worried about me.”
“Of course. I’ll get you a phone after you’ve answered my questions.”
Ah, there we go. He must have his questions answered.
I dramatically blow out a breath and slap a hand against my forehead.
“Oh, thank fate. You were being too kind, and you had me worried that you’d been body snatched.
” I drop my hand over my face to hide the smile.
“I thought you were going to feed me first.”
“You can talk while you’re eating.” Again without looking up, he shoves a plate my way. Bossy. There’s a slice of warm, crusty bread. “Hopefully that won’t give you too much trouble,” he says.
“Thank you.” I pick it up and nibble on the end.
A cup of fresh orange juice and a glass of water land beside my elbow.
I take a sip of water. “What do you want me to tell you? What do you and the gargoyles know?” Asking outright is perhaps dangerous, but he’s dropped enough hints that he knows.
Besides, I can’t be bothered with this cloak-and-dagger stuff. I’ll mess up and end up looking stupid.
“I know that there’s no Gary Chappell, that you’ve been using him as a pseudonym, and that you’ve been making charms since you were fourteen.”
Uh-oh.
So he knows almost everything. I take another sip of water in a poor attempt to delay the inevitable. “I made my first charm at ten,” I correct him. “Are you going to write that down?”
I catch something in Soren’s gaze, and I realise he’s highly amused—though it doesn’t show on his face except for a quirk of his eyebrow. But I’m positive I am right.
“I know you use dragon magic, and you didn’t know you were using it until the town was attacked. The surprise on your face and the fear in your scent confirmed that. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be selling charms to everybody.”
“I didn’t sell charms to everybody,” I grumble.
“No? Just everyone that can pay.”
“I bet you don’t work for free.” I let the words sit.
He can’t use his skills as a gargoyle to make money and then be all high and mighty when I use my magic.
“I used what I had to keep my family safe. What would you do to keep your family safe?”
“Anything. But I wouldn’t break the law.”
“No?” I scoff and wiggle on the stool. Now he’s pissing me off.
“Whose laws?” I take a big bite of the bread and angrily chew.
“I’m sorry I’m not au fait with your world.
Do you refer to the laws of this country or the laws of that town we were left in to rot?
They killed Mrs Harris for buying an unsanctioned healing potion. Did you know that?”
“No.” He leans against the counter, crosses his arms and legs and gives me his full attention.
“She was seventy-three. Her husband had a nasty infected cut on his leg; when she was murdered, he also died. Are those the laws you mean?” I drop the bread on the plate and push it away.
I’m no longer hungry. “Or shall we talk about the slave labour? I was forced to work for ￡2.08 an hour, and on average, I worked ninety-six hours a week. After they removed taxes and my accommodation, I barely had enough money to buy a pack of gum.”
I take a sip of water and stare out of the window.
“Is that fair? I was never given a choice of what job I did or where I lived. No one had a choice. I couldn’t speak out, couldn’t have an opinion in case somebody murdered me.
I found a way of selling my magic to the outside world, who didn’t know we existed, and it was all legit.
I have an accreditation and a licence to sell them, and I paid their taxes too. ”
The gargoyle watches me, wiping his hands on a towel.
“I saw the news and the cover-up. The Creature Council let them take over that town, and all the evidence of the crime has disappeared.” My voice cracks with emotion.
I want to scream about their deaths, but if I get too emotional, the words will lose their impact.
“Like puff, it never happened.” I flick my fingers.
“If you pursue that line of thought any further, they will eliminate you as a threat.”
No shit. I know that.
“Experienced people are dealing with this. The guilty will not go unpunished.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s your choice. There will be no big revenge plans in your future, Kricket. You need to keep your head down and be grateful that you’re not dead.”
Grateful. The gargoyle is incredibly careful with his words. What he doesn’t say, but what is hinted at, is that there won’t be any big revenge plans because he won’t let me. “I’m not going to be left to live my life, am I?”
Soren’s face remains blank.
What the gargoyle has to say and his opinion of me shouldn’t matter, and now I feel bad for losing my cool. It was the wrong time to blurt all this out. He doesn’t know me, and I should have been smarter, timed it better, and planned what I would say.
He could kill me as easily as look at me.
I need to throw him a bone. “I wouldn’t have sold the charms if I’d known all hell would break loose. I had no idea it was dragon magic. Seeing the future isn’t one of my skills.”
“I believe that as you aren’t suicidal. I would have thought Ava Larson would have more common sense. She comes from a family of witches.”
“So do I.”
He grunts and messes with the onions.
“So what is this?” I wave my hand around the kitchen at the homemade bread and bubbling soup. “Do you still want me to go to prison, to suffer ’cause you think I killed all your friends?” I gulp the orange juice and this time keep my head down so I don’t have to look him in the eyes.
“No, I was upset. Grief is a horrible emotion, and I spoke out of turn. I apologise. I thought… I presumed you were just some kid who got hold of some dragon artefacts and sold them. I didn’t realise they were your spells until we got hold of a couple of them.”
“You got a couple of my charms?”
“Yes, and we tested them. They’re nothing like the usual dragon magic. Dragon magic is indescribably dangerous. What dragon magic doesn’t do is make you see in the dark or let you read hidden texts, all the innocent things that your charms do.
“We realised it wasn’t an ancient dragon who had made them.
It was some dragon blood that had tapped into their magic.
It’s impossible. It doesn’t make sense that you can work the magic as you do, but here you are.
Do you understand what I mean? It’s, it’s…
” He throws his hands in the air and strangely echoes Emma’s sentiments. “It’s weird.”
“What do you mean it’s weird?” Is weird any better than freaky? I’ll be starting to get a complex soon. I snatch the bread off the plate and silently chew.
“If you’ve got power and can make anything, why would you make a charm in the shape of a carrot? Why wouldn’t you make something like a death charm?”
A death charm? The bread sticks in my throat.
“Or like a charm that can rip apart an entire town? That claw guy made a charm that destroyed the entire town. You were there, so you must have seen the after-effects. The houses, the buildings, they’re all gone.
Magic ate away at them. Magic flew up out of his fucking mouth like a plague of black flies, and then it destroyed everything.
It ate through everything. And you think it’s a shame that I don’t make death charms?
Death charms? I do not make that kind of magic. ” I won’t.
His nostrils flare, no doubt picking up on the fear and anger that’s making sweat trickle down my spine.
“No, of course you don’t want to make that kind of magic,” he cajoles me. “No one in their right mind would want to make that kind of magic. But a carrot, really?”
I narrow my eyes and glare. “What’s wrong with the carrot? I thought it was cute and practical.”
Okay, next, I’ll make a gargoyle that will make the person’s skin impenetrable. I almost say it out loud, but my self-preservation kicks in, and I keep my mouth closed.
I’ve said way too much to this stranger, and you don’t have to be a genius to realise he wouldn’t like anyone having a skill that makes the gargoyles special.
Soren stirs the pot before placing the spoon down and grabbing two bowls.
“But the problem is that magic and potential are within you, and bad people will want that magic. Bad people will want you to do bad things for them and will hurt you. Hurt your family if you refuse.” He ladles the soup into a bowl, placing it before me with a spoon.
The steam rises in gentle curls. “Eat up.”
Yeah, Yum, yum. So hungry after he’s scared the shit out of me.
A change of subject is best. “So this is your house. You live here. Does that mean you didn’t live at the peacekeeper building?”
Soren narrows his eyes, and I get the impression that he doesn’t like answering questions. Well too bad. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t be bossy and want to know everything about me, but he turns his nose up when I ask the questions. That’s a double standard if ever I saw one.
He doesn’t like it. So I plough on. “I’d never seen you before. I saw you that night at the supermarket when everything went tits up. So do you live here and then commute into town?” I actually don’t know how far his house is away. I’m guessing it’s not around the corner.
“No.” His tone of voice says no more questions.
I smile. “Are you an old gargoyle?”
“I’m not particularly old, no.” He growls and prods the bowl of soup closer to me. It’s full to the brim and splashes a little on the counter.
I pick up the spoon, give him a small smile, and then fish out a chunk of potato. “This looks amazing, thank you.” I shovel it into my mouth.
“You’ve been fortunate that the guys holding you weren’t very bright and didn’t realise who you were. You’re incredibly lucky. They left you to die in a cage, but it could have so easily gone very wrong.”
Uh-huh, lucky. “Why didn’t I think of that? I was so fortunate, almost dying. That’s good to know. I better count those blessings.”
“The realms are blessed that they didn’t get hold of your magic. Now you can try to bury your head in the sand and ignore all this. But there’s no ignoring it, Kricket. You’ve got to realise that you’ve got dragon magic, and it can get you and other people killed.”
I’d be in a pickle if I didn’t have him gargoylesplain all this to me. How could I cope? “So how am I going to keep myself safe?” I’m sure he has all the answers.
Perhaps he should have let the tree kill me.
“You have a team coming to look after you.”
Great. “A team? A team of gargoyles?”
“No. The general has stepped in, and he’s sending an elite team for bodyguard duty.”
I slump heavily, and the sudden movement shunts the stool and makes it screech across the floor.
I grip the edge of the counter, and my fingers blanch with the pressure.
“The general. The silver dragon. He knows about me?” I squeak.
“He knows about the dragon blood town? I bet that didn’t go over well. ”
“Yes, he knows about you, and he’s sending a team of hellhounds to keep you safe while he deals with the Creature Council. I assure you heads will roll. The gargoyles will hunt down the rest of your Claw Brotherhood.”
I feel a little dizzy. The silver dragon is sending hellhounds.
Hellhounds.