Chapter 5 – Darius
DARIUS
I’ve been awake for five days. No, not awake, alive. The feeling is still so strange. I can picture the shallow grave I’d clawed out of like a nightmare. But now I was lost in a human world that made no sense to me.
Eating what I could when I could find it. I flew with tattered clothes, following a strange pulling I didn’t understand. But no matter how much I ate, I felt hungry. No matter how much I drank or rested, I felt weak.
It didn’t make sense.
Something was wrong with me.
But even so, I returned to my family lands, expecting to find my Brotherhood either awake and protecting the lands, or in their stone forms. Instead, what I found was a nightmare.
My family estates were gone, wiped out as if by some giant with a vengeance. And a new home stretched out on the lands. An ugly, modern structure that screamed of bad taste and too much money.
Not even the pedestals the gargoyles slept on in their stone forms remained. I’d asked a gardener about them. All he could say is that everything had been destroyed.
Logic said my Brotherhood was gone. Dead. Lost to me forever.
But until I knew for sure, I’d hold onto the smallest hope that they’d gotten away before the destruction. Because without that hope, I don’t know that I could keep going.
Left with nothing else to do, I decided to follow the strange pulling. I knew somewhere deep inside that it’d bring me to Lamia. What I didn’t know? What I’d do if I saw the monster.
Killing her made the most sense.
But for some reason, I was having trouble accepting that idea.
Still, I started flying. Following the pulling like a guide.
It’s on the morning of my fifth day when I reach the end of a huge city. Up ahead, I spot the coast and head toward it. The sky ahead of me is still just barely painted with dawn’s gray light. But as I stare, thinking about how peaceful it is, I see movement on a rocky cliff.
Narrowing my eyes, it takes me a minute to recognize that it’s another gargoyle.
Heart racing, I head for him. This is my chance to find out the answers to some of my questions. To find out if my Brotherhood survived while I was dead. To find out if he knows how it’s possible that I died and came back.
The gargoyle looks up at me one minute before I land lightly beside him.
For a minute, I’m shocked. He has his stone wings, but his human form.
His hair is a reddish blond, and he has a neatly trimmed beard.
His clothes are modern, like the humans, but what shocks me are his eyes.
Around the dark green pupils, there’s a red ring, just like mine.
“Darius?” My name is a question.
I study him closer. “Vincent?”
A smile lights his face like the moon peeking out between clouds, and in an instant, he draws me into a tight hug. “Thank the gods!”
For some reason, I hug him back tightly. He’s the first recognizable thing from my time before, and there’s a wonderful sense of relief that flows through me.
I pull back. “I have so many questions. I just awoke a few days ago, but I don’t think I was asleep, I was—“
“Dead?” The smile is gone from his face.
And the suspicion I had about our similar, changed eyes is confirmed with that one word. “Yeah.”
He nods tightly. “Same.”
Silence stretches between us.
“You haven’t found clothes?” he asks.
I look down at the tattered strips of fabric that barely cling to me and shake my head.
He swings a bag from his shoulders. “You should be able to fit into my extras.”
I don’t know what to say, so I grab the clothes he throws at me. Then, because no one is around to see, I strip off my old clothes, and he helps me to figure out how to put on the new, strange clothes. When I’m fully dressed, I feel weird, but better.
“Hungry?”
I nod.
He sits down and hands me something wrapped up.
I take it and stare for a second.
“It’s a sandwich. I met a nice old lady on my way here. She gave me clothes and food, since I told her I had a long journey ahead of me.”
“Thank you,” I say, and then we eat in silence, watching the sunrise.
Again, the food seems to help. Some of my shakiness fades, and I feel stronger. And yet, I’m still hungry, and I still feel weaker than I should.
“Did she kill you too?”
I jerk my head toward him. “What?”
“Lamia,” he says, taking another bite of his food. “Did the snake-lady kill you too?”
I nod, and flashes of the night I was attacked come to me.
“And do you feel a weird…connection…or pull to her?”
I freeze. “I don’t know. I just felt like I had to go this way.”
He flashes me a smile. “Me too. Fun, huh?”
“But I also feel like I need to search for my Brotherhood. I just have no idea where to look.”
His smile fades. “Mine was killed in the final attack on our lands. I’m the last of us.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because there truly is nothing worse than losing your Brotherhood.
“What about your Brotherhood?”
I take a deep breath. “I returned to the lands we guarded. They were gone.”
I don’t tell him that everything was destroyed. I can’t bring myself to.
“Do you think they’re alive…or…?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But if they still live, I fear they’ve moved on without me.”
His green eyes are kind as he says, “No matter how much time passes, your Brotherhood is your Brotherhood.”
Any other time in my life, those words would lift my spirits. They’d give me hope. But somehow, they ring false right now. When I reach for the connection I’ve always felt with my brothers…it’s simply not there.
And yet, I feel the oddest connection to this man. A gargoyle I’ve only seen a few times in my many lifetimes.
“I’m going to keep following this feeling I have,” Vincent tells me nonchalantly.
“And what if when you get to the end of it, you find her?”
He shrugs. “That’s what I want to find.”
I’m surprised. “That’s what I fear to find.”
He raises a brow. “Why? It’s not like she can kill us twice…I think. And this time, I’ll know what to expect.”
“So why not just avoid her?” I ask the question, even though I’m following this instinct too.
He shrugs. “I’ve felt…weird since awakening. Wrong. If this is something she can fix, I’ll see if she will.”
I stare, surprised. “You think she’ll just help you?”
He looks to the horizon again. “When she attacked me…I didn’t get the sense that she was evil or cruel or blood-thirsty—“
“Well, she killed you, so apparently you were wrong.”
A half-smile twists his lips. “I don’t think so. There was just something almost gentle about her.”
Gentle. The word rings through me. I remember still. Even though I’ve tried to forget. I can still feel her teeth piercing my flesh. I can feel the desire to make love to her. To touch her. To push away the sadness that echoed through her eyes.
I shake myself. “She’s a monster.”
He gives me a strange look, and I realize I’m telling myself as much as him. “Either way, I’m going to find her.”
I take a deep breath. “Want some company?”
He grins. “I thought you’d never ask!”
We finish our meal and start flying again, towards the horizon. To a place we aren’t sure of, to a monster who already killed us once.
But somehow, I feel hopeful.