Chapter 7 – Jordon
JORDON
The forest is quiet around us, and the firelight dances off the trees, creating flickering shadows in the clearing.
We’re far enough from the vampire grounds that we aren’t worried about a surprise attack, but still, my gut has been churning since Elliot was taken.
Usually I’m pretty calm, but right now, my nerves seem to be jumping beneath my flesh.
And the two idiots in my Brotherhood aren’t making the situation any easier by acting like dumbasses.
“Are you really fucking drunk again?” I shout, finally snapping.
Damon shoves another mouthful of food into his mouth, then chugs it down with more liquor. “What the fuck else is there to do?”
I throw my hands in the air. “How about figuring out a way to free Elliot?”
He makes a piff sound, and glances at Cody, who I can tell is trying not to show his frustration.
The big blond gargoyle hasn’t touched a drop of the liquor, even though he usually doesn’t let his friend drink alone.
I know damn well it’s because Cody doesn’t think Damon should be drinking right now either.
But I also know he won’t ever stand up to his best friend.
“I haven’t heard one reasonable idea about how to get him free,” the drunk idiot says, running a hand through his dark hair as he speaks. Then he leans back, stretching his long legs closer to the fire, a bottle of booze in his hand.
My anger rises. I understand drinking in the sanctuary, where the only choices are to go through the motions like everyone else or lose yourself in something stupid. But here? On a damned mission?
“Maybe the reason we don’t have a plan is because I’m the only one coming up with ideas!”
Finally, Cody sighs loudly, staring into the flames. Is he finally going to tell Damon to pull his fucking self together? “It’s late. Which means the vampires are fully awake. Whatever we do isn’t going to be tonight, so let’s just relax.”
A string of curses leave my lips. “And what if they’re hurting him right now, huh? What if he’s being tortured while we’re out here having a fucking party?”
Damon gestures to the dark forest and the fire in front of us. “If this is a party, it’s the worst one I’ve been to.”
Leaping across the fire, I tackle him. We’re wrestling, grasping at each other, when Cody pulls me off of the idiot and puts himself between us. “Enough!”
I glare at him, panting hard. “Don’t either of you care the least bit about Elliot?”
Cody rounds on me. “The problem is that we both care too much. We hate just sitting here knowing we can’t just rush in and save him.”
His words ease some of the tension in my chest. “You guys have a funny way of showing it.”
Cody runs a hand through his shaggy blond hair, and I can see the lines of tension in his face. “We’ve spent five days trying to figure out their defenses, their weaknesses, their—“
“And haven’t found a god damn thing!”
Cody flinches. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t.”
I get up and go to my boulder, settling back onto it.
I hate this. I hate this awful feeling of knowing we failed Elliot.
“This was important to him. He wanted to show his father he wasn’t a total fuck up.”
Cody suddenly reaches for Damon’s drink, and his friend hands it to him.
“There’s nothing he’ll ever do to prove that.
The day he was born, he was too smart and too sensitive to ever make his dad proud.
Even as kids, I remember my mom and fathers doting on me about everything I did, even when I didn’t deserve it.
But Elliot? There was nothing he could do that didn’t disappoint his father.
And killing some vampires isn’t going to suddenly make the old asshole see that Elliot is worth his weight in sword-swinging gargoyles. ”
His words make me feel worse. Elliot is our leader, even though he’s technically the worst fighter among us.
He’s the cleverest, coming up with ideas and ways of doing things that none of us would’ve ever considered.
Not only that, but he somehow manages to have the respect of all of us.
If he was here now, there’s no way these guys would be drinking. He’d make us feel like a family.
Not like individual fuck-ups.
I’m second-in-command, even though that means little when we’ve only ever fought little monsters we’ve come across in our traveling, and the one we messed up with.
But the problem is that even though I’m the strongest fighter, I can’t get these two to listen to me.
Damon is older than all of us, the only gargoyle in our Brotherhood not born in the sanctuary, but he acts like a drunken idiot.
And Cody is the youngest, but somehow decided Damon was the gargoyle he wanted to look up to.
And here I am, with them, in an impossible situation.
“I’m going for a walk, I say, standing.
Not waiting for a response, I turn and pick a random direction. I’m only a short distance from camp when I hear Cody call my name.
Pausing, I look back at him.
He moves slowly towards me with the grace of all gargoyle warriors, and yet, I can sense his youth. Every time I look at him I’m reminded that his group contained the youngest warriors born in the sanctuary to finish their training and be allowed to go out in the world, if only briefly.
“I get it,” he tells me, stopping at my side, the rays of moonlight just barely lighting him through the tree branches. “I get that it’s scary being in charge. Especially when we aren’t exactly in fighting shape. But the way you’re handling it, that’s not going to work for Damon.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do then?”
Cody sighs audibly. “He’s the oldest of all of us. A gargoyle who lived and breathed for killing monsters. But since he was awakened, he has no purpose. We just need to give him one. We need to make him feel useful.”
I scoff. “I’m not going to coddle him and build up his damn ego.”
“I’m not saying that.” His light blue eyes narrow. “I’m just saying, we’re all stressed and worried about Elliot right now, so we need to calm down and remember we’re on the same side.”
At last, my shoulders crumble and even I know I sound lost as I speak.
“I saw him go down. As soon as he got too close to the castle, he shifted into his human form. I tried to go after him, but the same thing happened to me. There’s some kind of spell there.
When we go after him, it’s not going to be in our stone form. ”
“We’ll figure it—“
“Cody, they could’ve killed him already.”
His entire body tenses, and his eyes widen. “No, but—“
“What reason would they keep a gargoyle alive?”
His mouth opens, but no words come out.
“We can only hope the sick bastards will torture him. But you understand, that means that he’s probably suffering right now, and that every minute is precious.”
“Hell,” Cody whispers.
I can see it in his face now. He knows what I know.
“So what do we…do?”
That’s the issue. I still don’t know. “Whatever it is, we’ll have to do it during the day when most of them are asleep.”
“An all-out attack?”
I shake my head. “We’ll die against those numbers. But what I do know is that we can’t afford to have Damon drunk and useless.”
He draws himself up taller. “I’ll try to take care of it.”
I nod. “You do that.”
He turns and heads back to camp, and I watch him, wishing like hell that I knew what to do. These guys are counting on me. Elliot is counting on me. But gargoyles are taught to fight and use their strength to win any battle. What do we do without our stone forms?
The truth is, we need a good strategy. Which is not my skill.
If only Elliot was here. The thought twists my gut, and I start walking again.
I wasn’t lying to Cody. Our friend is currently a prisoner to vampires. If he’s still alive, I can’t imagine the hell they’re putting him through.