Chapter 15 – Gary
GARY
It has become a running joke amongst the Elites.
We have lived for lifetime after lifetime and now every new appointed leader seems to die off or disappear quickly after taking over, including Norbert, who is nowhere to be found.
The others are concerned about him, but I’m fairly confident the shade had gotten him alone and taken his head.
I will not repeat the same mistakes as the men before me, both of whom I assume are dead. I will not pursue female monsters, nor will I try to improve the sanctuary. I will enjoy the benefits of leadership and that will be it.
Unfortunately, one of my responsibilities came long before my new role, and even as the leader of my people, I still need to come when called.
So I sit at the table in a little run-down house in the middle of nowhere.
Close enough to the sanctuary that the trip is easy, but far enough from civilization that no one should spot this meeting, which is imperative.
I hear a sound, and a second later, Conley enters.
The phoenix looks youthful, although he’s been around nearly as long as I have.
He has long blonde hair slicked back from his face and a cocky smile.
He’s shirtless and wears shorts that are low over his hips.
His feet have sneakers, like he’s some twenty-something-year-old human punk on the beach.
Phoenixes are irritating.
“Old man!”
I glare. “Cocky phoenix.”
He smirks, grabs a chair across me and flips it around, then sits in it backwards.
I rub the bridge of my nose. I dislike this man nearly as much as I hate my crippled “son” Elliot. My anger grows. No matter how much I remind myself that I’ve disowned that failure, the word “son” seems to be forever attached to him.
“What is this meeting about?” I demand.
He frowns. “When I got the message, I thought you’d called it.”
My stomach twists. “If you didn’t call the meeting, who did?”
I hear the crunch of shoes outside the door.
A second later, the human known as Peter enters.
He is our liaison in the Special Unit. Most of his people work to keep the supernatural community hidden from the humans, but Peter secretly links us information about any monsters, so we can kill them when they least suspect it.
When they think they’re safe. Although I’d say he failed miserably when it came to Medusa.
He has dark hair and dark eyes. He’s built like a god, and wears a black shirt and pants that are almost a uniform. His gaze moves over both of us, and then he sits down beside me.
“Why did you call a meeting?” I ask him, lifting a brow.
Technically, he could call meetings, if it is important. But the human knows his place. He works for me, and with us, not the other way around. So for him to do this must mean whatever is happening is important.
He sits up taller, his gaze jerking from the phoenix to me. “I didn’t call a meeting.”
What did he just say? Ice moves through my veins.
I stand abruptly. “This is a trap.”
“A trap? What an ugly word.”
A man enters the room, and I feel terror blossom within me. Well, not a man, a god. Hades wears a pink suit with skulls stitched into the lapels. His hair is neatly styled, and his eyes are ringed by red. He takes the only remaining seat, and I swallow hard, slowly sitting down.
Hades is not a member of this group, however, he has used us for his own purposes in the past. And each time, he left nothing but death and destruction in his wake. The fact that we were called here by him means only trouble.
But I’m too smart to say that. I just wait.
“Uh, why do we have the pleasure of a meeting with you?” the phoenix asks, and there’s a waiver of fear that runs through his words.
The god cocks a brow. “Because an old problem may come back to bite us all in the asses.”
Peter sighs and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “What old problem?”
Hades plays with the cuffs of his suit. “If you’ll recall, one of our first get-togethers involved a certain plan.
” I feel the color drain from my face. “Peter came to me with an interesting bit of information he found on a dead monster. Information about how to bring back a certain titan from his prison without releasing the others. A certain titan who could make Peter a god, kill all the monsters for Gary, and restore the phoenixes’ prior glory… ”
Fucking hell, I don’t want to think about that disaster. At the time it had seemed brilliant. I could get rid of a problem gargoyle and have a titan kill off all the monsters, leaving my people free to simply exist in peace. It’d been worth working with the human, god, and phoenix.
And then everything had gone wrong.
“No one should know about that,” Conley rushes out. “We all swore the secret would stay with us.”
I can’t help but say, “Yes. The man responsible for killing several young phoenixes has a vested interest in making sure that secret remains buried.”
His eyes flash gold and lock onto mine. “And the man responsible for selling the soul of one of his gargoyles wants the secret known?”
It’s like a punch to the gut. If my people ever learn what I did, I’ll be cast out. Maybe even turned to stone forever and shattered.
“Well, I don’t want two groups of powerful people to know I had anything to do with this either,” the human admits, his face twisted in anger.
“Exactly,” the god drawls lazily. “I have done all I can to ensure that the only people who could tell our little secret, well, that they stayed dead. But recently Andros has...disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” The word comes with an ounce of arrogance.
Hades moves a hand and I go flying, smashing into the wall and shaking the whole building. The air is knocked from my lungs for a long moment before I gasp in air. It takes me a minute to come shakily to my feet and stumble to my chair.
Hades lifts a brow in my direction. “Are you finished?”
I nod, realizing I should’ve been more careful. “I just...I just meant to ask how he could be missing?”
Hades shrugs. “Either he’s hiding after some chaos in the Underworld, or he’s currently making his way to the surface.
But if he should be successful, his soul will return to his body.
He’ll remember the ritual that Gary performed to remove his soul from his body and leave it empty for the titan.
He may even remember that Conley murdered three phoenix children for the spell.
” He glances at Peter. “He could even recall a certain human who has learned the darkest witchcraft and performed a certain spell. A spell that went horribly wrong, screwing us all.”
“What do we do?” I ask, the room suddenly feeling far too small and far too hot.
Hades taps his fingers on the table. “Gary, do you know where Andros’s body is?”
“I did. I might. Why?”
The god smiles, a terrifying smile. “If you remove the head from his body, even if he reaches the surface, his soul will return to me.”
“And us?” the human asks.
Hades's smile widens. “A certain god who owed me a favor has told me how I can send people to track his soul, but they must be newly dead. And they must be people with a vested interest in making certain Andros never reaches the surface.”
“Newly dead?” Peter frowns.
“What’s more, Andros has help. The help of Hecate. And, I suspect, others. They will need to be punished for these crimes against me.”
The phoenix shakes his head. “How are we going to get newly dead people to track them for us?”
Hades snaps his fingers. Two glowing red necklaces appear around Peter’s and Conley’s throats.
“What is this?” Peter asks.
Hades snaps his fingers again. Two shades are suddenly behind the men.
My mouth opens in a silent scream of warning, but the shades are faster.
They rip the men’s heads off, spraying blood across me, the room, and the table.
The two bodies fall to the floor, and the shades laugh while holding the heads, then disappear.
A minute later, wispy shadowed forms of the men hover above their bodies, their red necklaces burning brightly.
“Spirits,” Hades addresses them in a bored voice, “I task you with bringing the soul of Andros back to the Underworld and with punishing anyone found in his company. I also give you the power to track them anywhere: on the surface, in the Underworld, or on the paths between.”
The spirits look pained and frightened, but vanish within seconds.
My heartbeat fills my ears. Hades...killed them. Just like that. What will he do to me?
He turns to me, that sick smile still on his lips. “Find the body of Andros and remove his head. If you don’t, I’ll remove yours.” Then he leans in closer. “And Gary, I know all the many awful things you’ve done in your long life. I have already thought of glorious tortures for you.”
He stands.
“I understand,” comes out in a voice that sounds too afraid to be mine.
“Oh,” he says, looking back from the doorway. “There was also a little problem. Many of the monsters you and your gargoyles killed have returned to the surface. You may want to get someone on that before, you know, they destroy mankind.”
“Yes, your highness,” I whisper.
And then he’s gone.
It takes me several minutes to wipe the blood from my face and stumble outside.
I go to a river and wash and wash, being certain I’ve removed all traces of blood.
When I’m done, I look at my reflection. I need to find Andros’ body.
Last time I saw it, Orion had resurrected some kind of shrine to him in their house in the woods.
It will take nothing at all to behead him, but then there are the monsters to deal with.
I clear my head as I fly back to the sanctuary.
Once there, I speak to the other Elites.
I give them a story, that an old ally had warned about the monsters returning from the Underworld.
We call a meeting and tell all the gargoyles.
There are gasps, tears, and questions. We let them know that the families with children will remain in the sanctuary, but that we will send the others on quests.
There’s excitement in the younger Brotherhoods.
I have one of my oldest and most experienced groups stay behind after the others. The men are rarely in the sanctuary, and it had been agreed upon a long time ago by the Elites that they were too dangerous to send on any missions, but now we need them. My gaze roams over the two men.
“You need to wake up your brother.”
Rokad’s dark eyes flash with an unnamed emotion. “I thought you said awakening him was too dangerous.”
“He’s too dangerous for the sanctuary, but we’ll turn him loose on the monsters.”
Rokad nods, and I truly can’t tell what he thinks.
The half-breed gargoyles are always hard to read.
A normal gargoyle would want his brother awakened from the curse we’d placed on him, but these men aren’t normal.
They are evil. Dark and twisted. And I want them far from us, but know enough to know that they are useful right now.
“And what about the phoenix prisoner? Should we bring him?” Lucas asks, his tone even, his gaze locked somewhere above my head.
These two had been tasked with keeping our prisoner in his cage in a remote location for years and years, since the bastard has a way of escaping without constant monitoring.
I can’t afford to waste gargoyles to stand and watch him any longer.
It might’ve been easier to kill him, but I have an idea.
“Tell him if he fights beside you, he’ll earn his freedom.”
“That’s...generous of you,” Lucas says, again not looking at me.
I wave a hand. “If his use ends, or if he’s more a burden then a help, kill him.”
After a second, Lucas says, “Understood.”
“Now, get out.”
The damned half-breeds leave, and I rub my face.
This isn’t how my rule was supposed to go.
I’m supposed to rest and enjoy being in charge.
I’m not supposed to try to keep old secrets buried, nor unleash those half-breeds on the world.
I truly don’t know if they will help or hurt the situation.
Because even though I’d told the Elites that they were simply unstable after so many times waking and falling back into their stone slumbers, I’m the only one who knows the truth.
A dark, horrible truth.
Lucas, Rokad, and Narath are not just unstable gargoyles.
They are the children of my daughter...and a monster.
Triplets. Nothing should have ended her life, but birthing them into this world did.
It was a long time ago, before the sanctuary.
My daughter had been made, and we had guarded our lands together.
She never told me what had led to her impregnation, but I suspected who the father was.
And when the children grew wild and dangerous, there was no dying their parentage.
I had sent them far away. I had them slumber on lands I hoped they would never wake from, but eventually, they did.
By the time the sanctuary existed, it became one of roles to keep them far from here, and their parentage a secret.
I have been successful, up until now. But not only am I turning them out on the world, I’m awakening their brother. A psychotic killer who lusts for blood and death.
“Was that wise?” Elizabeth suddenly asks from beside me.
Her voice startles me. I turn in her direction and realize the other Elites are all talking in worried voices amongst themselves, but Elizabeth? I’m fairly certain she has been watching me for a while. I’m also fairly certain she’s the reason the freaks had returned.
“I am the leader now,” I tell her. “And yes, I think it was wise to use the tools we have.”
She glances at the door they left from. “You always said they were unstable... Let’s hope you were wrong.”
Gods, what have I done?