Chapter 14 #4
Quick as a hunting cat, one of the gargoyles darted forward.
Lightning lashed out, but it dodged away, leaving a smoking pit in the floor where it had been.
Burnt stone flavored the air. The second gargoyle feinted, and Ianthe flicked her fingers, casting lightning toward it.
It too, twisted in midair, muscle rippling down its flank.
The pair of them took turns, as though testing her weaknesses. Ianthe took a step back, toward him.
"Without Lord Rathbourne, they have no wits," he said, "though they seem to act with animal intelligence."
No, they were just stone. Keyed to attack anything within their perimeter, until either they or the intruders were down. Anything short of complete annihilation wouldn't stop them.
Bully for us.
His gaze darted to the doorway. "If we escaped this room, they might not follow."
Both of them looked at the pair of gargoyles prowling the floor between them and the door.
"Any more brilliant ideas?" Ianthe asked.
"Run? One of us has to be faster than the other."
"Very amusing. How do you know it's not me?"
The first gargoyle launched itself on top of one of the bookshelves, running along it as nimble as a cat, its demonic tail lashing random books of the shelves.
"Watch out!" Lucien yelled, brandishing the poker. He spun to face it, but the gargoyle suddenly curled its back claws around the shelf, and then shoved itself away from the wall with one arm.
Shit. The enormous bookcase launched itself toward them, the gargoyle riding it.
Lucien grabbed Ianthe by the waist, trying to swing her out of the way.
A whip-like tail lashed around his boot from behind, yanking him off-balance just as the bookcase careened down across the desk, vomiting books like some tidal wave.
The mage globes imploded with a small, thunderous crash.
Lucien hit the floor and kicked up with his boot, hitting the gargoyle in the face.
It felt like kicking a wall, pointless and jarring.
The creature snapped its fangs, teeth sinking into his boot.
Sharp, wretched teeth sunk through the boot into his skin.
Lucien yelled, but by some miracle, the boot came free, leaving the blasted thing with it.
The gargoyle shook its head like a dog, worrying at the leather.
Heart in his throat, Lucien looked for her. "Ianthe?" Where was she? Lucien shoved aside the table. A mess of red skirts lay toppled beneath a mountain of books and the leaning bookshelf. She wasn't moving. "Ianthe!"
Get up! Lucien leaned his back beneath the bookshelf, where it had caught on the desk, and put all of his weight into it. The enormous thing shifted, and he ground his teeth together. "Can you move?"
Ianthe gasped, rolling onto her hands and knees. "Behind you!"
Shoving a hand out, she triggered the power stored in one of her rings.
Lucien's coat hem flapped as the weight of pure force flung past him.
One of the gargoyles had been midpounce.
It hit the wall with a boom, powdered stone exploding onto the floor.
The face slid free like a mask, tumbling onto the ground, the red eerie light of its eyes slowly fading like an ember and then dying.
All that remained was the snarling nose, its leering teeth, and one eye.
"One down."
"One to go." Lucien twisted his head as he dragged her out from under the bookshelf and then let it fall onto the desk again. "Where did it go?"
Claws skittered over stone, almost sounding like hushed laughter. Lucien spun, but there was nothing in the shadows.
"I begin to suspect this is what a doe feels like when hunters are converging upon it," Ianthe said.
There was a flash of movement to the side, but when he turned, there was nothing there.
"It feels like it's mocking us." Lucien retreated a step and felt her do the same. They stood back to back, she with her hands raised and her power gathered, and he with his pathetic poker.
"Maybe we'd best take away its shadows," Ianthe said, and spat a power word. Light flashed into the room as a pair of mage globes formed as brightly shining as an electric bulb.
The gargoyle froze as it crept toward them, hissing at them.
"Lord Rathbourne obviously liked his constructs." Ianthe pushed her sleeves up, staring the remaining gargoyle down. "Two can play at that game."
The mage globes spun. Faint shadows sprung up on the walls as they whirled like a child's jack-o'-lantern, growing into humanoid shapes. The shadows stretched, and he realized that they were moving.
A shadowbinder in all of her glory.
Three of the shadows launched forward as the gargoyle attacked, grabbing hold of it. Its momentum slowed, its powerful haunches straining, but they could not stop it entirely. It gained an inch.
"I can give them presence," she gasped, "but not a great deal of weight. The gargoyle will outweigh them."
"Can you add force to the tip of the poker?" He brandished it.
Ianthe nodded, a trail of perspiration working down the side of her face. Handling several complex weaves was providing a strain that only frustrated him. He should have been able to help her.
The poker suddenly dipped as the end flared white-hot. Lucien grabbed it with two hands, straining to lift it. He staggered forward. A pair of red eyes locked on him, and suddenly the gargoyle stopped straining. Instead, it crouched low, as if to pounce.
Everything happened too quickly. The gargoyle launched itself at him, slipping free of the shadowy constructs, and Lucien brought the poker down in a resounding sweep that would have done his fencing tutor proud.
It smashed into the side of the gargoyle, jarring all the way up his arm.
Power flared, the gargoyle's eyes widened, and then. ..
The detonation threw them both backward.
Lucien staggered into Miss Martin and another bookshelf fell.
They both went down. Lucien cracked his knee hard on the cobbles, a pair of books bouncing off his shoulders as he curled himself over her.
One hit him right in the spine, its edges sharp. Lucien winced.
And then it was done.
Silence. Stillness. Peace?
Pain flared through his knees. Skin scraped off, he presumed. Lucien looked up, but nothing moved.
Miss Martin blew a strand of hair out of her face, then tucked it behind her ear as she sat up. The chignon was beyond repair, and her skirts were torn. A streak of dirt marred her pale cheek, and it was that that suddenly enraged him.
It was his duty to protect her. From all things. And so far he was failing. What good was he? He might as well hide behind her fucking skirts!
"Bloody, fucking hell!" He turned and threw the bent poker he somehow miraculously still held. It made a rattling, tinny sound as it bashed into the wall and tumbled to the ground.
"Rathbourne?"
Lucien stood with his head down, his chest straining within his waistcoat.
"It's nothing." Swallowing hard, he fought the violent surge of anger within him.
Power trickled along his skin, igniting the hairs on his arms. How easy it would be to punch a hole through the wall right now, but that was Expression tempting him, taunting him.
Not sorcery. Not skill. Not everything he'd fought so hard to learn, only to have it vanish from his grasp right when he needed it the most.
A gentle hand brushed against the small of his back. Lucien flinched, his fists curling, but contained it.
"Are we going to discuss that?"
"No, we are not." He let out a shuddering breath and turned around.
Violence rode him, tightly reined in but practically vibrating through his muscles.
He wanted to kick something, but was thwarted by her presence.
One didn't go around tromping through a room in a violent whirlwind, unless one wanted to be considered fit for. ..
...Bedlam.
His nostrils flared. Strangely enough, that thought jarred him out of his fury. It was done. Neither of them was injured, and he was not some bedlamite, raging against his circumstances. He was better than that.
He would be better than that.
As Lucien turned to face her, his gaze fell on a book on the floor in front of him. It had tumbled from the cut-out hollow of another book.
Rathbourne's grimoire, full of all of his occult writings, including the mysterious link to Morgana, one hoped.
"There it is."
Ianthe's hand paused in the air, halfway between them, as if she'd been reaching for him. It fell. "What?"
"The grimoire! I knew it was here somewhere."
Hidden in plain sight within another book.
Grabbing it, Lucien flicked through the pages of spidery scrawl.
Every sorcerer had their own grimoire. They were both a diary and a spell book, showcasing the design of each sorcerer's individual chants, wards, and ritualistic runes.
There was enough reading here to keep him entertained for all of the sleepless nights he was sure lay ahead of him.
He shook it at her. "We've found it."
That pillow-lipped mouth curved in a broad smile, as if they both shared the victory. Or perhaps they had. Her blood had to be up - his was. "Time to discover some of Lord Rathbourne's secrets."
"Stimulating reading, I'm sure." He tucked the grimoire under his arm. "Come on. At this rate, it will be dark before we know it." He stepped over a pile of rubble, shooting it a dark look. "That's going to give me nightmares for weeks."
"They were just constructs, Rathbourne."
"You try unbuttoning your breeches with a cockstand, while having a willing young woman on her knees in front of you, and try not to think about what's watching you in the darkness."
Ianthe laughed. A throaty, luxurious sound that made all of the light within her suddenly glow.
She lost all sense of decorum, holding her glee within her by means of a clapped hand over her mouth.
The sounds she made... Hardly seductive, but it felt like she'd shoved a fist straight into his chest and curled that small hand directly around his beating heart.
I made her laugh. It was the first time he could recall seeing her so abandoned, and the odd flush of pleasure he felt, at knowing he'd brought this about, made him both happy and irritable. She didn't laugh enough. In fact, he'd barely heard that sound at all since they'd met.
Lucien rubbed his chest. Gods, what was wrong with him?
"You'll never enjoy fellatio again without thinking about it!" A strand of dark hair had come free, and she tucked it breathlessly behind her ear, looking both girlish and playful.
"Thank you for the reminder," he drawled.
"Or perhaps," Ianthe's sharp-eyed gaze cut toward him, filled with humor, "we'll just have to see what we can do about that."
Everything in him fluttered. Lucien could do nothing more than stare at her as she gathered her skirts and stepped past him.
Hell.