Chapter Eight Gordon and Andrea #2
Instead, I witness the fire being extinguished in a matter of seconds, and the metal frame of the shed still stands although it’s black and dripping, and the insides look like the black mess at the bottom of a barbecue.
Except for a huge, gray mass.
Gordon.
“I’ve never seen this happen. How long does he take to get out of this form?”
“It’s not like gargoyles. I don’t know.”
“Gordon. Is Gordon... Is he gone?” I call in a quivering voice, clutching my car door.
It feels like it’s been baking in the sun after being close to the fire.
My blue dress is blackened, too. I look down at my feet, blinking through the smoke, and realize that my sandals are in place, but there are burns and blisters on the bare skin that peeks through the straps.
It was that hot. That deadly. That fast.
There’s no way he’s alive.
“Just in his stone form. We’ll try to get him to come to, but we’re not sure how long it takes,” Alban informs me, slumping back against the front of Mean Janine.
“Stone form? What?” I shake my head to clear it, but it doesn’t want to cooperate. Through the haze of smoke and water, I see two giant beasts with wings and tails, one with horns. They’re carrying a smoking statue, stopping every few seconds to blow on their hands.
The statue is Gordon. Gordon, with his hand up to guard his eyes, face squished up as if he’s tensing for a blow. “My boyfriend is a statue?” I whisper.
“Och, no, lass. He’s just a troll.” One of the winged beasts explains.
That’s when my brain shuts off—and takes my body with it.
Cool air and insistent voices tell me that it’s safe to return.
The stone layers of my skin slowly sink into my flesh.
If I were a troll aligned with death and darkness, and I were caught in sunlight, I would turn to stone and never return to flesh.
I would remain imprisoned in stone until my natural life ended, or I was shattered.
As it is, my hand having never taken innocent souls, I am free to change at will, stone form shielding me in the space of a second.
It’s how I’ve survived fires before that would have killed humans.
When I feel water coursing over me, I feel my stone stupor wearing off.
A team made up of human and supernatural volunteers is milling about. I recognize Eddie Hyde, the paramedic, who gives me a crooked grin and jaunty wave from his spot in the back of an ambulance.
“Thank God, you’re all right. Good work with the hose, Duncan. You can wrap up.”
Duncan, the gargoyle who just moved to town last month, looks pleased with himself. “Aye, grand. Good to know you’re not for it, Lieutenant.” He salutes, then starts helping Genesis, the other gargoyle in town, with the hose.
“The shed. There was something in it,” I blurt out. I’m the one who will have to write up the report, but I feel like people will want to know. Andrea must be—
My world stops. “Where is Andrea Flores?” I demand. “The music teacher, she was with me tonight.”
“With me now, buddy.” Eddie waves again. “Passed out. Smoke inhalation or shock. Getting a nice little nap with some oxygen. Her numbers are already back to normal on the pulse ox.”
I tear across the ground, head woozy and limbs heavy as they often are after a stone transition. I crash down next to the ambulance, horrified at the sight inside.
My Andrea is covered in smoky stains, her pretty dress ruined, the edges of her flowing hair crispy and brittle. Her delicate little feet are blistered. “Oh, no,” I whisper, my hands hovering above her body, not knowing where to touch.
“She thought you were a goner. She was trying to get you out, that’s what Alban said,” Eddie jerks his thumb towards Pine Ridge’s resident lawyer, one of the Wymark Warlocks, a powerful family with benevolent practices.
“She was trying to get me out? Oh, this is my fault.” I almost killed her. What if I have? What if there’s something wrong inside they cannot see, that they don’t realize yet?
Everything inside starts to turn to stone again, and I know if Andrea doesn’t waken, neither will I.
“Stop that. Did you set the fire?” Eddie asks in his lazy drawl.
“No! Of course not.” Anger at the accusation hits sharper than grief.
“Then you’re not at fault. It was probably an accident, and it couldn’t be the fault of the PRFD if you ask me.
You guys are thorough as fuck at protecting things.
Hosed down before. Hosed down after. Asked the coven and local warlocks to work a bunch of woo-hoo.
The shed is metal. How in the world this happened...
” Eddie shrugs and turns back to Andrea.
“It was not something of this world. It was something of the underworld,” I mutter darkly. I know I cannot put that in my report, but there was a sulfuric smell. Charring on the inside. A pattern of burn on the floor that I should recognize, but can’t place just now.
Jagged lines. Close together.
“Claws?” I murmur.
“Ahh, there we go. Hey, sweetheart, you wanna see a grumpy fireman?” Eddie is suddenly sounding much more cheerful.
“Gordon?” Andrea’s muffled, broken voice fights out through a smoke-damaged throat and a plastic oxygen mask.
I lean over her, almost tossing Eddie out of the way.
Fortunately, he’s a good-natured soul, and he has a wife and daughter to be protective of, so I think he understands.
She is all that matters. I will figure out everything else later.
“I’m here. You’re going to be okay,” I say with conviction borne out of desperation.
I will make her okay, if I have to break everything else in the world to fix her.
Andrea’s eyes widen, and her breath fogs up the plastic apparatus over her face with the sudden sharp cry she makes.
“Are you in pain? Eddie, why isn’t she already en route to the hospital?” I demand.
“Getting her stable first, and I think she’s okay to skip the ER if she’s with a first responder like you, big fella. Although, I’m going to get you guys a little first aid doggie bag to go. Hang tight, sweetheart.” Eddie smiles at Andrea with such smooth, easy charm, so reassuring and friendly.
Andrea deserves a man like that. One who can glide through life with her, not stumble and crash through. Not someone who will get her singed and blistered. “I’m so sorry, my Andrea,” I whisper, reaching for her hand, wincing when I see that one side of her hand is raw and red, too.
Andrea yanks her mask off. “I need to go to the hospital. My eyes... you’re green, Gordon.
Green and gray. And your face...” She gestures weakly at my trollish visage.
“Looks wrong. Not like it did before. But I can’t remember it before, just big jaw.
Gorgeous hair. Dark eyes. That’s not different.
I... I have smoke-damaged brain,” she concludes.
I blink slowly. Mouth dry.
Andrea can see me. Why? What exactly happened?
“Your eyes are fine. Your brain is fine.” I’m not fine. I’m a monster. And now you know. How? The shock of the fire, perhaps? Did she see my stone form being hosed down and spoken to?
“You were a statue. One of those volcano-ash statues. Like a lava mummy,” Andrea babbles, sitting up, grabbing at me.
Not pulling away. That’s something.