Stone Guardian(16)

So he was back to talking about guarding her. “You did that tonight. Why take it further?”

“Necromancers are an enemy of my people as well. Whatever plan you are part of can bring no good to anyone of this world. Not your people, nor mine.”

What if he was right? As terrifying as the night had been, there was comfort in the knowledge it was a case of horrific timing, an event that would never be repeated.

But if she had been targeted? If it was not some random woman on the street, but her they had been waiting for?

She plopped onto the couch, no strength left in her legs to hold her up. She looked at Terak, his sculpted face taking on a pinched expression of worry as he watched her. “You’re wrong,” she said, the tiny voice coming from her mouth sounding nothing like her.

He came to kneel before her. “I hope I am,” he said, putting one hand on the couch beside her leg. “But if I am not, I want to be there to protect you.”

Memory struck her, bringing to mind another question. “The woman and man from tonight, the ones who were also fighting the zombies – do you know who they are?”

“Yes. They are members of the Guild.”

The Guild. She had never heard of them. “Are they good guys?”

There was a considering pause before he answered. “They are protectors.”

“Of humans?”

“Of anyone the necromancers target.”

His words were very measured, and no way she was getting the whole story here. “You sound like you don’t like them.”

“Our history together is too complex to explore this late at night. Though we are not enemies, there have been clashes.”

Probably not the only moment in gargoyle history where a personality conflict occurred. “Fair enough. But you said they were protectors. What about going to them and letting them protect me? They’re supposed to protect humans, right?” And they seemed to be human themselves. Well, at least one of them did. Sorta.

Onyx eyes locked on to her, not allowing Larissa to look away. “They will protect you. They will protect you by locking you up in a room and allowing no one to come near you until they discover what use the necromancers have for you.”

His eyes were too dark, too direct. Larissa looked away, the flickering shadows over a millennia of knowledge drawing her attention.

Did this night have to keep getting worse? What were her options here?

If he was telling the truth, then trying to contact the Guild would amount to jail time. Any self-respecting cop’s kid had a healthy loathing at the thought of jail. And really, did she know anything more about them than she did the gargoyles?

Nope, she knew exactly the same about both groups – a big old zilch.

She should have… she should have learned. She could have done it without upsetting dad, and if she had bothered, and maybe she would know what decision to make. She had wanted to once, why didn’t it occur to her she was allowed to change her mind and go back to it?

Hindsight and all that. It didn’t change the now, and in the now, the only organization she could trust would be the police.

But she didn’t want Dad involved in this. He could not know what was going on, not yet.

He would disagree with her, in loud and vehement tones. If he ever found out she was hiding tonight from him, he’d ream her up one side of the block and down the other, then proceed to tan her hide as he hadn’t done since she was a little girl.

He wouldn’t understand. He would be hurt that she didn’t come to him.

But… Larissa clenched her teeth hard against the image of the zombie that pushed itself to the front of her mind. She wouldn’t cry again, that was done with.

But she didn’t want him against those creatures and that magic, that strength. He was a fighter through and through, but he wasn’t a young man anymore, and Dad had already gone through one war with the creatures brought here by the Great Collision, a battle which cost him dearly. She never wanted him to go through that again.

Besides, if she was right – and I am right – this was a mistake. This was random. Bringing Dad in on it would only cause problems for her. Dad would move her back to the family house in two seconds flat, the brothers carting her back kicking and screaming if that’s what it took.

As much as she loved her father, she didn’t want that. She’d been gone from home not even a year. She didn’t want to lose her hard won freedom.

Larissa focused again on Terak. His eyes were still steady on her, his jaw set as he waited to counter her next argument.

What she needed was time, time to figure out what was going on and somehow come up with a solution.

“How would you protect me?”