Why me?!
There was no time to figure out an answer to that question, not when a monster was literally crouched behind me, its bat ears flicking, as it bared its humongous fangs with a spine-chilling hiss. Strings of drool stretched from its jaws to the floor. It was hungry, as were the other two beasts circling around me.
Big, black marble eyes watched me as I moved slowly, ever so slowly, so as not to set the gargoyles off before I could at least put a couple more feet between us. The main one was big and burly. The other two were slightly smaller in size, but just as vicious.
I managed to switch into a position facing the beast, just as it lowered its head and opened its mouth, a guttural rumble pouring out of its throat. It came at me. I waved it away, using my Telekinetic force to knock it back a couple of feet.
The others growled and scampered across the floor, their jaws snapping as I pushed them away, then ran into the kitchen. The big one lunged after me, its jaws crashing through one of the kitchen counters as it missed me by inches. The marble tops crumbled and the wood panels splintered, but I managed to turn the water faucets on. The gargoyle tried to bite into me once more, but I had enough water coming through to pull a thick sheet of ice over its head. Apparently, my fear and survival instinct were great at bringing out my Elemental abilities.
I pushed the frozen gargoyle away with a Telekinetic pulse, then jumped over the remaining counters into the living room area. The big one was busy shaking its head and clawing away at the ice covering its gnarly face, while the other two gargoyles rushed toward me, their wings fanned out as they knocked over everything in their path. Lamps, magazines, and trinket boxes fell to the floor with heartbreaking clanks and screeches as the creatures damaged everything in their path.
My phone was still on my bed, where I’d dropped it prior to cleaning up the coffee beans, and my father’s note was on the floor. I knew I couldn’t handle all three gargoyles at once. In less than a minute, the big boy was going to get free and come at me again.
Out of options and desperate to call for help, as well as retrieve the single, precious object my parents had left me, I pushed out another Telekinetic wave, surprisingly stronger than my previous attempts. The gargoyles were slapped to the side like overgrown flies, and I dashed across the living room, jumping over an armchair and grabbing the fire extinguisher I kept in the hallway.
I grabbed the note and quickly tucked it in my back pocket, but there was no time to get the phone, too, as the two smaller gargoyles attacked again. I flipped the safety loose and shot out a thick white cloud. The foam blinded them, giving me the two seconds I needed to slip past them and run to the door.
The big one, free of its icy mask, cut in, preventing a clean escape.
“Dammit,” I cursed under my breath and glided backward, as the gargoyle thumped through the living room toward me, its claws breaking the wooden flooring.
I froze, my back against the window, my whole body shivering as the beast in front of me shuddered with delight.
Another second and I would become its dinner.
Something inside me roared like thunder, unwilling to give in yet. The air around me thickened—I could feel it tickling my fingertips, beckoning me to wield it. I’d done it before, though not with the strength I would’ve needed to disable a fiend as savage as this.
But I had to try. There was no other choice.
I summoned all the energy I could muster, and, for the first time ever, I sensed the particles of Chaos flowing through me. My mind went into overdrive, and I thrust my hands out. The winds outside listened, rumbling and whistling as they crashed through the window.
I ducked as broken glass exploded everywhere. Shards cut through the beast’s face and eyes, and it hissed from the pain.
With no other route to safety, I braced the winds and leapt onto the windowsill. My breath hitched as I looked down at the sheer drop, and then I closed my eyes, abandoning myself to the air.
The winds circled around me, and I could feel the cool flow of air brushing against my body as I hovered closer to ground level. I couldn’t hold the current for much longer, and I ended up dropping for another ten feet.
The gargoyles roared inside my apartment, just as I landed in the middle of the street. People screamed around me. Of course. I was in the city. People were everywhere.
My shoulder throbbed, as it had absorbed most of the shock of the fall.
I managed to look up, counting six innocent people about to get introduced to gargoyles, plus more coming in from both ends of the street, along with the ones poking their heads out through the windows of my apartment building. They were all drawn to the noises and the sight of me crashing in the middle of the street.
“All of you, stay back!” I shouted, waving them all away. “Run!”
Some of them listened, and immediately darted away, while dialing 911. Others weren’t as fast, but at least they couldn’t actually see the gargoyles, from what I could tell. Otherwise, they all would’ve screamed at the sight of three monstrous fiends snarling at me from the fifth-floor window.
“Oh, no,” I gasped, my eyes wide as I caught sight of the gargoyles jumping out.
The small ones landed on the pavement, crushing the slabs of concrete beneath. I heard people gasping. Then a scream—that was me, watching the big gargoyle land on my car, and mauling it in the process.
“My Daisy!” I cried out at the sight of the Mustang’s hood mangled under the weight of that beast. My heart was instantly torn. Rage became my primary fuel as I sprang to my feet. “You son of a—”
I stilled, noticing the smaller gargoyles set their sights on a couple of humans, who were gawking at my car, unable to understand what invisible force had crashed into it. The big one sneered at me, its hind wiggling as it prepared to pounce and come at me again.
I was still overwhelmed, but with more space to move. At the same time, there were humans that needed protection. Dammit.
A flash of fire shot across my field of vision, hitting one of the smaller gargoyles. Wade came through the gathering crowd on my left, whispering a spell. His rings lit up blue and a pulse shot out of his hands, spreading outward into an iridescent globe that swallowed us and the gargoyles, keeping everybody else out.
Time seemed to stand still on the outside, people wide eyed and frozen as they stared at us.
Relief washed over me at the sight of Wade, but my troubles weren’t over yet.
“Keep the big one busy for a minute!” Wade instructed me, then shot fire beams from his fingers at the other two, who were trying to claw their way out of the globe-shaped shield that was keeping us in.
The flames licked at the two gargoyles, while I temporarily shifted my focus back to the big one. It moved fast, zigzagging across the street as it raced toward me. I managed to latch onto it with a mental lasso, then dragged it to the left with a swing powerful enough to slam it into the energy barrier of the protective shield.
It shook its head, momentarily dazed, then sprang to its feet and came at me again.
Wade lashed fire whips at the gargoyles, killing them both with one devastating blow, as the thick rope of fire cut through their chests. They crumbled to the ground, wheezing and hissing as they disintegrated in two puffs of charcoal smoke and dust.
I pushed out a Telekinetic barrier in an attempt to shove the remaining gargoyle back, but all it did was nudge it. It growled and continued its advance, as I scampered backward and tried to latch onto it with another mental lasso. It was moving too fast, having already learned my move.
Wade slipped between us, muttering a spell as he put his hands out, rings glowing red. Crimson beams shot out from his fingertips, then softened into fluorescent strings that wrapped themselves around the gargoyle. One by one, the energy ropes tightened around the beast until it could no longer move and fell flat on its face.
“Open this!” Wade said, then handed me a Mason jar.
I took it and removed its lid, while Wade rushed around the beast, dropping green entrapment stones along the way. The gargoyle struggled against its magical restraints, which started to pop and vanish, one at a time. Wade spoke the entrapment spell, the sturdier green beams I’d witnessed during our previous gargoyle encounter stretching out and trapping the beast beneath.
Only then was I able to breathe, the last of the red strings fizzling out. The gargoyle was well secured, this time.
“What is going on?” I managed, my voice trembling.
The adrenaline was storming through me, my limbs shaking and my breathing broken and ragged. My heart struggled against its ribcage, as the reality of what had just happened started to sink in.
“I had to use the red ropes first, just to keep it busy while I laid out the entrapment stones,” Wade replied, then motioned for me to step forward. “Come closer, I need to jar this bastard. It’s bad enough I had to kill the other two.”
I glanced around, noticing the world was still and quiet beyond the bluish bubble.
“What’s this?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“We call it a time lapse. It only holds for about seven, maybe ten minutes, at most,” Wade explained. “It isolates a specific patch of time and space, enough for me to do my job, basically.”
He then spoke the spell that forced the gargoyle into its smoky form. It got sucked into the jar, and I quickly put the lid on, twisting it tightly as the formless creature tumbled around in its glass receptacle.
I then remembered Daisy. My car was utterly destroyed, as if a fifty-ton cement ball had been dropped on top of it. I could barely distinguish its original design. My Daisy was a pile of mangled metal and rubber.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, while I came to terms with the fact that I no longer had a car. It hurt like hell, and Wade didn’t seem to understand.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
There was a pang in my heart that I didn’t recognize. It was his. He didn’t like to see me cry.
Tough luck, bro. I’m bawling like a little girl right now.
“That’s… That’s my car!” I cried out, pointing at my Daisy.
He casually glanced at it, then shrugged and took the jar from my hands. “It’s just a car. Inanimate object. You can buy another one. A better one, for that matter. You should switch to electric, anyway.”