When a Gargoyle Awakens (5 page)

Much to her annoyance, the professor hadn’t bought anything from Bea in the last few weeks, so Kylie had no excuse to go up to his house and catch another glimpse of the thing.  She kept hinting to Bea that maybe she should contact the professor and suggest he might want to buy something else, but Bea just looked at her curiously and didn’t say anything.

The bell over the door jingled, and before she even looked up she started rattling off the greeting, “Hello, and welcome to The Birds and the Bea’s…”  She paused as she caught sight of her visitor shaking out his umbrella.

It was a man.  Not just any man, possibly the handsomest man she had ever seen.  Definitely not a local, but he didn’t seem to fit the usual ilk of tourists.  He had to be at least six-foot-two, and the tight black shirt he wore was clinging to his obvious muscles, barely contained within.  His clothes were plain black, and he wore unflashy loafers, but it was clear that they were well made.  His chiseled face and adorable chin dimple wouldn’t look out of place on a god.  This tight, gorgeous package was all topped by closely cropped blonde hair and startling green eyes.  He looked professional, but was surely too buff to be anything like a lawyer or a businessman.

Kylie blinked as she realized he was talking to her.  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

The left-hand side of his mouth curled up.  “I said, nice day.”

“Oh, right, yes,” she blushed.

She watched, eagerly, as he trailed around the store.  He paused to look at several items, but he never touched any of them.  After about five minutes spent perusing the merchandise – during which time Kylie barely took her eyes off him or breathed for that matter – he stopped at the counter and gave her a small smile which sent butterflies crashing into one another in her stomach.

“Are you Bea?” he asked in a smooth voice.

Kylie contained her wince.  The guy probably didn’t know that Bea was in her sixties, but it wasn’t fun when someone mistook her for a sexagenarian.  “No, she’s away in New York at the moment.  I’m Kylie.”  She giggled in what was supposed to be a flirtatious way but probably sounded closer to the croak of a frog.

“Nice to meet you, Kylie.  I’m Holling.”  He said it with effortless ease and sexual appeal.  Kylie almost felt her knees buckle as she shook his hand.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” she offered.  True, she would be hopeless when it came to antiques, but she could do other things, like point out the best restaurants in town and she’d even be generous enough to join him for dinner…

Holling stared at her for a couple of beats.  His face betrayed no emotion, and Kylie prickled a little under the scrutiny.  The guy’s poker face was incredible.

“You’re new in town, right?” she babbled, trying to fill the silence.  “If you need someone to show you around, let me know.”

He cocked his head on one side, and her stomach clenched as embarrassment spread down to her toes.  Yet, she carried on regardless.  “Have you seen the hanging tree?  I mean, it’s not much, it’s just a tree when all is said and done but, you know, it has a history.  Plus we have a fantastic seafood restaurant that…”

“Perhaps you can pass on a message to Bea,” he said, slowly, cutting through her verbal diarrhea.

Kylie sighed inwardly, a mixture of relief and disappointment.  “Sure.”

“Professor Hardcastle died a couple of nights ago.”

“What?!” squawked Kylie as he stood there, placidly telling her that someone she knew had just died as easily as if he were telling her that his toaster was malfunctioning.  “How?  When?  But, how?” she spluttered.

“Two nights ago,” he told her with razor-tipped patience.  “The doctor believes it was his heart.  He wasn’t a young man; it was only matter of time.”

“He seemed so full of life,” she muttered as cold, sadness trickled through her heart.  He had been a strange man, that was for sure, and she wouldn’t exactly say they had been friends, but to hear that he was gone was depressing.

The shop was deafeningly silent as the words of condolence were left unsaid.  Kylie felt a burst of anger towards Holling for his unfeeling stance.

“Who are you, anyway?” she demanded, crankily.

If her tone bothered him, it certainly didn’t show.  But then he could be angry as holy hell, or as happy as a clam at that moment, and Kylie doubted she’d know the difference.

“I’m a friend of Andrew Hardcastle’s; he’s…”

“The nephew,” interjected Kylie, a little sourly as she remembered her encounter with him.  “How is he taking this?”

That earned her a lip twitch that looked a little like a smile.  “I don’t think they were very close,” he replied, evasively.  “But I understand that Bea was a friend, and his butler Gustave thought she should know.”

Shit – Gustave.  He probably would be the most affected by the loss.  “How is Gustave?”

“He has left the house.”

Kylie wrinkled her nose.  “Already?”

Holling ignored the question.  “I can trust that you’ll inform Bea.”

“Yes,” she sighed.

He nodded.  “See you around.”

He turned and strode out of the store, only stopping to scoop up his umbrella.  Kylie, in spite of her annoyance, couldn’t help but stare at his taut butt as he walked.  Yes, she was hopeless and a little surprised at the pang of guilt that washed through her.  Ogling men’s butts was natural, why would she feel guilty about that?  But for some strange, unexplainable reason, she felt like she was being disloyal to someone.  Which was dumb.

She felt uneasy about the situation.  Okay, so yeah, the professor was no spring chicken, but this was incredibly sudden.  She didn’t really have a lot of experience of people dying – other than her parents but that happened when she was too young to understand.  Was it normal for it to have been this… this… unexpected?  And what was with Gustave?  Why had he already left?

Kylie drummed her fingers on the counter and barely even noticed as Hurricane Maggie erupted into the store.  Raindrops gleamed on her and as she walked they splattered onto various antiques.

“Careful, you’re getting water everywhere,” said Kylie, mechanically and without much conviction.

Maggie shook her head and raindrops sprayed in every direction.  “Who was that guy walking out of your store?” she demanded.

“Some friend of Andrew Hardcastle’s.”  Kylie had long since gotten over her amazement at the fact that Maggie spied on all the other stores on the street when she was bored.

“He was hot,” she gushed enthusiastically. Maggie bouncing up and down was a good indicator of just how much of a rarity a man like Holling was in Devil’s Hang.  “Although, I bet he’d look better with a nose ring.”  Maggie tapped her chin thoughtfully as she considered just how much of an improvement facial jewelry could bestow on people.

Unhappily, Kylie explained about the professor’s death, and Maggie was suitably upset.  Maggie had never liked him, but she recognized a fellow oddball when she saw one, and she was always impressed when he pissed off the town council.  It was something she had never managed to perfect.  They embraced all the crazy things she did – two months ago when she spray painted the town cats pink actually increased tourism, so they were grateful.

“Shit, does that mean that Andrew the asshole will be living here full-time?”

The nickname Andrew the asshole was perhaps a little harsh.  Andrew was only guilty of being slightly obnoxious and a little flashy.  They were traits found in most people who lived in cities when they moved to small towns.  Except for Kylie, but that was more to do with the fact that she didn’t have enough money to be flashy.  Maggie, though, could be absolutely merciless.

“I guess,” Kylie murmured.  Although, she couldn’t imagine the young man settling there - the drafty, old building hardly seemed like a place he would want to be.  Perhaps it would be better if he sold everything and left.  Kylie thought of the professor’s vast collection and felt another twinge of sadness.  He had loved his collection.  Kylie thought it was crap, but he had loved it, and she knew he wouldn’t have wanted his nephew to sell it.

Oh no!  What was going to happen to the gargoyle named Lucifer?  Her heart twisted as she thought of the gargoyle being sold, or worse, destroyed.  No, she couldn’t let that happen.

Chapter Six

“What did she say?”

Holling sneered at the gargoyle in front of him and adjusted the sledgehammer in his hands.  “Nothing, she wasn’t there.  I spoke to her idiot niece.”

With a mighty roar, he brought the hammer down on the offending statue and was gratified when a crack appeared.  It wasn’t important.  Oh, the thing was probably worth some money to a collector, but it was only an imitation.  It wasn’t a real gargoyle.  This was just stress relief or possibly practice.  They were close; he could feel it.  Once they found the gargoyles and figured out how to wake them, any gargoyles that didn’t get with the program could look forward to this kind of treatment.  Course, it wouldn’t be him persuading them, or even leading them, but they would be at his disposal, and nobody would argue with a guy who possessed the loyalty of terrifying, flying monsters.

“You mean the dumpy, hippyish looking girl?”

Holling grunted and took another swing at the statue.  Pieces of it flew across the old professor’s study, and Lara growled at him to be careful.  Holling glowered her into silence, and she resumed fiddling with her oversized engagement ring.

“Have you even managed to find any of them yet?” she asked, sulkily.

The tightening of his jaw told her all she needed to know.

“Maybe he doesn’t have any.  Maybe we’re wasting our time,” she muttered just loud enough for him to hear.  “I don’t know why you think that Bea woman would be any use.  Gustave certainly wasn’t.”

Holling scowled at her.  Perhaps bringing Lara here hadn’t been the best idea, but Andrew was so much more manageable when she was around.  The problem was that while attractive, she was clingy and irritating.  She did as Holling bade her out of some simpering sense of loyalty to him, not because she was really committed to their cause.  And that irritated him even more.  Still, she had her uses.

He had spent years tracking the whereabouts of the gargoyles, and he wouldn’t be here now if Lara hadn’t seduced her way into Andrew’s life.  The fool.  Pity the professor hadn’t been quite as malleable.  He would have preferred to keep the old man around, but, in spite of not possessing magic, the old goat was wily.  Keeping him alive and under control would have been difficult.

“You’re too impatient,” Holling said, tersely.  “We’ve barely even begun to look.”

Although he wouldn’t admit it, he was somewhat surprised at how hard it was to find the missing gargoyles.  He assumed that the professor kept them in a basement or an attic or even, because the old bastard was tediously old school, in a secret room.  But having already scoured the house, there was no sign of them.  The attic was filled with broken antiques and cobwebs while the basement was actually a wine cellar.  The house, although of a strange construct and possessing more than one corridor that simply went nowhere, possessed no hidden rooms.  Their research couldn’t be wrong, though.  The professor had inherited at least twenty gargoyles from their previous caretaker over forty years ago.  The damn things had to be somewhere.  Giant stone statues don’t just disappear into thin air!

Holling slipped the sledgehammer behind a curtain as Andrew entered the room.  Lara barely even reacted, and Holling gave her a sharp look.  Meaning he sent her a mind jolt.  It was not particularly painful, but she still leaped out of her seat as if she had been stung on the rear by a giant bumblebee.

It was not a special talent, but was very common in Holling’s family.  Most of his family members had been able to delve into the minds of other beings - or at least, weaker beings.

Lara marched over to Andrew and threw her arms around him theatrically.  Holling balled his fists to fight the rage he felt.  He had come too far to allow a selfish bitch like Lara ruin it all.  If Andrew suspected that Lara was anything but sincere about her feelings, and impending marriage to him, they would lose access to the professor’s collection and everything that he had worked so hard for would disappear in a puff of smoke.  Of course, if necessary, he could kill Andrew and continue searching, but that probably wouldn’t go unnoticed, and he could do without the distraction of a murder inquiry.

However, Andrew – the dolt – didn’t seem to notice Lara’s childish behavior.  He was wearing somber black and sporting a matching expression.  “Have you seen Gustave?”

Lara inhaled and shot Holling a panicked look.  Couldn’t the damn woman manage subtlety?

“I’m afraid not,” replied Holling, calmly.

“I haven’t seen him all day,” he said, gloomily.

“He said he needed to get away,” blurted Lara.  Andrew blinked at her in surprise, and when he turned his back, Lara gave Holling a triumphant look.  Holling wanted to run over to her and wring her scrawny neck.  She actually thought she’d done something clever.

“Get away where?” asked Andrew, slowly.  Clearly surprised that this was the first he heard of it.  It was the first any of them was hearing it.

“Perhaps he decided to go and stay with relatives or friends,” suggested Lara, digging that hole ever deeper.