Insidious Winds (24 page)

I have work to do, damn it. Stand up
. Barely
able to see and feeling like I had an elephant sitting on my chest, I forced my
legs back underneath me and struggled to my feet. The gargoyle was obviously
unimpressed. His left wing shot out, slammed into my chest, and pinned me to
the ground.

And I thought I couldn’t breathe before.

I heard a tearing sound in the background and knew
Henry had shifted into his jaguar form. Instinctively, I released my magic to
freeze both my friends and the stone creature. I didn’t want Darwin and Henry
attacking my familiar any more than I wanted my familiar attacking me.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work on the gargoyle.

Faster than I could follow, he advanced on me and the
next thing I knew, he was tearing my chest open with his talons. I clenched my
teeth and tried to punch the creature… only to receive severe pain in my
knuckles.

Cold spread through my chest as my blood poured onto
the stone slab beneath me, but it felt like it was releasing some of the
pressure. I managed to suck in a lungful of air before the darkness flooded my
vision. When I stopped fighting the nausea and lethargy, it started to fade.

*          *          *

I’m not sure how long I was on the ground, but when I
opened my eyes, I felt like I had been asleep for a few hours. Vincent was
taping a bandage to my chest. Darwin and Henry were standing behind him,
watching me worriedly. My loving familiar was nowhere to be seen. “What
happened?”
How am I not dead
?

“Did you actually try to punch stone?” Darwin asked.

“The gargoyle answered your call,” Vincent explained,
ignoring my young roommate. “He must have felt a strong desire to live and
thought you were worth saving.”

“He healed me?” I could feel the gargoyle’s presence
in my mind, as if he was watching over my shoulder.

“Not quite. Like I said; he answered your call. He
completed the familiar bond on his own and took your weakness into him. Your
pain is his now, but because he’s made of stone, he doesn’t need a heartbeat or
breath.”

“So… he healed me.” That sounded pretty healed to me.
There was no pain at all in my chest.

“No. In a very figurative way, he traded hearts with
you so that his immortality could protect you. If he dies, so will you.
Fortunately, I highly doubt anyone can kill a gargoyle. He can’t be controlled
by any magic, including yours. You’d better stay on his good side. If you’re
separated for too long, you’ll die.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. It depends on the wizard.”

“A hundred fifty to a hundred sixty hours,” Darwin
said, showing Vincent up. He shrugged when Vincent looked at him. “I could be
wrong… by half an hour or so. Call it six days before you need to panic.”

“Distance is not a factor, though,” Vincent said
encouragingly. “He could be in China and you would still be connected. It’s
when you enter other realms that his absence will become a problem, so I would
suggest not staying in the shadow pass for days.”

Darwin couldn’t stop himself. “Because if you do… you
will die in seven days,” he whispered spookily.

“Smack him,” I told Henry before sitting up. Henry
smacked Darwin in the back of the head.

Darwin whined. “Why? I was being clever! You two are
so mean to me.”

Vincent stood, which I thought was to give me room,
and smacked Darwin in the back of the head as well. Henry growled and pulled
Darwin away. I laughed. Darwin tried to steady me when I stood, but I didn’t
need the help. “I’m okay.”

He slid his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, as
if he just realized he wasn’t wearing any gloves. “You’re really okay?” he
asked. “It wasn’t what you planned on, with your life relying on your familiar
instead of the other way around.”

“Hey, I’m great with that. My familiar is literally
made of stone and I can’t think of anything less killable. I’m not going to
have a heart attack when things get rough. This is cause for celebration as far
as I’m concerned.”

“I was hoping that your power would help me find
Scott,” Henry said, his voice quiet and deep with disappointed.

“We’ll get him back. Where’s his teddy bear?”

“In the room.”

“Well, let’s go get it, find him, and bring him
home.”

*          *          *

Addie was in our room when we arrived. I paused at
the door, and examined the lock. “Hey, guys, this door locks!” I said with
exaggerated enthusiasm.

Darwin gasped. “OMG, you’re right! Why have we
never
used it before?”

“Because we don’t have a key, and a deadbolt wouldn’t
even slow a wizard down,” Henry said dryly.

“Did your girlfriend switch sides?” Darwin asked.
Henry pushed him out of the doorway and closed the door. “What? I was only
asking if she was going to be a wizard now.”

Addison glared at him.

I picked up the teddy bear off of Henry’s desk and
looked at him expectantly. “You’re going to either have to send Addie away or
tell her what’s what.”

Henry sighed. “I have a five-year-old son who is in
danger from a drug dealer who attacked me last August.”

Her face turned ashen. “How could you keep this from
me?”

“We rarely do much talking,” he said.

“And whose fault is that?!”

I ignored their arguing, closed my eyes, and focused
on the heavy presence in my mind. “
Gargoyle, can you help us
?” Addison’s
shriek made me open my eyes. The gargoyle was standing before me, plenty close
enough to kill me if he wanted to.

Henry put his hand over Addie’s mouth when she
started shouting something.

“This belongs to Henry’s son, and we’re worried about
his safety. Can you bring him to us?” He pressed his bat nose against the
teddy, sniffed it, and vanished. “At least he isn’t perpetually angry like
Ghost,” I said.

A furious hiss followed my words and we all turned to
see Ghost sitting on my desk. “You’ve been replaced, cat,” Darwin said. Ghost
glared disapprovingly at him.

“What’s going on with Vincent?” I asked. “Remington
said Vincent was talking to Hunt when Vincent was with me.”

Before the cat could make any attempts to answer my
question, I felt a huge weight overcome my own mind, as if I was going into
trance. It was almost like a forced, rough vision. I saw Scott hiding behind a
dumpster in the middle of an alley. Despite the fact that my gargoyle was
perched on the roof of a tall building that made up one wall of the alley, I
could see the child with perfect clarity thanks to the gargoyle’s exceptional
eyesight. It was quite different than human perception, though, as I could see
moving things more clearly than stationary objects and light reflected in a way
I couldn’t really comprehend.

Scott heard a gunshot from one end of the alley and
ran down the other way. I couldn’t stop him. When a black van pulled up to the
mouth of the alley right in front of him, blocking his way out, he shifted into
his jaguar form. Unfortunately, he wasn’t used to it and instead of having
cat-like reflexes and speed, he got tangled up in the clothes. A man got out of
the truck, picked him up, and tossed him into the vehicle.

When the truck sped down the road, the gargoyle
followed, giving me an aerial view of the child’s location. Unfortunately, I
had no clue where they were going.

Just like with a vision, I had to force myself back
into my own mind. I realized my eyes were dry and they stung when I closed
them, as if I hadn’t blinked the entire time I was seeing through the
gargoyle’s eyes.

“That was really creepy,” Darwin said with concern.
“Your eyes turned completely white. I’m assuming you saw something.”

“Yes, and we will get him back.” Ghost was gone, so I
assumed whatever he came to tell me wasn’t as important as saving Henry’s son.
He had, however, left behind something; a small, inch long, metal pin. I
slipped it into my jacket pocket to examine later.

“What did you see?” Henry asked. His arms were around
Addie like she was the one who needed support.

“They got him, but the gargoyle is following them.”

Henry let Addie go, opened the bottom drawer of his
desk, and retrieved a leather sack. “Let’s go.”

“What’s that?”

“My fallback. As a thief, I had to have a way to
defend myself if I got caught.”

“As a what?” Addison asked.

*          *          *

We were already in the truck and heading south when
the gargoyle “called” me. I closed my eyes and gave into the heavy feeling in
my mind. I didn’t recognize the place at first because all I saw was a roof and
grass, but then the gargoyle landed on the room across the street and gave me a
front view of the house Scott was being kept in.

“That son of a bitch,” I said. I heard my words from
a distance and focusing on it pulled me back into myself. I opened my eyes.
“That bastard took Scott back to your place.” Henry sped up until he was
driving as fast as Clara and Professor Nightshade. I pulled the disposable cell
phone out of the console and dialed a number I knew very well.

Darwin was huddled on the floor in the back by the
time we pulled up to Henry’s house. I had only a moment to look around for my
gargoyle because Henry wasn’t wasting any time. Not finding my familiar, we
left Darwin, since he said he couldn’t move, and went to the house. I reached
out to turn the knob, but Henry slammed his foot into the middle of the door.
The door didn’t actually break in half, but it did burst open and one of the
hinges snapped off.

Simon Sinclair was once again standing over the chair
in Henry’s living room, only it was Scott sitting in it. Scott was unconscious,
gagged, and tied up with duct tape and rope. His clothes were torn and covered
in mud from his earlier shifting. Considering the temperature outside, that was
dangerous.

“What did you do to him?” Henry growled. His skin was
darkening and lightening, for he was fighting the change with great difficulty.

“He’s just asleep… for the moment,” Sin said with a
grin. He pulled out a rugged knife and pressed it against Scott’s throat. The
goons were different this time, but they were all dressed in the same black
uniforms, so it wasn’t like I could identify any of them anyway. One of them,
however, was very distinct.

Henry’s claws shifted. “Don’t spook him,” I warned.

“Don’t move a muscle,” Sin said. “Change back or I’ll
slit the kid’s throat before you can get on four paws. I know all about you
fucking were-cats.”

I scoffed. “Do you? Have you killed any?”

“Of course,” he lied. I could see it in his eyes;
that fresh fear. The drug dealer had only recently learned about the
paranormals, and I doubted he really knew anything more than that it existed.

His lie worked in my favor. “Give up the boy. There
is only one way you’re walking out of here, and that’s without a single drop of
blood spilled.”

“He’s not getting away with this,” Henry growled,
struggling harder than ever to hold his person form.”

No, he wasn’t going to get away with it.

“You’re not the one calling the shots here. Now, you,
Sanders… You want the kid free? Get your gun out and shoot Henry.”

“Do it,” Henry said. “Devon, stop playing around and
do it.”

“Alright,” I said, pulling my gun from its harness.
Sin smirked. I pushed my magic into his mind and the minds of his goons, easily
freezing every one of them. I then shot Sinclair in both knees. He hit the
ground screaming and Henry went to his son calmly. The more Sin screamed, the
more Henry’s muscles relaxed, until Sin tried to stab Henry in the back of the
knee. Without looking, Henry kicked Sinclair in the face, effectively giving
the human something new to scream about.

Henry got Scott untied, picked him up, and returned
to my side. “Forget the plan; I want to kill him,” he said.

“I know you do, but this is better.” I heard the
sound of a siren get closer and closer for a minute. “Right on time. Get Scott
settled in the truck and ask Maseré to come on in.”

Having his son in his arms was the only reason he
obeyed instead of attacking Sinclair anyway. Seconds later, the living room
filled with Maseré’s pack, many of which were police officers. They weren’t
local, but police are police and badges are badges. Maseré’s heavy hand patted
my shoulder. “You couldn’t have waited for us? You of all people know it only
complicates matters when a human gets shot.” Contrary to his words, his tone
held no disapproval at all.

I had already explained who Sinclair was on the phone
as we drove here. “Actually, it doesn’t. He knows about paranormals. He’s admitted
to killing cat shifters. Therefore you can do whatever you want to him.”

“Do you have proof he knows about us?”

I released my power over one particular goon and
pointed to him. “The shifter standing right there can testify.”

Said shifter rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. I’ve
been spying on Sin and his operations for nearly a year and now all my work is
down the drain.”

“Who are you working for?” Maseré asked.

“Cadence Temple.”

Maseré sighed. “You are very far out of your
territory, young man, and in quite a bit of trouble.” Even though he was a
powerful, dominant wolf shifter, Maseré would go easy on the younger shifter.

Sinclair, however, was going to suffer, which was
exactly what he deserved.

Maseré patted my shoulder again. “I’m impressed.
Should you ever decide to stop playing around and be a real cop---”

“Don’t you start on that,” I interrupted. One of the
alpha’s wolves growled at me, but Maseré just laughed.

“I’m only teasing. I heard you led the school against
the council and crushed them with only two deaths.”

“Two too many in my opinion, but one of them was Kale
and the other was killed by Grayson, so I’m not particularly wallowing in
regret.” I went outside to find Henry leaning against his truck, still holding
Scott. “You can set him down, you know. Nobody’s going to run up and take him.”