Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

safe, but with magic like theirs, getting too close will expose you for sure.” Hekate

“Almara,” Chris said, and I turned to realize the third, mostly silent, witch, had one of her hands down his pants. The fact was mostly hidden by her robe and long sleeve, but not enough. At my look, Chris tried to cover the fact, and shook his head while hissing, “Not now.”

“Looks like his team is as frisky as yours, huh?” Pucky said to me with a wink.

I chuckled.

“One level below, I’d say,” Mirna interjected. “Otherwise, one of you would be—”

“This isn’t the time or place,” Hekate said, and then waved her hand. In a flash, all of our voices were cut off. I even tried to say something, and no sound came out.

We stared at her in horror, and she smiled back smugly. Her hand went to the door to prop it open slightly and have a look.

“We might be in the clear,” she whispered, “but can’t go risking it with you all—shit!”

She pulled back, eyes wide, and quickly scanned us all. “Okay, here goes nothing.” Eyes roaming over us, she nodded. “Mirna, Alrmara, you two go out and pass them, pretend you’re on your way to sparring practice or something of the sort, and maybe they’ll have just assumed it was you over here.”

We all shared a nervous glance, then moved aside as best we could to let them exit. The silent one had to pull her hand out of Chris’s pants to do so, and used that same hand to blow him a kiss.

He gave me a ‘what can I do’ sort of look, and grinned. Of course, he loved it.

As soon as they exited, a voice spoke up. Husky, but definitely feminine, and with some sort of accent. “The time for inaction is over, gather your coven.”

“Yes, of course,” Mirna’s voice sounded, soft and muffled.

Hekate frowned, staring at the floor with her hand on the door. It didn’t strike me though as a real problem until I noticed the glow coming from her hand, moving along the edges of the door, filling in the cracks.

A look from Red and then Pucky showed it wasn’t the time to make jokes or even ask what was going on. Sharon was on the opposite side of the room from me and her eyes had a clouded look, one I recognized from our brief training sessions. Push back the shadow, my internal voice urged, sounding much like her voice in that moment.

And indeed, there was a darkness around the glow, as if the light from Hekate and a shadow power were fighting each other, each working for domination regarding those doors. I stared at the darkness, watching it shift, change shape, seep through… and I started to walk toward it, pushing my way to the doors.

Red’s hand met my chest and I swatted it away, mind reeling with sensations of pain, anger at watching everyone I loved suffer. I froze, closing my eyes and remembering all I’d learned, hand going to my chest.

I had a fucking spirit animal, or familiar or whatever it was called, living in me. A lion with wings. How did some shadow bullshit hope to touch me? No way.

Clenching my jaw, I stepped back. A smile from Sharon, though forced, showed me she had felt the same calling, and overcome it.

And just like that, the shadows were gone.

Hekate turned back to us, sweat on her brow, but also relief.

“Who is it?” Elisa asked, clearly sensing the main part of the danger zone.

“Not one of ours,” Hekate replied. “And apparently the idea of us being chaotic no longer matters. They’re calling in all possible forces.”

“Must have an inkling that we’ve returned,” I said.

Elisa cringed. “Actually, I’ve been wondering about that. If they have any way of knowing, or sensing.”

“I wouldn’t assume so,” Hekate said. “This might be in relation to the pushback from the normies. When they found out their lead agent and many of his followers were actually Legends or gods in disguise, a lot of the agencies put in place to hunt our kind went into war mode. Now they’re trying to exterminate us without worrying about the general populace finding out. They don’t care, since Ra and his followers haven’t exactly been discrete.”

“Meaning they’re going to try and exterminate us as quickly as possible,” Pucky said, a sour look on her face.

“Exactly.”

“But if we can defeat Ra and them first?” I asked.

“It’ll help, but not in the grand scheme of things.” Red approached the door now, pulling her cloak around her. “We’d best get moving, because they’re not going to give us time to sit around.”

“One second,” Hekate said, listening at the door again.

“Myths are likely dying out there,” Red went on. I’m not going to stand around hiding—”

“Don’t make me silence you again,” Hekate hissed. A moment of silence followed, during which Red’s cheeks took on a flush that could have almost matched her cloak. She was just starting to look like she would explode, when the door swung outward, revealing Chris’s other two witches.

“Clear,” Mirna said, and then nodded.

“Who was it?” Hekate asked.

Mirna hesitated, then grimaced. “Fucking guess.”

“No…”

“What?” Pucky asked. “Who?”

I was leaning forward in interest by that point as well.

“Think of one bitch you hear about in all the myths and whatnot, who would you assume?” Hekate asked.

I pursed my lips, then stood straight. “Medusa!”

“What?” Elisa scoffed. “That’s just… no, she came over to our side a long time ago.”

“Oh… Pandora?”

Elisa just shook her head this time, everyone turning back to Hekate. Yeah, I gave up.

“One hint—mother of the underworld, they called her.” Hekate looked to me, hopefully, but I was drawing a blank.

Pucky moved her mouth, but I didn’t get it. “Persephone,” Pucky whispered my way.

“Ah, Persephone. Didn’t she escape the underworld, and...” I scratched my head. “There’s a bit of a mumbo-jumbo thing going on in my brain where I’m getting the mythology and the video game stuff confused.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hekate said. “Because we’re talking