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

moment, then turned to me and said, in all seriousness, “I’ve never felt so much bliss in my life. That was perfection.”

What a great moment. Except for the fact that then her eyes went wide and she said, “Fuck me!”

“Um…” I wasn’t sure if this was her way of asking, but turned to see a red light blinking next to one of the screens. She pulled up her panties, ran over to it, and hit the little light.

The screen turned on and there was an older man staring at us, long black hair tied behind his head and very tanned, maybe ethnic, skin.

“Mowgli,” she said, voice cracking. “I have the Protector here, but haven’t heard from R—”

“They got her,” he cut in. “They have Red.”

It took a moment for Pucky to digest this, but then she looked at me briefly, waited for my nod, and said, “We’re going after her. We’re going to get her back. We were hoping to get you trained, at least a bit. But we can’t let them have Red. She’s too important to us… to me.”

“I agree,” I said.

“Then we have to do the ritual. Now. Right here.”

“Why do I not like the sound of that?”

“Maybe because you know it’s not as simple as a handjob,” she said, an awkward smile taking over as if she were trying to laugh but was too worried to do so.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her, going to put an arm around her. She stepped out of my reach though, and held up a hand.

“Just… give me a second,” she said. “Sorry. It’s… it’s not you, but I’m blaming myself for this. Fuck, I should’ve never let her run off. I…”

“You’re blaming yourself,” I said, “because you had to save me.” She didn’t confirm it, but the look in her eyes was enough. Last week, my biggest concern was turning in an essay on ‘The Lottery’ for English class, and finding a nude model for an artwork assignment. Everything had changed. “You did the right thing. Because we’re going to save her, and we’re going to ensure the Myths never have to worry again.”

She smiled, took a dagger from a large jade box, and turned to me. “Thank you,” she said, then plunged the dagger into my heart.

7

Pain coursed through my body as I took a breath from the floor, mind torn between who I knew I was, and some ancient sense of being that was now inside of me. There was a cold wind, it seemed, and I was still in the safe house but also not.

Rolling green hills flew by beneath me, knights on horseback riding to meet an army, and when I looked down I was on a dragon. Two sides met and a clash of purple fog hit, then all of that was replaced with a man on a tall tower who was looking out over other armies fighting—Turkish, perhaps—and men and women being pinned up on long spears. Again with the purple fog, and now I was in the eighteen hundreds, slicing into monsters and dark forms like I’d seen before, an army of fairy tales at my back.

Then it was all gone. I was on the safe house floor, clutching at my chest and screaming. With a jolt, the pain stopped and I lay there, focused on my heavy breathing and the sound of someone else’s breathing in there with me.

It all came back—Pucky, the knife. Had she tried to kill me and failed?

“What’s happening to me?” I asked, forcing myself to a seated position, grabbing the stool behind me for support. A glance down showed my shirt in one piece, though unbuttoned. There were lines at the edge of my chest. Pulling my shirt aside, I looked down to find a series of what looked like Celtic tattoos starting at my heart and spiraling out.

Pucky took a step away, the clean blade in her hands hanging at her side. “The old you is dead. You are reborn Aek Nan Patrum, or Protector.”

“Kinda failed to mention that one, didn’t you?” I shot back. “As in, are you saying I actually died? Or… metaphorically?”

“Obviously you’re still alive,” she said, rolling her eyes and putting the dagger—totally clean—back into its jade box. “But… not in the same way. You sort of exist between here and the spirit realm. Avalontaire, or Avalon some call it, though that’s not really accurate as that’s an actual place you can go and this is… different. The spirits of past protectors are with you, helping you.”

“Like I’m possessed by their ghosts?”

“No, no.” She frowned, glancing at the screen this Mowgli guy had just been on. “We really don’t have time right now.”

“Help me along here so we can get to it, then. Tell me what the fuck is happening.”

“Simple version, it’s more like their energy, not their spirits. You still have to train, but those lower level Shades you fought—”

“Shades?”

“Yeah, like dark versions of Fae. Shades. You fought them, and because you were already chosen even though you weren’t fully the Protector yet, because the enemy chose to take you to the Fae realm, you had the energy—or some of it, and help.”

“I…” There wasn’t anything to say, really. She was either full of shit or not, and I had to believe the latter here.

“Here, let me show you,” she said, looking around. At one of the walls, she opened another screen and then took a blue orb from its base, scanned me, and watched as the monitor showed me, along with two green orbs next to my head. “Upgrades are small,” she explained, “at first. Later, when you are able to take down a lot of Shades at once, it’s a different story. When you eventually go up against a Legend, winning means Legendary Status, a whole new type of leveling up.”

“Leveling up?” I scoffed.

She turned, very serious. “It’s been around since before Arthur, and—”

“As in King Arthur?”

“A Protector.” She turned back to the screen, hiding