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

their minions after you. But if it happens,” she selected another weapon, this time a taser. “Try that.”

“You’re fucking with me, right? I’m the Protector, and you give me a blade and a taser?”

“The blade should only be used when against the Shades or a Legend,” she said as she put on her helmet, one that modified for her as she did so to accommodate her horns. “Keep that in mind.”

“This isn’t fair,” I said.

“Level the fuck up, buttercup, and we’ll get you better weapons.”

“And us riding around on this?” I asked, putting my helmet on and climbing on behind her. “That won’t be a bit conspicuous?”

“Like my horns and Red’s cloak, masked to appear normal—well, still badass, but the magical elements won’t be seen by normal people. Now shut up, grab hold, and let’s ride.”

I obliged and she revved up the bike, kicked a section of the wall that opened a ramp leading to street level for us, and then we were off. We went with such force that I thought I’d go flying back, so I quickly grabbed hold of her—only to realize I was clutching boob, but didn’t want to let go for fear of becoming roadkill.

“A bit lower,” she said. “As much as that turns me on, you’re squeezing the hell out of them.”

“Sorry!” I shouted, only then realizing her voice had come through the helmet. She turned and I readjusted so that I was able to hold onto her sides instead, and she laughed.

“Next time you want to cop a feel, start gentle and then try the kinky pain stuff.”

“You’re into that?”

“How would I know until you try?” She laughed and then we skidded past several cars, ignoring the red light and flying through the city. Soon we passed Disneyland on our left, the convention center not far off, leading me to think about Chris again and wonder how he was doing. The idea that we’d never be able to hang out again was really irking me. We’d been best friends since meeting at a Baskin-Robbins when we were ten. I was celebrating my birthday with my parents because I didn’t have friends yet. He gave me a bouncy ball he got from one of the machines and then asked if he could celebrate with us. From then on we’d been inseparable until college, when he went off to spend a lot of time with his various girlfriends.

Today the guy would probably be wandering around looking for me. Maybe calling my parents to ask if they’d heard from me, or asking around with my two exes, which would be embarrassing as hell except for the fact that I wouldn’t see either of them again, either.

“You okay back there?” Pucky asked.

“I’ll be fine,” I replied, though my voice conveyed otherwise.

“First time on a bike, huh?” she asked, misunderstanding my discomfort. “Remember, Pucky rhymes with lucky. So…”

“That’s supposed to be comforting?” I asked, then laughed. “A rhyme?”

“In case you don’t know, rhymes have been making the world a better place as far back as I can remember, and that’s a damn long time.” She pulled onto the freeway, and now at least we were at a steady forward momentum so I could relax slightly. “Er, not that long.”

“Is this one of those situations where I’m not supposed to ask how old you are?”

She groaned, then said, “Let’s just say I’m nineteen. Nineteen, but have been that for a long time.”

“Right, okay.”

“Does it really matter?” she asked irritably. “That’s how it is for us. Once we take over the role, we don’t really age. It’s all a blur, in a sense—the years go by, we fight, we survive. We watch new stories come up around us or the original versions of our mythology, and it’s all interesting and very fascinating, but the key is keeping the balance in check.”

“The balance between good and evil,” I said, to clarify.

“Simplistically speaking,” she replied. “But as I said before, the agents think they’re acting in humanity’s best interest. Once they learned who we were and which attacks Legends were responsible for—mostly in the form of what later was wiped to look like natural disasters—they made war against all fairy tales, not believing us when we told them the truth of it. Since some Legends spun their own yarn then offered to help hunt and destroy the rest of our kind, agents set up a temporary truce with them much like the CIA does with criminals to take down larger gangs or mafia bosses. It was backwards, but in some ways I understand. They’re scared of magic, which is one reason we try not to harm them. We don’t want to become the monsters they believe us to be.”

“And the Legends? What’s their excuse?”

Silence followed for a bit, and then she said, “Some are evil. Others have been warped… and some are lost souls who just need to find their way home.”

“So killing them isn’t a good thing either. This is going to be tough.”

“Is it?” She laughed. “I wasn’t aware you were such a killer, or that you solved so many problems back home with death.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Right. You play video games, so assume everything can be handled by ending a life, once you learn what’s going on here.” She sighed. “We handle each Legend on a case-by-case basis, using the intel in their files. The evil ones are usually tagged as ‘kill,’ except for a few in extraordinary circumstances. The ones who were warped get tagged with a mix of capture or kill—and sometimes a capture ends up becoming a kill due to circumstances. The lost souls… those we try to capture.” She sighed again. “Sometimes it’s tough, yes, but the thing is, they’ll usually try to fight with Shades. They don’t want to die, and summoning Shades uses energy. If you’ve defeated their Shades and the Legend’s energy is depleted, you can usually capture them or they’ll be pulled back to their home base. Some are incredibly