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

were around your cock, you think that was fake? No! I fucking lo—er, like you. Okay? And I’m telling you right now, you have this one chance to make everything right. Don’t, and I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“Problem is, I think you’re full of shit,” I countered, taking another step back, eyes darting to two forms I noticed at the edge of a clump of trees in the park. “Safety? I need to find a way to be safe from you, first of all.”

“You take one more step, and that will be the truest thing you’ve ever said.”

I stared her down, held up the finger, and stepped away. “Steph, didn’t you learn anything from our time dating? Take your ultimatum and shove it.”

Her magic might not have been very powerful during the day, but when she pulled out a taser, I fucking knew better than to delay this any longer than was necessary. My legs were already moving, my arms pumping as I took off in a sprint, propelling myself over a parked car and right into traffic. The taser missed, but a pickup truck almost connected. I fell back, feeling the wind gush by, then took off across the street, hoping to God the cars would stop. A gunshot sounded. A bullet hit a red sedan and caused the driver to swerve, hitting another car. As bad as I felt, I didn’t have time to wait around and check on everyone. Apparently, Steph’s friends were smart enough to not rely on only magic.

How stupid could I be? What had caused me to think it was okay to walk around in public after the previous night? It was beyond me.

I ducked around a deli, glancing around for options, when I saw a blue Volvo come around the corner. Fatiha was driving and waving for me, mouthing what I could only assume was, “Get in!”

Another gunshot went off as she pulled up and popped open the door for me, ducking as the rear passenger window shattered with another shot.

“Quickly,” she hissed.

I didn’t need to be told twice, and threw myself in, legs still behind me as I worked to get the door shut. She slammed a small crystal onto the dash and sat up, pedal to the metal. Another shot hit, and she ducked, then said, “Wards, dammit! Do you know them?”

Without even thinking, I shouted, “Ddiogelu!” and did the hand motion, our car lighting up so that the next two shots that hit a split-second later simply rebounded.

“There we go,” she said, grinning, and laughed as she did another U-turn, went over a curb, and peeled out as we made our way out of there.

81

“Your life isn’t going to be what you thought,” Fatiha said, turning the wheel hard and glancing over. “At this point, you have a choice to make.”

“Live or die?” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder.

“On a basic level, yes. But I mean that you need to commit, or likely die. The third choice is to go over to their side, but then I’d have to kill you, of course.”

I laughed, only to see she wasn’t smiling. Not a joke, apparently.

“You have nothing to worry about,” I said. “Maybe death, but not me switching sides. My aunt was committed. I’m even more so.”

“We’ll see about that.”

A screeching sounded and two cars appeared, closing in on us. Steph wasn’t giving up so easily. What I couldn’t have expected was how well Fatiha handled the drive through the city. She seemed to know every turn, every in and out of public parking lots, and was quick at the wheel.

In the parking lot of a church, the enemy cars drew close enough that they opened fire, seemingly aimed for our tires, but Fatiha drove right through a gate, came peeling out on a road where we almost flipped while a truck swerved to avoid us, and then we were going down a hill, turning again and again, and there was no sign of them.

We also didn’t seem to be headed for the house. “Where are we?”

“Taking you on a tour,” she replied, and winked.

I shifted in my seat to see the Capitol Building in the distance, a sign that said 14th Street, and then Dupont Circle.

“This is… I mean…”

“Yes, I’m taking you to see the White House.”

“I took a walk, saw some of the city.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, waving the comment off. “We need to be somewhere public. Right about now they’re going to look for you around the house, and as you might have figured by their use of guns, their magic is weak during the day.”

“Mine isn’t.”

She nodded. “Observant. That’s the problem with dark magic, even more so with shadow magic. During the day, they aren’t much better than common criminals, trying to shoot up the city. If we’re in a well-guarded, heavily populated area, our chances of survival rise drastically.”

That made sense. “But what about the car and the ward on it? Couldn’t we just hide in the car, or drive through whatever they throw at us?”

“Wards are temporary,” she replied. “The ones on the house are amplified by the same power that will allow your aunt’s Life Tree to work. Out here, not so much. A few good shots, and your ward breaks.”

“A public place it is, then.” I sat back, watching the tall buildings as we drove closer. D.C. was unlike anything I’d experienced back in Oregon. While Portland was a big city and had the most amazing bookstore, it was like apples and oranges to D.C. Soon, we were walking along the area next to the old war building. We took a tour of some apartment across the way that held significance but didn’t matter to me in the slightest at the moment, and then ate at the restaurant on top of the W, where we had a great view of the Treasury building and, past it, the White House.

She ordered meatloaf for herself and insisted I try the crab cakes. We