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

and salami combo, then cringing at a sip of the kombucha, I nodded. My mind was working to process her words, my emotions not able to hide how annoyed I was at the idea of anyone ever hurting her. But I let it go, instead focusing on the here and now.

“Okay. We might have time. Then… we…?” I was at a loss.

“Visit Rianne? See if she has any answers for us?”

I nodded and reached out for her hand.

“One sec.” She engulfed a massive bite of sushi, chewed it awkwardly for a few seconds before swallowing, and took my hand. “Ready.”

Taking her hand, I closed my eyes and reached out to that magical world. Before, it had only been accessible via dreams, but my understanding now was that it was connected to our world again.

Only, nothing came.

My eyes opened to see Steph staring at me, her lips pressed together so that they formed a thin line. Her left eye twitched.

“I need to try something,” she said, and then stood, taking a step away from me. With a lick of her lips, she narrowed her eyes, focusing.

Nothing happened.

“Are you…” I started, but her look of frustration caused me to stop.

Again, she focused. Again, nothing happened.

When her eyes burst open, she let out a loud “FUCKKK!” and “SHITTT!” followed by throwing her hands forward in what would have otherwise been a fireball. As it was, nothing happened.

“Shit,” I said. “You…”

“Nothing.” She turned to me, shoulders back, nostrils flared and breathing heavily. “No fire, no Wraith Knights. What the fuck did you do?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“Well you sure did something, because it’s gone, they—they’re gone!”

I threw my hands up, about to argue, but instead ran them through my hair, standing there like that for a moment, hands on head, thinking.

“Could it be the return of Avalon?” I asked.

“No.”

“No?”

She scoffed. “J… We just tried to connect to Avalon, and it didn’t work. Oh, shit,” she put her hand to her chest as if pained, “what if this is them? The enemy doing this?”

“Fuck me.” I blinked, rubbed at my eyes, and knelt, putting my hand to the floor. Before, I had been able to sense when the house was under attack. Oddly, when I shifted the floor around with my transmutation power, it worked. “I can’t sense anyone attacking, and I’m still able to use magic.”

This time, she looked like she was going to be sick. “So maybe… since my powers were corrupted by darkness, kind of… maybe only mine are gone?”

I indicated the stone gargoyles, shaking my head, then turned to Shisa who was eyeing us with its wide orbs of eyes. Not giving us any answers, though. Steph was staring at me, hands clutched to her chest and biting her lip as if she expected me to come up with an answer.

“If we’re being attacked, we need to know,” I said, then turned back to Shisa. “Can you… sniff out any magic that might be affecting us?”

Shisa jumped off the bed, walked to the door, and glanced around before continuing.

“That’s our plan?” Steph asked.

“Until we come up with a better one? Yeah. I can’t sense anything, but maybe Shisa can, or maybe there is an attack and at least we’ll be able to find a clue, somehow.”

I took her hand and we followed along, moving toward the back staircase that I had made while changing things around. It led down to the basement, and we kept on until we were in a large room with ancient weapons but not much else. I marveled at an especially cool double-sided axe, but turned to see Shisa moving along the walls, clearly looking for something.

“While we wait,” I said, eyeing Steph. “Back there, when you couldn’t access… them…”

“The Wraith Knights.”

“Yes. You seemed pretty shook up about it.”

“Is it ‘shook’ or ‘shaken’?” She forced a grin, clearly trying to avoid the question. When I folded my arms, she sighed. “There’s a bit of a story there.”

“We don’t know how long we have, and… it’s not like we know what else to do in the meantime.”

Eyeing me a moment longer, she nodded, then glanced over to the wall. “Make us a bench to sit on, at least.”

I chuckled as I obliged, loving that I had the power. Only, as soon as the wall moved out to form the bench, Shisa growled and darted into an opening he had found. Steph and I shared a look of excitement. Putting her story on hold, I made the opening larger and we followed Shisa in to find a drop off that led to darkness below. A growl, and Shisa fell.

“No!” I shouted, reaching with one hand and using the other to grab the wall and morph whatever was down there to grab him. Only, nothing happened.

“What?” Steph asked.

“It’s not… part of the house. Down there.”

“So?” She leaned over, kneeling at the edge to see better. “Doesn’t your power work on rock and whatnot?”

“It should,” I replied with a frown. A look around revealed stone, maybe the foundation upon which the house was built. Parts of it had crumbled away, likely due to my shifting of the house numerous times. When I tried to adjust it, though, nothing happened. “Shisa, you okay?”

A flash of light reflected as something moved, followed closely by what sounded like a grunt.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Steph said.

“Still, we’re going down.”

“How?”

I glanced around, then back at the walls behind us. While I couldn’t adjust the rocks, I had an idea. Hand on the wall, I made the whole wall transmorph to move out and form a stairway leading down.

“After you, my lady.” I gestured, then laughed at her annoyed look. “Joking, joking.”

Holding her hand behind me, I took the lead, adjusting the stairs slightly as my first step made me worried about slipping and falling. On the third step, there was a vibration and then, halfway to the next, a loud booming sound.

“Outside, I think,” Steph said.

It was followed by more of those booming sounds, and