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

“Well, you said something about assholes, which he overheard and replied to, so…”

“Fine,” I held up my one free hand in surrender. “You win. Now, I guess we better get back. The runes have me wondering, especially now since…” I trailed off, realizing I hadn’t told her everything about the dream.

“You saw something, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “She was there. Glitonea. And somehow, it had to do with the runes.”

“Shit, Jericho. Come on,” Steph was pulling me along, the urgency that had somehow been lost on me now returning with a vengeance.

“She found a way into my dream,” I argued. “It’s not like she’s breaking out.”

“For all we know, that could be the same thing.”

Damn, she had a point.

I drank the coffee faster than I would have liked, considering how hot it was, but paused briefly to pull my hand free and dip into a corner store. A moment later, I was back out with a box of condoms, holding it high with a grin. She shook her head, reminding me how silly that had been considering our situation. A group of young college girls walked by, giggling, further making me feel like an ass.

Then again, what did I care? Ensuring I didn’t create any little gargoyle or witch babies anytime soon was high on the list of priorities as far as I was concerned.

Soon we were back, my coffee cup on and condoms on the kitchen counter, and we were pounding up the stairs and going right for Glitonea’s prison room. We paused at the door and shared a look of worry as we caught our breath.

“Wait,” I said as Steph reached for the door. Instead of going that route, I created a slit for us to see through, then several more, while converting the material between to thick glass, only a couple of holes for us to be able to converse through.

Glitonea stood in the middle of the room, light swirling around her nude body, runes lit up. Her eyes were closed, brow furrowed. After a moment of this, she cursed loudly and slammed herself into the small area we could see, staying there with eyes toward us.

“What the fuck do you want?” she demanded.

“To slit your throat,” Steph growled, but then took a step back with an apologetic glance my way.

“And you?” Glitonea said, eyes darting over to me, glowing a slight green around the edges of her pupils. “Would you see me dead, or…” She slid up along the glass, apparently floating or sticking to the wall, I couldn’t tell, until her breasts were pressed against the viewing slits. “Is this more to your liking?”

“Let’s cut this bitch,” Steph muttered, then turned around, hand to her mouth. A shadow darted about her.

“You need to leave,” I hissed to Steph, then went to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “She’s getting to you, somehow. Go.”

Steph nodded, hand in a fist, and looked at me with dark eyes, mouth moving as if about to say something mean. Instead, she briskly trotted off, leaving me alone outside this room with one of the Nine.

“Quit it,” I said, waving my hand and making the viewing points change so that only her face was visible. “Whatever you’re doing to Steph, and whatever you’re trying with me. It won’t work.”

“Is that so?” she floated away from the wall, hovering there. “And here I was thinking you thought me helpless, hopeless… Silly man.”

“I’m not here to test you,” I said, and then stepped forward, letting the walls wrap around me, engulfing me so that, when I released the wall in front, I was in the room with her.

“What then?” she asked, eyeing me skeptically.

“You offered yourself to me before…” I let the words linger.

She held out her arms, completely nude, and a sight to behold. Those runes covered her entire body, it would seem.

“Turn around,” I commanded.

“I like where this is going.” She spun, hands on the wall, and stuck her ass out as if I was seriously going to take her right there. If not for my team and the way they took care of my horny post-teen needs, I might have been damn tempted. Instead, I used my transmorph ability as I had with the spell book, committing her body—but actually the runes on it—to a sort of mental scanner, as I did with the front.

“Do whatever you want to me, big…” Her words trailed off as I stepped back, replacing the wall. A shout of frustration and surprise followed me out of there, but I was gone, already pacing down the hall to find Steph.

“What—” she started, but I had her arm in mine, creating a walkway down. “The runes?”

“The runes,” I replied, and we descended.

“But why?”

“I have new pieces of information I can use.”

The screen floated near my head, only visible to me, already moving along her body, taking the runes and mapping them out on a grid that didn’t require the image of her flesh. As much as it was a nice sight to behold, I didn’t need it.

I had my team, and now I had a mapped-out display of her runes, one I could compare with those down below. One way or another, I was going to figure out how to use this other form of magic.

107

Walking into the foundation area where we had discovered the runes carved into the floor earlier, I was hit by how much colder it felt before. This didn’t make sense for being in D.C. in the summer, let alone an insulated area like this.

But I had a good idea why.

“Glitonea,” I said, glancing around, eyes setlting on a dim, blue glow from around one of the stone pillars.

“How, though?” Steph asked.

I shook my head. “Beats me. A different sort of magic, right? I mean, if I can use my transmutation magic when the ‘magic’ is shut off, and the magic that shuts it off is rune-based, it would make sense that other rune-based magic could still work.