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

As fear warned, the next location ended up being a dud. We had driven around again, all of us quiet, feeling lost. We barely registered hope as the magic trace showed up again. This time, it took us to a corner in southeast D.C. where three homeless guys were shoving each other around next to makeshift tents, but otherwise nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We found ourselves a hole-in-the-wall bar and snuck the gargoyles in, determined to make up for it with a round.

“Maybe we should get you back to sleep,” Riland mumbled between drinks.

“At this rate…” I took a swig, eyes moving across Aerona and Megha with the book. Other nights I could see us going out to bars for fun, maybe having quickies or a quick tug in the bathroom, as was the nature of our relationship. But not that night.

“Maybe she’s fighting this war for us,” Steph offered, clearly trying to be the glass half-full type.

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, and by the end of this next beer, she’ll have defeated Fatiha and figured out how to handle the Nine. Cheers to that!”

“We can hope.” Steph shot me a glare at my sarcasm, making me feel like a dick.

“Sorry,” I said. “It would be great if whatever she’s doing were helpful, but it would also be helpful if she could find a way to communicate that to us.”

“At least if she were fighting against our people, we would have heard about it, right?” Kordelia offered. “I mean, the Order, or the good ones anyway. Galahad would notify us.”

I nodded. “You have a point. Maybe we should go get some rest after all.”

She grinned. “The best sleep you’ll ever have, though, is when you can trust someone else is off fighting for your life.”

“Or freedom,” I said, thinking about stories my dad had told about his brother, my uncle Ben, deployed for much of my childhood to Iraq and Afghanistan, depending on the years. As little as my dad had ever offered me, the idea that we only enjoyed our freedom because of the sacrifices of others had certainly stuck.

How funny, then, that now I was part of that force that fought so others could relax. If the people of the world knew of the evil arrayed against them, would they ever be able to sleep again? Not likely.

“Huh,” Aerona said from where she stood next to Megha.

“That doesn’t seem right.” Megha looked up from her magic maps, motioning me over. “I might be wrong, but… do you recognize this spot?”

I scooted close to her, eyeing the map, then blinked. “Gertrude’s house.”

“For some reason, Yenifer was either just there, or is there right now.”

“And if she’s there, I’d bet it’s something bigger than a fleeting moment’s worth of fighting,” Aerona said. We all seemed to agree, because we were out of there and back in the cars in a heartbeat.

Megha gave the directions to the drivers with a flip of her wrist, and I sat back, watching as we turned in the direction of my aunt’s old house. It wasn’t long before we were passing through Adams Morgan and then on our way past some old residences.

“Why there?” I finally asked, glancing around.

“Well,” Ebrill leaned forward, wings cramped behind her. “My guess is as good as any, but I’d assume this means that whoever’s controlling her is aware of us.”

“Or of Gertrude, at least,” Kordelia said.

The best way to find out, of course, was to get to the house. I only hoped she was still around so we could get some answers. We got the good news and the bad at once, since when we arrived the house had flames taking over one side of it, two fire trucks and a fire engine out front, and flashes of magic going off on the rooftop.

A crowd had gathered, making our progress impossible. I got out and ran over to join the throng, just as a large piece of stone tumbled down from the roof and into the yard. We were far enough off that nobody could’ve gotten hurt, but the crowd let out a shriek.

“What happened?” I asked the closest guy—a hipster, complete with beard and tight jeans.

“Don’t know, guy,” he replied, not even looking my way, eyes still focused on the flames. “But, the strangest thing… the water is, like, bouncing off the air before even hitting the fire.”

“Oh, fuck.”

He turned his eyes on me, but I was already off, ducking back into the car.

“What happens if everyone figures out that place is magic?” I asked.

“No idea,” Steph replied, apparently taking the question because she had been around in our world the most. Well, her and Megha. Glancing in Megha’s direction, I saw that she simply shook her head.

“Great. First things first, we can assume Yenifer is still there. We need to join her.”

“Easier said than done,” Riland said.

“We still have the cat-cave entrance, right?” Aerona said.

“Bat, not cat.” I chuckled. “It’s worth a try.”

I told the driver to go around the back. I glanced up from time to time to see with relief that the fight was still in progress. As backward as that sounds, if there was still fighting, at least that meant Yenifer was still likely around.

We reached the spot and I opened the way, so that we were soon through the strange passage and pulling into the house’s garage. From there I hopped out, hands to the wall, and cringed. Since I could sense the house, it was almost like I could feel the pain of the flames. This was so much more than a house, and I felt like I’d betrayed its walls by staying elsewhere.

I’ve got you, my thoughts went out to the building, and I went about fixing the situation. First things first—fire needs oxygen. Quickly shifting the walls to close in on themselves, I created a situation where the areas on fire had no oxygen, where the