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

himself at me as shots rang out, two taking him in the side as he blocked them from hitting me.

“This was never what I wanted,” he said. “You… you can make a difference. Get to Excalibur…”

Again the cars swerved, and then Peter’s shadow was there, grabbing Hook and yanking him out of the door, throwing him under the car next to us so that he was finished. The car then swerved and went off the freeway, falling as three white swans took to the sky.

I was confused, shaken, and sick of this shit. Taking one of the pistols from a fallen pirate, I ran to the open door, hung on, and opened fire on the car where I could still see Peter. Their windshield shattered, but before I could fire another round Red was there, leaping across and entering the car, immediately grappling with Peter. It made the most sense—her without any darkness, at least according to what Pucky had said earlier.

“We’ve got what we need,” Pucky said, then shouted, “Red, get out of there! Elisa, tell the driver to meet us at the bottom of the next off-ramp.”

“On it,” Elisa said, moving to the back corner and bracing herself as she hit her swan necklace, apparently using it as a comm device.

Red had Peter at the door, slamming his face with her fist, and then pulling out her dagger. But he was fast, leaping out and using his shadow to latch onto the car so that he was pulled around and came back at it from the rear, holding on as the shadow attempted to attack Red. She wasn’t having it though. She lunged back in, caught the driver with her blade, and then in a flash of red was back out and coming at us, her cloak guiding her into the door of the van as the enemy car turned, flipped, and went slamming into the vehicle in front of it.

We were swerving to get off the freeway, carnage in our wake as more cars crashed, then all of us holding on as we were off the freeway, turning down the ramp, and finally coming to a stop at the bottom of an underpass.

“Everyone alive?” Pucky asked, hopping out to help us down. “Shit, I feel like an anal dildo. Used and dirty.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Red said. “But… that analogy is disgusting. Come up with new material.”

Pucky rolled her eyes. “I was the one who ran in shouting about us needing to get out here. The attack was clearly an attempt to get the Protector out in the open, so they could launch an ambush. Dammit!”

“Pucky, stop,” Elisa said.

“No, it’s—”

“No, stop!” Elisa took her by the shoulders, staring at her intently. “You really think that’s all they would’ve sent if it was an ambush? No. Did they hope to get him and us? Of course, but even the attack on HQ wasn’t their objective. All of this was a distraction.”

“Wh—what?”

“I think she’s right,” Red said. “Hook, he said something about Excalibur, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Well then, we know where they’re going,” Elisa said, and tapped her necklace. “Mowgli.”

“Here,” he replied.

“Change of plans. The attack—”

“A distraction,” he said. “We figured it out when nobody else arrived from their side. The question is where they’ll really attack.”

“We have the answer,” she replied. “The convention center where we found Jack.”

“How can you be sure?”

“The sacrifice, if they’re really going to do this—today’s the last day of the convention. It makes sense for the numbers they’d need of both Normies and Myths, and with our focus on the attack here, they’d be able to make a move without us noticing. Or would have. Plus, Hook… he had a shadow on him, but when he finally broke free at the end he mentioned Excalibur.”

“Which will be at the con,” Red said at her side, finally catching on.

“It is?” I asked. “I mean, the Excalibur?”

“The essence of it we’d used to find you,” Pucky said, her eyes going wide as she too started putting all the pieces together. “They won’t be able to harness the real sword without it. But we can be certain, track it once it’s whole, with… this.” She reached into my pocket, pulling out the stone I’d been using for upgrades. “It was part of the original sword, taken from the stone that King Arthur pulled Excalibur from, imbued with magic by Merlin himself.”

“Well… fuck,” Elisa said, very uncharacteristically, while Pucky accessed a screen from the stone and then confirmed, “Nothing yet, meaning we still have a chance to beat them to it.”

“I’ll send teams,” Mowgli said. “And notify anyone near the booth to protect the essence.”

“We’ll go first,” Elisa replied, turning to see our car already pulling around toward us. “You’ll need to relocate HQ so send who you can, but we’ll take care of this.”

He paused, then said, “Agreed.”

Elisa closed her necklace, and gestured to the car door, which had just opened. We had our mission to get to, and it was taking us back to where it all started.

22

Driving past Disneyland, I was reminded of how innocent I’d once been. How some stories painted a much rosier version of the reality, and of the bastards we were going up against.

“Why there?” I asked, seeing the convention center rise before us. “So many people… what, just to hurt them?”

“Sacrifice,” Red said, scowling at the sight. “As Elisa told Mowgli… if they’re really trying to raise a Lost Soul, there’s a high price.”

Elisa nodded. “With so many of them in one place, of the exact type that will see this as a show and whoever they bring back as another part of the con… yes. But there’s more—where else could people look upon magic items and embrace the sight of them? Where else would people volunteer for the sacrifice, thinking it’s part of a show?”

We were let out of the car and then I was with the three ladies, walking back into LegendFest much like I had on