Page 5 of Hidden By the Gargoyle

I couldn’t look away from him as he reached back and sheathed the sword over his shoulder. I wondered what sort of spell would allow him to do that. Was it a real sword, spelled to a sheath? Or something else?

When he got to the car, his wings had disappeared into the back of his shirt, leaving tatters of the fabric behind. His horns were shrinking, but his skin was still grey, and he was still close to a foot taller than he was in his human form.

Dax gave the trees surrounding the road one last look before he opened the driver’s side door and swung his body inside.

The SUV rocked hard when his weight hit the seat. Goddess, in his stone form, he must weigh a ton.

He buckled his seatbelt and put the SUV in gear before he spoke again.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

His voice was so calm. My heart was still pounding in my chest and my palms were sweating, yet he sounded as though he hadn’t done anything more taxing than take a stroll down the road.

When I didn’t answer, he looked at me, his eyes once again dark blue and nearly purple. “Ally?”

I opened my mouth, but my throat was too tight to speak. I cleared it and said, “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

He nodded, his attention already back on the road.

“You need to call your aunt,” he said.

My brain wasn’t functioning completely yet because I didn’t quite comprehend why I would need to call Aunt Minnie.

“Ally,” he repeated my name, his voice soft but firm.

It was a tone I’d never heard before. I turned my eyes to him, blinking rapidly as I tried to focus.

“Call Minerva. She needs to know that Sommerton attacked and that you were his main target. That means he knows that you’re now the key instead of Sela.”

That gentle tone got through the shock faster than it would have if he started barking orders at me.

I nodded and bent down to grab my purse. I pulled my phone out of the front pocket, trying to ignore the way my hands were shaking, and called Minerva.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice breathless. She must have had a vision of Sommerton attacking us.

“I’m fine,” I assured her, even though my voice was trembling as much as my hands.

“I think it’s safe to say that Sommerton knows what you are,” she said.

“He was using dark magic,” I blurted out. “And it’s already begun to infect him.”

Minerva was silent for a moment. “How do you know?”

Her tone was careful, and it made my stomach twist. Had she not seen it in her vision?

“His eyes were black and the veins around his eyes were black as well,” I answered.

“Dammit,” she murmured. “This is not good.”

I knew that, but I wasn’t going to say it aloud.

“I’ll have to come tomorrow and reinforce the wards around the resort.”

I stiffened, which got Dax’s attention. “Should I come back home?”

“No, no, no,” my aunt replied immediately. “You stay with Dax. I only want to make sure that the wards will handle anything that Edgar might throw at it since he’s using dark magic.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, the protection amulet and spell you put on Dax’s SUV worked extremely well. Nothing got through.”

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