Page 52 of Let Go My Gargoyle
With Trennon on one side and Maria on the other, Sofia said, “Let’s go,” and together they walked down the alley until Maria pointed to their destination.
There weren’t any guards posted outside, which Maria whispered wasn’t surprising. They wouldn’t want to take the chance of battling in a place where humans could see them.
Sofia threw back her shoulders and marched toward the nondescript door Maria said led into the storeroom in the back of the antiques shop. She listened for a moment but heard no sounds. “Are you sure he brought her here?” she whispered to Maria, who nodded.
“You better not be leading us into a trap,” Trennon said, his voice taking on a menacing tone.
“Trust me, I would have kept the heels on if that were the case. Darius has some sort of fetish around them.”
Sofia raised her hand. “Didn’t need to know that about my asshole brother.” She sucked in a breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”
They stepped into an empty storeroom. Steel shelving units were overturned and empty boxes lay on their sides, multicolored packing material strewn across the plywood floor. A card table was flattened in the middle of the room, the legs sticking out at odd angles, as if someone had sat on it and broken it. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.
Except where it was disturbed by shoe imprints.
A lot of imprints.
The eerie silence was abruptly broken by a series of popping noises, like a popcorn machine had suddenly turned on. And then one after another, men appeared out of nowhere, standing in the storeroom. Each one wore leather pants, leather vests with no shirts underneath, and leather hats on their heads.
These guys were definitely not dragons.
Trennon grabbed Sofia and Maria’s arms and dragged them both behind him as he said, “Shit just got real. These are warlocks.”
Sofia gasped. “Griffin!”
Chapter Seventeen
Griffin shot to his feet. “They’re in trouble!”
“Damn,” Delilah said, standing much more slowly. “That was quick.”
He didn’t wait to ensure the rest of them followed. He sprinted down the alley to the door where only a few moments ago, Sofia, Maria, and Trennon had stepped through. He rushed inside and skidded to a halt.
Sofia, Maria, and Trennon were huddled together a few steps inside the room, staring at a cluster of men who looked as if they’d just returned from partying at the Blue Oyster Bar.
“Ah,” one of them said, stepping forward and addressing Griffin. “Someone we can talk to. Hello there, gargoyle.”
Griffin stared the warlock down and did not reply.
The leather-clad man clapped his hands. “Now, where’s the Daughter of Light?”
Griffin quickly surveyed the scene. If Darius was here with Penelope, he was doing a damn good job of hiding. “What makes you think we have a Daughter of Light here?”
The warlock pulled a phone out of his breast pocket and waved it at Griffin. “This notice I got on Twitter. It says, ‘Attention hashtag warlocks: I have a Daughter of Light, if you’re interested. Come to Dragon Antiques in New Orleans. Royal Street.’” He waved the phone again and looked around at the small group, a seemingly pleasant smile on his face. “So, where is she?”
“Whoever posted that lied to you,” Griffin said.
“Uh-uh,” the warlock replied. “The next tweet says, ‘This is not fake.’”
“And you believe everything you read on social media?”
The guy frowned and looked down at his phone for a moment, then shrugged. “We had nothing else going on this morning, so what the hell.” He glanced around again. “Are you saying this is a dead end?”
The thing about Daughters of Light was that warlocks could sense them if they were not using concealment spells to hide themselves. However, Penelope was so young she hadn’t fully come into her magic yet, so it was entirely possible these guys could not yet sense her.
Griffin was banking on that theory. “Yep.”
“Too bad.” The warlock sighed and turned to his cronies. “What do you think, boys? Should we hang out for a day or so, enjoy the local sights?”
