Page 10 of Heartsong
Amid a neighborhood of old Victorian homes and Art Deco shops, Anna pointed out her four-story brick apartment building with its artistic corbels and antique leaded windows. She may have cursed having an apartment on the top floor every time she came home from grocery shopping, but tonight it was a small favor.
She loved her little place. The rent, for San Francisco and the Presidio especially, was an absolute steal. Mostly because it was a one-bedroom on the fourth floor and the landlord had been in a pinch. Anna moved in five years ago and hadn’t looked back. It was her home, her sanctuary, one she’d worked hard to build.
And now she was bringing a mythical creature inside.
The gargoyle brought them down in an elegant spiral, his landing gentle and graceful. Anna jumped out of his arms the moment she was close enough to the roof. A huge hand, tipped in claws, reached out to steady her when she stumbled.
Hurrying to the small door leading down into the building, Anna grasped the handle in both hands and yanked. Nothing.
“No no no.” Tears welled in her eyes, the pressure at her temples pulling taut.
“Anna…”
“I don’t have my keys,” she mumbled. A frustrated tear escaped her lashes.
Good god a statue had come to life and she was freaking out about not having her keys to get into her apartment! Part of her realized how insane this was, and how incongruent her reaction, but she didn’t want to fight the heavy blanket of denial muffling her reason. Focusing on getting home to treat the coming headache seemed easier than facing whatever break from reality tonight was.
The gargoyle—Frey—made a considering noise, looking about the rooftop and the trees ringing the building.
“Does your dwelling have a window?”
“Yeah,” she sniffed. She took a step back, regarding him. “Yeah, and I don’t lock the bathroom one.”
He nodded and without preamble scooped her back up into his arms. Bolstered by the plan and desperate to get inside, Anna didn’t even care, just pointed him in the right direction when he asked, “Where?”
With another great flap, he had them airborne again. They found her bathroom window, and by the meager glow of her little nightlight mounted by the mirror inside, Anna got the sash open. Frey held her steady as she clambered through the narrow window, shoving her shoulders through and then wriggling to get her ample hips and backside in.
Catching herself on the lip of the ancient bathtub, she got her feet under her just in time to bound over to the vanity and throw open the top drawer. Her hands trembled as she ripped open a new box, hunting for the auto-injector, and lifted her shirt to dispense into the soft flesh of her middle.
“Anna, what do you do?” growled Frey from outside, drowning out the softclickof the injector needle.
“Medicine,” she muttered.
She sighed when the secondclickcame and threw the auto-injector into the wastebin. Placing her hand on the counter to steady herself, she closed her eyes as she felt the medicine crackle through her. It felt a bit like how all the old animations of nerves firing looked, blue bursts that went off in a series.
When it was over, she cracked open her eyes, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
The gargoyle was still there, hovering just beyond the narrow bathroom window.
What did she do now?
She was inside and he was out—and he certainly wasn’t fitting through that window. She could slam it shut and run into her room, dive under the covers, and pretend like none of this had happened. The gargoyle would be someone else’s problem.
The temptation was there, an ugly sort of curiosity overcoming her as her head fizzed with the effects of the drug. Could she make it back to the window and slam it closed before he got a hand inside?
“Anna?”
Those blue-gray eyes never wavered from her, telling her he probably saw in the dark a lot better than her. He probably saw the way her thoughts were turning as she stood in the middle of her bathroom, chewing her cheek in indecision.
For some reason, the sound of her name, said so gently, with such…longingsoftened her. She looked, really looked at him, and she thought he seemed a little…frightened.
He was big and bad and twice her size, but he was also a mythical creature hovering outside her window. With just one phone call, she could have the cops here in a few minutes.
And then he’d probably get sent to some lab somewhere, kept in a different kind of prison.
Crap.
I’m gonna regret this—and blame it on the meds.Anna sighed.
