Page 3 of The Stone Initiation
“mmmurrg arrr buck.”
“You want to come?” I arched a brow. “Will you help kill them?”
He hung his head and peered up at me. “Mung org arrr.”
“No, snuggles won’t help. Not unless you plan to smother them to death.”
He looked horrified.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll be back soon. Watch your favorite cartoons while I’m gone. There are some discs on the top of the pile by the TV stand.”
I grabbed my keys and my backpack filled with stakes and holy water before heading for the door.
It was time to kick some fanged butt.
CHAPTER2
The war had raged for a decade. A decade where our country had been decimated. Buildings brought down and the economy all but destroyed but aided by the guardians, humanity had rebuilt. Still, there were parts of Old Town that were in ruins, the buildings too broken to be fixed, all that history and architecture wiped out. The only evidence of what had been, could be found in faded photographs and old documentaries.
But despite the ruins and the rubble, despite the patched-up windowless buildings, there was a beauty to this world, a defiance that gave the finger to any force daring to bring it down.
I took the underground passages, once occupied by whizzing trains and now a graveyard of rusted metallic frames suitable only for foot patrol. Brightly lit, it was a passage that protected against the windy, stormy elements of our city. People trudged, shuffled, walked, and jogged through the tunnels. Homeless people pushed their belongings in trolleys, woolen hats pulled low over their eyes, pink swollen digits poking out from fingerless gloves.
It was cold in Old Town. Always so cold. But I’d heard that the north closest to the Fringe was sweltering.
Thanks to my half gargoyle constitution I barely felt the chill. Still, I tugged my coat tighter around me, acting the part of pure human. People respected the guardians—pure blood gargoyles that protected the Rim—but a half human, half gargoyle, was something less tolerated.
There were others like me, no doubt. Gargoyle males had high sex drives, or so I’d heard, but offspring with humans was rare. I’d never actually come across another hybrid, although Romi assured me they existed.
I took the stairs out of the tunnels and into the icy air of east side Old Town. Paper, plastic cups, and rumpled wrappers rolled across the ground in what I liked to call debris dust bunnies. People walked fast, heads down, eager to get to their destination. I hopped on a tram and jumped off two stops later outside a strip of stores that hadn’t been open in some time. Business was not booming this side of town.
A van sat on the corner of the street. Teri’s ride. She’d offered to pick me up more than once, but I’d turned her down with one excuse or another until she’d stopped asking. Truth be told, I didn’t want them seeing where I lived. Didn’t want them knowing I had my own apartment on the nicer side of town. They’d have questions about how I could afford it, and that would lead to lies.
I didn’t want to lie to my friends any more than I already was.
The apartment was a gift from Romi. An expensive eighteenth birthday present that had gotten me out from under Ralph’s roof—my legal guardian after my mother had died, and the only other person who knew what I was.
I banged a fist on the side of the van and the door slid open. The smell of weed hit me in the face.
“Seriously? Before a hunt?” I glared at Fred who gave me the peace sign.
“Just half a joint. I got this.”
I looked to Teri who shrugged. “Fuck him, if he wants to get killed, he can provide chow for the suckers and slow them down.”
“Hey!” Fred sat up straighter, suddenly sober. “Not cool.”
“Getting high before a fucking hunt isnot cool.”
Teri was badass for a human. We’d met two years ago when I’d been tracking a wereboar, yep, someone had thought those up. Anyway, she’d been hunting it with Fred, and we’d linked up. We’d been working together ever since.
The growl of a motorcycle engine had my pulse spiking.
“Finally,” Teri said with an eye roll. “When it comes to shit time-keeping Levi takes the cake.”
The bike engine cut out, and I stepped away from the van in time to watch him tug off his helmet. His sea-green eyes locked onto me, and the corner of his luscious mouth tugged up in a half smile.
“Damn, I must be late,” he said.
