Unbound

  Watching him, Jenks started to swear with one-word sentences. What if he couldn’t do this? He was a stupid-ass to have promised that. He was as bad as Rachel. Angry, he fingered the butt of his sword and glared at the statue. Bis edged closer, his eyes never leaving the cold stone glinting in the moon and lamplight. “What if I’m making a mistake?” Jenks asked.

  “You aren’t,” the gargoyle said, then stiffened, his glowing eyes widening as he pointed a knobby finger at the statue. “Look at that!”

  “Holy crap, what is it doing?” Jenks exclaimed, the heartache of a child’s death gone as the moonlight seeping through the branches brushed the statue, seeming to make it glow. No, he thought as a gust of wind pushed him back. The stone really was glowing, like it had a second skin. It wasn’t the moonlight!

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Jenks said, dropping to land beside Bis on the bench.

  “Yeah.” The kid sounded scared. “Something’s trapped in that stone, and it’s still alive. Jenks, that’s not a ghost. This isn’t right. Look, I’ve got goose bumps!”

  Not looking at Bis’s gray, proffered arm, Jenks muttered, “Yeah, me too.”

  Across the street, three TVs exploded into the same laugh track. The glow about the statue deepened, becoming darker, less like a moonbeam and more like a shadow. It stretched, pulling away to maintain the same shape as the statue, looking like a soul trying to slip free.

  “Fewmets!” Bis barked, and with a ping of energy Jenks felt press against his wings, the shadow separated from the statue and vanished. “Did you see that? Did you freaking see that!” Bis yelled, wingtips shaking.

  “It’s gone!” Jenks said, unable to stop a shudder.

  The bench shook as Bis hopped to the sidewalk and tucked under the slatted wood. “Not gone, loose,” he said from underneath, worrying Jenks even more. “Hell’s bells, I can hear it. It sounds like bird feathers sliding against each other, or scales. No, tree branches and bones.”

  Uneasy, Jenks slipped through the slats of the bench to alight beside Bis on the sidewalk where the heat of the day still lingered, watching the same empty air that the gargoyle was staring at. A thin lament rose from the small hummock of Vincet’s home. The sound hit Jenks and twisted, and he wasn’t surprised when the glow about the door brightened, and in a glittering yellow pixy dust, Vincet emerged with a small child in his arms.

  She was in a white nightgown, her fair hair down and tousled. Two wide-eyed children clung to the door, a matronly silhouette beside them, crying and unable to leave the newlings.

  The memory of the past night’s torment was on Vincet when he joined them under the bench. “It’s Vi,” he said, grief-stricken. “Please, you said you’d help.”

  Jenks awkwardly took another man’s child, feeling how light she was, stifling a shudder when the girl’s unnatural, silver-tinted aura hit him. A piercing wail came from her throat, too anguished to be uttered by someone so young. Bis’s ears pinned to his skull, and Jenks shifted his grip, binding her swinging arms and tightening his hold on her.

  “Please make it stop,” Vincet said, touching his daughter’s face to wipe her dusty tears.

  Though it went against his instincts, Jenks brought the girl to his shoulder. Like a switch, the child’s wailing shifted to an eerie silence. Bis hissed and backed up, the scent of iron sifting over them as his claws scraped the sidewalk until he found the earth.

  Jenks shivered. Not knowing what he’d find, he pulled the child from his shoulder and held her at arm’s length.

  At the shift of her weight, the child opened her eyes. They were black, with silvery pupils—like the sky and the moon—and her weird-ass aura.

  “Trees,” whispered Vi, clearly not Vi at all. Her voice was wispy, like wind in branches. “This cold stone is killing me.”

  Bis hissed as he clung to a tree like a misshapen squirrel, black teeth bared and tail switching. Vincet stood helpless, wings drooped and silent tears falling from him to dry into a black, glittery dust. He reached out, and Vi screamed wildly, “I have to get out!”

  Jenks held her with her bare feet dangling. It wasn’t Vincet’s daughter speaking. Under the hatred streaming from Vi’s eyes was a pinched brow and a fevered panting. Whatever gripped Vi was drawing the ley line through her. That’s why she burned.

  “Something is wrong with it,” Bis hissed, half hidden by the tree. “The statue is sucking up the line like it’s feeding off it, and I can hear it going right into her.”

  “Who are you?” Jenks whispered.

  The young girl’s eyes rolled to the moon. “Free me, Rhenoranian!” she begged it. “I beg you! Have I not suffered enough!”

  Rhenoranian? Jenks’s wings blurred into motion. It sounded like a demon’s name. His hands holding Vi were warm from her heat, and he gently set her down, catching her shoulders as she swayed, oblivious to him. “What are you?” he asked, changing his demand as he knelt before her. “You’re hurting the girl. Maybe I can help, but you’re hurting Vi.”

  Vi’s eyes tore from the moon as if seeing him for the first time. “You can hear me?” she whispered as her wings smoldered, limp against her back. Eyes focusing on Jenks, Vincet, and Bis, Vi seemed to shake herself. “Gracious Rhenoranian! You are wise and forgiving!”

  Jenks rocked backward when Vi flung herself at him, her little arms encircling his knees. Bis hissed at the sudden movement, and even Vincet dropped back.

  “Please, help me,” she babbled, her long hair tangled as she gazed up at Jenks. “I’ll do anything you ask. I’m trapped in that statue—a moon-touched nymph put me there, jealous of my attentions to her sisters. Rhenoranian sent you. I know he did. I’ve waited so long. Break the statue. Quick, before she comes back! She’s going to come back! Please!” Vi begged.

  Vincet watched wide-eyed as Jenks disentangled himself, pushing her off him and making her stand up. His hands warmed where they touched her shoulders, and he jerked away. “You’re burning the child,” he said. “Stop, and maybe I can help.”

  Anger flashed in the girl’s face, then vanished. “There’s no time. Break the statue!”

  “You are killing my daughter!” Vincet shouted. “You already killed my son!”

  Vi’s eyes went wide. Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the second statue of the woman. His jailer, probably, and likely dead and gone. Nymphs had vanished during the Industrial Revolution, long before the Turn, brought down by pollution. “I’m sorry,” she panted, but the edges of Vi’s wings were starting to smolder. “I didn’t know I was hurting anyone. I… I can’t help it. It’s Rhenoranian’s blood. It keeps me alive, but it burns. I’ve been burning forever.”

  Rhenoranian’s blood? Did he mean the ley line?

  Behind them, Bis hissed. “Jenks?” he questioned. “I don’t like this. It’s eating the line. That’s wrong like three different ways.”

  “Of course it’s wrong! That’s why it burns!” Vi shouted, then went silent, frustrated. “Break the statue and let me out, and I’ll never bother the child again.”

  Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Jenks clattered his wings in acknowledgment to Bis. It sounded almost like a threat. Let it out or else. But the line energy running through Vi was making her tremble, and the higher the moon got, the worse it became. Soon, she would be screaming in pain, if Vincet was right, and his chance to talk to it would be gone.

  “Tell me what you are,” he said, grasping her wrist and bring her attention to him, but when Vi looked at him, Jenks let go, not liking what lay in the depths of her eyes.

  “I’m Sylvan, a dryad,” Vi said. “The nymph imprisoned me unfairly. Punishing me for my attentions to her sisters. She believes she’s a goddess. Completely touched, but the demons didn’t stop her. Why do you hesitate? Break my statue. Let me out!”

  Jenks blinked, surprised. A dryad? In a city? Between him and the statue, Bis dropped to the grass, clearly amazed as well. “You’re supposed to live in trees,” Jenks said. “What are you doing in a
statue?”

  Twitching in pain, the child looked at Bis then back to Jenks, assessing almost. “I told you, the nymph put me there. She’s touched in the head. But I survived. I learned to live on the energy right from a ley line instead of that filtered from a living tree. Though every moment I exist as if burning in Hell itself, I can survive in dead stone. I beg you, break my statue. Free me!” Vi’s eyes went to her father with no recognition. “I promise I’ll leave you pixies in peace. Forgive me for the agony upon the child. I cannot help it.”

  Still, Jenks hesitated as he looked at Vi, the hope in her flushed face too deep for her years. Something wasn’t right.

  Jenks pinned his wings when the wind gusted. He looked up, the scent of honey and gold tickling a memory he’d never had. Vi’s eyes widened. “Too late!” she shrieked. Darting to Vincet, she kicked his shin. The pixy yelped, dropping his sword to grasp his leg. Even as Jenks flung himself into the air, Vi snatched the sword up, running, not flying, to the statue. Her nightclothes furled behind her like a ghost, and, screaming, she swung the blade at the stone. With a ping, the fairy steel broke. Using the broken hilt like a dagger, she beat at it, trying to chip the stone away.

  “Jenks!” Bis shouted, and Jenks turned, bewildered but not alarmed. Until he saw what the gargoyle was pointing at.

  A robed, barefoot woman stood in the middle of the sidewalk, heart-shaped face aghast as she stared at the hush of cars at the edge of the park. Lungs heaving as if in pain, she put a hand to her chest and looked at the distant buildings, their lights twinkling brighter than the stars. A sword was in her grip, and she appeared exactly like the second statue, even down to the braid her black ringlets were arranged in, shining in the light as if oiled. And her aura was shiny?

  “It’s her!” Bis shouted, bringing the woman’s gaze to them.

  “Who dares defile my sacred grove to free Sylvan?” she intoned, robe furling as she gestured to Bis. “Is it you?” Her arm dropped, and she peered at him in the dark. “What are you?” she asked. “A new demon dog? Come into the light.”

  “Let me go!” shrieked Vi, struggling now in Vincet’s arms. “Let me go!”

  Jenks darted to help Vincet, and still she fought them, her skin red and hot to the touch. At his nod, Bis awkwardly went to stand in the middle of the sidewalk between them.

  “I’m a gargoyle, not a dog,” he said, fidgeting like the teenager he was. “Who are you?”

  The woman spun a slow circle, dismissing him. “Someone tried to free Sylvan, woke me from my rest. Did you see who it was, honorable … ah… gargoyle?”

  “It was me,” Jenks said, grunting when Vi’s foot escaped his grip and kicked him. “What’s it to you?” Turning to Vincet, he screwed his face up. “I gotta go talk to her. Can you hold her alone?”

  Vincet nodded, and together they got the girl facedown on the manicured grass as she howled. Looking miserable, the young father sat on her, wincing as her screams grew violent.

  Satisfied, Jenks rose up into the air to the woman’s level, frowning when he saw her amusement in her steely eyes. They were silver, like the moon, and just as warm. “A pixy?” she said, laughing. “Leave my sacred grove, little sprite. Return to it, and you will die. Your children will die. I will hunt you down and destroy the very earth you ever walked upon. Go.”

  Fists on his hips, Jenks sifted a red dust that made it all the way to the sidewalk. “Sprite? Did you just call me a sprite, Little Miss Shiny Aura? What did you do? Eat a roll of tinfoil?”

  Claws scraping, Bis edged closer, his white-tufted ears pinned to his head in submission. “Jenks,” he hissed, not taking his eyes off the woman. “We should go. She’s doing something weird with the line.”

  But Jenks flitted almost to her nose. She smelled like violet sunshine, and the gold pin holding her robe shut sparkled. “Did you just threaten me, little prissy pants?” he shot out.

  Her nostrils flared, and her hand gripped her sword tighter. “You mock me? I am Daryl, and you are warned!”

  Jenks snickered, his own hand on the butt of his sword. “I think if you think I’m going to fly away and let you keep some helpless dryad forever imprisoned, burning in a ley line, you got your toga too tight, babe.”

  Mouth open, she put a hand to her chest. “You … you defy me?” she said, wheezing slightly, clearly not doing well. “Do you know who I am!”

  Glancing at Bis, who was silently looking up at him, pleading with him to be nice, he said, “You look asthmatic, is what you look like. Forget your inhaler at the temple?”

  “I am Daryl!” she stated, then coughed. “Goddess of the woods. I’ve learned of steel and leather to defend my sisters, and you are … warned!” Turning away, she struggled to breathe.

  “See, she’s touched!” Vi yelled from under Vincet. Struggling, the little girl got an arm free. “Go crying to your demon, Daryl! You’re a concubine! A minor nymph with delusions of goddesshood!”

  Jenks’s eyes widened as the woman’s coughing suddenly ceased. Head turning to the base of Sylvan’s statue, she straightened. A murderous look was on her, and Jenks felt a moment of panic. “Get out of that pixy, Sylvan,” she intoned. “Now!”

  Straining, the little girl gestured rudely. “Ay gamisou!” she yelled defiantly.

  Jenks had no idea what she had said, but he filed it away for future use when the woman staggered back, clearly appalled.

  “Jenks!” Bis whispered from under him. “Let’s go!”

  “I promised to help!” Jenks said, fascinated at the color the woman was turning in her outrage. “And I’m not going to leave Sylvan stuck in a statue by some nymph!”

  Daryl’s attention flicked to Jenks and Bis, then back to Vi. “I will not allow you to hurt another, Sylvan!” she said loudly, gesturing.

  Bis reached up, wings spread as he half jumped to snag Jenks from the air and pull him down. Bis’s warmth hit him as Jenks cowered in his hand while a wave of nothing he could see passed over them, pressing against his wings and driving the blood out. His wings collapsed for an instant, then rebounded on his next heartbeat.

  Vi screamed, the sound reaching deep into Jenks and driving him to wiggle from Bis’s fingers. His head poked free, and he saw Vincet spring into the air with his daughter. Her dust had taken on a deathly shade of black, bursting into a white-hot glow as it fell from her. Again Vi’s scream tore the silence of the night as Daryl clenched her fist, her face savage with bloodlust.

  “She’s killing her!” Vincet shouted, terrified. “Jenks, she’s killing my daughter!”

  “Get her away from the line!” the gargoyle cried out as he stood his ground. “I can see the energy flowing into her. You have to get Vi out of the line!”

  Jenks’s lips parted. Cursing himself as a fool, he darted to Vincet, snatching the pain-racked child to him and throwing himself straight up. The line. The entire garden was in the line between the statues! Get her far enough away, and the connection would break!

  Vi fought him as his ears popped painfully, thumping her fists into his chest and squirming until she suddenly went terrifyingly limp. “Vi!” Jenks shouted, scrambling to catch her as she threatened to slip from him, a good forty feet up. Her skin was hot, and her face was pale in the glow of his own dust. But a profound peace was on her face, and as he held her far above the dark city, fear struck him deep. The silver tint to her aura was gone.

  “Vi,” he whispered, jiggling her as the night cocooned them. “Vi, wake up. It’s over.” Oh God. Had he failed her? Was she dying? Killed by his own shortsightedness? Another man’s child dead in his arms because of his failing?

  Vi’s lips parted, sucking in air like it was water. Her eyes flashed open, green and full of terror in the light of the moon.

  “Tink save you, you’re okay,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears. She was herself. Sylvan was no longer in her thoughts. That terror of a woman no longer burned her.

  With a frightened whimper, Vi threw herself at him, her thin
arms cold as they wrapped around his neck. “Don’t let him hurt me,” she begged as she cried, her little body shaking. “Please, don’t let the statue hurt me anymore!”

  A clear, healthy glow enveloped them as Jenks held her close, his hand against the back of her head as he whispered it was over, that she was okay, and he was taking her to her papa. He promised her that the statue wouldn’t hurt her again and that Uncle Jenks would take care of everything. Foolish promises, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  Uncle Jenks, he thought, wondering why the term had fallen into his mind but feeling it was right. But below them, Daryl waited on the dark sidewalk. And Jenks—was pissed.

  Jaw clenching, he descended more slowly than he wanted in order to give her younger ears a chance to adjust. Vincet met them halfway down, his wings clattering and dusting in fear until he saw Vi’s tears. With a cry of joy, the grateful man took his daughter. Vi’s sobs only strengthened his resolve.

  “Get your family to ground and stay there,” Jenks said grimly.

  “I can help,” Vincet said, even as Vi clung desperately to him.

  “I know you can. I’ll take the field, you take the hearth,” he said, falling back on the battle practices of driving off invading fairies. One always stayed in earth to defend the hearth—to the end if it came to that.

  Vincet looked as if he was going to protest, then probably remembering his sword was broken at the base of the statue, he nodded, darting away with Vi to vanish beneath the dogwood.

  Free, and anger burning in his wings, Jenks drew his sword and dropped to where Bis was clinging to Sylvan’s statue, hissing at Daryl as she stood in a spot of light with a satisfied smile.

  “What the hell is wrong with you!” Jenks shouted, darting to a stop inches from the woman to make her jerk back. “You could have killed her! She’s only a year old!”

  Daryl’s thin eyebrows rose. “A pixy?” she said haughtily, then stifled a cough. “Take your complaint to what demon will listen to you. Sylvan is in that statue, and there he will stay!”